How To Be Magical

October 29, 2010 by 8 Comments

‘Tis the season for tricks, treats, vampish costumes and ghoulish potions. Fantastic fun to play make-believe with the other realm. But if you could use an ounce of real magic in your life, wouldn’t you want to?

Meet the magician, a character consigned to myth and other-worldliness, but at large in yourself if you dare recognize him or her.

There are 6 characteristics that set magicians apart. Let me tell you what they are and show you how you can harness your own magician power.

Consciousness

Magicians are fully aware of their specialness. They know what particular gifts and talents have been handed to them, courtesy of their heritage. Sure, they may have had a Harry Potter-type struggle to get on board with them, but once they know they’ve got them, they’ve got them.

Step one for aspiring magicians: own your magic. Wake up to it. Stop discounting or rubbishing it.

See all the fabulous things that you are, and that make you uniquely who you are. Draw them, list them out, find music that talks to them. Enervate them. Bring them alive.

Confidence

Once you’ve owned your magic, it’s time to step into it.

Magicians sit in their powers. They have a grounded, balanced sense of themselves. There’s no arrogance, no egotism about them. Just a kind of quiet, assertive, unassuming magnetism.

Likewise, you must get comfortable with all the magical things that you are. Become confident about them. Stand tall in them and let them transform you.

Conviction

Magicians have total belief and determination in the outcome of their endeavours. Their mindset doesn’t allow for the possibility of failure. They don’t set up a spell thinking, “well, this one might not work”. They just get on with it.

If you want to bring off magical things in your life, you need to galvanize your energies in this way too.

There is only success.

Focus

The magician’s wand points to its target. With laser precision it channels its energies to its destination. And, Avada Kedavra, something has been totally zapped.

And so you too must bring sharpness to whatever change, big or small, you’re trying to pull off. Without it, even your most harnessed energies will be dispersed.

Trust

Magicians trust to a greater energy than themselves. Some will call it universal energy. Others will call it spirit, or God. In doing so they harness a power that’s bigger and beyond even them, enabling them to pull off stuff that looks super-human because it is.

If you want to bring some magic into your life, you too must trust to a power beyond yourself. The collective energy of a group; the power of a process of which you are part; the psychic energy of a relationship.

So much of self-help and psychology is about us as individuals that we sometimes forget that there’s a little more to it than that. The magician, however, does not forget.

Intuition

Magicians have a sixth sense about things. They know things in ways that defy logic. They pick up information on the ether, and they use that to guide their actions. Some of what they intuit warns them against doing something – going down a path where they’ll fare badly against a dragon, for example. Some of what they pick up is visionary, depicting a positive way ahead that they need to follow.

Many of you have been schooled that intuition is fluffy because it isn’t concrete and is often inexplicable.

But if you want to use magician qualities in your life and feel yourself strengthened by them, this is a realm of being you need to own and work with.

If you know something, you just know it.

Each of these characteristics are powerful in their own right. Together they are, well, magical! Try them on for size this Halloween weekend. And watch the shape shifting begin!

What obstacle stands in the way of you being magical? And how are you going to turn that into a fluffy white rabbit?

Filed Under: Inner work, Self Development Tagged With: , ,

The Great Indispensability Hoax

October 22, 2010 by 31 Comments

I woke up this morning with a scratchy throat. You know that thing you get when your body is fighting an infection? It’s not at all bad or disabling and I’m dosing up on mega vitamin C and echinacea, as they normally help me see bugs off pretty quickly. But it has been making me wonder what I’ll do if it turns into something more nasty.

Will I be a hero and work on regardless, or will I down tools and allow myself recovery time?

Serendipity being what it is, this is a topic that’s come up in sessions with my people these last few weeks. The common theme is indispensability.

But what does that mean, and do you see it the same way I do?

“They Can’t Do Without Me”

You can get trapped into thinking that your boss, or your business – even some of your social engagements – can’t survive without you. That they’ll fall apart if you’re not there to prop them up or contribute.

You tell yourself that it wouldn’t be right to let people down; to disappoint. You get yourself caught in all sort of emotional knots, feeling guilty and anxious if you even consider taking to your bed.

So you drag yourself in, imagining that you’ll get kudos from your boss from being such a stalwart. Everyone does it. They might look like shit and be miserable. They might make jokes about their man flu or whatever. But they’re there.

It’s in our culture to do this. Just look at the adverts for over the counter remedies that infer it’s okay to keep working through.

And, if you’re honest it makes you feel good to keep turning up, and getting on with whatever rubbish gets thrown at you. It allows you to feel wanted and important.

But, if you feel obliged to ignore an illness, isn’t there some doubt in your mind about your true value?

Aren’t there some deeper questions you’re needing to ask yourself?

Doormats get walked on

You can kid yourself that, especially in this economic environment, showing you’re indispensable by always being around means that you can’t be fired, or taken advantage of.

But I have news for you.

Companies can drop you in an instant, and hold no remorse at all for doing so.

Clients can take you for granted, and make no apology about it.

So quit feeling on behalf of others, and start feeling for yourself.

Putting Yourself First

Look at things a little differently. The UK Government’s Austerity Plan is scheduled to last for four years, meaning that you’ve got to take a long term perspective. Part of that is being able to keep going through tougher times than we’ve yet seen. You’ve got to be well to have the resilience to do that.

I know people who have battled to work in spite of bad viruses, because they thought themselves vital to some corporate situation. People who subsequently went on to develop post viral syndrome, or irreversible health conditions, or burn out, or some mixture of all three. And were subsequently unable to work for extended periods of time.

Can you afford to be that incapacitated for the sake of taking a few days in bed now? I know you think I’m exaggerating. I guess so did they at the time.

We can all take our health and wellbeing for granted. But, without them everything else is meaningless. If there’s one person to whom we must become indispensable before anyone else it’s ourselves.

Becoming Linchpins

Rather than being a trusty, loyal flunky, following the rules, and putting such huge store on turning up regardless, you need to get smart and think about what value you bring to your employer, to your entrepreneurial venture, or to the world that’s unique to you, and deliver it. To use Seth Godin‘s idea, you have to see yourself as an artist, trust that you bring something very special, and put it out there.

You then become indispensable, not for the hours you put in, or for your busy work, but for the difference that is you.

So, you become less dependent on your employer’s or client’s brownie points to feel that you’re a good person, because you know there’s value inherent in who you are.

In that scenario, taking a few days off to look after yourself is vital. It’s a way of nurturing and protecting what you bring.

So, how are you going to see things next time you’re ill enough to question going into work? Oh, and if I suddenly drop off the radar in the next few weeks, you’ll know what I’m doing.

Filed Under: Inner work, Reinventing work, Self Development Tagged With: , , ,

How A Year In The Country Has Revolutionized My Work Life

October 18, 2010 by 26 Comments

Can you believe that a year ago this week I was loading a van with all my stuff and heading from my much loved house in Wimbledon, to a cottage in the Buckinghamshire countryside? (Well, technically, I wasn’t loading the van, but you get the picture.)

The whole purpose was to allow me to create my own different kind of work. I had a sense of what that would look like when I set out. But let me share with you some of the awesomeness I’m seeing from this vantage point in my transformation journey.

Why move?

That’s a question I get asked a lot. Why not just stay in London and do something new? Well, I figured that, if I was serious about creating fundamental life change, I needed to do something symbolic, to send out the message to myself, the universe and anyone else for that matter, that I meant business.

What was driving me, was a big need to create a more fun, funky and entrepreneurial way of working than I’d been used to. One that was more virtual and portable, because down the track I want to do more traveling and be flexible on where in the world I live.

Getting out of the city was a way of indicating that I was ready to break my dependence on it and to take the first steps into my more virtual lifestyle.

The benefits of the country

Listen, I’m a city girl at heart. Don’t forget that I was born and brought up in Glasgow, and besides London, have lived in Johannesburg and visited New York a lot on business. I miss the convenience of having Sainsburys and Starbucks on my doorstep, and bristle with the need to get more planned and organized about food shopping and socializing.

Still, life beats to a different rhythm in my little village. So, I feel more grounded and centered. I love that when the weather’s good (and even when it isn’t) that I can go walking in country lanes at lunch time, or just when I need a break or to re-inspire myself. I’ve become so much more aware of nature and of the seasons. I adore the pheasants and ducks and sheep and owls and moor hens and all the wonderful wild life that lives on my doorstep. When I’m working, I look out to flowers and fields and trees, where there once was traffic and passing school kids.

My energy as a result is much, much better, and with it my focus, my creativity and productivity.

Crushing a limiting belief

Before working as I do now, my business was corporate and came from referral. I had a pretty good reputation among some circles as a “go to” coach and OD consultant.

But I got bored, and had become a little cynical about the role coaching was being expected to play in some businesses. I wanted to work with smart business sorts, but with less interference. That meant learning how to pitch myself to my people directly. A scary prospect, as I had always told myself I was crap at marketing.

The truth is that, marketing as it used to look – all static websites and cold calling – doesn’t interest me. But, when I “got” that I could use social media to create relationships that allowed folks to opt in – or not – to what I had to say and offer, I suddenly became very excited about learning how to market myself that way. That’s just so much more “me”. I still have much to learn, but now I’m voraciously hungry to build on what I already know and am spurred on by how much I enjoy developing connections online.

The driving force of the blog

A key catalyst in the whole transforming me process has been this blog. As I’ve written before, I’ve always loved writing. And I’ve had a closet passion for the role work plays in creating meaning, and in being a vehicle for fundamental growth and change in people’s lives. So, it was serendipitous that I stumbled upon blogging at the time I was getting restless about wanting to be more open about all of that.

Creating the blog, and daring to decide it was going to become a significant one, meant that I had to in tandem decide that I was going to stand out and differentiate myself. I have a pretty unique skills mix and indeed take on the world of work, but I think I was afraid to put it out there because I couldn’t find a box for it. And meantime, it felt cozier to promote myself as a consultant, coach, therapist based on whomever I was talking to at the time.

Blogging, and connecting with some of the wonderful people it has opened me up to, has been fundamental in helping me find the confidence to say who I really am, and to express myself as me, not a job title. That personal learning is, in turn, fundamental to the work that I do in helping others do the same for themselves and to feel the power in that place.

The power of the Internet

Okay, so with a successful traditional career behind me, I’m not one of these phenomenal young bloggers that was born attached to her laptop. I’ve had to learn geek stuff from scratch. But I’m delighted that I was curious enough to try. Because not only has it come naturally and not only do I love it, but it has opened my eyes with a passion to the possibilities for work and life that exist in this dimension.

The diversity of my connections

I’ve always loved and done best when surrounded by all kinds of different people, and I’m delighted to say that working virtually has opened up the horizons of my little cottage to folks from across the globe. On any given day I can be chatting to friends in the UK, the US, Australia, Canada, Israel, Greece…

And geography is not the only point of difference. There’s also the amazingly different things that people do. From technology gods to marketing geniuses, from worklife protagonists to HR mavericks, from small business owners to writing magicians. All with something important to say about themselves, their lives and the things that drive them. Then, I pop down to the village pub to hear some of the trials and tribulations of the farmers trying to get the harvest in before the weather changes.

Phenomenal!

And people who don’t work this way are often cynical about the depths of connections you make or whether you can really call a Twitter friend, a friend. But I’ve made some friend and client connections online that feel as strong and enduring to me as any I’ve made offline. Signing into Twitter every morning, is like walking into a virtual office and catching up like you do in any real office. The thing is, I don’t need to be in any office to connect with the same mix of key folks every day. I can do so from wherever.

My learning and development

One of the big things to change over the last year is the way that I learn. Historically, I’ve preferred to be in a classroom with a group of people I respect and admire. I did all my coaching and therapy trainings that way.

Now, however, I’m preferring virtual learning. It’s not that I won’t pick up a book, or go to a seminar, it’s that I’m more likely to want to download an eBook, or sign up for a virtual program.

And that’s only when we’re talking about more formal stuff. Blogs and social networking sites provide endless opportunity through the content they share to get news, see fresh stuff and have my mind stimulated, or just as platforms to reach out for help, and ask questions.

It’s awesome.

The world of work is changing. I am a protagonist and thought leader in all of that and in any case have always believed that folks who teach need to be able to walk their talk. The last year has been tough at times. Taking my blog from plain vanilla Thesis theme and wondering what the hell to talk about, to having created 108 published posts on custom designed Headway, while doing client work, and developing new products has been hard work. But I’ve loved every minute. And I’m loving the life it’s giving me.

Filed Under: Inner work, Reinventing work Tagged With: , , , , , ,

How To Use Child Magic To Rock Your Fledgling Business

October 15, 2010 by 25 Comments

I was sitting in Costa first thing Monday morning, lost to my blog week planning thoughts, when a dad walked in, pushing his toddler daughter in a buggy. I watched as the pair of them got their respective latte and babyccino and sat at the table next to mine, her in a high chair that a barista fetched from the corner for them. It was like they were on a date.

“Sweet,” I thought and got back to my serious work. You know the score: big agenda; lots to do; best get on.

I may have thought nothing more of it, had I not been hauled from my reveries by some squealing that was going on between the besotted pair. I have to admit to being annoyed that my concentration, and my important thoughts, were being interrupted by a baby and goo-gooing father. I kind of felt like saying, “Guys, I’ve got work to do.”

But I didn’t.

For, something about the way they were behaving caught my attention. There he was, clearly the grown up and in charge and all, but intent on having fun with his little girl. And there she was, all tiny and blonde and dressed in candy floss pink, angling for some silliness with dad.

One made noises, the other mirrored it. One tickled, the other squirmed, laughed and reciprocated. The baby had a chocolate moustache from her drink, and dad had bits of panettone in his hair, but neither of them seemed to have noticed. If anything, it made the scene even more endearing.

The whole thing was infectious. Every so often dad or baby would look around the shop, catch an onlooker’s eye, and smile. In turn we all began smiling and nodding to one another about the pair of them.

“So cute,” I said to a man who was sitting to the other side of me.

“They’re wonderful at that age,” said an older woman across the aisle.

The baby felt me looking at her and turned her gaze on me. My eyes widened as she held my stare, then she hid her face in her hands, unselfconsciously inviting me into a game of peek-a-boo.

“Are you flirting with the lady now?” said dad.

Everyone giggled and smiled. For a few moments before we all got back to the serious business of Monday morning and work, we were a little community around this adorable kid.

Fast forward to later in the week, when a client was talking to me about feeling stuck. Her business that she’s developing around a blog hasn’t been meeting her expectations of it. Traffic was levelling out and income trailing her targets. Demoralising for her, as she’s planning on getting it all to a point where it’ll bring in enough cash to allow her to ditch the day job.

We explored what was going on. Brainstormed practical things she could tweak, and mindset shifts she could make around her level of expectation. She went off with renewed excitement and enthusiasm. She’d recaptured something of her fundamental self-belief.

But some words she said stayed with me beyond the session. They were:

“I was doing so well. But it really all changed when I began to put pressure on myself to make money this way.”

It was only later that I connected her story with the experience I’d had earlier in the week.

Because, for some reason, it struck me to think about, how often when we do something as a hobby, we engage with it like children. With no requirement that it ever do anything for us, we can just love it for what it is. Without any self-consciousness we can try things and fail, and it’s no skin off our nose. Who cares if, in our enthusiasm and naivety, we make complete dicks of ourselves or end up wearing metaphoric chocolate moustaches? We’re so caught up in the spirit and fun of what we’re doing that we don’t notice. And we draw people to us because our enthusiasm is of itself so attractive.

That’s its magic.

Ah, but put big pressure on it to make money for us and its whole complexion changes. The kid is still there, but fun loving, besotted dad disappears and gives way to some strict internal school teacher that starts bossing us to deliver.

My client had been talking about the tyranny of writing schedules, social media presence, reading and commenting on other people’s blogs, building mailing lists and RSS subscribers.

Phew!

No wonder it had all felt so difficult. What she’d once been able to do for fun, and from a clever, quirky, all out to enjoy herself and kick ass place, had become a chore.

Her joy and spontaneity had gone. Maybe her readers had been picking that up?

So, does that mean that we shouldn’t try to make a business out of things we love?

Not at all. You saw how easily a tiny child drew people to her. If it’s engaged with in the same spirit, we can ignite our communities with our passion too.

And, sure, we can make good money from doing just that, and it’s good and right that we track what we’re doing and keep a commercial head on our shoulders. But the trick is not to put the financial targets first. Not to make money the fundamental purpose. Because that’s when we turn our dream back into a job. And, if I’m not mistaken, that’s what so many of us are trying to avoid.

So, take my advice. Engage your child magic and watch your fledgling business rock!

Filed Under: Reinventing work, Self Development Tagged With: , ,

How To Make Yours A RARE Business

October 13, 2010 by 11 Comments

I first found out about Adrian Swinscoe‘s book idea some months back when he came to the pilot of my Worklife Makeover workshop in London. We started chatting about it over coffee, waiting for everyone to turn up. By the end of the workshop Adrian knew how he was going to bring it to life, and the folks in the room were massively supporting his efforts in the process.

So, I’m delighted that he’s got it written and published now, and if you want to grab a copy, head across here.

Meantime, I asked him some questions for the folks here.

Hey, Adrian, the title of your book is RARE Business. Give us a synopsis.

Hi Christine. Thanks for having me here. First, the title. If you look up the word “rare” in the Oxford English Dictionary the most common definition is ‘something that is seldom seen’. However, there is another meaning that refers to something of ‘uncommon quality’ or something that is ‘unusually great’. I’m running with this second definition

The book steps readers through a framework which, if implemented, provides comparable, or better, growth results by changing focus from attracting new customers to nurturing and developing your existing customer base.

The tone of the book is conversational and informal, so the strategies and tactics it goes through are straightforward, practical and easy to implement.

The ideas are brought further to life by interviews and insights on customer retention and growth, not from other writers or celebrity entrepreneurs, but from 16 CEOs and MDs of leading and successful mid-sized companies.

What inspired you to write it?

I’ve wanted to write a book for a while now so it’s been a personal ambition to put some thoughts down on paper. However, writing it has also allowed me to articulate what I like and what I think works in building a great business. Also, as I say in the book, it’s a call to action for how we can all create better businesses and better places to work.

The whole thing is based on an ethos that the traditional way of growing business – one that is focused, primarily on customer acquisition using traditional marketing methods of advertising and other ‘broadcast/mass media’ forms- is becoming a less and less effective. In the book I use the metaphor of the song “There’s a hole in my bucket, dear Liza” to talk about how strategies that focus purely on customer acquisition rarely address some of the systemic problems that lead to churn, and how doing so could significantly change their business results.

It also talks about how the advent of modern technology (internet and social media) is causing us both to think differently about how we do business and giving us the tools to fundamentally change our approach. Growth is more and more becoming about building relationships than building numbers and this book really talks to that.

It has quite a funky format – content, examples, cartoons and white space for notes. Tell us why you chose that style.

I read quite a lot of business books and find that many of them are very dense, filled with jargon and new language. I wanted to create something that was both engaging and usable, so came up with the idea of a hybrid book/notebook style, based of the Moleskin concept. My intention was that, through the design, readers engage with the content in a very real way. I’d love it to stimulate and motivate business owners and business leaders to take the ideas in the book, apply them to their businesses and make changes that will help them create a business that is RARE.

Who’s your ideal reader and how would you hope they’d make use of your book?

The book is aimed at owners and leaders of established small and large businesses that want help to think about how they can create better relationships with their customers and their people to drive sustainable growth.

Any spin offs planned? Other products using the RARE process?

Depending on the success of this book, we believe that we have created a format that can be replicated, a bit like the ‘Dummies’ series although at a different level, allowing us to create a series of ‘RARE’ books like RARE Numbers, RARE Marketing, RARE Leadership, RARE Teams etc. We have create a new company RARE Publications to do this and would work with other authors to create this series. We also want to create electronic, audio, DVD versions and complimentary workshops and consulting help to increase the reach of our message and build a RARE network of companies that follow the sort of approach that we are advocating. Ultimately, we would like to build this network so that we can have a RARE Business Awards, where we can recognise the businesses that are ‘RARE’, look after their customers and create great places to work.

Finally, what feedback would you like from readers here?

What I would like from your readers is two things. First, feedback on the book, and stories of how it has affected the way they do business. Secondly, help to spread the word as together we can change the world ;)

I say that with my tongue in my cheek a little but I am also serious. The feedback on the book so far has been very positive and we may be onto an ‘idea of its time’. I hope so.

Finally, if anyone would like to discuss any of the ideas in the book further or would like me to speak at an event that they or their company is organising I would be more than happy to talk to them. Hope that is not too much of a plug :)

Filed Under: Guest posts, Reinventing work Tagged With: , , ,

How Safe Is Your Career From Extinction?

October 11, 2010 by 10 Comments

With temperatures reaching 20 degrees centigrade, it’s been summer again over the weekend here in the South of England. But, with David Cameron’s call for us to pull together to get Britain back on track, at the same time as Civil Service Unions were negotiating redundancy payment terms that could allow up to 100,000 job losses, there’s no doubt that winter is on the way.

Some of my people are right in the middle of this, already feeling destabilized and wondering what it all means.

Others are working for firms who have made a living from selling to the public sector, and are feeling a draft as budgets for IT, consultancy, recruitment, advertising and other services are slashed.

I’m imagining that the UK government believes the slack they’re about to pump into the system will be picked up by the private sector. But that’s certainly not what’s happening in the US, where 64,000 new private sector jobs, were significantly outweighed by 159,000 US Government job losses in September. And although there’s upturn in some UK companies, I’m still hearing stories of folks having just survived third and fourth rounds of cuts.

With all of this going on, I fear that we’re about to live through the death of certain traditional professional, administrative and support service jobs. It’s the twenty first century equivalent of the demise of the mining industry. But it’s likely to be even more insidious because the skill sets involved are associated with less obvious or tangible outcomes. There will be no silent pit heads; no derelict mines. The wastelands will be more virtual and emotional.

And I suspect too that my focus here on the public sector is only the tip of an iceberg. That we’ll only understand the full impact of our respective governments actions on the shape and nature of jobs and careers as their whole economy-saving measures unfold.

Still, it’s a very real and current problem. How confident are you that you can take your years of highly specialized training and experience and find a home for them elsewhere?

Dinosaur or phoenix?

I sure don’t have all the answers, but it seems to me that as the world of work morphs from the known to the unknown, we each have an individual choice about how we frame our response to the challenge.

Will we be dinosaurs, doing nothing other than keeping our heads down and imagining that the problem will blow over? Or that catastrophe is inevitable?

Or will we be phoenixes? Will we choose to understand that life may indeed be burning our current way of working to a pile of ashes. But that we can use a metaphoric death to give us new energy, vitality and sense of direction?

Assuming you choose the latter, there are things you can do now to ride with the tide of reinvention.

Conventional solutions

For a start there are some conventional things you should be doing as standard. Like doing a stock-take of yourself, your skills and your personal qualities, and putting together a compelling CV or resume. My friend Julie Walraven is a phenomenal resource in helping you get market-ready. She’s also brilliant in supporting you to pitch for things you decide to target, and in helping you use social media in the process, especially LinkedIn.

These things help to build your confidence and get you thinking about how you might reorient yourself for different jobs that use your current skills set.

Unconventional solutions

But these are unconventional times. So, in addition to having good basics in order, let the threat of change give you the permission you need to think laterally and creatively about what you do for a living.

So, you may be a department manager in the civil service right now, and could apply for general management jobs elsewhere. But what else could you do?

What else would you love to do?

What areas of growth do you see opening up that could allow you to use your talents in radically different ways?

What’s small now that’s going to get bigger?

How could you think about work differently than you have in the past and what does that unlock for you?

And don’t just think about what you’d do. Consider how you’d do it.

If you were working your notice, with a threatened layoff now about to become reality, what would you be doing differently? How would you be prioritizing work versus family, friends and interests?

How would you manage your time differently to give you more of the balance you’ve been looking for?

How would you play political games differently so that you felt less taken for granted by your bosses?

Even before the latest scenario on public sector jobs, I was talking about a band of folks who’d already taken it upon themselves to recreate their relationship with work. This most recent development is but another catalyst in a sea of change.

Don’t wait till the economy or the government decide that your career is extinct to act. Get your own plan and start bringing it to life today. Even if you end up keeping your job, you’ll feel a hundred times better about it if you’re in the driving seat.

What changes are you seeing in your area of career expertise? What’s the challenge in that for you and how are you responding?

Creative Commons License photo credit: Radio Saigón

Filed Under: Reinventing work, Thriving @ work Tagged With: , , , ,

Writing Your Own Story Beyond The Corporation

October 8, 2010 by 17 Comments

09112008180Quit your corporate job for whatever reason and it’s not just the security of the pay check you lose.

Sure, there’s the kudos of your employer’s brand name, and your status conferring job title. But more than that there’s the loss of the whole story of who you are, the role you play and the script you enact with others.

Turn up at dinner with city sorts and introduce yourself as an Associate Lawyer for a Magic Circle firm, or a Product Manager for a Dow Jones company, and people think you’re someone. You’re character fits their map of what’s important in the world.

Go off in pursuit of your new age retreat centre, your virtual cup cake business, or your social media enterprise. Or just explain that you were made redundant in the last round of cuts, and see how people react then.

Will they get it? Will they understand what’s driving you? Will they see your value?

And do you care?

It’s a tough one, because we understand ourselves so much by the way we see ourselves reflected – or not – in other people.

But dealing with disapproval, or just downright indifference, is a vital rite of passage if we are to healthily leave the corporate theater.

My own story talks to this.

Until eleven years ago, I had big jobs for big firms. I wore the status I believed they conferred like badges of office. I drew strength and confidence from them.

I could say, I’m Christine Livingston, Human Resources Director, American Express, and people would be impressed.

I could turn up in a sharp suit and present tough messages to a Board of Directors as a Managing Consultant with Gemini Consulting and know I’d be listened to.

Leaving those personas behind to become a freelance HR/OD consultant, as I then did, and who was I? How would I distinguish myself from the thousands of others saying they did the same thing?

And was I crazy to imagine it was possible?

What made these questions even more difficult to wrestle with was other people’s reactions.

When I resigned from Gemini, my boss took me to lunch and told me I couldn’t leave.

“You’re star quality,” he said. “You’re going to go to the top of this firm. Hang in.”

When I stood my ground, he then began to question my mental health, and offered me a paid sabbatical while I sorted myself out.

Then there was the headhunter. A moment of doubt saw me, while still under notice, interview for a top Training and Development job. It was huge. I’d conned myself into imagining I might be able to have the kind of work life balance I wanted and pursue my professional interests through it. But starting to hear about the international travel requirements brought me back to reality. When I told the headhunter that I was withdrawing from the selection process and why, he was dumbfounded.

“You’re quitting a stellar corporate HR career to freelance? But why? You have no commitments; no family. Are you crazy?”

Then there was a former colleague. It wasn’t an obvious put down, but the offer of contract work, doing much more junior stuff than I was capable, delivered an ever so subtle insult.

All these things and more made me doubt myself profoundly. Maybe I was ill, crazy, less capable than I’d dared to imagine?

This was all so unexpected, confusing and immobilizing.

The breakthrough came when I began to understand that these people were voicing my own worst fears. Sure, they were expressing their opinion. But by voicing what a little part of me was secretly believing, their words cut deeply.

The moment I dared to confront my own concerns was the moment I could answer them. I owned that indeed I’d never been more clear about anything in my life; that if forgoing top jobs in order to create the space for life and relationships meant I was crazy, then crazy was good; that I was able and talented, corporation or not, and was going to own my level of ability without need of a job grading system.

My story still unfolds, but I’ll never regret choosing to write a new script. What’s holding you back from rewriting yours?
Creative Commons License photo credit: roland

Filed Under: Inner work, Reinventing work, Self Development Tagged With: , ,

Escape Mediocrity. Blow Inspiration On Your Smoldering Dream

October 4, 2010 by 7 Comments

I should have known I was a bit weird the day I decided to go to Austria instead of learning to drive. Because that’s what all normal 17 year olds do isn’t it? They can’t wait to get some miles between them and whatever stuff they want to run away from. I still remember the conversations that year, everyone fussing about who was next to turn 17, whose mother had bought them a clapped out old Fiesta and who had failed, again. It was all consuming.

Except, I had something bigger in my sights. Every Saturday morning, while the rest of my house were still dosing, I’d walk down the hill to catch a bus into town and go to work in a shoe shop. For something laughable like £2.40 an hour, I smiled and chatted and sold my way through my Saturday job.

I had a boss with oily hair who us Saturday girls avoided like the plague. Although I was safe (who wants to whisper innuendo to the chubby kid with glasses?) one of my thinner, slightly older colleagues was always in danger of being on the receiving end of his attention. Green as grass, I was just relieved it wasn’t me.

But creepy boss aside, it was worth it. I had my eye on the prize – Austria.

I play the clarinet and tenor sax and back then, I was in the school band. If you’ve seen any of the American Pie movies I imagine you have a mental picture right about now. All I will say is it was great fun. Being in the sixth form, a small group of us were like the cool teens in charge. It was the one place in school where I could just relax and be me. Geeky, glasses and plump don’t lend themselves to being cool when you’re 16 but when I was with the band, I was unstoppable.

And the band were going to Austria. It was to be the first time the school had taken the band abroad in my lifetime and it promised to be amazing.

But there was a problem. My parents weren’t keen for me to go. Outside of the band environment I had a pretty good brain. I was doing science and maths a-levels and all set to follow in my dad’s footsteps and become a doctor. But getting accepted into doctor school is hard work. You need amazing grades and a personal statement full of shiny awesomeness. And this was the problem.

My parents were afraid that if I went to Austria, my school work would suffer and I’d lose out on my chosen vocation. Not one to let a little thing like vocation stand in my way I decided I’d just switch it. I announced that from then on a career in pharmacy awaited me (lower grades needed for pharmacy – I’d checked) and yes please, I still wanted to go to Austria.

Being the oldest of six children, it was then that they played the lack of finances card. I remember feeling that they were just doing it to be difficult (you remember what it’s like when you’re 16?) but with the lovely benefit of hindsight, I know that money was probably tight and they were just trying to do the right thing. And for that I thank them. Because here’s what happened next.

Stubborn ass that I am, I decided that I wouldn’t let a small thing like cash stop me from following my dream. I wanted to go to Austria and I was going to get there, no matter what. And that’s what motivated me to get the Saturday job. Week after week I earned the money to take my merry behind on a bus to Austria.

Except, when you’re being paid just a few quid an hour, it doesn’t stretch very far. I had enough to get me there but no spending money. And that’s where the driving came in. I was on a promise of an extra large birthday present when I turned 17 in the June: £100 for driving lessons. £100 for spending money I decided. So I took the cash, went to Austria, and learned to drive a year later when I got more money on my 18th birthday.

That summer in Austria (it was about 5 days but in my head it lasted forever!) awoke in me a love for performing and, after a few uncomfortable months of soul-searching and course switching, resulted in a total change of career. Because I’d always been good at science, it was sort of assumed that I’d go down that route. Arts subjects were for people who couldn’t do science. Why would a scientist choose to do arts?!

How about because being good at something isn’t enough reason to do it forever if it doesn’t make you smile to the very bottom of your heart?

“Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.” – Danielle La Porte

And El lived happily ever after. The End.

Yeah, right! I’d love to be able to tell you that that summer in Austria set me in the right direction and I went off into the sunset, clarinet tucked under my arm, ready to perform happily until the end of my days.

But life’s not a fairy tale is it? Instead, I fell in love, gave up on the dream of performing in the West End and decided that love and babies were really more my thing. I settled into a life of boring mediocrity, happily bimbling along doing my thing, offending no-one. I was the baby-making equivalent of you, stuck in your corporate environment, whiling away your days, doing what needs to be done.

Except, when you’ve grown up thinking big and chasing dreams, it never really dies. There’s something inside of you waiting to be unleashed on the world. It might be a teeny tiny spark right now. It might even be just smoldering away quietly. But blow a little inspiration on it and it will burst right back into flame.

I don’t believe in one time catalysts that kick you in the right direction. I’m more of a journey kinda girl. That summer in Austria was part of the journey, it got me turned around and facing in the right direction. But it took another 16 years, starting a charity, blogging, Twitter, making lots of new friends and an amazing day with Christine, to get me where I am today.

And today? This is just the very beginning. I am finally doing what I love and thriving but only time will tell what curve ball life chucks at me next.

But what about you? This life is not a fairy tale. There are no magic wands and fairy godmothers to transform you into a Princess. If you’re feeling stuck, quietly festering away in a life of mediocrity, its up to you to find that person, thing or set of circumstances that you can use to get you facing the right direction.

Go on. I dare you.

El Edwards is a freelance writer and muse. She blogs at Heaven And El where this week she’s co-hosting a webinar exploring how she accidentally built her business by being kind. You can also say hello to her on Twitter: @HeavenAndEl

Filed Under: Guest posts, Self Development Tagged With: , , , ,