Corporate Concept

The term emerged in the 1990s, coined by corporations responding to the challenge of increasing workplace stress on the one hand, and greater social need on the other. “Talent”, as they label the smart folks whose skills keep the company productive, were looking not just to have careers, but to be able to be parents and carers too. Heck, some of that “talent” even wanted to spend some of their lives completely away from work.

And so benefits like flexible working arrangements, childcare, and sabbaticals became more prevalent, alongside in-house initiatives like gyms and stress management training.

These undoubtedly help make a lot of people’s lives better. But it’s important as an individual to know that whether they help you or not, their primary motive is not your welfare, but the protection of the bottom line.

Work vs Life

Implicit in the corporate concept is that work and life are different and separate. Worse, they stand against one another as two values – the only two values – competing for your time and energy.

If you find yourself going a little crazy juggling your workload with all you have to do outside, there’s no concept that the picture could be wrong. Or that things within it could need a fundamental rethink. Including how liveable your job actually is.

It all boils down to these two simple, logical and therefore hypothetically manageable parts: work and life.

Your Whole Life

Coaching and writing for people around work life balance, I have a different picture. Because my interest is in you, I want to work with and talk to all of who you are.

Of course work is a key part of your life and of helping give a sense of identity. But it needs to be seen as an integral part of you. Just as your family, friends, special relationship, sports and hobbies, and spirituality are not things you should leave at the office reception desk.

What Do You Need?

My intention in writing this is not to make you more cynical of corporations. They are important in the whole, bigger work life picture.

What I am suggesting is that you don’t get sucked into framing something in a way that doesn’t jive with your nature.

Take your power back. Ask yourself what’s important from the perspective of your whole life. Can your company’s work life balance ethos and programs support you? If they can, brilliant. Either way, simply avoid being cast in a mould that is not of your making.

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How sad is that?

Still, it echoes a lot of what I hear and see around me: people completely frazzled ahead of the school holidays, bouyed up by the prospect of a couple of weeks in the sun and putting off any big decisions about life till the autumn.

photo credit: beamillion

All of which has got me thinking about what that says about how much – or rather, how little – we value ourselves and our lives.

How we tend to see work and holidays in a very black and white, all and nothing kind of way.

The extent to which we adapt ourselves to fit our society in ways that don’t suit us.

And how it might be if we took holidays, less as a recovery from some punishing schedule, and more as a welcome pause to refresh and recharge our generally happy existences?

In my coaching work, people learn to free themselves from the tyranny of loving only to hate their work. They come to understand the interconnections of their work as an aspect of their whole lives. They begin to find their own way of being in a society that would prefer them to conform. To live authentic lives and to feel the sense of peace and happiness that brings. In that scenario, they’ll find their own rhythm about what effort versus what rest they need and what that looks like. Whether they take rest in big blocks, or they weave it into their daily lives. How time off feeds them and how they can hold on to its nourishment when they resume their endeavours.

They take lovely holiday, for sure. But they rarely need them.

And, yes, it’s hard work to get to this place, but breaking out of the vicious cycle of work and holidays is entirely possible.

What about you? What do holidays mean in your life? What single thing could you do differently that would allow the benefit of holidays to have a more lasting effect for you?

Related posts:

1. Looking At Life Through The Eyes Of A Child
2. How To Get Paid For Eating Chocolate Cake
3. Who Else Wants A Free Worklife Makeover?

One thing which I find amusing is how most people expect to get out of the ordinary success and satisfaction in their careers, without doing or being themselves out of the ordinary. They hope that just working hard will be enough.

The world of work is in my perspective filled with people who are walking clichés. They dress like everyone else, they act by the same rules and they say the same things in only slightly different words. When you suggest to them doing, thinking or saying something which is beyond the conventional, they pin you to the wall for being inappropriate or breaking the norms.

Differentiation is the key

Being different in the workplace seems to be a misunderstood factor. Being different is not the same as being competent. And competence is also an important factor for a great career. But it is not enough. Differentiation is what allows you to make the best use of competence.

Differentiation is like a bridge which creates the proper context for your work to reach the right target. When instead of being a cliché, you are different, this allows you to stand out. And when you stand out, three essential things happen:

1. You get noticed;
2. You get remembered;
3. People get curious about you.

And from there, all sorts of great things can happen in your career, which the conventional worker or businessman rarely sees happening. I believe that most people need conscious practice and guidance to learn how do differentiate themselves and stand out. So, here are my main points for not being a cliché:

1. Understand your uniqueness. Differentiation starts with knowing yourself and especially what makes you unique. It’s much harder to stand out if you don’t have a good idea what are the ways that you specifically can stand out. Take some time to really get to know yourself and to answer questions like:
   • What are my unique strengths?
   • What values that I believe in make me stand out?
   • What is unconventional about the way I live my life?
2. Dress with attitude. The first impression you create is by the way you look. And this is your first chance to differentiate yourself. Move away from the conventional business uniform and add something unique to it, which makes you stand out visually from the crowd. For example, I will usually wear a business suit, which is conventional, but it will have a light color and I will not wear a tie, which is unconventional and allows me to stand out the moment you see me.
3. Talk spontaneously. A common pattern for people in the workplace is to think too much before they say anything, and make sure what comes out of their mouth is always safe, is always the right thing. Unfortunately, this is a recipe for never standing out. Give yourself permission to be spontaneous when you talk at least to some extent, and you will express more of those thoughts which make you unique, in your unique way.
4. Express the divergent opinions. In particular, one thing most people will avoid expressing at work is those opinions which are different from the opinions of other people. They are afraid to upset someone, to take risks. It’s one of those things you will need to push through. Divergent opinions are one of the critical ways to differentiate yourself, and it’s essential to put a lot of them on the table.

Ultimately, in my perspective, differentiation is about understanding that deep inside, you are a unique person who naturally stands out. Your task is to let that uniqueness out in everything: what you say, what you do, how you look, how you live. This is the key to getting ahead by not being a cliché.

Eduard Ezeanu is a communication coach with an attitude-based approach. He helps others to improve people skills they find relevant and get top notch results. He also writes on his blog, People Skills Decoded.

photo credit: cookipediachef

Related posts:

1. Deviation From The Norm – My Different Kind Of Work
2. Paving Your Own Path

I’ve had a curious experience this week that I wanted to share.

It was all the more surprising as I’d just spent some deeply happy days unplugging and enjoying the successes of the first half of the year.

And back at work, I’d confidently set my second half year targets: run 3 Worklife Makeover workshops; add 5 new coaching spaces; sell and deliver 2 social media strategy pieces.

More details on all of these shortly.

I can’t say that one thing triggered it. Maybe it was reading online about the Emergency Budget and its resultant public spending job losses. Maybe it was the stuff I’d seen on TV about the BP oil spill and its ravages on both the US coast line and on the financial markets. Maybe it was the two old whingers I’d overheard in my local coffee shop, crapping on about everything from England’s disastrous World Cup performance to the impact of recession on their pension funds.

But suddenly I found myself asking:

“Who am I…?”

Who am I to be this confident about business in the midst of such upheaval and uncertainty? To be so successful? To have this lifestyle? To feel so loved?

Fear and doubt crept in.

I noticed my attention shift from what I wanted to do in the next months, to what I feared I may not be able to do.

What if I can’t pay my mortgage?

I felt my power sap, and my horizons narrow.

Maybe I should get A Job.

Then, shit, there are no jobs, and, in any case, who’d hire me eleven years out?

Those of you who know me well enough may find this surprising, even funny, but I spent a few unhappy hours, just swimming around in this self-destructive soup.

Whoa!

Unhappy. It was realising that this was how I was feeling that pulled me back from a shockingly downward spiral. I’ve done a lot of unhappy in the past, and I’ve vowed not to do it for long any more.

Life’s too short. Who can afford unhappy?

It was as I was coming back to myself that I got to wondering about all the negativity that’s out there and whether it has some sinister purpose that I’d momentarily got caught up in.

Maybe, I thought, doom and gloom is society’s way of keeping us in line and reminding us who’s boss. It sends an insidious fear message that talks right at the level of our most limiting beliefs.

Sure, it’s all dressed up in fancy, logical language.

The black hole in the economy. Budget deficits. Necessary measures.

Blah, blah.

But it shifts our focus from what we want to do because it’s naturally us, to what we have to do in order to stay valid society members. And it robs our vitality, so that we have energy only for achieving those needs.

Not buying into this.

I heard the words as I regained my own perspective. Yes, I want much of what society would deem as acceptable. But I also want to it on my terms.

And I realised that this was the choice doom and gloom gives us. We can either allow it to knock us out and surrender to its spell; or we can choose not to accept its handcuffs.

And I wonder what choices you’re making in its midst?

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I had the realisation this week that I’d started to see reliable high speed broadband as a basic human need. It came in the midst of a 72 hour period during which I had none.

I didn’t vote for Mr Cameron, but I was pretty happy to see on Channel 4 news that his government is pledging to plough £300m into enhancing the UK’s broadband networks.

After my days of feeling that a key pivot of my business had been entirely disabled, I can concur that the UK needs it to support its endeavours for new entrepreneurial growth.

So, you might expect that I’d be having a rant today about lost productivity, but you’d be wrong. As it turns out, there was some unexpected magic in my broadband blackout.

The Power of Surrendering

After hours of battling with my ISP to get the problem resolved, it became apparent that the whole thing was out of my control.

It crossed my mind that I could do offline stuff on my Mac: draft emails, blog posts and whatever else was on my To Do list.

It also crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, I was being directed to attend to other things. I’ve worked my butt off recently and have a busy summer, ahead of a break in August. Perhaps the right thing to do was nothing?

And that’s what I chose. So I put my frustrations aside and paid attention to what was present for me.

My brother and nephew have been around this week and so I was able to be with them in a way I may otherwise have not. We had some special moments of fun, warmth and connection. I finished reading The Tao of Pooh and got back into reading Ian Rankin’s Rebus. I hung out in a local (wifi-less) coffee shop. I watched TV and slept longer hours than usual.

It was like a thaw set in. All I can tell you is that I felt myself relax to a different level of being.

Trusting to People and Relationships

Fuelling my desire to fix whatever technical problems, was a feeling of responsibility; a wanting to be present for people I work and connect with remotely, and for actions that were in progress. Among them key things like my newsletter development, and artwork for my offline marketing materials.

Facing the reality that, without internet, I was unable to follow up in the ways I’d have logically wanted, I found myself knowing that people would understand. I decided to trust that the relationships I have with people are bigger than temporary communication problems.

People would get my real intentions, or they wouldn’t. I’d prefer that they did. But if they didn’t that was going to have to be too bad.

Allowing my own fallibility, and trusting to the goodness of people, assisted my process of letting go.

Realising Results Don’t Always Come From Pushing

When I was writing about the opportunities in the silence the other week, I hadn’t anticipated this silence of my own.

But during those broadband-free days, where a concern had been the impact on existing and new clients, something interesting happened. I had some good old-fashioned phone calls from new people looking for coaching support.

It did make me chuckle. I’d obviously freed up some energy in myself and people had found their way to me despite my internet problems. It was very affirming of something Nick Williams often says:

“There are greater forces at work than market forces.”

I end this week back online and on excellent form. Besides anything else, the time and space has amplified in me something I already knew:

Work is not just the action that happens out there in the world, the activity and the striving, it’s something that happens in here too. It’s a process that’s afoot at a soul level, in ways that we don’t always understand or even need to.

The synchronicity of the timing for me of all this doesn’t escape me either. Next Friday I’m running the first workshop I’ve marketed through this blog. I have the most awesome group of people coming and I’m very excited about being with them.

Of course, the topic of the workshop is worklife, central to which, I believe, is our being. Isn’t it interesting that, as I take my work to a new place, something shifts deeply in mine?

As I said, something magical happened this week.

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Today I’m delighted to introduce you to Marc Winitz, who’s a Vice President of Sales and Business Development for a US based information technology company. His thinking about work, which he captures in this fascinating article, turns some of the accepted wisdom about finding meaning at work on its head. Read and enjoy!

Although economic times have been uncertain over the past few years, there is still a lot of conversation going on around “doing what you love” or “pursuing your passion”. To be sure, I am not against the philosophy, per se, but I do find it a little misguided. We all go through peaks and valleys in life, and for a lot of people, that includes their career and work. It is fair to ask yourself “Do I love what I am doing?” or “Does what I do matter?” But I don’t think you have to have to correlate a specific passion for the work you do. There are a lot of ways to innovate and find meaning for yourself and I don’t believe that has to correspond to the way you make a living.

The Echo Chamber of “Passion”

It seems that an echo chamber has emerged and that you can’t read anything these days about a successful business or career without some reference to “pursuing your passion”. Entering that phrase as a Google search term provides over 1 million hits. There are legs to this and with good reason. We are going through historic change in the world in regards to global issues ranging from the interconnected financial system to the environment to our evolving views of race and religion. The world has gotten a lot smaller. And all this change makes people question their lives, and their livelihood. And that is very healthy in my opinion. But I think you can find innovation and meaning in what you do, without having to pursue a specific passion as your way of supporting yourself.

Career Ruts Are Normal

I work as a Vice President for US based information technology company helping large government and private sector agencies solve complex business process problems through the use of technology. I like what I do. It makes a difference in people’s lives. However, even that isn’t enough for me to be fully satisfied with my work environment. For most of us, myself included, it is easy to get in a rut regarding our day to day routine and I think that generally holds true no matter what type of work you do.

Career Fulfillment Can Come From Many Places

I’ve read many stories and know several people that felt they were stuck in their career and decided to make a radical change in their life. In some cases it has worked, but in others it hasn’t. Just by writing this I know there will be strong statements (I hope) in the comments section about a specific person making a radical change, quitting their job to pursue something they loved, and that it turned out to be the best thing they ever did for their career. I respect that. But it represents a small group of people from a success perspective. I am not saying that if you are in a bad work situation you should stay in it. Nor am I suggesting you shouldn’t try something completely different from a career perspective. However, if your work is tolerable, or good, or even great you can still have a fulfilling career – regardless of the ruts you hit or a lack of passion you feel for what you do. You just have to look for the opportunities to invest in yourself to keep your “passion” alive and channel them into your work life.

Extend Personal Interests

So the concept of “career” to me has become something much wider than my day job, or my passions, or anything else for that matter. I look at ways to improve myself and my skillset outside of my career by investing in myself. But I try to do it in way that provides me ways to integrate those interests back into my day job. About 5 months ago I started a personal development blog called Black Belt Guide. I have trained in Karate and also taught it for over 25 years. I always wanted to share the principles of martial arts but in a way that could be useful to anyone. I also enjoy writing. So the blog has provided a creative outlet for me which is something I was seeking.

Build Professional Skillsets Through Outside Activities

But I didn’t just start the blog for that reason alone. I wanted to learn about web 2.0 technology and the social web. Even though I work in technology neither of those areas are part of my day to day job: but they are going to be. So rather than trying to just “read about it” I used the blog as a way to learn simply by participating and working with technology like WordPress, Twitter, Facebook, etc…

Create Options for Yourself

In addition, I wanted to create a “brand” for myself. It was obvious that I could create such a brand in my day job, or that it would be memorable. But by tying the blog back to something that was both a little unusual and important to me, I have started to realize a return on that investment in a very personal way. This now gives me options. The involvement in blogging has served multiple needs personally and professionally. And I can leverage this experience, which I very much enjoy, directly into my work life through multiple areas.

Personal Investments Pay Professional Dividends

I was recently on a business trip and had a meeting with a potential customer. When I arrived my host said “Your blog is terrific, I feel like I already know you. I trained in martial arts as a kid.” I was a bit stunned, my blog is hardly popular (he later told me it is his policy to “google” all his vendors). The meeting went well as the “rapport” already existed even though I had never met this person face to face. We talked for 30 minutes about martial arts, blogging and personal development before we got to the business at hand. It’s not very common in a sales and business development situation where the buyer wants to talk about you as an authority figure.

Find Different Kinds of Work Outside of Work

I hope my approach offers some clues as to how you can innovate in yourself, grow professionally and find career meaning regardless of the work you do. Here are some thoughts to help you start view work and growth a little differently.

1. Don’t view your work as the sole definition of how your life is defined or how you are perceived.
2. Your career is more than just your day job. Find ways to expand outside your comfort zone to learn and grow.
3. Passion is important so find outlets for it. Just don’t misplace its importance for having a fulfilling career.
4. Look for opportunities to inject the things that interest you into your current work situation, even if they don’t apply right away or are obvious to you.

In addition to his challenging business schedule, Marc is a 4th degree black belt in Japanese karate, and blogs about personal development at www.blackbeltguide.com. You can follow Marc on Twitter @marcwinitz, or subscribe to his RSS Feed.

Related posts:

1. Paving Your Own Path
2. Deviation From The Norm – My Different Kind Of Work
3. Doing Your Real Work

If you’ve been reading this series, you’ll know I call this community The New Work Pioneers.

And so far we’ve talked about what prompts them to take a different tack; how they think differently about success; the hallmark milestones of their journey; and why they really bother.

But what really, really sets successful New Work Pioneers apart from those who’d aspire to this path, but fall short?

Self direction

Successful New Work Pioneers see themselves as powerful agents in setting and steering the course of their own lives.

In psychology the jargon is that they have an internal locus of control. This means that on balance they attribute their successes to their own effort, and failures to more variable, often external factors. Which allows them to keep moving forward self-assuredly.

Positive outlook

Adrian Swinscoe wrote earlier this week about optimism. People who are successful in carving out different ways of working and living tend to adopt a positive lens in looking at the world.

They’re no Pollyannas. Nor do they feel the need to adopt any inauthentic persona of the always upbeat person.

They have a realistic view of the world. And it’s one that sees the good; the possibilities and opportunities in each situation.

Life goals

Goals give shape, purpose and direction to life. Successful New Work Pioneers set themselves life goals which they actively pursue. If they’re in a committed relationship, they’ll often set these goals jointly with their partners.

Interestingly, while their goals are often explicit about the material and practical things they want from life, the goals to which they give most attention are those they can imbue with meaning and purpose. For example, they may think of how their work ambitions foster the positive development of their target market; or of how their desire for children will enrich their experience of family.

The deep sense of positive emotional engagement they make with these goals gives them an energy that sustains them.

Flexibility

Even if goals create a map, the terrain once you reach it can look quite different. Successful New Work Pioneers understand this and are not too wedded to a fixed sense of themselves, or of the world. They take bumps in the road as experiences they can learn from.

They don’t allow themselves to be so controlling about things that they get stuck in their own minutiae.

Self knowledge

Smart New Work Pioneers have clocked the importance of understanding themselves. They tend to be committed to their own personal development, seeing it as a life-long pursuit.

Many of them will have an intimate awareness of their personal values and will see how putting them positively into practice not only makes them happy, but gets them great results.

And they’ll unfathom any limiting beliefs they’re holding onto that may threaten to derail them.

Engaging with others

Successful off-piste career folks take satisfaction in good connections with others. Whether it’s in the context of a special love-relationship; with children; with family and friends; or with colleagues, they value the sense of themselves they get from being intimately engaged. The energy they get from this boosts them and supports their onward journey. Particularly if those relationships are mutually respectful and supportive.

Meaning at work

The happiest New Work Pioneers are those who find flow experiences in work. Of course, it helps if they naturally love what they do. But for many that’s not where they’re at. At least not yet.

Still, successful ones will find meaning in whatever form of work they’re doing. Contributing to something that’s bigger than them. Giving something back. Making a difference.

With a felt-sense of purpose, work can feel inspiring, which in turn can fuel the New Work Pioneers endeavours.

Making the most of most things

Sometimes times are good. Sometimes they’re bad. Sometimes just so. Being a New Work Pioneer isn’t a recipe for an incident-free life. Still, the successful ones are those who tend to take life as it comes and make the most of all situations. This equanimity; the finding of satisfaction in what is, allows them just to be.

And just being is in essence what they are seeking to achieve.

So, does this resonate with you? What strategies do you adopt to keep yourself on a different path?

Finally, thanks to the community of readers that has been reading these posts each week over the last couple of months. I really appreciate your having stuck with the series. Now for the task of turning it all into an eBook!If you don’t want to miss out, subscribe for regular updates here!

Photo credit: Steven Durbin Photography

Related posts:

1. Introducing The Manifesto For New Work Pioneers
2. Work life change: event or journey?
3. New Work Pioneers Reframe Success

I love Christine’s blog for her amazing writing, and for the ideas she presents about the possibilities for stepping outside our family and societal expectations to find the work we love. I’m inspired by her work and am honored to be a part of her series on how others have found their way to express their purpose in life. Here is a little bit of my story.

I am a quiet non-conformist. Reserved by nature, I was a sensitive child and shy young adult. I appeared to be following the path laid out by generations of my hard-working family with its immigrant roots in early 20th century America: Get a good education, a respectable job/career, marry, have children, buy a home, save for retirement. I went to college and later earned a graduate degree, built a career in communications, and got engaged to a research scientist. Textbook, huh?

But wait! (Sound of needle on record album screeching to a halt.) From the beginning there were signs of unrest. As a kid, I withdrew into books and stories when I didn’t like the reality around me. I did not fit in to any of the accepted crowds in high school. I refused to cover up unpleasantness in my family, insisting on speaking up for truth. And I didn’t have a path. I felt the pressure of family expectations for success, but I did not know what I wanted to do or where I wanted to end up.

A Different Kind of Inner Work

Several factors combined to lead me in the direction of a different kind of inner work. As a youth, I felt that something was wrong, but I could not articulate what. Though there was much chaos, I also saw around me adults who modeled the behavior of seeking help and balance – never giving up on the idea of feeling better, despite the crush of difficulties in life.

Thus, my inner uneasiness joined forces with a drive to feel better – to seek resources at every turn, to be willing to try new things – anything to get out of depression and into feeling happier.

Seeking turned into a lifelong pattern. At the point of my engagement, I had finally broken free of depression, but I was lying to myself to be safe, not in love, in my relationship.

A crisis led me to break off the engagement and focus intense energy on myself. I had to dig out all of my character flaws, face them, and let them go. In the process, I got to really know myself – the person underneath all the societal pressures. And I discovered the joy of emotional and spiritual freedom that comes from self-honesty and taking responsibility for my life.

A Different Kind of Life Path

Although as a young adult I didn’t have a clear idea for my occupation, I did eventually find my way to my ideal skill set – communications, specifically writing. I built a career in writing within my field of interest – science and health. I was lucky enough to get dream jobs at environmental organizations, science museums, and communications agencies. For a long time I was satisfied with my professional track.

Over the last few years, however, I started to feel a tickle in the back of my mind…there was something more I wanted to do. I didn’t know exactly what, but it had to do with writing, and it had to do with the work I’d done getting to know myself. And I knew it meant stepping off the traditional path.

Being a cautious person, it’s taken me a long time to evolve this new direction. For a few years, all I did was think about it (as in, “I’d like to retire so I can do whatever I want to with my time!”). I got some clarity around wanting to do my own writing. For the next couple of years, I evolved a plan to transition from a full-time job to a schedule that would allow big chunks of time for writing.

For the last two years, I’ve been able to manage a schedule of part-time work and time devoted to my writing – and what I’m going to do with it. I’m stepping outside the norm. I’m learning that the most important thing is what I think, not what I think others think. It’s about having confidence in my inner voice, whether for my personal growth or my professional path.

Even with all this searching, I don’t know my final destination. But if I listen to my insides, I believe I’m on the right track; and I know these things:

• I love to write and I’m good at it.
• I have a passion for peace of mind – and for using personal development tools to keep my serenity in all situations that life throws at me.
• I want to share my knowledge – how I’ve become my best self – because it helps me continue my inner work.
• I love helping others find their way to their true selves.

My blog is a first step toward helping others. For the future, I have dreams of possibly publishing a book, teaching workshops, and working with individuals and groups. I will continue down my path, without knowing where it ends, because for now, it feels right. I trust the unfolding process and that I’ll know the next step when it’s time.

I welcome any suggestions from you, and would love to hear a little of your journey toward a different kind of work.

To get Linda’s updates, why not subscribe to her RSS Feed? Or follow her on Twitter.

Related posts:

1. Paving Your Own Path
2. Introducing The Manifesto For New Work Pioneers
3. Here’s How New Work Pioneers Navigate Their Journey

“The schism, the disconnect, that the traditional model of work represents seems neither physically, emotionally nor spiritually healthy. Also, not sustainable. Behavior has to line up with values.”

Chrysula Winegar, who wrote the above words, has recently been publishing a beautiful series of posts. In them she takes the often glibly used “Work Life Balance” concept, and brings it alive by relating real people’s journeys, warts and all.

This week, she has been sharing Erik Orton’s struggle to reconcile his rich and diverse needs and interests. His capabilities as a business administrator; his artistry as a playwright and producer; his relationship and caring needs as a partner, and as a parent to five children. And how he has, at least for now, found integration, at nights doing a job with an investment bank that pays his way, allowing his days to be focused on both his creativity and on schooling his children.

Erik’s story spoke to me of the work life “schizophrenia” that I, and other people I come across, experience and I wanted to put some thoughts out there to open up the conversation and get your perspective on it.

The thing I particularly wanted to wrestle with is society’s need to put us firmly into one box or another and keep us there. So, we can be, to use Erik’s example, a business executive, OR a playwright, OR a home-loving father. The world as we now know it has little appreciation of the possibility that we can and indeed need to be a variety of things. It is not set up, either in its operating paradigms, or in its attitudes, to deal with our richness. In essence, it doesn’t want our soul at the table.

And I wonder who that picture serves?

I suspect that, because it has been part of my own journey, I attract people to me either as friends or clients for whom this issue is core. To the point that I am now unfazed when I’m sitting in a corporate office and a marketing director confides that he’s also a spiritual healer; or a banker shares her evening and weekend love of all things New Age; or a lawyer admits that he does creative writing on the side. So much so that I began to call them my “healers in suits”. On the one hand I cannot tell you of the honour I feel in having been let in on the picture, and therefore becoming an agent in allowing them to heal the splits in themselves. On the other, however, I feel such sadness that people have to hide parts of themselves in the closet.

In my own case, I’ve been a self-employed coach and consultant for over a decade now. Having been an HR Director, and Managing Consultant for well respected, global firms, I have no problem putting myself across as such. And people have no problem “getting” this about me. Also, I’m warm, friendly and have a pzazz about me that commercial people relate to. Suffice to say, this is the bit of “me” I’ve been most comfortable to project. And, indeed, it paid my way for many years.

What I’m less comfortable about sharing openly is that I’m also a trained psychotherapist. The psychotherapist in me has intuition and depth. I see things other people miss. It’s fair to say that I have struggled for years to reconcile this aspect of me with the one I’ve just described. Like I’d really rather I could just be that person and avoid this other bit.

And it hasn’t all been about my paranoia. Before I launched my blogging career, for example, and was doing more corporate work, I used to have a separate psychotherapy website. That was, until a corporate client, doing due diligence on me, found my alternative persona and then backed out of our contract. They could not understand how I could possibly have the ability to create outcome oriented relationships and be a “shrink”, to use their exact word. I felt such shame at the judgement, even if it was a reflection of the doubts I myself held.

Perhaps more profound and pervasive were the attitudes I lived with from professional colleagues on either side of my divide. I was constantly challenged by either my therapy supervisor for being too “coachy” in my work, moving people forward when I needed to keep them in their pain; and by my coaching and organisational supervisor for confusing therapeutic with coaching interventions. And while my therapy world colleagues gave me grief about “selling out” to the – in their eyes – more lucrative, yet more easily accessed field of coaching, my coaching world colleagues gave me its baggage about therapy being only for those who were suffering some major personality issue.

Just complete professional bollocks.

Luckily three years ago I found a top coaching supervisor, who himself was also a therapist and could supervise all aspects of my work. Finally I could begin to make it okay for myself to get past my own divisions and learn to put Christine out into the world, and let the world struggle with its incomprehension of Christine’s diversity.

I’ve dealt with only two aspects of my life here and haven’t even begun to touch on my love of writing, or my need for family, close friends and relationships, but I think you get the picture.

I won’t pretend I’ve wholly cracked things, but it’s definitely work in progress. What I can tell you is that the person you get here is pretty much the same person you’d meet in the coffee shop, or indeed in a coaching session or workshop. More and more I’m just trying to give the world who and what I am without being dumbed-down by its need to limit me or marginalise me. I wish I could pretend to you that it was easy, but I’d be selling myself and indeed you short.

What I’d love to hear is how all of this sits with you, what struggles you yourself confront, and how you deal with them.

Related posts:

1. Work life change: event or journey?
2. 10+1 steps to make coaching work for you
3. Here’s How New Work Pioneers Navigate Their Journey

When I asked Jen Smith to write for me a few weeks ago, she could not have known that I was thinking of running an occasional series of guest posts, profiling people who are finding their own “different kind of work”. But serendipity being what it is, this is the theme that she herself chose. Read and enjoy!

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go, instead, where there is no path and leave a trail. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I wanted to share with you, my own experience with “A different kind of work”. I love this website and it is great to connect with like-minded people, people who are “committed to finding the way to do what they love and to love what they do”.

For ever since I can remember, I have wondered what my purpose in life is. I used to think I was a bit strange, particularly when growing up, as other people didn’t seem to ponder these questions as much as I did. I have realised as I have got older that it isn’t the case that other people don’t think about these things. Particularly through setting up my own blog, I have met others who are on a similar journey, people questioning the status quo around ‘work’, who are committed to creating work for themselves that truly fulfils them.

Where I’m at

I am thirty four, and for the last eighteen months I have really started paving my own path. What do I mean by that? Well, I have done some great (and not so great ) jobs in my time. A lot of my jobs have been in the areas of health / psychology / coaching, but it really hit me last year that out of everything I have done, coaching and mentoring is the thing that I feel really makes a difference and is a natural expression of me (particularly one to one work). I have now trained and set up my own part time business. ‘Paving my own path’ has been about biting the bullet and setting out to do work that I truly love (coaching) and creating it how I want to (working for myself).

Discovering my purpose

For a long time I was a little bit jealous of people who had a special talent or obvious vocation in life, people that were naturally talented singers or just ‘knew’ they wanted to be a doctor, for example. Funnily enough, my passion for personal development was always there. When I was about ten I remember avidly reading my dad’s personal development books and I’ve been like that with personal development ever since. Maybe I knew my purpose all along but didn’t believe that I could actually earn money from it or had the belief in myself to believe I could. Looking back though, the path to discovering my purpose has really given me an invaluable insight into my passion and helps me when coaching other people to do the same now.

Creating my own path

My journey changed in the last eighteen months when it hit me that I probably was never going to find the ‘perfect job’ and that maybe I needed to create it myself. I always liked the idea of being self employed but, if I’m honest, I lacked confidence and self discipline. I held out for finding a job that would be ‘me’, with a steady pay-check, paid holidays and everything already set up (i.e. a bit easier than doing it myself J). I tried lots of jobs, but didn’t find the perfect one. It’s not to say it’s not out there, but that’s where I got to. I realised I need to be self employed, a) because it really appeals to be my own boss and, b) to shatter that belief that I can’t do it (after all that’s what being a coach is all about isn’t it! J). A series of soul searching, and getting in touch with what I wanted and enjoyed, led me back to one to one coaching.

Things are usually easier than they seem

One thing that has really hit me since starting my own business is that when we follow what feels right, even when there is no ‘map’, things fall into place. Since getting accredited as a coach at the beginning of 2009 I have cut my hours in my employed work nearly in half and am now consistently earning an income coaching and mentoring on a self employed basis. That’s not to say I haven’t worked hard and been consistent, but if you had told me that I would be in this position a year ago, I might not have believed you!

Each step leads to the next

I know this is probably obvious, right? But everything I have done has made me who I am today. I am not totally where I want to be with regards to work (full time self employed coach, mentor and writer) but I am definitely on my way. There are a lot of experiences that I look back on, that didn’t make sense at the time but do now.

There is a time for everything

There is a time for questioning and a time for action. I question things a lot and I really think that continual questioning about why I am here has really helped me to be stubborn and not ‘give up’ looking for my passion. We all know people that have given up and settled because they don’t know what they want to do- I have never wanted to be that person. Life is an evolving process, and just because you may not know what you want to do now, or even in ten years time, doesn’t mean you always won’t. We need to keep questioning and learning and being open to discovering our passion. Similarly, it is not a ‘destination’- finding the work we love will evolve. From needing a website for my coaching business I stumbled across blogging and have now incorporated this into my work too. I am sure this journey will look different again in a years time.

Save for your dreams

Saving, and making the most of the money you have, makes a real difference to achieving your dreams. It’s all about priorities. If you want to go back to study, maybe staying in an extra night of the week and cutting back on some non-essentials will help you achieve that? If you really want to achieve something, money isn’t everything, but it does give you freedom to do more of what you want to do.

I have learned, that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” Henry David Thoreau

Jen is a Life Coach and Personal Development blogger who can be found at Reach Our Dreams. You can connect with Jen on Twitter @reachourdreams or if you liked this article then why not subscribe to her RSS Feed?

Related posts:

1. Deviation From The Norm – My Different Kind Of Work
2. Here’s How New Work Pioneers Navigate Their Journey
3. Change Your Career While Keeping Your Job