Career Change & Executive Coaching

Almost everyone describes flow experiences as involving a series of activities that are aimed at a specific and challenging goal, are bounded by rules and could not be accomplished without the right skills.

So for instance playing chess or the flute, cooking, driving, singing in the bath are all times when we might feel at one with ourselves. In many spiritual arenas the analogy would be with 'living in the moment.' Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi says "Enjoyment appears at the boundary between boredom and anxiety, when the challenges are just balanced with the person's ability to act."

"When all a person's relevant skills are needed to cope with the challenge of the situation, that person's attentions is completely absorbed by the activity. There is no excess psychic energy left over to process any information but what that activity offers... they (people) stop being aware of themselves as being separate from the actions they are performing.

Similarly Buddhism encourages us to work with this fleeting nature of life. Buddhism teaches that life, however brief, should be lived fruitfully so that there are no regrets. By emphasizing that the present moment is of paramount importance, Buddhism defines this moment as both cause and effect. It is the only moment of life that can free oneself from the effects of the past and at the same time project oneself into the future.

    "The reason it is possible to achieve such complete involvement in a flow experience is that the goals are usually clear, and feedback immediate." Feedback varies given the nature of the goal or activity. Where goals are not clearly articulated in advance, as in some creative endeavours, an individual must have a strong "personal sense of what s/he intends to do." 

"One of the most frequently mentioned dimensions of the flow experience is that, while it lasts, one is able to forget all the unpleasant aspects of life. This feature of flow is an important by-product of the fact that enjoyable activities require a complete focusing of attention on the task at hand - thus leaving no room in the mind for irrelevant information."

Research mentioned by Daniel Goleman in his book 'Emotional Intelligence' reveals that children who learnt a skill that enabled them to experience a 'flow of consciousness' were more successful in later life.

"...the flow experience is typically described as involving a sense of control- or, more precisely, as lacking the sense of worry about losing control that is typical in many situations of normal life. "...what people enjoy is not the sense of being in control, but the sense of exercising control in difficult situations. It is not possible to experience a feeling of control unless one is willing to give up the safety of protective routines."

Have you ever thought about having a career coach? Too much money? Too intimate? Too busy? Too much hardwork?

Did the idea of entrusting one professional with the responsibility of tackling the entirety of your random career put you off? Well now you can use my experience and skills to coach yourself!

Learn how to career coach yourself with my seven easy tips. It is not rocket science - otherwise how could I ever do it?

Here is an example tip:

Tip 3. Meet Your Own Special Wise Person

In your imagination you can return to your own special place anytime. This is your secure retreat. You will always be safe and happy here.

As you get to know your place you may wish to see a special person as your guest. It can be a person you actually know or someone you imagined. You can consult with this person, as you might consult with a coach and he or she will always be available to answer your questions and to share your problems.

It is very simple. Imagine the person who might be your coach and ask them your question. During the day dream you may receive an answer or you may receive your answer at unexpected times during your working day.

You will learn to trust the advice you are given. It is after all, only you harnessing your creative energy to give yourself advice! You are more likely to listen to and act upon the advice of someone you admire and respect.

You can use this technique at any time, but especially in when you are preparing for negative or difficult situations such as answering questions in an interview.

Working with my clients, I always help them mentally rehearse an interview by imagining the scene, the structure of the interview process, likely questions and wonderful answers, fielding the difficult questions, like 'Why were you made redundant?' and asking questions that at once reveal more good things about you whilst finding out important information about the role and what's involved.

By practising eventual success, you will have the confidence to face anything. Learn more about career coaching yourself.

Get the latest on diversity issues in the workplace at Diversity Jobs.

If you have signed up for my FREE report 'Change Your Career with a Blog' you will already know that I've been JV-ing with New Media Guru 'Robin Good' (a.k.a. Luigi Canali de Rossi) whose site 'Master New Media' is Top 200 on the web (according to Alexa.com)

Robin 'Skyped' me the other day and asked me If I was ready to record an interview and HE would be asking the questions. 'Yep, ready to go, make them easy' I squeaked in reply. So as you'll tell from the recording and transcription of the interview - he made the questions easy! (OR, so I'm told, because I've got to confess that I daren't listen to what I said in response to his first question: "How old are you?") Answers on a post card.

Business Blogs Good For Seniors As Personal Marketing And Visibility Enhancers: An Interview with Margaret Stead.

"Blogging can prove to be an effective and highly rewarding business strategy for senior executives and retired professionals who want to keep themselves involved in their field of interest. Blogs can indeed be effective instruments for personal promotion, PR, networking and for showcasing one's own career, abilities, completed projects and much, much more. Margaret Stead, a professional communication and career consultant in the UK, thinks the..."

If you'd like to learn more about how CEOs and companies can use blogs to communicate successfully with their staff and customers, then enjoy the CEO Blogs of over 150 CEOs worldwide in my new Captain's Blog. (beta)

Captain's Blog is currently a Blogger blog but we will be charting it's journey to fully-themed, own domain WORDPRESS environment, over the next few weeks. Watch this space.

Did you know that the Wall Street Journal coined the term 'Glass Ceiling,' twenty years ago and ever since researchers have debated why women seldom reach the highest ranks in business?

Do you think it is because senior men exclude women from their 'locker room' networks? Or do women look above the ceiling and decide that life is too short? My fifteen years work as a fully- credentialed Business Psychologist specialising in careers has revealed that the answer is both all and NONE of the above!

You may have seen a new study of 1,200 executives by Accenture in eight countries that shows 70% of women and 57% of men believe there is a virtual 'glass ceiling' that prevents women reaching the boardroom. So what is causing women to 'duck' out 'at the eleventh hour'?

There's even a new book by Warren Farrell, 'Why Men Earn More' that lists 25 reasons why he thinks men earn more than their female counterparts. "Women make sacrifices at work in exchange for greater happiness in their lives as a whole," says Warren Farrell, author of 'Why Men Earn More.' One of the reasons he says is because "Women work fewer hours."

Any woman reading this will know, that whilst they may qualify for fewer 'Payroll' hours - because they have to fit their family responsibilities around largely 'unfriendly' employment practices, they do invariably put in MORE work than the man at the next desk.

In fact many employers will freely admit that they like to hire women, because they work HARDER than male employees.

No, I believe that women 'hit' a glass ceiling because they ARE better than the average Joe and I can prove it.

You see in fifteen years of coaching individuals through a 'forced' career transition, I have noticed that people leaving corporates are often brighter, more creative, more confident, more independent than the people they leave behind.

In fact I believe that companies paradoxically 'get rid' of their 'best' people. This is telling in the psychometric assessments we have used for fifteen years with every career development clients.

We have found that our male and female managers are significantly more intelligent than a comparative sample of individuals studying in a prestigious business school. The men score 8 IQ points more than the mean, women up to 10 IQ points!

Furthermore, our personality assessments and aptitude tests find them more creative, more confident, more independent than 'perceived wisdom' about redundancy 'victims', might have us suspect.

In fact many of these women are setting up in business to offer coaching back to the corporate who let them go!

If you wrote six wishes in a notepad do you think they would come true? I read recently that Noel Edmonds "Thinks they will," he has found his wishes coming true - including the latest - wanting a home in France.

Noel is a follower of the cult for 'Cosmic Ordering Services' a book by German author - Barbel Mohr who believes that if you form clear cosmic wishes and ask the universe in a special way, those wishes WILL come true.

Well in the West Midlands a unique and magical book of wishes is already making some dream come true. Paul Tronson, a Master Bookbinder of Wootton Wawen, Stratford Upon Avon, Warwickshire and his partner, Margaret Stead, CEO of CareersNet.com and a self proclaimed 'Dream Architect®' have just completed the ultimate in 'Wishes' books for you to write in - and they call it 'The Guardian Angel'.

Margaret and Paul have been using their version of this formula successfully for years. "In many ways we create our own reality with our expectations. Many of my clients have six or seven figure dream jobs, in dream environments following our work. Learn More

Margaret teaches, that it is particularly powerful if your dream 'makes a difference' for others. It helps too if you can describe your wish in the present tense, using an active verb, for example: 'I am improving the quality of...' and, importantly, you must WRITE IT DOWN!

Margaret adds a warning though, "You have to be careful of what you want, because you will surely get it!" Now where have we heard that before?

An important aspect of asking the universe for your cosmic 'wishes' is that it may very well fulfil them in ways that you never expected or might have wished for! Margaret strongly advises caution when formulating your wishes. "My Mum has been suffering from a form of Alzheimers for several years and she had been becoming increasingly distant and more and more immobile. My simple heartfelt wish was that my Mum's health should improve.

In fact, her health improved markedly, to such an extent that my Mother became for the first time 'aware' of her incapacity and this was a truly terrible revelation. "We've learnt the hard way that it is important to clearly state your wish and set well-formed outcomes."

That's why Paul created this extraordinary 'Guardian Angel' binding for a Wishes book. It is blessed and the writing's protected by more than twenty angels, whose seals and sigils are gilded in 24 carat gold. (He says "The 23 carat gold leaf refused to 'Take.'") Each seal has been empowered in the day and hour of it's planet. You can learn more about the seals and their meaning by visiting: http://periodfinebindings.typepad.com

Paul is creating these 'cosmic wishes' masterpieces as commissioned works for well-paying clients from across the world. Now you too can have the opportunity to have your wish included in the 'Guardian Angel.' All you have to do is write down your six wishes and select the most important one to email to us: periodfinebindings@googlemail.com or write to the address given above. We will choose one lucky winner whose wish we will hand-write into the Guardian Angel. What is your #1 Wish?

Don't Trust Your Career Counselor!

Learn Direct! How Can I Help You?As CEO and Chief Career Coach for CareersNet.com, I see teeming hordes of people wanting to change their career. Trouble is 99% have never been given a clue how to go about it.

The problem is most Career Advisors haven't got any idea either. Ask yourself: "Who advised you at school, college, university, at the job centre? As Dilbert once said 'Would you trust your career counselor, if they worked that hard?"

I've been on both sides of this equation. While I was unemployed I worked very hard at presenting myself well. When I've been the recipient of resumes, I realised that many career change artistes fail because they put themselves first, rather than first addressing the problem. In fact, I cannot remember a time when an applicant first thought of what I might want or need before telling me what a great guy or gal s/he was, thus sounding like every other 'Knuckle-headed loser." - "I'm great take-me."

Every recruiter and prospective employer thinks that the NEXT person they see is going to be the 'One'. They want you to be the 'One'! In fact, somewhere, someone is desperate for you to be the 'One'. Believe me.

That's why producing a blog, a two minute job, is a fantastic vehicle for your self promotion, because first - you have to find the problem that you can solve and become the 'One' that they are looking for.

Below, I share my Top 10 Tips for creating a blog that helps change your career. Enjoy, and do pass these tips along to those who you feel would benefit from reading them.

1. Think Content: If your blog contains rich relevant content, you will keep your audience returning for more. Well thought-out position statements that run counter to business as usual are another avenue to explore in the content arena.
2. Visualize Your Audience: Don't write for a "demographic." Too many press releases seem to be writing for some vague audience. Personify the reader(s). Imagine them reading your blog or 'a lift from it that a reporter might use.' If you can't visualize this, start over.
3. Optimize Your Blog for the Search Engines: Everyday, more people get their news from Google News or Yahoo News and the like. When writing your blog, think about the keywords your target audience uses to make up that filter. Don't overuse those keyword phrases, but don't ignore them either.
4. Try New Circuits: Don't just use the same old search engine directories you've always used. (but don't neglect them either) I've recently gotten much better bang for the buck by using RSS feeds as part of the service for no extra charge that results in "links" with more blogs and other sites syndicating content via RSS.
5. Be Quotable: Say something that is not part of the daily drone. That PR clutter can be your friend so long as you say something relevant and different that breaks through it.
6. Get Help: Many blogs are terrible because they're written by individuals obsessing about themselves. Get help with discovering what makes you tick and how you can use the strengths you undervalue.
7. Be Tough on Yourself: After you have drafted your post to your blog, before you submit it - read it as if you never laid eyes upon it. If the headline was a subject header in an email, would you open it or delete it? As you read through the copy, where do you start to lose interest and start thinking about supper?
8. Jump Page: I sometimes offer 3 out of 10 tips or trends within my blog and a live link thereafter for readers to jump to my site where they can read the remaining 7 tips. Very effective.
9. Create News: Much news is manufactured, not only for B2B but B2C as well. Creating an event that you can repeat annually, such as a competition or review of something interesting to your target audience, can generate traffic for your site for many years to come. If you establish a "Hall of Fame" or some other perennial competition, you're likely to also create a clamour for other firms to be heralded in your final results that will be announced in your blog.
10. Track Your Results: See what works best by tracking your results for days after your blog has gone out. Any blogging service worth it's salt should offer you this feature for little or no extra. Furthermore, you yourself should search for citations of your blog in the major blog search engines for days after to see how well it has propagated.
11. Bonus Tip: Edit, Edit, Edit. With the onslaught of so much information coming at all of us, editors and readers alike are less and less patient with puffery and prose that don't get to the point quickly. As Net Guru Mac Ross advises, "Make every word work hard."

See my new book Change Your Career With a Blog! and receive (If you like) a five day at no charge. ecourse!

Tuck this in the back of your brain, sounds like something we should all be aware of.

Heart Attack Procedure: NOT A JOKE

Not every heart attack symptom is going to be the left arm hurting.

Be aware of intense pain in the jaw line. You may never have the first chest pain during the course of a heart attack.

Nausea and intense sweating are also common symptoms. 60% of people who have a heart attack while they are asleep do not wake up.

A cardiologist says if everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people, you can be sure that we'll save at least one life. Read this... It could save your life!!

Let's say it's 6.15pm and you're driving home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job. You're tired, upset and frustrated.

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home.

Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.  You have been trained in CPR, but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness. However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. 
A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds without let-up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again. Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.  Tell as many other people as possible about this.  It could save their lives!!

A call today on our Redundancy Hot-Line started us thinking again about the contradictory implications of old legislation - on new rulings on Ageism, due to come into force in October 2006.

Last October when the government started consultation proceedings with stakeholders there was general dismay because there was no promise to cleanly alter existing ageist legislation. And Boy! is there a lot of it.

Did you know that you cannot claim bereavement allowance if you are under 45? Age 44? -You have had it?

Likewise the arrangements for redundancy payments are in age bands. They are already some of the lowest payments in Europe, but currently, if you are over 64 you get even less, over 65 and you get nothing! Learn more about redundancy payments for senior people.

It's as if someone who hated his parents was put in charge of drafting all the legislation and he is determined NOT to change it.

"After all, they'll have other money coming in like pensions, nest eggs and disability benefits - won't they?" Fine Print.

People have become the prime source of competitive advantage in virtually every profession. Competition for the brightest and best will be fierce among the best companies.

They will be on the hunt for knowledge leaders, those candidates who are intelligent, educated, comfortable with technology, global, and well-versed in profitable business operations. Learn More: Change Your Career With A Blog.

Cindy Kraft from Coaching Tips says "Understanding your brand is the foundation of an effective career management strategy and communication plan. If you are currently caught in the vicious and oh-so competitive job search cycle right now, long-term career management may not be your top priority".

Regardless of your present situation, however, she says "Long-term career management is critical to your long-term success." Haven't I been saying this forever?

Understanding your brand … your unique promise of value to a prospective employer … leverages your strengths and thus, positions you as an A-player. Being an A-player though is only the first step. If no one knows about you, why would it matter?

She cites a recent survey by Korn Ferry - 36% of its respondents indicating cultural fit is key in the hiring decision. However, If you don’t know what drives you, how will you know if you will be a fit?

In a job market that is destined to become even more competitive, to clarify this critical tool creates market differentiation and quickly becomes the advantage marshaled by candidates who are, and will be, in high demand by employers. Witness John's influential blog here.

Whenever we are unhappy with something we can be very black and white – often painting the situation with a broad brush, rather than taking time to look at the detail. In reality there are probably both good things and bad things in your job. Of those there will be somethings you can change and some you cannot.

If you analyse the component parts of your role it will take you out of the ‘victim’ mode and ready to do something about it. (Whenever someone who is already in a job – comes to me for coaching we always work this thinking through before any other changes are made.)

Once you have some thoughts about what you love doing and what you love doing you can start to think of some ideas for possible changes to make to your work and work environment. Ask yourself

‘What do you enjoy about your current role? Does it turn you on in the way you think it should? How can I do more of those things? What are some of the things I can change without radically moving my career capability?’

Don’t be afraid to include strange and uncommon ideas at this stage – like any brainstorming you should try not to rule out any options unitl you’ve had a chance to think them through.

When you relinquish responsibility for your career to an employer you rely on them – like some ‘fairy godmother’ to look after your interests and when this entirely mythical entity does not reveal himself you can start to become dissatisfied with your role in life. The fact is that YOU have to take responsibility for your career.

In fact sometimes it is as simple as becoming more passionate about what you do. If you want to make a change you have got to take control. You cannot wait for other people to make these important decisions for you.

If you do you will be disappointed, I promise. Start taking small steps right away to make things happen. If you fell stuck, then inaction will only make you feel more out of control.

This is the ‘Old count your blessings scenario,’ and you will have heard it before.

A great way to do this is to stop reading about ‘Doing more exercise’ and start doing it.

Don't just think about having your own coach - You know it makes a sensible investment. Call for a chat now +44 121 706 1623.