Entries in Career Coach Articles (6)
Career Change - Job Sabbatical Pilgrimage
When clients contact me for help with their career they often experience an explosion of energy, racing ahead and completing their career analysis and career change exercises at lightning speed.
The following enthusiastic Brazilian client read all my career change articles (particularly:
Career Change and What to do If You're Out of Work)
before starting his program and one of those articles became part of the life mantra of he and his wife.
My Job Sabbatical Pilgrimage
There are lots of reasons for someone to do the pilgrimage called the "Way of Santiago" (I will call it - "Camino de Santiago" or just "Camino". My reason for undertaking the Camino was as a spiritual journey suggested by my wife.
With everything in life there is a matter of timing and this was the perfect one as I had just being fired upon return from my holidays after nearly 18 years of fully dedicated Service to the Company that was once my family.
THE CAMINO: One can easily write a book about it as there is so many experience lived there. It is a miniature life. It involves everything you may deal with in life:
The decision to take the time off and "justify" doing it:
PREPARATION: Perhaps a key part of any journey and no different in the Camino.
Dealing with expectations and anxiety: Lots of questions from reading forums and preparing for the good and the bad on the Camino.
Can we walk so much a day for so many days?
Where do we start the Camino?
THE START: Finally being on the way.
The first night and the nights at the Albergue: An experience and a lesson in humbleness.
DOING IT: The walks: Long, short, hot, cold, nice, beutiful, rainy, snowing , climbing, descending etc.
Taking care of the most valuable asset you have: YOU: Crucial so you can walk the next day. Anything can and will happen. You need to rest and be ready for the next day and know how to pace yourself and NOT walk the life of others.
LIMITATION: Respecting your limits as we should in life also. Easier said than done.
The people along the way: Perhaps the best part of the Camino.
Angels, friends, families, finding your group/team, and the others that have different agendas and while very nice also are in a difference time schedule or state of form or mind.
All with a common goal of stopping the fast lane, changing directions or rethinking their ways or existence in life.
LESSONS LEARNED: Too many to write in a few words. Some include that there is a lot out there to be learned on the Camino. We get simplify or complicate our life's as we wish. We can get used to anything and can adapt and change. The only thing we really need is water, food, sleep and love.
The only factor the limits the excitement of our life's is ourselves. There is a lot of good people out there if you just open up to them. The more centered you are, the easier is to find the good in life. We should all stop and do at least one Camino every so often.
THE END: Never an end to the Camino as the Camino de Santiago as it is an experience to remember forever. The Camino may end but the Camino of Life just restarted again hopefully with some lessons learned.
If you'd like to learn more about the 'Camino' then I (Ed) can recommend 'The Camino - A Journey of the Spirit' by Shirley MacLaine, Published by Pocket Books, 2000.
Margaret Stead
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Career Coach - 7. The Transformation of Time
"One of the most common descriptions of optimal experience is that time no longer seems to pass the way it ordinarily does freedom from the tyranny of time does add to the exhilaration we feel during a state of complete involvement."
Note: Julian Beever is one of the world's foremost pavement artists and a plentiful gallery of his work can be viewed here - career change builders
Margaret Stead
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Career Coach - The Daffodil Principle
Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a three hour drive from Birmingham to York. "I will come next Tuesday, " I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally arrived, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Elizabeth! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog.
My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother." "Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.
"I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Elizabeth said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!" "We're going to my garage the long way," Elizabeth smiled, "by way of the daffodils."
Despite my complaining, she drove on. After about 20 minutes, we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand-lettered sign that said, "Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car and I followed Elizabeth down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me stood the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the hill-side and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns-great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow. Each different-coloured variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Elizabeth.
"It's just one woman," Elizabeth answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Elizabeth pointed to a well kept house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster. "Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one."50,000 bulbs," it read. The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain." The third answer was, "Began in 1958."
There it was, The Daffodil Principle. For me, that moment was a life-changing experience. I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure hillside. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world. This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. She had created something of indescribable magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time ~ often just one baby-step at a time ~ and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Elizabeth. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way. "Start tomorrow," she said.
You'll
find SEO jobs at Oaseo.
Margaret Stead
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Career Coach - Job Search Workshops for Gorgeous Girls
Can you imagine being made redundant after working for a company for eighteen years? Since school?
Carol doesn't look too unhappy following my Job Search Workshop designed especially for the team.
You'll
find jobs in
London at Canary Wharf Jobs.com
Margaret Stead
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Career Coach - Finding the Light In Your Career
Once upon a time a man had heard, that in a foreign place, far away, there was a holy flame burning. So he left his home to find the holy flame and bring some of its light back home to his house. He thought: 'When I have this light, then I will have happiness and life and all the people I love will have it too.'
He travelled far, far away and finally found the holy flame, with which he lit his light. On his way back he had only one worry: 'That his light could go out.'
On his way home he met someone who was freezing and didn't have any fire and who begged him to give him some of his fire. The man with the light hesitated for a moment. Wasn't his light too precious, too holy to be given away for something ordinary like that? Despite these doubts, he decided to give some of his light to the one who was freezing in the darkness.
During his journey, a great thunderstorm started. He tried to protect his light from the rain and the storm, but at the end his light went out. To return the long way back to the place where the holy flame was burning was impossible, - but he was strong enough to return to the human being whom he had helped on his way home. And with his light he could light his own again.
Just to remind you that light is one of the few things you can give away to others and rather than lose any for yourself, you actually gain more light in the process. And remember, it only takes a small flame to eradicate a lot of darkness. So may you all be blessed with great light.
Accountant Careers.co.uk provides accounting jobs in the UK via its employment Web site.
Margaret Stead
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Seven Qualities That Make a Good Career Consultant?
CLUETRAIN MANIFESTED - If you don't know where you are going - how on earth do you expect your coaching clients to understand their mission, dream, purpose, mission, goal? A good career consultant has clarity and works their sox off to give the same to their clients.
Many people are attracted by the idea of giving other people advice and guidance - it brings out the 'people-loving' side of even 'die-hard' human resource and employment management professionals who think they might just retire into that role.
DODO FOOD? Just because people you managed in the organization used to listen to you before when you had some control over their lives does not mean that they will pay attention now. You must have something that they would cheerfully pay to hear.
In fact -you need within just a few minutes to build a rapport so strong that the individual will comfortably tell you their life story, unafraid and in total confidence. If you cannot do this now you should not practice on your clients.
Do you really listen, so you can hear even what is NOT being said?
IDEAPRENEURS I want you to listen for the person. Listen for who the person is. It comes from focusing your attention on them and on anything you can learn about them as people.
Here are three ways you can become a better listener:
Become aware of the thoughts that run through your mind when you are listening to someone. Do you get strong thoughts running through your mind such as “She’s right, she’s not right? This is good, this is not good? I agree, disagree?
If you become aware of these filters you can get rid of them and PAY attention.
Most people spend the time they should be listening, preparing what they are going to say - so how can you be listening? Instead of concentrating on what you are going to say - concentrate on knowing the PURPOSE of your listening to listen for WHO the person is.
KARMA Reflect back to the other person something about what they have said or about themselves - this shows the other person that you were really listening. “So what YOU are saying is…”
Understanding where people are coming from and what motivates them is a crucial skill in any career consultant. Make developing your patience, listening and empathy skills a life-long goal.
Has your working self got integrity? Not just adherence to a code of values but does the WHOLE of you stand up to scrutiny?
A building needs integrity to stand tall. If a support pillar is cracked, we say, 'the structure has no integrity'.
MAGIC Identify where your integrity is less than ideal, subtle, or 'gaping chasm' and take radical action to make them whole again. Turn this around and you'll be able to take your client, onwards and upwards.
Teach your clients networking by YOUR example. As you know, it is NOT about numbers it is about the QUALITY of the relationships you develop with people. Networking takes effort, it takes time to build up close contacts and your time must be carefully managed for maximum benefit.
As a good and credible gatekeeper you can take your client's network from zero to easy- maintenance group of supportive experts and potential JV colleagues in as little as six weeks.
BE NATURALLY BETTER CONNECTED Begin now - show them how to use random acts of kindness. Paying for the coffee of the person behind them in a coffee bar, (or opposite on the train) stopping and speaking with a homeless person or dropping by an elderly lady and fixing her light bulb.
MASTERMIND In the exploding world we live in you cannot rely on giving people the benefit of your advice that is built on the 'old days.' (You know when you had a good idea you milked it for as long as you could.) Let it go and move on - old ideas are the victims of diminishing returns. Understanding price, advertising, technology and products, transparency and connectivity are key to keeping you and your client ahead.
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Margaret Stead
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