The day set aside for the celebration of love in fast approaching. Valentine’s Day is just around the corner. Are you one of the many who will once again lament the fact that you are alone? Are you being proactive in finding your soul mate? Or are you simply waiting for that perfect someone to knock on your door like a door-to-door salesperson?
Steve Jobs and Oprah Winfrey have a lot in common. And they have a lot to teach us about coloring outside of lines, following your own path, and making a difference. Neither of these icons of our era were born with a silver spoon in their mouths. Yet both “made a dent in the universe,” to use Steve’s maxim. Oprah began her life in rural Mississippi. Steve began his in foster care in northern California one week after his birth. Both of them started from what we euphemistically call “humble beginnings” and by dint of their own efforts, became cultural icons and entrepreneurial phenomenon in their lifetimes.
I was talking with a patient recently who said that her mother was the person who kept her posted on family happenings. Since her mother died, she no longer feels connected with the rest of the family because her father does not share information. She realized how dependent she was on her mother for keeping her informed as to family happenings. Her father, on the other hand, is a not forthcoming about family matters. He claims that he does not like to gossip. He takes the position that if people want to know about him or others in the family, they should communicate directly with them.
For many people, happiness seems to be elusive. For others it seems to be a natural state of being. Are some people hardwired to be miserable while others are hard wired to be happy? I think not. I believe that happiness can be experienced by all people. Yes, even those that are down and out can experience happiness. I have witnessed people who live in mud huts within an impoverished village, tenement housing, group homes, and even homeless folks living under a bridge, experience greater happiness in their lives than those who live in multimillion dollar houses and earn six figure incomes. What can these people teach us about happiness?
I think New Year resolutions are a waste of time. They only serve to make us feel good at the time we are making them. We feel righteous. It is a short term feel good. However, in the long run we end up feeling worse about ourselves. New Year resolutions are similar to eating that high calorie dessert; we feel good for the moment and then have to deal with the bulging waistline. As the old TV commercial used to say, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing!” Or similar to overspending on our credit card; it feels good at the moment. The pain comes along with the statement from the credit card company a month later. New Year resolutions similarly feel good in January but feel awful in December.
In my previous two blogs I wrote about finding a job using a different paradigm and engaging in networking. In this post I will be addressing the style and attitude with which you approach the challenge of finding a job especially in a difficult economic market. I refer to it as a black belt attitude. This attitude not only affects how you approach looking for work, but also impacts how you approach your life.
As I indicated in a previous post, networking is the most important skill that you should develop in seeking employment. In a robust economy when employers are competing to find employees, the newspapers are flooded with ads. In today’s world, most jobs are not even listed in the newspapers; they are found by word of mouth.
Since 2008 my life coaching practice has witnessed a shift. In prior years my clients were mostly folks who were interested in improving their life, growing their business, and advancing in their profession. Since the “Great Recession” my clients are focusing on transitioning from one career to another and finding a job after being laid off from their six figure positions.
The old saying, “we cannot control the hand we are dealt, but we can control how we play the hand” is very powerful. Whether it is the economy, illness, accidents, etc., we have a choice regarding how we are going to deal with circumstance in which we find ourselves.
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