I’m Betting On Your Authentic Good Sense

November 28, 2010 by · 15 Comments

Have you ever been left with a feeling of frustration and empty promises after watching a video from a big name guru? Here’s the tipoff. If they say it will be packed with lots of content – it usually isn’t.

I wasted about 12 minutes watching one recently because the link came from someone who I used to trust.

But I smelled the stink early and checked the comments and that made me feel good. Sure 90% of the comments were of the brown nosing variety but it was the 10% that spoke the truth.

Some of these guys are so good at repeating the “what” 20 different ways that they confuse you into thinking you missed the meat. You didn’t miss it. Real meat wasn’t served, only the come on.

Then I realized. I already know more about how to treat a seeker than this guy does.

I already care more, share more and know more, than this seemingly well-respected guru was willing to share in his entire 90-minute webinar.

I bet you’re just like me. I bet you’ve read enough and experienced enough to be of great value to many.

I bet you know what’s authentic and what’s bull.

I bet you’re more ready, than you think you are, for whatever big change you want to make.

Readiness is a choice not a state of being.

Who are you when you dream big? Be that person.

I’m betting that you’re ready to make your move, right now. You are the source of your best career change advice.

Sometimes we simply need to quit seeking. Sometimes we need to quit following the guru and become the guru.

How about you? Are you ready to put your authentic good sense on the line? I’m betting you are.

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Exploiting Your Authentic Edge

September 29, 2010 by · 11 Comments

Do you know your authentic edge in the marketplace? Are you exploiting it for maximum value? Your authentic edge is the value that only you can provide in the way that only you can provide it.

I’ve never understood or agreed with those who claim that everything has already been invented, thought up or created.  That belief dishonors your individuality and your unique purpose.

I believe that each of us has an authentic edge that is a combination individual identity, desires and meaning. That combo, when enthusiastically expressed, is your positional advantage in the marketplace.

So how can you best identify and cash in on your authentic edge? This previous post will help you sharpen your edge.

But the best way to identify it, is to boil it all the way down to its core value.  Blow away everything but the three drivers (identity, desires and meaning) and see what paths become apparent when all distractions are removed.

Less is more. Simplicity is more attractive than complexity.  In my experience, the more complex a situation – the longer it takes to change it.

It takes longer because it requires more thought.  Since we tend to over think important decisions, more thought almost always leads to even more thought and costly delay.

If you really want to make the most optimum decision and take confident action use the following formula.

Simplicity leads more swiftly to clarity. >

Clarity encourages decision. >

Decision leads to action. >

Action further clarifies. >

Authenticity increases the probability of your decision being the best decision you could make now.  When it’s your best possible decision, then you are going to be at your highest level of confidence while following through.

Trust yourself.  You know far more than you think you do.

Less is more.   I wonder if my coaching clients would be better served if the only thing I coached them on was how to best identify these three critical drivers?

Identity > Who you are
Desires > What you want
Meaning > What matters most to you

The combination of these three will point to an obvious decision and follow-through actions.  Work it and you’ll begin to see clearer paths.

We all have a major decision to make that we aren’t making.  The best way to make it, is to ask more powerful questions to drive your quest.

What decision once acted on, would best honor who I am, get what I most want and positively change what matters the most to me?

The answer will point you in the sure direction of your highest value, which is your authentic edge.  What’s your authentic edge?

On October 20, join me for this Free phone class  Micro Business Startup Success; together we’ll find the edge of your highest value.

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Make Your Best Business or Career Decision Now

September 18, 2010 by · 17 Comments

Most either delay making tough, important decisions for far too long or decide much too quickly.  What’s up with that?  When did we begin associating discomfort with making the right career or business decision?

Decision-making means that when we say yes to something or someone, we must say no to some other thing or someone else.  Is it simply saying “no thank you” that brings up feelings of conflict?

Is that what causes poor decision-making for you?  Obviously both delay and impulsiveness can cause missed opportunities.

So how can you make your best career or business decision now?  You could call me today for a no-obligation coaching conversation  to see options that you are presently blind to.

Most of us have a major career or business decision to make and we aren’t making it.

I’ve recently come to believe that career decision-making is even more important that career discovery.

You might think that you just have to discover your true calling and all will be well.  But until you act on that calling and live it, you’ll remain unfulfilled.
What I know about you:

  • You know more than you give yourself credit for knowing.
  • You’re closer to seeing the right decision for you than you think you are.
  • You’re better equipped to follow-through than you think you are.
  • Your optimum choice of a business or career decision has already flown across the fleeting landscape of your mind.
  • You just need to validate your right choice and feel the right encouragement to make it.

If you knew the above to be true would you make your vital move now?

 

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Stop Career Insanity

June 3, 2010 by · 13 Comments

Dear Frustrated Right Career Seeker:

Are you vocationally frustrated and confused?  Do you find yourself at a career crossroads without a map?  Tired of guessing and doubting?

If so look into your gut and see if you can believe in the following statement at least 51%.

You came here to fulfill a special purpose and the value of that purpose is best delivered by you.

That means that until you identify and engage your right career, some special group of waiting individuals will be missing the original product or service that only you are equipped to create, in your own special way.

They can’t get what they really want or need, until you wake up and do what you were meant to do.

With me so far? (If you’re one of those special few who is already enjoying career bliss, please email this post to a lost soul of you acquaintance.)

Here’s what’s nuts about the way you’ve gone about finding your life’s work.

You try to be who you are without first knowing who you are.

Your try to do what works without first knowing what works especially well for you.

You try to go for what you want without first knowing what you really want.

Understanding your essential blessing of uniqueness could lead to your life’s purpose and career clarity. No one has a specific core makeup just like yours. But even if you know yourself well – it’s not enough.

That’s why searching for your right career feels like madness. Just knowing who you are is only one third of the right career equation. If you were still a toddler we could bank on that alone.

But you’ve lived some life and that has formed you into a special dynamo of perceptions, preferences and possibilities.

No one has experienced the exact life that you have.

You must not only know yourself as you arrived but know yourself now, as a fully functioning adult.

The trouble is that a lot of the life experiences you remember, are the challenging ones, so you don’t see yourself as functioning well but as the sacred little kid who was unrecognized and under-celebrated.

Understanding this valuable combination of core makeup, life experience and life competency is the key to solving your career/prosperity/fulfillment puzzle.

So the real question is this. Are you ready to end this insanity?

Right career discovery is what I do best. I’ve been career coaching since 1998 and it still floats my boat better than anything else. I’ve written the playbook and I’ve traveled the paths so I can guide you there.

Going it alone is really pretty silly. The trouble is that you are far too close to the challenge to see through the fog.

On this page and podcast I’ve identified 15 blocks that fog your career clarity. Take a look or listen and see which are slowing you down. Perhaps you’ll realize that there is a right career discovery process that works.

In the podcast I explain engaging the process of Divine Coalescence to gather all of your resources and gifts into one workable structure that leverages who you are for the highest good of humankind and for you.

Until now this beautifully empowering process of Divine Coalescence has only been discussed as a concept and as a guided meditation here.

But now I’ve decided to work with a very select group of frustrated right career seekers to put my theories to the test.  You’ll have my special support  in a real life research and development laboratory.

At the very least, reclaim your sanity by valuing your core makeup, your experience and the competency of what has worked well for you.

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Top Ten Tips For A Confident Career Change

May 17, 2010 by · 20 Comments

confident career decisionConfidently making a career change comes first from you knowing and believing in yourself. Assured action then kicks in to confirm the  right move for you.  Use these ten tips to move from confused, doubtful and uncertain to enthusiastic confidence.

One framing, bonus tip before we begin.  Career wisdom most often comes in the form of active verbs rather than final professions. Fulfilling work is more about what you’d be doing rather than what you’re called while doing it.

Too many career seekers try too hard to see the end game.  They first try to identify the profession and that’s wrong.  Trying to imagine whether you’d like to be a butcher, baker or candlestick maker is putting the cart before the horse.

I’ve been career coaching for 12 years and here’s a question I ask every potential client.  “If the best career change for you, happens to be creating your own business, are you willing to seize the freedom of self-employment?”

Any response less than a strong yes, generally means that a client is either unaware of or doesn’t agree with, one of the following career change truths.   If you’re hesitating with a career change decision, carefully look them over.  You’re solution is to understand and embrace the truth(s) you find yourself resisting the most.

1. The absence of risk often indicates that you’re playing too small. There is no such thing as authentically playing it safe.  You can’t compromise yourself into a fulfilling and successful career change.  Getting real has nothing to do with being realistic and everything to do with self-honor.

2. You can’t see around the bend without getting off your ass. No matter how good a career decision looks on paper you really won’t know until you step into it.  You can’t see what doors may open until you walk down the hall.  Knowing that truth will allow you to keep your cool, stay present and observe.  Adjusting actions and seizing opportunities as they arise, can make a once shaky decision a brilliant one.

3. Ease into change or make the big leap but don’t straddle. Straddling the fence is painful because it hurts no matter which way you fall.  Change doesn’t have to be a big leap off the cliff.  You don’t have to immediately quit your job and leap.

Entrepreneurship isn’t right for everyone.   You could even begin taking control of your career and advance your professional goals by earning one of these online degrees MBA.  Some of us love the leap and don’t sweat burning bridges.  Others have more of a toe-in-the–water style.  Be who you are.  If you’re naturally an ease in to it person, be that in your change.  You can start small in scope but remain large in authenticity. One way of starting small authentically is to create an authentically inspired product.

4. You really won’t care as much about the money following. Money doesn’t always follow doing what you love.  However, do what you love and fulfillment does follow.  Once you taste fulfilling work you just won’t care about the money as much.  Then a funny thing happens.  Once you’re not so afraid about making money you become more confident. And money does follow confidence.

5. As long as you choose you can’t really lose. The only way you can make a big mistake is to ignore the longings of your heart and stand pat.  Settling sucks, for a day or a decade.  Don’t waste another day in soulless work. The instant you know in your heart, that you’re unfulfilled, decide to choose another path.

6. Desire = Proof of Capacity. If you didn’t have what it takes to turn your idea into a business or a fulfilling position – that idea would not have come to you. You are enough.  You have what it takes.  You are more than enough to live the purpose you came here to complete.

7. Quit worrying about looking like you know what you’re doing.

Fear of looking like a fool will keep you from getting what you want.  Egbert Sukop.

Few of us ever do actually know what we’re doing.  But we are remarkable beings in our ability to land on our feet.  Every thought you have about what someone else might think of you is pure bull.  They just don’t care that much.  Start being your own authority this minute. What you think about you is the only thought that counts.

8. Find and follow your enthusiasm. Journal. Observe. Take notes of every appealing idea.  If a certain business or career change appeals to you, dig deeper and identify exactly what you find appealing about it.  Look for and record all themes of enthusiasm; they are valuable signposts.  Your life has been nudging you in the right direction.  Open your eyes and notice the nudges.

9. Be sure to imagine the upside. So much of change seems to over-emphasize the downside of what might go wrong.  Remember; the reason you’re seeking a career change is to be fulfilled and happy in your work.  Imagine how gloriously delightful it will soon be to bounce out of bed each morning eager to face the day.

10. It’s all about fit, first and foremost. If you are miscast in your work you are out of place.  Out of place means out of authentic alignment with who you are.  Out of alignment means out of luck and good fortune.  Be authentic and make your own luck by understanding your authentic career change elements.

Which tip do you need to embrace the most right now?

Want to discover your right work once and for all?  Contact Tom for an exploratory coaching session to find your career clarity. 

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Your Best Career Is Beyond Your Comfort Zone

May 11, 2009 by · 21 Comments

Is it inauthentic to do the things that you don’t like to do?  Just because a career choice is challenging does that automatically mean you’ve chosen the wrong career?

I’m writing about our comfort zone because many have confused authentic work to mean something that is such a good fit that it comes easily.  But natural and easy are not the same things.  colorful fireworks show silhouettes

This myth of ease has caused more harm than good because it causes many to question themselves.  This self-doubt makes them stop before they can seize their best career.

Some believe that when we have chosen the right career, (when we are living our purpose) doors easily open and everything falls into place.  I know a few who have enjoyed that level of validation.

But what about those who don’t? Does that automatically mean that they haven’t chosen their best career?

Not necessarily. Things don’t necessarily fall into place for us just because we’ve chosen well. An essential part of choosing well is recognizing the opportunity when we miss the mark and adjusting our aim accordingly.

Until we walk down the hallway of action we can’t see which doors will open.  In 1998 I thought I’d found my best career as an inspirational speaker.  But until an audience member asked about coaching, I was blind to the very opportunity that was my best career fit.

Difficulties are meant to rouse, not discourage. The human spirit is to grow strong by conflict.  William Ellery Channing

We can be completely in our element and still be challenged.

Challenge and authenticity do not exclude one another.

What if things never fell in place for you? Would you quit life? Would you give up entirely?

Consider for a moment, what makes the comfort zone comfortable?  Please just pause and answer this question before reading on.

What make activities fall into a zone of comfort?  I think it’s because we’ve already experienced them before.  They are familiar to us.  In other words when we are in our comfort zone we are experiencing another version of the same past that we’ve already experienced.

In bullfighting there is a term called querencia. The querencia is the spot in the ring to which the bull returns. Each bull has a different querencia, but as the bullfight continues, and the animal becomes more threatened, it returns more and more often to his spot.

As he returns to his querencia, he becomes more predictable. And so, in the end, the matador is able to kill the bull because instead of trying something new, the bull returns to what is familiar. His comfort zone.   Carly Fiorina

Test this theory.  Go ahead I dare you.  Think about a time when you felt totally alive.  Recall a time when you felt a vibrant pulsing in your body and a real sense of adventure.   Were you challenged or were you comfortable?

Were you taking part in a new activity or repeating something you’d already done?

I thought so.  So tell me please, what’s so damned good about comfort? Comfortable isn’t even that much fun.

The couch beckons all of us when we need relief or rest.  Yet comfort is not what makes life interesting.

Life is to be lived flat out in circumstances that arouse.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.  Emerson

Perhaps you already have found your best career.  Perhaps everything you’ve ever wanted is just on the other side of your current challenge.  Dare you persist and see?

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How To Get the Best Career Advice

March 8, 2009 by · 34 Comments

There’s a source of the best career advice available to you but you don’t trust it.  You don’t trust this outstanding career advice because it doesn’t seem like a valuable, little know secret.  Will you trust a career coach, with 10 years of career coaching experience, if I tell you the secret?  istock_000007706240xsmall

You are the source of your own best career advice.

If you’re confused and troubled about what to do, then you just haven’t asked your higher self or you haven’t believed what you’ve heard.

What if you had a loving, wise Uncle or Aunt whose only agenda was your success and fulfillment?  Would you trust him or her?  Well you have such a loving mentor and he or she is your higher self.

Career success requires bold decisiveness and your higher self can inspire you to action.  But you’ve got to be open to communicating with your all-knowing, higher guidance system within.

It’s all good.

You can’t choose the wrong advice, if you’ve gone to your own well.

It’s all good, means that whatever we choose, the movement gives us fresh perspective, to either progress or adjust.  It’s all good when we choose and act.  It’s seldom good when we hesitate to act.

You are your own best authority.

There are many ways to tell if you’re really getting good career advice by tapping your true source of wisdom.  Consider these symptoms and indicators.

Lower Self Symptoms

1). You wait, hesitate to act and over-think critical decisions.

2). You justify, explain and excuse your lack luster performance.

3). You seldom give it your all.

4). You often focus on past mistakes and future fearful what ifs.

5). You compromise and settle for smaller dreams, often suggested by others.

Higher Self Indicators

1). You more often act and create.

2). You tell more truth than excuses.

3). You bring your “A” game.

4). You are fully aware of the power of now.

5). You are working on a first place dream that brings you alive.

Isn’t it time that you quit playing small?  The world needs your magnificence.

Each day, you have this choice.  You can take your career advice by listening to your higher self and boldly act.  Or you can cringe and hide while listening to your little self or the lower fearful opinions of others.

If we are going to insist on identifying with just the little self in here, then others are going to bruise it, insult it, injure it. The ego, then, is kept in existence by a collection of emotional insults; it carries its personal bruises as the fabric of its very existence. It actively collects, hurts and insults, even while resenting them, because without it’s bruises it would be literally nothing. Ken Wilber

If you want more than you have, you’ve been giving less than you can.

We give less than we could be giving, when we fail to act on higher advice.

Our Higher Self cannot take action.  It cannot make choices.  It can nudge us and guide us and hand us painful lessons, but it cannot “make us” do anything.  Andrea Hess

It takes balls to follow bold career advice.  Often by taking action to build a small business or create unique value, we put ourselves at risk.  So what.

The absence of risk often indicates that we are playing too small.

Quit listening to your fearful, lower, little self.   Playing small serves no one.   Compromises may seem prudent but they’re just fearful hopes lacking passion.

You can find your own best path.   A confident  career coach can hold the light steady and challenge you to play a bigger game.  But you are the source of your own best wisdom.

Do the thing that only you can do.  Go big!

Be who you are.  Who you are is your higher self.  You’re lower self is simply a watered down fearful version conditioned by the collective fears of other small selves.

The opposite of courage in our society is not cowardice, it is conformity.  Rollo May

When times are dark and you pray for help, it’s always good to remember this.  Upon creation you were already given all that you need.  You arrived here equipped for magnificence.  You don’t have to ask for deliverance. You’ve already been delivered.

You’ve simply forgotten how magnificent you really are.  Go within, ask, you’re higher self will show you the way.

 

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