JSSB is all about gaining clarity around what you want out of your career and out of your life, and making a commitment to make it happen in 2011. This 8-week group course is designed for professionals involved in or beginning the job search or career transition process. We will walk through clear, organized steps on how to plan and execute a successful job search strategy that will bring you closer to finding that job that resonates with you, and allows you to do work that you love! When you sign up you will also a receive a free 30-minute individual coaching session with Dana.

* Build clarity around your passions, talents, and interests, and how to leverage those to find work that you love.

* Create your personal brand, live it and communicate it clearly, and create a solid online and offline personal marketing strategy.

* Create your best resume and cover letter from the perspective of a seasoned hiring manager.

* Learn new and efficient ways to expand and leverage your network of contacts, and access the hidden job market.

* Understand how to access and leverage the best job seeker resources for your industry, including LinkedIN.

* Prepare for your best interview by understanding what hiring managers are really looking for, and how body language, intonation and verbiage affect your performance.

* 30 minute one-on-one coaching session with Dana, to evaluate your job search strategy, goals and progress.

Program Includes:
-8 weekly 2-hour interactive workshops in NYC
-Small group setting to personalize the process to your interests
-30-minute individual one-on-one coaching session with Dana
-Unlimited email access
-Coursebook reviewing all of the covered topics and for tracking individual progress

Register now! Seats are very limited so as to keep the group small and personalized to members.

An astonishing 45.3 percent of Americans are “satisfied” with their work, according to a survey for the Conference Board Consumer Research Center released last year. And don’t forget that nearly 10% of the country is unemployed (how can we?) on top of that, bringing the percentage down even more. And while I intend not to make this into the ‘Debbie Downer Career Hour’, I’m simply being realistic. Are we truly satisfied with simply being satisfied?

Where do you fall? Granted, I can’t fault anyone for wanting a snow day. I want a snow day. My fiance wants a snow day. My cats want a snow day, because that means they’ll get to eat lunch at noon instead of 5pm. I would be excited too. But regardless of whether or not Mike Bloomberg pulls a miracle and the F Line is running on schedule to/from Brooklyn, I’ll be working. And that’s okay…because I love what I do.

Most people come to me because they don’t love what they do. Or they know what they love, but are having trouble translating it into a career. Something tends to happen when I start working with clients. The first couple of sessions we spend putting some terrific ideas on paper – clarifying their passions and talents, and how that translates into a profitable career, giving their resume a makeover, clarifying their personal brand, building solid networks of strategic partnerships and contacts on and offline, and basically working the the entire job search strategy into a finely-tuned machine. And when we have all of the tools in place…they wait for something to pop. For some, it’s immediate, and that’s fantastic. For others, they still have a little ways to walk before they find the right job for them. And that’s okay. Because too often we are focused solely on the end goal of achieving X when the process deserves just as much attention and energy. If we are focused on one sole outcome, we ultimately set ourselves up for failure. This is why for every career coaching relationship there is almost always an element of life coaching that comes into play. Think about it – how do we take on such an emotionally and energetically-charged endeavor such as a job search, a career change, navigating unemployment, and keep our energy, our motivation and our confidence running at peak levels? It is hard, but possible when we focus on the process instead of the end goal. You can’t focus on how many days are potentially left until you leave one job for another, find that perfect fit, or get an offer letter. Instead, celebrate and congratulate yourself on each step you take towards positioning yourself as the best candidate and the best version of yourself that you can be. Outside of that, it’s out of your control.

It’s just a fact of life that even if you are the perfect candidate you may not get the job. There may be someone slightly less qualified than you but a better fit when it comes to the department budget for salary and benefits. And guess what – the CEO’s niece just graduated from Rutgers and even though she has no interest in advertising, she needs a job and Bobby media guru owes his brother-in-law a favor (because he never did spill the details of their Vegas bachelor party trip back in ’86). Besides, she knows how to use Facebook, and that automatically makes her a Social Media Manager. Back in the day such practices in church & state were referred to as nepotism. Today, in corporate America it’s called standard practices in human resources.

Of course that’s a rare example (that I’ve seen happen). But doesn’t that also illustrate so well why over 70% of job are attained through networking?

So you’re doing everything right, but still feeling like things just haven’t fallen into place yet. That’s okay. When I was recruiting for Digital People back in 2005, I met a fabulously talented Creative Director who had worked with some of the best advertising agencies and clients throughout Europe and the US. This was right when the print world was going largely digital (and had been for some time), and everyone in Boston wanted superstars of the interactive world on their team. Unfortuantely, in 2005, people who had been designing Flash applications and mobile websites for 10 years didn’t exist, largely because neither did that kind of media in most of mainstream America’s households. My amazing new candidate, as senior-level and fabulously accomplished across 10 different countries as he was, was mostly a print guy. I sent him on interviews with top agencies in Boston and New York, and alas, nothing panned out. One night we went to a record release party (he’s an amazingly talented musician as well), and as we sat at the bar talking shop, he joked with me, “Dude, find me a *%&#@! job.” Eight months later he ended up leaving Boston to pursue a new job out west. It wasn’t for lack of trying, and certainly not for lack of talent on his part. It just wasn’t meant to happen in Boston. And he certainly never looked back on his under-employed time in Boston as a waste. We’re still good friends to this day. It was simply a stepping stone in the process towards something better, and he eventually found it.

So the answer isn’t always obvious. What seems like the right job, or even the right career at the moment, isn’t always that. What seems guarenteed, never is. The world is sometimes simply devoid of logic. And if you only focus on the outcome of the process, you will likely be disappointed that it didn’t turn out the way you had hoped or anticipated it would. Because rarely does it ever. But if you live life one day at a time, committed to yourself and your higher goals, committed to simply taking the actions each day that you can to best position yourself for the success you intend to find, then honestly, that’s enough. If you truly believe you are doing the best that you can, then congratulate yourself; stop berrating yourself for not yet being at point B, and allow things to unfold naturally, because there is just an element of uncertainty to life. And sometimes we mistake uncertainty for unfairness, and we waste our time trying to find that non-existent logic of why things are happending the way they are, why we are stuck in a job we hate for several years because we can’t get our dream job, or why we didn’t get what we wanted, when instead we should be looking for the opportunity in each situation. And trust me, there is one. Always.

I challenge you to try this: Make a commitment to yourself to just simply do and be your best each day, and trust that the rest will fall into place. My mom would always tell me in her slow, factual teacher voice, “Surrender to the limitations of the day.” And then she would tell me how she wrote it on a piece of notebook paper and stuck it on the fridge. Again, as always, my mom is right in hindsight. Don’t get caught up in the what if’s (“what if I’m miserable/disrespected/underpaid/laid off/still unemployed in six months). Because I have seen it happen hundreds of times with wary freelancers who were afraid to take a full time job because they had always imagined their careers being something else, or vice versa, and 6 years later they are still doing the work they love…and being paid handsomly for it! You cannot control the economy. You cannot control the HR department at Agency Awesomeness, who you desperately want to work for. You can’t control the actions of that a$$ you went on six dates with who, for no reason, never called you back. He/She and HR now have something in common. Give yourself permission to brush both of them off, because they no longer server you. And even when the choice to simply deal with a situation seems like the lesser of two evils, remember that it is still a choice.

So go ahead and enjoy the snow day tomorrow. And even if a snow day to you simply means another day of job searching, just with a white background, enjoy that you’re putting yourself out there as something new, rather than hiding from something you’re unhappy to be. Or worse…satisfied.

With the closing of 365 days and the opening of another 365 ahead of us, this is the time of year where we sit down and evaluate what we’ve accomplished, what we want to accomplish NEXT, and maybe even how we plan on doing that, once the champagne and clam dip has worn off, come January 2.  It’s a time to remember the importance of gratitude, and to honor accountability.  Who or what are you grateful for, and what were you able to bring into your life this year by keeping yourself accountable to your own personal fulfillment & success?

For me, it was building this business into a successful, exciting brand that I love.  It was completing my professional coaching certification with IPEC.  It was expanding my network with literally hundreds of fabulous new friends and colleagues, whom I respect both professionally and personally.  It was a number of personal successes in my relationships, my friendships and my overall sense of personal wellness.  I also discovered a new-found love for sour pickles, fromage d’affinois and skirt steak, and I learned to drink coffee for the first time in my life. And despite all that, when it comes to matters of the heart (he he he)…my blood pressure is still damn near perfect.  Cheers to that.

We also got two cats.  This puts me in a situation of partial responsibility for two other beings outside of myself.  The fiance showed me how to clean the litter box, as well as brush the cats’ manes.  I’ve never owned cats before.  I say that I “have” two dogs, but really they live with my folks in New Jersey, where my only quasi-obligation to them is to stop feeding them table scraps because I’m such a sucker for fat, whiney dachshunds.

Regardless, I think I’m doing well with my new feline companions.  And with that said, it’s really important to recognize and celebrate the small accomplishments.  So often we seek validation in the bigger things we set out to do, yet berate ourselves whenever we fall short of our lofty expectations. And we’re always our own worst critic.

A friend of mine moved to England this year from New York.  Right now he’s berating himself for not yet having a job, and certainly many people in the US as well share that same sentiment.  Unemployment is a difficult state in which to end the year and spend the holidays.  But remember that the state of your career does not define who you are within.  Your job (or lack thereof) is not what builds the social circle, or family, or relationships, or creative talents that you possess.  Those come from a little known place I like to call… “the soul”.  While my friend certainly faces the challenge of being an American citizen looking for marketing work in London (any leads welcome, btw), he also carries into 2011 all of the friends and relationships he built in his time there, and the fantastic accomplishment of uprooting and starting a brand new life overseas.  What an amazing thing, one that I can say I never did.  Then again, some people in Manhattan basically consider Brooklyn overseas.  I’ll count it.

I’ve sat down with a number of people this year to help them navigate one question: “What next?”  What’s next, and how do we get there sooner, rather than later?  How do we stop putting off our lives, start believing in ourselves, start INVESTING in ourselves?  As one of my faves Dale Carnegie puts it, “Stop worrying and start living.”  I realize that’s more than one question.  However, you will find that when you sit down and start to answer “What’s next?”, the answers to everything else start to formulate.  If you’re a visual person like me, and you want a more structured version of what this thought process might look like, I received an email from Marsha Egan this morning with a great example.

So…what’s next?  It’s time to finally congratulate yourself for whatever small (or large) successes you have had this year.  Because the existence of challenges does not automatically translate into an absence of accomplishments. Everyone has challenges, at even the highest points of life.  As my mother liked to remind me, “It never ends.  There will always be challenges, it will always be hard in some way.  But you can’t let that stop you.” I used to ask her when I could expect life to get easier, when I was 22 and broke, and sometimes I wish she would have at least had the decency to lie to me so I could get a good night’s sleep.  But she’s right, there will always be challenges, and with that, there will also always be opportunities to overcome those challenges.

If you’re like me (again), and need some kind of physical validation of this concept, try this.  Think of one challenge you’ve overcome this year, think about what resources and inner processes you called upon to overcome those challenges, and then think about how you can use that same process to overcome something you’re struggling with right now.

And don’t worry about resolutions.  Resolutions are nice…for the first two weeks of the year.  And then we forget about them.  Why?  Because we can’t possibly know on January 1 everything we want to accomplish and how we’re going to evolve over the next year.  We can’t know what curve balls life is going to bring, and how that might derail us.  And maybe it “derails” us to something better that we never even thought about!  Make resolutions if you want, but maybe it makes more sense for us to know what the bigger picture of our life purpose is, and be willing to hold ourselves accountable to taking the next steps to achieve that vision.

I don’t think it would have done any good if my mom had actually lied to me and told me that life gets easy after your twenties.  Because I would come to realize she was wrong…and a liar.  And even with that knowledge, it didn’t make the road any easier to travel, but that’s alright.  Because with each passing year that I spent the days leading up to New Year’s Eve conversing with people about how we’re ‘so glad this year is finally over!’, I made it into January with a smile on my face, without any major injuries, and with no one [for the most part] despising me.  Sometimes that alone is a success in itself.

If you think about it, this doesn’t happen with any other job – projects are still due, time and staff still need to be allocated to the appropriate tasks, and someone has to field the phone calls and emails when customers or clients need a last minute request fulfilled on before the new year.  In most cases, a true, dedicated professional wouldn’t think of leaving the office for vacation, knowing there’s a ginormously important meeting at the start of the following week, and allowing the materials for such to remain in rough draft on their hard drive.  It’s just common sense practice, and covering your own butt.  Because honestly, I want to have a few cocktails and several pounds of homemade meatballs this weekend, not an anxiety attack.  If I’m going to be making excuses, they’re going to be around not wanting to go anywhere near Manhattan on New Year’s Eve, and not why I didn’t take the initiative to polish off my to-do list before 5pm on the 23rd.

You’ve heard people talk about how job searching is its own full time job.  And the good thing about that is that you’re basically your own boss.  So from one sole proprietor to another, I can say without a doubt that being able to understand and practice accountability is by far one of the most important skills involved in being in business for yourself.  And without a doubt, the same principle applies to the “business” of job searching.

However…nobody expects you to be pounding the virtual pavement with resumes while you’re counting down the ball drop.  Nor do you really want to, let’s be honest here.  When you’re looking for work, particularly around the consumer-centric holiday season, it’s easy to feel guilty about wanting to take a break and actually enjoy the season with family and friends.  So given all of the advice to keep the momentum going during the holidays, where does it really make sense to focus your job search efforts, and what can you realistically expect to get accomplished?  If you have a clear idea of what you want to hold yourself accountable to, as well as where you want to establish the boundaries, you’ll be in a great spot as you ring in 2011 – both to see results, and do a little celebrating!

Interviewing

While some people think this is a great time to get an interview because your competition will be slacking off, that’s not the case.  I was a recruiter, and I have a number of friends and colleagues who still recruit for a living, and every one of them will tell you how difficult it is to get a candidate in any door at the end of December.  Even existing interviews have to be rescheduled, and new interviews are pushed off until the new year.  Because when HR brings you in to interview, they want to maximize time and have you meet multiple team members.  And someone important is always on an early flight to spend Christmas in Miami.

Networking

Holiday parties are a perfect excuse to network effortlessly while still enjoying yourself!  Your reputation doesn’t take a holiday, so make that work to your benefit.  Get on LinkedIN, get on your email, and take advantage of the fact that people will not only have time to read your emails, but potentially even respond to them.  Make new connections, or seek out the people who work at the companies you want to, and ask them what they like about the place.  Everyone loves to talk about themselves, so give them the opportunity to do so, and they might just give you good information.

Researching

Continue to do your research. You may not see a ton of new jobs posted after mid-December, but this is a perfect time to research companies you want to work for, and job titles that interest you.

Applying

Continue to send your resume out, but be strategic about it.  If there’s a company you’re dying to work for, sending your resume via job board may cause it to sit idle in an inbox that’s not tended to for 2 weeks while Johnny HR Manager is in Maine. And as a result, you may miss your shot at being seen.  In some cases, it may make more sense to use this time to build your network strategically and reach-out to others in your industry, so that come January, you’re ready to send your resume & cover letter to an actual person at that dream company who already knows vaguely who you are.

Know that in the same way that some companies want to use up their remaining hiring budget for 2010 and go on a hiring spree in December, others are conversely totally tapped out, and are purposely waiting until January to start fielding candidates for open positions.

Reviewing Your Results Thus Far

-Take stock of where you feel you’ve been missing the mark up to this point.  Are you striking out on interviews?  Is your resume not getting you interviews in the first place?  Do you have no idea whatsoever how to use LinkedIN and other social media?  Do you only attend networking events for the free drinks? Perhaps its time to reach out to someone who specializes in assisting job seekers in these areas, like a career coach.

Don’t feel guilty, and similarly don’t go overboard. Just as you would do in any other month, be strategic about how you go about your job search.  There are benefits to the slow-down of the holiday season, and of course there are disadvantages.  If you know how to make the most of each and plan your actions and expectations accordingly, then go ahead and enjoy that champagne – you’ve earned it.

Happy Holidays, and here’s to empowerment, success and positive results in 2011!

Photo by Brent Nelson (Flickr)

expertise is and why you are qualified.  Often an “Objective” statement tends to focus  more your own interests as the job seeker, while a “Summary” statement communicates what you can bring to the table in the targeted role for the organization.  Why should they hire you, essentially?  This is communicated by highlighting the most relevent strengths, skills & core competencies that are unique to you as a candidate, versus a trait or skill that’s an industry or professional standard (i.e. “multi-tasker” or “team-player”).

A cover letter basically addresses similar points, but in more detail, and allows for a certain amount of personalization to shine through.  The Summary statement should be approximately 4-6 lines and speak only to your professional background, and not address any outstanding circumstances (employment gaps, change of career, personal experiences, etc.).

An effectively branded Summary statement reads like this:

ADMINISTRATIVE PROFESSIONAL
Multi-faceted, efficient & reliable administrative professional with 10+ years of experience supporting executives, sales and managers to improve internal operations for small businesses. Proficient in all of the standard office desktop software, CRM applications and design programs. Diversified skillsets covering administrative support, client relations, writing, human resources & recruiting, account management and project management. Excellent inter-personal, phone and digital communication skills.

PROJECT MANAGER
Seasoned project manager with 5+ years of print project management experience and knowledge of web production obtained from positions in educational publishing, consumer packaging, and financial services.  Professional, flexible, creative, and service-oriented.  Offering a unique combination of creativity and analytical skill with the ability to assess both vantage points to create cost-effective solutions for internal and external clients.

CEO
Hands-on executive officer known for strategic  and focused approach, with extensive accolades for limiting risk, creating lean teams, and establishing creative strategies for optimizing internal operations, financial returns and external customer service and output.
Notice that in all three examples the candidates touched upon a couple key elements:

• core strengths & skill sets most relevant to their role
• past relevant experience with key functions
• notable accomplishments that they intend to repeat in the next role

Note with the administrative professional, they included the last line focusing on “Excellent inter-personal, phone and digital communication skills.”  In some roles, say a web developer, these skills could easily fall into the irrelevant “EVERYBODY has those” category, and basically do nothing to sell you over the next candidates. Because by your early 20s most people have a solid grasp of the English language, and how to craft an email.  However, as an administrative professional, it’s important to highlight those skills because effective communication is an important part of exceeding in a role where you’re generally the first face or voice people encounter at a company.  So while you normally want to avoid the generic skills that most anybody would lay claim to, a good general rule of thumb is this:  if it doesn’t serve to promote you in a unique and relevant way, leave it off, or replace with something more powerful.

And sure, I’m probably still wearing my theoretical red and white hockey jersey and beaming with alumni pride for my alma mater, but I read this blurb and I had a thought.  What are we each doing today, socially, professionally and creatively, to build our own legacy for tomorrow? What do we want that legacy, and our impact on our community to look like?   And how can we take steps to start forming that today?

In an age of instant gratification and having the world at our fingertips, many of us tend not to look 40 years ahead in the future with real clarity, or even regard.  But at the same time we have higher goals, or vision, of what we want to create for ourselves professionally and personally, than extend beyond tomorrow.

Speaking of alma maters, last weekend I attended my 10-year high school reunion.  As I sat pondering scenarios of what everyone would be like a decade later, I said to the fiance, “Everyone’s going to ask me if I”m still

Could have been a great comic book artist.

drawing.”  Because that’s the legacy I created for myself  earlier in life, since the day I was able to hold a pencil.  I had good grades, stellar rollerblading skills and one terrible haircut circa late elementary school, but my artistic abilities were what people remembered about me, what stood out above any other  accomplishments or shortcomings.  I’m approaching 30, and the image I inadvertently created for myself at 10 still sticks like glue.  And it always will, and fortunately for me it’s a legacy I’m sincerely proud of.

At that young age, it would have been hard to fathom creating something so lasting and impactful on our idea of self, given our minimal life experience on earth as children.  Now as adults, it’s easier to understand how reputation and character are formed over time, by the actions we take and the decisions we make.

So what influences all those decisions and (re)actions?  When you think about your vision for your career, your relationship, your life, chances are the vision you have for yourself extends several decades into the future, simply because we want to build lasting, fulfilling results for ourselves that we can continue to build upon.  It’s okay to stumble along the way and find happiness & fulfillment by accident – many of us do.  But for the other many of us, we value careful consideration and planning when it comes to the direction of our personal and professional lives.  And while chance and unforeseen events will always be a part of that pathway, much as we try not to deviate, it’s important that we check in with ourselves regularly to make sure what we’re doing and creating is truly keeping us on that path toward our higher vision.

Because it’s easy to get sidetracked by both intrinsic and extrinsic factors, to make bad decisions or take impulsive actions.  But what we can do when we recognize that negative shift is remind ourselves how committed we are to that vision, how important that legacy is to us, and then get back on the road.  Whether the vision is 4 months or 40 years ahead of us, keeping it in plain view each day will allow us to keep focus and create action and decisions in accordance with attaining that.

So what is your vision for living the best possible version of yourself? When you’re living that life, what kind of legacy will that allow you to create, and what will that say about you?  Food for thought, for the weekend.  Mmmm.

Speaking of both gratitude and optimism, I found my pants.  The laundromat, trying to be helpful, removed them from the rest of the pile after they realized they were still damp, and tossed them into the dryer for an extra cycle.  Unfortunately, they forgot to take them out, and they ended up in some other Brooklynite apartment, someone who was nice enough to return them to whence they came.  So thank you, whomever took the time to do that.  It’s the smaller gestures that can truly brighten someone else’s day, or your own.

Little things are important indeed.  Little ways in which you communicate, in which you present yourself, in which you brand yourself – they’re little, yet they can make all the difference.  For example, I hate when candidates have “Objective” statements on their resumes.  I tell everyone to remove them and replace them with a 4-6 line “Summary” statement.  Why?  Because an objective statement communicates what YOU want out of a company, as if they’re bringing you into their office to interview you so that they can fulfill a favor for you.  A summary statement communicates your strengths and core competencies, and instead presents the idea of “Here’s what I can do for YOU…Mr. Hiring Manager at Company X”.  It seems trivial, but sometimes a trivial detail is what separates you from the  new hire.

Here’s another one. When you’re thinking about communication, especially in the professional sense, remember this: Only 7% of your message comes through via what you actually SAY.  The other 38% is intonation and the remaining 55% is body language.  So you might have most well-crafted answers to every interview question in the history of man, but if you’re going to look down at your interviewer’s shoes, or around the room, speak incoherently  and lace all your sentences with “like” and “um”, you might as well throw in the towel right there.  Same deal if you walk in smelling like smoke or heavy perfume.

Because sometimes a trivial detail is what separates you from the new hire.  Details are important, and unfortunately ten years of fantastic experience and accolades won’t necessarily overshadow 1 hour of careless, hasty  judgment.

Here are a couple of details to keep in mind whether you’re starting or already knee-deep into your job search:

• Invest in at least one interview-appropriate outfit, and make sure it fits in with whatever the standards of dress are for your industry.

• Do a quality-control check on your resume Summary (or Objective) statement – what message are you communicating?  Is it about YOU, or about THEM? (Hint: It should be about how You can HELP them.)

• Do not use BCC or CC fields when emailing your resume. You should be sending it to one person, if possible, and tailoring it to fit the company and role to which you are applying.  Yes, it’s more time and effort-intensive, but far more likely to yield a positive return.  No decent recruiter or hiring manager will ever reply to an application that is generically blasted to multiple people at once- it shows lack of initiative.

• In addition to attaching your resume and cover letter as documents, include them in the body of your email.  I realize computers never fail and the chance that the file might not open correctly is slim… but you never know.

• Creativity is great, just not when it comes to fonts and formatting on your resume. Likewise, unless you’re Stan Lee, keep Comic Sans out of your professional email signature.  Ariel, Courier, Times, Verdana or Calibri are all safe bets.

• Set your Facebook profile to private, for God’s sake.

• And then Google yourself. Be fully aware of what information about you is available to the greater public and what messages are being communicated.  This effects your personal brand as much as your LinkedIN profile does, so keep it professional.

You can tell yourself that all you like, but it doesn’t change the fact that I’ll be shelling out another $70 that wasn’t planning on for new pants.  And the worst part is that I’m petite – and curvy.  It’s hard enough to buy pants when you’re a petite woman, but throw the fact that I didn’t inherit the stick figure gene like the rest of my family into the mix, and shopping becomes a whole other party.

This morning I debated storming into the dry cleaners and making a giant fuss about the situation.  I went so far as to call my father to vent; his highly  conservative views often come in handy when I need someone to back me up on the various injustices of the world, and then promptly leave the conversation at that. The fiancee was already at work, and it’s his birthday, and the last thing he needs is to hear me screaming at him over the phone about how I can’t find my pants.  There’s a much better context for that discussion, at a different time & place.

And then it occurred to me that ruining someone else’s day on top of allowing this to ruin my day was the biggest injustice of all, and ultimately gets me no closer to finding my pants.  <sigh> Why do I have to be so wise?

One of the things I always tell clients who are trying to wrap their head around why negativity has seemingly taken over their lives, is that they’re greater than whatever the situation – meaning they’re not defined as a person by the outside events that come into their lives.  They are defined, however, by how they react to them.  We cannot control the workings of the world, the weather, or the actions/reactions of others.  But we can certainly control our own perspective on things, and how that affects the actions we take and the commitments we make.

I wrote down a brief description of what the pants looked like on the front of my original receipt copy, which sat in a book attached to 300 other receipts.  And that was it.  I’m not too hopeful about finding my pants.  But there are plenty of other pants out there to wear, and maybe that’s the answer- to suck it up, recognize the situation for what it is and take the opportunity to step into a different pair of pants that fit me better; leave the old ones behind.

And isn’t that what we do automatically whenever seemingly injustices come into our lives, and we want to blame, and scream and get angry?  Sometimes we do those things, but in the end we automatically move on, because what other choice is there?  It’s human nature’s survival instinct kicking in when we force ourselves to keep going.   If we refuse to define ourselves by our disappointments and instead look at the underlying opportunities, we invite success and happiness into our lives.  If you didn’t get that dream job you had interviewed 4 rounds for, it’s okay to feel disappointed and angry.  But then let go of that negativity and allow yourself an opportunity to replace it with something more positive – perhaps an understanding and trust that there is something better around the corner that is coming to you.  And when that opportunity arises, that old story of disappointment will be long forgotten.

Who needs pants when you’ve got gratitude?  Don’t focus on what’s been given (or not given) to you today.  Instead, allow yourself to focus on what you can give back from that situation, and react from a place of gratitude and not a place of grief.  Trust in what comes next, and the higher reasoning behind things.  Gratitude as an attitude.  I’m going shopping.

Photo by Zen on Flickr

“Live to work, or work to live,” he asked.  “Which one do you think is better?”  And my gut reaction said ‘work to live’, because isn’t that why most people go to work, to afford themselves the lifestyle they want, and live it?  And then I realized that most people go to work because they basically have to.  Some people don’t have to work, and they still do.  Regardless, the objective of a person who ‘works to live’ isn’t necessarily the same as someone else who would categorize themselves that way.  I might work to live, and by live I mean scrape by and pay the bills, versus live a certain quality of leisurely lifestyle.  The same holds true for the  ‘live to work’.

That’s when things got confusing.  When the choices are either “one of the other” it doesn’t leave you much room for compromise.  Perhaps we don’t work to live or vice versa, we just work AND live, and the goal for most of us is for both of those actions to be beautifully in sync and complimentary to one another.  And if they’re compliments, then neither one specifically drives the other, or serves as the means to the other end.  You just do them both, and you do them well, hopefully with a smile on your face because you have integrity around what you do each day.

He started telling me a story about a toll collector in California who had been collecting tolls for decades, and had some bigger dream of doing something else that he had continually shelved in return for making a more immediate living for his family. He was one of those people you really wonder what internal switch they have that everyone else lacks.  And they flip it on each day, and suddenly their outlook on life is 100 times more positive than everyone else’s.

I’ve never collected tolls myself, but one might assume it’s not the most exciting of occupations.  And this fellow probably understood that logically. But our emotions often come from a place separate from logic, and in turn those emotions influence our perspective and opinions based on feelings, rather than factual thought.  Like so few people, this man approached each day of his job, which was probably far more identical to ones preceeding and following it than most could tolerate, with a smile on his face and integrity around what he did.  So much so, that every one of the thousands and thousands of cars that drove through his booth were greeted with the same grin as he joked, “Big spender today, eh?”  And that type of welcomingly   unexpected cheer and humor in such an unlikely place became contagious, and sent driver after driver away down the highway with a chuckle and a smile.  So it makes you wonder what was really in a day’s work for him – just collecting tolls, or a contribution on a bigger, more human level?

“My ideal version of work-life balance is where what you do for a living is fulfilling and satisfying to such a point that you feel no less excited on a Tuesday than you are on a Friday,” I said.  Because let’s face it, most people rush their way through the 40+ hour work week in anticipation of the weekend, their time away from the place where they spend nearly 40% of their waking hours!  They rush through slightly less than half of their life, just tolerating everything.  Somebody please tell me how we’re expected to move ourselves forward toward our ultimate goals when our main source of fuel is tolerance.  It won’t happen.

“You’re no less alive on a Tuesday than you are on a Friday,” he said. And something about that simple statement glowed like a fluorescent light bulb.  Because he’s absolutely right. The universe has no concept of whether it’s a Tuesday or a Friday, a weekday or the weekend, only what we do with that information in terms of our actions.  The Beatles gave their first ever live performance in America on a Tuesday, on February 11, 1964.  It was a Tuesday on April 15, 1947 when Jackie Robinson made history with his major league baseball debut for the Dodgers.   And on a Thursday night November 9, in 1989 was the fall of the Berlin wall.  Most of Berlin probably stayed home though because they had work the next day.  That, and who the hell are the Beatles, anyway? [I kid.]

Great things happen in the world and in our own lives, no matter what day of the week it is.  And when we expend our mental and emotional energy wishing away so much of that time, what is that saying about the way we’re conducting our lives, and our work, each and every week?  Are we happy with our contributions?  Are we fulfilled by what we’re doing?  Are we wasting our days week after week going through the same old motions of doing something that holds minimal purpose and brings little if any positivity to us and to the rest of society?

It’s inevitable that there will be points in your life where you don’t have your dream job and maybe don’t love, or even like, what you do.  But are you at least doing something that is moving you closer to that greener pasture, whether it’s gaining experience, making contacts, saving money or simply learning about yourself?  Maybe it’s not WHAT we do each day that matters as much as how we do it and why.  And when you think about it that way, it leaves a lot of room for improvement.