So last entry was focusing on the abstract and asking about you-what your passions are, strengths, themes that keep repeating in your life, etc. Today we’re getting to more practical questions. These are just some to consider.

1. What are your pressing financial needs? – If you’re married, crunch the numbers together. Have a discussion about what the non-negotiables are for your daily lives and preparing for your future. Also seek counsel from your accountant or financial planner. What number does that come out to be?
2. What kinds of shifts can you make in the way you live?
3. Where do you need to live? Can you relocate? What are possible locations you’d be willing to look at?
4. If you have children, what do you need to consider about them as it relates to your new job?
5. What is most important to you about where you live?
6. What is the maximum amount you are willing to travel away from home? Commute?
7. Are you open and able to working from home? (Do you have the space?)

Think about how your answers to these questions connect to all parts of your life for the immediate, intermediate and long term goals of your life.

Sometimes we get caught up in thinking in abstract or long term perspectives e.g. where we want to be and we don’t create the stepping stones as to how we’re going to get there. We don’t get specific as to what steps we need to take to get us from here to there.  So a great approach is one that is a blend of immediate, intermediate and long term considerations and choices for action.

How is your job search going? Any thoughts about this step?

Getting Started

As stories of people who are unemployed and finding it difficult to get interviews let alone land jobs, I become more passionate about giving people some basic guidelines to follow to get some traction and action on their efforts to land a job sooner than later. As part of a whole webinar series that I created, I will be providing tips that I’m hoping others will add their thoughts to and share whether their approach is working for them, what they learned, and resources they found that were useful and a good value.

With that, here is my first installment of how you can get there from here…

If you were going to build a house, you wouldn’t just start cutting wood and buying furniture and laying down the landscaping, would you? You’d need to do some planning right? You’d need to make sure you had the right resources in place as well as the right materials you’ll need. To do that, you’d have to do some thinking first. Yes, thinking! We tend to be a “Don’t tell me to think, just give me something to do!” Okay, I’ll get to that.  First, you must do some thinking and I promise you it will pay off. If you just jump in and start doing, your efforts won’t have focus and a useful direction that is relevant to where you want your career to be headed and therefore all your job search efforts. You with me? Okay…

Step One: Take a breath

Remember you didn’t just get here overnight. You’ve traveled a road which I’m sure has had its ups and downs and yet you made it to where you are today… reading this blog! What have you learned about yourself?  Before you start trying to dealing with the big questions like “What am I going to do next?”, you need to get in a productive state of thinking and being. Write your thoughts down. Stuck?  Here are a few suggestions:

• How did you make your way out of tough times in the past?
• What works for you to get you motivated?
• What have you learned about your ability to stay focused? What helps you do that?
• What are your triggers that start you thinking down an unproductive path?
• What have you learned breaks you out of a negative loop of thinking?
• What do you need to keep in the forefront of your mind to help you stay positive?
• Who are those people who are good to put around you who lift you up and challenge your thinking?
• What are you afraid of that stops you in your tracks when you think about finding a job or engaging in a job search?

Anything other thoughts from folks out there? Add them here!

Next entry will be about Taking Stock – the practical questions

Check out more resources at www.shiftinggears.biz

Did you see it on May 2^nd? The Kentucky Derby…the Run for the Roses. If there is anything the story of the 50-1 shot who blew away the field of bigger, more experienced and more money-making horses can tell us it’s that you must never count yourself out. The jockey, Calvin Borel, the co-owner, Leonard Blach and the steed who took them across the tape first, Mine That Bird, taught everyone that great lesson…again. Why do we think we can’t when there are common people all around us who anyone would look at and say…not a chance…and yet they go for it leaving the rest of their competitors wondering, “What just happened here?”

 Mine That Bird. Small in size, was 1 for 32 in races prior to the Derby, was purchased for $9,500 and arrived at Churchill Downs after being carted 1,466 miles in a horse trailer by his owner who drove with his left foot because his right ankle was broken. Leonard Blach was ridiculed, told there is no way his horse would win but you know, he just said…well it’s obvious what he said. More important is what he and Calvin Borel did. They chose to see it differently. They pushed out all the negative talk. Calvin just did what he knew how to do…loved to do…had trained to do…and he never looked back. He focused on the race, guided and trusted Mine That Bird to do what he was trained to do. Despite all the odds, the conventional wisdom, the statistics, Calvin Borel saddled up on this magnificent animal, took his shot and in so doing took his place in racing history.

 Sometimes we feel like the long shot, or our ideas and dreams feel like we have no business pursuing them. Do you let the odds keep you from taking your shot at the winner’s circle?  Tell me what you think….

Gas prices are certainly better than they were when we were shelling out more than $4/gallon earlier this year and while most of us have no problem driving around now with a full tank of gas, some people’s spirits are operating on little more than fumes.

New unemployment numbers came out on 4/3/09 at 8.5% and if that wasn’t enough to drain your spiritual tank another article followed it talking about an actual rate of 15.6% counting those that have taken part time jobs just to make ends meet or who have stopped looking. How can we fill ourselves up to power our engines to find a job, keep our job, raise our family and deal with the financial crunch most find themselves facing? Here’s the first thing you do: Pull your mind over to the side of life’s road and shift into neutral for a moment. It’s time to see how you can merge back into the flow of life. Fill your brain’s tank by building new neural highways that your thoughts can travel that will enable you to see more possibilities and ways to get where you want to go. ” I read a quote recently that says: “When you change the way you see things, the things you see change.” Here are 5 ways to apply that perspective (there are more but this is a start):

1. Unemployment at 8.5%? Change the way you see that. It means that 91.5% are employed. You want to cling to the 15.6%? Okay, that means 84.4% are employed. Still a majority. Take any negative statistic and flip it around to see the other side of it. Notice which one your brain is trained to cling to? How’s that working for you?
2. The Ladders reported in a Newsweek article that there will be over 3 million hires in the six figure category alone this year. (That’s not counting all the jobs under that figure and those who will start new businesses.) You can no longer say, “There are no jobs out there (for me).” or my personal favorite “No one is hiring.” What are you waiting for?
3. Don’t think it’s a good idea to start a new business in this economy? During an MSNBC broadcast in March it was stated that 1/3 of the GDP that is being generated currently is by companies that were started during the last recession.
4. Fill your reservoir with something more than hope as a long term strategy: Think: What else can I do with what is? What haven’t I tried yet? How else can I think about what is happening? Take another picture of what your current situation is and what the larger picture is.
5. The Wall Street Journal recently ran a story on 4/6/09 that spoke to the fact that at a time when business leaders could decide to slash R&D spending, these companies think differently and instead are holding steady in their investment in innovation and research citing that they do not want to emerge from this recession behind the times.

This kind of thinking applies to those seeking jobs in this market. In my in- person workshop series and webinar workshop series on job search, I take time to set the groundwork by giving participants the straight shot: How you think will determine what happens next for you. If you think: “there are no jobs for me out there (for me)”, you have just gone a long way to ensuring that will be the case for you. I encourage everyone to keep your tanks filled by resolving to shift out of a toxic mindset and change the way you see things. There is opportunity in crisis and if you can redirect how you think about it, extraordinary results will emerge.

For those of you who are managers and leaders at any level, it is critical that you walk this not just talk it. Be aware that many people, even those in executive roles, live with a mindset that wraps their negativity in the cloak they call “realism”…as in, “I’m just being real here.” What may really be at play is resignation or, worse, cynicism. Either of these can overshoot the healthy skepticism that all effective businesspeople should possess. I’ll speak more about that in the upcoming weeks.

In the meantime, remember that how we think becomes what we decide which influences what we choose which leads to our actions…and our results or lack thereof.

What are you filling your tank with these days?

Let’s hear what’s on your mind…

This is the first in a continuing series of briefs that I have also made into audios that will last roughly 2 minutes each. They are designed for the executive leader who is dealing with a perfect storm of financial targets, market conditions and emerging demands that he/she must assess, get input from others, decide on a course of action and realize results…all while leading confidently and retaining the most talented among their human resources. I will also place a script of these audios here and I invite you to post your comments and thoughts that other executive leaders like yourself can read, absorb and respond to. I want to build a sharing community that is based on the “wisdom of the crowds”. Perhaps, we can provide new insights for each other and lift all boats at the same time. ‘You First’ is the initial topic for the series I will call The Executive Edge.

I was having this discussion with a senior executive the other day. He is with a large global company and has had to make recommendations to close business units, lay off people, restructure strategies ….on and on. We talked about his frustration with fighting a long-standing mentality among his directors and other employees that is stuck in a loop of thinking that is no longer relevant to the company’s current status let alone today’s market and economic realities. This thinking also and has them making bad decisions. Here’s what he said?

“I keep telling these people what they have to do. Whenever I say something they’ll agree but they think it doesn’t apply to them. It applies to everyone else. So they walk out of the meeting and continue to do what isn’t working and when I ask them why they’re doing this they basically say, Oh I didn’t know you meant me too.”

Can you relate to this executive? Listen to what he said earlier: “I keep telling these people what to do.” That’s it right there. If you continually tell people what to do you deny them the opportunity to build their own critical thinking pathways. So the shift in thinking is: Instead of telling them what to do, what about investing your time in helping them to think. This is going to require a change in You first. If you want to see change in others you have to shift your own thinking first. Are you aware of how you are connecting the dots in your thinking that has you going in the same loops that aren’t working? It’s easy to keep looking outside of ourselves point to people and say, They just don’t get it.” Am I right?

So I’m going to pull back the curtain on the wizard here and ask you a sobering question: Could you be the one who isn’t getting it on some level? Here’s another one. What role are you playing in getting exactly what you don’t want from your team?” The more you tell people what to do the more they will rely on you to do the heavy mental lifting to think up solutions. Consider that when you help people build their own capacity to connect the dots, they will learn how to think in a productive way that supports your vision, strategy and plan of execution that will lead to profitable results. AND by the way, it may free up your time to focus on other matters. So, here are 5 questions to ask yourself and think about:

1. How long has this issue of <blank> been going on?
2. Am I clear about what the issue really is?
3. What assumptions am I making about my team that may not be correct?
4. What am I teaching my team when I keep telling them what to do?
5. What story am I telling myself that keeps me thinking this is how I have to be as a leader in order to get anything done the right way?

These are just some of the questions to get your started. Part of being a leader is developing not just intellect but wisdom to know how, when and with whom to share what you know to build broader teams who can effectively serve the company mission, vision and bottomline.

What are your thoughts? Let’s hear ‘em!

Mark Twain was a smart guy. He said, “I use not only all the brains I have but all that I can borrow”. Mark Twain was onto something when he uttered those words.

Often we try to figure things out by listening to our own thoughts. We get so inside our own head that is filled with good thoughts, information, and intentions. It can also get filled with fear, repeated patterns of thinking and blind spots. It takes the input and collective wisdom from others outside of ourselves to help us to get from where we are to where we want to be.

Today, many people are vascillating between two poles: Scrambling to find their next way of earning a living and being paralyzed because they don’t know where to start or are overwhelmed by the prospect of looking. Executives are also doing their own scrambling: Seeking solutions that run to generating new business, keeping existing business and scaling down costs without compromising customer service and quality of product.

As a business coach, I seek to challenge my clients’ thinking so that they can free themselves from their thought patterns that keep bringing them back to the same place and don’t advance them toward their goal. Worry does that. It lands you right back where you started. I offer something else…a way to think. Thinking progresses you forward toward an achievable goal. When people get scared, they tend to retract, isolate themselves and get stuck in their thinking. Please don’t do that. Reach out and connect! These days that is the most effective and fastest way to success. Connecting with others stimulates your brain to redirect the way you see things and make connections in your mind that will move you toward your goal. Whatever you do, make a commitment to get in the game via social networks, local networks, speaking, blogging, teaching, writing articles…anything that gets you connected to others.

What are your thoughts? Cheers!

Karla@shiftinggears.biz

Shifting Business Coaching and Consulting

“When Goliath came against the Israelites, the soldiers all thought, ‘He’s so big we can never kill him.’  David looked at the same giant and thought, ‘He’s so big how can I miss?’” ~ Russ Johnson

 When stressed or confronted with highly charged issues and challenges, does your thinking sound more like David’s or the Israelites’?

Perspective. It’s easy to lose when there are so many moving parts swirling around you. Eyes are on you to make critical decisions. If you are like many executive leaders, you believe that people expect you to have all the answers. (A myth, by the way…you have to know how to get the answers and work with others to implement them but you don’t have to always think them up by yourself.) You feel the pressure because, quite frankly, you’re looking for some answers yourself…and the silence can be deafening. So when answers aren’t coming; when you feel like your thinking is becoming paralyzed by doubt or fear, it’s time to take a breath. Step back and put some space between you and whatever is scaring you, stressing you, confusing you, and is keeping you thinking, “This thing is so big, I don’t know how or if we can take it down.” 

 Sometimes we can’t get to any solutions because we are so close to the issue, and so intimidated by the possibility of failure. Our thinking is “in the weeds” and we need to seek higher ground to get a fresh perspective and see if we can reconnect the dots in a way that opens up new possibilities to find a solution and new ways of thinking about what is and what could be. Making sure you have clarity is always a good place to start.

 Here are some things you can do to get some perspective:

 Take a break and go for a walk, take a drive, close the door and just be for about a minute or two.

1. If you’re the type who works things out and gets clarity by talking it out with someone then seek them out…preferably someone who usually sees things differently from you and whom you trust. If not, then you alone will do just fine.
2. Picture yourself standing on the top of a mountain and looking out at the entire landscape of which this issue is a part. What do you see, when you notice this issue in a larger context?
3. Ask yourself if you have clarity on this issue.
4. Are you attributing the right amount of priority or importance to this issue? Is it too high or too low?
5. Ask yourself how else you can see this issue. (like David did above)
6. Is there something you’re missing when you assess the situation?
7. When you think about this issue, are there any thoughts that keep popping up that you keep immediately dismissing? Ask yourself what are they trying to tell you?
8. What are you afraid of?
9. Who else should you involve in collaborating with you on this issue?

These are just some of the questions that can help you get some perspective on whatever you are facing and refresh your outlook. There is always another way to look at a situation that seems overwhelming. In the end, how we choose to think about and respond to whatever is confronting us will make the difference between slaying the giant or being at its mercy.