INSPIRE ME

I am fortunate enough to be inspired by the many things I come across in my daily life. The fact that I am surrounded by many inspirational people is most likely a contributing factor, I rarely have to put any effort into being inspired. 

This week I came across three exceptional women. Two of the women I have known for many years and the third was an absolute stranger who I invited for coffee. As they might be reading this right now, I'll change their names to avoid any embarrassment. 

We'll call them Lucy, Kate and Celie. 

LUCY

Lucy reported to me many years ago and I considered her to be one of the most positive people I knew. She was born with a disability which resulted in a life spent in a wheelchair. When you look at Lucy, you don't see the chair, you see a friendly intelligent woman who has a passion for life. To make her really amazing, she is also a para-olympian with more than one medal! To be any kind of sports person, you have to have strength, dedication, discipline, courage and will, to be a para-olympian you need to have something else. Sheer determination. She has always had that. 

Living in Sydney is expensive and difficult enough, for Lucy to buy a house and get around - her options were extremely limited. But she seized them anyway and made the best of her situation, and is now living in a lovely suburb on the harbour and paying off her mortgage. That's pretty impressive in itself. Bumps have happened along the way which she fought with gusto for a positive resolution; an example is when her ground floor unit had a sloping floor which she was then required to replace soon after buying the place - she took the corporate body to court and successfully managed to have everyone in her block of units contribute to the cost of a new floor. Sheer determination! 

For over a year, Lucy had been unhappy in her work situation. She wasn't being recognised for her skills and was constantly being "managed" rather than coached. When positions were advertised internally for roles she could easily do, she was overlooked without any plan in place for career progression. She felt it was time to become more independent, so she started learning new skills. I'm not privy to the strategy used in coming to her chosen field, however I do know that the course she eventually chose suited her personality brilliantly. She is an easy person to talk to, approachable and non judgemental. She decided to do a course in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Processing). I received an email from her this week telling me that she had finally graduated from her course and was setting up shop on her own, and invited me to lunch in her new office in Bondi. To say I was so proud of her would be condescending, but I can say that I am in complete awe of her and her ability to rise above any issue thrown at her. I cant wait to visit this swanky office and share a glass of bubbles with her to celebrate. 

KATE

Kate has been a dear friend for many years after moving to Australia by herself while waiting for her husband to join her. She adopted me as a pseudo mother figure, and we welcomed her into the home as part of our family. She is one of the kindest people I know, as well as another intelligent, funny, insightful and beautiful woman. Due to her husbands work situation, Kate moved to Singapore a few years ago and established herself within the same organisation I worked for. She was knowledgable and well respected and was living the amazing life of an expat in a wonderful city. Kate was extremely good at her job, but considered there must be more than just paying lip-service to work life balance. With a friend in Singapore, she set up a business women's network who meet every month and have a guided agenda on how to be a strong female leader/business women in todays world. Kate and her friend have done an amazing job and each monthly meeting is swamped with people wanting an invitation, myself included, however I am not in a financial position right now to go to Singapore to attend a session. Instead I read the minutes and newsletters and review their Facebook page on a regular basis. I get their sessions by osmosis! 

After some planning, Kate resigned from her job to start up her own business in Singapore. Its a scary thought to resign and start something new, financially and emotionally. Kate has gone into this with a brilliant attitude and I know she will be another success story. I'm now looking into flight options so I can make it to her opening launch in February.  

CELIE

My executive coach gave me a list of people to contact and practice my networking skills on, so I sent off an email last week to Celie asking if she'd like to meet up and chat about her experiences and perhaps get some advice or guidance on my own job search. 

Celie had returned to Australia over a year ago after living the life in New York in a senior position for a financial institution. Living in New York is a dream of mine, I absolutely love the city and have fantasies about living in a grand apartment overlooking central park, drinking divine cocktails in underground jazz clubs. But I digress. Celie had that life and was made redundant after a couple of years. Her options were to continue to look for a job in NY so she could continue the high life, go to the UK where she had a house or she could return to Australia for the laid back life of an Aussie. Due to the global economic crisis, she decided to return to Australia where she thought it would be easier to secure a position and buy a house. Unfortunately with multiple margin calls, the savings and redundancy was fast becoming extinct.

When she became 'down' about her situation, she would jump in the car with the music up high and drive. One day she found herself in Adelaide. Thats a 20 hour drive! She considered the towns she'd driven through, the people she met and realised that she was one of the lucky ones. Intelligent and with a means to get herself out of her jobless situation. So she drove back again to Sydney to start all over again.

Those people or situations in her life that brought her down, she avoided. She did not want to have a negative influence in her life that would bring her down.

Celie went through many months of job searching utilising every resource available to her, and she eventually landed the perfect job after 12months. Her bank balance was crying and she was almost at the point of moving into her friends spare bedroom. She'd even started to pack her belongings.

She had complete confidence in herself and never let her attitude spiral into depression. 

Celie's job search and attitude mirrored my own, and she was able to give me some fantastic and practical tips on accepting, moving on and how to keep going. Like me, her motto is "never give up".

What I enjoyed most about meeting Celie was her enthusiasm for life - she has an infectious positive energy and the message she left me with was to remain positive with an energetic attitude and have faith that something will happen. 

Every day there will be someone I come across who has the capacity to inspire me. I'm keeping my eyes and heart open.

Stalking Is Such An Ugly Word

What I find really frustrating in my job search is waiting for the promised call, the promised email, or even the promised contract.

I don’t know if I was ever guilty of promising a call or email and failed to do so. Probably. OK, OK, OK, I know I have been guilty of promising a call back and not making it. It dates back to my teenage days when a promised phone call was confronting and I would do everything to avoid it. If a boy called me who I wasn’t interested in, I would ask my mum to lie for me and tell him I would call back. She never lied, a woman of very strong integrity – so I would have to take the initial call and promise a call back pretending I was in the middle of something else. I never did call back. I doubt these boys sat in their mothers lounge room for too long, but nonetheless I had very little regard for the other person by not making that call. Oh, how I have learnt a lesson.

My job search has been particularly frustrating when people have promised a call back (or any kind of contact) and have failed to follow through with it. While I understand other people’s lives are moving a little faster than my own right now, a promised phone is a small action that can have a huge impact. I find myself stalking my own emails (every 5 minutes) and phone to see if I have missed anything.

I asked my executive coach when the right time to follow up is. He didn’t really know how to answer this, but suggested I follow up once only because after that its considered stalking. I’m not too sure I subscribe to his theories, but he’s the one working and I’m not. 

I have been very polite and waited until after the promised phone call to either call or send a polite email to follow up. And then nothing. No returned call, no replied emails..... nada, zip, nothing!

I appreciate that everyone is busy and my job hunt is not all consuming for anyone else but myself, but the simple courtesy of a call or email to let me know either way would make such a huge difference to my day.

Signing off now to check my emails and phone again……

Image by Melissa Galt

Fake It Till You Make It.

There is no hiding from the fact that when you are unemployed, you will go through various forms of negative emotions. It’s only natural considering that your life has taken a new direction and the future is unknown.

I have to keep reminding myself that the lows are always followed by a high, but this is hard to realise sometimes when everything seems against you. That’s why I have adopted a “fake it till you make it” approach - so that when I read yet another rejection email, I pretend that I didn’t really want that job and move on. So far it’s working.

Kubler-Ross developed a model on the five stages of grief which I feel can also be applied to the loss of a job.

Denial (that didn’t really happen, did it?)
Anger (how dare they do that to me)
Bargaining (if only I could have done something different ….)
Depression (I wont get another job)
Acceptance (its happened, now move on)

All of these feelings have value in being able to process a redundancy, with a particular  focus on the end result of acceptance. Managing these feelings can be quite cumbersome if you let them get on top of you, so I have developed some strategies that I try to employ to keep me buoyant when I’m feeling really down.

My daily mantra of “fake it till you make it” is working. Whenever I find myself falling into the trap of being angry or depressed at my unemployment situation, I refer to my list of happy things” and tick them off as appropriate.

Here is my list of things that make me happy and promote my well-being.  (in no particular order)

-          My family (always at the top of my list)

-          Massages

-          Lunches with friends

-          Music

-          Comedy movies

-          Chocolate

-          Exercise (running, pilates)

-          Charity work

-          Reading a good book

-          Walking the dog

-          Travel (oh how I love to explore new places)

-          Writing

Being unemployed also means there is a level of financial burden, so not all of the above can be adapted all the time. This is where I am resourceful.

I have been given massage vouchers by friends and family, so these are in use when I’m stressed. Rather than use them as soon as I get them, I bank them up for a “rainy day”. These just happen to be days when I’ve read too many rejection emails or sat at home waiting for the promised phone call.

Lunches with friends always cheer me up and they don’t need to be expensive. I need to eat anyway, so it may as well be with someone I can share a good belly laugh with.

Exercise is a fantastic vent. My cross-trainer gets a bit of a work out when I don’t feel fantastic - and despite the effort in getting on there and “running” for half an hour, I always feel refreshed and energised afterwards. Exercise release endorphins, the natural happy drug. Its free and very good for working off the chocolate. Walking the dog has the same effect, she loves it as much as I do.  

A good book is a wonderful distraction to the woes of job hunting. I devour books and love getting lost in stories. The same goes with a good movie. Or a decent CD. Putting on a CD in my lounge room and dancing around while no one is looking has become a favourite past time of mine (and my neighbours, judging by their laughter).

On laughing, nothing beats a great comedy.

Participating in a charitable organisation is food for the soul. It brings a sense of self worth, value and altruism that doesn’t come with sitting on the couch and dwelling in self pity.

And when money permits, I like to travel. Having something to look forward to is especially inspiring. It gives me a project to work on with research, planning, organising, booking and finally exploring! The more adventurous the better in my eyes.

Perhaps my “fake it till you make it approach” is still in the denial stage of the Kubler-Ross methodology, but for now its getting me through some tough times so I think I will continue it.

Get Out And Knock On Doors

Back in the old days when life was in black and white and sepia tones, it would not be uncommon for people to type up their resumes and go door knocking for a job. True story (for all the gen Y’s and Z’s). People would dress up in suits, resume in hand and walk the streets looking for a job.

Come to think of it, it’s what I did at 13 when I landed my first job. I really wanted an after school job where I could earn my own money to buy clothes and pay for my own movies; Independence has always been a strong feature of mine.

I borrowed my sisters type writer and went through a few reams of paper. Its not because I had much experience to put down (I was only 13), but typewriters didn’t have the “control z” option and as I was also using carbon paper. I really did go through a lot of paper. If my sister is reading this now - I sincerely apologise and will bring over a ream of paper on my next visit.

After printing off a few copies of my well worded resume, I went to our local shopping centre and visited every single shop. Granted this was prior to Westfields being on every corner - but there were a lot of shops! I asked to speak to the managers and gave them my pitch.

“Are you hiring school kids for after school work” (You didn’t need to say too much back then because of the attractiveness of cheap labour).

I had a fantasty of working in a high fashion store, where they would ask me to take clothes home and try them out. Sadly, I didn’t live in the kind of neighbourhood that had a lot of high fashion shops, but I seriously would have settled for a “Katies” or “Susans” or “Sportsgirl”.

I finally landed a job at a local milk bar selling hot chips, hamburgers and milkshakes. It may not have been the most glamorous position in the world, but I enjoyed every minute of being there. I worked with other school kids and older Greek ladies who gave us motherly advice and fed us most of the food we were supposed to be selling. I went home most afternoons with a bag full of baklava. I also developed exceptional customer service skills and I can still make a mean vanilla milkshake.

But that was then; walking around business to business with a printed resume in hand would not be considered very enterprising.

That’s why we have emails.

After writing a list of companies I want to work for and reviewing their websites, you tube videos and LinkedIn profiles, I have decided to go door knocking by email. I am sensitive to spam, so  I wont be sending off a bulk email with a country full of bcc’s. The generic “Dear..... “ may give it away.

After carefully researching the companies, I am going to write up a proposal of what value I can add to the company. I’m working on my sales pitch.

I also happen to believe the job I will eventually land will be a job that is yet to be created - so rather than go through the HR department, I am going to approach the most Senior Managers I can find because while they may not know all of the positions vacant, they will have an idea on the companies direction and growth.

I know it’s going to be a hard sell, as it was when I was a 13 year old teenager. As a product, I’m still the expert on Lisa and there is no better person to get out there and sell “me” than me!

Thank goodness for that “control z” option!

TYPEWRITER Remington Antique Crop By C. Gilliam Creative Commons 3.0

Dear Me,

Here is a letter from me in January 2013 - to me in January 2012. (get it?)


Dear Me,

Happy New Year once again! And what a way to welcome the year after such an exciting one you’ve just had.

This letter is written in the future to tell you about what happened in your year - I know how much you like to be well prepared being a Virgo. Is it well prepared or anal, or just absolutely organised? Either way, I understand how important it is for you to plan your life, with Plan A, B, C and Z.

So here goes:
Everything is going to be OK. It always is. No matter what is thrown at you, you always manage to come out on top and smiling. It’s your strength of character to find a positive spin on everything that happens. To be able to see life’s lessons and run with them.

2012 will be another great year for learning.

As soon as the fireworks of New Years Eve fizzle and the lights on the Harbour Bridge fade, it’s time to get cracking.

Write your lists. Decide what you want in life and go out and get it because its all there waiting for you.

January will be spent getting back on your feet, cleaning the cobwebs and starting fresh. Sunscreen is a key staple of your handbag, I suggest you also keep a bottle in the bathroom for the kids. Out of sight is out of mind, and those fair skinned children need constant reminders.

Change your cover letters, they sound far too exciting to potential employers. I think you might be scaring them off. Stop applying for every job on seek.com. Most of those jobs don’t even exist.

Your trip to Flores in February will be amazing. Spend this time being kind to yourself. Relax and enjoy the company of John, Tom, Kerryn and Martin. It's the Year of the Dragon - take a lot of photos of the Komodo Dragons and write a travel article. Your guides of Timor Leste and Papua New Guinea were fantastic and served a purpose - a guide on Flores will be just as great.

Children will continue to push the boundaries as they do - and you will appreciate the brassiness of this. And then you will find a way of whispering to them the lessons you hope they learn. They will listen, they’re great kids.

Your husband will be by your side every step of the way, clapping from the sidelines as you mark particular milestones in your agenda.

Friends and family will also be there for you. Nurture friendships and gossip less.

Exercise daily and reduce that sugar addiction you have! January was a great start with the Pilates classes, keep them going at least three mornings a week. What a fantastic way to get your body moving and starting your day right.

Chocolate is not your friend. Water is.

You will get a job! It will be with a company who is proud of a positive culture, who is keen to develop staff and who appreciates your love of travel. Every day will be different, something new to learn on a continuous basis. Your leadership will be valued - make sure you continue to bring fresh ideas to the table because they will be welcomed. Not everything will go ahead, but that’s OK because you were brave enough to present them.

Your year will end on a high, so put a bottle of Moet in the fridge right now.

Appreciate the little things that 2012 has to offer. Embrace life and continue to have faith in yourself. You are an intelligent person, warm and caring with so much to offer.  

Above all, be happy.

Me. xx

War and Peace

Last night I watched the epic movie War and Peace based on Tolstoy's novel.

I didn't plan on watching it and I didn't really have the three and a half hours to sit in front of the TV, but something on the cover caught my eye and I couldn’t resist. Perhaps it was Audrey Hepburn in that lovely dress, perhaps it was the word: Peace, or perhaps subliminally I could relate with my own journey of unemployment. Whatever it was I sat down and only hit the pause button twice.

The love story was beautiful, the unexpected happened but was always there. But as love stories go, I have to say I was disappointed. Audrey (Natasha) ended up with whoever was left over, an older man who was on his own journey after a life of debauchery and chaos. Not that she was pure of heart, she had been influenced and led astray by a sleazy fool while she was engaged to a lovely noble man, the Colonel (Andre).

The story of war and battles intrigued me. Suddenly I understood that ambiguous cliche of “winning the battle but not winning the war”.

This is my employment journey - I lost the battle but I am determined to win the war.

The battle for me was trying to remain focused in my job while there were bombs going off all around me. Some of those bombs were aimed at me, and most of them missed. I was well protected by my army and my leadership was strong. The enemy however was stronger and in the end - the enemy won the battle.

I left that job a little battle scarred, but much less naive. A learnt lessons in that battle that have made me a stronger person, a better employee and far more focused leader.

Who did I relate to in the story? Probably Andre - reliable, hard working and focused. He might have died in the end, but lets face it - we all do. He went with honour and courage, qualities I share.

Trying to find a job is not exactly a war, but it does require a well thought out strategy. Today I sit in my war room with pen and paper to “nut it out” and think it through before executing it. My war room happens to be a comfy couch at the local coffee shop and my army are my network of friends, family and associates including my executive coach and recruitment agencies.

With that kind of an army - how can I lose?

Photo by http://www.flickr.com/photos/snapies/

The Spider in the Network

A spiderweb is an amazing structure made by one spider. Intricate and strong and very well connected. It can withstand rain and sunshine while protecting the spider. It also serves as a way for the spider to protect itself from birds as well as catch food.

To me, networking is like a spiderweb: In my world, I am the spider in the centre of the web and my network is my support structure around me. Everything I do in the centre of my web effects those around me in some way, so I need to ensure I look after my web and in return it will look after me.

A bit loose on the analogy? Perhaps, but when you really think it, it has legs. Hopefully more than six.

During my search for a job, I have been told several times that the most successful method of landing a role is through networking. 70% of roles secured in 2011 were through networking, followed by 10% through advertisements. With those kind of figures, I am placing a greater emphasis on networking.

It really got me thinking about how many people might be in my own network. At first guess I estimated I knew more than 100 people. When I put more effort into my research, I could easily fill up a spreadsheet with over 1000. Friends, family, colleagues, team mates from sporting activities, friends I’ve met through travelling, children’s friends parents, people I’ve met in coffee shops, on buses..... the list goes on. I may talk to a lot of people, but the reality is each of us will also have an impressive network.  

It’s what we do with this network that’s important; we have a choice to nurture it, or abuse it.

I’m not going to go out and ask my 1000 contacts if they have a job for me because not only is that wrong, but by applying direct pressure to my network I am also damaging it. Like a spiderweb, once the damage is done its hard to repair.

I am however going to let my network know that I’m looking for a new role, because each person in my network knows more people (lets say 1000) - who also might happen to know 1000 more people and all of a sudden my network has expanded to 10,000,000 people.

I choose to nurture my network by keeping in touch with people, meeting up, sharing knowledge and helping when I can. To date I feel well protected by my network where people I know have helped me with introductions, references and generally keeping in touch to see how I’m going.

I’m not normally a fan of spiders, but the ones that make webs are clever little creatures.

Passion

Most people with full time jobs can expect to spend on average 2000 hours per year working. That's for those people who take their 4 weeks annual leave and don't look at emails after hours. Add to that the hours some people put in by staying back, working weekends or even think about work long after they've settled into bed. That's a lot of hours in one year to be doing something you're not passionate about. 

Another fact: The average person spends 5 years in one job, thats 10,000 hours. Need I say more? 

In my search for the perfect job, I have added to my list that I want something I can be passionate about. It ranks up there with challenging, travel opportunities, well paying and close to home. I want a job that inspires me to inspire others, where I can leave at the end of the day and feel great about what I've achieved. The big challenge here is to identify what makes me passionate. Besides my family and a love for travel, I love developing people (staff), leading people, growing an organisation, humanitarian issues and great customer service. I'm sure there is a role out there that I will be passionate about, just as I was about my last role. Its merely a matter of when.

I had this discussion not long ago with my teenage son when he was required to select subjects for his senior school. He had an amazing choice of 67 courses he could chose from which ranged from the strictly academic to the outright quirky. I wanted him to make a choice of subjects that he would love learning and could get passionate about because he was going to be spending a lot of time doing them. If he found something he was so passionate about, he might even be able to turn that into a career, something he could spend time doing for the rest of his life. While he is a very smart young man, he is also very creative and athletic. He loves to draw and paint on anything that isn't moving, and he absolutely loves getting fit and playing sport. He chose his subjects based around these passions and he's now really keen to go back to school and get into them. In fact, he's so keen that when I invited him to join us on a 3 week adventure, he refused because he didn't want to miss out on anything at his new school. Or he could be pulling the wool over my eyes. 

Until I find my new career, I will continue to focus on the other areas of my life that I am passionate about. Good coffee, Akira dresses, Max Brennar chocolate and spending time with friends and family. 

Just Keep Swimming.........

There is a lovely scene in the movie “Finding Nemo” of Dory, swimming along the channel and singing to herself “Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming….”

How easily this little mantra can be adapted to finding a job. I particularly relate to the positive message in reminding yourself that if you keep going you will reach your goal, whatever that may be.

When it comes to job interviews, the more the better. Practice makes perfect so the first interview you might go for will most likely not be the one that lands you a job. I was given some very sound advice when I first started my job search career (yes, this is now my full time job), to apply for roles that I was over-qualified for or not interested in - purely to get an interview for practice.

The first interview I went for I was so nervous even though I didn’t really want the job. I stumbled over my words, I forgot important skills I could offer and I literally acted like “Dory” with memory lapses and dotty response. In the coming interviews my technique improved dramatically because I practiced.

I like Dory the character, she swims with sharks! While she may seem to be a little dotty, she’s actually quite focused and insightful. 

I’m enjoying the swim.

No NY Resolution

Statistics show that by this time of year 30% of all New Years Resolutions have failed. By the end of January, 60% of resolutions have failed and by the end of the year, 90% of well meaning people will be complete failures.

I’d like to say this is the reason I have not made a New Year resolution for 2011/2012 - so that I am not setting myself up for failure. But I can’t. To be honest I have never made a resolution and I'm not about to start. 

This New year however, I am fortunate enough to have an open book filled with blank pages: read “opportunities galore”!

Instead of writing down a list of tasks or personal promises, I spent the days around the turn of the year reflecting on my last decade, the good, the bad and the God awful truth.

The Good
- My personal development in my career was astonishing.
- I travelled to parts of the world I would ordinarily have avoided (or not known about).
- I met amazing people that I now consider life long friends.
- I developed skills in areas that will see me through until I decide to retire. If I retire. 

- I appreciated deadlines and budget.

- I got to know what hard work was all about.

- I became a team player.

- I learnt to juggle a stressful job with a family.

- I learnt how to be calm in the face of a crisis. 

- I learnt how to influence people. (entry level to C Level) 
- I learnt about leadership. Good leadership and styles of leadership to avoid.
- I learnt a lot about myself, my strengths and weaknesses. (not that many!)
- I learnt how strong I am.


The Bad (I'm undecided if this really is bad)
- I saw a side to large organisations I thought only existed in Hollywood movies.
- I realised I was completely naive.
- I met people that taught me tolerance. (we’ll put that back up there with the good).


The down right ugly/facing the truth
- I allowed myself to be dependant on an organisation/role/paypacket.
- I thought I was indispensable.

So my new year may not have been a time of making promises to myself that I probably would not have kept, but rather a time of reflection with goal setting on what I need to do to improve for my next role.

My book is slowing being filled, and I am looking forward to filling up the rest of it.