48 Days to the Work You Love Revised Edition

A man of character finds a special attractiveness in difficulty, since it is only by coming to grips with difficulty that he can realize his potentialities.

Affliction produces endurance, endurance produces proven character, and proven character produces hope.

“Is there still time for me to make my life count?” Recently I met a 27-year-old who asked me this very question. “Please tell me,” he continued, “that just because I started as an attorney doesn’t mean my life will be filed away. . . . Encourage me to find a motivating desire once more. I think I’ve lost it.”

Is it too late for this misdirected 27-year-old? When do we reach the point of no return and have to settle for the life we have chosen or had chosen for us?

People are increasingly saying, “I still don’t know what I want to do when I grow up.” And this is coming not only from the 20-year-olds but from those in their 40s and 50s as well. People often say this with embarrassment, but the search for clear meaning should be a continued one for each of us. It’s healthy at any point to draw that line in the sand and ask, “Who am I?” and “Why am I here?” If you are still living out your life based on decisions made when you were 18, you may have reason to be concerned. Things have changed. You have changed.

From 1920 until the mid-80s, getting a job with a large company was the dream of most every young American. The unwritten agreement between the corporation and the employee was, If you work for us throughout your working lifetime, we will take care of you.

In the 1980s this unspoken contract disintegrated. Twenty million blue-collar workers, many of whom had spent their entire lives working for one organization, were let go. What happened? Fifty years ago, it took a lifetime for technology to make your job irrelevant—now it takes only 4 to 5 years.

U.S. Department of Labor statistics state that 50 percent of the jobs we will have in the next 6 years have not yet been created. StaffMark, the national temporary-staffing agency, predicts that in the next 4 years, 50 percent of the workforce will be contract labor. The most recent U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics (www.bls.gov) show that in the period from December 2007 to November 2009, there were 5,187,170 initial claimants for unemployment, or 216,132 each month. The average person now has 10.8 jobs from age 18 to 42, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Thus the average length of a job in America is now 2.2 years. That means that in a 45-year working span, a person can be expected to have 18 to 20 different jobs. We are now told the average length of a job for someone in their 20s is 13 months. These changes require that each of us develops a clear sense of who we are and where we are going. Otherwise we will feel victimized by those changes. Here’s how these facts negatively affect us:

• 34 percent think they will burn out on the job in the next 2 years, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

• There is a 33-percent increase in heart attacks on Monday mornings, according to the Los Angeles Times.

• More people die at 9 o’clock Monday morning than any other time of day or any other day of the week, according to the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• There is a 25-percent increase in work-related injuries on Mondays, according to Entrepreneur magazine.

• Male suicides are highest on Sunday nights, with men realizing that their careers—and possibly their finances as well—are not where they want them.

The good news is that small businesses are adding more than 2 million new positions annually, far outweighing the traditional job losses. Yes, these jobs may look different; they may not come with a company car, 401(k), and medical benefits, but they are exciting new opportunities.

In a recent workshop, the terms for being “let go” became the center of attention as participants shared their stories. It seems no one gets fired anymore in this politically correct work environment. Back in 1995 a person got “fired.” By 2000 it was “laid off.” In 2005 it became “downsized.” In 2010 a person can be “rightsized,” “restructured,” “reorganized,” “reengineered,” or “put in the mobility pool.” I hear that many people are being freed up to “pursue other opportunities.” In this computer age, some people are being “uninstalled” and receiving their termination notices via e-mail. One lady shared that she had been on the receiving end of a “cost-containment exercise.”

The coldest term I have heard recently is that certain people are informed that they are “surplus.” Isn’t that a nice feeling after 25 years of faithful service? You are essentially in the same category as that box of fax paper sitting in the closet.

Is it surprising that morale is often low for the remaining employees whose workload has tripled, while their salary remains the same? Are they the “lucky” ones to still be around after all the smart ones took a buy-out package and got better jobs elsewhere?

Everyone lives on the edge of job obsolescence and the threshold of career opportunity. And with every change there is the seed of new opportunity. Yes, not all change is positive growth, but all positive growth does require change. Change is predictable and inevitable, impersonal and relentless. The question is not will change reach you, but how will you respond?

Thomas Edison’s teachers said he was “too stupid to learn anything.” He was fired from his first 2 jobs for being “nonproductive.” As an inventor, Edison made 10,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked, “How did it feel to fail 10,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 10,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 10,000 steps.”

Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because “he lacked imagination and had no good ideas.” He went bankrupt several times before he built Disneyland. In fact, the proposed park was rejected by the city of Anaheim on the grounds that it would only attract riffraff.

Our strategy needs to focus on handling the change process and turning it into a positive force.

→Do You Want to Be a Butterfly or a Freak?

A man found a cocoon of a butterfly. One day a small opening appeared. He watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it could go no further. So the man decided to help the butterfly. He snipped off the remaining bit of the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man expected that the wings would enlarge and expand to support the body, which would contract in time, but neither happened. Instead the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never flew. What the man, in his kindness and haste, did not understand was that the restricting cocoon was God’s way of forcing fluid from the butterfly’s body into its wings, so that it could fly once free from the cocoon.

Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need. If God allowed us to go through our lives without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong and we could never fly!

Three caterpillars were crawling through a field. Seeing a butterfly pass over them, the first caterpillar said, “Look at that smart aleck up there, flitting around, making us feel stupid.” The second caterpillar said, “You know, some days I wish I could fly.” The third caterpillar looked up and said excitedly, “I know that guy. He used to be one of us. If he can fly, I know I can too.”

Most of us respond to change as one of those caterpillars. Are we threatened? Are we resentful? Or are we excited about the possibilities for our own advancement and success?

Do you see change as a provider of new opportunities or as a threat to expected security? What is “security”? Is it a guaranteed future? A company that provides medical benefits, vacation time, and a retirement plan? Not anymore. Security today is not likely to come from a job, a company, or the government. General Douglas MacArthur said, “Security is your ability to produce.”

Contrast MacArthur’s definition with George’s. George has been with the same company for 23 years but hates his job. He has missed much of his children’s lives, works on his wife’s day off, and his health is deteriorating. But he can’t imagine leaving the “security” of his job.

Now let me tell you how they catch monkeys in Africa. The natives take a coconut and at one end cut a hole just large enough for a monkey’s hand to enter. The other end of the coconut is attached to a long rope. They then carve out the inside of the coconut and put a few peanuts inside. They place the coconut in a clearing and hide in the trees with the end of the rope. The monkeys come around, smell the peanuts, and reach inside to grab a fistful. But now, with a fistful, their hand is too large to retract through the small hole. Then the natives yank on the cord and haul that silly monkey to captivity because the monkey will not let go of those few lousy peanuts he thought he wanted.

Your only “security” is knowing what you do well. Knowing your areas of competence will give you freedom amid corporate politics and unexpected layoffs.

Wayne Gretzky was once asked why he was such a great hockey player. He responded with an eloquent morsel of wisdom: “I simply went to where the puck was going to be.” An average player would go where the puck was or is.

Change is inevitable, but there are upsides of change. Forest fires clean out the undergrowth and thus protect the tallest trees from danger. Many environmentalists have been obsessed with preventing any controlled fires to eliminate undergrowth, and consequently, we have seen major forest fires in the last few years. All that undergrowth provides a perfect setting for a major uncontrollable disaster when the inevitable fire does come. Maybe we need the little fires of change in our own lives periodically to keep us less vulnerable to the major changes.

Years ago in Scotland, the Clark family had a dream. The husband and his wife worked and saved, making plans for their 9 children and themselves to travel to the United States. After many years, they finally had enough money and passports to make reservations for the family to sail on a new liner to the United States.

The family was filled with anticipation and excitement about their new life. But 7 days before their departure, the youngest son was bitten by a dog. The doctor sewed up the boy but hung a yellow sheet on the Clark’s front door, signaling a household quarantine for 14 days because of the possibility of rabies.

The family’s dreams were dashed. They couldn’t make the trip to America as planned. The father, filled with disappointment and anger, stomped to the dock to watch the ship leave without the Clark family. He shed tears of disappointment and cursed both his son and God for their misfortune.

Five days later, the tragic news spread throughout Scotland—the mighty Titanic had sunk. The unsinkable ship had taken hundreds of lives. The Clark family was to have been on that ship, but because the son had been bitten by a dog, they were left behind in Scotland.

“Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eye off the goal.” — Hannah More, quoted in Multiple Streams of Income by Robert G. Allen

When the father heard the news, he ran home, hugged his son, and thanked him for saving the family. He thanked God for saving their lives and turning what he thought was a tragedy into a blessing.

How many times have you been disappointed or angry at what seemed to be a defeat or failure? Have you ever later discovered that the failure saved you from a bigger disaster or directed you to something even better? Do you view failure as starting over, or do you look for the better direction and a better opportunity based on what you now know?

Many times in coaching people toward better careers, I find that a job loss or business failure, while devastating at first, is later viewed as the best thing that ever happened. Guard against letting setbacks embitter you. Look for the seeds of opportunity in that situation. Build on what you know and approach that new mountain to scale.

A neighbor saw an old dog lying on a front porch. Hearing the dog softly moaning, the neighbor approached the porch. He asked the owner why the dog was whimpering. The owner said, “He’s lying on a nail.” The neighbor asked, “Well, why doesn’t he move?” To which the owner replied, “I guess it doesn’t hurt quite that much yet.”

A lot of people are like that old dog. They moan and groan about their situation but don’t do anything. How bad does the pain have to get before you get up and do something else? If you are in a negative environment, take a fresh look at yourself, define where you want to be, and develop a clear plan of action for getting there.

Change, even if unwelcome, forces us to reevaluate what our best options are. Those times of transitions are great opportunities to look for recurring patterns in your life and make adjustments to build on the good and reduce the bad.

We easily become creatures of habit. A train creates a tremendous amount of momentum to keep moving along the same track. It takes an unusual or unexpected force to redirect that train. That’s why without change in some form we are likely to simply continue on the same path.

Often in working with professionals, I am reminded of how difficult it is for them to see things in new ways. They become so accustomed to doing the same things in the same ways that any change is perceived as life-threatening, even if the current situation is frustrating or negative. They have so much training in narrow thinking that anything different is intimidating.

→Dealing with Obstacles in Our Path

In ancient times, a king, wanting to test his subjects, placed a boulder in the main road leading to his city. Then he hid himself and watched to see people’s reactions. Some of the king’s wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear. None did anything about getting the big stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along, carrying a load of vegetables. On approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. As the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained gold coins and a note from the king, indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the road. The peasant learned what many others never understand: taking initiative presents unexpected rewards.

If you ask a group of 30 second-graders, “How many of you can draw, sing, or dance?” every hand will go up as everyone clamors for a chance to prove their multiple abilities. Ask the same group when they are juniors in high school and perhaps half will claim any one of these skills. Ask the same group when they’re at age 35, and you will find perhaps 2 or 3 who acknowledge performing adequately in any of these areas. What happened? Did they all lose their earlier abilities? No, we get used to very familiar paths in our lives and eliminate many possibilities along the way.

Much of my success as a life coach is in helping people once again see new possibilities; to peel back the layers of life and release those childhood dreams or to consider solutions they have never before considered. Unexpected change can help initiate this process.

As mentioned earlier, the average job in America is now 3.2 years long, and the average American worker will have 14 to 16 different jobs in his or her working lifetime. You must develop a sense of what you can contribute that goes beyond only 1 company or organization. A career path today will likely involve moving from organization to organization, creating a picture of working your way through a maze, rather than climbing a vertical ladder. In fact, a vertical rise within one organization will very likely move you away from your strongest areas of competence.

Change is inevitable. It is relentless and nondiscriminating. Our only choice is how we are going to respond to it. If you know your strongest competencies, are prepared, and have a clear focus, you will have a sense of continuity—not a feeling of starting over each time you are confronted with a job change.

First decide what kind of life you want, then plan your work around that life. Make sure you build in balanced priorities. Exchange your time for valued priorities that go beyond just more money. Move away from the idea that more time equals more success. If you are working more than 45 to 50 hours a week in your job, you are limiting success in some other areas of your life. Don’t expect all your fulfillment, value, and meaning to come from the work you do. Make sure you are making deposits of success in all 7 areas of your life (see chap. 4).

Many people are switching to new work models. Estimates show that currently 60 percent of American homes are housing some kind of business, according to the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB). In the next 5 years, that number will grow dramatically. There are many choices for businesses you can run yourself (see chap. 10). In addition, there are many varieties of work models available: consultants, freelance workers, temps, independent contractors, etc.

Recognize that 85 percent of the reason people get promotions and opportunities in companies is due to personal skills—attitude, enthusiasm, self-discipline, and interpersonal expertise. Fifteen percent of the reason people move up is due to technical or educational skills and credentials. Today’s work environment creates a level playing field. If you have the personal skills and “emotional intelligence,” you can do most anything you want.

Only about 12 percent of the positions available ever appear in the paper. Learn how to find jobs before they make the paper. The major difference between a successful and unsuccessful job-hunter is not education, age, skill, or ability, but the way he goes about his job search (see chap. 7).

Rebuild your résumé, highlighting your transferable areas of competence instead of just listing your job descriptions. Show your proficiencies in administration, planning, sales, marketing, training, supervising, financial analysis, etc. These skills are transferable from 1 industry or profession to another (see chap. 6).

This case scenario of a catsup company in St. Louis shows how business is not declining, but it sure is changing.

• Year 2: Cheaper to have an outside printer do barcode labels. Let 20 printing employees go.

• Year 3: Started using specialized bottlecap maker; new seal extends shelf life from 14 to 24 months. Would not sell the equipment—only finished bottle caps. Let 45 bottle cap makers go.

• Year 4: New plastic bottle supplier appeared. Offered for 30 percent less per bottle to mix the catsup, fill the plastic bottle, put on labels, and package bottles for shipping.

• Year 10: $300 million per year in sales with 25 employees. Cost to the company per bottle of catsup now one-third of what it had been 10 years before. Company reduced price by 50 percent. Sales had risen to $300 million with only 25 high-level managers to coordinate agreements with suppliers.

In this real-life example, the company dramatically increased its revenues, while laying off 97 percent of its workforce. However, those 935 workers are not just sitting on the sidewalk; they have been absorbed into new, different companies.

“The unexamined life is not worth living.” — Socrates

The good news is, the number of small businesses likely to absorb these displaced workers has grown dramatically in the last 15 years to approximately 24.5 million. In the last 10 years, small business has accounted for 71 percent of the nation’s new job growth, adding more than 3 million new jobs each year, or approximately 8,500 each day. Small businesses now employ 54 percent of the American workforce. What we are seeing is a healthy return to the kind of business on which our country was founded.

“The secret of success is focus of purpose.” — Thomas Edison

In the Nashville, Tennessee, Metropolitan Statistical Area (a typical American city), 52.8 percent of all the companies represented have 1 to 4 employees. Only 2.6 percent of the companies have 99 or more employees. These numbers show a major change from the emphasis on big corporations in which a company car, 401(k) plan, health care benefits, and long-term “security” were expected components. If your job search targets only those corporations, you are probably targeting only 2.6 percent of the companies out there. Broaden and strengthen your job search by including small, streamlined companies in your target list.

→So What Are You Doing While You’re Unemployed?

In 1934, Charles B. Darrow of Germantown, Pennsylvania, was unemployed. To amuse himself and pass the time, he created a board game that provided the possibility of fame and fortune. That game is called “Monopoly.” Today, it’s the best-selling board game in the world, sold in 80 countries and produced in 26 languages.

Incidentally, he originally presented it to the executives at Parker Brothers, but they rejected the game due to “52 design flaws”! But Mr. Darrow wasn’t daunted; his situation and personal passion for the game inspired him to produce it on his own.

With help from a friend who was a printer, Darrow sold 5,000 handmade sets of the game to a Philadelphia department store. People loved it! But as demand grew, he couldn’t keep up with all the orders and revisited Parker Brothers. The rest, as they say, is history. In its first year, 1935, the “Monopoly” game was the best-selling game in America. And over its 65-year history, an estimated 500 million people have played it.

So what are you doing while you’re unemployed? One good idea is all you need to change your life!

First, look at yourself. The more you understand yourself, the more you can move forward with boldness and confidence.

When you get to heaven, God is not going to ask you why you weren’t more like Mother Teresa. He’s likely to ask you why you weren’t more like you. Your responsibility and source of real freedom and success is to discover who you are. Lead with your own unique talents and personality. Be authentically you and let God use you.

Last night I returned from a meeting to find my wife and daughter watching the movie, Forrest Gump. At one part, Jenny asks, “What are you gonna be when you grow up?” and Forrest says, “Why can’t I be me?”

I recently received a note from a person who asked how to stop wanting things that he couldn’t get in life.

That is either a very painful or a very misguided question. How do you stop wanting those things that you want? How do you become numb to the desires of your heart? Should you just find a job that pays the bills and try to forget doing something you really enjoy? I think not! Clarify what you want, create a plan of action, and begin to walk toward the goal you want.

The power of knowing yourself acts as a compass through change. Popular writer Stephen Covey says the only way we can handle change around us is to know what is changeless about ourselves. You need that changeless core, knowing how God has uniquely gifted you and what you value. With that knowledge you can forge through change with clear direction and unshakeable purpose.

Finding a job is a meaningless process until you develop a clear focus that is suited to you.

Just because you have the ability to do something does not mean that it is well-suited to you. This is a very significant point that cannot be stressed enough. Many people have been misdirected because they had the ability to do something well. At this stage in your life, you probably have the ability to successfully do 100 to 200 different things career-wise.

Dennis is a 43-year-old dentist. Last year he made more than $300,000. His practice is growing, and his “success” is reflected in his beautiful house and the vacations he and his family take. However, he is also being treated for depression and is increasingly overtaken by panic attacks and the dread of going to the office. In working through this process, we discovered that while Dennis has the ability to be a dentist, he is living out his parents’ dream, not his own. He has now sold his dental practice and has gone back to school to get his degree in family counseling.

→The Grace of Interruption

This phrase was reported recently by a lady who had been laid off unexpectedly. She related that she had been given “the grace of interruption.” If we look at those words, it really does imply a very positive occurrence. Grace is defined as “an attractive quality,” “the condition of being favored,” or even “a short prayer in which blessing is asked.” Surely any of these are to be desired. An interruption is “a break in continuity” or “an intermission.” Think of a football game intermission in which players review what has happened and then plan for better results in the second half. The refreshing pause helps you become newly focused and energized.

Rather than the panic of feeling fired, perhaps you or someone you know has been given the gift of the grace of interruption.

• The work world is rife with volatility. People will increasingly work at one career, retire for awhile when they can afford it, begin another career, and so on in endless variations. True retirement will be delayed until very late in life.

• Health care benefits are being eliminated. More and more people will continue working simply to cover the cost of ongoing health care.

• The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts there will be 50 million new jobs in the next 4 years, but they can’t tell us what 50 percent of those jobs will be.

• In the next 6 years we will need 6,000 new schools and 190,000 additional teachers in the United States. And yet teachers are leaving the confrontational classrooms in droves.

• In 10 years, 90 percent of what an engineer is taught in college will be available on the computer. In electronics, 50 percent of what a student learns as a freshman is obsolete by his senior year.

• There has been a dramatic change from “production workers” to “knowledge workers.” Most of us already get paid for what we think and create rather than for how many railroad ties we can place in a day.

• We’re also seeing a dramatic swing from being paid for time to being paid for results. Keep in mind how recently being paid by the hour actually came into place; it was only with the introduction of the assembly line that people expected to be paid for their time. We are seeing a return to the kind of businesses our country was founded on.

• Nearly 5 million American workers are using the Internet as a primary component of their daily job.

• 20 million Americans are telecommuting, working from a location distant from the company headquarters.

• Electronic immigrants are now competing for jobs around the world. With computers, Twitter, and cell phones, work can be completed with no geographic barriers. So customer service, data input, and even medical radiology and lab work are being done in distant countries, often with greatly reduced labor costs.

As a result of this volatility in the workplace, many people are misplaced and underemployed. The popular cliché, “Thank God it’s Friday,” seems to sum up the American feeling about work. Work is a bitter pill, an inevitable evil, and necessary only as a tradeoff to do what we really enjoy on the weekends. Unfortunately, it even seems a badge of honor to hate your job and despise the boss.

There has to be a better outlook to how we spend the largest block of our time each week.

This is actually a quote from the president of Oxford University, spoken to entering freshman in 1944 in the midst of a world war. In coaching people going through change, I am often struck by their discouragement, frustration, and resentment. I have come to recognize, however, that those feelings reveal that the person is looking backward—at something that has already occurred. As soon as we are able to create a clear plan for the future, those feelings dissipate and are replaced by hope, optimism, and enthusiasm. In all my years of coaching, I have never seen a person who has a clear plan and goals for the future who is also depressed. They just don’t go together.

Viktor Frankl, in his wonderful little book Man’s Search for Meaning, relates his observations of people in German concentration camps. Age, health, education, or ability could not predict who would survive the atrocities there. Rather it was attitude—only those who believed that there was something better coming tomorrow were able to survive and ultimately walk away from those camps.

Feeling discouraged? Miserable in your job? Just lost your business? Give yourself a new beginning tomorrow. All beginnings are hopeful.

1. Respond to the statement, “All progress requires change, but not all change is progress.”

4. Have you experienced any “failure” in your career? If so, what did it lead to?

5. What were your childhood goals and ambitions for life? Which ones have you been able to fulfill?

6. Who are 2 or 3 people you know who seem to have accomplished their dreams? What do you remember about their accomplishments?