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A Brand New Theme for Work Happy Now

It’s here. A glorious new theme for Work Happy Now. (If you are reading this in a blog reader than click here to check it out.) It’s all about baby steps. This baby of a blog has just taken its first step, taking off the training wheels if you will permit me to use a cliché phrase. It’s ready to become a big boy and sit on the potty and do great work all by himself.

A gross visual that helps you see where I’m taking this blog. To the next level. I’m all about the Seth Godin drip effect. Slowly and surely I’m encouraging all of you to love a little Work Happy Now every single day. Giving so many brilliant ideas that you’ll keep coming back.

Read the rest of this entry »

How to Retire From the Grind and Not Get Bored

I have a friend who is only 37 and is ready to retire. He and his wife have had good jobs for 15 years and have been able to save a substantial amount of money. They aren’t rich by any means, but are getting pretty comfortable with the money they’ve saved. Enough to live simply and also pay for their children’s higher education. He did it by living below his means. Like Get Rich Slowly always tells us, “spend less than you make and invest in historically proven investments” and you’ll be retiring earlier than you thought too.

My friend’s goal is to retire in three years (age 40), and go into a new career. I would never have guessed his new career choice, but it does make sense. He wants to be a park ranger, taking care of his state’s preserved land. He doesn’t need to make a lot of money, just enough to pay a few bills and his investments will cover the rest.

When I heard this I was a little shocked. He could really set himself up for the rest of his life, retiring in style if he continued until 67, but I think he would rather be a hobo than continue to work at his present job.

Hard Look at Myself

My friend made me look at my own life and where I want it to go. I want to retire in the next five years (age 37). By “retirement,” I mean retiring from the daily grind and doing what I love to do instead: helping people work happier. This site is the seed that was planted in February 2008. I’m done messing around with my career. It’s time to pick my direction and run as if I’m being chased by a tiger.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m open to new ideas, but this is the direction in which I’m heading because it gets me excited. Believe me, I’m flexible if an opportunity comes along. It just better be in my arena of expertise. If the project keeps me excited and every day is creative then I’m all for it. As long as I can help people enjoy their work or find a career that will help them become even more successful and happy then I’m living my dream.

What About Your 3^rd Career

Just because you’ve put your time in doesn’t mean you should stop working. I believe that we all still need to give back to society. Have you thought about what you want your middle age to look like? Or if you are middle age what you want your retirement to look like? Do you want to work where you are until 67 or do you want a midlife career change? Most of us are living way into our 80’s and 90’s. You should be thinking of these things so you can plan out the best way to be happy.

Just a seed for your thoughts. What is that one thing you love? What if you started a website/blog now and posted one article, picture, drawing, report, or video a week for the next 20 years? Do you think people would view you as an expert? Do you think that you might parlay it into a third career?

Let’s discuss this in the comment section. I look forward to seeing you there.

Articles Related to Improving Your Career:

• Your 3 Careers - Are You Ready?
• Building Your Future Career Foundation
• When You Get Rich Slowly You Can Work Happier
• Lucky!

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Image courtesy of Ted.Sali

Connecting Our Work Happiness – 25 Words

Your work happiness

is my work bliss.

 

Because

without you

there is no me.

 

Your joy is mine and it is why I go on.

 

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Idea courtesy of Liz Strauss

Your 3 Careers - Are You Ready?

You will probably have 3 distinct career phases by the time you are done (it starts with your first job and ends when you kick the bucket). Many people are living into their 80’s and 90’s. The children born today may live to an average of 100 years old. Our medicine is getting scary good.

That may mean that we could have 70 or more working years before we feel like stopping. That’s a lot of time to be prosperous. I don’t know about you, but I can’t see myself sitting in a rocking chair, sipping lemonade and waiting for death. I want to be productive for as long as my mind and body will allow.

A professor emeritus of biochemistry and biophysics, Britton Chance says, “Most of the people who work on cognitive deficits realize that it’s better to use it than to lose it.” - Emily Brandon of U.S. News

Understanding your career time-frame will allow you to pick and choose the skills that are needed now to make the rest of your life successful. Paul Newman (1925 - 2008) is my favorite example. He started out in the Navy, wanting to be a pilot. His physical revealed that he was colorblind. He went on to be a radioman and a gunner for the Navy. He finished his tour in WWII and went on to study acting. His second career was acting and directing and he starred in films such as Cool Hand Luke (1967), Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), and The Color of Money (1986). For his third career he decided to give back by creating a non-profit organic line of food, Newman’s Own. He has donated over $250 million to charity as of February 2008. It’s this activity, I believe, that gave him the strength to fight cancer as long as he did and continue his great work. Without a cause to there is no reason to live. I wish him all the best in his next life.

When you are at the beginning of each career you must ask yourself “Why?” before you do anything. If you are going to school for art, then why are you doing it? If you are doing it for fun then so be it, but you must always be aware of how it fits into the “present you” and “future you.” You must appreciate the choices that you make now so it builds on the foundation you have already established. You may think you want to be a famous sculptor, but if all you do is ride your mountain bike every weekend then you must take a hard look at what you think you want compared to what really interests you.

Every choice becomes a part of who you are. From your friends to your hobbies, they all influence your decisions.

1^st Career Phase - Discovery

The 1^st job is usually in the late teens, which is about getting your feet wet. There will probably be plenty of jobs between the first and the one that actually allow you to optimize your talents.

My first job was with my father as an electrician’s helper. I ran wire, wired in fans and did what I was told. Next, I moved on to K-mart as a cashier. Then back with my father and mushroom mongering (picking wild mushrooms and selling them to local restaurants). Then I took a job in media buying. Next, I tried telemarketing miniature leather saddles to a list of old buyers. (Yep, it was as bad as it sounds.) After that I was a marketing coordinator for “high pressure” valve company. Then I worked as a teacher and in the summers I managed a cyber-café. My next job was a front desk receptionist at a Yoga Studio. Then a part-time handyman. Finally, a marketing coordinator for a credit union. Now…

2^nd Career Phase - Optimization

The 2^nd career is about hitting your stride. It’s when you know you’ve found that job that you are good at, pays well, or feels exciting. Of course we want the second career to provide all three of these, but that’s not always the case if we get lazy about making our career fit our needs.

My 2^nd career is just beginning. I’m trying to leverage myself into the career development industry, making myself an expert in the field. At 32 I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on how I can accomplish this. As you can see this website has already helped me declare my commitment to career development for people who love their lives.

3^rd Career Phase - Giving Back

The 3^rd career is about giving back to the things and people you love. That may mean giving your grandchildren the love and attention that they deserve. It may mean counseling businesses to optimize their talent. Whatever it is, it’s all about giving back to show appreciation for the life that we’ve enjoyed.

My 3^rd career is still foggy. I know that I want to retire in my late fifties and hopefully live a simple life with a nice little plot of land. I’m going to give back by helping people with their careers. I hope that they can be as happy and successful as I feel right now and expect to be in the future.

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Your career success depends on leverage. It’s the most important aspect to building your foundation. Without leverage you’ll most likely receive terrible pay and work awful hours. That’s why a lot of college students are stuck working at Pizza Hut. They haven’t mastered the skills to leverage their work and enhance their career.

A college degree isn’t always a necessity and you can leverage your career in many ways. Some of you will be creative and others will take advantage of the family business already in place. Others will learn how to build a network to help get a job out of college that fits your needs.

Use Leverages to Build Your Career Foundation

Family Name

Your family members may have already built a network that you can feed off of if they let you. My brother went into business with my father - electrical contracting. They work hard, but make a good living. My brother will eventually take over the business and he’ll have all the client relationships that have been built up for the past 40 years.

Build a Network

You’ll need patience and persistence to build your network, but if your passion is strong enough this won’t feel like work. I’m working on building my network by trying to help as many people on-line and off-line as I can. I’ve created a brand for myself and every day it helps me bring more awareness to my site and my potential business.

Love

Emotions are what transforms a product that is “just useful” into a breakaway success. Look at your favorite artists - you probably love them more than most of your friends. For example (let’s have a little fun) if your favorite musician was drowning out in the middle of the sea along with your 7^th favorite friend (the one that you sometimes enjoy being around, but a lot of times they get really annoying). All you have is a little kayak. You can only save one; who would it be? You don’t have to tell me in the comments, but I think that we all know who you would pick. When you can create a product or service that people love, then you can even mess up a customer’s order and still come out smelling like a new iPhone. Although I don’t think you’ll make mistakes on purpose to prove my point, but if you do and they truly love you, they’ll just keep coming back for more.

Education

If you graduate from Yale compared to West Chester University you’ll have a lot more doors open to you. It’s up to the individual to work hard and make a difference, but it’s a lot easier to succeed when the company knows that you are smart enough to graduate from such a prestigious university.

How You Look (Sex Appeal)

We are a society based around sex. Taller men often get the CEO positions. Prettier women may get pushed up the ladder because we want to be around beautiful people. If they don’t have what it takes, it will eventually come out and they’ll crash and burn, but if they can leverage themselves to the top and learn the skills necessary to be successful then they’ll probably able to build a pretty solid career.

Talent

Having talent is the least important factor on this list. You may have all the talent in the world, but if you can’t finish projects then it doesn’t matter. In the end what matters is producing the results. I’ve seen talented young kids come into an organization and they just don’t have what it takes to make a sale. They talk a big game and can make some pretty cool PowerPoint presentations, but that’s it. Talent is the weakest leverage, but one we still need. When you can use your network to build your rapport and your passion to push toward your goals then your talent will allow you to shine when you need to “wow” the customer.

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Plan of Attack

You must gain an understanding of who you are and what you want to accomplish to make your dreams come true. That’s why you should use your first career as a way to discover what you like and how you want to go about accomplishing your goals. I had a friend who planned his retirement at age 25. He went to a personal financial advisor, was open and honest about his finances and his potential earnings, and decided that with intense self-discipline that age 48 would be his retirement goal. A retirement lifestyle that would fulfill his needs was within his grasp if his plan was properly executed.

If you aren’t this anal then please don’t feel stressed that you don’t have every year of your career planned out. But you do need to have a plan of attack that will allow you succeed. Hitting certain age milestones can feel painful if a system was never put in place to ensure achievement that will meet your goals.

1^st Career: Use this time to understand what you want out of life.

When starting your first career, don’t worry about sticking around to build that 401k. If your company has one please contribute in to this plan, but don’t force yourself to stay with the company for another year just so you can get 20% more invested in your return. Your knowledge and network is so much more important than a few thousand dollars. So try working in retail, an office, surf shop, and maybe even a small side business to see what owning your own business is like. Do whatever it takes to help you discover your hidden talents and passions.

I could have gone into business with my father and brother or stayed at the valve company and I probably would have been ready to retire by age 50 if I was careful with my money, but it wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to explore new career horizons. There is such a wide range of careers to be discovered and enjoyed.

2^nd Career: Use this time to optimize your talents and connect with as many people in your field as time and energy will allow.

When have had the opportunity to try many different jobs, hobbies, and possibilities then start to take note of what you enjoy and how you may fit it into a career. Maybe 10% of you will find that perfect job right out of school, but most of you will continue to explore and you’ll never stop discovering until your needs are fulfilled.

Many of you may want to take the conventional approach to finding a career, but I know a lot of you will want to carve your own niche out. I’m in the process of creating my network so I can use it to leverage my writing and speaking career. This may seem like too much of a hassle or just silly, but to me it makes sense. I don’t want to go back for my Master’s degree. I want to open doors with my persistence, talent, and network.

3^rd Career: Use this time to slow down and give back to the community that has helped support you.

Eventually you will hit a point when you’ll feel tired of doing the same thing every day. Well most of you will. Some of you may work all the way to your grave, and that’s okay too. However, many of us will move on to that third career to take life a little slower, smell the roses if you want an overused expression to help make my point.

I’ve talked to dozens of people and they want their 2^nd career to gradually come to a close. They don’t want to be working 50 hour weeks then suddenly one day just stop and piddle around in their garage. They want to ease out slowly and transition into retirement. If you are close to this position then you must be willing to talk to your employer about this (This is where owning your own business has it’s perk. It’s your choice to keep working if that’s what you would like). My friend’s grandfather, 85, still works with his son in the furniture business. He doesn’t just want to sit around all day and do nothing. He wants to help his son build the business even larger. He works four hours a day from 10 - 2 and still makes sales, contacts, and money that he doesn’t even need. The mornings and evenings are slow and lazy and that’s just the way he likes it.

I truly believe a happy 3^rd career is about giving back to the community and people you love and respect. There is just too much knowledge and love in most of us to just give up and sit in front of the TV. It’s up to each of us to create this for ourselves. This won’t fall in our lap.

Your 3 Careers

If you can plant the seed now you can create a life that will fulfill you way into your 90’s. That’s my prayer to you for today. I actually have a personal prayer that I send out to all of my readers every day. Yesterday’s was, “I pray that you are having a more enjoyable day than me.”

Praying for future happiness is good, but planning it out and taking action to make it happen will make all three of your careers flourish.

Articles related to Career fulfillment:

• 5 Fun and Easy Tips to Let the “Real You” Shine Through at Work, Southwest Airlines Style
• Never Stop Expanding Your Network
• Give Employees the Power to Impress Customers
• Lucky You!

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Image courtesy of Ferdi’s World

Failures You Should Either Release or Keep Pursuing

Almost every detailed task, topic, or report is harder than it initially exposes itself to be. It always takes more time and more effort. This happens because our thoughts are fluid. We imagine ourselves working hard and everything magically coming together, when in reality we come across many obstacles that suck away our energy and creativity.

Our energy is what fools us into trying for the impossible. No one wants to be viewed as a fool. We look at those first couple of weeks of American Idol and we wonder why most of them even try. They wait in line for hours only to be laughed at.

By understanding our strengths and weaknesses, we can maximize our success. Do those awful singers really know how bad they are? I believe that most of them are fooled by what they want to see. They only listen to the people that praise every note they sing. They are tricking themselves into believing their talent will take them to great fame and fortune.

It’s Easier to Believe a Dream than the Truth

If we are going to enjoy what we do and make a living at it, we will need to understand which are real dead ends and which look like dead ends. We must separate the impossible illusions from achievable reality to make success easier. This concept has been a thorn in many people’s sides. We’ll explore why many of us, myself included, keep failing and trying something new over and over again, but never break through to real success. We will then learn how to avoid this trap and excel at what we love to do.

Where is Your Motivation?

Everyone fails, whether it be your hard working father or Bill Gates. They fail in small ways every day, but they put it behind them and try a little harder the next day. They know that there is a learning curve to every new thing. The smarter they work the more successful they become. They are able to align their talents with their passions.

Let’s say you have tried to write a book. If you are like most people you’ve probably started one and never finished it. (If you haven’t, you can substitute book for some other very difficult creative project.) You probably had a brilliant idea and got all excited. Then you hit your first wall. You put it aside and never came back.

If you ever tried writing a novel your motivation probably got stuck when trying to tie the character’s first adventure into the next. The scene becomes a story and you have to account for character synthesis, plot, and story line. The difficulty level increases exponentially. This is a common problem. Then you try to get yourself to sit back down and continue writing, but you just never can find the desire to make it happen. Maybe it’s a significant other or another grand project that demands your attention. Whatever it is, that initial excitement fades.

When you finally have some time to really think about the book you wanted to write, you decide your time is better spent somewhere else. Maybe it’s that good book that you always wanted to read or the fear of getting stuck again that distracts you from your initial burst of creative energy. It doesn’t matter. You make a conscious decision to fail because the project isn’t worth your time.

How To Let Go Of Your Expectations

Failure is such a harsh word, so we’ll call it a release. You released that project because the motivation was gone. This is a good thing. I’ve started hundreds of projects in my life and probably finished 10% of them. Not every project should be finished; actually most should be released. If you are anything like me (ADD gifted) you probably have many interests, and although it’s fun to dabble, it is usually when a project gets more difficult that it pushes you to give up.

Most of us couldn’t fathom training to climb Mount Everest for a year or two then taking the risk to reach the summit. Why would someone do this?

It doesn’t pay out gobs of money; in fact it costs a lot of money and time to make it all happen. I believe a person does this for two main reasons.

1. They want to challenge themselves in ways that will help them understand who they are.
2. Social status - If I’m honest and understand that it’s okay to appease the ego for the right reasons then I admit that it probably does feel good to tell people the story of climbing one of the most treacherous mountains in the world.

When we push ourselves past our comfort threshold we become stronger. This can lead to happiness. Not because of the obvious accomplishment, reaching the peak, but because it changes our outlook. We see life differently after we write a book or climb Mount Everest. It gives us a glimpse into our greatness. We all know that we are great, but we don’t believe it until we do something so difficult and exciting that it changes us forever. The problem that occurs when we fail is that our ego takes a hit. We become afraid.

Fear dictates our future choices. We don’t want to be perceived as the William Hung of what we love to do. We want to succeed. We want to succeed so bad that it holds us down. The difficult part is understanding when to let go and when to dig deeper and go for it all.

3 Questions You Must Ask Yourself to Understand When to Let Go or Push Through

I designed a three step process to help you understand your fear, release it and make the smart decision to continue with the project or let it go and try something else. First you must find a quiet place to be with your thoughts. Then…

1. Ask yourself, “Why am I really doing this?”

We fool ourselves into thinking that we are doing something because we want to accomplish an audacious goal, but in reality we may be doing it for someone else. You have to do some soul searching and make sure that you really want to accomplish this goal. If you do then move on to step 2. If even the thought of continuing the project makes you cringe then don’t even think another second about it, just release it; it’s not worth your time. Down deep you know that it isn’t in your best interest to tackle the project.

2. Where is the excitement coming from?

Are you working on your project and it gets that little spot in your gut excited, or are you doing it because you have to? When you can honestly answer that it feels good then you move on to step 3. If you aren’t excited about the project then there is no reason to stick with it, but be careful. Don’t throw away two years of work because you are in a grumpy mood. Let these thoughts settle, talk to a close friend or family member, and if the excitement is still gone then release it.

3. How does this project fit into the future you?

Part A: This is the last step that most people leave off. Let’s use the novel example. You may want to write a book, but are you doing it because you have something to say or are you doing it because you want the results of having a published book? More than 90% of books that are published each year fail in the publishers eyes because they don’t make enough money to cover the cost of printing and marketing the book, but it won’t be a failure to the writer that has larger plans. He knows that it will take work to market this book and he does it because he wants to help others. He knows it takes years to build an audience and he isn’t going anywhere any time soon so he may as well work his butt off to get that book up and running. The hard work fits into his goal for his future.

Part B: If you are doing work for someone else, you may not like it but you must ask yourself, “Is this helping the ‘future me’?” So when your boss asks you to do a certain project do you usually feel appreciated after it’s complete and do you also feel like it will help your career? If the answer “yes,” then that’s great, but if you are doing it all for the paycheck then maybe it’s time to drop that dead end job (even if you are making good money). Next week we’ll go into more detail about how your career pursuits affect your future.

Part C: If you like to paint and it’s only a hobby then the stress won’t overwhelm you. The desire to paint isn’t as powerful and you may go weeks without picking up a brush, but you can enjoy each stroke that you create because you are doing it to relax your thoughts. It fits into the “future you” because you want to create in a “stress free” state of mind.

Here’s Where Your Focus Kicks In

Some of you keep starting new websites, jobs, books, and the like because you want to keep that excitement going. As soon as your energy fades you’re jumping to that next thing.

This is where you have to get your emotional weight scales out. If a new idea pops into your head, please jot down a few notes, let the idea come out, but then let it rest for a few days. Then compare your most important project to this new idea and try to feel which one has more potential. This may seem difficult, but the best way to figure this out is to ask yourself which gets you more excited. If it matches with the one that has the most potential then it’s an easy choice. If one of your projects gets you excited, but the other has more potential then you need to go back to question 1 to break the tie. Ask yourself why you are switching from one project to another. If you are doing it because you are bored then switch to the more exciting project, but if you are doing it because you are frustrated then it’s time to dig a little deeper by doing some more research or asking a friend for help so you can get a fresh angle. Finishing a creative project is the most difficult step because there is no finish line. That’s why you must resist doing too many things at once. Your focus must stay close to the project or you’ll lose track of its direction.

One Big Project at a Time

You should only have one big project on your plate at a time. It’s important to get it up and running, let it get some energy underneath it and have a life of its own. Now that this blog has a good base of articles I have split my attention to other areas. I’m constantly coming back to the site, but I can focus on another big project and get that up and running. The hard part for us ADD workers is picking a few projects to juggle and not stretching ourselves too thin, which waters down the value. As soon as you feel this happening then you need to drop the weakest project like a hot potato. Burned fingers and scattered thoughts make for added frustration. Just try to forget about it and concentrate on the one plan that has the most potential. If the weaker idea has enough lasting value, you’ll come back to it, if not, then it’s time to release it.

No project, relationship, or challenge can be considered a failure if it helps the person improve his/her life in some way. I’m on my fourth book and in some people’s eyes these past projects might be failures. They aren’t published, and in many writers’ expectations that’s a failure, but to me they are stepping stones to a smarter and stronger me. I’m building my talents to bring value to people’s lives.

You need to work on projects that will bring a smarter and stronger you into the present. The more you try and fail, the stronger you’ll get. The more you try and succeed, the smarter you’ll get. You put both of those traits together and you’ll be building a successful career that’s going to make you happy.

Next week I will post about how to apply these feelings to your career. We’ll look at our careers and see why they’ve led us to this position in life and when it’s time to quit, dig deeper or accept our position and find happiness and excitement somewhere else.

What was your most important reason for sticking with a difficult project? When do you know that you’ve hit a dead end on a bad project and it needs to be released? Let’s continue the discussion in the comment section.

Articles to help you understand your career happiness:

• You Should be Celebrating Your Average and Tiny Successes
• Building Your Future Career Foundation
• Notice the Every Day WOW

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Image courtesy of M Dot