Month: September 2011

Categories
career career shift down economy downsizing small business

Making your way in tough times

I was fortunate enough to have had an inspiring conversation today with a woman named Mary. I ran into her when she was looking for a van to add to her business. I asked her what her business was and she shared that it was an online store which sold sport equipment, home, shop and hobby supplies. I was grateful she then told me how it all happened.

Mary shared that she had lost her position with the company she had been with for numerous years. Downsizing had eliminated 70% of the workforce there, an unfortunate number. She had been out of work for a long time, was not even able to get a job at Burger King for minimum wage because they thought she wouldn’t stick around. While unemployment was helping cushion the blow the economy dealt, she had an interesting experience with Ebay. Mary had sold a collection of Disney videos (VHS version) to collectors and brought in a decent profit. She then decided to try selling another lot of a different product and had similar success. This led her to internet commerce where she eventually was able to find out what was selling well and then move into wholesale purchasing (which led to bigger sales and profits). No more need for unemployment!

Now with storefronts on Ebay and Amazon, Mary shared that the business is expanding and brings in 5 digits in sales per month! They are even considering hiring someone to help out with the growth as they can go into more venues. I think this is remarkable that someone had taken the challenges of a down economy and turned it into a business they enjoy. I felt very inspired to share this story with my readers and social media outlets as it inspires hope. Just because one door closes, doesn’t mean that good times end. In fact newer, better things may come after!

Embrace change and welcome new possibilities. One may not know where something leads but I suggest letting spirit guide you and be open to what is in your path. I’ve learned that I may not see why something is happening or how I’m supposed to use what’s in front of me but sometimes when I just accept it that eventually the answers are apparent. I’m grateful Mary shared her story with me and gave me permission to retell it. Think about it and see what opportunities are within you. A positive change may be in your near future 🙂

-Jason

P.S. Here is a link to Mary’s business. Never had the rubber band gun before…
Sportsandhome.com

Categories
career coaching self confidence take credit you're awesome

Take credit, You’re Awesome!

I’ve been coaching students in preparing to get ready for the job search and I’m finding a common theme…they don’t know how great they’ve done in the past! One thing I focus on as a Career Advisor is being able to pull out the experiences people have had and apply them to the upcoming career they want to do. The coach in me has to work on having dialogue to pull out those achievements and get people to be able to articulate them. So often I’m finding very good people that haven’t been told by supervisors or managers what a good job they did. Maybe it was poor communication or lack of priority but these employees sometimes didn’t know how much they went above and beyond for them. I see this as missed opportunity to harness the talent of these people, I imagine the things that could have been accomplished in those organizations. However these students have chosen a new path and I now imagine how well they’ll treat people in the medical field! And I imagine how well they can do in a new organization with something they really want to be doing. My main point is that there are in all of us far more successes and accomplishments than we’re aware of. We should stop and reflect on these and remember how well we did. Then going forward, think of how much we will accomplish in the future when we focus our efforts. Maybe you could do that career change. Maybe you could achieve a personal goal, the key is KNOWING your much more than you think you are 😉 There should be a Take Credit You’re Awesome day, that would be a cool holiday to celebrate!

Categories
authentic self being liked people pleaser Sixx

Like Me!

I came across a post on Facebook from Nikki Sixx this week that got me thinking about making people like you. Not the ‘thumbs up’ icon but I mean thinking about the value people hold on being liked. It was in response to a quote on his page: “To be loved is fortunate but to be hated is to achieve distinction” In reply he put: “SUE,KILLER Quote…I try to achieve a 50/50 reaction from people..50% love me,my music,art etc and 50% don’t get it or just flat detest me…I’ve been on the same mission since i was a kid…Life is a balancing act…Thank YOU..N Whats your outlook on life guys?…..Do you NEED to be loved by everybody?” Nikki’s facebook page had this on Thursday, 9:02am. It can be found here: http://www.facebook.com/nikkisixxofficial (I like to cite!) Ok, so I was thinking about different influences in life that teach you to want to be liked by everyone. Magazines, movies, promotions, red carpet awards, advertisements, all of these things try and shape behavior. The very idea that you have to be liked by as many people as possible can create dysfunction and lead you to act in a way that is against one’s own nature. I think the problem with this concept of being liked by the absolute majority is that it puts the approval of self in the eyes of others and in essence, gives away some of your own power by letting others be the judge. If one isn’t careful then one might not hear the inner self tell you what you want to be and how to live life as we become too busy watching for cues around us and reading other messages. Ugh. It’s especially hard when we surround ourselves with people who support those standards we hold ourselves to. For example if we think that obtaining a Corvette is a symbol of status then we’ll buy one and join the Corvette owner’s club to get that assurance from other owners. I’ve seen it. (never owned a vette for the record but did join the North American Subaru Impreza Owners Club) So what about that 50/50 ratio? I’ve been thinking about that for 2 days now and I think the answer just hit me tonight. For me it comes down to whatever ratio helps support me in becoming the most authentic me. I don’t feel the need to have everybody like me anymore, I’m more concerned with staying on a path of self development and doing the things that are most suited to me being me. Along the way I’m going to meet plenty of people who will help me with that and some that will not. I’ll have to foster the relationships that support me in the goal and let go of ones that interfere. I mean, why would you want to spend time with someone who keeps you in a box or tries to change you? Life’s too short. I’ll share a couple stories that shaped me when I was younger. In 1st grade I won an award one month for favorite student in class, voted on by the class itself. I had no idea how I won, I just knew people liked me. It pumped my little 6 year old ego! Then the following month when I didn’t win it I was devastated…Why wouldn’t people like me? The next months I made it a goal to win that award as many times as possible because I knew I was a good kid! In retrospect I think it had to be a different winner every month, but I had no clue. But that shaped me for the next couple years when I moved around a few times and changed schools. I felt it was important to go in and be liked! That sank in a little bit and made me want to be smart in class and be ‘the good kid’ because that’s what people liked (or so I thought). Not bad that I got good grades and stayed out of trouble but my motive was off. I had started becoming a people pleaser. I had reinforcement from adults and people in authority positions and as long as they were happy then the world seemed good (or so my 9 year old mind thought). Fast forward to middle school when I was amid all the chaos of that age level as well as family issues. I had too much inner discord to deal with to effectively please the world around me. Adapting to changes at that age takes energy and at the time there were family issues on top of that so I was really a mess. Ultimately in all of this, due to my behaviors, I was no longer liked at a great extent by peers and even some adults around me. With that (percieved) external support gone I felt lost, weak, unworthy. Perhaps context would help give greater understanding to those feelings but that would take too long to explain in this post, besides this isn’t the therapists couch :p My point is as a young person I found reinforcement in being a people pleaser but in reality I was not true to myself. I needed to deal with the issues at hand and work on my confidence issues that my 14 year old self was facing and by putting the approval and power outside myself I never had the strength to make that happen. It’s OK, I learned to do that later and now appreciate the value of that lesson 🙂 So really I’m not in support of doing whatever it takes to get approval, I’d be a terrible politician having to look at poll numbers constantly. But I have learned the value in acting true to yourself and accepting the help of those who cross that more authentic path. It’s easier accepting the love and support of those around me that love and support me for who I am. It’s also more authentic and I have a strong gratitude to my support network. I think it’s easy to say it’s OK to be disliked in some capacity. -J