Addicted to the Roller Coaster

So I’m settling in at work, learning a lot, able to contribute a lot to improving our day-to-day team efficiency by using my Excel skills to automate some of our standard work files, getting along great with my co-workers.  Am also keeping active in LCPF — did a Twitter workshop on Nov 9th which went well.  Was also asked, due to my self-taught Social Media skills, to help as the SM person for a group of ladies that held a Women’s Conference in early October (I couldn’t go b/c of year-end close at work and was SO bummed!).  They had spent quite a bit of money on traditional print media to get the word out about the conference, to find out that of the 150+ attendees, under 10 had found out about it from the print advertisement.  They want to keep in touch with this year’s attendees and build momentum for next year on the cheap — hence me and my Social Media skills. (I’m waiting for the ladies to arrive here at Panera for our first meeting as I type this).

SO, things are going great.  What’s the deal with the Roller Coaster?

The Roller Coaster is the big wild ups and downs of life that I have become used to.  I have been whacked over the head by the powers on high this past week that I I am so addicted to the Roller Coaster that I am feeling antsy and A.D.D. and have not been able to enjoy settling down for a long smooth FLAT ride of GOOD in my life.  It’s been manifesting in my dreams even — me walking away from wonderful relationships in my personal life just because I’m bored, then coming to realize there’s no going back once I’ve wrecked everything.  

Why am I sharing this on a “career” blog?  Because this impacts so much more than just career – it’s my whole attitude toward career, family, etc.  It’s about grounding myself in a sense of Sufficiency.  I’m struggling with it, to be quite honest.  I can’t really recall a period in my life before where I felt that I had arrived, and now that I have, I am psychologically undermining myself by not being satisfied.  

Have any of you, dear readers, experienced this?  How did you deal with it?  (Or didn’t you?).

Yesterday’s Abundance

I hope y’all had as much fun yesterday as I did with extended family, gathering at our place for trick-or-treating and pot-luck dinner.  Talk about Abundance of candy, laughter, and love!

The Clown had a hard time keeping up with the big kids.  The Witch had a REALLY scary Witch Smile.  Groucho had his Groucho walk down so well that it had his Aunts giggling, and Flash even started to get in on the Groucho silly walk style!

And the fun continued trick-or-treating as well:

And of course, the Witch, showing off her Witchy Smile.  I told you it was scary!

Sufficiency and Your Career

Last week I went to a discussion group at The Present Moment, where we discussed the ideas in the book “The Soul of Money” by Lynn Twist.  Although I haven’t yet read this book myself, apparently Twist discusses three myths which people hold that influences their life:

1. There’s not enough for everyone
2. More is better
3. That’s just the way it is

As Lynn says, “Money is our invention.  We made it up.”

In other words, you don’t need money to be happy.  And in answer to the three myths above, cultivating a sense of gratitude for what you already have can help you uncover the reality of the above-mentioned myths:

1. There is PLENTY to go around
2. Sometimes less is more
3. You don’t have to hold a defeatist “that’s the way it is” attitude — it’s a matter of choice, and you can make a difference

So how does this apply to your career? 

A few days after this discussion group, I had a conversation with a colleague who is pondering applying for a manager level position.  Although she’s supervised, she’s never formally led a team nor had to handle the HR responsibilities that come with the manager role. 

She’s finally got herself accepting that she could perform well in this position (hooray for squelching the self-doubt monster!).  BUT… she really likes the job she’s doing now, and has already long ago surpassed what she initially held as her career goal. 

I can easily think of several people that would think her foolish for NOT trying to go for that next level, the higher status, the bigger pay check.  I’m not one of them.  Yes, I was all gung-ho to get that “manager” title coming out of grad school myself, (and fell into it one month into my new job…).  In fact 10 years of my career have been in manager-level positions.  I gotta tell you, though, that I’m really enjoying having taken “a step backward” to get into an “individual contributor” role.  I’m much more relaxed, I can focus on getting MY stuff done, and I don’t have any HR issues to confront. 

Note: I don’t want you to think that I’m implying that being a manager was ALWAYS bad, because it wasn’t.  Most of the time, I had fantastic people working with me that I learned a lot from, and laughed with.  Sometimes I had to be a hard-ass, and sometimes I had performance issues to be addressed that were NOT fun.  But for the most part, I liked it enough that I’d do it again, just not now.

Knowing that my colleague is happy where she is, and not really into the idea of this promotion for her own satisfaction, my advice was to stay where she is, and ENJOY it.  

How does your understanding of Sufficiency apply to your Career?

P.S. If you want to learn more about Lynn Twist, visit The Soul of Money, the Global Sufficiency Network, or read her bio here.  I’ve also inserted two of her videos as food for thought:

The Soul of Money:

Opportunity within the Economic Crisis:

Job Search Accountability Team

One of the most useful things that happened for me in my first layoff was to be put into a job search accountability team by my outplacement services consultant.  This became my “group therapy,” because let’s face it, getting laid off can be very disheartening and really whacks your self-esteem a good one upside the head. 

A year later, when I got laid off the second time, I did not have local outplacement services to rely upon, and started up my own group from within the Lake County Prosperity Forum membership, as we’d been seeing more and more unemployed folks coming to our networking meetings.  Obviously I’m not facilitating these “Opportunity Connect” meetings anymore, but I’m glad to say they’re still ocurring, thanks to Carol Malecha.  

The basic structure of job search accountability teams is fairly straight-forward.  Here are the guidelines I drew up for Opportunity Connect – feel free to not re-invent the wheel and start your own group!

Goals:

• Support each other while we search for our next job

• Serve as a sounding board for each other

• Hold ourselves accountable for producing results that will get us closer to our next job

• Share leads, job search effectiveness tools, target company information, and connections

• Mentor each other, and new team members in job search & networking skills

• Establish meaningful networking connections with each other

Targeted Weekly Results:

• FIVE job applications submitted

• FOUR networking events attended

• THREE informational interviews conducted

• TWO personal development activities completed (e.g., training, excercise, volunteering)

• ONE face-to-face job interview

Format:

• Standing weekly meetings — same time & location, 2 hours in length

• Group size no larger than 8-10 people

• Round-table format — each person will have 5 minutes to review their weekly results, as well as their goals for the following week.

• Questions for the group will be put in the parking lot and addressed after all members have reviewed their results for the week

Ground Rules:

• NO WHINING – we are here to help each other keep focused on what we can control and to remain positive

• What happens in the group stays in the group

• Yes/No questions to the group are off limits

• Hiring Managers / Recruiters that are LCPF members are welcome to join the teams, but must participate in the full weekly meeting, should share connections and advice, and may solicit leads for open positions during the round-table discussion in lieu of giving a job search update.

• Each weekly meeting will be moderated on a rotating basis by someone within the group, to be agreed upon at the end of the previous week’s meeting.

• If you cannot attend a weekly meeting, you should email at least two other people in the group in advance to request that they provide your weekly update for you.

 Note:  Yes, the 5-4-3-2-1 goals are challenging — that’s the whole point.  Do what you can.  We turned it into a challenge — whomever would be the first to hit all goals in one week would be bought breakfast!  

The most important, and last piece of guidance on job search teams — HAVE FUN!  These are your peers – they understand what you are going through.

Falling Behind….

I try not to get too down on myself, but…

• the emails are piling up, and I’ve been frantically unsubscribing from as many lists as I can
• I’ve got personal emails from LinkedIn, my networking connections / group that I’ve flagged for follow-up, but I’m just not getting to, and the guilt I feel for not responding to people is piling up fast…
• I’m not blogging as much as I’d like
• I’m feel like I’m neglecting my two cats, and they know it
• I haven’t written to either of my sponsor children for AGES
• My Twitter activity has fallen off a cliff
• I’m not reading as much as I’d like to be able to, as it helps me relax in the evenings before bed

To top it off, this next 3 weeks at work are looking to be very hectic, with a lot of overtime (at least it get’s paid as overtime if you work for the fed!), when I already feel run ragged.  The only thing I don’t feel guilty about is not seeing my husband, as he’s taking night classes at the local community college 3 nights a week, driving straight there from work, so we’re not really seeing much of each other as it is anyway, which doesn’t make it good — it’s just bad without the self-imposed guilt-trip… 

Ever have one of those days (weeks)?

A little nudge…

Last night I went to the Lake County Prosperity Forum’s monthly evening event.  It’s hard to believe is was early September, one year ago that 5 of us met at Carribou Coffee with the idea to start up our own networking group here in Lake County, so last night was an anniversary of sorts.

We’ve had dwindling attendance throughout the summer (not surprising), but had expected a decent turnout last night given our topic (more in a second), and lately there’s been a push by some folks to move the venue away from Saffron Indian Cuisine (which I LOVE).  My only stipulation, as a board member, was NO PIZZA… boring.  So we’ll move in November, and hopefully that will bring people back.  We’ve got over 600 people registered on our groupsite, so why only 20 show up?…. That is the $6 Million question.

Last night’s featured speaker was Jason Jacobsohn, who is a “Master Connector…[and] and Advocate for the Entrepreneur” here in the Chicago / Milwaukee area.  He blogs at Networking Insight, and writes articles for SOHO Magazine.  He spoke to us about personal branding, and how to first figure out what our brand is and then about maintaining that brand.  Here’s the excercise he had us work through to think of our own brand:

1. What are my characteristics? (i.e. personality, appearance, interests, abilities, accomplishments)
2. Who is my sphere of influence? (i.e., family, peers, community, company)
3. What subject(s) am I passionate about?
4. What are my current methods of communication? (i.e., blog, newsletter, speaker, articles, Website)

So back to the idea for this post — the nudge.  These questions above led to some interesting comments & questions about blogging as a method of branding.  If y’all didn’t notice, it’s been a while since my last post.  I asked Jason how he keeps up with it, as I’ve been struggling with this since I returned to work.  He said he finds a specific time of day every 2-3 days and just DOES it, even if it’s hard. 

SO… my lightbulb went off — I’ve got a small window of time in the mornings to write before I eat my breakfast and head out to work — I can use this for creative time instead of checking in on Facebook every day.  (Which just isn’t quite as fun since my cousin in Salt Lake City left earlier this summer anyway.)

I’m back!

P.S.  If you are interested in learning more about branding, Jason recommended The Personal Branding Phenomenon.  If you want to learn more about blogging, he suggested Naked Conversations.

The other end of the tunnel…

Have you ever noticed how it seems the darkest before the dawn of something new and exciting in your life?  The process of experiencing can often feel very painful, and cause you a lot of anxiety.  Sometimes you wish you could just push the fast-forward button on the remote-control of life.  It’s difficult to stay grounded and present in the here & now in periods like these.  I don’t want to sound like a Polly Anna, but if there’s big stuff going on that you can’t fast-forward through, you need to distract yourself by concentrating on what’s good in the here & now that you can appreciate right here, right now.

The last couple years have been a big process of change for me — getting laid off twice, just after having bought a new house, then seeing the market collapse just when we needed to reduce our cash outflow.  Talk about anxiety! 

Somehow, someway, I managed to pull myself together, and keep believing that this was just all just one small blip on the radar screen — that many years from now I’d be able to look back and think, yes, this was challenging, but the outcome was SO worth it.

Today my husband and I have just come out of the tunnel into the light — not only have I recently started working again, today we sold our old house that has been on the market for over 2 years.  We came out with enough to pay off that house’s mortgage and cover the entire “bridge” loan we took out to make our downpayment on our current house.  We didn’t come out ahead enough to be buying any living room furniture soon, but we can finally stop the bleeding and start saving again.

Would I want to go through this all again?  No.  Did it make me stronger, more self-relaiant, and more appreciative of what I do have?  Hell yes!

Forgive me for a few moments while I enjoy smiling up into the sunshine (and enjoy my glass of wine)!

Initial Thoughts on Civil Service

Well I’ve been amiss at keeping up my blog (and other online “social media” activities) during my first two weeks on the job at NAVFAC, so here’s some catch up.

It’s been a very good experience so far.  I really like the people I’m working with, and although the job itself is going to take me a while to learn and feel comfortable with, I’m already jumping in and helping make some of our processes more efficient with my MS Excel knowledge that I’ve picked up over the years from being so darn curious (“Hey – that’s cool!  How does THAT work?”), and overheard myself being referred to as an Excel Goddess! (Why thank you, YES I AM!).

So here’s my deep insight into Civil Service — it’s so freaking CIVIL!  We really only do work 40 hrs a week, and if we do have a business need to work longer to get something done (e.g., year-end close is fast approaching), we get paid overtime.  This is such a mind-shift from working 50, sometimes 60 hrs a week as a matter of course in the Fortune 500 world.  The significant cut in pay compared to my last two jobs really isn’t that significant if you work back to what my effective pay rate was based on a 50 hr work week.  And of course the healthcare benefits and long-term stability are a large non-monetary compensation, given the several years of the constant spectre of layoffs in the corporate world I’ve lived with (and accepted).

The personal / professional growth opportunities are certainly very present and encouraged, so it’s not like I’m going to be bored (me having a very HIGH “learning” motivation).

IT security and protection of personal information are taken extremely seriously, given the loss of a VA laptop a few years back.  As was the case at Allstate, Big Brother in IT does not allow you to check your personal commercially available web-based email accounts (e.g., Yahoo, Google) from work in order to put up a wall against some of the viruses that go around the Internet.  Also no use of USB-port “Thumb Drives” for the same reasons.  I had to read through & get certified on about 3 hrs of IT security and protection of personal information training, which makes me feel very good that our government agencies are taking this all very seriously. 

But here’s the coolest part of starting up as a Federal Civil Servant — us newbies were sworn in on our first day.  Honest!  We stood up facing the US flag, raised our right hand, and did a “I, (state your name), do solemly swear….”  At first I thought it was kinda hokey, but when it was over I felt like something really important had happened — I swore to uphold & defend the Constitution of the United States, not help Kraft sell more cheese, or Sprint sell more cell phones.  How cool is that?!   

And I’m working in an internal “company” (NAVFAC) that is helping to support the young men & women of our nation that put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us.  I really do feel that I’m working for a greater cause.  I never felt this inspired in any of my previous jobs. 

(And here’s my rant — to that relative of mine in NE who shall remain nameless and holds very different political views than I, and who went on a rant about me being “part of the problem” now that I’m a government employee, rather than congratulating me on finding a job or being glad to have me helping to watch out for how our federal funds are being spent, Dude, all I can say is that you just don’t freaking get it.)

And Now For Something Completely Different…

Bright an early this coming Monday morning I report to work at the HR building on the Great Lakes Naval Base.  I spoke briefly with my new boss this afternoon, and I’m pretty excited about jumping back into the work world again.  My sense of curiosity is on high alert — I’m always up for learning new stuff.  And, I’m really “tuned in, tapped in, turned on” to start this new chapter in my life.

In the meantime, I am drowning under a pile of paperwork to fill out and bring with me.  So, to keep me in the “military” mood, here’s some John Philip Sousa set to Monty Python to mark this “something completely different” coming to my life.

Slacking off…

I’ve been slacking off on posting here lately;  the Vision 2020 conference went really well — to read all the kudos, click here.  We’re having a post-mortem meeting on Monday to talk through what worked & didn’t work well.  I’ve also put out a survey on Survey Monkey so we can get some annonymous feedback from sponsors, volunteers and attendees alike. 

The highlight of the day was having 3 of our local government representatives on hand for an open Q&A session to wrap-up the event.  Suzi Schmidt, Lake County Board Chairman (Chairwoman? Chairperson?), IL State Senator Dan Duffy, and IL State Senator Matt Murphy, who is also running for IL state governor in 2010.

It was a LONG day, and I’m glad I brought along a stash of power bars to get me through it.  Was on site at 10am, and got home about 9pm.  And then the next day my body decided to get back at me for lugging around the laptop in a backpack, and purse, and camera, etc. — I threw it out (or better said, it threw me out) promptly on Wednesday morning.  The last few days I have been forced to SLOW DOWN.

Next project – printing out all the forms I need to fill out to take with me when I “report to building 25″ at 7:30 am on Aug 3rd for work at the Great Lakes Naval Base.  Actually before that, I need to run to Staples tomorrow to buy some new printer cartridges, because I’ve been warned I’ll be killing several trees worth of paper.  Guess that’s the government for ya.