When Time Is Up

I’ve cooked a few Thanksgiving dinners, and the turkey usually turn out dry and stringy. I start out with high hopes. I go organic, free-range, and I use some crazy brining bag. By the time the thing is ready to come out of the oven, though, I’m in a political argument with my dad and my kids have created a fort out of the dining table.

I finally had  a decent turkey one year because I bought the Butterball with the thingy that pops up when its done. What I really need is a turkey that walks itself out of the oven when its done. The thingy worked, I got the bird out, and it was juicy, tender and actually tasty.

The thing about our careers is, they can bake for years while we do other things. But suddenly, time is up, and our work demands our attention. If we don't tend to it, it can end up like a dried out organic turkey, full of good intentions, but low on taste. I may carve out time for everything I need to do, but is it enjoyable? Is it juicy?

Recently my own Butterball thingy went gone off. My oldest started kindergarten , and suddenly I feel the passage of time. Soon it will be Thanksgiving, Christmas, spring, summer, 2014, 2015. I want to be with my family when I’m with my family, present, creating memories and then I want to sit down and do really good work. Juicy work, not overcooked. 

I think lots of people might have a Butterball thingy. Maybe it’s not kindergarten, maybe it’s turning 25, 30, 40. You know something must change but you’re not sure if it’s something big or small. That’s my favorite career coach conversation, because it can save you so much money, time and heartache to give that question the full weight and consideration it deserves. You can’t be arguing proverbial politics while you’re doing it. And that’s the kind of work I want to do for people. Give them the time and space for the questions they need to tackle. 

I don't claim to have all the answers. I'm still stumbling along like everyone else. But I trust the process, the value of a juicy conversation. Then maybe we can all sit down to some delicious work.

Decision Tailgating

There's a road near my home that I usually take at about 35 mph. It's curvy, treacherous when wet, and I just don't like to go too fast on it. I always get tailgated. It's a byproduct of living in a major metropolitan area, I know, and I just try to deal with it.

I've noticed, though, that my career counseling clients sometimes face a similar problem. Some attract what I call decision tailgaters. These are people who, sometimes because they care, sometimes because they're impatient or have something at stake, ask about a decision you're trying to make and pressure you to speed up the process.

There are decisions that should take a long time in life, and trying to figure out how you're going to spend the bulk of your waking hours is one of them. Still, sometimes clients don't give enough thought to how these tailgaters affect their decision. It's the same feeling as when you look in your rearview mirror on an icy morning and see someone five feet from your bumper. You want it to not matter. But the blood pressure rises, the palms grip the wheel a little harder, and your decision making can really be affected.

The difference in the scenarios of course is that there's no doubt what the car tailgater's motivations are, but your decision tailgaters will couch their pressure in terms of concern and caring. But what it really does is bring your ability to make a decision into question. And that's no small thing. Decisions take confidence. It's a crucial ingredient.

Sometimes I think my main job as a career counselor is to let you know I have the utmost confidence in your ability to make a decision. How do I know? Because you've executed a million decisions by Friday, and if you're still alive and functioning in this crazy world, chances are you've made some decent ones.

You may get your tailgaters to back off a little by talking with them about their concerns, and maybe letting them know, ever so subtly, that you've made some decent decisions before, like marrying them, if it's your spouse, or befriending them, if it's a buddy. I'm sure there's something to dig up for your parents. That can be a tough one though.

So slow down, even if you've attracted a tailgater or two. They may have the best of intentions, but then again, they just might be impatient.

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Here's a song to play, back from the days when videos were, you know, actually on TV. Because every little thing that you do is magic. OMG, the hats in this.

So, Tell Me About Yourself....

This dreaded opener is often asked at the beginning of interviews, and it's surprisingly difficult to answer. Where to start? You're a complex individual, and I think there's something in us that resists being summarized in a few minutes. And selling ourselves is somehow depressing, isn't it? We're not commodities.

But polishing an answer is like carrying a crisp copy of a resume wherever you go, because you can drop it into conversations at a conference you're attending, or even at a bus stop when someone asks you what you do.

Tips for answering:

1.  Before you think about the content of your answer, think pacing. As in, how fast are you answering, and are you coming off as a Gilmore Girl because you're answering too fast for the human ear to track you? Record your voice and listen.

2. Now, for content. Keep it relevant, but not too relevant. Throw out something quirky now and then, something that isn't all about achievement and can lead to conversation. So, where were you born? Are you a native, or from a far-flung country? Fill in your college, your major, companies or organizations you've worked for. But also, what do you do in your down time? And what projects are you working on now?

3. Wrap it up and ask for something. Well, not really ask, ask. Let them know why you want to work for them, if you're in an interview, or if you're at that proverbial bus stop, let them know you're job searching. This is so easy to say on paper, but so tough to do in person. We're not accustomed to asking for things from strangers. There's shame involved. Remember, though, it's a gift you're giving, this sharing. You're letting people know they're worth your time, and you're interested in their organization and their work.

When all this is put together, practice it in front of a mirror, recording it on your laptop memo program, or with a friend until it fits in a 30 second speech.

Here's my version of a quick intro. Depending on the context, I might also add that I grew up in rural Pennsylvania, that I teach knitting in my free time at a local yarn store, or that I'm trying to learn Mandarin but am mostly tongue-tied at this point. What I hope for is that I hear those magical words. "Oh, really, I did X,Y, Z too. Or I know someone who grew up there." You never know what will help you make a connection.

On Self-Doubt and Being Boring

This week has been a bit of a struggle. We've all been sick with the stomach flu, and at one point both my kids vomited at the same time.

What, you're still reading? Okay, then, I'll try to get to my point. We all have weeks that make us doubt our choices, and this was one of them for me. Unfortunately, becoming a career coach has not made me immune to career doubt. I spend most of my days with my young kids at home, fitting in part-time work where I can, you know, trying for that elusive career unicorn: work-life balance (which I do think is a myth, but a pretty myth with a rainbow mane and sparkly horn that I can't stop searching for).

On weeks like this, I fantasize about putting on a suit and going to a busy office full of adults and discussing matters of the utmost importance, then dining in vomit-free restaurants, where I sit down the entire time and don't have to break up a shoving match over the sippy-cup with the fishies on it. Did I mention I'm sitting down?

I thought I'd go back to work full-time after my first child was born, but I had a difficult childbirth, an emergency C-section. I felt like motherhood had broken me, and I needed time to rebuild myself into this new creature: A mom. I decided to stay home with my baby, and it's a decision I don't regret. Still, some weeks, like this week, I start to wonder if I should be going back to work full time. Like many moms at home, some weeks are so hard. And I wonder why more at-home parents aren't raving lunatics. Seriously. It seems like everyone's making it look so easy.

It's the loneliness that makes me doubt myself. There are people who stopped asking me about my day-to-day life after I decided to stay home, and it hurt. We're not close anymore. It's funny, I think there are some fascinating aspects to caring for young children. At-home parents have a front-row seat to developmental milestones, and not just first steps. The other day my son learned to jump. The joy on his face as he left the ground was unmistakable, and I loved helping him work out the details of how to do it again. We take so much for granted with our bodies, and seeing someone learn to launch himself, literally, is exhilarating.

But then there's the drudgery, the housework and lack of adult conversation. Two years ago, Meagan Francis of The Happiest Mom wrote about boredom, and I was reading her thoughts and feeling inspired. Two years ago she chose fighting boredom as her new years resolution.  Her tips include choosing challenging media, taking action, and finding daily inspiration.

So, what to be inspired about in this week of dreary weather and stomach flu? There's a column I like to read in Harvard Business Review on careers. Recently Gianpiero Petriglieri urged readers who are questioning their career direction to stay with their career questions: 

"For all the value we put on plans and pursuits, what makes us who we are is often what we do with life's surprises. Temptations don't always point to what we really want, but often hint towards who we are trying to become. Maturity isn't the ability to pursue or suppress them. It is the ability to take them seriously without always taking them literally."

So, taking my business lunch fantasy seriously, but not literally....I think it's less about the clothes and the nice lunch, and more about a need for camaraderie. Because really, I like being boring, and I would love to hang out with other boring moms.

But in this age of Facebooking and Tweeting, boring is a luxury, one that's tough to indulge in. I've been afraid of boredom all my life. There's a part of me that fears that if I'm bored, then I'm boring to others, and if I'm boring to others, then I'm not worth much. If I can't deliver a good response to "What do you do?" when meeting someone for the first time, what then? If I can't be witty all the time, then who am I?

My hesitation with being an at-home parent, then, amounts to a reluctance to make peace with the part of me that has always been a homebody, who will always love a good book and a cup of coffee maybe with one good friend, more than a loud girls night out. I'm not one of those stay-at-home parents who says: "I don't know why they call us 'stay-at-home.' I'm never at home." People, I'm always home, and I like it. I love it. I have the frayed bunny slippers to prove it. A sunny spring day in the backyard with the kids, followed by an old Bruce Willis movie and a beer with the hubs? That's the stuff.

There, I've admitted it. And I'll be sure to go out and meet some new moms at the moms group mixer  soon. Tomorrow. But for now, some at-home time. Now, where did my toddler put that remote?

What Haunts You?

I'm going to try to get back in the saddle with the blogging. Sure, I've slacked off a bit, but 2012 was a crazy year, wasn't it? It's a new year, and so on and so forth. Onward...

I've written before about my love of the obituaries for career inspiration, and a recent obit in the Post reminded me of why I love to read these.

A famous Manga comic artist passed away last week. I don't know much about Manga, but the opener to this obit grabbed me right away. Keiji Nakazawa survived an atomic bomb. He was six, standing outside of his Hiroshima school, when the U.S. dropped the bomb on his city. Somehow the school building shielded him.

He pursued a career in comic book art, sticking to themes such as boy adventures, samurai, and baseball. But in 1966 his mother died, and when he collected the ashes, he said he noticed that there was barely anything left of her, that usually there were pieces of bone, but the radiation had affected her  down to her bones. He decided to focus his art on the bombings and their effects. His work was so moving that a group formed a nonprofit to translate his work into different languages.

What strikes me about this man is that he would never have become the artist he became without going to dark places, exploring a horrific event that he survived as a child, facing down who knows what demons.

It's not a place people like to go. Who would? But there are things that haunt you. We have all seen enough now in this world to ask ourselves what sticks to us, what can't we let go of? What do we have to do something about? A lot of times I see people who are frustrated because they are stuck trying to figure out their career direction. If only they had a passion, something they loved to do. They feel guilty that they don't.

It's fine to ask yourself what you love, what your passion is. But if you come up empty, it might be worth asking what haunts you? What do you detest more than anything? Maybe your passion isn't a sunny, happy place. And that's okay too. In fact, it's more than okay, it's admirable.

The Danger of Overplanning Your Career

Let's say you've done some soul searching and finally have decided on your next career move. You want to open a floral shop in Georgetown and cater to nearby businesses who need flowers at their front desks. You're proud of the specific nature of your dream, after years of vague yearnings. Everyone you tell your dream to is impressed by your razor sharp goals.
But wait, not so fast. Vague dreams have their up side, it seems. Leaving some of your dream open to chance may make you a bit luckier.
Researchers are discovering that identifying a destination, then being open to multiple paths to arriving there, is better than creating and trying to stick to a detailed, linear plan, Psychology Today magazine reports.
So instead, what if you expand your vision? Maybe your dream could be to add beauty to workspaces through living plants. Maybe you decide to experiment with your dream by taking a part-time flower delivery gig, and you learn that there's a demand for potted plants in lobbies of tall office buildings outside of your target area. Can you be flexible enough to jump on that opportunity?
You can prime yourself for good luck if you approach life with a sense of possibility. And when you see an opportunity, it takes flexibility and openness to try something new.
One way to cultivate flexibility? Take a different route to work, or try a new coffee shop. Insert novelty in your day. It can't hurt, and you just might be a bit more lucky in life.

Clutter Up Your Career

The new year brings resolutions, and this year it seems everywhere I turn, some magazine is urging me to declutter my home, my email, my brain, even my  resume.
I'm trying to resist the urge to spend large amounts of time decluttering. It always looks so good on television, but I think clutter gets a bad reputation.
Instead of trying to keep to a linear career path in life, clutter up your career. Don't worry so much about being on "track," about having the perfect resume, the perfect work history, or the most linear progression through a company. Think instead about cultivating hobbies, pursuing reading just because it intrigues you, and collecting odd facts and theories. Consider taking a course for the love of it, or becoming an expert on something off-beat. Sometimes you can hook a future employer that way.
I once got a job because I had traveled to Morocco. I had no other reason for going except the photos in our college travel center looked amazing. And it helped that study abroad at my college cost the same as staying on campus. So off I went, and later, I was hired by a man who also loved traveling to Morocco, and when he saw on my resume I had studied there, he offered me an interview. I got the job, and I credit that trip.
So go ahead, take up something intriguing, or read a perfectly "useless" article. Stray from the linear path and see what happens. Clutter is not so terrible after all. It can be interesting.

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In other news, I will be starting to take new clients again now that the new year has begun. If you would like to talk more about my services, please contact me at meredithtseu@gmail.com. Happy New Year!