Book Recommendations - Job & Career

Here are a handful of books that can help take you through the various aspects of finding job fulfilment. 

 

We’d love to hear your recommendations on the books and sources that have helped you through redundancy, career transition and promotion.

The impact clutter has on your goals

The first 2 letters of GOAL spell GO – Anon

Only 148 days to go to the end of 2008, today you are investing in you 218th day of the year.  Interesting if not slightly scary thought.  So how are you making progress with the goals you set yourself, either personally or at work? 

One of the most common reasons for people not making progress in their goal is because it isn’t very well thought out - more information on this in our August ezine.  Sign up if you haven’t already done so because as well as offering more in depth pragmatic material, it often features exclusive offers and advance invitations to our teleseminars and events.  

One other reason for slow goal progress is that you’ve got too much clutter in your life, your desk, office, wardrobe, wherever. If that’s affecting you then this tip will give you the burst you need.

How many cars are there in your garage?
The answer for me is 2, cos that’s what it was designed for. It also contains the bikes, lawnmower, BBQ, deckchair, buckets, birdseed, and the car wash / polish stuff. What else would you expect to find in a garage. 
Well some people seems to think it’s the natural home for old beds, tables, fridges, broken vac’s awaiting repair when you get the time, and anything else that you can no longer fit in the house but can’t or won’t dispose of. In the meantime your car sits out on the drive or road, not too bad in summer, but a pain in the middle of winter.

What’s her problem you may think, well if you want to start taking back control in you life, I find garages a nice easy place to start.  So get in there this weekend and take everything that’s of no use to anyone to the tip.  Then either repair the broken vacs or equivalent or bin them too.  Finally anything which could be of use to someone else either give away or advertise in your local newspaper / eBay.  On this last point be firm with yourself, if no-one takes it off your hands within 2 weeks bin the item as well.  Now you should have a lot more space and the items in your garage should be things you use on a regular basis, if the answer to this is “well not in the last 12 months” then get rid of that too.  Finally buy some shelving or brackets and utilise the wall space.  Whether you now choose to park your car in the garage, and there can be insurance premium advantages, is up to you, but hey at least you have a positive choice.

If you do this right, then trust me, when you open the garage door you’ll no longer feel overwhelmed by the sight of so much clutter, and you’ll have the energy to get on with the task you went into the garage for, rather than the commando run you probably had to do in the past.  Now just imagine if you can achieve that energy shift in your life from sorting out your garage what would happen if you did it in a bigger area of your life?  Don’t have a garage, well wardrobes are also lucrative places to start

Turn your business around

There are figures that say UK businesses are going under at the rate of 34 a day and apparently that’s pretty good going, so how do you make sure your business doesn’t become a statistic.

Human beings seem to have a natural tendency to not face in to their ’stuff’.  Entrepreneurs and business owners can also have a hard time facing in to the fact that things aren’t going as planned, and even if they do they can kid themselves in to thinking that they can sort it out - all by themselves.  Well to a large extent, the being able to make things happen and move mountains all by yourself, was one of the things that got the business off the ground.  Then there are times when asking for help before a business enters crisis phase is a good idea.

Then once you’ve done that check that no one, and that includes you, is messing with your head and chucking the word ‘failure’ around or even at you.  Yes there is a reason(s) why the business is where it is, and hindsight will be a wonderful thing, but this is all part of learning and growth.  Neither of which are always pleasant or pain free.  If you read the biographies of many successful entrepreneurs you’ll find they have their fair share of t’shirts bought and paid for hanging in the closet.  I certainly wouldn’t be building the business I am today if it hadn’t been for both the things I got right and the things I’ve made a right pigs ear of.

The ostrich move only looks good on the ostrich (and even then I’m not sure).  If things aren’t going the way that you want them to ask yourself what have you not been paying attention to - cash flow, the market, your leadership - to suggest 3 common areas.  Then find someone who can help you improve in that area.  In the meantime remember why you started your business, what you want the future to be and find the fun.  Enjoyment, motivation, laughter, they were all then when you started this venture, as the leader you owe it to yourself and everyone else involved to reconnect with those traits again. 

28 days

28 days that’s the minimum time it takes to change a habit.  Let’s say you decided this year you were going to leave your desk tidy every night, or your email filed or you’d take the stairs instead of the lift.  Then this month you’ll have noticed that each time you came to make that change there was some conscious talk going on.  Maybe you stuck it on your to do list so you wouldn’t forget.  As we know the thing about habits is they’re unconscious - we don’t have to think about doing them, we just do.  How many of us with a full drivers license still chant mirror, signal , maneuver - but there was a time when we did.  Before anything becomes a habit we have to consciously repeat it until it becomes second nature.  Typically it takes 4-6 weeks to change one habit for another. 

There are lots of reasons for new years resolutions or goals to end up in the bin right about now.  This happens to be one of them.  Notice the examples I gave are daily activities, so we could say it’s a minimum of 28 days or 28 repetitions before your new habit is embedded.  Many people give up too soon, looking for the easy, fast, minimal action required option to get their end result.  So as you go through the change just keep reminding yourself of the benefits or pleasure from the new habit once it’s embedded.  If you want it enough 28 repetitions before it becomes your new way of life seems pretty quick to me, of course you have to want it enough.

New Year Resolutions

Traditionally at some point this month there is a habit of setting new resolutions or goals for the coming year.  In many cases these can end up in the bin before the month is out.  Changing habits tends to require discipline and will power amongst a few other things. 

So let me suggest something a bit different.  By all means think about what you want to achieve this year and before you commence, have a right good chuck out.  Your wardrobe, desk, filing cabinets and garage are always easy places to start, you can move on to your mind later.  Even if you don’t normally set goals or you’re not sure what you want 2008 to be, have a real good throw out. 

For me nothing beats a good de-clutter to free up space for the new stuff to arrive. 

Stepping in to the unknown (cont)

Following on from my last post, I thought it worth mentioning that from experience whenever you’re ready to shift big time resources appear.  You see although you don’t know the how’s or even most of the whats, in fact let’s face it many of the details are eluding you and it’s feeling scarier by the minute, hang on in there because what it takes to move forwards does appear.  The saying "when the student is ready the master appears" was meant for these types of jumps.  You just have to pay attention, and I mean pay attention, look for what could help you.  Oh and it helps if you make the decision that you’re going to take the leap into that next paradigm.  Without that it can get really painful and messy.

When who you are now won’t take you to the next level

When you come to the edge of all that you know, when your sense of comfort, safety and certainty are disappearing, it’s often a sign that a new paradigm is waiting for you.  Some of my clients describe these signs as "everything seems to falling apart" or "we’re having a crap year".  The question, and it’s no small one, is are you ready to make the jump?  Paradigm shifts aren’t about tweaking and twiddling what already works, it’s about taking a quantum leap forward, in to the unknown.  It’s moving from good to great.  Not about good to slightly better.  The thing that helps is being clear on what you think great should look like, then you’ll know whether the prize is worth stepping into the unknown for.

Aquisitions - Rules to aquire by

Mergers & Acquisitions are certainly one way to significantly grow your business.  However those who’ve done it know that it’s not without it’s fair share of problems.  September’s issue of Harvard Business Review has a great article on the subject.  Pitney Bowes share their lessons learnt having done more than 70 acquisitions over the last 6 years.  In a nutshell they advocate sticking to adjacent spaces, taking a portfolio approach, having a business sponsor, knowing how to judge an acquisition and not shopping when you’re hungry.   

The Alchemist

Had a chance this weekend to re-read this gem of a book. 

The Alchemist: A Fable About Following Your Dream

The richness within the simplicity is astounding.  On the one hand it is a story about a shepherd boy, on the other hand it’s whatever you conceive it to be.  I’ve always loved the line ‘the world conspires to give you what you want’.

What are you asking for?

To change or transform?

Are you undertaking change or transformation and what’s the difference?  Well change is doing something a different way.  Sleeping on the other side of the bed, eating something you’ve never tried before, are simple examples of change.  The end result of course is still the same, you’ve slept and you’re fed.  Transformation on the other hand is where there is a major shift, a little like a caterpillar going to sleep and waking up a butterfly.  At some point the caterpillar knew it had a butterfly inside and to become that, it needed to let go so the inner self could emerge.

When you set a goal the courageous question to ask yourself is " given everything I am currently can I achieve this goal?" and in some cases the answer is no and what’s required is a major shift.  So if you still choose to achieve your goal you embark upon the journey of transformation.  The journey can months or even years and because transformation is called for it will have moments of pain and vulnerability, and as you keep moving through and towards your goal, you realise it is this process of transformation that is giving you the resources you need.  There is no by-pass or quick fix, it just helps if you’re clear beforehand how committed you are to achieving your goal.

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