Insights, inspiration, and practical leadership and business tips and advice for meaningfully integrating your life and work using the On-Purpose Approach by Kevin W. McCarthy
A Tough Shift™ happens when we're not making a smooth and peaceful transition. Often these transformations are due to a change in circumstances beyond our control. Sometimes we choose them in order to improve our situation or life.
A essential element of any tough shift is the ability to have a firm grasp on reality. Hindrances such a denial, blame, and fear cloud our progress. The management of changes is a core life skill to develop.
Do you need help making your Tough Shift? Today is the last day to join me in a new 6-week On-Purpose Leader Experience. The On-Purpose Process is amazingly simple to do, yet the effects will last a lifetime. Invest 5 minutes to learn more.
For your convenience all webcasts are recorded and available for replay at our private website where you can also post questions and interact with other participants and me. Here is the link for the webcast 1 replay from Feb. 1: http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=26215212
A Tough Shift™ happens when we're not able to make a smooth transition. Do you find yourself fretting, fearful, or discouraged? Take heart!
Tough shifts are events such as career changes, starting a business, having a baby, retiring, getting married or divorced, a death, a move, a job change -– they're all around us. Some are smoothly managed, others are not. That's when we need help (scroll to bottom for help).
As a kid, I remember learning to drive a stick shift in an ice blue 1962 MG Midget that our family owned. This car made today's Mini Cooper look big. It was basically a tin coffin with an engine and wheels and a removable lid. It had paper-thin doors, slide on windows, a pull starter, and it was absolutely the most fun car in the world to tool around town in. (I can't believe I found a photo online of one that looked just like it!)
My digression into my '62 MG Midget past is about learning to shift gears. I remember the first sounds and feel of that gearshift in my hand as I attempted to sync the clutch, the gearshift, and still steer the car. I find myself driving two-footed every now and then with one foot on the gas and the other on the brake. Growing up in the "South Hills" of Pittsburgh meant I needed to master it all fast, lest I drift into the car behind me at all stops! Today, driving a stick is still second nature thanks to what I mastered at age 16.
Tough shifts in life are similar to my learning to drive a stick shift experience. They can be difficult, noisy, rough, clashing, and damaging with the threat of even worse things happening. On the other hand, once mastered, the ability to make what used to be a tough shift becomes an opportunity to efficiently go places. The skills are transferable to other "vehicles." The lessons learned stay with us.
Do you need help making your Tough Shift? Join me in a new six-week On-Purpose Leader Experience starting on Wednesday February 1, 2012 at 12:05 PM Eastern. For your convenience all webcasts are recorded and available for replay at our private website where you can also post questions and interact with other participants and me.
Job loss, underemployment, a part-time job instead of a full time job, less pay for less rewarding work. Or perhaps you just don't like the job you have. You are in the midst of or contemplating a Tough Shift™. Don't go through it alone! (Check out The On-Purpose Leader Experience below - starts this Wednesday!)
You are not alone in the transition of your career. As of December 2011, US unemployment stands at 8.5%. The under-employment rate -- those persons working in jobs below their skill set or prior earning capacity -- is estimated in the 18%-20% range. My observations of many business owners are showing sales off anywhere from 30%-70% compared to pre-recession numbers.
When the US Economy catches a cold, the whole world sneezes! This unfortunate effect has many people spinning and caught in a round of chaos and confusion. Couple this with technology changes and the personal fallout from job loss and underemployment-–it all amounts to a serious world wide tough shift.
Change is never easy, but change under duress is even tougher. Fear, worry, doubt, and anxiety creep into us. This affects us at some profound subconscious level and begins to be communicated. Our nervous vibe causes others to view us as desperate and risky. This perpetuates our greatest fears from the tough shift.
What to do? This On-Purpose Business Minute offers some simple and calming insights. Are you ready to tackle the underlying issues, so you're tough shift proofed?
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Do you need help making your Tough Shift?
Join me for a new six-week On-Purpose Leader Experience starting on Wednesday February 1, 2012 at 12:05 PM Eastern. For your convenience all webcasts are recorded and available for replay at our private website where you can also post questions and interact with other participants and me.
As President Obama prepares to address the nation tonight, let me ask you one simple question, "What is the state of your American Dream?" Use your webcam to post your response to YouTube or Facebook and then add your link below so others can see what you have to say.
The only rules:
1. Keep it non-political. Hey, let's hear your story.
2. Be civil.
3. At the start of the video, please give your name and location.
Watch today's On-Purpose Business Minute then invest 15 more minutes to watch the Coca-Cola Content 2020 videos posted below. In them you'll see this On-Purpose concept put into action and then some and then some more. It is mind-blowing to see how Coke has moved from selling caffeinated sugar water to a global cause and conversation around its brands. Use the comments section (below) in my vblog to create our own conversation about the strategic implications to your business; your impressions; guesstimates on what it cost to write, create, and produce this; or whatever other lessons, insights, or feelings it stirred in you.
Frequently, I'm asked, "What is strategy or strategic plan?" Coca-Cola answers that question from the point of view of a world-class brand. These videos, while technically sophisticated in thought, bring strategy to life in a visually appealing and rapid manner. It may seem "liquid" but it is thick! Don't let it intimidate you. Instead allow it to inspire you.
(FYI -- it is purely coincidental that I happened to use a white board for this On-Purpose Business Minute. Coca-Cola and I have different production budgets! Ha, an understatement!)
Part 1 of 2 (7:28 Minutes)
Part 2 of 2 (10:18 minutes)
Here is the original text for this classic On-Purpose Business Minute that originally aired on Feb. 17, 2011.
Twitter, and the like, "social media." Media is a broad term in marketing that is associated with print, radio, TV, electronic, and, now, social. While the rest of the world is busy socializing, we business folks are figuring out a way to engage in their conversation a la Seth Godin's brilliant Permission Marketing approach.
Let's think of media as merely a channel or means to get out a message. For example, I'm in the business of getting out the On-Purpose® message. I leverage media to help me spread the word.
Far too many business people are struggling with making sense of this new media opportunity. The problem is their focus is in the wrong place, yet again. It is a classic case of fire, ready, aim. The technology isn't the key -- it is the means. The true challenge is the strategy.
There's a well-defined "chain of strategic command" that is too often overlooked with costly consequences. Social media is simply that latest victim of a busted chain and dangling tactical activities.
Put it in perspective. Invest in your core strategy and then bring it to life tactically. Activity in the absence of strategy is simply wishful thinking and lazy business leadership.
Unemployment, slow business, foreclosures, and underemployment are just some of the struggles pressing into the hearts and minds of many today. As the debts pile up and the opportunities apparently diminish, the personal repercussions can cause us to lose hope and begin to see our lives as failing. This situational depression can weigh on one's spirit to the point of discouragement and negativity as we paint ourselves as failures.
What if your perspective, not your current circumstance, is the problem? Today's On-Purpose Minute challenges us to stop looking outward and begin looking inward and upward for a fresh approach that holds the key to the present situation and life beyond.
Thomas Alva Edison, the great inventor, saw "failure" as information. (See the video clip "I Haven't Failed" by my actor friend, Frank Attwood, who portrays Edison.)
Gene Kranz, NASA Flight Director, in the movie Apollo 13 is attributed with saying, "Failure is not an option," in the face of saving the crew in space.
I'm struggling right now with many challenges in life, business, and family. Perhaps I needed this message more than you do, so forgive me for talking to myself out loud. Yes, failure is not an option. Sometimes it simply takes that kind of resolve even as the world crumbles about us. I needed to hear that!
Are you a career coach or looking for help from one? Are you (or someone you know -- forward this!) in the midst of a career or job change? This transitional time can be traumatic. Join me this evening for a free video webcast live at 6-9 PM Eastern. The title of my topic is, "The Job Of Your Life." We'll go more deeply into how your purpose and your work are profoundly related, yet there needs to be a healthy distance.
With unemployment in the USA near 10% and more people working underemployed in comparison to their past earning capacity and position, a new reality is setting in for many: "It may be some time before I find a job."
Recently, a corporate recruiter I met shared that for every job her company posts there are 300 applicants. In the face of such competition, how does one sparkle like a diamond?
This On-Purpose® Minute is geared toward helping you find meaningful work where you can be real, prosper, and make a difference regardless of your job situation.
Have you watched as your savings and retirement dwindle? Is your job in jeopardy or have you already been laid off? Are the foundations of your security shaken and showing signs of cracking? Is it stressing you to the point where you have no peace?
This On-Purpose Minute provides hope and perspective on the trust account anyone can have for free.
"What is the meaning of life?" Now there's a tiny topic hardly worth pondering! The graphic and T-shirt design below by artist Aled Lewis (used with his permission) may provide as good a sense of "clarity" on the topic as one can find.
Kidding aside, the value of asking, "What is the meaning of life?" may be less in the answer to one of life's big questions, but more in the very act of the inquiry. Asking this question is a positive sign that changes in life, ideally growth and maturity, are budding. There's an awareness that can lead to a new life with the potential to lead to a life of purpose and meaning. Engagement in a greater reality has begun.
Change is a part of life, but a change for life needs to be self-initiated -- owned, if you will. Those around may demand or encourage us by saying "Change your life," but at the end of the day it is our responsibility and challenge.
How you go about embracing growth is up to you. For me, my big shift change happened when I attended a Bible study of the book of Romans back in the spring of 1985. Like many, I had been searching for meaning in life. As a true student of self-help literature, I was well read in the classic and contemporary self-help writers. At some point, however, it all started to sound like the same stuff simply rehashed from a different point of view.
I was not a Christian, but I was curious and willing to give that "old and irrelevant book" and the institution of the Church a chance. The Bible, I discovered, had a ring of authenticity about it that none of my self-help books had. There were no lightning strikes or trumpets sounding. It was mostly an intellectual pursuit to better understand, "Who am I? Why am I here? What should I do with my life? Is life meaningful?" The Bible was different because here was core wisdom instead of just knowledge.
What is the meaning of life? It doesn't matter what I say. You have to find your answer for yourself. What I will tell you, however, is this: life is meaningful! Start with this basic assumption and go forward.
Are you unemployed, underemployed, or just plain finding that your corporate job is slowly sucking the life out of you? Are you gasping with this suffocating sense of being stuck with just enough air to breathe, yet barely enough to thrive? Is some combination of your income, lifestyle, family relationships, and health suffering because of dissatisfaction and frustration with your present work situation?
Starting a business isn't just for people with business degrees and experience. Motivation, hard work, and a willingness to learn serves any budding entrepreneur.
Plan ahead for starting your business off right. In time, you'll ease into the transition. Sometimes it is thrust upon us from necessity. Regardless of whether it is a retirement, layoff, job elimination, or simply what you want to do, starting a business is a smart move.
Here's my list of ten compelling reasons I see many of my clients have for starting small businesses:
Escape the rat race. Get out of that corporate job and transition to more meaningful and enjoyable work.
Personal expression. A business can be a creative outlet for a hobby or passion.
Independence. Set your own hours, decide who you want to target as your customers, and don't have a boss.
Retiring to work. Retirement looms in a few years so growing a business represents a smooth transition and new sense of work identity.
I need the income. Your small business may provide extra income to cover the bills for braces, college, and vacations. As it grows it can replace your current salary and become full time.
Tax breaks. A small business is a vehicle for deducting some existing expenses from your tax return. Consult your CPA, but when the business picks up a fair share of the bills, it can ease the household budget.
Ambition: A small business can become a big business! Put your ambition to work.
Change the world. A business can be the means for you to truly change the world with your business idea, invention, or service.
Plan B Security: A sour economy can be a ripe time to start a business. In such times it may be the means to provide for one's family and self in the event of a job loss or cutback. Security matters.
I can do better: Many businesses have begun because the founders knew they could do better than their employers or what was offered on the market. I've seen women-owned business blossom simply because the founder wanted equal pay in parity with men and to do better for her family.
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