Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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I want you to feel when you leave that you can use transition as — first of all — something to be cultivated in your life — not something to be avoided. Don’t slam the door in the face of opportunity when it shows up. But I also want you to engage in it and do as I try to do. I’m not perfect at this either in any way, shape or form, but try to use transition and change as a way to improve your life and career. Don’t be afraid of it. it can be scary sometimes, yes, and that’s humans — we do get fearful sometimes — but I think if we co-opt transition and instead of thinking of it as the sabertooth cat coming in the cave door, think of it as the kitten sitting next to us that we are petting. Maybe that’s a better metaphor for it. It is something that is part of our lives, that needs to be part of our lives, and something we can cultivate and perhaps even domesticate a little bit and make it work for us rather than constantly fighting against it. 

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I was sitting at dinner once with a group of people that I really didn’t know. I had only met them for the first time — it was at a conference or something and I listened to the person next to me describe a horrible job situation. To the point of definitely mental abuse and approaching physical abuse and they had not yet decided in their mind that maybe it’s a good idea if they left. And I am like, “Ok, I’m sitting here as a neutral, unknowing 3rd party and I’m hearing your story. GET OUT! I’m going to call social services for god sakes.” You are trapped in this situation. I can’t believe you decide to stay there. We like to say that financial issues are our trap. Sometimes they are. I think they are far less than we think they are. I think our fear of financial issues is more powerful than the financial issues themselves. But we really have to find a way through that fear and back to our own self-respect and say, ‘You know what? I have more to offer. Even if they don’t see it. If they hired me, then there is someone else who will hire me.” That is another thing I often say. “I got this job. I can get another job, because obviously I have something to offer of they wouldn’t have hired me.” So, let’s look for the next thing.

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Summer Solstice is time for reflection and projection

From the Career Opportunities Archives…

I woke up today and was utterly amazed that it was rapidly approaching the end of June. Tomorrow is the Summer Solstice,the longest day of the year. The days only grow shorter until they reach the nadir of the year on December 21, the shortest day of the year. Yearly mileposts like this always get me thinking about where I have been and where I am going. You should do the same. You might not have the time later in the year.

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Transition is a force for good in our lives. I know it can feel really like it isn’t a lot of the times, but — if you’ve ever had the situation of feeling happy that you got fired from a job (LAUGHTER). that right there should show you that transition can be a force for good in  your life. Sometimes it is forced upon us. Sometimes it is something we have engage in ourselves, but either way, I think we really need to look at it that way. Because we can get stuck sometimes. We can allow ourselves to get stuck — and that’s the best word I think I can come up with. It’s applying those rules — those physics rules — of inertia, Bodies at rest will remain at rest. People with a job will remain in that job no matter how crappy that job may be — because, it’s a job, but if you can just nudge the snowball — that’s what I call it — if you can just push the snowball downhill just a little bit — one small action, one small change, one phone call, one email, one thing you read whatever — if you can just get the snowball rolling, it starts to gather its own momentum and gets bigger and bigger and bigger and can lead to a variety of things and, as you sometimes see with a large snowball rolling downhill, sometimes it will split into parts as it’s headed down the hill. That’s cool. Now you have all these other options that you can investigate, as well, and see where those snowballs lead you down the hill.  

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We end up trapped in situations because we’ve decided to what others want, not what we want. Simply, bare laying it out there. Don’t be the creators of your own traps. Too often, in our minds, that’s exactly what we do. And again, I’ll hold my hand up and say, “Me, too!” We trap ourselves in situations. The fact is, if you feel trapped, you are. So, if you are ever feeling trapped in a job, — red flag, Les Miserables-style, waving on the stage — there is a problem here. Ok? That feeling of being trapped is a clear sign that you are and you need to recognize it as such and then you need to whatever you can to make that feeling go away.

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As we start 2015, I have selected a theme for the year. Over the past several years themes have included: Year of Visibility, Year of Leadership, and Year of Opportunity. This year I have decided to focus on something truly dear to my life and career — Year of Teaching.

A Year (and more) of Teaching

Education — in all forms — has always been a part of everything I do. Whether working in IT, consulting, writing. speaking or coaching, it all comes down to learning and education. Education was always been there whether I was speaking about careers, technology, new media, gardening or any of my other many and varied interests. I’ve always been passionate about sharing my experience with those around me to help them build the career (and life) they deserve.

As part of this Year of Teaching I want to focus on several areas where I think I can have the most impact. Perhaps you can help me in the coming year. I would greatly appreciate your advice, opportunities and your connections to others who might be able to use my skills.

I am looking to formalize my teaching in a number of ways. I am interested in connecting with organizations and students, of all types that could benefit from my experience, skills and, above all, my teaching abilities. Here are a few of the possibilities I foresee:

• Classroom teaching using existing curriculum or creating curriculum designed specifically for your students
• Seminar and Guest Speaking – both on-site and remotely
• Webinars/Online Courses
• Instructor positions at organizations, colleges and vocational schools

Over the years I have applied my teaching skills to Career Development, Gardening, Technology, New Media and more. You can find many examples of my writing, and both audio and video presentations on my web site at DouglasEWelch.com. I believe that each of these interests plays off the other and expands my ability to reach a diverse audience of students.

CareerCamp International

CareerCamp International will also continue to be an on-going part of my teaching efforts this year. I’ll be working to spread the word about CareerCamp and help develop as many additional CareerCamps as possible. I believe that CareerCamp provides a great opportunity for people to share their knowledge and experience — teaching important concepts and lessons to those around them. I’d love to bring CareerCamp to your college, school, business or organization. You only need to ask.

A Year of Teaching Begins

2015 is providing a good start for this Year of Teaching. I currently have 4 speaking/teaching engagements scheduled and I am in discussion for several more:

• New Media and a Career in Voiceover – Pursuing a Career in Voice Overs (Online) course at UCLA Extension Class – January 2015
• CareerCamp: New Methods for Building the Career You Deserve – 2015 California Placement Association Conference – February 25-27, 2015
• Transition as the New Normal – Ventura County OPEN Group – February 27, 2015
• Smartphones, Technology and Your Career - GLAPros – March 12, 2015
• Career Tools and Techniques for the 21st Century – Career Development Theories and Techniques Class – Pepperdine University Graduate School of Education and Psychology – March 2015
• CareerCampSCV (Santa Clarita Valley) 2015 – July 2015

Retirement is not a goal, it is a path

From the Career Opportunities Archives…

For over a century, workers have been taught that the end goal, the final payoff of any career is retirement — that blissful time at the end of our lives when we won’t have to work anymore. It should be obvious by now, though, that retirement is not the golden dream it once was. Some might even argue that postponing your happiness until you are too old to enjoy it was never a very good idea. In today’s work world, retirement should not be the main goal of your career. Instead, replace that with the twin goals of having more freedom and more effect in your career throughout your life.

Read this entire column – Retirement is not a goal, it is a path

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If a company’s hiring process is cumbersome, slow and downright abusive, the same can probably be said for the company as a whole. See this as a red flag!

from Break out of the traditional job search treadmill
Career Opportunities Podcast 

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I think we need to leave behind — a little bit — the concept of stability as this end goal. Stability is always nice, again, to have those good foundations to put your feet on and stand on to do other great things, but so many of us have adopted stability as the end goal. We see something out there that’s our end goal in life, is that. I’m not sure that serves us really well. It can certainly can help us be less fearful sometimes about what’s going on in our life, but I’m not real sure that’s the right goal in our mind. I think maybe we need more than one goal — Maybe — I described it as a star field on Saturday. You need to have a series of goals out there — a series of points that you are all kind of headed towards — that you can work on a little bit on this one, a little bit of this and a little bit on that one, but not one dot out there. I don’t think that serves us very well.

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There’s a large difference between being loyal and being trapped. I hear that loyalty word a lot bantered around today. Being loyal requires that your work situation be reciprocal, as I was just saying. It has to benefit both sides equally or at least as equally as possible. And that typically goes far, far beyond when “I do the work. They pay me the money.” That is like the lowest level of equality in any position. We all tend to forget ourselves that that company has something — we have something the company needs from us. Otherwise, they wouldn’t hire us. Right? They’re not paying us for nothing. We have a skill they need. They need to see that and you need to see that. That’s when you get in a situation where you’re working with someone, rather than working for someone. Unfortunately, the “working for someone” has come out of the history of work. That’s how we always register it. I wrote a column the other day — someone wrote about — “such and such GIVES you a job.” I said, “Now they don’t! You earn that job. If you didn’t do something to earn that job, they wouldn’t be hiring you.” We need to abolish that term out of dialogue entirely. Because what it immediately points up is the power dynamic — the distorted power dynamic that exists int hat work relationship. It’s never going to be equa, unless you’re working as a partner in a business you partially own, but you want to get that power ratio as close as possible as you possibly can. Your boss needs to understand that you’re bringing something useful to them and they are paying you for that usefulness. And if you forget that, you are precipitating — uh — participating in your own demise. You are punishing yourself. Don’t do that!

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