“If it weren’t for bad luck, I’d have no luck at all.”
That’s paraphrasing a lyric from a song, titled “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me,” made popular on the TV show “Hee Haw.”
We’ve often thought of those who have made it in their lives as “lucky.” By extension, we’ve regarded those who are struggling as “unlucky.”
We certainly have things happen to us that we can’t control. Some are good. Some are bad. We always hope that we can cherish the good in our lives, and overcome the bad.
But as TV star and successful businesswoman Oprah Winfrey has said, “Luck is a matter or preparation meeting opportunity.”
Most successful people view themselves as lucky. Yet their luck did not come by accident. It came from the wisdom of seeing an opportunity, and the work it took to make it happen.
Some of us shy away from opportunity. We think we don’t have it in us to pursue it. Or, to put it bluntly, we don’t have the AMBITION it takes to make it happen.
Those who believe luck is an accident also believe it will never come to them. Actually, most people have enough good in their lives to consider themselves lucky, but they don’t see it. Even if an opportunity were placed in front of them, they wouldn’t see it. They don’t want it badly enough to see it.
But let’s break down Winfrey’s statement: how does one “prepare” for luck? Preparation starts with a dream. Dreams start when “realism” is suspended. We all like to consider ourselves realists, but realism gets in the way of dreams.
After one establishes a dream, one needs the desire to make it happen. Such dreamers have just enough realism to know that their dreams may not come overnight. They also know that they will need to work to make it happen.
In short, a dream, plus the desire to make it happen, is preparation for luck.
Then comes opportunity. The preparation for luck allows a person to KNOW an opportunity when he sees it. He is constantly looking for the opportunity, and the power of his dream will allow him to eventually find it.
How does he find opportunity? He looks for it. He meets people. He finds out how they became successful. He determines whether the vehicle other people have used would work for him. If so, he goes for it.
Since he knows he will have to work, he is just looking for the vehicle for his efforts. There are many such vehicles out there. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It may or may not be the vehicle you are looking for, but if you have the dream and the desire, it just might work for you.
When you’ve prepared to meet opportunity, know that success may not come quickly, or without setbacks. You’ll meet some pitfalls on your journey to success. You might even have to see less of your friends who sing, in one form or another, “Gloom, Despair and Agony on Me.”
So if your dream is big enough, and your drive is strong enough, you have sufficiently prepared to be lucky. You will know enough, despite how little or much education you’ve had, to look for a good opportunity, and to recognize it when you find it.
Best of luck to you!
Peter
Author Archives: pbilodeau01
GET UP, DUST OFF AND ACT
“I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor.” Henry David Thoreau
Circumstances can try to beat you down.
Yet, you get back up.
It’s part of who we are. When something knocks us down, we get up. We dust ourselves off. And, we go on doing what we need to do.
The terrorists try to knock us down. Sometimes, they succeed. When they do, we get up, dust ourselves off, mourn the dead, take care of the injured and go on being the free people they hate.
When our jobs go away, we hurt for a while. But, ultimately, we find solace in our ability to move on. Often, when we move on, we move to bigger and better things.
When circumstances beat you down, there’s often very little you could have done to prevent them. But you have full control over how you respond to them.
Sometimes, it means leaving the coziness of one’s comfort zone. Yes, even the cushiest comfort zones wear out. When they do, we have to get up, dust ourselves off and go find a new comfort zone.
Finding a new comfort zone is, by definition, uncomfortable at first. Perhaps, we have to try some things we’ve never tried. We have to learn things we didn’t know before. Most importantly, we have to ACT. Sitting in a worn-out comfort zone will not produce the new one that you need.
We have to get up, dust ourselves off and look for a new comfort zone.
We may look in places we’ve never looked before. Sometimes, we have to get away from the friends we’ve always had. Perhaps they are uncomfortable, too. And, they want YOU to remain as uncomfortable as they are, for as long as they are uncomfortable. Perhaps they sit and wait for the new comfort zone to come, and whine when it won’t come by itself.
Sometimes, our friends talk only about the past. They see the past as the best days or years of their lives. They see a future of gloom and doom. When not sitting in their worn-out comfort zone, they stand, with hands on hips, looking in disgust at the future.
We, on the other hand, see the future as bright. In fact, we are going to make it bright by finding a new comfort zone. That old comfort zone is gone forever.
So where do we find our new comfort zone? Perhaps it is staring us in the face, and we don’t see it. In other words, we may be looking at what’s good in our lives, and not notice it. The first step is noticing the good.
The second step is looking for the great future of our dreams. That may not come to us overnight, and it may come in a form we are not expecting. To check out one such form, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Few know about it yet, but those who do, see it as the best thing they’ve ever done.
As we look for our future comfort zone, we may make new friends. We may see good things come into our lives that we had never expected. What’s important is that we stood up, dusted ourselves off and acted.
Not all actions yield the results we want. So we try again. We keep moving and growing. We make our own new lives. Thoreau never envisioned times as we have seen recently. But he was spot on about man’s ability to get up, dust himself off and act.
Peter
SOLUTION VS. BLAME: YOUR FIRST INSTINCT
When you, or someone close to you, runs into a problem, what’s your first instinct?
Is it to find where the fault is, or to find a solution?
Comedian Bill Cosby, in a televised routine, talked about, obviously from a male perspective, how your wife is NOT your friend. She is your wife.
Cosby cites the example of a man whose car broke down in the middle of the night, somewhere a distance from home. Whom should he call first: his wife, or his friend?
The friend, Cosby asserts, will first ask: “Are you all right?” Then, he will ask, “Where are you?” Then, he’ll say, “I’ll be right there.”
His wife, on the other hand, will first tell him, “I told you to get that car fixed.” You can imagine where the conversation goes from there.
It begs the question: when you are confronted with a problem, do you instinctively act to solve it first, or do you instinctively look for whom to blame for it first?
Some circumstances are avoidable. Some are not. Some you can prevent. Others you can’t. The point is, you identify the type of circumstance you are in AFTER you act to get out of it.
Leadership expert and author John Maxwell, and perhaps others, have said that we either succeed or learn. We should use our failures as learning experiences. But those lessons should come after we have acted to correct what is wrong.
Certainly, the Cosby routine is funny. We all have to laugh at ourselves. Many spouses are friends. But if our instinct is to blame first, and solve later, we will find more success if we can change that in ourselves.
Getting laid off from a job is likely not your fault. If it is, you probably have more things to correct. If it is not, don’t wallow in who’s to blame for your circumstances. Act to change them. What you do after the fact IS your doing. Wishing things were as they had been is wasting your energy. Just presume those days will never come again, and move on to bigger and better things.
Be a realist, but only for a second. Realize that the past is past and the future is yet to come. Then, dream about what you want your future to be.
Realists tend not to dream, so that’s why you should only be realist for short periods, when circumstances hit. You are realist when you believe the good old days are gone. Then, resume your dream about the good things yet to come.
Today, there are many vehicles that can help make dreams a reality. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may realize your dreams quickly or slowly, but your dreams are there for the taking if you want to work for them.
Getting back to Cosby’s advice: if your car breaks down in the middle of the night, call someone who will take care of the problem first, without a lecture. Then, think about what you might have done to prevent it, so you can minimize or eliminate that situation again.
In life, you can follow Cosby’s advice by, as many leadership and motivational experts urge, RESPONDING to circumstances, rather than REACTING to them. Responding is positive. Reacting is negative. Solving is positive. Blaming is negative.
Be positive. Know that whatever circumstance you are in, the best life ever could be just around the corner, if you act and think correctly.
Peter
A NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTION: MEET MORE PEOPLE NOT LIKE ME
We all have a (pick one: world, culture, environment) that we grew up in.
For most of us, nearly everyone in that milieu was pretty much like us. We shared the same beliefs. We had similar goals in life, even if our ways to pursue those goals might have been different.
That milieu is part of who we are. But, it’s not the “whole” world.
Keel Hunt, a columnist for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville, talked about how diversity has been the key to that city’s prosperity. His new year’s resolution is to meet at least one person who is not like him. He discussed this in a Jan. 5, 2014, column.
Certainly, in his profession, Hunt meets a lot of folks not like him. But not everyone can say that.
Many people never leave the world in which they grew up. They never experience the culture, environments and worlds that others grew up in. Perhaps, if their children attend a school with students who are not like them, they move their children to a more homogeneous school.
This type of behavior breeds intolerance. But, today, “intolerance” has taken on new meanings.
When “Duck Dynasty’s” Phil Robertson talks about his religious and racial beliefs in public, or when a large group of people petition to have CNN’s Piers Morgan deported because of his views on gun control, it makes us re-examine what “intolerance” is.
“Intolerance” today has been comingled with free speech. Those who protest the views of Robertson and Morgan don’t watch them in large numbers. They are speaking largely to an audience of their peers, in terms of their beliefs. Those who disagree with them turn them off. It should come as no surprise that Robertson and Morgan believe what they believe.
Even though you may not agree with what they believe, or say in public, every person has to defend Robertson’s and Morgan’s rights to believe it and say it. If you disagree, turn them off. If enough people turn them off, they will pay a price not for believing what they believe, but expressing it so boldly in public.
If you follow Hunt’s idea and begin to meet people who are not like you, you may learn something. Neither you, nor they, should expect that either of your beliefs, customs, traditions etc., will change. But, neither party should presume the other is “wrong.”
We all are better people when we become an active part of the world. It takes all kinds of people to make a world, to quote an old adage. Many people in the world are different from you. They mean you no harm, in most cases. If they mean you harm, stay away from them. If you mean them harm, shame on you. Certainly, in most cultures or belief systems, most of us are taught to respect one another. There are a few cultures that teach children to avoid people because of what they look like, talk like or behave like – even when they are not misbehaving.
We learn from others. We should make it a point to learn ABOUT others. We should make it a point to live peacefully and respectfully among others who are not like us. And, yes, we should fight for the right of others to be who they are, as long as they mean no harm.
You can’t do much about others’ behavior, but you can start with your own. Believe what you want to believe, but learn more about others. You can help make the world a happier, healthier and more prosperous place for everyone. Eventually, blessings will come back to you in ways you may have never expected.
So, if you haven’t made it a practice to meet people who are not like you, try just meeting one such person. Don’t try to make him or her believe what you believe. It will never work. Instead, listen more and talk less. Each of you may learn more about each other and, perhaps, become friends. What a great world it would be if we could believe what we believe, and have an abundance of friends who are different from us.
Also, if you are well-known person, believing what you believe is certainly OK. And you are certainly free to talk about what you believe. But you might take a little extra care in how, and in what venue, you express your beliefs.
Peter
P.S. If you and your friends – those like you and those not like you – want to become prosperous, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. See how communities of friends of all types learn to prosper, and grow as people, by helping each other.
A GENERATION SEES ITSELF: IS IT PRETTY?
The Baby Boom generation is getting older –at or approaching retirement age, but not necessarily in retirement.
P.J. O’Rourke, author of “The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way … And It Wasn’t My Fault … And I’ll Never Do It Again,” laments that the Baby Boomers own the world. When they look back on their lives, how do they see themt? Now, what’s next?
Yes, as O’Rourke, whose book was adapted in an essay in the Nov. 30-Dec. 1, 2013, weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal, points out the great sense of self that came from the Boomers. After all, they were called the “Me Generation.” Perhaps it was because they lived in the pent-up restrictions of their parents, “The Greatest Generation.” In their parents’ time, institutions, traditions and rules formed barriers for life. The parents had no problem with the barriers. In fact, they took comfort in them.
The kids, however, did not necessarily just want to be part of a church, school, organization or even family. They wanted to be them. Often, they didn’t know who THEY were. They had to “find themselves.” Most did, in one way or another.
If Baby Boomers take O’Rourke’s advice and behold what they have wrought, and lament, how will they make the world a better place? You see, making the world a better place starts with optimism. It also starts with, well, self. Michael Jackson sang about “The Man in the Mirror.” They can’t make the world a better place if they don’t make themselves better. Sometimes, the greatest thing about the past is that it’s gone. The best thing about the future is that it isn’t here yet, and people can start fresh to build it. The best thing about the present is that people can rethink, retool, if needed, and remodel.
Author Andy Andrews has written and often talks about “The Greatest Generation,” and how that generation’s parents made them what they are. That makes the parents of The Greatest Generation even greater. As Andrews says, it’s not about raising good kids. It’s about raising kids to become good adults.
The children of Baby Boomers live in a completely different world from their parents’ and grandparents’. Technology and innovation creates rapid change. Unlike the Baby Boomers, the children have to rethink, retool and remodel every five minutes or so. Living the 40-40-40 life of their parents and grandparents (work 40 hours a week for 40 years, and retire on 40 percent of what you couldn’t live on to begin with) is all but gone.
They have to have a Plan B, or perhaps even a Plan C or D, to deal with the rapidity of change. The slowness of change in previous generations allowed for them to be what they have become.
So, no matter what generation you’re in, rethink, retool and remodel as often as necessary. But, always do it with an eye on your dream. Despite what you may read or see, there is lots of good out there. Things happen for a reason, and you may not see the reason right away. You just have to deal positively with what happens to you.
Are you rethinking yet? Are you looking for options to get you closer to your dream? For inspiration, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You just may find a story you can relate to, and a better way to get closer to your dream.
Baby Boomers, don’t despair. You may own the world as it is, but you don’t necessarily have to keep it the way it is. Start thinking what could be, even if you’ve never given it much thought before. Don’t fret so much about what you’ve done. Put more energy in what you can do from now on.
Like your forebears , raise children – and grandchildren – to become good adults. Make yourself – yes, have that sense of self again – a shining example for your heirs and descendants. You can do this!
Here’s a tip: as you rethink your new self, use the word “give” more often than “take.”
Peter
HOW MUCH IS YOUR CHARACTER WORTH?
It’s not about brains. It’s about beliefs.
Your brains may be worth a given amount to someone else, i.e. an employer or a client.
Your beliefs have a value only to you. What would you sell them for?
Rory Vaden, cofounder of Southwestern Consulting and author of “Take the Stairs,” posed this question in a column in the Dec. 1, 2013, edition of The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
He calls the sum you would command to compromise your beliefs your “character quotient.”
If you have strong beliefs in something, what would tempt you to deviate from those beliefs?
Criminals, obviously, have a low character quotient. Their beliefs are compromised regularly, and they don’t seem to mind. Or, they never had a strong set of beliefs in the first place. Some of them would compromise themselves for very little.
Some business people have low character quotients. Their belief systems have much to do with making as much money as possible. Some of them don’t really care whom they hurt to feather their own nests. Because of these people, commerce and capitalism carry a bad name among many.
Some people in politics have low character quotients. But, there is an exception here. One does not want a politician unwilling to compromise. Governing is all about compromise, and accepting election results. But some in politics are in it for self-gain and, frankly, make no bones about it.
No matter what you do for a living, no matter your faith, no matter your core beliefs, you probably have something you would go to the wall for. No amount of money, in your mind, would make you deviate from that. Let’s look at Vaden’s formula: a quotient is the answer in a division problem. The dividend is what is being divided. The divisor is what the dividend is being divided by.
Your character dividend, Vaden says, represents the self-assigned value you place on sticking to your virtues and doing what you know is right. The divisor is the amount of money or other payoff that would be offered for you to choose NOT to stick to your principles.
In a concrete example, we all hate paying taxes. How many of us tinker with our tax returns to pay as few taxes as possible. Of course, there is legal tinkering that is OK. But illegal tinkering – cheating – is not. How much tax savings would tempt you to cheat on your taxes, perhaps risking an IRS audit etc.?
Perhaps, you may be offered a job that would violate your core principles. How much would they have to pay you to do it? As an example, you may have a place you’ve always wanted to work. You get an offer to work there, but as a strikebreaker. In other words, you’d have to cross a picket line to go to work. How much would they have to offer you to do that?
Or, you discover that your employer is doing something illegal or unethical. You do not want to be a part of it, because of your core beliefs. Would you quit your job over it – actually take something of value away from yourself?
These are questions we may never ponder, or we may ponder constantly. Do you consider selling out as selling yourself? Do you try to justify your decisions by saying you are doing it for the greater good? Again, politicians are the exception here. They must ALWAYS think about the greater good. Have you ever been placed in a bad position, having to make a decision from which none of the alternatives would be good? What are your beliefs really worth?
If you find yourself in a position to make what you feel is a bad choice, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You may realize there is a positive place to go when all of the choices placed before you make sense to you, and none would compromise your beliefs.
People who do the right thing usually get rewarded in the end. Those who do the wrong things eventually get caught. Do what make s YOU feel good. Don’t hurt others in the process. The rewards for straying are usually short-lived. Your reward for standing firm may not come immediately, but one day, you’ll find it.
Peter
YOUR PROMISED PENSION MAY SHRINK OR DISAPPEAR
When you were young, did mom or dad ever promise you something important, and not deliver? Or, did they give you something, but it wasn’t what you thought you were going to get?
Government entities have promised their workers, in most cases, a pension. Pension benefits, some of which are quite generous, are one of many reasons people take government jobs, often at lower salaries than they could make in the private sector.
But states, cities, counties and, yes, the federal government are all worried they may not be able to keep the promises they made to those workers.
Government revenue is down. Government workers are losing their jobs in relatively large numbers. And some public officials are taking action to ease their pension burdens.
Allysia Finley interviewed San Jose, Calif., Mayor Chuck Reed for an article in the Nov. 30-Dec. 1 weekend edition of The Wall Street Journal. Reed sees the crisis in the city’s pension obligation. It is now spending $45,263 each year per worker on pensions, according to the article. Reed sees that as unsustainable.
He is offering workers a choice: pay 16 percent more of your salary toward your pension – about 27 percent of a police officer’s salary – or accept lower benefits in the future. The choice circumvents state court decisions that protect workers’ vested pension rights. In other words, he can’t take their pensions away totally, but he can put more of the burden on the workers and less on the city.
The public employee unions are not too happy with this idea, as one might expect. Reed’s and other ideas from administrators and elected officials nationwide all but ensure that if you are young, and work for a government entity, chances are very good that you will not see the retirement benefits your older colleagues are seeing today.
Or, you’ll have to contribute more toward those benefits. Either way, government entities cannot sustain the status quo forever.
So, if you are that young, government worker, you have to begin thinking differently about retirement. Perhaps you will have to work longer than you’d planned. The idea of retiring with full benefits after 20 or 25 years of service – no matter how old you are – may not be in the cards. Yes, there are some jobs – firefighters and police officers, for example – that may not allow you to work past a certain age. So, you have to think differently.
That pension may not be enough for you to pursue a hobby, or second career, at your leisure, while you are relatively young. Instead, you may have to start now to set up your situation well ahead of retirement. You might even be able to set up something that won’t require you to work another job in your off time.
You hear people talk about investing and saving at an early age. That would be wise, but your government salary – and/or paying more for your pension benefits – may not allow as much flexibility to save much. Even if you can put away $5 a week, plus most, if not all, of any raises you get over time, and not touch it, you could have a pretty nice nest egg. Will it be enough?
There are lots of good ways to earn extra income while you are still on the job. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. If you and your friends in the same situation could lock arms, you all could not worry about making Reed’s choice, or deal with your promises not fully delivered.
Young folks in the private and public sectors all have to worry about how they will be employed for as long as they want to work. Unpleasant circumstances may intervene. Promises may be broken. If you presume they will happen, you can better prepare. Fighting valiantly to keep the status quo, as your union representatives and others may do, ultimately could be a waste of energy. Complaining about it is even a bigger energy waster.
Good things can come to those who prepare. The writing is on the wall. Eventually, Reed or some of his compatriots in government will reform pensions. Their decision(s) probably won’t benefit individual workers greatly. But they could benefit everyone into perpetuity. So get ready. Take action. Your future may depend on it.
Peter
ECONOMY WILL COME BACK IF WE ARE OPTIMISTIC
Most leadership experts and motivational speakers and authors talk about the power of thought.
We become what we think, the adage goes.
As Frank Daniels III, community conversations editor for the Tennessean newspaper in Nashville put it, 10 years ago, we lived in fear. We had to sleep with an eye open because we had no confidence things would get better. That kind of thinking, Daniels wrote in a Dec. 8, 2013, column, is the most debilitating factor in our economy.
Income gaps between rich and poor are growing. People who want work can’t find it. Some who are working are not earning enough to support themselves or their families.
Technology and other progress helps companies do more with less. But those who lose their jobs because of technological advances pay the price.
All these things are circumstances – many of which we can’t control. But we can control how we react to them.
Though things in one’s past may have been really good, the past is gone. We have to believe that the future is going to better. Author and speaker Andy Andrews, in “The Noticer Returns,” says that perspective is everything. We have to be actively grateful for the good things in our lives. Gratitude begets optimism.
Too many people are walking around with anger, frustration and pessimism. They believe the world and their lives will get worse, not better. Andrews would call this a period of confusion. Things are changing, and we don’t know what’s coming next. We have a choice: we can look at this confusion as opportunity, or we can fear the confusion and try to stay out of it.
Staying out of the “confusion” leads not just to malaise about the world, it will likely seal one’s dismal future. If you are optimistic during this confusion, you will take the action you need to make your life better.
Our thoughts lead to actions. Optimism, followed by action, produces a good life. It may not happen overnight. Our “confusion” can last for years. But we have to see this “confusion” as something we can work through.
The question for each of us, of course, is how does one work through the “confusion.” If you are out of work, your chances of finding another job that pays you what you made before, or better, are slim. It’s not your fault, but you probably will have to think about operating with a lower salary, or do something else to enhance your income.
There are lots of vehicles out there to enhance one’s income without a traditional job, or while working a traditional job. For one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. Consider it a test: if you check out other sources of income, and walk away from them because you are “confused” about them, stop. Perhaps what you are looking at is not “confusing” at all. You may just need to tell yourself, “Wow! I know I can do this.”
So think long, hard and optimistically about your future. Instead of waiting for the next shoe to drop, build a dream board. Instead of believing the world will get worse before it gets better, reflect on the good parts of your life NOW. It will help you see the future in a better light.
We can’t go back to the way things were. But we can go ahead to bigger and better things amid our current “confusion.”
Peter
P.S.: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!
LEADERSHIP: KNOWING WHEN TO LEAVE
A person who reaches the pinnacle of leadership not only keeps leading, he is aiming to leave a legacy so that when he steps down, a high quality leader will follow him.
In John Maxwell’s “The 5 Levels of Leadership,” the leadership pinnacle is the fifth level. Leaders reach that level not only by developing other leaders, but by creating a situation that people follow him for who he is, and what he represents.
Maxwell says that a person reaches that level by continuing to develop leaders at all the other levels. By having a team of great leaders that the Level 5 leader has developed, he knows that he can step down, and the organization will still succeed like a well-oiled machine.
One of the main mistakes a leader can make at this level is hanging around too long. A Level 5 leader, Maxwell says, leaves before he has to. Most who get to this level have matured, probably had great financial success and may be ready to take on other challenges – or just retire and do something fun.
There’s a philosophy in any job to stay until they throw you out. But really great leaders don’t wait to be thrown out. Because they are so humble, they leave BEFORE they may want to.
So, perhaps you aren’t a CEO with a great nest egg. Are you hanging around a job waiting to see whether they throw you out? Do you see the day when they just might throw you out? Do you think that you are so great at what you do, they will NEVER throw you out?
In today’s working world, EVERY job is at risk. You, as an employee, are just one bad manager, or one reorganization, away from a potential end to a career. The job you are so good at perhaps can be done by someone who would earn less than you. Perhaps technology will advance quickly enough that a machine will replace you. Today’s worker cannot wait around expecting his employer to keep him until he can retire.
You have to keep your eyes and ears open for new opportunities. Those opportunities may lie in areas you may not logically gravitate to. Perhaps learning a new skill will increase your career options.
Chances are very good that someday, you’ll walk into work to a surprise – the company has reorganized and you’re being laid off. Never expect to be tipped off to this. It will come when you never expect it.
Or, that great boss you had has left the company, and his replacement is someone with whom you don’t hit it off. Perhaps this person sees you as a threat. Perhaps he just doesn’t like you. He can make your situation untenable.
Though the Level 5 leaders of which Maxwell speaks can usually control their own destinies, you may not have that luxury. But that doesn’t mean you can’t think the way they do. Perhaps you may not WANT to leave a job yet. But you may have to.
What to do to prepare for that? Have a Plan B in place to give you income if a career killer visits you. There are several good Plan Bs out there. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. You could be building a legacy of your own while you work. You could work your way up to a Level 5 leader, without interfering with your career. If the end of that career comes suddenly, you can leave with a smile.
Peter
WE NEED RISK TO GROW
Everything is risky.
Getting in a car, an airplane, even going to school as a child is risky. We only have to look at the number of shootings and killings at schools in recent times to realize that.
With so much risk out there, why don’t we crave it?
Growing up in the 1950s or 1960s, we learned to love security. By security, we meant a job, with benefits and a pension. Companies and employers didn’t change much during these times. As long as you worked hard, you advanced. As long as you kept out of trouble, you could work there for as long as you wanted.
Today, having a job is risky. Benefits and pensions, if they are there at all, have been cut. Because progress happens at a much more rapid pace, companies need to be flexible, and change happens more often. Job descriptions, if they exist, are not cast in concrete. They can change a lot, and often.
You could be one reorganization away from losing everything you hold dear at work. You could be one bad manager away from having a career stopped in its tracks – no matter your age or how good you are at what you do.
But, instead of bemoaning our quickly changing times, you could embrace them. When we were taught that risk was bad, and security was good, how much did it hold us back from being the best we could be?
Today, being good, or the best, at something may not be appreciated. The thing you’re good at may become expendable. A company that gave you glowing evaluations yesterday may toss you out as excess tomorrow. It’s not your fault. But you can control what happens next for you.
One cannot grow without embracing risk. You don’t have to jump from airplanes, if that’s not your thing, to embrace risk. But you may have to do things that previously were not comfortable for you. Yes, you have to do it afraid.
If you are young and just getting out of school, don’t expect to get a job, or join a company, and hang around for 40 years. It could happen, but it is less and less likely as time passes. Expect that any job you take will be short-lived. What you were hired for yesterday could change even before your first day of work.
What to do? First, if you are young, take a job and manage expectations. Presume your job will change often. You may not get rewarded for all the change you endure, but presume change will happen often.
Secondly, keep your eyes open for opportunity. If you see an opportunity to use your skills and work for yourself, that would be ideal. There are many of those opportunities out there. To check out one of the best, visit www.bign.com/pbilodeau. It may or may not be for you, but don’t be deterred just because it seems uncomfortable. Remember, you can do this if you see it.
Thirdly, embrace risk and forget security. Today’s relative pillars of security can collapse on you in a heartbeat. Take what the world gives you, for as long as it gives it to you, as long as it works for you. But if something is working for you, don’t presume it will ALWAYS work for you.
Remember, too, that no one has achieved great success without risk. There are some great, true stories out there from those who started with nothing but an idea, and made it work for them. That’s not to say you should risk EVERYTHING all the time, or that you should be reckless with your circumstances. But don’t let discomfort alone deter you. Don’t let a full plate of activity keep you from seeing the bigger picture.
Don’t be trapped into “security.” It could be all gone tomorrow.
Peter