The Career Clinic Blog

Ask for directions when you get lost.

Remember something that eluded me until this week, though. You’re not going to get directions to a place no one has been.

That’s why you chose it as your destination, right? Keep reminding yourself that, and I’ll try to do the same!

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Do you get nervous before you give a presentation? I do. When the butterflies show up--they feel more like wasps, by the way--I say to myself, “I’m nervous because I care.”

And then I have fun, because talking with people in person--being able to tell which direction to head next based on the expressions on their faces--is fun.

It reminds me of how I used to freeze up before starting a big project. Then I read Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art. Now I still freeze up, but I don’t freak out about it. I recognize it as part of the deal.

And then I get to work!

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You know what I don’t miss about working in a big company? Reports. Meetings. More reports. More meetings. All designed to prove I was working, when I would’ve so much rather been... working.

Working for yourself is more pure in that sense. When Darrell and I need to fill each other in, we fill each other in. No reporting, no meeting--at least not in the traditional sense of those words.

That’s one reason I’m loathe to jump on the latest virtual bandwagon. It feels like a step in the wrong direction, when I spent more time documenting my life than living it.

If you can relate--and if you want to feel smug about that--The Third Screen author Chuck Martin has a suggestion. Watch this video!

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Go ahead and spend a few hours every evening watching TV. If you have everything else you want, that is. Like money!

Author, businessman, and motivational speaker Grant Cardone doesn’t want to hear excuses for your pathetic life. He suspects you’re lazy. Go ahead. Criticize him for saying that. You won’t be the first!

Grant thinks ruffling feathers will help your ideas take flight. “If you’re not getting criticism,” Grant says, “You’re not getting enough attention.”

Okay, fine. Fair enough. But that isn’t all.

“I want to accumulate haters as a sign I’m moving in the right direction,” Grant says. Really? “Yes. If I keep getting attention for what I’m supposedly being hated for by a handful of people, that translates into admiration by masses of other people.” Pause. “You might not buy from me, but I promise you won’t forget me.”

Whatever else you might say about him, Grant might make you want to stop taking no for an answer!

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"Ask for directions when you get lost." I think that's great advice, career or otherwise.

Equally important? "Stand your ground if you aren’t lost."

If your travels this holiday season include a visit to the “I have a better idea of what you should be doing with your life” land, you’ll need to take provisions. Maybe a couple of things to keep in mind while you’re being…polite.

Maybe this, from David Maister in Savvy, about those who can’t wait to tell you what you should want: “You don’t have to accept their answers. Ban the word ‘should’ from your job search.”

Or this, from the author of The Career Clinic: Eight Simple Rules for Finding Work You Love (I know!) (just because I wrote it doesn’t mean it isn’t a great little book): “I quit thinking in terms of whether my plans made sense to other people. It wasn’t their lives we were talking about.”

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Are you dreaming the impossible dream?

Are you sure?

Richard Gallagher makes his living helping people communicate better, even with themselves. He helps them decide, for example, if they should go for their dreams.

There’s something Richard calls The Law of Twice. Are there are least two people--somewhere, anywhere--who make a real living doing what you want to do? If so, your odds of succeeding just went way up because the appropriateness of the "impossible" label just went way down.

There’s something else commonly referred to as Not Reinventing the Wheel. If there’s a little bit of a path already blazed, Richard points out, why not get directions from those up ahead? You don’t necessarily have to ask them out for coffee in hopes they’ll…spill. There’s a good chance they’ve written blogs or even books about how they achieved their dreams.

Part of the fun of success is succeeding, granted, but often a bigger thrill is inspiring someone else.

Find people you’d like to emulate. Study them. Learn from them. And be sure to thank them for the privilege!

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How old were you when you decided failure was a bad thing? Career consultant Michael Bryant says we teach one-year-olds that failure is an essential part of success: “When children learn to walk they fall down a lot. We say, 'That's okay. Keep going. Keep going.’ And a toddler, to my knowledge, is not thinking, ‘I can’t do it. I’ll never be able to do it. I’ll still be crawling when I’m twenty. The kid next door, he was walking at ten months. I mean, look at me…’”

Bryant suggests you be as kind to yourself as you are to a child. “Failures are nothing more than directions,” he says. “Go this way. No, not that far. Back that way a little bit…” If you can think of mistakes as just…information, it may be easier to embrace them. You may even decide--as someone else put it--to fail faster, so you can get more help sooner.

Sure, it hurts when you wipe out. But aren’t your wildest dreams worth a few stumbles? “You’re failing all the time anyway,” Bryant says. “Why not fail at something that counts? There’s a concept.”

I failed at something that counts. Or did I? Much of the response to my first paid speaking engagement was some variation of, “You suck.” And guess what? I couldn’t wait to do it again because I knew I could do better. I was so proud of that! Plus one woman came up to me in tears afterward, and said everything I’d talked about was exactly what she needed to hear--so I was tempted to put this one in the win column.

Nick Morgan, a world-class public speaking coach, chuckled when I told him this story--as if, you know, wow, that’s really looking on the bright side. But thanks to one of Nick’s books, my second paid engagement was as much fun as the first hadn’t been. I highly recommend you take what he says to heart before you take to the podium.

I also hope you’ll keep in mind what Gloria Steinem is quoted as saying: “Whatever you want to do, just do it. Don’t worry about making a fool of yourself. Making a fool of yourself is absolutely essential.”

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