Hi there.
If this month’s communiqué has a theme, it is ‘find your place in the world’. It is almost, but not quite, the subtitle of the Palm Trees and Margaritas book.
Regular readers might think, wrongly, that I am all about beaches and cocktails and travel destinations (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) and, please, bring them on, or they might suppose I favour the ‘life’ side of the ‘work/life’ balance fantasy. And they’d be wrong about that too (not you of course!)
I love work. I find it exciting, stimulating and addictive when it is not brain-numbingly boring, repetitive or being carried out under the direction of fools.
While we all love the ideas of Tim Ferriss and his Four Hour Week, the rest of us with kids and mortgages and the desire to make a contribution to society (and OK a penchant for beaches and cocktails) need to be heads down a lot more often than that. Given that work is more of our lives than anything else we do, finding the right place to do it is critical to our physical, emotional and financial wellbeing.
I am writing this during a few days at home before starting a new job next week. The last months at my last job almost literally ‘did my head in’ and I am lucky enough now to be going to a new job where exactly the traits that saw me be a square peg in a round hole in the last job are those that landed me the new one. Same person, different culture, surroundings and organisational goals.
I have, I hope, found my place in the world.
I want to implore any one reading this that you owe it to yourself and the people around you to find work that makes you feel good in an environment that brings out the best in you.
But Seth Godin says it (below) better than I ever could.
The plan for this newsletter is to give you five or so minutes of reflection time on the last Friday of each month. And so it is. How was your October? Did you make time for ‘palm trees and margaritas’* however you define them?
I love to hear (and publish) your stories of how you are living your life – and in the spirit of Giving the reader who sends in my favourite tip, story or reflection each month will receive a copy of my book Palm Trees and Margaritas – Finding Your Oasis in a Busy World.
Karen Morath
karen@mpowercct.com
www.palmtreesandmargaritas.com
October 2008
* Life can’t be all palm trees and margaritas, but there are worse game plans.
The book Palm Trees and Margaritas - Finding Your Oasis in a Busy World is out now, go to www.palmtreesandmargaritas.com to buy your copy. Only $20 including postage. Easy Christmas buying!
If you are in public relations or know someone who is, please consider my new book PRide and PRejudice – Conversations with Australia’s Public Relations legends. Available online at www.nuhousepress.com or www.pria.com.au
TIPS
Just one tip this month, but it’s a doozy!
1. 'Be careful of who you work for' by Seth Godin
The single most important marketing decision most people make is also the one we spend precious little time on: where you work.
Think about this for a second. Your boss and your job determine not only what you do all day, but what you learn and who you interact with. Where you work is what you market. Work in a high stress place and you're likely to become a highly stressed person, and your interactions will display that. Work for a narcissist and you'll develop into someone who's good at shining a light on someone else, not into someone who can lead. Work for someone who plays the fads and you'll discover that instead of building a steadily improving brand, you're jumping from one thing to another, enduring layoffs in-between gold rushes. Work for a bully and be prepared to be bullied.
And yet, there are plenty of books about getting a job, but no books I know of about choosing a job. There are hundreds of sites where job seekers can go to find a new job, and virtually none where you can find reviews of bosses or companies or jobs.
Ted Zoromski really needed a job, so he took one doing human spam (outbound telemarketing). That's his first mistake. This isn't a stepping stone to something better, it doesn't teach you much, it grinds you down and it doesn't make you more marketable. When he found he was also making calls he found offensive, he quit.
Years ago, when I had ten people working for me at my book packaging company, one client accounted for about half our revenue. They were difficult, constantly threatening litigation, sending lawyers to otherwise productive meetings, questioning our ethics and more. It was clearly the culture of their organization to be at war. So I fired them. I gave them the rights and walked away, even though it meant a huge hit to our organization. Why do it? Because if we had stuck with them, it would have changed who we were, who we hired and how we marketed ourselves going forward. We would have had a lifetime of this.
How many job offers with good pay have you turned down in your lifetime? How many clients? Compare that to how many times you've been rejected. That's totally out of whack. Great marketing involves having a great product, and not every job (or every client) is worth your time or attention or love.
If you want to become the kind of person that any company would kill to have as an employee, you need to be the kind of employee that's really picky about who you align with.
Source - Seth Godin’s blog, October 24, 2008
To enjoy list
All the best movies are not on at the cinema now or in the ‘latest releases’ section of the video store. New doesn’t equal must-see. Consider seeking out some movies from a few or more years ago, or introducing them to your family. I was surprised to discover that my kids didn’t know who Dirty Harry is. (What sort of education am I giving them?)
Here are some that readers and I have recommended for others ‘to enjoy’.
1. The Shawshank Redemption
2. Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid or any others featuring the late Paul Newman
3. Dead Poets’ Society
4. Good Will Hunting
5. To Kill a Mockingbird
6. The English Patient
7. City Slickers
8. Crazy People
9. Pride and Prejudice
10. and in the spirit of this month’s theme, Nine to Five
STORIES
1. Continuing the series of stories of someone doing something great with their life, inspired by Bill Clinton’s book Giving – Christian Carter. I met a wonderful young guy recently who is passionate about community issues. Every Saturday in Sydney he sets up board games in a public square and anyone can come along and play and meet a new friend and donate a dollar or two to a charity. Christian says people can make real friends rather than Facebook friends, while doing something fun and raising money for a good cause. It’s a give, give, give story. Love it.2. The annual event
2. A client of mine, a lovely fellow, mentioned he was off to Bathurst recently. “First time?”, I enquired. “Seventeenth”, he replied. (might have been 14th, 19th – you get the idea)
He went on to say that a group of guys all drive up and camp for a few days and it has long been a highlight of the year. Bit of secret men’s business.
Annual events, or ‘not negotiables’, in your year are the punctuation of life. Do you punctuate? How? Or is life for you just one long sentence?
If you are looking for a speaker for an event, click here to talk to me about a ‘Palm trees and margaritas’ presentation. I have formats that are ideal for business women’s networks and motivation or work/life balance aspects of conferences or training days. Or let’s discuss tailoring something especially for your needs.
REFLECTIONS
1. Why are people so unkind? I think Kamahl had not yet found his right place in the world. He looks happier on the tea ads so I guess things improved for him.