In this post:
1. a breakthrough booklist
2. teaching story with big news about Asia
3. last opportunity to work with me 1:1 at current rates ends May 15, and did you know it’s fr*e?
4. things you might like to do in May
5. RSS
Promised to tell you how and why things are changing around here. Hope this teaching story about me is of use to you.
Clients good for the day, I’m now in an offsite with me, myself and I, Inc. On the back deck. And my canine assistant who’s on break, rolling on the lawn.
While I think of this house as my global HQ, my electronic palace, that was just a mere saying up to now.
I find myself crossing the great divide from time-and-presence dependent work to leveraged work. You know: tech-enabled, social-media-heavy, non-locational, timeshifted and fun work. Not only no job, no office, perhaps no clock.
My business reading has made the big switch to:
Connect! A Guide to a New Way of Working from Web Worker Daily
Anne Truitt Zelenka
Upgrade Your Life: The Lifehacker Guide to Working Smarter, Faster, Better
Gina Trapani
Hello Laziness! - "an elegantly written call to arms to the neo-slaves of middle management"
Corinne Maier
The 4-Hour Work Week
Tim Ferriss
What I want to do now is have a company that creates products for people and institutions to use without needing me there live to get value.
Some coaches want to find enough clients. Others achieved that and now want a business and personal life that’s ‘bigger’. I am lucky enough to be in the 2nd group, and communicate with you, a community of knowledge worker talent in IT, telecom, new media, financial markets, engineering, management consulting, marketing management, entertainment, design and communications, MBA schools and professional designation programs.
How I did it:
• First System I Followed - Though already experienced, 8 years ago, so I wouldn’t need to work for other people any more, I invested in a specific system of career management counseling and practice building; the only person in Canada to do this. I love my work and am an innovator, not a follower -- but adopting a system zoomed me to the top earning bracket of all coaches globally. (Shockingly, most coaches earn far, far below $50K).
• No System - For the past year or so, combined burnout, exploration and overwhelm. I tried to move through that phase by taking a DIY approach to all the things I wanted to change. I tried on about 17 ideas from hiring a CEO to getting an angel investor to infopreneuring to switching fields altogether. Some were premature, some were impractical, some would be cheesy or not fun. Still, clarity did emerge in that I now know more about myself and confirmed for whom my 1:1 work is most highly valued – senior knowledge-industry leaders who are strategic thinkers – such as Directors, VPs, Sales Managers, Founders, EMBAs.
• New system – One that’ll get me to my next level – I looked at many, and finally somebody invented one for what’s been in my mind’s eye for nearly 3 years….
Moral – There is a system of best practices for everything, and adopting one pays off big. DIY (Do It Yourself) pays out less, and slower. Commitment to expert systems are how we arrive at a bigger life. Quantum amounts of difference. Costs more in wasted time and passed-up money not to get a system.
You need to harness different expert systems at different stages, depending what your goal is:
• Trained coaches know methods for talking with you about things so that you act to achieve more. That’s the scope of their expertise.
• Subject coaches impart a system for doing something they themselves achieved, like house flipping. That’s the scope of their expertise.
• Career counselors, career coaches and recruiters help you follow the naive, slow, overformal (and not always true) hiring and promotion rules employers say to follow. That’s the scope of their expertise. (they wouldn't say that, but click the page Which Side of the Road… at left of this blog. What's your experience been like?)
• I created a system that makes your career problem actually stop. My clients report not only making a measurable, meaningful career and income move but gaining a completely different experience of their talent, career control, value and horizons - for keeps. That’s the scope of my expertise.
But no matter what deep expertise area we each have (I can help you figure out where your own value can take you next), we all need to raise our game to get to our next level. Our own education and industry binds us into a way of seeing that needs its blinders taken off for a bigger playing field to become ours.
I know Career Equity™ is something revolutionary (but timely and more tasteful) than previous types of career help. Not to sound pushy - I am sharing about how I overcame FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) here… its potential is enormous. Too big for me to run alone. Career Equity™ as a system should be sold to universities and industry associations globally for gosh sake, and licensed to 100 coaches and recruiters who want to add true career management to their work. That’s part of my ardent, longtime mission to popularize what real career management is and does, so millions access its value in greater peace and higher pay.
Specialized business advisors for coaches and advisors like me are finally here. Just when I was dying for lack of one. No regular consultant really got what I wanted to create next. A mastermind group of top people in my field said it was impossible to be a counsellor or coach without counselling and coaching. Kicked me out for wanting to actually!
But they were confusing time–for-money with value-for-money. Gosh knows we’re all busy and I am betting that like me, you’d love to power up your career by a quantum step while sitting on your deck. Career Equity™ can help you do that.
My new advisor has a system for making a full business out of a coaching, or career management advising or other professional services practice, with the goal that 80% of it is not working live with people but to create tools and options they will like. My desire that a couple years ago was heresy, is logical and positive as far as she’s concerned. I finally felt heard and relieved.
I remind me of people who come to me because they are suffering for lack of a happier career situation and haven’t been able to wrap their mind around it and fix it. Everything changes when they find a pool of expertise that gets it!
I was on this woolgathering, cobble-my dream-together-in-my-spare-moments, make-no-great-commitment because it-wasn’t-quite-killing-me-yet vector that was way too slow. DIY all too often = prolonged FUD.
It’s so human to not make changes until events force our hand. The right help almost always exists but something painful usually has to happen to make you seriously engage with the help. Thank goodness I can say that after a very confusing spell, it’s a happy event that has utterly changed my reality.
You’ve been asking me to package up my process and formulas for years, and here’s what at last makes me get to it:
The international date line. No, not Lavalife. Asia.
My husband Patrick has his dream job heading market conduct compliance for a global financial services company, and for them right now the focus is 5 countries in Asia. He’ll be working over there most of the time (a month in Canada, two months over there, and repeat, year round). Unless maybe we move there. We’ll see.
So what can I do but create my best way to be over there a whole lot of the time too?
We’re so excited.
So I’ve turned Work Creatively Career Advisors Inc. into two new companies now:
• The Career Equity Institute International Inc, which teaches my system to everyone in many formats, from my complete Playbook, to an Ecourse to licensing others.
• And Work Creatively International Inc., in case maybe I want to import Asian textiles or manufacture a product design.
Right now I’m advising a limited number of leaders 1:1 on their next career move and creating a set of products I’ll be releasing featuring the CE system, that I think alumni and readers and your alma maters and associations will value and enjoy.
This fall I start traveling and operating oftentimes from Indonesia, Philippines, India, Hong Kong and China.
WHAT YOU CAN DO NOW
1. If you’ve always meant to work with me personally, this is our very last opportunity before I make my 1:1 focus exclusively executives 35-55, at an increased fee. I’d love to help you see a huge difference right away in how you experience your career, and to permanently resolve your career and income situation by fall. We’ve got enough time if you call me before May 15. Cost? Priceless. Yet probably zero. Clients treat our project as an investment. Expect the fee to go through the system with me to come back to you in restored or increased pay within a few months to 2 years, and to keep on paying you back every year you from now on in career ease, access, value (pay) and freedom.
2. Also, you’re invited join the Career Equity™ group on LinkedIn and Facebook Toronto. You can also get my blog posts at your Facebook page.
3. I’d be pleased if you’d start to share this blog’s URL now with people you like (here and over there) in Work Creatively’s/Career Equity’s longtime communities of IT, telecom, new media, financial markets, engineering, management consulting, marketing management, entertainment, design and communications, MBA schools and professional designation programs. Thanks from me and them.
4. Do you know how to supply an RSS feed? People are asking to see this blog via RSS. The help lookups aren’t clear what to do. If you know, I’d really love to hear.
Thanks,
MFF
I will check with my contacts on the RSS Feed for you.
Posted by: Laurie G | Thursday, 15 May 2008 at 10:35 PM