(Happy Monday! Today’s post is from Tuti Scott, our leadership expert.)

What an interesting time to be in the job market!  I have had the opportunity to speak with many people over the years about how to “create your dream job.” Now, more than ever, it seems that new practices and ideas for job search and creation are needed.

I spoke recently at Ithaca College (my alma mater) on a career panel and the following points resonated with many:

1.  Discipline, focus, and visualization are undervalued and underutilized. So much can come from follow up, follow through, and attention to detail.  Taking the time to reflect on your conditions of satisfaction and actually writing out the values you want in a work space helps to manifest what you want. The more people you share these conditions and values with, the more opportunities for visualizing and expressing the setting and context of where and how you want to do your life’s work.

2.  Follow the Four Agreements.  In short, (1) be impeccable with your word, (2) always do your best, (3) don’t make assumptions, and (4) don’t take anything personally (adapted from Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Four Agreements). I love applying these ‘practices’ to personnel and work transition conversations.  They always seem to be so fitting!  This is especially true when speaking with groups of women where there may be an overabundance of estrogen creating the tendency of ‘taking things personally’.

3.  Demonstrate your balance of feminine and masculine power traits. These qualities are not assigned to either gender but merely reflect the ability to be inclusive, fluid, and exterior focused (feminine) as well as being goal oriented and linear (masculine).  Think about how in an interview you can express your capabilities or work efforts from a linear, driven space as well as defining yourself as a team player who is in tune with others and incorporates a variety of opinions and goals.

4.  Build relationships outside the traditional circles of connection. What if you made it a point to meet someone each month that was not from your college, your generation, your race, or your professional field?  And what if you asked them three questions about their life’s goals and shared yours?  I have heard so many magical stories of people who mentored across generations with a connection that was formed by someone taking a risk and inviting someone new into their dreams.

5.  Volunteer for a nonprofit. If you have time on your hands, reach out to the 1.8 million nonprofits that are in need of staff support and expertise.  Offer up your skills for a period of time to help with a specific effort.  Within this space you may have the opportunity to meet some folks (see point 4) that you would not normally interact with as well as build your skills and resume.

Some helpful sites for job searching;

USAJOBS.GOV (remember, the government is the largest employer in the country)

ChronicleofPhilanthropy.com (a breadth of opportunities across nonprofits and foundations)

WorkforCongress.com (jobs all around the DC area and not just in congress)

Idealist.org (great site for volunteering and job postings)

At the start of a New Year, many of us make resolutions. I certainly enjoy reviewing the past year and thinking about ways to improve my work, my health and the results of my actions.

But inspired by color, I’ve decided to approach change differently this year. For the first time, I asked my braider to weave strands of red into my black braids. After all, I told her, it’s a new year, and I have a new job, so it’s time for something different.

But what’s the point? Why does a new job call for new hair? And how much of what seems new was already present? In other words, maybe I’m bringing to the foreground something that I’ve wished for a long time: more color, more adventure, more spark.

I often think of the work that I do — communications and public relations — as a bright and fiery function that inspires action and excitement about the meticulous work and outcomes that an organization creates. My new red strands acknowledge jubilant energy, while reminding me to consciously celebrate and interweave these qualities into my activities in the coming year.

I am reminded of the field called “Appreciative Intelligence”, which encourages us to recognize and act upon what is already there. In their book, Appreciative Intelligence: Seeing the Mighty Oak in the Acorn, Tojo Thatchenkery and Carol Metzker, say that Appreciative Intelligence is the ability to perceive the potential within the present, to see the mighty oak in the acorn.

Appreciative Intelligence® has three components:

• Reframing,
• Appreciating the positive,
• Seeing how the future unfolds from the present. To learn more: http://www.appreciativeintelligence.com

I used to think that I had to be something for my life to have meaning.

I used to think that I had to do something to earn my life.

Then I woke up to the fact that I am alive.

Sure, this sounds obvious, but I was so distracted by all my striving to be and to do that I totally overlooked this elementary truth.

Being alive is a new revelation every day.

That’s where the Know Abundance mantra, “Everything I need, I already have” comes from.

Our scarcity beliefs are most prevalent at this fundamental level of our relationship with life. Why is being alive not enough?

We constantly judge ourselves and each other based on standards (created by ?) that say we need to do more, we need to be more, than what we are.

I notice this underlying belief all the time in the women’s movement as we try to make a case for why women and girls should have equality with men. We say, “Invest in women and girls because it is better for society, for democracy, for the family, for the economy, for a future without extremism and violence…”

This might be true – in fact a lot of studies have been done to show that “investments in women yield large social and economic returns.”

But while this recognition of women and girls as vital and important is welcomed after years of marginalization, there is a subtle message that is also carried: we are not valued for being alive, only for what we can produce.

Why are the elderly and people with disabilities often seen and treated as “less than?”

A friend said to me last week, “I always thought the world would be better without me.”

In our striving to be something and to do something – we overlook the fact that each and every one of us is a unique expression of life. This is a given. We don’t have to do or to be anything.

We make up those requirements. That’s our story – added on after our birth. We tell each other and ourselves how we should look and behave, what kind of jobs we should have, how much money we should make and how things should be in our lives.

This week, let being alive be enough.

(Art by Gary Turchin)

Happy Monday!

What is your relationship with the unknown? Do you try to answer every question and figure out what is going to happen?

I know I do. I grew up in a family where “What’s the plan?” was a daily question. We didn’t step out the door without knowing where we were going.

That’s why my life is such a surprise to me lately. Every day is full of wonder as I realize that I have no idea what is coming next. I can plan all I want, but creation happens in the space of the unknown.

Like writing this blog. I make plans for topics I want to cover. Then I start writing and the writing shapes itself into something else. Our lives are like this. Our jobs. Our relationships. Our conversations. Even our fundraising efforts. We don’t really know how things are going to turn out.

We predict. We plan. Then the unexpected occurs and our “need to know” instinct kicks in. We come up with explanations and reasons for why or we say, “That was meant to be.” Really? How do we know?

Notice how we rush to fill the space of not knowing with certainty.

I was sitting on the train this week in front of two older guys who hadn’t seen each other in awhile. They were both musicians and talking about the music business.

First they lamented the lack of freshness in today’s music, nostalgic not for the music of the past but for the energy of the era when rock music was born. “Why are kids still listening to the old music instead of creating something new for themselves?”

Then they started trading info about various musicians, comparing notes on albums and songs they liked. One of them said, “The best music right now is full of complex rhythms. I never like it on the first listen but after a few times…”

“Yeah,” the other guy said, “It’s about surrender. You have to surrender to the music and let it reveal itself to you.”

Surrender to the unknown this week. See what happens.

There’s a phrase that used to resonate with me. Talk is cheap. Or to put it like my grandmom used to say, “you’re just talking to hear your head rattle.”

I didn’t have time for cheap, time-wasting, head-rattling talk, so I preferred not to talk a lot, and I certainly didn’t trust other people who rattled on with the first words that came to their lips.

Give me writing and reading. Writing required thought, review and reflection. If it was written down, the words and ideas could be read, scrutinized and the author held accountable. Yes, indeed, I trusted the written word.

But a couple years ago, I started changing my mind. A colleague asked me to be her mentor. When I questioned her choice, she stunned me with an eloquent explanation of the importance of conversations that were honest and that helped her to rethink her perceptions of what was happening in the workplace.

By asking me questions, she was getting “just-in-time” answers that helped her to reframe her own concept of what was possible. The answers to these questions weren’t written down somewhere . . . they were formed in the course of our curious, reiterative interaction with one another. Together, we were co-creating “just-in-time” knowledge and insights applicable to her particular time and circumstances.

Were all my curmudgeonly thoughts about cheap talk just misplaced? Not entirely. Thought, review and reflection have a big role to play in turning talk from cheap to rich. Soon after we began having these mentoring and mutual learning conversations, I listened to a workshop presented by James Lukaszewski, author of Why Should the Boss Listen to You? The Seven Disciplines of the Trusted Strategic Advisor.

I loved his idea that we consider becoming verbal visionaries. People who can provide valuable counsel, speak the truth with grace and candor, and tell relevant and memorable stories based upon history and the experience of other organizations. Such people can be an inspiration to others.

To prepare, he recommends writing down and speaking ALOUD your answers to a series of questions such as What do I believe? What are the truths of my life? Who am I? What are my personal limitations? What are my principles? What is my daily goal or reason for doing what I do? And what do I want my legacy to be?

Through the process of being a mentor and answering Lukaszewski’s questions, I’ve realized that I can make it a practice to view conversations – whether on the bus, in a café, or in the office – as opportunities for co-creating new ideas of what’s possible. Now that’s rich.

I went hiking with some friends on Saturday. Two of us were ahead of our small group on the trail and I said, “Let’s stop a minute and wait for the others.”

My companion replied earnestly, “Waiting is a waste of time!”

She’s five years old and already worried about wasting time. What does “wasting time,” mean to a five-year-old?

In this case, she was focused on getting where she wanted to be and that was all that mattered. She was on a mission. She had a vision of herself playing by the lake and she didn’t want to wait for anyone or anything on her way to her goal.

She especially didn’t want to waste time on a dusty, hot trail when she could be by the lake we were hoping was just around the next bend.

Sounds familiar doesn’t it? Really, who likes to wait at any age? Yet our lives are full of waiting. How do we teach ourselves (so often like five-year-olds in our thinking and behavior) to appreciate waiting?

We start by noticing what is happening while we are waiting.

In this case: sunlight and shadows, tree leaves moving in the wind, dragonflies swooping by, birds playing hide and seek in the bushes, a lizard sunning, a panoramic view of the lake, being together on a summer day.

Or for another example take major donor fundraising. Sure we love those first time donors who make a surprise major gift but those are rare. Most large gifts are a result of respectful donor cultivation and relationship building. This process inherently includes waiting. The donor chooses the pace and decides when the time is right to make a gift.

We ask. We wait for an answer. What is happening while we wait? We provide information and opportunities for meaningful engagement. We build trust in the vision, mission and financial stability of our organizations. We get to know the passions and interests of the people who care about the work we are doing.

The space of waiting is dynamically alive – don’t miss seeing and appreciating this by becoming overly focused on your end goal.

p.s. Another reason to love waiting: Have you ever sent an email or said or done something that, if you had waited a bit to allow yourself a little distance from your initial emotions and thoughts, you might not have said or done? Waiting offers time for reflection and perspective. Take it.

What office drama are you facing this week? What’s your role in it? Is this the role you always play?

Try something different this week: suspend judgment.

Of course this sounds easier than it is since our minds are trained judging machines. Whether with people, prices, products or behavior – we automatically assign a meaning to everything and categorize things as “good” or “bad.”

Judging is a hard habit to change – especially when we think we are right.

A tool for shifting this habit is to never believe that your story (or any story) is the whole truth.

Like the blind men and the elephant, our experience is simply our interpretation of what we are seeing, touching, feeling, observing – one limited view among many limited views.

A few months ago my friend posted this video of the “hollow mask” optical illusion on her Facebook page. The video shows how our minds make things up. We see something that is not there and even knowing that it is an optical illusion doesn’t override the conditioning.

Be aware of this habit and know that as real and all encompassing as your story seems – it’s an optical illusion.

For practice, take something that has happened around the office recently. Notice how all the talking we do and our analysis of cause and effect – of who, what, where, why and how – gradually coalesces multi-faceted reality into a single “this is what happened” storyline.

And then we become fixed on this version of the story as reality.

Let go of your story this week. Suspend judgment.

Happy Monday!

I don’t have much to say today beyond the Quote of the Week.

These words from Scott Sanders book, Hunting for Hope have followed me for many years. Cropping up every time I start to feel overwhelmed by my to-do list.

A reminder that my stress is a by-product of an ambitious mind that believes more can (and needs to) be done than my physical body and time capacity allows for and can handle.

I heard someone say recently, “When you say no to something you are saying yes to something else.”

This obvious statement was and is beautifully profound to me. Mostly because I don’t like saying no, especially when what I am saying no to is something I really want to do or for a person or a cause I care about and want to support. Yet with every no, I am saying yes to my workable territory.

What about you? What are you saying no and yes to? What is your workable territory?

About a year ago, feeling frustrated with my own career advancement, I asked a friend and highly successful development professional for advice. “How did you come so far in your career, and in such a short time?” I asked.

She told me that one of the most important things that she’d done was join a professional association – the Association of Fundraising Professionals, in fact.

And when she went to programs, she didn’t just sit there. She’d talk to the person on her left and the person on her right. She’d ask them what they were working on, and she’d share her own dilemmas and ask for their opinions. Then she’d follow up with these new acquaintances and ask them to lunch. Oh, and she’d also offer herself as a panelist for programs that the Association was putting on.

“Isn’t there something like that for PR or Communications people?” she asked me.

Actually there was. The Public Relations Society of America. While I’d been a member, I had only gone to one program and I certainly hadn’t volunteered for anything.

Within a month of our conversation, I’d gone to a program, and offered my services as a volunteer for the program committee. After three months, I was having lunch with smart people that I’d met at the programs (on topics such as media relations, twitter & social media), and sharing with my own colleagues what I’d learned.

Within a year, I was on the board of the San Francisco chapter of PRSA as the VP of Communications, responsible for increasing the visibility of the chapter and showing other communications professionals how useful the information and networking available through PRSA is.

Because of my involvement in PRSA, my own career is thriving. Through the contacts I’ve made and knowledge I’ve gained, I’ve placed noteworthy op-eds for the Global Fund for Women. I’ve gained expertise that has led to me heading up the Global Fund’s social media and online communications function and I’m also doing the same for the San Francisco chapter of PRSA.

I have developed new relationships with people in the corporate, non-profit and government sectors, and most importantly, my love for my profession has been rekindled. The value I’ve received has been priceless – far exceeding the dollar cost of membership.

Ask for advice. Show up. And give of yourself. The benefits can be extraordinary.

Happy Monday!

Of all the advice I have received over the years, I’ve treasured most a message from the big trees:

“You take everything so seriously little one.”

I used to run after work along a redwood-lined trail in the San Francisco Bay Area hills. This is where I would go to de-stress.

I’d start out preoccupied, my mind reviewing meetings from the day, to do lists and plans to meet upcoming deadlines.

At the end of every run I would hang out with the trees, staying until my breath was back to normal and my mind quiet and more peaceful.

Some days turning off the work thoughts was harder than others. I’ve long been an analyzer – on the quest to figure out why things are the way they are and how we can make them better.

So there I was one day, leaning against a tree, my mind full of questions, searching for answers. And from the towering trees surrounding me there came a kind, gentle message, “You take everything so seriously little one.”

And I started to laugh. The intensity of my thoughts instantly lightened with this obvious truth. I was grateful for the friendly observation of my propensity toward seriousness in all things and for the reminder of my place (little one) in the universe.

Was the message from the trees or from my “higher” self? We have so many voices in our heads – from our past, from friends, bosses, parents, movies, newscasts, books, songs – our thoughts continually churning with internal dialogue. Processing, planning, remembering, judging, calculating, dreaming.

Where the words came from doesn’t really matter – the gift was the perspective they offered to see my thought patterns in a new light.

We all have this ability – the ability to see and observe our own behavior and to be conscious of what drives our thoughts, words and actions.

Awareness comes before change.