Let’s face it, the economy is not recovering as quickly as we hoped it would. It’s depressing, it’s frustrating and I’m sure there are several of you that are so sick of looking for work that you could recite your resume by heart, can dial the unemployment call in number in your sleep and feel like you have a deep and personal relationship with the manly voice reciting your options on the other end of the phone. It’s hard to stay positive, it’s hard to keep looking, it’s hard to keep putting yourself out there only to be disappointed again. I guess I could give you some really positive peppy little talk about keeping your chin up, going through the motions, faking it until you make it or some other two cent psycho babble that we have all heard before. How about I don’t waste your time or mine?
There are just going to be days where you want to go to the beach (it is summer after all!) or go to the movies or go shopping or stick red hot pokers in your eyes – anything but look for a job!! I think despite all the things I’ve already mentioned we feel that way because sometimes we just don’t want to work – and looking for a job is work! Todd Rundgren sang a song about it, sing with me….”I don’t want to work, I just want to bang on the drum all day!” So what do you do with yourself when you realize that you are really tired of looking for a job and just don’t want to do it anymore? I’ve been thinking about that so here are a few ideas.
A lousy “beneath” you job could still provide you with great experience for your resume. A job at a retail store can teach you a lot about customer service and sales. Maria Bartiromo has a book out called “The 10 Laws of Enduring Success” and she talks about how a job at an off-track betting facility during college was the perfect preparation for a later job broadcasting from the New York Stock Exchange. Think about it – a roomful of men, placing bets, in a highly charged environment…….see the similarities? A job doing something manual can provide you with exercise, new experience and the opportunity to be outside. The possibilities are endless – and trust me there are jobs out there that are available – chances are you just feel over-qualified or haven’t thought about what they could teach you. There is always something to learn from every situation. I recently had lunch with a friend of mine who was telling me about her new job. She went on to express how it wasn’t nearly as much money as she was used to making but she had reached the point where she had to take something. However, she was in a position where she was managing three other people. She had never done that before – pretty lucky break to get a management position when she had never done that. She said she was going to look at it as an “experience job” and try to learn as much as she could about the business and being a manager as she could. (Ok maybe I am giving you a bit of a pep talk but I’m trying to be sarcastic and snarky so it doesn’t feel like it!)
Do you have to enter a company at the level you want? Is there a business you really want to learn or get into but don’t have experience? Well guess what! You just might have to start at the bottom and work your way up. Next time you go into a fast food restaurant why don’t you pull the manager aside and ask how they got to be manager. I would bet dollars to donuts they started out working the register or flipping burgers. Now they are managing a store, probably making about $45K a year and working for an established, incredibly successful company. My nephew Andy (who is an amazing young man by the way) decided that he didn’t want to go to college, he wanted to work and take some time to figure out what he wanted to do. He got a job at an auto parts store because he had an older car that he was constantly working on and he figured the discount and knowledge would help. That was seven years ago – now he is a Regional Manager. He oversees stores in several different states, drives a big fancy truck, bought a boat two years ago and well, makes more money than I do!!!! Little stinker!
Last but not least (and yes I know you’ve heard it before) go volunteer some of your time. If you don’t know where give me a call – I sit on the board of a non-profit that would love your time! As a volunteer you can get all sorts of valid work experience that you can put on your resume. Want to break into marketing? Go help a non-profit with their marketing strategy and execution. Just because you didn’t get paid doesn’t mean it ain’t work! Impress them enough and you never know – you might just get hired by that non-profit when they need someone.
Pep talk is over………enjoy your day at the beach, or movie or whatever, call your boyfriend at the unemployment office call in line and then go control your destiny!
Amy Zagroba
Unemployed and Bored
The Mousetrap and The Farmer’s Wife
I posted this several months ago but felt it was worth repeating!
So often I think we go to networking events and we meet someone and we think that what they are facing doesn’t pertain to us, or that they can’t help us so we become disinterested and move on to someone else. I think the story below is a great metaphor for how we should learn how we can help every person we can meet, who we can introduce them to, if our network can help them out, etc. Just felt it was a powerful message in these times.
The Mousetrap and the Farmer’s Wife
A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.
“What food might this contain?” The mouse wondered.
He was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.
Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed this warning :
“There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, “Mr. Mouse,
I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me.
I cannot be bothered by it.”
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, “There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The pig sympathized, but said, “I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers.”
The mouse turned to the cow and said, “There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a mousetrap in the house!”
The cow said, “Wow, Mr. Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.”
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected,
to face the farmer’s mousetrap
. . . Alone. . .
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — the sound Of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer’s wife rushed to see what was caught.
In the darkness, she did not see it.
It was a venomous snake whose tail was caught in the trap.
The snake bit the farmer’s wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital.
When she returned home she still had a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup.
So the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main ingredient.
But his wife’s sickness continued.
Friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
But, alas, the farmer’s wife did not get well… She died.
So many people came for her funeral that the farmer had the cow slaughtered
to provide enough meat for all of them for the funeral luncheon.
And the mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and you think it doesn’t concern you, remember —
When one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.
We are all involved in this journey called life.
We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
A Trip To The Hospital
Recently I had to spend ten days in the hospital. Never a pleasant experience. (So that you don’t have to ask, I’m know what’s wrong, working on fixing it and I will be fine.) I’m one of those annoying people that is always trying to make the best out of a bad situation or looking for the silver lining. It is not easy to do that when you are in the hospital, in pain, trying to figure out what’s wrong, going through all sorts of annoying and painful tests, being unable to sleep, etc. (don’t sound very positive right now do I?)
Well I learned something about myself while I was in there….I’m pretty good at turning networking relationships into true friendships which is kind of the point anyway isn’t it? I’m not saying that I didn’t think I was a good network, I am. I get it, I understand what it’s about. I’m not perfect and I can always get better but I am confident in this area. What I didn’t realize is that several of the people that I have met through networking and business that I have come to think of as friends also think of me as a friend.
How did I learn this – I spent 10 days in the hospital. I didn’t hide that I was in there – I posted it on Facebook, I was tweeting, etc. I didn’t post it to get attention but it was a quick way to let people know why I wasn’t answering my office phone, why emails that I may have answered while under the influence of IV narcotics sounded a little goofy, why I wasn’t at events that I said I would attend, etc. It worked – everyone pretty much knew what was going on with me.
I expected a few Facebook messages asking how I was doing. I expected a few emails checking in on me. What I didn’t expect was a huge outpouring of genuine care and concern for my well-being along with cards, flowers, balloons, and phone calls. I think my poor nurses thought maybe I was going to need a psych consult because every few hours I would start crying because I would be once again be so emotionally touched by someone’s gesture of friendship. I realized that so many of these people had truly become friends in my life, that if I talked about them I would refer to them as a friend, and that I had allowed my business and personal lives to meld into each other and my life was richer because of it.
I hope you are networking, I hope you take those acquaintances to the next level, and I hope you someday have the opportunity to look at your Christmas card list, or a guest list for a party or something else in your personal life and realize many on the list you met through networking.
Inconvenience
I had the wonderful opportunity and privilege to spend almost two years of my life working for one of the world’s best sales trainers, Chris Lytle. He wrote an amazing book called “The Accidental Salesperson” and has developed two different on-line sales training programs. Intimidating? Sometimes. Huge opportunity to learn? Definitely. I learned a lot while I was working with him and fortunately for me I still have a great relationship with him and his company so I can keep learning from him. However, the biggest lesson I learned from him was a life lesson. It’s something he often talks about and mentions when he does one of his live sales training sessions. Chris tells a story about a mix-up with a seminar location and how everyone could have allowed it to ruin their whole day when realistically – it was an inconvenience.
I’ve tried really hard to apply this to my life. When something goes wrong we so often allow it to ruin our whole day, to put us in a bad mood and we make the decision that it is now a “bad day”. But is it really? If you spill coffee and get a stain on your pants is your day really ruined? Or is this an inconvenience? Someone reschedules a meeting – tragic? Or inconvenient? We hear all the time that attitude is everything so why not apply this principal when things go wrong for us? Yes there are times when something really serious happens and it can truly be a bad day but how often do we completely blow things out of proportion and allow that one little inconvenience to ruin our day and affect our mood for the next 12 hours? Is your train being 5 minutes late really worth ruining your entire day?
I had to seriously apply this in my own life recently. I traveled to Florida with my 3 year old. My husband works for Delta so we fly for free but we fly stand-by. When we went to the airport to fly home we weren’t able to get on the flight. We went and ate and waited to see if we would get on the next one – no luck. We tried to buy a discounted ticket on another airline – all full. Now realize our luggage has left and is on its way home to Chicago but we are in Florida in the West Palm Springs airport – me and a 3 year old. We were stuck. I had already had a very frustrating conversation with a Delta representative and although she was pleasant and tried to help there was nothing she could do to get me home. At that moment I realized that I could allow this to ruin my day, my night, possibly the next day and even how I treated my three old. It became a lesson for me and a chance to teach my daughter Tess. So, I looked at her and said “We can’t go home today Tess, this is inconvenient but not tragic. We will find a hotel, go to Wal-mart for amenities and clothes, order room service, watch movies, go swimming and go home tomorrow.” Just saying it made me feel better – it sounded like quite the adventure to her and so off we went. We were able to get home the next day after a pretty fun night at the hotel.
So the next time something happens that seems just awful, frustrating or makes you think it’s going to be a bad day….stop! Look at it and think “is this tragic? Or inconvenient? Do I really want to allow this to affect my attitude to the point where I ruin my whole day? Or can I get past it and move on to have a great day?” I vote for making it a great day!
My Dad – the best networker I ever knew
My very first networking event was on an incredibly snowy day in March (I think) 2008 at China Grill. It was a CW-Network event put on by Gigi Bozzano. I didn’t really know what it was or what to expect but I was on her mailing list and had seen the announcement so I decided to sign up. I spent most of the night talking to people and telling them what I did and how sales training could help them (that’s what I was selling after all!) and was generally doing all the things you aren’t supposed to do when networking! Luckily I met a few people there that I’ve managed to keep in touch with and continue to network with like Jill Houk of Centered Chef, Joe Johnson of Riverside Consulting Group, Toby Nathan of Recruitastar and Stephanie Berger. Stephanie was the last person I talked to that night –she came right up to me, introduced herself, pulled out her notebook and said “how can I help you?” I didn’t know how to respond! What did she mean? I asked her for an explanation and she said “What are you looking for by attending? Who do you need to meet? Networking is about helping people so tell me how I can help you.” Well this was different. Stephanie then went on to tell me about her networking coach, Mark Carter and all he was teaching her. A coach? Now I was even more confused. I left with a promise to get together with Stephanie (which I did) and lots of questions about this thing everyone called “networking”.
Apparently the networking gods felt I needed a little help so a short time later I received an email announcement from Susan Barahia at the BNC about her entrepreneur group – guest speaker, Mark J. Carter. I had to go and check this out! As I listened to the presentation it was as if I had this sudden moment of clarity – this is exactly what my dad did for his entire life – there just hadn’t been a name for it! I asked a few questions and Mark asked to speak with me after the class was over. I thought for sure I was in trouble! Mark pulled me aside and said “I can tell you are one of those people that just ‘gets it’ and I would love to get together with you”. I left with a promise to have lunch (which we did!). Up until that point I hadn’t really understood what networking was or meant but suddenly I knew.
My dad owned two companies in Rockford, Illinois when I was growing up. He sat on several boards at the University of Wisconsin and was even President of the Alumni Association for a term. He was always getting asked to sit on boards, join committees, speak at events, etc. As a child I just knew he was gone a lot, as an adult I realize that not only was he an incredibly well liked man and great salesperson, he was the epitome of what a networker is. I can now remember him planning cocktail parties and dinners where he was very specific about who he was inviting because they were people who should know each other. I was present for several conversations where his response would be “I know someone that can help you with that problem, I’ll just make a call for you”. This was before the internet, before email, just when car phones and cell phones were being introduced and he still managed to make sure the was making connections. We couldn’t go anywhere without running into someone he knew and he made it a point to really get to know people and remember them. Often after the hello’s were said and the person would leave he would give me the lowdown on who they were, how they knew each other and what they did. His memory for details was daunting and he could pull people from the file cabinet in his brain and remember all the reasons why they should be connected to someone he just met. It was truly amazing. When you are a kid and you say “I really want to go to this concert at the Rosemont Horizon (because that is what it was called back then) and your dad says “oh I know the sales manager, let me make a call” you just think you have a very cool dad. It’s not until later in life that you really understand how big his network was and how often he was helping people.
I lost my dad in November 2008 and it was awful – the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. But through the entire process his amazing ability to network was reaffirmed again and again as I received phone calls, letters, emails and spoke to people that would tell me story after story of how he helped them. I already knew I had the best dad in the world and it only made me more proud to be his daughter to realize that my dad was the best networker I knew as well. This is why networking has become such a huge part of my daily life. When I die I want people to come forward saying “Amy helped me do this” or “Amy introduced me to so and so and because of that this happened”. I want my kids and husband to hear stories from people of how I impacted their life and made it better. I mentioned certain people by name in this blog because they impacted me – they have made my life better. I am still connected with them and friends with them. I had breakfast with Mark J. Carter last week. The connections you make, the networking you do, it can not only help you and change your life but you can make incredible impressions on other people and change their lives. What do you want people to say about you? Who have you helped today?
