Category Archives for "Blog"

July 30, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“So, influenced by these advisors and this hope, I have at length allowed my friends to publish the work, as they had long besought me to do.” –Nicolaus Copernicus

How do advisors and advice show up in your life?  Do you keep your beliefs and dreams of what you want to do, accomplish and fulfill to yourself…or share them with others?

There’s lots of competing advice on advice. Much prevailing wisdom says that advice is simply the thicket of conventional thinking we have to blaze a trail through.  Have people tell you what can’t be done, and then go do it.

Then there are examples like Copernicus’s statement above, when he agreed to the publishing of his blasphemous ideas of the earth circling the sun (vs. vice versa) only at the urging of his advisors.

Where is the healthiest place to fall with advisors, in between these extremes?

Often good ideas, inspired initiaves and splendid plans can grow forever dusty when we keep them to ourselves out of fear of theirs or our own imperfection. For some reason, we don’t see the ideas or ourselves as perfected or generally accepted yet. Copernicus’s “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies” sat on his desk for 36 years before it was published.

But on the other hand, the family, friends and “experts” we consult can often give so generously of their wisdom as to the impossibility of what we envision that we can become even more afraid and frozen in our tracks.

In the final analysis, a commitment to action however, in one way or another, keeps us moving forward.

Informed and carefully chosen opinions may be helpful…if not necessarily treated as the Bible but “opinions.”

They can offer us insight on the holes in our plans before we get out on the water sailing them. But, at the very least, they inspire us by gaining either agreement or gumption-to-prove in the face of no agreement.

We ultimately learn, however, by action.

Got feedback?

“The best advisors…give us, out of themselves, the ardent spirit and desire to act right, and leave us then, even through many blunders, to find out what our own form of right action is.” –Phillip Brooks

July 23, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You cannot afford to wait for perfect conditions. Goal setting is often a matter of balancing timing against available resources. Opportunities are easily lost while waiting for perfect conditions.” –Gary Ryan Blair

A popular mindset is to always be in search of excellence. We all notice and respond to excellence when it shows up.

Yet, age-old advice also abounds that it is smart to move forward even in the face of imperfections.

Voltaire is attributed with the oft quoted “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” And Confucius said “Better a diamond with a flaw than a pebble without.”

The idea of the “golden mean” is to find that point at which, in between extremes, the greatest benefit can arise. The 80/20 rule says that it takes 20% of the full time to complete 80% of a task, while to complete the last 20% of a task takes 80% of the effort.

And the concept of diminishing returns states that, at some point, what you get back from additional effort is not worth that effort.

What does this have to do with career goals or dream fulfillment?

Only that those started-but-not-followed-through-on intentions, initiatives or projects may need to be examined. Do they really need more effort and attention, or is there value in going forward or putting it out there as it is, beyond the wait for perfection?

Got golden means?

“March on. Do not tarry. To go forward is to move toward perfection. March on, and fear not the thorns, or the sharp stones on life’s path.” –Khalil Gibran

Q & A
Media Source: NJ Star Ledger
Topic: “Getting through or around the HR Department”

Reporter Query: “For my career column in the NJ Star Ledger, looking for stories or advice about how to get around or through the HR Department if you think you are a good candidate for a job but don’t have 100% of the requisites HR is looking for.”

CareerGuy Response: “Hi Lee, as to your query, the work I’ve done for the past 12 years has been exactly about this: how to bypass, or at least get the secondary or tertiary referral to HR…vs. HR being the first stop. When I say secondary or tertiary, I mean getting referred to HR internally, by the manager or executive that you first developed a relationship with and who is wanting to put you through the system personally. Ideally, that is when you meet HR: once you’ve become known and liked by someone already in the company who feels you’ll fit their needs.  And that doesn’t happen by applying through the front door.

My work with folks in career transition focuses on behind-the-scenes, ‘backdoor’ or stealth job search techniques. It applies to any field or industry and CEOs to receptionists have used it…and I have many clients who have landed new opportunities and made entire career changes using just this method. It is especially golden for students and ex-military because everyone feels a moral obligation to help students and military. And yet it works equally well for moms re-entering the workforce and 55yr-old senior executives.

See full article HERE.

July 16, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“You all know,” said the Guide, “that security is mortals’ greatest enemy.”  –C.S. Lewis, The Pilgrim’s Regress

Being “settled” is a very seductive aim.

Refusing to settle can be…well, unsettling.

Courage vs. complacency: there’s the rub.

Got grit?

“Nothing is more dangerous to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very basic core of a man’s living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” –Jon Krakauer

July 9, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.” –Bertrand Russell

How do the demons of doubt show up for you?

They can creep in through various ways of comparing the present with the past or ourselves to others. They wreak havoc in terms of second guessing, hesitation, procrastination, and even paralysis.

I believe that our dreams require a good doctor’s advice of healthy diet and regular exorcise.

The diet might consist of restricting oneself to only consuming foods for thought of what one might contribute, the difference one could make, and who could possibly benefit by what our dream has to offer…vs. all those other fatty items of self-concern, trying to look good, and the dreaded possible mistake made.

Will we ever do it perfectly? Are we ever going to be the ultimate expert at whatever our dream is about? Probably not. Can we possibly have an impact anyhow? Sure.

I once heard this phrase: “There’s absolutely no way in the world you can do this wrong. And, there’s also no chance in hell that you’ll do it right. You’ll do it exactly how you do it.”

So, along with the healthy diet, adding a regimen of exorcise — casting out the demons of doubt for the sake of what might be possible — will likely pave a much brighter way for others…and ourselves.

What dream could you take a step forward in today to exorcise in faith?

Got doctor’s orders?

“Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.” –Khalil Gibran

July 2, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.” –Plutarch

Ever wonder what is really real?

We wake up sometimes unconsciously operating like today will be an extension of the day before, with but undone to-dos of yesterday’s “reality” still ahead of us.

And it’s easy to fall prey to thinking that what we’re doing, how we’re doing it, and the limits of what is “really” possible for us is somewhat set…or, at most, stretchable to within a few degrees on the thermostat.

Rarely do we approach days, events, people or circumstances as if it were our first experience with any of them…with the whole spectrum of anything being possible. Rather, the new gets colored by the old, the past.

I recently heard a term which I found intriguing: Rapidly Changing Reality, or RCR for short.

What becomes possible when we’re being open and available to right now vs. overlaying the here and now with a past pattern of fixededness is a Rapidly Changing Reality.

Shift happens! And though we’re all used to the unplanned, “negative” stuff happening, are we as aware that there is just as much a chance of unplanned, “positive” stuff happening? (I put both in quotes because, as Shakespeare says, “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so”.)

Where can you drop the past and be an invitation and opening for an RCR in your hopes and dreams today?

Got reality?

“Reality is wrong. Dreams are for real.” –Tupac Shakur

June 25, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” –Calvin Coolidge

No matter how many times we may have heard that oft quoted phrase, “Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent”, really, can we ever hear it enough??

Sometimes it seems there are simply great big pools of peanut butter and sludge and quicksand between us and our goals. We feel the pull to go into our heads and listen to all the internal stories about how it should be easier and “if it were meant to be it would be working faster/better”…and even the dreaded “this must be a sign!”

There’s definitely something to be said about reflection, regrouping and recalibration, for sure. Having a vision rather than just shooting from the hip will always take us farther. And, no doubt, there’s always better methods to accomplish anything we’re up to, ways to work smarter rather than harder, and efficiencies of effort to be attained.

And yet getting trapped in the fictional stories vs. taking action, and taking action again, and taking action again…just give us a more deeply pondered navel.

However, that action-facts-reflection, action-facts-reflection, action-facts-reflection cycle of forward movement gives us research and facts vs. fiction.

Where can you put aside your stories and take action to gain facts today?

Got facts?

“As long as we are persistent in our pursuit of our deepest destiny, we will continue to grow. We cannot choose the day or time when we will fully bloom. It happens in its own time.” –Denis Waitley

June 18, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Whoa,” said Nico as he climbed off the bus.

“Is that a climbing wall?”
“Yeah,” I (Percy) said.
“Why is there lava pouring down it?”
“Little extra challenge…” – Percy”
–Rick Riordan, The Titan’s Curse

If it was all fun and games, we’d all be having fun and games.

Yet there is adversity and challenge in the pursuit of anything great. Heck, there’s even adversity and challenge in the pursuit of anything small!

So, the question is, if it’s coming down the pike anyway, how do we want to play: great, or small.

When my son was little, he had on his bookshelf “the Little Me and THE GREAT ME”, one of those classic children’s books…written for adults.

We always have the choice of which “me” we’re gonna be.

One thing I’ve noticed is that often the greatest adversity carries with it, on the other side, something really cool that, in retrospect, could be seen as serendipity…good fortune.

The challenge is to face that adversity right now as THE GREAT ME who will, undoubtedly (if we’re focused on it), find the serendipity in it all later.

Tieing the former to the latter can help. And maybe that’s where the real fun and games begin.

Got adversidipity?

“Embrace each challenge in your life as an opportunity for self-transformation.” –Bernie S. Siegel

June 11, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Do what you can with what you have where you are.” –Theodore Roosevelt

Yesterday was National Iced Tea Day.

Why does that matter? Because it demonstrates what we sometimes have to do in order to move our dream forward or transform something old into new.

So the story goes, the first known use of iced tea occurred in 1904 when English tea plantation owner Richard Blechynden set up a booth to sell hot tea at the St. Louis World Fair.

It was a sizzler of a day, and fair visitors didn’t want anything hot. Rather, they needed something to quench their thirst…something cold.

Quickly shifting his approach, he dumped some of his hot tea into ice and served it cold. It was an immediate hit.

What if there were the ever-so-slightest shift in what you’re currently doing, offering or pursuing that could create a whole new world of possibilities?

Got resourcefulness?

“It’s not resources but resourcefulness that ultimately makes the difference.” –Tony Robbins

June 4, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“Our character is basically a composite of our habits. Because they are consistent, often unconcious patterns, they constantly, daily, express our character…” –Stephen R. Covey

If you’re anything like me, you are constantly aware of your patterns.

They can be good, “patterns of success”, which have been grown, cultivated, and often wrangled into place…

or they can be patterns which appear as less than “good”, habitual and automatic, thriving in the darkness of the unconscious where they leisurely comfort away, undetected.

I’m not so sure that waging war on the “bad” patterns, or judging ourselves harshly by whether we consistently stick to the good patterns provides the peace of mind that supports growth.

But somewhere in between, where we are conscious and aware, both encouraging and forgiving at the same time…maybe that’s where new futures can be born.

At least it makes for a better day. 🙂

Got patterns?

“All fixed set patterns are incapable of adaptability or pliability. The truth is outside of all fixed patterns.” –Bruce Lee

May 28, 2014, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day

By Darrell Gurney | Blog

“My general attitude to life is to enjoy every minute of every day. I never do anything with a feeling of, ‘Oh God, I’ve got to do this today.” –Richard Branson

We can easily write off that quote from such a bugzillionaire by the rationalization that, were we as rich and successful and set in life, we wouldn’t HAVE TO do anything either.

We find ourselves needing to do many things in our day that don’t necessarily fit our ideas of “wanting” to do.

Yet, that quote may point to the exact line of thinking — and active practice — behind big, fulfilled lives and awesome dreams come true. We can control and shift how we face anything. We have that power.

It’s not to say that a constant dread of our current work isn’t something to make note of and, if necessary, make a change. And yet, as a great book, The War of Art, points out, even when we’re on track for the fulfillment of our dreams, we still face resistance: not just external, but internal.

One of our most valuable personal assets, and that which we always completely own outright, is our attitude.

Do you find that people around you want to steal yours…or are they glad you possess it and, therefore, are keeping it out of circulation?

Got an attitude?

“Your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life; not so much by what happens to you as by the way your mind looks at what happens.” –Khalil Gibran