January 21, 2015, TGIW: Unhumping Hump Day…I Have a Dream

“Where there is no vision, there is no hope.” –George Washington Carver

I had a dream, or maybe I was waking from one. Yet, there was a sense of excitement…the kind that little kids have when it’s Christmas morning or their birthday. A feeling that good times and joyful things are coming.

I pondered in my waking grogginess “Oh, it’s Friday! Maybe that’s what I’m excited about?” Don’t we all have that sense of a pleasurable “break” on the way, regardless of when our particular “work week” ends?

Then, as I slowly awoke more fully, I thought “Wait, it’s not Friday, it’s Thursday”, which carries it’s own almost-there quality, doesn’t it?

But finally, I became completely alert and realized “Ha! It’s not Thursday, it’s not even Wednesday. It’s Tuesday!” I had to catch myself from saying “only” before Tuesday.

What if? Just what if each day were really so full of a Vision and a Dream being acted upon and fulfilled that we really DIDN’T know what day it was?

Did Martin Luther King concern himself with which days of the week he could take a “break”? Did Mother Theresa or Gandhi live for their “off” time?

And even beyond these luminaries, there are folks surrounding each of us right now who obviously live by an energy source beyond the 9 to 5, “work week” mindset. Who are they for you?

All this is not to discount recreation and the time needed to fill our tanks…yet what if it wasn’t the off time that we lived for but, rather, the “on” (top of a Vision and a Dream) time?

It’s easy to think that we are individually too small, too inconsequential, and too tied up in the minutia to have a Vision or a Dream. Then again, maybe we’re only a thought away from it?

Got “on” time?

“You are not here merely to make a living. You are here in order to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world, and you impoverish yourself if you forget the errand.” –Woodrow Wilson

Q & A
Media Source: DailyFinance.com
Topic: “Affording your dream job”

Reporter Query: “Did you quit a job to pursue a dream job? If you found your dream job, did you take a pay cut? Looking for people who gave up secure jobs to find their dream job, and what, if any, financial problems they had to deal with during the search and afterward. Financially, what did you give up and what did you gain during and after search? How did you deal with that?”

CareerGuy Response: “Hi Aaron, as to your query, my career is based in supporting folks to pursue and find meaningful work, aka dream jobs.  Sometimes folks indeed choose to forego some immediate financial reward for the sake of newly re-assessed values, which may rank their fulfillment and enjoyment at a higher weight than the finances.  However, I think it is a mistake for people to operate from the belief that if, indeed, they pursue their “dream” that they necessarily have to take a cut. Through the front-door of career transition, competing with everyone else out there for available openings, this is often true. However, I empower people to make transitions through a backdoor or “stealth” approach…which often nets them opportunities they could never access through the front door and rarely needing a “step back” in compensation. Here is just one example of someone making such a move that I spell out in my recent book, and because of the approach, she didn’t have to take a cut in compensation.

Miracle Move #1:  Clara, VP of Marketing for a major telecommunications company, wanted to make a change. Possessing a limited front door mentality, she assumed she could only transition into another marketing role, most likely with another telecom company. At this point in her career, her values had shifted substantially. She had a passion for her Jewish culture and had always wanted to do something related to Judaism, but was used to a big corporate paycheck and figured she’d have to take a deep cut—even IF she could qualify for anything in that field. This was all before she learned The Backdoor (“Stealth”) Job Search Method™. After a thorough process of career inventory, personal branding and packaging, she began connecting with people through the backdoor, which was not about her needing a job. Rather, she began forming relationships based upon research into her true interests and passions…one of which was Judaism. She ended up landing a position as the Executive Director of a non-profit organization that trains bomb-sniffing dogs for Israel.