Friday night, I attended the San Francisco Time Bank’s event at the Happiness Institute to hear Charles Eistenstein, author of Sacred Economics. After his Charles’ talk, the Time Bank had a holiday fair, and I was a “vendor,” where I offered free 10 minute “speed coaching” sessions.  I’ve done these zippy, to-the-point, high-energy coaching sessions before, for organizations like BrazenCareerist, and always loved offering this.

During one of the sessions, I met with a young woman in her 20s, Janna (I’m changing her name to keep confidentiality), who told me, “I like to do so many things. My boyfriend only likes one. He’s on my case to figure out what to call myself, what to do for a career.”

Janna went on to describe interests in non-violent communication, babies, birthing, political activism, the environment, interpersonal communication, and a host of other fascinating subjects. “The problem is, I don’t know what to be.”

People who have a bunch of interests and talents naturally get frustrated trying to cram them all under one title. It’s problematic to find the one job that will encompass all their talents.

Personally, I find that artificial cramming to be futile. Impossible. Stupid, even.

Most of us grew up with parents who had just one job. Engineer. Chef. Marketing manager. Postal carrier. Actress. Painter. Architect. Accountant. Designer. Finance director. You get the idea.

“So, my boyfriend upset with me, because he does just one thing. He’s a biologist. Me, I don’t know what I am. I have so many interests! What am I supposed to do?” asked Janna.

Ah, this so-called “problem” is not actually a problem, but a remnant of a former way of working. No longer do we need to be saddled with just one title. We’re living in the era of variety. When we can do a bunch of different activities, for which we may be paid varying amounts, in varying ways. You might call it a “portfolio career,” a “slash career” (I’d say, “I’m a coach, slash author, slash performance artist, slash speaker”), or you could say you’ve got “multiple streams of income.” For example, I helped a PR executive reinvent herself, and now she performs in community theater, does voiceovers, and plans events. All have different audiences and different ways she gets paid. But she’s no bound by just one title.

It’s time to unlock yourself from having just ONE thing you do. It can be helpful to find a unifying theme in all that you do. Like Janna might say she’s “all about birthing new ideas and perspectives.” I even suggested to Janna that she starts a public blog to talk about all the things she’s doing, and to find her “tribe” of people who resonate with what she’s doing, what she’s thinking, and what she’s creating. The blog, at least initially, would be more for her than for her audience, so she can start to find her perspective, her descriptors, and what matters to her. It’s a public way of finding her direction. You, too, can try it out.

Janna looked at me quizzically and asked, “But what about my boyfriend? What do I tell him, since he’s so sure I need to find the ONE thing I do. He’s got that, and I don’t.”

Janna loved my guidance, which emerged on the fly, and I wanted to share it with you:

“Think of your interests as though you’re on the playground. You like to play in the sandbox, but also speed down the slide, fly through the air on the swings, and balance on the teeter totter. Your boyfriend likes the jungle gym. That’s fine. You have a diversity of interests, and there’s nothing at all wrong with that. In fact, I invite you to cultivate those interests, and find the overarching principle that unites your diverse talents and areas of curiosity.”
Oooh, that “playground” metaphor gave Janna a lot of freedom to “play” with her interests. She need not criticize her boyfriend for loving his biology. He probably finds that to be a big enough playground for himself, at least for now.

What about YOUR playground?

Is your playground filled with a bunch of different activities? If so, what unites them? Or is your playground a single activity? And what keeps it interesting for you?

Click on “comments” above and share about YOUR playground. Why? So we can all see the variety of ways we play in our work. So we can change the paradigm, and open up and validate our amazing playgrounds. Especially for those of us with a ton of interests.

Looking forward to seeing your seesaws and swings,

Don’t know what’s on your playground yet? Let’s get you clear about your career. Join me for the Crafting Careers That Truly Fit workshop! Plus other fun goodies to help you boost your confidence. Click here for the details on this January 13-15 workshop..

When I gave up watching television over 10 years ago, I was delighted to delve into books. Now, I generally read one or two books a week. Recently, I positively devoured Anne Kreamer’s “It’s Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace,” and I contacted Anne via Twitter to see if she would share a bit about her findings with you. And sure enough, she did, in this 15-minute video from our Skype call.

Personally, discussing emotions in the workplace is a joy for me, partly because I felt so inhibited from expressing mine early in my career. When I worked as a strategy consultant at Accenture (then Andersen Consulting), it seemed as thought I was expected to be poker-faced, or to be polite and neutral about virtually everything our clients expressed to me. Sometimes, as a result of being so robotic, we were known as “androids.” Interestingly, Anne uses that very term, android, in our interview, as she describes the hyper-rational, hyper-professional face that many people have been acculturated to display at work.

So why did Anne write a book about emotions in the workplace? Partially because she met with other women who described crying at work, and then feeling ashamed of their tears. While crying can display empathy, compassion, and connectedness, it can also be seen negatively at work. She had also had a pivotal experience of holding back her tears at work, and wondered why she felt so emotionally constrained. Previously the Senior VP for Consumer Products at Nickelodeon, Anne was celebrating the conclusion of the largest-ever video deal with her colleagues, when the phone rang. Her assistant told Anne that Sumner Redstone, the owner of Viacom, her parent company, was on the line. Anne thought he was going to congratulate her. Instead, he berated her for not making the stock price go up. Although her ability to impact the share price seemed ludicrous, given the tiny size of her division within the multi-billion dollar company, Anne didn’t feel she could get angry at Mr. Redstone. Tears welled up at the injustice, but she felt she had to show her team a positive face, so she wiped off her tears before returning to celebrate with them. Curiosity about this and other emotional incidents lead Anne on a multi-year journey of exploring the role of emotions in the workplace.

Additionally, in partnership with J Walter Thompson, Anne created a national study on emotions at work, in order to ask people about their everyday lives and the emotions they bring to work. In contrast, virtually all studies on emotions are done in the laboratory, in contrived experimental conditions, and Anne was curious about people’s actual lived experience. For example, she wanted to know if there are there gender differences behind how we process our emotions? We are fortunate to live in a time when fMRI technology has let us look at real brains in working environments. That data complemented what Anne found in her surveys. For example, when asked about whether they had cried in the previous year, 41% of women said that they had, and only 9% of men said that they had (a number which Anne speculates is probably higher). So something was going on.

One of the emotional dynamics that women face is the social pressure to suppress anger. While 60% of women reported having felt angry at work in the past year, many feel ashamed to express that emotion, due to social conditioning. But that anger needs to be dissipated, so women cry. And yet some workplace norms make crying a sign of weakness and failure. So there comes the double-whammy for us women. We are ashamed to get angry. And then we cry, and we’re ashamed of that. And all of that shame comes from social conditioning, not from the raw emotion.

Interestingly, Anne found that when we see a CEO crying, their employees tend to perceive that CEO as more empathic and more human than CEOs who don’t cry. And men who viewed women crying did judge that crying as bad, nor did they make the tears a big deal. However, women who saw other women crying had negative perceptions of those tears. Anne indicates that this dynamic may have to do with women having to fight so hard to be perceived positively in the workplace for the last 40+ years. However, that fight is over, and now, women comprise roughly 50% of the American workforce.

Anne raises an especially important issue:  Women are going to shape the service jobs that can reshape the economy: Health care, elder care, green jobs, and education. These are the types of jobs where we need empathy and caring. So especially in these kinds of jobs, she asserts that women ought to step back and be less critical of each other.

I asked Anne about her fondest hopes for the impact her book, “It’s Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace,” might have. First, she would like to see people become more aware of the importance of emotions for good decision making. And secondly, she wants to see us be more of ourselves at work. It used to be that you didn’t make personal calls during work, or receive business calls at home. Now, we get texts from family and friends while we’re working, and at home, we check email and find business messages. Work and our personal lives are intermingled. So, the more we can be ourselves across the board, the more we can reduce our need for emotional labor — that is, we can stop trying present a professional persona that has nothing to do with how we view our essential self. Anne and I both firmly believe that when we present more of who we are essentially at work, the less we feel the distress of a false self. We both hope that people (you, too, dear reader), will take the message of this book as permission to feel and regulate your emotions, thus contributing to wellness (physical and mental) in the workplace.

Immerse Yourself: Share your response here on the blog…
How much do you feel the need to hide your emotions at work?
What might happen if you allowed more of your true self to show at work?
And how can we create workplaces where people feel freer to be themselves?

With no anger, all joy,

About two weeks ago, I asked a provocative question of my newsletter readers:

What is the most important change
your company or organization could make
that would cause you to feel
intensely engaged and excited
about working for them?

Wow! I was inundated with answers! I heard back from a very diverse group of Work from Within newsletter readers, especially from teachers, adults who have recently been laid off, and people working in the healthcare field. I heard from readers across the world, primarily in the United States and Canada, but also in Sweden, Germany, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand.

Here’s what I learned from YOU…

1. Overall, you want to be appreciated. You wish that your employers really understood how much care you pour into your work, and you want more than a pat on the back. It’s not that you are screaming for more money. In fact, you said that was not your primary motivator. You would feel most alive and engaged if your managers and co-workers noticed the effort you put into projects, the skills you learned, and the ways you make a difference. You crave positive feedback, the chance to know what’s working. Teachers are having an especially hard time, with school districts, governments, and parents criticizing them as they strive to do more on their shoestring salaries. (So if you know a teacher, send a word of encouragement, would you, please?)
2. You want your company to be upfront with you about what’s happening. You want to feel connected to the organization’s mission. You want to be told — frequently — how your work relates to the strategic direction, so that you don’t feel left in the dark. And you especially want to be kept in the light when it comes to any threats to your job. As a whole, you’d rather know early on that your job is in danger, and you really despise management when they tell you that your job is safe, only to turn around and lay you off soon afterwards. You want transparency from management, and you wish to be trusted with the truth, especially when it involves your future.
3. You want to learn and grow in your role and your life. And you wish that your company would pay for time for you to take classes or read or otherwise enrich yourself. You want time to digest and discuss what you learn with colleagues, too. And you want to be asked how you, personally, want to grow, and you’d like as much support from your organization as possible to grow in the ways you’d like, assuming they fit at least some of the company’s needs. You’ve said you’re open to different types of growth, not just “moving up the ladder,” but doing rotations, learning overseas, and taking on special projects.
4. You want to be immersed in a positive environment. Negativity, rubbing your nose in past mistakes, and anger all rob you of your energy. You yearn to contribute in meaningful, easeful ways, free from demoralizing people and processes. Said another way: You want to let your talents flow and be magnified.

A big huge thank you to everyone who took the time to reply. I’m really touched.

So, what am I going to do with what you’ve shared with me?

Well, first, if you’ve been reading about my personal journey, you may already know that I’m moving away from individual coaching (I’ll still do a bit of that one-on-one work, because I love connecting so personally with people like you). I’m moving towards sharing what I’ve learned over the past ten from high-energy company super-stars about why they leave, in order to help companies retain their best people and teach their employees to take more responsibility for their professional development. To that end, I’ll be teaching about maximizing your ROLE, your Return On Life Energy within companies.

I also plan to meet with HR people and senior managers to discuss your desires, and work collaboratively to see what we can do to change the shape of the workplace.

I’m very appreciative that my friend — the gifted author and speaker Simon T. Bailey — shared with over 2,000 HR professionals at the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM) conference this week some of my findings about why talented people leave their companies, and what HR professionals can do to turn things around.

I’m doing my best to convey your DESIRES about work…to the people who can DO something to make your work more EXCITING and ENGAGING.

I promise to keep you updated.

And please, will you keep me posted about what you want?

Will you tell me what will get you to bring the best of you to the work that you do? I really care about listening and translating your deepest desires, so you can give your best at work. Drop me a line at info@WorkFromWithin.com

I’m listening…

Have you ever had a goal in mind and just wished and prayed and hoped that you could attain it?

I have.

I remember how shocked an honored I was to have been chosen as a Hay House Mover & Shaker back in May, 2010. Hay House ran a contest, asking participants who had been through the Movers & Shaker’s Program, now called the Speak, Write & Promote program, to submit a video with your important message. I spent a lot of time with my friend, Robert Ellis of Futurosity, getting my video submission just right. Still, I wondered if I had a chance to win with my core message about maximizing your ROLE, your Return On Life Energy, as a way to create work that fits.

Lucky for me, I won! Initially, the prize was a one-month radio show, essentially four episodes. I’m very honored to have had the initial run be three months, with many extensions. All in all, I will have been sharing my wisdom on careers on Hay House for nine magical months.

I hope that you’ll tune in to internet radio’s www.HayHouseRadio.com at 8 am Pacific (11 am Eastern) on Thursday, June 30, when I broadcast the Work from Within show for the final time on Hay House Radio. Of course, I would love to take your calls with questions about any career related issues. You can get free guidance from me by calling 866-254-1579 in the US and Canada, and 760-918-4300 internationally.

It’s been very meaningful to host the Work from Within show, and to have guests like Pamela Slim, Shakti Gawain, Marc Allen, and Joan Borysenko to share their wisdom. I feel both sad and proud for the show to be ending. Sigh…

I finally grasp it, at a visceral level, what people mean when they say “things are looking up.” I’ve been feeling depressed for a few days. Heavy. Teary. Blah. Mentally scrambled hard.

Whether that’s from Seasonal Affective Disorder, eating too much sugar, the recent time zone shift, losing two favorite clients, or staying up waaaay too late one night this week way, the cause doesn’t really matter.

I wanted to escape these awful feelings that were dragging me down. For relief, I tried an Emotional Freedom Technique called Tapping. I tried Affirmations. I even tried Lifeforce Yoga to Beat the Blues, my winter standby feel-better video. I got a brief respite. But then it was back to anxiety, tears, and a litany of self-criticism. Yuck.

Before bed, I took a moment to ask the Universe (aka G-d, aka My Higher Power, aka Source, aka You Get the Idea…) for some assistance in lifting this depression. Moments later, feeling especially anxious about tidying up, I returned some a pair of jeans to the top shelf in my well-stuffed bedroom closet. I looked up to find space for the pants. My search took more than a few seconds, as I balanced my petite self on my tippy toes, my eyes pointed upward. I noticed that something felt different. I felt lighter. More open in my chest. Emotionally freer. Less tense. Almost buoyant.

I love experiencing these embodied aha moments. The inner wisdom wake up call. Indeed, something magical occurs when I turn up my gaze. I kept doing it. I raise my chin slightly and raise my eyes softly. Very little effort. It’s not about muscling. Wow! Things really are looking up for me. The depressed feelings are fading. Amazing. As they say, the body speaks in metaphor.

If you want to stop feeling down, if you want your circumstances to look up, well, you can simply look up.

Try it. What happens for you? I’d love to know.

Yesterday, I just dug up some old journals, looking to understand myself when I was miserable in my career. I wanted to understand my psychology. I wanted to see if I had any inklings of this amazing life I’m living right now, being what some people call “The Doctor who gets you working well.”

I thought you’d enjoy seeing where my life was at before, in my live-from-a-suitcase, 80+ hour workweek, over-analyzing, over-stressed, highly perfectionistic life as a management consultant, so you you can be inspired that change is possible.

I know that YOU … yes, YOU…even if you are feeling miserable in your career…

(1) You can move your life (and livelihood!) from awful to awesome, if you give yourself time and…
(2) You can hold out hope (and believe in yourself and some magic or power bigger than yourself)
(3) You can allow yourself to imagine and fantasize how life could be. And reap the pretty magical benefits of what can seem like childlike day-dreaming. Even if that day-dreaming feels indulgent. Indulge!

28 May, 1996

I am feeling a great deal of impatience and agitation, but also a tremendous sense that something good is coming. However, I feel like I am being remiss in preparing for an opportunity, and I’m afraid it is going to pass me by.

I have been feeling very frustrated about work. I realize I don’t feel totally organized & methodical, and that sometimes, it’s hard for me to see things clearly. I wonder if I am logical enough. I also wonder if I have enough interest in what I am doing. I am not one of those people who just naturally picks up the Wall Street Journal. I need a problem or an issue to focus on, and then I’ll read.

Anyway, I am still feeling a lot of need to change my job, but I don’t want to rush it. I am scare of being “trapped” on a project I don’t like. For example, I don’t really want to work on the BigCo cost-cutting project in Miami. First of all, regardless of location, cost-cutting doesn’t interest me. Secondly, it’s so far out of town and I’m just beginning to have a social life here. I actually want to have a social life. Ugh, and I hate Miami. I am scared that I would have no idea how to do the work and that I would be so caught between trying to hold the details of the numbers and the big picture at the same time. Yuck! I get stressed out just thinking about it. Dear Universe, please let me be staffed on something more to my liking and temperament.

I guess I am also becoming aware of the need for balance in my life. I am trying to do something about it and to listen to my inner desires. On Saturday, I started singing lessons, and had a lot of fun. I want to perform and entertain and PLAY!

I also had a friend, R, help me out in a wonderful way. We cleaned out the weeds in the backyard and it looks great! I even planted some veggies. I hope they take!

I need to allow myself to have fun like this and just let myself imagine and fantasize about how life could be. I feel happy now. Thank you, Universe, for answering my prayers.

Whew! I am dazzled that my life has changed so much. No more life on airplanes. No more crunching numbers in Excel spreadsheets all day long. No more helping big companies cut costs. Hurray for

So, what do you imagine and fantasize about in your indulgent future life and livelihood? How about sharing it here, and watching it come true?

Or, what if you got out a journal, right now, or even just a scrap of paper, and started writing about the life and livelihood you truly want. And let yourself feel how that feels. Aaaah…

I’d love to hear what emerges for you. Let yourself sing. I’ll sing with you, if you like.

Love,

Susan

I believe in the self-expressed life, in doing what you love, and sharing your heart’s message with the world. That’s why I’m so dang proud of my friend, Dr. Lissa Rankin, author of the new book “What’s Up Down There?: Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend.”

What gynecologists do you know who are also great writers? And artists, too? Well, Lissa does all of these. She defies a singular definition, which is also what makes her so endearing. Her new book is as sassy and spirited as she is. She uses the V word, and the P word, and words that make me, as a half-British career reinvention & renewal coach just blush. If you want to know about the female body, inside and out, Lissa’s the one to tell you about it in detail, in terms you’ll totally understand.

Why should I tell you about the amazing Dr. Rankin? Because she tells it like it is. About life as she’s known it as a gynecologist. Her funniest patients. The wise questions they ask her. The weird ones, too. About toys and traditions and tastes. She holds nothing back.

Most of us, deep down, yearn to be so authentic about the things we love in life. For Lissa, one of her joys is awakening women to the wonders of our own bodies. And also to connecting about totally raw, real issues, as she does with the OwningPink.com online community she created.

I adore Lissa for many reasons. One of them is that she listens to her inner guidance. And she writes about what she hears within herself. Including her fears and doubts. She’s not without them. She transforms them. You can read more about how she practices gynecology (and overall health) in a holistic way at the Owning Pink Center in Mill Valley, California, and read Lissa’s personal blog posts (beware, you might need tissues sometimes…) at OwningPink.com.

Check out Lissa, and I hope you, too, will be inspired! : )

~ Susan

How do you get out of your head? One of my favorite ways to “take the elevator down” from my cerebral cortex to my toes is to DANCE! I especially love freeform movement. In contrast to the systems and processes required to run my own business, I crave outlets that let me get out of my head and into my body.

So, in August, I boogied down to the Esalen Institute, a personal development retreat center on the rugged Big Sur coast for a workshop of Soul Motion with my gracious and graceful teachers, Zuza Engler and Scott Engler. I moved and grooved, sweated profusely, and got in touch with my heart in a big, juicy way. (By the way, I’m teaching a workshop there December 5-10! Check it out on their calendar )

And, as I always seem to do at Esalen, I connected with great people. One of them is Mary Pinozotto, who is a total original. One day, Mary asked our group to help her film a video. I was feeling emotionally tender that day, so I hid from the camera. But I was intrigued over dinner, as she edited the video to post the next day. I asked her what she was doing.

“Oh, I’m recording one dance video every day.”

What!?! That’s pretty amazing. Where does she get inspired? What keeps her going? I was intrigued. She told me about dancing at Wal-Mart. And with Hells’ Angels. And in nature. And in so many different ways. Short dance. Long dances. And then the artistry of editing all of these.

Well, of course I asked to interview her for this blog. Here’s a woman who’s following her heart and her art. As she says in the audio interview I had with her, she’s becoming the person she’s dreamed herself to be.

To me, when we move, we change. Mary is in the flow of change, and I hope you’ll listen to her wisdom if you are in a place of transition, and craving a more authentic, creative life.

Listen to my interview with Mary

I hope you’ll enjoy the interview, with some key highlights about:
- moving emotions out and through the body; the metaphors in movement (I know about that from the Get A Move On! cards)
- dealing with money, and cherishing what you have
- increasing your ability to learn notice new things
- dedication and staying with something with discipline; sinking your teeth in
- listening for the creative inspiration

I’ve also posted a few of Mary’s amazing dance videos. Do they make you want to get up and move your body? C’mon! It’s OK. Go ahead! Join the dance!

Video 1: About the Freebox Blog

Video 2: To Sheryl Crow’s I Shall Believe


Video 3: From a Hafiz poem

I hope this inspires you!  If you want to view Mary’s blog, The Freebox, visit http://thefreebox.wordpress.com/

Wishing you delicious rhythmic journeys,

Susan

I’m angry at Mitchum. Yep. The deodorant people.

Not because I use their deodorant. I don’t. It’s way too manly for me.

I’m angry at Mitchum because they are glorifying the Puritanical work ethic with a new contest that they have, The Hardest Working _______ in America. They ask people to submit videos of themselves working super hard. You might be the hardest working cattle rancher, baker, coach, florist, physical therapist. These don’t even have to be physical laborers. For example, they include a woman who’s a web entrepreneur.

I believe it’s possible to get creative and work smarter and enjoy your life and livelihood much, much more. And I’ll share some ideas about doing that so that you get to imagine them for yourself. But please, if you take anything away from what I’m sharing, it’s that you do not have to kill yourself at work.

So really: What is so right and so virtuous about working so hard? Granted, some of the people that Mitchum’s showing clearly love their work. And I applaud that. But not at the expense of overall well-being. Too many hours at work is just plain draining. In Mitchum’s contest, some of the participants clearly look like they are “slugging it out.” Many of the people they show in their promotional video must be working so hard that they have no time for exercise, because they are quite overweight. Sorry, but that’s no good for your body, mind, or spirit. Can all of these folks truly be happy? I doubt it.

Why must we glorify knocking ourselves out at work? Americans seem to have an obsession with working hard, demonstrating our strength, and just plain working our noses to the grindstone and running ourselves into the ground.

I know a thing or two about pushing myself to work hard. Back in the mid 1990s, I was a management consultant. My colleagues and I seemed to think that it was completely normal to work 80 hours a week. I was expected to bill a minimum of 50 hours each week. So when I worked 100 hour work weeks, which did on occasion, I’d be exhausted, but it was like I earned a badge of courage. Secretly, I was downright ecstatic when I only had to work 60 hours a week, but I also felt guilty, like I wasn’t contributing my share.

Rare was the day at work when my shoulders did not ache. I simply attributed that pain to sitting at the computer for six to ten hours a day.  Nausea and digestive pains were my frequent companions, and their impact seemed more forceful when I was staffed on a project out of town.  At the time, I simply rationalized the intestinal aches away by assuming they were caused by eating hotel and restaurant food, instead of my own home-cooked meals.


About three years into my time in management consulting, I was involved in a car accident. As I drove home from San Francisco International Airport, returning from a client engagement in Southern California, I was rear-ended by a drunk driver.  Although the accident was not serious, I started getting painful migraine headaches immediately afterwards.  My doctor wanted to run diagnostic tests, but I would not allow it.  I was determined to show how tough I could be.  I was not going to let mere headaches keep me from working on what I thought was an extremely important client project, one that seemed to assure me a promotion!  Then, two weeks after the car accident, I passed out in front of a group of clients.  The pain in my head was overwhelming, so I literally fainted while making a presentation. The project team took me to the hospital to check my health.

I ignored the migraine symptoms, continuing to push through them so that I secure a promotion, even if I was conflicted about moving ahead at the firm.  To my project team and to myself, I pretended. I acted as if I was fine.  Fortunately, when I received a doctor’s orders to take a month off from work to relax and recuperate, the managing partner of my office insisted that I follow his professional guidance.

Deep down, I felt torn. On the one hand, I wanted to demonstrate to my project team that I was as strong as everyone else, and that I could fit into the workaholic culture by continuing to work.  Yet on the other hand, I also wished I could simply find work that was more fun, or that I could even stop working for a period.

I ultimately took the medical leave, and I’m so thankful I did. I got back in touch with my body. I got clear that I wanted to work less and enjoy more. And since then, I’ve always found ways to do that, including ways that make plenty of money, thank goodness.

So, how do YOU do work that fits, and not knock yourself out in the process?

(1) Talk to people who are doing work that they love. Ask them what they love about their work. Ask them how they got into it. Listen to their journey. Almost no one goes from frustration to freedom overnight. It’s a process. Find out how people talk to themselves, how they overcame obstacles, how they motivated themselves. Take what works for you and leave the rest.

(2) Read Tim Ferris’ book, The Four Hour Work Week. This book is a game changer. It sounds absurd, especially if you’ve been working more than 40 hours a week. But stick with it. He has great ideas for how to make work as much fun and easy as possible. He has ideas both for making your current job easier, and for launching a product that you can sit back and watch make money. Ah, passive income!

(3) Read a recent article from Bloomberg/Businessweek about Working on the Waterfront. Yes, people really do work at the beach. If a serious business publication is giving you ideas on how to get a tan while you work, why not investigate? Or do you really want to sit in your cubicle day after day, turning pastier white by the second?

Seriously, though, I’m committed to helping people find ease, engagement, and enrichment from their work. What are YOU going to do to find those qualities in your work?

Working well,

Susan

It’s a pleasure to introduce you to one of the clients I worked with last year, Jody Florman, an incredibly talented artist and visionary. In our work together, Jody did her “work from within,” getting clear that within herself, she held a lot of resistance to the life that wanted to unfold for her. As with many people, she had a preconceived idea about how her life “should” be going. However, when she opened up and realized that the different way that her life was flowing was actually on purpose and good, more abundance came her way, in many forms.

I invite you to read my interview of Jody and then view Jody’s artwork and the faux finishing and trompe l’oiel she does in residences. I find her art has a magical, mystical, marvelous quality about it. A true reflection of her inner beauty! And, below, she shares great wisdom for anyone going through a career change and encountering unexpected situations.

Tell us a bit about yourself.
I am very fortunate to be living and working with my passion, every day. I am an artist who makes a living creating and doing hand painting, murals, trompe l’oeil, commission paintings and faux finishes inside beautiful, high end homes. I can also create and reinvigorate the sacred space of your home or business. I am simultaneously exploring fine art painting and photography as additions to my creative focus. I live my life under the premise that I create my own reality. I strive to bring the adventure of my journey into all aspects of my life.

What brings you most alive in your work?
Exploring new ideas and bringing them into reality. I have recently had an epiphany about where my photography is going and it has made me more conscious about my creative process. The more I explore, the more I see the journey as my work and the less I judge the perfection of the art/ photography I put out. I am excited so see where I go next and what the results will be!

What was happening before we started working together?
I had hit a wall with my work life. I had been adamant that by the time I turned 50, I would create an easier work environment for myself. What happened instead was that my world seemed to be dismantling: divorce, challenges with the economy, challenges with my new work environment in the new state I had moved to. I was unenthusiastic and conflicted. This caused everything to come to a screeching halt. I could not seem to get out of my own way. I also had some very fixed ideas on how I thought my life should be going, at my age, and my world was not cooperating. So that’s when I found Susan Bernstein and Work from Within.

What’s happened since?
Making changes did take awhile. I initially had a lot of resistance to going back into the decorative painting field. I was convinced there was something else for me and yet I could not seem to find my way. I put a lot of energy and time into my fine art and looked around for a job in a completely different field.  I found a part time job at a local winery. The point was to get myself into an affluent public eve and possibly generate new clients and give me a place to hang my art and place my art related products. What has come to light in the last year and a half has been all the ways I stop myself, all the ways I judge myself, all the misconceptions I operate my life under and how personally I take what life has to offer me. So, I have been consciously letting go of all of the above statements. I have relaxed into my life, created more fun and enjoyment in each moment, let go of the have-tos and supposed-tos. I have stopped feeling like I’m running out of time and that I am a failure because my life didn’t keep on the “successful” tract I was on. I have re-embraced decorative painting while redirecting my focus and how I physically work. I am letting go of my house and all the ideas I had what a 50 something abundant life style looks like. I am dismantling my box and creating a new flow. In spite of the economics around me, my life is turning around financially and I am expanding rapidly in my creative life. I still have a way to go and I can honestly say I am happy and patient while my life evolves.

What’s been most memorable or valuable from your experience working with Susan Bernstein of Work from Within?
I found myself looking at the resistance I had toward my chosen profession, all the expectations and disappointments. Working with Susan made me realize if I was going to continue in my then current track or look outside my box and do something completely different, I had to reinvent my attitude, and then make a decision. And, I had to overcome disappointment that this would not all happen in an instant. The great news is that my journey back to the more commercial aspects of my art is still unfolding and I am very pleased that I had my experience with Susan has put me on the road to expressing a bigger and more creative aspect of myself.

As an artist, what are the biggest aha’s you’ve had about how to share your talents and reap abundance?
I am still looking at my  avenues for revenue. As times have changed, the way of doing business is different and my focus has changed.  am looking at doing home shows, I am doing a product line for a non-profit. I am pursing shows in smaller venues and I am about to pursue designers on the East Coast.  In general, I’ve learned to try everything, see if it is working. If not, I get out and move on.