I have a confession.

I’ve been a stress case.

That’s hard to admit. Especially since I work with people to help them come alive at work. I do love coaching people, on a one on one basis, about their work. And I’ve been feeling more and more confident about my ability to help people truly light up at work. My head and heart both trust the effectiveness and transformational value of  the unique ways that I help people to conceive of work that fits them. So now, I’m quite hungry to expand my reach and impact so I can touch more people. That has meant teaching more group programs, writing, speaking in as many venues as possible, and influencing larger groups. Doing all these new activities has involved learning how to use webinar software, getting on the phone to talk to organizations and businesses about helping them, discovering how I can best describe what Work from Within is all about, and generally stepping out in the world in a much bigger way. Most of the time, learning these new skills and approaches to marketing Work from Within and my philosophies and practices has been fun. But it’s time consuming, and I’m prone to rush myself and demand results (dare I say, money) rather quickly. I’ve been impatient for success. I want it on my timeline, darn it!

All this effort lead me from stress toward burnout. I started recognizing the shift from becoming angry and frustrated at my circumstances to feeling resigned. For example, I would try to learn how to use webinar software, and somehow I’d lose my participants into the Internet ether (oops!). I’d feel enraged at the software and embarrassed at not being a perfect presenter. Then the nasty voice of Little Miss Perfect would scream in my head, and I’d berate myself for not getting familiar enough with the tools I needed to make the webinar hum along.

Over the course of a few months, I started to think: “I just don’t know what I’m doing. I’m not a celebrity yet, like Oprah or Suze Orman. Who am I to help people learn to come alive at work? I’ve been running Work from Within for five years. So why am I not on TV yet? Why haven’t I written a book, let alone published it? What am I doing wrong? Maybe I should just give up…”

My body began to feel heavy as a boulder, sluggish as a slug, mentally foggy like the June Gloom that hangs over the Pacific Coast, and downright stomp-my-feet-and-shake-my-fist irritable.  I remembered the difference between stress and burnout. Stress is about feeling over engaged and anxious. When you hit burnout, you’re likely to become disengaged, hopeless, and depressed. I was headed for the latter. After weeks and weeks of this experience, a lightbulb went off in my head:  Perhaps my ideas about failing and taking too long to make an impact aren’t true. Maybe I’ve been seeing my circumstances through a distorted lens, a narrow angle.

I resolved to shift my energy. I’m all about maximizing Return On Life Energy (ROLE), so I knew I needed to take action to build up my energy stores. I started with getting checked out by the practitioners at the Acupuncture and Complementary Medicine clinic in Berkeley, because I love that Chinese medicine is all based on life energy (which the Chinese call qi, and which Indians call prana). It’s been a process of replenishing my energy stores. I’ve gone from depletion to stagnation to amplification to expansion. Instead of feeling exhausted and irritable, in the course of six weeks, I’m now feeling mellow, flowing, and full of ease. And filled with gratitude for my life and the beauty in the world, sensing the joy of simple things, like the warmth of the mug of my wild sweet orange tea to the playful chatter of the birds in my magnolia tree.

Something else that helped my renewal, something counterculture:  I decided to follow my body’s instinct for rest. I booked a retreat at one of my favorite places on the planet, the Esalen Institute, on the Big Sur coast (I’ll be teaching a workshop at Esalen from December 5 to 10), with it’s warming sulfur hot springs, the crash of the waves of the Pacific Ocean against high cliffs, and the magical landscape with its rainbow of flowers, stands of gracious trees and cradle of rugged mountains.

To renew myself sense of self, I enrolled in an Esalen workshop with performance artist extraordinaire, Nina Wise, who created a practice called Motion Theater, a form of autobiographical improvisation. To me, learning Motion Theater was like finding self-transformational storytelling. Our group of ten women played theatre games (like forming ourselves into shapes and riffing off each others stories), meditated (in creative ways, including with singing), stretched, danced, and learned to tell our personal stories, rich with detail and grounded in sensory experience. Most importantly, the combination of verbal and non-verbal activities re-started my energy. By immersing myself fully in play and presence, I got back in touch with myself. Hallelujah!

If you find yourself sliding into stress, catch yourself and find your antidote. And if you’re slipping into burnout, or you’ve already landed there, stop pushing yourself. Your body, mind, spirit and emotions are telling you that what you’re doing needs to shift. It’s time to give yourself a break for relaxation, restoration, renewal, rejuvenation.

Based on my week at Esalen, and my personal discoveries, I’d like to share some suggestions for shifting out of stress and burnout and back into your essence, your true self, the quiet internal place that is you, no matter what.  Please feel free to take only what feels good, and trust your intuition to modify any of these ideas so they fit you:

Rest. I can be a work machine. That go-go-go behavior got ingrained in me during my tenure in management consulting, when I sometimes worked 80 to 100 hours a week. These days, I think that’s insane. It’s all push, no pull. In other words, I used to make myself do work, rather than feeling drawn or inspired to do it. When we’re stressed, we often push ourselves hard. But that push, push, shove, move forward, go, go, go energy is only one way of being. You are not a machine. You cannot keep up an unrelenting pace indefinitely. Staying up late, working around the clock, denying yourself breaks…this is a recipe for a breakdown. Instead, give yourself the gift of rest. Of doing nothing. Or doing only those things that are pleasurable. Not just satisfying, but truly nourishing. Make the choice to feed yourself what you truly want, which very well may be peace and quiet.

Relax your efforts. Before taking this retreat, I had been working for months without a break, staying up until 11 or 12 at night to reply to emails, plan a workshop, update my website. So much effort! In physics, effort equals work. But work — as in your career, your livelihood — need not be full of hard effort, at least not all of the time. Notice how hard you are trying, and reduce the effort. Here’s one way to do this: Start by doing something that comes very, very naturally to you. Like walking. Or talking on the phone with a friend. As you’re doing this easy, natural activity, become aware of your body and where you hold tension and tightness. Then, do an activity that you don’t do so easily. Not the hardest thing, but something that you have to pay attention to do, and where perhaps you have less skill. Like for me, that’s riding my bike downhill. I have to concentrate. I’m afraid I’ll fall. I can do it, but I have not yet mastered it. How do you feel, in your body, when you do this activity that you’re still mastering? Where are you tight? Where are you loose? Your clamped jaw, your shoulders that come up near your ears…these are all signs of added effort. What can you say to yourself (like “I’m starting to get the jist of this”), and how can you modify the activity (like doing less of it, or only a portion of it, or slowing it down) and particularly your expectations of yourself (maybe telling yourself “It’s OK to be a beginner, and to make mistakes”), so that you can feel more ease?

Reconnect with people who care about you. I’ve been going to Esalen for nearly a decade now, so in that time, I’ve made a lot of friends there. Having them ask about me, getting to spend time with them, catching up…these are all nurturing. I feel seen and appreciated by people who know me. In times of stress and burnout, we need to have people around us who will support us. Who might you like to have around you to support you? You might call a friend and ask to have an hour to just share what’s happening. You could get some friends together and have a “dump your problems in the garbage” ritual, writing down what’s bugging you, reading your list aloud with feeling and emphasis, and then ripping up your list and throwing it in a collective trash can or fire. Then, make a resolution to do one thing, just one for now, that can make you feel better. And report back to the group when you’ve done it, either in person, by email, or by phone. Connect to yourself by connecting with others who are willing and able to help you regain yourself.

Spend time in nature. The rhythms in nature tend to be so different than our man-made mechanistic rhythms of cars and traffic and TV show and meetings and all the scheduled, pre-planned activities, and the constant onslaught of information. Nature is slower, organic, cycling and shifting. Nature is not like the airbrushed superstars we see in magazines and attempt to emulate. It’s raw and honest, the apple that has been pierced by a worm looking for food, the jagged leaf that’s asymmetrical, the birds that do not fly on a preordained flight plan like airliners but flit from tree to tree as they feel called to explore and as the need arises for food and shelter. Nature reminds us to slow down, to get back in touch with our innate instincts and impulses, to trust the flow of life. Immerse yourself in Nature’s rhythms, and you’re bound to have your own reflected back to you.

Turn down your mind and turn up your innate, embodied impulses. When I’m being very verbal — even if it’s replying email — I’m up in my head. And if you’re anything like me, your head can be a dangerous playground, with the broken carousel of repetitive negative thoughts and the teeter totter of self-talk alternately flinging you between self-aggrandizement and self-deprecation. I often tell people to “take the elevator down,” suggesting that they move from their heads to the rest of their bodies. Give yourself time to explore and play non-verbally. Perhaps you will put on music and just move your body in whatever ways feel good, without thinking of the moves you’ll make. You could shake your body like a ragdoll for a few minutes and shake out the cobwebs. You might slither on the floor like a snake and then roll and ooze. You could move your hands like they are talking, which is an activity Nina Wise suggests in her book,  A Big New Free Happy Unusual Life. Listen to what you need, what feels satisfying, and nurture yourself the way a mother nurtures a baby: with touch, rhythm, and movement.

Open your heart. When we’re stressed our burned out, often we’ve neglected our hearts. We are so hell-bent on achieving success, so determined to do what’s right and good, so focused on making money or getting that promotion…and our hearts are suffering from being left out of the conversation about our needs. Needs? Hah, we think, it’s needy to have needs. No, actually, it’s not. Our heart’s desires deserve our attention. Set aside 10 to 15 minutes. Get quiet and put a hand on your heart. Ask your heart, “what do you need?” Be patient, and listen to the answers. Write them down. Follow the most compassionate or most nourishing replies first, like the ones that tell you “Give yourself a hug.”

In every moment, you can add ease and joy to your life by reducing the effort, doing what feeds you, and reducing the activities and situations that deplete you. Bit by bit, day by day, your practice of minimizing your energy drains and maximizing your energy gains will deliver you into a life and livelihood that works for you. That way of living does not come from being hard and harsh with yourself, but rather from relaxing, restoring, renewing, rejoicing, and rejuvenating, as needed. It’s just what the doctor ordered.

Love from Dr. Bernstein!

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

Today, I heard from a new client who recently left a very stressful job, one that didn’t fit him too well. I’m writing about him because he’s a bit unique, in that he did a few things that are considered taboo:

(1) He left one job without another one lined up

(2) He didn’t immediately start looking for his next job — instead he first took a “pause.”

As I see it, this man is very wise. He took some time to relax, go to a beach, and unwind before embarking on the journey of creating work that truly fits for him.

He’s also counter-culture.  Why is he counter culture? continue

If you hate your job, do you toss yourself out of a window? Or plunge a knife into your chest in a meeting?

Um, hopefully not.

But that’s been happening in Europe at companies like France Telecom, Renault, and Peugeot, according a recent Economist magazine article. This is not good. It’s very, very bad. And the problem is not just confined to Europe. That same article goes on to cite two sets of findings that highlight a similar dissatisfaction with work in the U.S.

“A survey by the Centre for Work-Life Policy, an American consultancy, found that between June 2007 and December 2008 the proportion of employees who professed loyalty to their employers slumped from 95% to 39%; the number voicing trust in them fell from 79% to 22%.”

“A more recent survey by DDI, another American consultancy, found that more than half of respondents described their job as “stagnant”, meaning that they had nothing interesting to do and little hope of promotion. Half of these “stagnators” planned to look for another job as soon as the economy improved.”

My own opinion is that it’s not just the current economic climate that’s been creating this intense dissatisfaction with work. The problem of employee frustration has been mushrooming over time. Since at least 1994, when I took a class with Professor Homa Bahrami at the Haas School of Business, which was then entitled “Managing Knowledge Professionals.” Even then, we were talking about the ultra-mobility of the workforce, and the writing was on the proverbial wall, making it all-too-clear that employment was becoming more and more tenuous.

And now, those who survive layoffs have at least two issues to contend with: (1) constant fears of losing their jobs and (2) the added burden of taking on the work of their former colleagues. From what I hear from clients and other career coaches is that the stress level in companies is boiling out of control.

If you’re an employee, your company asks you to be very loyal. And yet employers are creating less and less certainty about employment contracts. Work becomes psychologically taxing if you don’t know how long you’ll be in the game. How do you decide where to live? Or what purchases to make, if your income could be pulled in an instant?

It appears that companies are going even more in the direction of temporarily contracting employees. That’s more and more the case for C-level executives. Business Week reports that to avoid making bad hiring decisions, companies are turning to tryouts of a few weeks to a few months. I’d heard about this trend just a few weeks ago, when I was on a panel at the Haas School of Business with Lauren Doliva, who is one of the world’s leading recruiters, with Heidrick & Struggles.

What is the answer? More and more, it is to rely on yourself, and create and share your own assets, and build your own network, so you’re “ultra portable.” So, how do you do that?

(1) Rely on yourself: This is mental shift. It’s all-too-easy to become reliant on companies, especially when they offer attractive perks, like gourmet meals and on-site mega workout facilities. But really, you need to see yourself as moveable, changeable, adaptable to new environments. Value yourself for your own skills, not just for the brand-name of your current company.

(2) Create your own assets: Right now, it’s more important than ever to create a distinguishable skill-set. In other words, this is a terrible time to be a generalist, and especially a general manager. Be a problem solver. Be crystal clear about what pains you help to ease, what emergencies you clean up, and find the organizations facing those issues. For example, while you might call yourself a finance manager, if you describe what you do as watching the bottom line and knowing how to increase revenues and decrease costs, you’ll have more ears tuning in to you.  Those assets ought to include knowledge capital that you’ve accumulated, based on your experiences and research (formal and informal).

(3) Share your assets. Once you’ve built up some expertise in an area (give yourself credit for what you DO know), it’s important to share your perspectives. That’s easy enough to do in a blog, but you’ll want to share your ideas with people who can decide to hire you, so be sure to get out to industry meetings and offer to speak on topics where you have knowledge.

(4) Cultivate your network: No longer can you rely on your company to take care of you for the long run. That contract’s been gone for many years. But you could be let go in an instant. So, in addition to networking within your company, be sure to meet people in your industry and your functional area. Joining and participating in groups on LinkedIn is one way to do this. Another is to attend industry conferences and professional associations. You might even be amazed that Meetup.com can connect you with interesting professionals at interesting events.

It’s also a great idea to talk to your friends who are contractors and consultants, because you’re likely to become one — eventually. Ask them how they built and promoted their expertise. Discover how they get their gigs. Find out how they deal with uneven income streams.

You may also find that people who contract and consult actually like their work better, because they have greater creativity, freedom, and mobility.

What are YOU doing to create work that truly fits for you?

Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Life/Work Transition Expert
www.WorkFromWithin.com

Moms have more options than ever in terms of the ways to work.  And, that also means they face more complexity in their choices.

Fortunately, Sharon Reed Abboud is helping moms to lay out their choices, with her new book, “All Moms Work.” I met Sharon virtually through LinkedIn.  I can’t recall if she found my profile, or if we met in a her “All Moms Work Group,” honestly, but it doesn’t matter. We’ve been exchanging emails for a few months now.  A few days ago, I actually got to hear her voice across the miles in Virginia, near Washington, DC.  She’s a bit soft spoken and humble for someone with her talents in career advising and the wealth of knowledge she’s amassed about all the combinations and permutations open to mothers in today’s American workplace.

I want to recommend Sharon’s book to mothers, whether they’re working or staying at home, because you never know when when you might want to — or more likely, need to — go back to work. If you’re a stay-at-home mom, how do you stay current on workforce issues?  How do you decide when to go back to work?

And when moms decide to work full- or part-time, how do they juggle their lives?  How can they ask for flexibility?  And how do they maintain it?

Sharon has interviewed outstanding experts to gain perspective and shares the stories of inspirational moms who work full- and part-time for companies, and those who’ve started their own entrepreneurial ventues.  I see her book as a sort of “soup to nuts” complete approach to helping moms sort out the thorny issues of when, how, and where to work.

I’m not sure how much longer they’ll offer it, but Sharon’s publisher, Capital Books, is offering 35% off for pre-orders.  I’d encourage you to order now, so you can save.  But even if you miss out on the discount, Sharon’s got meaningful, totally useful advice to share with moms, to make your working life easier.

Here’s to all moms who work!
Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author
www.WorkFromWithin.com
Work From Within, LLC

We all know that the economy is in a state of utter chaos.  Foreclosures.  Layoffs.  Fortunes lost.  Companies closing. 

Much as I like to be an optimist, recent events (like the Madoff scandal) have made me catch my breath. I notice pangs of anxiety. Then a friend calls to say he's been let go from his company.  It's all been pretty intensely unsettling .

But, as I'm reminded with the Big Basin fires in Big Sur, California this summer, nature has a way of using destructive forces, like fire, to sort of "clean things out" and creating renewal.

 So, I invite you to imagine that the current economy is really in a state of clearing us out for something new. 

When the economic "smoke" clears, what do YOU think that a new world of work and careers might look like? 

Here are some questions to spur your thinking about a new working world:

• Will our relationships with companies change? 
• Will company missions shift? 
• How about our ideas on competition? 
• What will happen to creativity in a new economic order?
• What might happen to meaningful work in the future?
• And what will happen to work-life balance as you look head?

Please do share your vision, whether it feels positive and upbeat or heavy and downbeat.  When you look into the future of your line of work, or of any other form of careers, what do you see?

As you share your perspective on the future world of work, I'll post mine, too, in response.  I'm interested to see what YOU envision.

Looking into the future with you,
Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author
www.WorkFromWithin.com
Work From Within, LLC

This morning, a friend sent me an inspiring blog posting by the writer Alice Walker on The Root, with an open letter to Barack Obama.  What touched me most about her posting is that she implored Barack Obama "to cultivate happiness in your own life." 

I love that Walker suggested that Obama just relax, because of the benefits that others will see.  Specifically, Walker said:

I've always been a big fan of self care, and have even shared my own practices for re-energizing and renewal.  And just a few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of studying with leadership coach Dave Ellis, who quoted Dee Hock, founder and former CEO of the VISA credit card association:

I also like how Dave Ellis illustrates this concept, using a balloon.  Dave encourages us to fill ourselves up, which means to do the things we really love, and then to give ourselves away.  But not fully away, of course.  Because then we'd be like limp balloons, empty, void.  How much fun is that?

So, what do you think of giving Obama the time, as Alice Walker suggests, to relax and renew with his family?  Do you agree without time to fill himself up, our next president will be "strained and stressed?" Might Obama avoid the fate of other leaders who, in Walker's words "have smiles so lacking in joy that they remind us of scissors?"

And what are you doing in your own life to fill yourself up?

Me?  I'm going for a quick walk before my next coaching call.

With care,
Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author

www.WorkFromWithin.com

Work From Within, LLC

If you feel held hostage by your job, it may because of the mortgage you are carrying.  I watched one client brave a 2-hour commute, each way, to work, just so she and her husband could afford their home in the San Francisco Bay area.  I'm sorry, but that's nuts.  Spending four hours a day, five days a week in your car, just so you have have the so-called American dream of owning a home?  Shoot, she had very little time with her husband and they were constantly stressed out.  They both felt fearful that they would lose their jobs, because they knew that meant they could lose their homes.  It's awful to be tied to your job just so you can keep a roof over your house that happens to have your name on the title.  What ever happened to renting?  What ever happened to reasonable living accomodations?

Do you want to unleash yourself from an employer or a job you hate?  Your ticket may be in downsizing your home.  I know.  I've done it.  When I was married, my then-husband and I owned a 4-bedroom, 4-bath 2400 square foot house in a chic San Francisco neighborhood.  Did we need that much space?  Well, we figured that we'd have kids, eventually.  Sadly, we split up instead.  But now, I rent a home with less than 900 square feet.  It's a 2-bedroom place where one bedroom is my office.  But I could live in much smaller quarters, and not just because I'm petite.

I'm always appalled when I go to visit my parents in the Phoenix area. 
The homes near them are monstrosities.  My parents home, at 3000 square feet, is the dwarf in the neighborhood.  I even saw one mega-mansion under construction
there during my last trip.  It was three stories high, with one
story built underground to circumvent the local restrictions on
building more than two stories.  I hate to imagine how much power it
takes to air condition such palaces in the midst of the desert, and how
much work it takes to keep the manicured lawns looking good.  Excuse
me, but this excess does not take into account the long-term impact on
our economy.

Fortunately, the financial craziness we're experiencing has lots of people getting creative and scaling back.  I especially love the movement to smaller homes.  It's good for the economy, it's good for our sanity, and it's good for the environment.

CNN ran a story on living in 100 square feet of bliss.  I invite you to consider this move to less — for giving you more.  I know I am.  And, I'm also looking into co-housing, a movement of bringing people together in communities.  They own their own homes, plus a common space, and they all spend time pitching in to cook and do other things for each other.  In our age of isolation, this is a solace, and one that can often be more affordable.

What other options are you considering to untether yourself from the ball and chain of a mortgage that's keeping you tied to work that you don't enjoy?

Pondering with you,

Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author

www.WorkFromWithin.com

Work From Within, LLC

I love talking about people who have made successful career changes.  And, I love letting you in on those stories.  It's especially a treat to tell the stories of people who have made the journey from work that looks successful on the outside (but is soul-sapping on the inside) to work that aligns with their hearts' desire. 

In fact, I'm hosting an event called "Follow a More Authentic Career Path" on Wednesday, September 10, from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center.  Not only will you get to mix and mingle with others seeking to do more fulfilling, meaningful work.  You'll also get to hear the "true stories" of six people who have been courageous enough to leave a prestigious but unsatisfying career to follow the path of their heart. 

Today, I'm interviewing Jeff Kennedy.  Like many others, he found the allure of the legal profession to be a little too shiny and not enough substance.  He ran the risk of burning out.  But instead, he followed another career path that took him closer to what he loves and cares about.  And now, he's really doing work that comes to him naturally and feeds his heart and soul — and is even paying the bills.  Pretty amazing for his first few months in his own consulting venture.

***

Dr. Susan:  Hi Jeff.  Hey, will you please tell our readers about your former
career?     

Jeff Kennedy:  I was an employment
attorney and then a corporate HR business partner.    

Dr. Susan:  Can you please share with us, briefly, and what got
you into your former career as an employment attorney?

Jeff Kennedy: I always
thought that I could be a lawyer, and when I found myself working as a
paralegal on Wall Street I thought I might as well go to law school, and so I
did. 

Dr. Susan: Like a lot of people, you found law glamorous on the outside, but not the same on the inside.  What did
you dislike about your former career?

Jeff Kennedy: After 3
uncomfortable years in law school and 6 years litigating employment cases I
faced the fact that I didn’t want to continue to spend my days fighting and my
nights churning over the last confrontation and preparing for the next, so I
transitioned to human resources where I could leverage my employment law
experience and do some good to help employees and employers avoid litigation. 

Dr. Susan:  Essentially, even though you didn't have to be as confrontative, working in HR for a corporation wasn't totally satisfying for you.  So, what are you doing
now?

Jeff Kennedy: I'm now an independent HR consultant with my own firm, HR By Your Side.  This new role is the most recent step on my path pulling together
the aspects I value most from my prior roles – the close, independent, unfettered
client relationships I had as an attorney with the positive, compliant,
preventative focus of HR.

Dr. Susan:  What do you love
about what you are doing now?

Jeff Kennedy: In addition to
the close client relationships, positive and forward-looking approach, autonomy
and self-defined work-life balance, I’m really enjoying building a business and
a mutually beneficial professional network.

***

I really want to congratulate Jeff.  I can't tell you how many people come to me feeling dissatisfied about the "shallow" or even "confrontational" connections they feel at work.  From all the dissatisfied people I talk to in my practice as a career transformation expert, I hear a widespread, deep-seated hunger for stronger, more meaningful working relationships with colleagues, managers, and clients.  Jeff has that.  And, he has better work-life balance.  We were able to have breakfast together last week, something that would have been quite a feat to pull off when he was in his former work.  Nice for both of us!

Would you like to hear from Jeff and me and four others who've made major career changes?  And mix and mingle with us…and others who are dedicated to doing soul-satisfying work?

Please join us on for "Follow a More Authentic Career Path" on Wednesday, September 10, from 6:30 pm – 9:30 pm at San Francisco's Fort Mason.

Authentically yours,
Susan

Dr. Susan Bernstein
Coach, Speaker & Author

www.WorkFromWithin.com

Work From Within, LLC

I know, I know, it's weird to talk about hibernation in the middle of summer (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere).

But I keep hearing from people who essentially feel "out of step" with the season.  In the midst of high temperatures, when it's beautiful to be outside, they are hunkering down, slowing the pace, and taking a rest in their careers.  Hibernating.

What's up with that?

First, I'd like to make a distinction between celebration (which is what summer feels
like to me) and hibernation (which is what winter feels like to me). 
And, we need both.  Well, of course, we need all of the seasons, but
the contrast between summer and winter is the most dramatic, so stay
with me here.

Celebration?  Sometimes, your career is going great.  You love your work.  It's
fun.  It's fulfilling.  You have big accomplishments.  You sign a new
client.  Your boss gives you a great performance review.  You're
promoted.  YIPPEEEE!

Hibernation?  Sometimes, things suck. That's blunt. 
But true.  You're ready to hang it up.  You feel slowed down.  Like a
turtle.  No, slower.  Like a polar bear, getting ready for the big nap.

Is celebration always better than hibernation?  Find out…

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