Key Concepts

Some key concepts if you are looking to adopt, modify or stop a habit:

• Willpower does not seem sustainable as a way of embedding a habit. It takes too much brain power.
• Conscious decisions are OK for one off activities (e.g. getting a flu shot) but repetitive actions are important to embed habits (where the activity becomes a motor skill – most easily seen in how most of us drive a car).
• Creating or removing friction is a critical way of enabling adoption of a new habit – removing foods from your pantry that don’t help when you are trying to change your diet, or adding steps that limit choices (wearing gym clothes on those Zoom calls to be ready to head to the gym). 
  • You can make bad habits harder, and newer habits easier to adopt.
  • Restructuring our environment seems really helpful – hide the temptations, e.g. easier to study in a library than in your family room when the TV is right there.
• And from the work of David DeSteno, one more thing – gratitude. His research points to the importance of gratitude in many areas of our lives, but specifically as the positive emotion that (if linked to a new habit) creates a likelihood that the behavior will stick.

Applying the concepts

There’s no doubt that Covid has allowed us to create new habits, and there are certainly some of them, we’d rather ditch. This month I started my own habit changing experiment with a dry January, trying to document the factors that are preventing it from becoming a struggle (and a willpower challenge). After almost 20 days, here are my learnings:

• I’ve framed it as a lockdown reset, to establish new habits for this year and beyond – there’s a big idea in here about establishing how I want to love post-pandemic.
• I’ve shared my plan with friends and colleagues which helps create an interested support network – this is on its own would not be enough.
• From a practical perspective, I’ve moved the beer and wine out of our main fridge to increase ‘friction’.
• I’ve created evening routines around reading, writing, listening to music, and podcast listening, which create a different flow.
• And I’m trying to feel the gratitude from having more time to read and work on interesting stuff (like this article and the one to come on the best of 2020 music).

For lots of reasons, I’m not a fan of new year’s resolutions, but I see this less as a one month challenge, rather to set a new pattern after the year of Covid when happy hour any hour seemed to feel perfectly normal. Feel free to ask me about how it’s going, and please share any new habits that you are seeking to build.

Sources

• A shorter summary of the key points on habits and willpower – https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/10/28/can-brain-science-help-us-break-bad-habits
• The Hidden Brain podcast about habits – https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/creatures-of-habit/id1028908750?i=1000461145219
• The Hidden brain podcast about gratitude https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hidden-brain/id1028908750?i=1000499996014

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• The Covid19 pandemic has created high levels of significant uncertainty and many of us will be finding it hard to thrive. 
• And, I want to share some practical advice to navigate through the disorientation of uncertain times.

Transitions

To understand what we are experiencing right now, it’s helpful to look to William Bridges – author of ‘Individual Transitions’. When change happens our brains don’t adjust immediately, we need time to process what’s happened – going through at least 3 stages:

1. We try to adjust to what’s ended – sometimes the things that end, don’t end all at the same time. As we learn more about the virus and the impact on our country, our area, and our neighborhood, more things can get lost.
2. Bridges identified the Neutral Zone as a time where something is over and the future hasn’t yet been established. This seem to describe much of what we are experiencing now.
3. And finally, we (hopefully) find a new normal that will take time to adjust to this new state. A point in the future where we will go out and socialize again – albeit with some behavior changes.

We don’t always move through these phases sequentially, we can move back and forth between them. We can be at different phases for different aspects of our lives. At one time, we have some things ending (with new restrictions), we experience the uncertainty of how all this will turn out, and at the same time, we could be adjusting to new patterns of behavior – e.g. Zoom Happy Hours.

SCARF

One way of explaining why an immediate adjustment to change is really difficult comes in David Rock’s ‘You’re Brain at Work’. Our brains are wired to see threats and to respond, and unwated change is easily viewed as a threat. Rock has identified 5 factors that guide our behavior, and we will feel a sense of threat when one or more is compromised – you can read more on SCARF here, written by the smart people at Cleverism:

• STATUS – refers to our sense of our own worth. A reduction in status tends to generate a strong threat reaction. If your work is the most important thing in your life and you are now limited as to what you can do, you will be feeling this loss of status.
• CERTAINTY – Operating in familiar and certain circumstances frees more resources in the brain. With the requirement to stay at home, we are potentially operating with greater uncertainty.
• AUTONOMY – The extent to which you feel control over your own domain. The less autonomy a person experiences, the more the situation feels threatening. Constraints about where we can go has the potential to reduce our autonomy.
• RELATEDNESS – as social beings we are wired to build trust and connection with other people. If the opportunity to build trust and collaboration are diminished, we can feel exposed.
• FAIRNESS – The brain automatically reacts with an avoid-response to unfairness and lands in a defensive stance.

Depending on your personality, some of these factors will be more important than others. Think about which threats you feel right now, and maybe which threats you have felt in the past

CUSP

Here are 4 ways to navigate the uncertainty of the Neutral Zone (CUSP) – the threats that you feel should guide your selected strategy:

• CONTROL – Take actions to regain some control
  • Create your own plan/structure for yourself, your family, your daily routines. Claim control of some other area of your life (get to the one thing you’ve been meaning to do).
• UNDERSTANDING – Gain the knowledge you need
  • Assess the impact on you – financially, emotionally, physically. Look for the plan to get through the crisis – understand about the risks for you and your family.
• SUPPORT – Connect with others and with yourself
  • Meet up with those who can help you navigate through (directly or indirectly)
  • Practice mindfulness and look at establishing a sleep pattern that supports you.
• PURPOSE – Connect with the things that fill your life with meaning
  • Use the PERMA model to catalogue the things that define your life – Positive emotions, Engagement, Relationships, Meaning and Accomplishments (read more here – again a more detailed piece from Cleverism)

Here’s one exercise to help:

• Identify one threat you feel in the current crisis – something from the SCARF list 
• Look at the CUSP strategies and identify one thing you could do to manage that threat – be as specific as you can, so that you can put it into practice.

The times are unprecedented – I hope this has been a some help both to understand what you are experiencing right now, and to identify ways for navigating uncertain times.  If you need help with this process – please reach out to me.

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Gallup tells us that most people who have taken the assessment, have done little more than filed the resulting Strengths report without taking action. 

I’ve used Strengths in my coaching practice for some years and I’ve found many ways to extract great value from the assessment. Here are some examples:

Using Strengths in practice

• First, identify where I am using my strengths today and how they can be used together to succeed in future.
  • As an example, I have a client with ‘Achiever’ is her top 5 strengths. It is relatively common in Top 5 reports. It is described as being motivated by being productive, but with a tendency to value work over people. In this case, it’s essential to understand her other strengths and how they interact. She also has Relator in her Top 5. The result is an awareness and ability to engage colleagues in achieving her goals. 
• Next, identify the domains in which my strengths exist. The 4 categories are Executing, Influencing, Relationship Building and Strategic Thinking. Armed with this information, I can look at my strengths individually and as a collective and apply them to my goals.  
  • A recent client had Restorative (equipped to deal with problems) and Positivity (get others excited about what they are doing).  Restorative is an execution strength. It’s really valuable when applied to overcoming challenges, but can often make the person synonymous with the problems.  Now he is able to not only solve problems but also bring his colleagues along on the journey, by applying his relationship building strength of Positivity.
• Finally, understand my strengths in a team context. With visibility to my colleagues’ strengths, I can understand the how we can complement each other, how we relate to each other, and how to be more productive.
  • Working with a team recently, one colleague had Self-Assurance (a rarer strength) matched with strengths in execution. While his clarity about what needed to be done was invaluable in an operational setting, it was detrimental to this discussion. We were looking at planning for a 2 year time horizon, and needed to allow space for ‘what if?’ scenarios. With a quick intervention to highlight this, the team was able to produce a more complete outcome.

If you are 1 of the 20 million plus, ask yourself how you can leverage the investment you’ve already made.  

A version of this blog appeared on www.red10dev.com in February 2019

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Simon Kuper and Stefan Szymanski point out in their book ‘Soccernomics’ that coaches don’t typically have a big impact on a club’s results – based on a few decades of research across several countries.  A club’s payroll is a much stronger indicator of success. Prior to the Champions League Final (Europe’s premier club tournament), Simon Kuper wrote about this phenomenon again on ESPN FC, and interestingly he observed that Liverpool are one club outperforming others with higher payrolls. He did not comment on why – here’s where I would argue that Jurgen Klopp, may be a critical factor.

This would make Klopp an ‘overachiever’ in the original ‘Soccernomics’ analysis – and important to note, Kuper and Szymanski did identify some ‘overachievers’ in their study.  His leadership style has some dimensions that seem unusual in the field of soccer management. Historically, coaches have been very dictatorial with their players and their teams, disdaining input from non-football people around analytics and diet. This seems to be changing at the top level, where managing a team of twenty-something millionaires presents another level to the challenge. 

He is often talked about as a great motivator, but I think that understates his leadership qualities.  So what does Klopp appear to do differently?

• Understanding players as people – he has said it’s important to understand his players first, before talking to them about football. 
  • His first question about potential new players is, apparently, what are they like as people? This is key to getting the right people on board. Early on Klopp allowed a star defender to leave, because of his disruptive influence.
• Allowing people to try things:
  • Much was made of the improvisation that allowed Liverpool to score some key goals this season.  His players have the freedom to try things, within the game plan that he and his coaches develop.
• Giving other people credit – in the latter case, he gave all the credit to the players involved. 
  • He once referred to his assistant (Zeljko Buvac) as ‘The brain’. Buvac left LFC last year, and this year the team improved tactically – suggesting that Klopp was happy to give credit to others, even when his role was the more significant. 
  • He recently called the players mental giants for their ability to keep winning at the end of the season.
  • He does not take credit personally when results go well and does everything to avoid blaming his team in more difficult times
• Understanding where he is strong and where he could benefit from other expertise – diet, data, player acquisition are just some of the areas where he relies on others in the team.  
  • In recent weeks there’ve been several articles on the club’s data analysis team and their insights on which players to acquire for the team – Klopp isn’t always invested in these players at the start.
  • These analysts are key in helping Klopp and team with preparation.
• Aligning with and building on the club’s strategy. Unlike many coaches he seems to embrace the limits set by the owners.
  • His ability as a strategist is often understated. After last year’s near miss in The Champions League, he returned with a new plan of how the team was going to play, requiring major changes in his system – this resulted in a dramatic improvement in performance this season
• Honesty – an ex-Liverpool player who left the club as part of Klopp’s changes said last week that he was one of the best coaches he’d ever had because he’d explained what he needed and it was clear that the player (Christian Benteke) was not a good fit.
• Patience – this is a commodity in short supply in soccer. Coaches are changed out frequently. Yet, Klopp’s question to new players he’s trying to integrate into the squad is, are you here for 5 months or 5 years.?

I haven’t observed other English Premier League (EPL) coaches (Pep Guardiola or Mauricio Pochettino) as closely, but both appear to have more in common with Klopp than a coach like Jose Mourinho or Antonio Conte, both highly critical of players on their squads – who have left the EPL in the last 12 months.  

So, what did I learn…. Kuper and Szymanski are skeptical of the premise that coaches are key to a team’s success. My take on Jurgen Klopp is that there’s potential for coaches who are skilled in identifying marginal improvements in their team and its performance, to become the overachiever described in Soccernomics. I think the wider implications for leaders in other fields – by adopting the approaches I’ve outlined above I think there’s significant opportunity for marginal and continuous improvements, leading to the creation of great teams.

*For those of you who don’t know, I’m the chairperson of the Official Liverpool Supporters Club in Delaware.

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Are you are looking to flourish, be authentically happy, and live well? Read on. It will help if you are familiar with the band Coldplay. Their most recent record’s music and lyrics suggest that they have discovered the language for a flourishing life, as illustrated by the model (it’s known as PERMA).

The idea formed from some recent training I did (and subsequent reflection) on a Strengths certification program – specifically Gallup’s StrengthsFinder and the VIA Institute’s character strengths (the latter connects to the PERMA model). My Strengths that contributed to writing this piece:

• With the VIA character strengths, love of learning tops the list.  I look for ways to share my learning with my clients, friends and family (or you dear reader, if you’ve decided this topic is for you). I look for better ways to help people understand ideas (new or old) – and honestly, it’s not always welcomed, especially by my 11 year old son.
• One of my Gallup StrengthsFinder top strengths is connectedness.  I see connections like the one I’m articulating here.  Coldplay’s songs telling stories of loss, confusion about change and of renewal and growth (classic phases of how we cope with change), and. The songs that may be deemed overly positive follow on from older songs of loss and failure. 

Late last year, Coldplay released a movie, ‘A Head Full of Dreams’ that I saw with my 13 year old daughter.  We both loved the music, the lyrics and the narrative of the movie.  Their latest album and tour are the culmination of almost 20 years work, through many ups and some downs (most publicly the lead singer’s separation from his celebrity wife, but clearly not the only challenge they faced). 

In listening to their story, it seemed to me they had discovered what I’ve heard Ryan Niemec (of the VIA Institute) described as the ‘pathways to a flourishing life’.  This is the PERMA model, together with a description of the related character strengths/behaviors: 

• Positive Emotions – vitality, optimism, humor and hope are examples of the positive emotions identified by VIA Character Strengths
• Engagement – creativity, interest and enthusiasm are high when someone is engaged.
• Positive Relationships – Valuing close relationships with others, generosity, and loyalty are key in having great relationships.
• Meaning – Feeling blessed, a sense of wonder, openness and taking a big picture view are typically present when someone has meaning in their lives.
• Accomplishments – Finishing what you started, understanding context, and feeling like you are contributing are behaviors that contribute to a sense of accomplishment.

I see this as a way for clients to build credit in their emotional bank account – the more I have, the more likely I am to be able to offset adversity and challenge.

So, where are these themes in Coldplay’s music, lyrics and in how they live as depicted by the movie A Head Full of Dreams (AHFOD)? 

• Positive Emotions in AHFOD –  Zest, humor and hope are among the characteristics you see strongly in the Coldplay story.  They talk about the message of AHFOD tour being about happiness, peace and love.  There’s a lyric in ‘Up and Up’ that sums up the sense of hope, ‘you can say it’s mine and clench your fist, or see each sunrise as a gift’. 
• Engagement – they talk about an approach that assumes that they are ‘still trying to make it’. AFHOD was a place they were planning to get to. You can see strong engagement with the audiences in Japan, Argentina, Brasil and France.  There’s no ‘if it’s Tuesday it must be Detroit’ for them, every show seems constructed with a sense of place. The lyric from ‘Adventure of a Lifetime’ says, ‘you make me feel like I’m alive again’.
• Relationships – they talk about the relationship between band mates as ‘brothers’, being part of the same tribe, and at one point they say that their manager (Phil Harvey) is their best mate.  Their family extends to the crew they’ve worked with for 20 years. I particularly like the lyric from Kaleidoscope to illustrate  the openness, ‘be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide’.
• Meaning – the movie shows them behind the scenes about to play the Super Bowl half time show and their manager (Phil) reminds them that they have a great message to give. The sense of gratitude is very strong in the song called ‘A Head Full of Dreams’, where Chris Martin sings, ‘into life I’ve just been woken with A Head Full of Dreams’. It’s equally evident in ‘Amazing Day’, where the lyric is ‘and time seems to say, forget the world and its weight, and here I just want to say, Amazing Day’. 
• Accomplishments – there were many mentioned in the movie – ‘Parachutes’, their first multi-million selling Platinum album, headline at the Glastonbury festival very early in their career, and their understanding that their ability to reach millions of people is a gift. Hearing the title song in a live setting, it’s clear that they’ve succeeded in engaging their audience in a very uplifting way – how can you not join in the ‘Ohhh, OhOhhh, OOhOh’ with Buenos Aires crowd?

CONCLUSION

Connecting PERMA and Coldplay offers concrete examples of the moments, the strengths and the behaviors that can help us live a flourishing life. 

• Do a quick reflection – which aspects of PERMA are strongest in your life? Which may need some focused attention? Do have what you need to flourish? 

I’d love to get your comments either directly or through www.onnupcoaching.com.  I work with clients everyday who are using their strengths to create a path to flourish and thrive. Let’s talk about your path. 

If you need more detail on PERMA here’s an article that digs deeper into descriptions and examples – https://www.cleverism.com/perma-model-bringing-well-being-and-happiness-to-your-life/

The Playlist is on YouTube 

• Up and Up, Adventure of A Lifetime, Amazing Day Kaleidoscope and A Head Full of Dreams are on both A Head Full of Dreams and Live in Buenos Aires.

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Three characteristics of a limiting belief:

1. I hold a belief – it may be conscious or not, but it’s going to hold me back from doing something well.  Examples I see include interviewing, writing, presenting, or networking.
2. I use language that supports the belief – maybe I say it out loud, or maybe it’s my inner voice that feeds doubt.  
3. When I am in a situation requiring action, it’s hard to be successful because I am certain I don’t look that good.

Beliefs

There were some beliefs that held me back from being my best when I started coaching.  The most obvious change has been in networking – moving on from a belief that every networking situation has potential for high stress, amending the belief by finding safer, smaller groups where I could be more comfortable.

Language

It’s the words we use that sometimes hobble our progress – highlighting our perceived shortcomings. At a recent networking event, I heard one of the participants say ‘I hate presenting, I’m just not very good at it’.  What are the chances that he is going to stand up and be a convincing presenter?  Truthfully, he wasn’t terrible but he could have been so much better if he allowed himself to believe he could improve.

When it’s out loud, it can be subtle – e.g. when a client tells me they were fired from their last role, I often find a sense of failure lurking beneath the surface.  

Our self-talk/ inner voice can be constantly questioning our fitness to do a certain task. Especially true in a new situation:

• I was never really that good at what I did, was I?
• It’s been so long since I felt good about what I did
• What if I get found out?  It’s not uncommon to experience imposter syndrome.

I am trying to practice some language with my daughter that changes ‘I can’t do this’ into ‘ ‘I haven’t learned how to do this, yet’.

Actions

Once I understand the limiting beliefs and the reinforcing language when I say that I hate interviewing, I still need to take action.  I can’t become a good interviewee without strategy and practice. This isn’t about pretending you are something that you are not – it’s applying your strengths to skills like interviewing, presenting and networking.    

A recent experience may help illustrate.  I just started using MailChimp to send my newsletters, the first was my November newsletter.  There were many things I’d like to have done better, and I could easily have said I’m not good at this, and given up on the value it could offer.  Instead I recognized that I needed practice.  I probably should have practiced more before using it for the first newsletter!  Hopefully, my audience has already seen the improvement in recent versions of my newsletter.

Specific Strategies:

• Make a list of the things that make you unique:
  • How your attitude sets you apart – your optimism, your resourcefulness
  • What key skill do you have – do you improve how people work, do you organize things well, do you inspire people?
  • What knowledge you possess?  How many things do you know that are somewhat unique?
• Check yourself when you use language (explicitly or inner voice) that limits you.  
  • Consciously reflect over a few days where you are working on something that is important to you, how many times you doubt yourself.
  • Write down what you could do in this situation at your most accomplished.
• And create experiments that show you how good you can be:
  • Find a small scale opportunity to prove to myself that I can do succeed e.g. go to a networking event with a colleague
  • If I have a negative perspective on my presentation skills – find safe and supportive spaces to do my next presentation.  Talk about the thing I really know about

In short, reflect on what beliefs about your skills, strengths and knowledge could be holding you back,  Ask for help in identifying how your language and actions are supporting this misplaced belief.  Choose small steps forward to defeat that unhelpful belief.

If you identify with this phenomenon and need some help putting these ideas into action, I’d love to speak with you.  

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One important factor – finding a job is not the same as finding the “right” job.  The more you know about yourself and your skills and passions going into a job search, the better the results.  I have enabled clients to understand who they are at their best, and as a result they have sought out and chosen roles that provide them with the opportunity to be that person.

Here are some approaches that I have worked on with my clients:

• Starting something new can be exciting but can also create some anxiety about how things might unfold.  Take strength from what is constant in your life – your family, your friends, your beliefs, your passions.
• If you know who you are at your best, determine how you demonstrate it in the first 30/60/90 days.  I have one client who is very creative, and she consciously finds ways to demonstrate her creativity above and beyond the line items in her job description.
• Create a plan to be successful, but don’t be so rigid that you can’t adapt it to the new environment.  Align the plan to your values and your priorities – so that even if you change the plan, that alignment still exists.
• Know what needs to be different from where you’ve come from.   I can think of a recent client who was very successful in a previous role, but had to adjust his approach after encountering a more complicated political environment in his new role.
• Learn as much as you can about the new environment, be ready to adapt any pre-conceived strategies or plans.  As an example, I had one client eager to make a difference by working for a non-profit that they believed in – they assumed any role would be OK as the cause was so important to them.  As we reflected, she realized that the role didn’t leverage her skills and experience, and potentially wouldn’t sustain her interest.  She adjusted her focus to roles that would leverage her skills and experience, and found a meaningful role.
• Set expectations with the people around you about what you plan to do – this not only helps manage expectations but also gives you the opportunity to articulate what you plan to do.
• Articulate the new you as frequently as you can – in my own case, I talked about my success in enabling teams to work together more effectively by understanding their temperaments and how these can be leveraged to create high performing teams.  This has been a very successful strategy for me.

Overall I see two essential pre-requisites for successfully adapting to a new role.  First, the role should be a place where you can leverage your strengths and do the things you do well.  Second is that once you are there, you need to proactively manage yourself into your new identity.

Several sources if you are looking for further guidance.  There’s everybody’s favorite business book in the early 2000s – Michael Watkins’ the First Ninety Days, where he articulates the idea that you only have 90 days to make a difference in a new role.  There are also a number of authors who write about change management (e.g. John Kotter, William Bridges) identifying strategies to accelerate change.   And if you’d like to discuss anything you’ve read here, I’m PaulGaskell@OnNUpcoaching.com.

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In her book Overwhelmed, Brigid Schulte talks about how the notion of the Ideal worker (particularly in American society) sets unrealistic expectations about how much time we should be at work, how available we should be for calls, meetings and email.  In trying to be the ideal worker it’s easy to develop a sense of being overwhelmed, once you throw in the expectations of being parents, of managing a home, being part of a community/church group.   In this situation it’s hard to continue to  ‘put things into perspective’.

Without a life changing experience, I know for myself and my clients that it can be hard to slow down and answer questions like, ‘what is my perspective?’, ‘what is my life purpose?’, or more simply, ‘What really matters to me?’.  I believe that without satisfactory answers, your happiness and the happiness of those around you can be negatively impacted.

The sudden passing of someone close reminds us that life has few certainties, and using some time to identify ‘What matters?’ is a good strategy from my perspective.  It will take time and effort to answer the question of what you want to do with the precious time that you have left, and this isn’t time that we are used to committing in our ever busy world.

If this is you, it may help to provide my ‘What matters?’ list to give you a starting place.  Here is that list:

• I want my family to grow – I will ensure my next time with my family is ‘quality time’
• I want my work to enable people live and work to their potential.  In today’s activities I will seek out opportunities to enable the success and happiness of people I interact with.
• I want to be as healthy as I can – every day I will exercise physically and mentally.
• I want to be of value to my community of friends and colleagues.  I will try to make today’s interactions as enriching as they can be.

I have 4 items, 3 or 4 is a good number – our brain finds it hard to manage more big items.  I also have a here and now element to my what matters list – if I am not doing something today, I may not have the chance tomorrow.

If you have your list together, you already know how powerful it is to recognize what is most important to you and as a guide as to where you spend your time.  If you do not, my recommendation is to book a one hour appointment today – just you, or if you prefer, let someone important in your life to be part of the conversation.

Once you have your ‘What matters?’ list, set yourself parameters, goals and measures for these.  If you end up with too much to do (or too little) in practice, you can adjust it.  There are a number of time management techniques to maximize how you use your time – these are so much more useful once you’ve defined your ‘What matters?’

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Managing your Transition

I believe transition gets ignored because of the hyper-focus on better networking, improving your LinkedIn profile, creating an eye-catching resume and interview performance.

It’s well established that transitions make us unfocused, often to the point of disorientation. Failure to manage a transition effectively will be an obstacle when it comes to being fully focused on the job search and representing yourself at your best.

Here is where a coach focused on you, rather than a 10 step job search process, can really help. I find that working towards a focused, positive mindset improves the quality of every other aspect of the job search.

Questions

Here are some typical questions that I might ask to enable this process:

·     What is changing/has changed recently in your world? Simply understanding this can help clients realize why they are finding it hard to focus. There are many strategies to apply once you have that awareness.

·     How much choice do you have? The more you feel you lack choices in the job search process, the more defensive you are likely to feel.

·     What negative emotions are you carrying? Maybe there’s a legacy from your last job – the stronger this emotion, the greater the likelihood it shows up in your writing and in person.

·     How can you shift the emphasis of your thoughts to you at your best? Find positive examples to share with friends and family (and then beyond).

·     If you could leave one thing behind that seems to be holding you back, what would happen? Seeing beyond perceived obstacles is powerful.

Trying to find a new job can be challenging enough without being unknowingly held back by your experience of the transition. It’s my observation that proactively managing your transition maximizes your chance of success.

If you know someone who needs help bringing their best to a job search, please share. paulgaskell@onnupcoaching.com

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