The M.A.P. Maker

Employee retention keys: Passion and career planning

Companies invest a lot in finding top talent. Unfortunately, they often don't seem to invest as much in keeping them once they're on board. A recent Forbes article offers up the top ten reasons why large companies fail to keep their best talent. 

The two that struck me most (or, more accurately, the two things that fit tongue-in-groove with my focus) were:

#2: Failing to find a project for the talent that ignites their passion:
"Top talent isn’t driven by money and power, but by the opportunity to be a part of something huge, that will change the world, and for which they are really passionate. Big companies usually never spend the time to figure this out with those people."

and...

#4: No discussion around career development:
"Most bosses never engage with their employees about where they want to go in their careers — even the top talent. This represents a huge opportunity for you and your organization if you do bring it up."

Finding the fuel source

When people come to me for career passion coaching, it's typically because their current work doesn't tap into their passions (i.e., #2) and they don't know where to go from here in their career (#4). They typically feel frustrated and stuck, and many feel inclined to jump ship from their current jobs immediately. 

If you're a manager who wants to ensure your employees don't experience those reasons for leaving, try taking a page from the work I do helping my clients create careers that energize and engage them. 

It starts with my definition of passion: "The energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." It's the result of being who you are and doing the kinds of things that naturally energize you. 

Simple, right? The trouble is that most people have spent their lives so focused on external drivers like goals and achievement that they have no idea how to consciously make choices that bring more of who they are into the picture. 

So here's what I do with my clients (if you'd like to get a deeper picture, here is an article on planning for passion that looks at the process). I have them make a list of things they have loved doing over the course of their lives, work or play. Then they pick one and we start reverse engineering it, looking at why they love it. 

As we do the same thing for multiple items from the list of things that have lit them up, common themes start to emerge. Common characteristics start to show up that are consistently there in the things they find energizing. Some individual examples might be:

• Exploration and discovery
• Problem-solving
• A focus on the details
• Deep connection with people
• Analyzing 
• Creativity

Passion and Planning

As those underlying themes show up, we compile them in one place, so they have a list of characteristics that tend to be in place when they feel energized and engaged.

That becomes a tool (I think of it as an internal compass) they can use to both generate ideas for where to go in their career and evaluate opportunities as they come up. 

Imagine having that same insight into what makes your employees tick. Would it be helpful to understand what kinds of work leaves them feeling most energized? Would that help you design and refine their jobs to help them stay passionate? Would it be helpful to be able to have a career pathing conversation that looks at the possible paths in terms of which ones would leave them feeling most energized and performing at their best?

Sure, those insights take a little investment up front, but the pay-off is worth it.  

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

 

Do the people around you energize or drain you?

Yesterday I had an amazing phone conversation with Fabeku Fatunmise. I had first connected with him via Twitter, and we decided it would be fun to escalate that to an actual ear-to-ear phone call (I know! How bleeding-edge!). 

I came away from the conversation feeling energized and inspired. I had new ideas knocking around in my head, and more energy about some of the ones that have been bumping around in my cranium for a while. The conversation was a great addition to my week. 

That same day, I unfriended someone on Facebook. (Gasp! Heartless!) I didn't know her well, and found her posts to be consistently bitter and cynical. Every time I saw a post it created this little sense of irritation and negativity. 

I finally thought, "This is adding nothing but negative energy to my life. Enough of that." So with one simple click, I unfriended her. 

In one day, I added someone to the picture who left me feeling energized and inspired, and deleted someone who had created a steadily dripping drain. The net effect was a step in the right direction.

No doubt you'll find similar examples when you look at the people around you.

Audit the transactions in your personal energy account

Want to improve your life? Want more energy to put into your career or any other aspect of your life? Want a more positive attitude? Take a look at how the people you expose yourself to affect you, and start making choices to move that in a positive direction. 

Think of those interactions as transactions in your personal energy account. Do those they make a deposit to your energy account, or are they making withdrawals? 

Unless someone is a source of significant pain or irritation, most of the time we go about our business with only a vague awareness of how the people we come in contact with effect us. But just because we're not paying attention, it doesn't mean they're not having an impact. 

Look at the people around you. Who do you interact with? Whose thoughts are you consistently exposed to, whether in person or via social media. 

Now ask yourself, "What impact is that person having on me? Are they building me up or eroding my foundation? Are they energizing me, or are the depleting my energy?" 

You may not have complete control over how much of a role certain people have in your life. But the more awareness you have of how each person impacts you, the better equipped you are to make decisions about which people you choose to invest your time with, and how. 

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst 

 

 

What are you waiting for?

"Life is short. Don't wait." You've heard it a million times, probably so many times that it goes in one ear and slowly drifts out the other. But it's an important message. 

Sometimes, it takes the raw edge of reality to drive the point home. I heard that voice of reality today in a poetry slam reading by Gabrielle Bouliane, a woman who had been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer shortly before the event. 

Her voice is a raw, pissed off, emphatic, passionate, and inspiring. And she has a message for you in the video below that I hope you stop for a moment and really, truly hear. 

[Hat tip to David Zinger Employee Engagement for the heads up on the video.]

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Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

How to thrive with a positive personal ecosystem

With all the bad news in the media, it's easy to get sucked into a sky-is-falling view of the world. But guess what? Despite all the gloom and doom, positive things are still happening all around us.

People are still making money. They're still happy. They're still experiencing positive personal growth. People are still finding bliss.

Are people experiencing bad things as well? Of course. But why would you choose to let that define what you are going to experience in your life?

Just because challenging things are happening doesn't mean they have to happen to you. And if they do happen to you, just because other people are wailing and gnashing their teeth about how horrible they are doesn't mean that you have to respond that way.

Take a cue from Pigpen

Remember Pigpen from the Peanuts comic strip? Everywhere he went, a cloud of dust and dirt would follow him. He had his own personal environment that didn't seem to have anything to do with the environment around him.

You can do the same thing, creating a positive personal ecosystem that surrounds you as you move through your life. Except instead of a cloud of dust, it's a cloud of positive perspective and positive experience. 

How? The first step is being consciously aware that you're doing it. Choose to invest in creating it. Once you do that, here are some ideas that will help form and strengthen that positive personal ecosystem.

Keep things in perspective

If negative things are happening in your life, don't let them fill any more of the picture than they really merit. Too often we let whatever challenges we're experiencing swell to fill the room, leaving precious little space for us to experience what's good.

Imagine it as a pie chart, with individual slices assigned to all the things in our lives, good and bad. When you lose perspective, the negative slice takes up almost the entire pie. But if we look at it realistically, there is typically a lot that is positive that we're essentially ignoring because we're choosing to wallow in what's wrong.

Make sure your slices of the pie are in line with reality.

Focus on the positive

It's easy to focus on the negative. It's the whole bur-under-the-saddle thing. It hurts, so it grabs your attention. But what you focus on will determine how you see the world, so make it a habit to spend time every day focusing on what's positive in your life.

Use your commute to take mental note of what's good in your life. Write a list every morning, or every night. Schedule a regular time with a friend to get together and talk about nothing but what is right in your life.

Surround yourself with positive people

I can't stress this enough. In a way, you will become the people you surround yourself with. If everyone around you is negative and pessimistic, it will drag you down. If the people around you have a positive attitude and believe in their potential to create a vibrant, fulfilling life - regardless of the circumstances - you will start to live up to that.

Use tools to build it

There are many different tools you can use to build that positive personal ecosystem. Explore meditation. Pray, if that's something you do. Keep a gratitude journal (or a positive journal). Experiment with EFT. 

Anything you can use to help build the positive and eliminate the negative in your mindset is a potential tool.

Look for the possibilities

Create an outlook that is jam-packed with possibilities and potential.

Make a habit of looking for possibilities. When you're faced with an obstacle, trying brainstorming as many ways around it as you can. Do this for big obstacles and small ones. Take advantage of any opportunity to exercise this part of your brain.

While you're at it, look for possibilities even when you aren't encountering obstacles. Many life-expanding opportunities zip right by us, simply because we're not paying attention.

The more possibilities you see, the more choices you have. And the more choices you have, the less likely you are to feel trapped and stuck. And ultimately, the less likely you will be to fall into a victim mentality. You'll be driving the bus instead of sitting in the back breathing in exhaust fumes.

Plant seeds

Don't sit around and wait for the positive to unfold in your life. It might happen, but it's a lot less like than if you actively cultivate it. Look for ways to create fertile ground and plant seeds of potential. Maybe that means building relationships. Maybe that means letting people know what you want to do. Maybe it means telling the world what you have to offer - and doing it consistently and persistently. 

The more seeds you plant, and the more work you do to create fertile soil for them to take root in and grow, the more potential there is for the positive to come into your life. It's simple math.

Feed the positive

Make a conscious choice to feed your positive outlook by what you expose your brain to. Watch inspiring movies. Read motivating books. Attend inspiring talks. Continually exposing your mind to, "Yes!" helps create that positive perception of the world. 

Eliminate the "junk food"

The flip side of that coin is cutting out the emotionally toxic junk food. Violence and bad news adds nothing to your life. There is no upside to it. All it does is contribute fear, anxiety, and doubt. Stop watching television news. Even better, cut out TV altogether. Choose not to watch movies that reinforce a dark view of the world.

Care for yourself

Your body and brain is the factory that is creating your experience of life. And for a good experience, that factory needs proper maintenance. Eating well and incorporating physical activity into your life will support your ability to feel good.

Do good

Study after study has shown the benefits of doing good. Volunteer. Give. Spend time focusing on helping others. Not only does it feel good, it takes your mind off whatever difficulties you might be experiencing and helps put things in perspective.

Have a vision

I can almost guarantee that you will feel bumps along the way. But if you have a vision for the life you want to create and the difference you want to make, those bumps will be easier to tolerate. It might not take away the pain, but it will give you something positive to focus on as you move through them. 

As Nietzsche said, "He who has a why to live can bear almost any how."

So there you have it. This by no means an exhaustive list of ways to create your positive personal ecosystem, but it's a good place to start.

How about you? What has been effective in feeding your own positive personal ecosystem? What approaches do you take? Do you have thoughts on any of these that I listed? Other suggestions? I would love to hear your ideas.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Great list of inspiring movies

So much of what is possible in each of our lives depends on how we see the world. Is our perspective positive, or negative? Do we see possibility, or impossibility? Meaning, or pointlessness?

And so much of how we see the world depends on how we feed our minds. Dish up a steady stream of negative, violent, hopeless input, and it can't help but color our perspectives. Serve a constant flow of inspiring, positive, hopeful input on the other hand, and it will nourish a similar worldview (And with the stress and uncertainty people are feeling these days, nourishing that positive worldview is more important than ever).

With that in mind, I am always on the lookout for movies that inspire me and make me feel good. I want to feed a sense of peace and possibility.

The question is always, "What movie should I watch?" You can't turn around in a video store without knocking over a DVD with a dark, violent view of the world, but really good positive movies are much fewer and farther between.

I recently came across an excellent list of life-affirming and inspiring movies. I printed it out and highlighted the ones that I've already seen (about a third of them) and by and large agreed that they belonged on the list, which seems a good indication that the others stand a good chance of being worth watching as well. So I'm giving this list two thumbs up.

Next time it's movie night at home and you're looking for a movie to watch, this list is a great place to start.

Which movies from the list would you recommend? Are there other inspiring movies you would suggest that aren't on the list?

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

What paradigm do the people around you create?

The people you surround yourself with can have an enormous effect on what you believe and what you can achieve. Their collective perspective can create a paradigm that raises the bar, or smothers the fire.

Jump on over to my post on the U.S. News & World Report blog for more thoughts on the power of the people in your life.

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Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

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by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Celebrate the mundane miracles in your life

For the last few weeks, I've been making a conscious effort to really focus on the positive in my life. Not just the knock-yer-socks-off, I'm-so-damned-lucky parts, but the subtler, simpler elements as well (like really noticing how much I like the walnut tree outside my window).

I have a quote from Thich Nhat Hanh hanging on my refrigerator that I cut out of Conscious Choice magazine. For some reason, it jumped out at me today as I was heading towards my morning cup of coffee and said, "Blog me!" So here it is...

The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth in the present moment, to appreciate the peace and beauty that are available now. There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.

Reading this quote again, I started thinking of my attention on the subtler positive elements in my life, and how - unless I'm really paying attention - I just zoom right past them without noticing. In a quest for Big M (as in Miracle) experiences, I miss the mundane miracles that fill my life.

And when I miss the mundane miracles, I miss out on a source of energy and enjoyment that can make my life richer, fuller, and plain ol' more fun.

Where are the mundane miracles in your life?

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Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Career change tip: Find a new orbit

Have you ever noticed how much the people around you can affect your outlook on life? "You are what you eat," they say, and in a way it's also true that "You are who you're with."

If everyone around you is channeling Eeyore, that mindset can be hard to resist. On the other hand, the energy of positive people determined to get the most out of life is contageous as well. 

If it's time for a career change, ask yourself, "What tone do the people around me set? Do I feel energized and inspired around them, or do they drag me down? Do they inspire my belief in potential and possibility, or do they seem invested in the notion that life is about tolerating the status quo?"

If you discover that the people around you are dragging your energy down, it's time to, as one career changer in this Wall Street Journal article described it, find a new orbit.

Rather than just plugging your ears and singing, "Lalalala I'm not listening to you," get proactive. Reach out and find new people who feed your efforts, people who inspire you. Not bobblehead yes-people who will agree to the genius of any hare-brained idea you happen to come up with, but people who want to see the people around them supported, encouraged, and inspired.

Take a look around you. What do you see? Are the people around you building you up, or dragging you down? How can you launch yourself into a new orbit by connecting with more of the former?

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Need to re-energize your career?
Get started with 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work!

What's your Big Why?

Let's face it, however much you love your work, there will always be times when it will be complete crap. Maybe things go wrong and you have to deal with it, or you have to buckle down and do something that isn't all that much fun but needs to be done. Whatever.

If you rely entirely on the Whee Factor ("Wheee! I can't believe I get paid for this!") for the energy in your work, it can be challenging to get through those stretches, because the Whee Factor is missing.

That's one of the reasons a focus on making a personally meaningful difference (in addition to the parts that make you go whee) can be so beneficial. It gives you a bigger context beyond just what is happening to you day to day. When you put your passion to work towards something greater than yourself, there's a difference that inspires you that pulls you forward. 

I've been thinking a lot about this lately for my own journey. I call it The Big Why. Why am I doing this? What is it that I ultimately want to achieve? What is my big dream when it comes to the difference I want to make in the world?

I'm still working on turning my Big Why into actual goals, but the spirit behind it is, I want to help people put their passion to work to make a difference that inspires them, in a way that lets them thrive.

Basically, I want to tap into the incredible power for positive change that comes when people are on fire about what they're doing and why they're doing it. And for each person's efforts to be a long-term, sustainable thing, they need to thrive.

So now I look at everything I do in terms of that Big Why. What are my opportunities to take what lights me up and put it to work in service of my Big Why? Doing that provides both an additional source of energy and a cohesiveness to what I'm doing and the direction I'm going.

What about you? What's your Big Why?

 

Check out 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

Reach out for inspiration

If you want to tap into a ready source of motivation and energy, try reaching out to someone who inspires you.

I spent an hour a couple days ago interviewing Brian Johnson for my podcast. Brian is the founder of Zaadz, a social networking site with a social conscience (think Facebook for people who want to make a difference).

As always seems to happen when I talk to people who are up to some amazing things in the world, I came away feeling so inspired I could barely see straight.

If you remember, I did a 30-in-30 experiment back in November, attempting to reach out and have 30 phone conversations in 30 days with people I had never talked to before, with no intention other than to connect. I think it actually ended up being 23-in-30, but the number was less important than the pattern it set.

I have started incorporating that idea into my life on an ongoing (albeit more sustainable) basis. Once or twice a week I try to reach out and have a conversation with someone new. Invariably, it gives me a boost. I might even come away with new ideas or perspectives.

There's a long-term benefit as well of course, because what I'm actually doing is planting the seeds for relationships. And it's in relationships that the magic starts, whether in our own careers or with the change we want to make in the world.

Who would you reach out to? Why not make a list, pick one, and drop them a line? Take a step, then build on it. Who knows where it might lead?

 

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM