The M.A.P. Maker [Meaning, Abundance & Passion]

Kim & Jason say, "Follow your passion!"

If you're reading this blog, odds are good that you have more than a passing interest in creating a career chock full of passion. With that in mind, you should probably zip right over and download a brand spankin' new copy of Kim & Jason's  quarterly newsletter.

This issue focuses on following your passion and includes an article from yours truly. I have a copy of the paper version, and it's a pretty impressive piece of work. 

While you're over there, spend some time on Kim & Jason's blog.  I love what  they're up to (Less stress! More fun!).

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Want to energize your life? Maximize your Gain to Drain Ratio

The nutshell description of what I do with my work is "helping people put their passion to work to make a difference that inspires them, in a way that lets them thrive."

Another way I describe my work is even simpler - it's about energy management. In essence, it's about identifying the sources of energy and incorporating them into your career, and your life.

At the heart of the energy management idea is what I call the Gain to Drain Ratio. Maximizing your Gain to Drain Ratio is simple, really. All you do is:

• Bring as much as possible of what gives you energy (the Gain part of the equation)
• Do whatever you can to minimize the things that drain your energy.

In terms of your career, the two key Gain components are passion and meaning. The more you can incorporate the kinds of things that energize you, and the more you can put that to work towards something that inspires you and pulls you forward, the more Gain you have.

By the same token, the more you can change the things that suck your energy away - whether by doing something major like a career change or something less drastic like taking small steps to do things more in alignment with how you naturally function - the smaller your Drain will be.

The Gain to Drain Ratio idea applies throughout your life, not just your career. For example, a big source of Gain or Drain can be diet and exercise. The more healthily you eat and the more consistently you exercise, the bigger the Gain. Living on twinkies and potato chips, on the other hand, can be a massive Drain.

And of course the net effect from things like diet and exercise have an impact on other parts of your life. You might be doing a job you love and making a super-inspiring difference, but if you your diet and exercise habits create a big Drain, it's going to reduce the Gain to Drain Ratio.

(Feel free to skip the next three paragraphs if numbers and ratios make your eyeballs roll back in your head - it's just another way to think about it).

If you want to put it all in more concrete terms, think of it in terms of measuring things on a scale from 1 to 10. Maybe you love your work and give it a 9 on the Gain scale. There are a few things that drive you buggy, so maybe the Drain is a 3. So your Gain to Drain Ratio is 9 to 3. If you're mathematically compulsive, you could reduce that to 3 to 1 and say, hey, I've got a Gain to Drain score of 3.

If you made some changes and eliminated the things that drive you nuts, that Drain might drop to 1. Now all of a sudden it's 9 to 1, or a Drain to Gain score of 9 (out of a maximum of 10).

The same idea applies the other way. If the Gain from your work is far outweighed by the Drain - say, a Gain of 3 and a Drain of 9 - now all of a sudden you have a 1 to 3 Gain to Drain Ratio. Or a Gain to Drain score of 1/3.

(OK, enough of the mathematical interlude - back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Take a look at your own career, and your own life. What does your Gain to Drain Ratio look like? Try looking at the Gain and Drain in different areas, like...

• Career
• Health
• Relationships
• Finance

When you start getting a feel for how the different components of your life affect your overall Gain to Drain Ratio, you can start exploring ways to maximize the Gain and minimize the Drain.

And that's what it's all about!

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

101 Ways to Get Wild About Work - now available!

At long last, 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work is ready to go! Written with the busy professional in mind, it's a perfect way to start working towards passion in bite-sized tidbits.  

Check out the book's web page for more information and some free samples from the book.

Sneak preview: 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

[Update: The book is now available here.]

Whoo-hoo! I've been working on it off and on for over two years, but I'm finally just about to publish 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work.

I'm completely psyched to finally be ready to share it with you. It has the potential to spark a lot of positive change in people's lives, and I can't think of much that lights me up more than that!

The book is packed with insights and action steps to  help you turn your dreams into reality. Each bite-sized idea stands on its own and is short enough to easily read, absorb, and put into play in your life.

You can either start at the beginning and work through it front to back, or take a self-customized approach, flipping through it and working with ideas that feel particularly relevant to where you are at the moment.

Here's a sneak preview of what you'll find:

Introduction (suggestions on how to use the book)

Topic Guide

#1 - Define Tomorrow by Its Potential

Want to be among the very first to know when it's available? Drop me an e-mail and I will send you a note to let you know (hint: It will be in time for New Year's).

Passion lessons from an amoeba

Over the years I've worked with many people who have felt stuck in a career that doesn't fit them and heard countless ways to describe how that feels. My absolute favorite came from a woman who was extraordinarily creative and intuitive.

She had managed to be very successful in the linear and logical world of the software industry, but had reached a point where being who she wasn't day in and day out was literally making her sick.

"I feel like an amoeba in a paramecium pool," she said one day. What a great visual! There she was, built to move with the unstructured and organic movements of an amoeba, but forcing herself to fit in with the straightforward movements of all the other paramecia.

My definition of passion is, "the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." Simply put, it's the energy that comes from being who you are, and doing what you do naturally, in ways you're naturally drawn to.

And that's where people often run into trouble. So many people deny who they really are in attempt to fit into what they think they should be. They make their career decisions on external factors (money, status, what jobs are growing, other people's definition of "success," etc.) and they neglect to factor what they are best suited for into the picture.

It's possible that they'll get lucky and strike gold, but it's more likely that they'll wind up trying to jam themselves into a path that doesn't fit.

Take a look at your career. Does it fit hand in glove with who you are, or is work about getting up every day and heading off for another day of being who you're not? Do you feel like an amoeba in a paramecium pool? Or maybe a paramecium in a pool of amoebas?

The more what you do aligns with who you are, the more energy you get from the work you do, the less energy you have to waste doing something that doesn't fit, and the more energy you have to put towards success.

 

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Does passion lead to profit? Employee engagement and the bottom line

Passion is great from an individual's point of view, but does it really matter when it comes to a company's bottom line? Common sense would suggest that it does.

A company's employees are essentially the engine that makes it go. When those employees are fully engaged, that engine is finely tuned and more of its potential can be translated into results. When they're ambivalent, or worse yet, disengaged, the engine coughs and sputters.

A recent study from Towers Perrin backs that common sense up with cold hard statistics:

The most striking data about the linkage between employee engagement and financial performance come from a study of 40 global companies which involved a regression analysis of company financial results against engagement data. It found that firms with the highest percentage of engaged employees collectively increased operating income 19% and earnings per share 28% year to year. Those companies with the lowest percentage of engaged employees showed year-to-year declines of 33% in operating income and 11% in earnings per share.

In a related study over a longer time horizon (three years), the firms with the highest levels of employee engagement achieved a 3.7% increase in operating margins, while those with the lowest levels of engagement suffered a drop of 2%.

Top that off with these statistics on retention:

In addition, engagement has a direct impact on retaining employees. Half of the engaged employees had no plans to leave their company, compared with just 15% of the disengaged ¾ and roughly a third of the workforce overall. Less than 5% of engaged employees said they were actively looking for another job compared with more than one in four of the disengaged employees.

How can companies take steps towards increasing their employees' engagement?

The study's findings point to three areas of focus for companies to increase engagement and tap the reservoir of employee discretionary effort.

1. Employees need their senior leaders to demonstrate inspiration, vision and commitment...
2. Employees want to give more to their companies and their jobs, but also want a clearer picture of what's in it for them...
3. Employees want to work for a company that is seen as a leader...

So it's not enough for employees to find work they love. The company also has to provide an environment that doesn't stifle all that potential energy.

[Hat tip to Kristina at The Salary Reporter for the link]

 

Check out The Occupational Adventure Guide

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM