Much as Day 2 saw a lot of the same activity as Day 1 (contacting leads, reconnecting with people and thanking everyone) there are some realities one has to deal with.

Day 2

Re-Planning Finances

If I can call it “Part 2″ of my plan, dealing with the realities of re-sizing my budget to fit within my newly-diminished means is my least favorite so far. Trying to decide what is essential and what needs to be cut isn’t easy, but I knew I needed to start quickly.

So, for the “easy” stuff first:

• Monthly parking – I’m not going to use it and I can use the money. (Thanks to the Marten Ramp in Minneapolis for being understanding and cheerful!)
• Credit cards – Okay, so I’m not “getting rid” of them, but making arrangements to limit payments and try to get on whatever programs are available is an immediate action that shouldn’t be put off.
• Mortgage – Well… I didn’t get hold of someone today, but I need them to know the situation sooner rather than later. Again in the “not getting rid of” bucket, but managing it is going to be essential.
• Utilities – There are great programs for help with utilities. If you need them, find them and use them now.

Much, much harder:

• Horseback riding lessons – My eldest child’s 7th birthday present… she’s had two including today.
• Pre-K – This is a tricky one at best. As you can imagine we’re heartbroken over having to make any cuts here, but I need to talk to the school and see what we can do. (Day 3 has me thinking that maybe we should keep something here. My wife and I have a strong bias for educating kids well, so this might be something we “splurge” on to keep.)
• Applying for unemployment – When you haven’t been out of work in a while, there’s a certain sting in having to apply for unemployment benefits. As someone who has talked people through layoffs before I cannot stress enough: Do not put this off. Many of the assistance programs either need you to have applied for unemployment benefits or become a lot easier to obtain if you’ve already applied.

Retrieving Belongings from the Office

One thing that I still needed to do was to recover the rest of my belongings from work. Aside from a slight confusion in the morning, I was invited to pick up the rest of my stuff in the morning. This was instead of “outside of work hours” as previously stated, and I have to thank the Labor Day weekend (more on that in a weekend post) and the HR Director for providing that option.

I had the kids in the car with me. They’re pretty clear on what is going on, but were excited to visit “Daddy’s work” since both of them have had positive experiences coming into the office. Aside from a tantrum over using the whiteboard in my old cube, their presence was very comforting.

It’s always awkward going back to a place you’ve been excluded from, particularly when people are straining to say something and don’t feel comfortable talking. There are a number of things that made the visit easier for me though, and part of it was the number of folks who made a point of stopping to shake my hand. Some of the stops were very emotional, and it was difficult not to feel for people who were feeling the strain.

What I was most impressed by, and incredibly thankful for, was the dignity I was allowed in the process. In many organizations the death march is surrounded by negative responses and chiding, but I am very grateful that this was not the case for me. As much as it was an emotional exit, being allowed that dignity made the situation much easier. I know I learned a number of lessons in humility and human decency in the process.

All in all, not an easy day but far better than it could have been.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, looking for a new day job, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

Day 1

A side-effect of having so many people interested in helping is being really, really busy. This is a good thing.

Day 1 included responding to emails and calls, making more calls and sending more emails to new leads and generally trying to keep my head above water. The time flew by and the activity kept my spirits up. By the time I ended my day (a little early due to a school open house) I had somewhere in the realms of two dozen contacts sent and around a dozen connections made with people I didn’t know two days before.

I got to talking with my brother in the evening who made the observation that I was as busy out of work as I had been with the high workloads I’d been under in the days before.

Lessons from Day 1:

• Keep up with communications: The prioritized list you were working from is still your friend, but you’ll likely be adding to it rapidly.
• All leads are good leads: No matter how strange a possibility may look, it’s work pursuing.

(Since I’m a little behind, Day 2 will be arriving shortly.)

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, looking for a new day job, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

Yesterday I was let go from my day job.

Rather than hiding this fact away and talking around it, I’d like to help whomever I can by making myself a case in point. So I give you the CareerSherpa approach to rebounding strong.

Day Zero

Let’s start with first reactions. On meeting with my late manager and human resources to hear the news, my immediate reaction was simply to hold very still. I doubt this is ever the kind of news one is fully prepared for, but I took in the information given fairly readily. Sure my hands were shaking trying to read the document I was given, but I’m pretty sure everything I heard made sense in context.

Sharing the news was not fun and, as you’d expect, more than a little emotional. As I talked with my wife, I realized that I had a choice in how I wanted to react and what I wanted to do.

Knowing that you can act and that you have decisions that you can make is a very liberating feeling. Immediately you can start to think about what the possibilities actually mean. For me, this meant I could start to formulate a plan.

My wife later commented that I was treating the situation like it was a project to run. In many ways I’m wired to plot out a course once I have an idea of the starting point and the destination. This has proven to be useful in a lot of areas and no less so today. So my first tasks were laid out fairly quickly:

• Step 1: Regroup and regain composure. Being an emotional wreck right out of the gate isn’t going to help, you need to take the space to recover and calm yourself. I had the advantage of suspecting that something was up some way in advance and had prepared a bit, but it is essential to collect yourself and prepare mentally to look at your options.
• Step 2: Eat lunch. It was lunchtime, so I found somewhere with Wi-Fi access to eat something. In general though, finding something to eat and drink is a good idea. Even if you’ve managed to recover a dead calm immediately, you have burnt through a lot of energy in your stress response. In any case, you will need more fuel to power up your brain cells and be able to think clearly.
• Step 3: Broadcast your availability to your network. Social media is your friend here. LinkedIn is the most obvious for professional networking, but you have to think through what your message is going to be there. Facebook offers a different kind of group, but it’s worth sharing the news there as well.
• Step 4: Create a contact list. Where social media offers an instant blast, you also need to follow up and target your message to certain people. It doesn’t matter who they are, if you know them it is good to have them on the list.
• Step 5: Prioritize your contact list. Start with any contacts whose job it is to find jobs and people to fill them – recruiters, contracting companies, people who have teams of people like you.
• Step 6: Contact your top five. Take the first five contacts on your prioritized list (or ten if you’re feeling energetic) and contact them. Use the mode of contact that they will appreciate most, but realize that leaving a message and giving them a chance to respond later may work best. If they like to communicate via email, use email. If they like to talk, call them. Keep each communication short and to the point.
• Step 7: Check your email. It’s likely that, if you’ve been a good co-worker, friend, or polite acquaintance at your last job, somebody will have noticed. If they’ve noticed, they might also have suggestions or contacts that they’re already offering to you.
• Step 8: Take everybody up on any offer given! Everyone who makes an offer of help thinks that what they’re suggesting is a good option. You won’t know if any offer is or isn’t good until you check it out and follow through.
• Step 9: Thank everyone who contacts you. Sounds silly? Not at all. These are people trying to help who have shown an interest in you. (Hint: Remember these people. They’re your real references and they’re the strongest connections you have in your network. It also never hurts to be nice to people.)

How far did I get on Day Zero? Honestly I hopped around a bit, but I managed to accomplish a lot of these steps and I’m feeling pretty good about what I accomplished.

I’d also like to take the opportunity to publicly thank everyone who contacted me to wish me well, offer help, or just to chat. Very few things take the sting out of a loss like a community pulling for you.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, looking for a new day job, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

In researching how the understanding of the concept has developed, I particularly liked the definition provided by MindTools.com in their article “Building Self-Confidence – Prepare yourself for success” which breaks the concept into two parts:

• Self-efficacy which they describe as “when we see ourselves (and others similar to ourselves) mastering skills and achieving goals that matter in those skill areas. This is the confidence that, if we learn and work hard in a particular area, we’ll succeed; and it’s this type of confidence that leads people to accept difficult challenges, and persist in the face of setbacks” and the overlap with,
• Self-esteem “which is a more general sense that we can cope with what’s going on in our lives, and that we have a right to be happy. Partly, this comes from a feeling that the people around us approve of us, which we may or may not be able to control. However, it also comes from the sense that we are behaving virtuously, that we’re competent at what we do, and that we can compete successfully when we put our minds to it.”

Something that alternately disturbs and confuses me is the number of individuals, including myself, who lose sight of their own worth and competency. This comes about through many factors, but most often comes down to two things:

• The impact of negative perceptions from others
• An inability to maintain visibility of accomplishments

Negative perceptions from others often aren’t within our immediate control. Small messages are transmitted all around us, perhaps more so in any environment where we are being assessed actively or passively. Sadly, that means any endeavor we engage in will be measured by someone’s reactions to our efforts. When this translates to messages to our managers, supervisors, tutors or clients, it is vital to be able to respond.

Maintaining communication is your only positive response. While the rumor mill is destructive, having an ear to how messages are being passed will give you the ability to respond and even communicate ahead of a problem surfacing. Make sure your successes, impediments and work are clear and maintain their visibility regularly. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but it also provides an opening for negative messages to accumulate.

Keeping your accomplishments visible becomes more difficult when we are under stress, heavy workloads, or when the noise and distractions are drowning out the real messages about what we are doing. If everyone is in the same position, including your boss, it’s much easier for an immediate negative to outweigh a vast array of accomplishments. The more stress exists in your environment, the more bad behavior you and those around you will exhibit which reinforces the negative messages further.

Write down and update a list of your accomplishments regularly. Keep two lists if you can, one for major accomplishments and one for smaller accomplishments. The major accomplishments might not be something that changes regularly, but should be reviewed as a reminder frequently. The minor accomplishments on the other hand is something you’ll update, or create anew, frequently, but may not ever be something you review.

Make your accomplishments the first and last thing you bring to any conversation. The more you talk about them, and the more others retain what your past and current accomplishments are, the more those messages will start to drown out the detractors. Corroborating evidence will appear and reinforce your message both to those around you and, more importantly, to yourself.

Your self-confidence is not out of your control. Take the bull by the horns and show yourself how well you are doing.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

Left unchecked, this can mark you as a “bad” or “ineffective” employee and even gnaw at your self-esteem. After a while your explanations fall on deaf ears and leave you feeling frustrated and unappreciated. This can expand into a vicious circle where your behavior deteriorates and the perception becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. After all, who would be motivated to perform with that kind of crushing negativity?

There are ways out! Not that they’re easy or that they don’t require seemingly herculean struggles against your own self-doubt (and likely negative attitude.) From personal experience, finding a positive way out can be worth it, but it requires some forethought, lots of self-control and self-discipline, some luck and an eye to a longer arc to success.

The steps are easy to describe, but very hard to follow.

• Decide to be positive: If you’re caught up in the vicious cycle, you have to be the first change to break the cycle. Deciding to look for positive, constructive alternatives and to pursue them is not an easy step. It is crucial to be open to positive approaches to be able to see a way out when it presents itself.
• Get fresh eyes on the problem: If you can take a step back from the problem and look at it from a different angle for yourself that’s great! Sometimes taking a vacation or finding something else to focus on can give new insights into your situation. If that isn’t an option or you can’t break free of it, find someone you trust to be a sounding board and explain the situation as well as how you’ve approached it. Get the other person to repeat back to you what you’ve said. Both of you are likely to find current opportunities that you’ve missed so far that you can grab, and if not you will probably hear something that changes the way you think about the issues.
• Choose a goal: Pick a goal that gives you hope for a better tomorrow. When you’re in the vicious cycle it can be really hard not to give up or run away from the problem, but accepting either of those options won’t teach you how to solve the problem. The problem may not be you, but it is yours to solve. Find a new goal, refine an existing goal or remember a goal you had before you got sucked into the cycle. Hang onto that goal and look for opportunities.
• Take action: Pick one, two or three things that you can record the outcome of and make a plan with your manager or a co-worker to try them for a week and see what happens. The important thing with the choices you make is that you have to be consistent with them. You have to manage your own reactions and set up whatever situations or reminders will help you stick with them. At the end of the week, consider what effect your new actions had on you and share them with your manager or co-worker.
• Take a risk: Somewhere while you’re executing on your planned activities you’ll start to see opportunities that have some risk associated with them. Consider the risk and the reward to get a feel for how comfortable you are with the idea. Be honest and realistic with yourself about how well you can execute on the decision to take each risk, but be prepared to dive in and grab the opportunity that offers what you want.

Ultimately, these steps only work if you can take them one at a time. If you haven’t changed your attitude, you can’t get clear perspectives on the situation. If you can’t get clear and broader perspective, you can’t choose an attainable goal. Without a goal you can’t pick the right actions and without taking actions that you monitor you won’t see opportunities for what they are.

Grab the bull by the horns and hang in there! It’s not the easy road to confront your problems, but it’s the one that will lead you along the path to success and contentment. If you can face your own problems and solve them, you have a strong platform from which to follow and achieve your most ambitious goals.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

New posts are right around the corner, including a new post shortly today!

As always, please keep the comments coming!

There is plenty of support for this assertion, but sometimes we need to grapple with the idea that someone else might also need to show up for something to happen. So what then?

The answer for me is an easy one: Follow up!

Any time you make a connection with someone you need to follow up. This simple act strengthens your connection, reinforcing that the meeting (and the other person’s time) was valuable to you. Whether it be thanking the person for their time, giving promised information or sharing a thought that occurred to you after you left, your consideration shows that you’re still engaged and ready to reconnect or work together whatever the future holds.

Similarly if you have a missed connection where the other person did not show up, it is important to reinforce that the meeting was important to you and that you value their time. If a meeting happened without someone, following up gives you a chance to re-engage the person and build a rapport. You can also share teasers to build up expectations for the next opportunity to meet. If you were going to be presenting information or offerings it’s easy to send the bulleted high points covered and either the information on the next presentation or the option of asking questions.

The art of the follow up takes a bit of getting used to to make it a natural step, but it’s worth the effort and lets you make a case or build a stronger relationship.

So get out there! Show up – and follow up!

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

“There are two types of people–those who come into a room and say, ‘Well, here I am!’ and those who come in and say, ‘Ah, there you are.’” – Frederick L. Collins

After staring at this quote for two days, I realized that this is an attitude that we’re all called to share in order to be successful.

Think about it. If you are going to be successful personally, where do you need to focus? Is it a worthwhile exercise to push yourself forward or does it make more sense to see the other person’s needs as more important than your ego?

Any negotiation breaks down when either participant forgets to look at what the other side really wants. Any service offering fails when it doesn’t meet the needs of a client or market. And for someone interested in their career? Recognise that your success is all about making someone else look good or showing that you can provide what they need.

Focus on someone else today and see what happens!

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

While it’s a tough market out there, avoiding walking into a job you’ll hate is still a worthwhile goal. If you can see trouble coming, it might be worth passing or seeing if your potential employer is flexible enough to adjust and make everyone’s lives easier. And being up front with any potential employer about what will make your work successful in their organization always moves you up in the pack.

So to that end, here are the rejoinders for the interviewee from HBR’s recruitment best practices:

• How does the position fit into the direction of the company? While this might seem like an obvious question, relatively few people ask it. The answers (or lack thereof) may also surprise you! If the people doing the hiring don’t have very strong ideas of where this position needs to go, you have the advantage of suggesting how the role, with you in it, can help the organization. Don’t be shy to show how you fit into the spot described either!
• What is in place to support the role? You need to step into the breach with specific capabilities and traits to make the position work, but to be effective your new employer will need to come to the table with the support to get the job done. Remember to ask what they’re looking for from a candidate and what the role has to work with to overcome the challenges you will inevitably face.
• Understand the size and quality of the talent pool. You’re not usually going to be the only one interviewing for the position, so try to get a sense of who else is swimming alongside you. If you’re working with an outside recruiter you trust it can be easier to get the information, but don’t take the answer at face value. Try to get an idea of where you sit going in and ask what might help.
• Have stories at the ready. You can’t anticipate every question, but you can prepare answers. Employers hire people to solve problems they’re facing, and being able to describe how you’ve solved similar problems in the past always puts you in a better position. Have broad stories ready and be prepared to narrow your focus to one or two points from them to answer the specifics of the question.
• Draw out the pros and cons. Sure it’s a great managerial position, but what are you facing when you move into it? If you don’t walk out of the interview knowing what the advantages and challenges are, even if you get the job you might find some surprises that limit your success. If there isn’t a lot of energy around filling the position or the direction of the company, there might be a story you aren’t getting.
• Find out about the on-boarding process. There are lots of ways to handle new hires and if the company can tell you how it manages new employees you’ll get a picture of how they handle all employees.

In the end, recruitment is a dance between a company’s needs and the people available to fill them. You are as much in control of the kind of world you work in as any employer, so make the most of all of the chances you have to learn about what you’re walking into and presenting yourself in the best light.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.

Forming long-term habits is not an easy task, and there are many ways in which your hard-won gains can be derailed. At the same time, forming a habit is just another goal that you’re setting yourself. There are a couple of really consistent goal setting techniques that help to kick start your habit forming campaign:

• Make sure you have some way to track progress: Without some kind of progress chart it’s easy to lose sight of how far you’ve come or how far you need to go. There are lots of options, from the mundane to the esoteric. You can go from something as simple as a calendar or notepad with tally marks to something more complicated like a goals management program or checklist like my personal favorite Joe’s Goals.
• Make your commitment known to someone: Whether you’re posting your new habit forming goal to a blog or a community, talking about it with a friend, co-worker or spouse, or standing on a street corner yelling it to the sky, sharing makes you accountable to someone else. Sharing with someone who’ll check in on your habit forming activities or call out when you’re slipping works best, but even if the person doesn’t care you get some psychological prodding from seeing that person (or place) on a regular basis.

So prepare yourself for success and set in motion a plan to take on at least one new, positive habit for the year.

Peter Fitzgerald is the founder of CareerSherpas.com and is currently working on his first book, conducting high-level business analysis, connecting individuals with ideas and opportunities, and attempting to learn the bagpipes.