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Kevin W. McCarthy

The Professor of On-Purpose

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Are You Stuck?

August 21, 2018 By kwmccarthy

(This video originally aired as an On-Purpose Business Minute. In rewriting the blog post, however, I decided to make it an On-Purpose Minute—where it seemed most appropriate.)

Being stuck comes upon us gradually until one day we realize it.

At first, a small panic settles in. We know we can’t afford to waste our days.

Yet hours, days, even weeks go by when we’re “busy”

  • shuffling papers
  • staring at bills
  • responding to emails
  • watching the news in a dulled sense of a former, more confident self

A life stuck in a job, in a marriage, or in the midst of a job search is terrifying and depressing at the same time.

What to do?Something Meaningful to Do

My hope is to offer a spark plus the fuel to get you moving again … and, importantly, back to being on-purpose.

How you get going is a personal matter that is frankly unique to you. There are many ways to get unstuck. The best way is the way that works for you. What matters is that you get unstuck!

Six Steps to Un-Sticking a Stuck Life

First, stop blaming yourself, anyone, anything, or any circumstance. The sooner you can Think Inc! or take 100% responsibility for yourself, your mindset, and your condition then the better and sooner you’ll stop living the blues.

I’ve been there several times in my career. Those dark places where I shut the door to life and wallowed over the injustices “done to me.” Except for true tragedy and grief, most “first world problems” are lifestyle afflictions to our preferences rather than our very existence. Perspective helps!

Second, reconcile your part. In every instance where I’ve been wronged or taken advantage of, I played a part. Generally, I made wrong assumptions, didn’t do my due diligence, allowed impulse to overtake my values system, or somehow denied the best of who I am. 

Third, forgive! Admittedly, you may feel wronged or unjustly punished but dwelling on the offenses of the past is chewing up your present. Now you’re the one victimizing yourself! Stop beating up others and yourself. Forgive generously to live positively.

Fourth, be on-purpose! Life is meaningful and conspiring to make you a better person. “Character building moments” are more than an adage. They’re real if we’ll see them for what they are—lessons in leading our lives. Typically the harshest lessons are the most meaningful in the light of time and distance. Start by uncovering your purpose.

Fifth, decide to be joyful. Yes, that’s right, decide to be joyful. It is a decision of the heart unattached to circumstances, people, and conditions. The book Happiness is a Choice spells out the clinical foundations and practical methods for choosing to live “happily ever after.” Joy is happiness of the heart.

Sixth, take small positive steps daily. Writer Joshua Becker provides 12 intentional actions one can take to choose happiness and joy.

Need a bit more inspiration?

Watch this inspiring video from IAmSecond.com featuring Eric Metaxas where he talks about being trapped in a way of life that is fruitful but isn’t working. Listen and watch as he shares how a different point of view of one man and a meaningful dream transformed his life. Eric also speaks of how “blind faith” is bogus. Eric is the author of the NY Times best-selling biography Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy.

 

Is Your Career In The Midst of A Tough Shift™? (part 3)

February 22, 2018 By kwmccarthy

(Be sure to read to the end to learn how we’re helping good, willing-to-learn people start their own business.)

With the continuing changes in the economy, there seems to be this “tough shift class” of Corporate America employees—talented, experienced people—who are in transition every few years. Generally speaking, I see them as what used to be middle management in sales and service positions. They’re the new migratory workforce. In the past, they may have migrated from branch to branch within a company and had continuity of employment. Today, however, they’re migrating from company to company. These fits and starts in and out of jobs wear on one’s confidence.

Here are 3 smart reasons to start your own business in the midst of your job search:

  1. You’ll be a better employee when you do get your next job. You’ll be able to Think Inc!—a concept from The On-Purpose Business Person whereby every person thinks like the president of his or her own company.
  2. You’ll do a better job search because you’ll better understand yourself and what matters most to you. You’ll improve your marketability and odds for landing in a better, more on-purpose place.
  3. Your business venture might work! Join the ranks of being an independent business person whose only boss looking at them is staring them in the mirror. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up on Shark Tank!

Prospects for this rising middle management migratory workforce are not necessarily improving. Technology is working against them. In the front end of the Knowledge Age, automation of systems and controls shrunk the middle management class. Today, artificial intelligence (AI) systems are replacing their decision making and oversight and decimating their numbers yet again.

Here’s how to find the job of your life.

Hedge your bets. 

Here’s the hard reality. Your working career is likely to be a series of tough shifts composed of company changes. Regardless of whether you’re looking for a corporate job or working in one now, you are in the midst of a tough shift or you will be soon!

The involuntary income gaps between “gigs” disrupt financial and retirement planning horizons. It can also wear on the soul.

Starting a business is the perfect hedge for job jumping.

When you get “re-organized out” of your old company you’ll immediately have something to look forward to investing more of your time into until you land again or your business replaces your income. It dampens the lows and lifts the spirits.

Pressure and risk are high when you’re in the midst of a tough shift. If your business isn’t ready to launch, then you have to keep looking for that job. However, if you’ve been working all along on your business and the career tough shift comes along then you’ve some involuntary freedom—Voila! What a perfect time to take your solo ownership opportunity to the next level.

Beat Your Drum

The continuing ups and downs of the economy and the growing ranks of the dis-incentivized non-working can be disheartening. Perhaps you fear falling into such government dependence. You have a choice and it can start today.

Let your life beat with the drum of being true to yourself by being on-purpose. The world will not necessarily or readily step to your new beat, so that’s why you want to ramp up your business adventure now.

You possess the power to transform your world and bring your dreams into being.

Are you asking yourself, “Am I ready for a tough shift … to a new job or business opportunity of my own?”

Everyone, yes everyone, needs to start a business at least once in their life. Aside from marriage, which I highly recommend, little else that you set out to do will challenge, educate, and mature you into a better person or even a better employee.

Starting a business is demanding.

It is also rewarding because you have the independence to pick and choose what you’ll do and whom you will serve as your clients or customers. Risks go with these rewards so be smart.

Chances are you’ve uttered the words more than a few times: “I should start a business.” So … what are you waiting for? Even if the business never opens its doors, the benefits of starting a business are far greater than you’ll ever know unless you’ve done it.

Need some help with starting your own business?

Consider On-Purpose Personal Leadership Coaching. Whether you are starting a business or wanting to improve a current one, this offering is a great way to get the help you need.

Selectively, my wife and I are also helping people to start businesses as independent health coaches. Email me with your interest and we’ll set up an interview. It is rewarding work on many levels.

Leaders: How Is Your View of People?

June 22, 2016 By kwmccarthy

In Chief Leadership Officer, you’ll be introduced to “The Complete Competence Model” which is the next generation of “The 3 Views of People” model shared in this On-Purpose Business Minute.

Click on the image to pre-order Chief Leadership Officer until June 30, 2016 and get bonus rewards.
Click on the image to pre-order Chief Leadership Officer until June 30, 2016 and get bonus rewards.

How Is Your View of People?

Your response reveals your preferred place for leading. It tends to reveal how you view others as being competent. Until we learn otherwise, many who lead teams will project their preferred perspective onto others. It is a subtle form of, Why can’t they be more like me? Setting yourself as the standard sets everyone else up to fail which undermines the business performance.

Each person is unique and can bring a measure of unique contribution to even the most routine of work.

For example, On-Purpose Partners ships books and products from the Winter Park, FL Post Office branch. At the counter is a postal clerk named James. He resembles the comedian Joe Piscopo. James is literally a stand-up clerk offering ongoing entertaining commentary and laughter all day long. He brings out the best in his peer counter clerks as the banter between them all keeps things moving along. By the way, when the other clerks have a problem it is James they turn to. He knows his post office stuff. Many a postmaster might try to make James conform to a more “professional” decorum. Instead, he makes the wait tolerable and the service more than acceptable.

There are 3 Views of People:

  1. Expert — aspires to technical proficiency and sees the world through tasks to be done
  2. Manager — organizes teams of people and sees the world through projects
  3. Leader — sets culture and sees the world through results

Purpose informs all three points of view. This is one of the many reasons why The On-Purpose Principle is the essential basis for unifying people.

Few of us fully reside in a single view. Rather we’re a blend of all. Knowing your dominant preference, however, provides insights to job satisfaction, performance, and even future advancement. 

This speaks to the nature of fit. As a business advisor for over 3 decades, I’ve come across all kinds of challenges in organizations. One of the best disguised is this problem of poor fit between a person’s view of people and their role and responsibilities on the job. It is an often overlooked dimension that can create disasters or delights.

Years ago when I worked at a company, I was part of the hiring process for a property manager. When I asked this woman what she thought was her weakness she bluntly stated, “I don’t like people.” I shared my concerns with the hiring manager who hired her anyway. She was a good property manager (technical), but wreaked havoc in the office relationships and with tenants (manager). She so fouled the workplace that no one wanted to work with or for her (leadership). Even vendors complained.

The Complete Competency Model isn’t just a makeover of the Peter Principle which states that people eventually rise to their highest level of incompetency. People view may be one of the underlying causes of poor job performance and fit.

When there’s good alignment or fit between the person and the work, people view melts away and can often be taken for granted. Like good health, when we have it we’re prone to forget about it. But once we’re sick or injured we so appreciate what we used to have.

After watching this On-Purpose Business Minute, assess your people view with your job fit. What you discover about yourself could be very enlightening and rewarding to your long-term health, job satisfaction, and earning capacity. Coming to terms with this, however, may be another matter all together.

Having worked with business leaders and CEOs over my career, I’ve seen firsthand the price that is paid by a person and an organization when there is a clash of people view and the requirements of a job. Because my work is most often in the C-Suite, I’m especially alarmed when I find a “leader” who is really put off or bothered by people. They may be respected experts in their field, but they have little to no aptitude for leading and managing. That’s fine, but why have them lead? (When I raise this matter, it often gets tenderly complicated for me, the business advisor, when the misfit is the managing director, owner, or CEO of the enterprise. In some cases, however, this brings a sense of relief for the person because they better understand who they are and we can develop a plan of improvement or a workaround.)

On the other hand, the best leaders love and care for people, are effective at managing, and have mastered tasks sufficiently to have paid their dues and risen through the ranks to have the respect of their reports. Ultimately, it is their people skills that create the separation from good to great leadership.

True leaders are culture creators by design, not by default. Typically, they’re not the go-to expert in various fields, disciplines, or technologies. Their currency comes in denominations of their presence, decisions, manner, and tone. They get people working together. Leaders press the flesh and are visible. This isn’t out of ceremonial duty, but from a genuine love and respect for the people who follow their lead. Leaders are often reflective and thoughtful, and they know how to set healthy boundaries to avoid burnout and bitterness for others and themselves.

CLO cover 1
Chief Leadership Officer will rock your leadership perspective for good! Click the cover to learn more.

Do yourself a favor and take today’s message to heart. Where are you? Where would you like to be? If you need help creating your culture so it is on-purpose, then email us to consider some On-Purpose Executive or Personal Coaching. 

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