Career Coach Deborah Brown-Volkman, Recognize Your Potential and Surpass Your Dreams


SURPASS YOUR DREAMS
E-Newsletter

Current Issue:

December 2003, Issue #56

ARE YOU INSPIRED?


 

Previous E-Newsletters:

Find Happiness In Your Career (November 2003)

Keep Trying (October 2003)
Have You Lost You? (September 2003)
Restore Your Integrity (August 2003)
Communicate So People Listen (July 2003)
Change Before You Have To (June 2003)

Obstacles Or Opportunities? (May 2003)
Are You Getting Paid What You Are Worth? (April 2003)
Where Does The Time Go? (March 2003)
Workers Are Unhappy At Work (February 2003)
Will This Be The Year? (January 2003)
2002 Newsletter Archive
2001 Newsletter Archive
2000 Newsletter Archive
1999 Newsletter Archive


Welcome to Surpass Your Dreams. The goal of the newsletter and weekly tips is to help you recognize your potential and surpass your dreams. Included are tips for either transitioning into a career you love, excelling in the career you have now, or creating simplicity in your life.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
  1. Are You Inspired?
  2. Great Century, by George
  3. Coaches Corner: Top Ways to Find Your Inspiration 
  4. Great Resources

I. ARE YOU INSPIRED?

Are you bored with your career? Are you going through the motions? Are you tired of sitting in front of the television every night wondering when your career is going to get better?

Maybe what's missing is inspiration.

Inspiration is not something that happens to you, it's something you make happen. In our careers, we wait for someone or something to rescue us from a troubling situation. We tell ourselves "Maybe it will get better or go away on its own." "Maybe the person I dislike will get fired or transferred to another department." Or, "Maybe I will get recognized for my contributions and given the credit I deserve."

Maybe this will happen the way you want it to without your participation. But realistically, it will happen if you go after it.

December is about being grateful. Think about what you are grateful for. Think about what is good in your career. Focus on this, and then when you feel better, put a plan in place to go after your dreams.

So what do you say?  You only have one life to live so it might as well be a life you love!


II. GREAT CENTURY, BY GEORGE

The following article was written by Sean North, a coaching client of mine. A little over one year ago, Sean wrote an article for Surpass Your Dreams. Back then he was working as help desk expert, dreaming of a writing career. Today, Sean has accomplished this goal and he is living his dream.

Sean's started a writing company called North Notes. North Notes helps those who want to get unstuck in their writing whether it's a book, business plan, or term paper. This article is taken from Sean's first e-book, "Inspired To Achieve." The e-book includes stories of those in history that did not give up and went after their dreams. When I began reading it, I could not put it down.

Here's Sean's article: George Burns' career could have ended as early as 1958, when his wife Gracie Allen retired from Show business.  Burns continued the show after Allen retired, but the show was cancelled after one season.  Burns could have let his wife's retirement from show business stop him from going further in his career, but he ultimately ended up being a huge comic success and lived to be 100 years old.   Many of Burns' biggest successes came when he was in his eighties and nineties.  At the ages when many people have long since retired, Burns was enjoying great success.  Getting older does have great advantages: we become smarter; we acquire wisdom; we have acquired more skills.

Consider three stages of success that Mr. Burns achieved.

1. Burns Struggled As A Vaudeville Straight Man For Years Until He Met Gracie

There was a chemistry that Burns and Allen had when they created their comic duo.  For eight years, Burns played the straight man and Allen played the funny lady. The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show was a tremendous success on CBS.  They made a dynamic team.

The same concept could apply to our careers.  A lot of us have held many jobs and in those positions, there were probably people whom we loved to work with and those whom we did not.  Like Burns when he was struggling in Vaudeville, our present job or career may not exactly be what we want to do, but we do get opportunities to meet people who know other people and so forth.


2. For 17 Years (1958 To 1975), Burns Had Very Minimal Success

Many of us may think of George Burns as a great comic success, which he was.  But for about 17 years, Burns had very sub par performances compared to the show that he did with Gracie.  Gracie Allen died in 1964 and Burns attempted two television shows, one with Connie Stevens, but both shows were cancelled after the first season.  Burns encountered another celebrity death when Jack Benny died in 1975.  Burns was offered Benny's role in the comedy film, The Sunshine Boys, and had great success.  After a 17-year drought, Burns was back!  The success of The Sunshine Boys led to Burns' role in Oh God!, which was also a tremendous success.

 

How many of us get frustrated at struggling for six months to a year?  How many of us would have given up after 17 years of sub par success that Burns endured?  Burns showed us that getting older is getting better.

3. Burns Had Over A Dozen Television Specials After 1975

Burns' revitalized movie success in 1975 spurred resurgence in television success that he had not had since doing shows with Gracie.  Burns was now playing the funny person, the role that Grace played when he was playing the straight man.  Burns was now a movie and television success.

We never know what may happen when we take our experience from our own careers and apply them to new positions or careers.  The skills and education we learn from other jobs may help us to get the career that we are really looking for.  Any skill that we can learn should not be discounted.

Burns proved that a person is never too old to do a great job.  He had revitalization in entertainment in spite of Gracie's retirement and death.  Burns did not let the loss of Gracie deter him from making a name for himself.  If any of us catch ourselves giving up or saying things like "I'm too old" or "It can't be done," think of George Burns.

To visit Sean's web site and find this extraordinary e-book, visit:
http://www.northnotes.com or, if you would like to send Sean a few words of congratulations or encouragement, he can be reached at seannorth@northnotes.com


III. COACHES CORNER

Since many of my subscribers are coaches, this section is for you. It contains tips and techniques to take your coaching practice to the next level. 

THIS MONTH: TOP WAYS TO FIND YOUR INSPIRATION

Are you inspired in your coaching practice? December is great month to celebrate the year and gear up for a fresh start in January. Why not start the new year with a bolt of energy and enthusiasm? Here are some top ways to find your inspiration: 

1. Know What Inspires You. 

Go back to your memories and recall when you felt most inspired. What was the common thread amongst the different times when you've been inspired? Was it a quality about another person or your self? Was there a theme to the times when you've been inspired? Was it an action that a person took - or that you took? Think about what's inspired you in the past. Look to see what's missing now.

2. Learn To Live With Ambivalence While Striving For Perfection. 

Inspiration lives between the two spaces of ambivalence and perfection. Inspiration speaks to the best within our selves - ambivalence is the messiness of our lives, the life process. Perfection is the ideal, while ambivalence is its application. Inspiration moves us forward in life - through the ambivalence and towards the ideal.

3. Take A Break From Your Life. 

Go to a movie or hike a mountain to its highest vista. Surround yourself with the sound of the rhythm of water, while the warmth of the sun energizes your body. Move your body so you feel its life. Keep your focus on nothing other than your experience. Live in the present.

4. Inspiration Isn't Only What's Done TO You.

Being inspired requires an openness of heart and spirit. Create an environment that supports an open heart so that inspiration blossoms in your life. Just as a flower needs soil and water, so too does inspiration need openness of heart and spirit. Inspiration can't exist without this.

5. Sometimes We Fall Before We Stand.

Don't beat yourself up when you fall from grace. Life is a process and isn't static. When you fall, don't beat yourself up for falling. Acknowledge the fall and its impact on your life. At some point, you'll take action and stand up. Trust the process.

6. Divert Your Attention. 

Forget about the joys that inspiration brings, and live from another domain. An inspired life isn't only about inspiration. It's also about exhilaration, about passion and living life fully. Do something completely different than you normally would. Strike up a conversation with someone you typically wouldn't, and approach the conversation with naiveté, openness and depth. There's a good chance that inspiration will come to you when you're least looking for it.

7. Surround Yourself With What Inspires You. 

If a certain type of person inspires you, follow and nurture the attraction. Trust what inspires you, and let it guide your actions. If a Wagner opera inspires you, surround yourself with its music so you feel completely at one with the music, and with what inspires you. Lose yourself in what you love and be inspired.

8. Get Outside Of Yourself. 

Though you think you know what inspires you based on past experiences - this doesn't mean that you can't be inspired by something new that previously didn't affect you. Live in the present and pay attention to what tugs at your heart. This will give you a hint to newer sources of inspiration.

9. Grace + Openness + Life + Soul = Inspiration.

Create a formula consisting of the ingredients that define inspiration for you. We all have different perceptions and experiences of inspiration. Define what it is for you.

10. Inspiration Is A Quality And A State Of Being. 

To be inspiring to others is to be self-generative and inspiring to ourselves. How can you be more self-generative? Live in a state of being that allows for inspiration to take root.

About the Author: This piece was written by Jan Gordon, LCSW, Executive, Career & Personal Coach, who can be reached at jan@qualitycoaching.com


IV. GREAT RESOURCES

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Build Your Passion for Life. Create Your Own Reality. Ladyfire offers expert advice, inspirational articles, stories, and techniques to build a foundation of empowerment for realizing your dreams. Free Newsletter at: http://www.ladyfire.com/newsletter.htm


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Deborah Brown-Volkman, Career & Mentor Coach (Publisher)
President, Surpass Your Dreams
President, United Coaching Alliance
info@surpassyourdreams.com
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631-874-2877

Brian Volkman (Editor)
brianonline@worldnet.att.net

HAVE A GREAT MONTH!

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