The Sunday Mail
WE are living at a time when everything we knew about work, employment and labour relations is about to change, perhaps forever.
Not everything that worked in the past will work in the future.
To wish for the past to return is an exercise in futility. Ten years from now, all we know about professions now will have changed so much.
Unless you think, see and do differently, you will be left in the cold, telling old corporate war stories, spouting boring and bitter social tirades.
How you think determines how you will likely feel as you ride through the roller coaster of life and work.
If you think like a victim, you will feel used, abused and hard done by. Never confuse any job with a grandmother. Never become so comfortable that you forget to grow. Never let any jerk in the roller coaster make you despair with life and living. Persistence will give you staying power.
Determination will give you the faith to continue to believe in yourself and the courage to attempt great things.
See yourself differently
In the past, people used to be described by their jobs. A professional qualification was a ticket to success. That was when job abounded and employers had to head-hunt brilliant students.
There was little confusion, employment was for a lifetime and change was predictable. You would choose to be a clerk, engineer, driver, charge-hand, nurse, lawyer, student, or teacher. When shocking change came, such as what we are seeing, what was familiar started behaving strangely.
The message was clear: get comfortable with unpredictable change or predict your trauma.
You are the executive chairman and chief executive of your own personal services company called, “ME (Private) Limited”.
This company contracts its services to other parties commonly called employers or clients. Whatever you choose to do, you remain responsible for your life. It is a free agent nation that is emerging all around the world. See yourself as a manager of a personal portfolio of competencies, knowledge assets and skills.
Manage this portfolio for growth actively. Keep working on and developing the portfolio daily.
Your security is not in your past, but your continuing to be valuable.
Your employability depends on your ability to keep this portfolio relevant and delivering value and your imaginative self-application.
Do not define yourself by your history if you can not deliver some valuable services to someone in an excellent way today.
As the owner of a self-managed portfolio of competencies, skills and talents, think about growing your market value. At times you have to change jobs, keep growing and developing. Whether you employ yourself or are employed by others, grow in value and worth by making a difference and being a rain-maker.
You have a unique portfolio of strengths and aptitudes. Build your strengths, being talented is not enough.
Turn working on your competences into a life-long and daily obsession. Approach the work you do every day with a new thought, fresh idea, a better insight and a broader knowledge base.
If you do not improve daily, you will become irrelevant gradually.
Keep learning
Never define yourself by the boxes you enter, or the chairs you sit and enjoy for a little while. If you confuse the chair you sit on and who you are, you may suffer from chronic emotional wounds for a long while.
Your security is in your ability to keep learning, improving and growing. Apply yourself in whatever situation you find yourself in. In times of change, learners are more secure, while those that are clinging to historical tomes gasp for breath.
Keep learning and growing your competencies. Become better everyday, else you become bitter. You are never too old to learn something new or too rusty to grow.
Define an area in which you want to develop domain expertise. Work on this domain daily and let it become part of your personal brand identity. Spend at least 30 minutes per day studying around this domain and in less than two years you will be regarded as expert.
An idle mind is a rusting mind and rust has very little economic value. Get yourself busy. Plan, prepare, volunteer, participate, mentor, network and be active. No one will find you hiding under your bushel.
Audition daily
An athlete wakes up daily to train and keep fit, even if it is not match day. His value is not in just the medals that he is keeping at home in his cabinet but in his ability to keep running and winning.
Past success is never insurance and does little to comfort and keep at bay the demands of today.
Keep scoring to keep your place in the team.
Work is a constant audition. You need to prove time and time again that you have the right skills and that you produce excellent work. No one ever expects a second rate performance from their favourite artist. In the arts industry, there is no place for a bad day or an excuse for a head-ache.
Every day you are on life’s stage. Whatever work you get to do is your opportunity to shine. There is no small work, only attitudes at play.
Good work inspires you to be the best you can be. Bad work crushes you and robs you of your courage. Find the work that makes you sing if you cannot sing while you do your current work. Pour your passion and energy into the task at hand.
Always focus on making a difference and helping someone solve a problem they have. Sometimes it is not possible to jump into the work that you feel satisfies you. However, you can “dial” towards it in small gradual steps.
Take slow but determined steps. Never lose your hope and faith.
Look at the feedback that you are getting and review how you are doing. Never be satisfied with doing work that stifles you and gnaws at your confidence and energy. Doing good work is your birth right.
Blaze your own path
No one knows you better than you. No one can interpret your hunger. No one understands the dreams that animate you or the passion that throbs through your veins. Never let anyone box you.
If you studied Engineering, nothing stops you from being a marketer, if that is what you want.
Free yourself from other people’s biographical stereotyping and boxing. Do not let age, experience or training stop you from daring something new and taking a step forward. You are never too young to enterprise, too educated to change careers or too old to dance with life.
Chart your own course
You have your own story to tell, unique needs and special wiring for greatness. You are born for something special, never let any adversity tempt you to reverse this thought. Where you are today is not where you will always be.
If you did not start before, you can start today. Whatever event or circumstance gives you a wake-up call count it as a blessing.
For others it a special birthday, some adversity or epiphany. Life has many ways it pushes you around to teach you and help you wake up.
When you wake up to your potential you are unstoppable.
Step back
Step back from the madness and the running around and ask yourself what you care about deeply, are passionate about and what you are good at. Take time to be with yourself and to think. No one is managing your life for you.
Throw away old scripts of what you think you should be or should have done with your life. Face yourself squarely. Be open to new ideas and new possibilities. Dream big and bold and be willing to face new directions and think differently.
Find inspiration from others who have walked different paths and have reinvented their lives.
Your miseries should never tempt you to think that the world has come to an end. Never let your strengths go to waste. Never allow laziness to rob you of a new life.
Calvin Coolidge was a Republican lawyer and the 30th American president (1923-1929). He is noted as having been a firm believer in a small and frugal federal government.
He is famous for his immortal speech on persistence.
Coolidge said: “Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and will always solve the problems of the human race.”
Persist and persist and persist, then persist a little more until you get to your goal.
Work is elastic. You are able to do more than you think or have been credited for.
Persist. Build on your skills. Persist. Use formal and informal means. Persist. Keep challenging yourself to do better and to be better. Persist and be determined. Step forward and where you need to make transitions, make them, but persist.
Refuse to be stuck in the past, always hoping that history will come back and that you will be younger again.
Persist. Life moves on. So should you.
Milton Kamwendo is an international transformational and inspirational speaker, author and coach. He is a strategy, innovation, leadership and management consultant. He can be reached at [email protected] and on WhatsApp number 0772422634.
