Christopher V. Flett

Over the last month, I keep on coming across women who are miserable in their jobs. They don’t feel acknowledged, they feel overworked, underpaid, not appreciated, they work with idiots, their bosses are idiots, and they start to dread Sunday nights. This is not good. THIS IS NOT GOOD! Life is to short to spend time in an environment that you hate. I decided over a decade ago to leave the corporate ranks and start a business. I gave my notice at 1:26PM on a Friday and never looked back. That….was….stupid… I left without a plan and nearly killed myself getting the company up and running. I made it harder than it needed to be because I let my job take me to the brink of desperation. I was in a place where I’d rather lose everything than go into my office another day. Hindsight is 20/20 and looking back now, there were a lot of things I would have done differently. Below is the advice I would have given to my decade younger self when in a position moving towards total desperation in a job.

1. Take some time to ponder what it is that you want to do and then how you can make money doing it. I left my job and started a research firm because it was the only work I knew I could do well. I wanted to do a bit of traveling, learn a lot more about business, and see my work create change. I moved into the realm of Economic Development almost immediately because I followed stories closely (in the media) of things that were happening in my home town. If I had known what the hell I was doing, I would have started getting curious about the role I could play in Economic Development (while I still had a job) and look to create initiatives in the workplace that would serve my boss AND give me skills that I could transition out. I never took time to be curious in my job because I was too busy hating it. I let the situation control me rather than controlling the situation.
2. Talk to people doing what you want to do. The best place to get information on what you are interested in doing is to look at those doing it. Anything from going to conferences, reading websites of those in the market space, doing media queries, attending networking events, and even extending coffee invitations can all give you the necessary pieces to get clear on what you might want to do. Remember though that people lie. If things are crappy, they will make them out better than they are; if they have found a ‘goldmine’ in the market, they’ll play it down. You have to be an ‘investigator’. Put a ‘case’ together on what is happening in that market you are targeting and cross reference, validate, fact check, and do some primary research (where you collect the data firsthand) and start putting the ‘real’ story together in your head.
3. Change your language. I used to say, “How the hell am I going to have the life I want working in this job?” That was the wrong conversation to have with myself. What I should have said was, “What is the ideal life I have in mind for myself and how can this job (in the short term) help me get what I want?” I was so busy being negative in where I was at that I forgot that the company I worked for was riddled in opportunities, I was just to mad/blind/pissed off/head in ass to see them.
4. Make a plan. You control the timing. If you have ever seen the movie “Sleeping with the Enemy” with Julia Roberts, you’ll know what I’m talking about. She is married to an abusive asshole and thus decided to make her leave. She starts stashing money, takes swimming lessons, and prepares to make her move when the timing is right. Then she creates all the opportunities required to make the transition. This is smart and something I didn’t do. I quit and then figured out what I was going to do, how I was going to do it, who I was going to do it for, how I was going to fund it, etc. I made it harder than I needed it to be because I didn’t take time to plan. If you are so miserable where you are at, then put in some time to coming up with a plan to make your exit. When the plan feels right, the planets align, you get a ’sign’, whatever, you can make the leap knowing where you are going to land.
5. Put your plan into action. Start taking the steps to make it a reality. Good ideas are a dime a dozen and there are many poor souls that are retiring at 65 (from jobs they hated), that had a great idea in their 20’s. The difference between a visionary and a dreamer is a visionary puts their dream to work.
6. Find an adviser. Find someone that can quickly push you to the right model and guide you over the speed bumps. I hear women say all the time, “I can’t afford to have a business coach/personal coach/business adviser work with me.” Ummm….you are selling your soul each day you go to a job you hate. A couple of hundred dollars a month isn’t worth it for you? Getting good support isn’t thousands of dollars a month. It’s a couple hundred dollars. Probably less than you are spending self-medicating your shitty situation with shopping/martinis/travel/Jimmy Choos. What’s your life worth?
7. Start today. Women are too loyal. I recently had a colleague that was thinking about jumping from a shitty job into her own business, but her nerves/fear/life got in the way of it. She decided to forgo the dream and stay in her shitty job because she is: loyal/responsible to her family/nervous it won’t happen/etc. None of this is wrong but I know in time, it will be a decision she will likely regret. Shitty jobs and business situations rarely fix themselves. When women are considering a change in life, they think of how it will effect everyone else first and then themselves. This is a dangerous game to play in that you always come in last and it’s from your own doing.  I hear women bitch and moan about their jobs and I always ask, “What are you doing to change things up?” The answer always is, “Nothing right now…” Well princess, life isn’t shit and giggles. It is up to you to make it what you want it to be. With the right plan, passion, direction, guidance, and effort, it can be exactly what you want, if you claim it.

Take a step today. Don’t waste your bosses time googling stuff when you are supposed to be working, but look at how you can best use your time/resources to move yourself to the next level. Here are some quick suggestions on how to make that happen:

• Start attending and and all networking events with an intention to build your professional network
• On your lunch hour, start doing some research surrounding your ‘dream work’ and start making a business case for yourself on it. Be discreet!
• Start learning everythign you can about the thing you want to do. If you want to be a professional speaker, go see speakers, read the blogs of speakers, talk to event planners about how they hire speakers, read books on building a speaking business, track speakers that you would most like to model, work on topics you would like to speak about, make a list of the top characteristics of a great speaker, and so on.
• Commit 4 hours a week to developing your plan. This could be sitting in a coffee shop, talking with mentors, interviewing people in the market you want to enter, reading websites of companies doing what you want to do, etc. Invest in you and you’ll always get a return.
• Find a coach. If you have personal shit in the way, work with a personal coach. If you want to build a business model or make a career leap, find a business coach. It is  important that whatever model you consider, it must feel ‘right’ for you. Sometimes a coach might be the only person you are completely honest about your goal with. Interview a handful of coaches and choose the one that ‘feels’ right for you.

It isn’t about you ‘cheating’ on your job. It is about you cheating yourself out of the life you want. Time is precious and you are never going to get today back. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Consider how you are going to make 2010 exceptional for you and what you need to have in place to make it so.

Best,

Chris.