The Brand Called You - Ditch The Cowardly Lion

Sad times in mainstream America.  Too many readers have just told me that they or their spouse had been laid off.  Okay, I'm not going to do a Tom Peters or a Daniel Pink and congratulate them of being Free of The Man and that now they can become truly their own personal brand or free agent.  I've been there and it ain't pretty, even with savings.  And the ugliness is a four letter word: Fear.

But, more of us are learning that fear doesn't help.  No, fear doesn't make us appropriately humble or thinking out of the box or motivated.  What it does do is trigger panic.  And according to Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter ("Confidence"), losing streaks start and winning streaks can't get started because of panic.

So, how to climb out of the fear or even bypass it on the way to the next professional opportunity?  Seth Godin has some powerful insights in "small is the new big" about why we smart, competent professionals wind up in the fear box. 

On page 212, Godin observes that so many of us lose our ability to prepare/present ourselves for the next thing because "of being beaten down." How we get beaten down is in our insane effort to comply or obey "the system."  And the system, says Godin, "is about following the rules, fitting in and not standing out."  Since that's hard or impossible, sure, we get beaten down or, worse, beat ourselves up.

I know.  After my most recent setback - my communications boutique tanked around 2001 - I was the one who beat myself up.  Of course, that only boxed me further in the role/persona of Cowardly Lion.  It took a full 18 months after that to learn to not follow the rules, not fit in and, you bet, stand out.  Example:  Even though I started a blog, it was platitude-filled for about six months, which is three months longer that it takes most bloggers to get courage.

Peters, Pink, Godin and I can tell you this because we know both from experience and research one thing: There's little to gain, at least for more than a year or two, from playing or trying to play by the old career rules. Every day the system is vomiting up thousands of obedient players who assumed they were doing it all right. 

No, this doesn't mean you have to run off and open a business.  It does mean that you look for a fit between the organization and the real smart, competent you.  Until you find that, work at a survival job, or, if need be, two of them simultaneously to pay the bills.

In 2003 (I was in denial for two years), I bought myself time by snagging a survival job in loss prevention, even though I am five feet, not menacing looking and have no background in the field.  Just getting that job, which I sure needed at the time, immediately killed the Cowardly Lion part of me.  I won two awards  for crime-stopping and was asked to enter management.  The next stop, a better version of the survival job, was in customer service at a big-brand hotel.  Just the training was a gold mine of information about branding. 

The next stop was back to my old career, which of course didn't work.  The career was gone and I was different.  During the next 18 months I kept trying out new things or, as my executive coach says, test-marketing me and a new menu of skills and services.

So, how did it pan out?  Not quickly.  Finally, what I've put together is producing  significantly more revenue per month than expenses. 

Plus, the ride hasn't been smooth.  Along the way there have been whoppers of mistakes. 

For five days I worked full-time for a start-up print publisher.  You got it, a start-up print publisher.  I must have had a massive panic attack about money and status to even go near that sort of yesterday business. 

Another whopper was taking on an assignment for an old-line consultant.  Yeah, the firm had all the answers.  It's a safe assumption that the firm is out of business by now.

But, as my coach observes, I've learned to get in and out fast.  Just picking up that kind of speed is a miracle for this former plodder.  So, yes, mistakes have been important in my learning curve and, more to the point, in my getting over being afraid that I would be stuck in a mistake forever.

If you are in professional hard times or anticipate encountering them, invest time to read Godin's "small is the new big."  Its focus is not motivational.  Its focus is current global marketplace reality.

Comments

[Grace]

Thanks, Jane...