It was pretty late last night when I was winding up a speech to a group of job hunters. On
one level it's disturbing to note that the more often I speak the larger the crowds seem to get - I can only hope that since I rarely see the same faces [even in the same cities] it's becoming more socially acceptable to admit your out of work. In between opportunities. Or your job sucks.
Any way, as i said to the crowd last night I hate "rah-rah" motivational pitches because they pump you up for the moment which feels great. And then you crash which doesn't - so I’m not
going to give you one.
I prefer wisdom to wit. There is one truth I've heard over the years that I know to be true that I will
share with you now [the other 10 you'll get over the next 10 days]:
"the mind can only hold one thought at a time".
I know this to be true on a
personal level. You see, shortly after
the tech-wreck of 2001 a friend reminded me that I could either complain about
having no business or focus on writing more new business, but I couldn't do both, AND only I could decide which
to do. [The same is true for job hunting.]
How quaint. At the time I was 5 months into a severe
business drought. [read buying groceries on my VISA]
But he was write and is essence I had nothing to loose so I chose to write more
business. I set up my desk to make a
massive number of calls, each of which would be preceded by an email and
followed up afterwards with a fax. I made
a lot of calls and I hadn’t heard “NO” that many times since my teens. [wink-wink I hope you don't know what I mean...] I persisted. I had no choice I had staff and a family to feed. Ask Animal he knows i enjoy food. And on my
1114th cold call my luck changed as it did on my 1115th and 1116th.
Thankfully the economy is much
better now that it was from 2001-2005 and you’re never going to have to make
the 1000 calls I did. But some days it's going to feel like it. Over the next 10 days I'm going to give you a few
truisms which I call Perry’s Rules if you take them to heart and embrace their
intent, you’ll have a shorter trip to your “Dream Job” and may even enjoy the
journey.
Starting tomorrow