Help your "audience" find you!

How often do you hear a successful person say, "I am so lucky, I am being paid to do something I love"? Quite a few times if you think about it. If you link this with the wisdom that "once is an accident, twice is a coincidence and three times is a pattern", then the message delivered by these successful people is no accident.

This was brought home to me over lunch the other day when a friend was talking about the extended period she has been looking for her next contract role. In talking about her search and the interviews she has attended her demeanour was a little flat, mechanical maybe. She had constructed a kickass CV and done her best to impress the interviewers, but without recent success.

On the upside she did value the time she has had with her seven year old daughter and that is something any parent will value and is a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The problem with compartmenting your life

As we started to discuss other, but still work-related, topics she became more animated. her smile brightened, her pitch lifted, her hands started flying. These were things on which she had an opinion and was developing a voice. I don't recall the specifics, but I did ask her why she was more excited about these things than she had been about her work opportunities. In response she said these were things that she felt passionately about while her "work" was something that would pay her, they were different compartments in her mind and she had not linked them. This I think showed through to interviewers

My challenge to her then was, would it not be far more powerful to combine her passion and her work, to find ways to be paid for what she felt strongly about. It was a little like a light bulb going on in her head.

Of course this is easier said that done and at times one has to earn in any way one can to put a roof over the heads of you and your family and food on the table, but that does not mean one cannot have ambition and a direction of travel. Many of the "over night successes" have been striving for years and what we see is their breakthrough moment and satisfaction and rewards that brings.

I think that trying to find a way to work with my passions is something I have been doing unconsciously for a number of year and am now close to the place I want to be. That it has taken me into my 50's to get there is probably because I was a late starter having followed the path that others prescribed for my first 20 or so working years. Now I am making my own.

Lessons from comedy

Last year I did a stand up comedy course (and did a one-time only gig in Camden). We spent seven weeks learning some of the art of stand up and preparing for our big(?) night. During the first week or so the question of what sort of comedian was it we wanted to be? Many students gave up the names of comics they wanted to be like. Having listened, the tutor made an interesting comment. He said that in comedy one does not select a demographic (eg multicultural, educated, 25-40 year olds) and then build material to satisfy them. Instead the comedian has to find who they are on stage, their comedy personna if you like, and develop that. In doing so their audience will find them. He did warn that this personna may be very different from the comedian they thought they wanted to become.

I think this wisdom can be translated back to the work place. I have spent a lot of the last 5 years, networking, putting myself up to speak at conferences, chair meetings, writing a blog, contributing on Linkedin, sharing my thoughts, opinions and experience, etc. What I have noticed in the last 6-12 months is that opportunities are now coming to me rather than me having to chase job postings or called call agencies and employers. The people bringing the opportunities know who I am and what I can do and, I guess, like what they see. Some might say I have been lucky, but I think it is the reward for a lot of effort.

The truth is I am happier than I have been for a long while and the happier I get the more opportunities seem to appear. My lunch companion even commented on how relaxed and happy I was when we met.

So what can you do to help your "audience" find you?

#1 For a few weeks keep a sort of diary. At the end of each working day rate how you feel about the day on a scale from 1 - 10. 1 being awful and 10 being fantastic.

When you give a score of 1,2 or 3, or 8, 9 or 10 make a note of what it was about that day that made it so good or bad?

#2 Ask one or two friends to let you know when they see you getting passionate about something/anything and what it was?

#3 Armed with the information from (1) and (2) identify up to three things that are "passions" that you can develop, either in work or personally and start looking for opportunities to do so as well as opportunities to share them. Sharing is important as others need to know your passions if this is to work.

#4 Honestly consider if your current line of work can or is likely to give you room to develop and use your passions? I don't suggest any drastic action, like immediate resignation, but rather be better informed and prepared to work out your own direction of travel and to assess opportunities when they arise.

#5 Catch yourself smiling and keep doing it? I don't mean a superficial rictus smile, but one that comes from your heart. They are infectious and others will enjoy your company and want to learn more.