Interesting Behavior

A Radical Approach To Job Search.

The Dream Job Lab, happening this Wednesday (Southern Theater/Minneapolis), won't lean on cheap, motivational cliches or cheer leading mumbo-jumbo. Times ARE tough for a lot of people, and a great many of us are going through or are in the midst of painful financial transitions. We don't need more bad news, nor do we need snake-oil cheer leading messages about shoring up our attitudes or creating magic thoughts as a path to success. Instead, we believe in doing, in moving, and momentum. 

The Dream Job Lab is designed to encourage participants who may be looking for work or who may want to head in a new direction, are trying to revitalize their workplace,  or perhaps are thinking about starting a new venture.  It's about simple tools and ideas, and the language and metaphors that might increase resolve and creative stamina and embolden participants to courageously continue.

We believe, and the historical data supports our notion, that our country will recover quicker when people reclaim their sense of optimism and when entrepreneurial ventures regain momentum. But momentum is hard to sustain without fortitude or community support, and a language that describes our dreams and goals to others.  

We don't want participants to see the Lab effort as minimizing the tough situations many of us are in. Instead, we want encourage them to boldly continue, to do something, to act on their ideas, where they might be in their own business, a new partnership, or commit to a fresh approach to finding work. It's taking stage and writing a new script.

Ultimately we want encourage imagination and innovation and how we all hold those things in our bodies, in our heads, in our voices and in the language we choose to use to describe we want in our lives and in the world around us. 

The future belongs to the radicals.  

A New Idea.  A New Job. A New Direction.  The opportunities are out there...

What is the Dream Job Lab Video?

What is the Dream Job Lab?

When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. ~Victor Frankl

The Dream Job Lab: The New Work Experiment (DJL), is happening this Tuesday, November 4th in Minneapolis, and is the first job workshop of its kind. It is geared towards people looking for work, for those trying to advance in their current occupations, may be considering a new career, or perhaps jumping into a entrepreneurial effort. It's a day long experience designed to encourage participants to engage the imagination and re-vitalize goals. You'll learn the roll language plays in expanding confidence and clarity, experiment with how to speak about your ideas and dreams, and how to open up the voice of confidence. You will be invited to take actions that are aligned with their strengths and ideas, and to connect with others looking to move from survival to thriving. 

The idea for the DJL started at the end of last year when we began to think about how bad the job market and the economy was becoming, and the affect it was having on people. People we knew who had ideas for a new business, or who wanted to advance in their careers were giving up, choosing to wait, while many others were just plain defeated and frightened. There's is no denying, things then and now are pretty tight and tough, however, the impact of this collective conversation, it seems to us, is to leave many people without confidence and it seems to be killing the creative engine that will be necessary for our personal and national economies to recover.  

We created the Dream Job Lab to help you reclaim greater confidence from the socks up, from the inside out. To claim your unique voice, your language, strengths, ideas, even the way you carry yourself. In the face of adversity, every little step we can take that will move us towards a new goal, towards some kind of success, towards more freedom and creativity, will help us gain greater confidence. No kidding!

The day will be spent doing things, not sitting with a note pad and paper thinking about what color your parachute is. You won't be roll playing job interviews, or spend time figuring out how you can make better use of Twitter and Facebook to get a job. There are other workshops for that. Instead, you'll spend time moving, speaking, thinking, writing, laughing and plotting your future.

The Dream Job Lab is being held at the Southern Theater in Minneapolis, November 4th, 9 to 2. Wear comfortable clothes, NOT BUSINESS CASUAL...but tennis shoes, comfortable pants and shirts.  It's $99, but if you don't have the funds, write to us, we do have scholarships for people without work. We're all about the mojo, so bring yours with you and let's see what happens.

Follow this link...

http://dreamjoblab.com/ 

U-Turn

I have been in Boulder for only a matter of hours, and I remember why I love visiting here.  My wife and I are here for a conference with one of my clients, and when we arrived, we pulled out the GPS unit and entered the coordinates for our hotel. I started to tell me to  make a U-turn. We were on the road headed into Boulder, so I reset the unit, pulled out the battery, and reestablished contact with the satellites  

Make a U-Turn...again!  I swore at the unit, proclaimed it was broken, that it would have to have its software extracted, beaten, and reanimated.  "Destination, one mile...make a U-turn!"   

"I can't! Shut up!"

Finally, we passed the hotel on our left but there was a cement divider between lanes so, as soon as I could, I pulled into a left hand turn lane, a special lane, with a big sign that read, U-Turn.

Why argue with GPS? Why?  It should have just said to me "Shut up and drive!"

Dropping the leash.

I walk my dog more these days. I live in the country, and during the mid to late summer months it's horrible to walk the country roads and paths with the swarms of nagging horse flies biting the head.  This time of year and continuing through the bitterly cold winter months the bugs have perished or buried themselves in the bark of trees, and once again I walk a lot and always take my stupid dog, Willie.  Willie is a middle aged lab and does what dogs do when we go for walks, he runs around, pisses and shits, runs some more, pisses, and runs. Stupid dog.

It's raining and chilly  here tonight, and I decided to walk my stupid dog anyway. It was a nice walk, damp, windy, cloudy skies, very moody, just the way I like it. Normally, I would expend a great deal of energy managing what Willie does, keeping him out of the woods, steering him away from mud puddles,shouting and command him to keep near to me. Tonight, however, I just let him go. I let him run amok, to bounce against anything he wanted whether that be mud puddle or lake water. By the time we got back home he was a fecund and muddy mess, soaking wet, smelly, and mud covered.

I get it. It's good to let things off the leash and do what they are want to do. Dogs, our creativity,  human beings in general, always are better off free. We're supposed to be muddy, we're supposed to check out the world and dash into the thick of things. Freedom is good, and it's what we all need more of, not less...never, never less. 

The New Thrive

I'm on the wave, the new wave. It's tough out there, sure, we all know that it's rough and tumble and some people are hurting. I know it, because I've been kicked in the financial shins as well. But the question should not be "When is this going to end?" or "When is the recovery coming?" Those questions live in the past and have a victim tone to them, as if someone else is going to tell us the thing that might soothe our fears or holster our anxieties. I don't have much faith in those people these days, rather, I have an intense interest in emergence, in the possibility of a new thing that might unpredictably arise out of my thinking and my relationships. After all, a rebirth in this country wil not come from government grants and bailouts, but from people with ideas, people bent on doing something together, building something that will get them fundamentally excited.

It's a great time to move. There may not be a better time to chase that project you've been dreaming of, or making a move on your dream idea. Constraints can often provide the perfect fertilizer for an idea, forcing more creative and innovative approaches to building and claiming the thing that jingles us.  It's also the idea of soft focus, looking to the fringe, and tuning into the less-than-obvious action that can carry our ideas forward with minimal drag and resistance.

Don't wait! This country needs entrepreneurs, and fast.  You don't need big money to pursue a big idea, and you don't need a big idea to make a living. Whatcha got?  What are you looking for?

Here are a few simple ideas, that work, for cultivating a new project.

• Connect to others. Build a community of 2 or more people around your idea, than listen, act, and help each other build it. Being the, be all and end all, is usually bullshit.  Work in concert and share your success.
• Help someone else with their new idea. Volunteer your time for a piece of the action. Build it first!
• White space!  Don't crowd your ideas with more ideas. I speak with experience here, with many of my best ideas buried inside the newest and latest idea.  One at a time, pick it, give it some space and cultivate its future through conversation and collaboration.  If an alternate idea grows out of it, fine, follow the path. Keep new ideas in a folder, capture all your ideas on a spread sheet. Ideas are great, actions are greater.
• White noise! The internet is a great tool, but it can become imperialistic, invading the sovereignty of our thinking with noise. Work in short steps, take a breath, keep up the intensity, but give yourself time to reflect and collate what you're doing. Take time off from staring at the screen.
• White board. Keep your goals under nose.  Write them down, make them colorful. This is YOUR life.
• Move!  Take walks. Dance. Sing. Run. Work Out. These are all useful for building our energy. They can also help us find the metaphors and the answers while we are cultivating a new project.
• Micro Recorder.  Every idea and thought should be captured and downloaded. Keep one in your pocket, and another in your car. Always have it nearby.
• Thrive!