The man next to me was also quietly working and drinking coffee.

Suddenly, he turned towards me and said, “You are working so intensely on that document, would it be rude of me to ask what it is?”

I responded,

“I own a business that helps people transform their relationship towards work. One of my colleagues from academia and I are working on a book to help families better prepare their children for the future of work.”

“What the premise?”

“Well, change is taking on such gigantic proportions, we need a whole new mindset in how we select work and we need important new life skills to succeed, no matter the profession.”

I could see he was sitting on top of something that was painful. He asked, “How do we select our work?”

“We used to focus all of our energy of meeting 2 basic standards in our work, predictability, and survival. Now that we have lost those standards, which we were already mediocre, there is an entirely new opportunity to raise the standards of what we choose to do with our lives. Change is uncomfortable. The only reliable fuel we have found that drives personal change and action is loving our work, doing the work that is meaningful. Otherwise, it is just a job.”

His face turned sheet white.

“I’ve been at war with my daughter for two years.”

“Why?”

“She leaves for college this year and wants to study marine biology.”

“What, on earth, is wrong with that?”

“I believe she can make more money with many other professions.”

“You actually think she will make more money if she doesn’t like the work? Look, no matter how much you try you will not be able to control your daughter. This stand-off that you are having is shielding both of you from meaningful collaboration at a very tender point in your lives.”

There was a period of intense silence. Then, he looked up and I witnessed the surrender as he opened his mouth. He declared, “I’m wrong, aren’t I?”

I responded, “Yes, you are.”

“What shall I do?”

“Go home and tell her you were wrong to imply ‘Don’t be you.’ Tell her that you love what she wants to do with her life because it will be honorable and good. Tell her she is going to become a wonderful marine biologist. Tell her it isn’t your place to tell her what to do with her life but as her father, you will do your very best to help her understand how to succeed.”

At that very moment, the hostess came over and told him his flight was almost done boarding. He turned at the door and looked at me as if he had seen a ghost. For a flash, his eyes welled up. His free hand covered his heart, face flushed, he mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

On my plane, there was an older Lesbian couple in the seats ahead of me. They are celebrating retirement with a first class trip to Costa Rica.

The guy next to me resembled a Shaman.

It was a convivial group but I didn’t want to talk. I sat in the gratitude of doing the work that I love and looked out the window as lakes and rivers sped below us, and the sunset over the Pacific. Tears fell.

I was thinking of her.

Get a Free Membership at Workskunk:

https://workskunk.com/registration

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https://www.eventbrite.com/…/the-inspired-work-program…

The post Her appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

Helplessness.

I don’t know about you, but the notion that we can’t change the world is killing us.

In 2012, a young man walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School and gunned down 28 people. Twenty of them were children between the ages of 6 & 7. That night, President Barack Obama addressed a nation and wept. But unfortunately, the event turned the year into a record with 16 mass shootings and 88 deaths.

Last week, we reached a new milestone. In the first five and a half months of 2022, 198 mass shootings have taken the lives of men, women, children, parents, friends, workers, ministers, doctors, neighbors, teachers, cashiers, artists, security officers, policemen, and women. My mind skipped back to the 80s and 90s when AIDS took thousands of lives from the creative community, and I wondered aghast what the world has lost from people who will not have the time to realize their potential and give us their gifts.

Yesterday, I asked someone to review the article before we published it. Then, I ran an errand. In the car, I thought about the law of exponential growth. Who could have imagined this much bloodshed before summer? At the rate we are going, armed militias will be roaming our neighborhoods in another ten years, and we’re the ones selling the Girl Scout Cookies.

Driving through town, I thought of a client meeting with a brilliant, dignified, black executive and entrepreneur. We were in her beautiful home, and her teenage son and daughter stopped before leaving for a game. As they walked out, I saw an expression flash across her face. It was fear.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I have invested all my love and energy in making sure they are well educated, kind, polite, interested, and caring people. But every time they walk out that door, I know they might not come back just because of their skin color.”

Of course, the news of Uvalde, Texas, greeted me at the office. When asked if we ought to wait a few days before publishing this article, I snapped, “For who? The bystanders?”

Life is sacred, or it isn’t. I didn’t know what that meant until an event three years ago. We had an unpleasant neighbor who took advantage of others and burned bridges without a thought. One night we heard horrific screaming and ran out the door to find her son beating her to death. We fought him for over 40 minutes, dodging a weapon and blood everywhere, and not one person came to help us. She had to be revived three times in the ambulance and stayed in the hospital for almost two months. People, even the neighbors, called us heroes. We didn’t relate to that term at all. But one night, a friend said, “Life is sacred, and the two of you performed a sacred act.”

When life is sacred, we have no other choice.

When did we trade in our feelings? For comfort?

Was it during a decade that murdered JFK, Malcolm X, Martin Luther Kind, and Bobby Kennedy? Was it a President led out of office in disgrace? Maybe it happened on 9/11 when thousands of people had the world come down on their heads. Perhaps it was 2008 when the world of tasks cracked while we were distracted with survival.

Thirty years ago, I wrote one program that changed thousands of people’s lives. I designed it to move people past the mediocre construct of work during the Industrial Revolution. We helped people turn their work into a vital and successful relationship. My work attracted people I never dreamed I could help or call colleagues.

But it wasn’t enough.

Outside of our little world, the United States had a growing crisis. As we began entering the most significant restructuring of work in history, about half of our workers were struggling with underemployment. They barely get by, and most are too frenzied making ends meet to understand how to make the future work for them.

Four years ago, Donald Trump celebrated a 3.8% unemployment rate. Two weeks ago, the Biden administration posted the same number!

Today, many of our country’s workers and employers are neglected by promise politics. Focus groups form messages to get our votes. Someone wins, a few promises are kept, but most are forgotten. Then, our political leaders return to fighting each other and raising money for their next campaign.

A year ago, we began a reinvention process of taking the learning and development programs we used to sell to the highest bidders, transforming our solutions for work on a digital platform. Our memberships are free. There have been days when this new direction feels like lunacy. Fortunately, I’ve steered quite a few clients through a similar experience.

We are standing at a turning point. As task work is cast aside by technology, much of the same technology gives us the freedom to work where and when we want. But it is also allowing us to do the same work that many of our parents told us not to do!

In a nutshell, the new work is about solving problems or creating beauty.

I’m sure cynicism and contempt impact some of you as you read this message. But before destroying that opportunity to change, go online and look at what is being funded by the largest and most respected equity investment firms.

What does this message have to do with mass shootings? Or killer heat waves, a school system that prepares our kids for the Industrial Revolution, lying as sport, war crimes, racism, equal pay, healthcare, kindness, vision, purpose, meaning, compassion, empathy, and Freedom?

Once again, the question is, is life sacred?

If the answer is “yes,” please pick a problem you want to solve or the form of beauty you want to add to our world.

Yogi Barra once said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.”

He meant that there are times in our lives when any action at all is preferable to doing nothing. Yes, it is hard. We live in overwhelming times. Futurist Alvin Toffler predicted that by the end of the 20th-century, the change would start accelerating and paralyze many. But staying home and thinking about our problems only manages to make us sick.

There are enough problems for all of us. Perhaps it is time to pick the one closest to your heart. Solve that, and if problem-solving isn’t your thing, there are infinite ways to add beauty to our world.

That is our future.

This will be the one article I devote to this ongoing nightmare. If one person wakes up and commits to solving a problem, the effort is well worth it.

What I will be giving you are insights we’ve gained in how to best support our children in having a bright professional future.

The post Bystanders appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

Organizations like this are the future of work. Please, before showering me with contempt, go to Google and enter the words: equity investment firms, Silicon Valley.

Thus far, Elon Musk has taken on the insurmountable task of paving the way for an urgent need to transform our world to electric mobility.

10 Years folks. The tipping point of the impossible is taking place right now. Every auto manufacturer is converting to electric, and in its wake, the petrochemical cartel is, shall we say, “acting out?”

The world doesn’t need more armchair critics.

The world needs new workers. Problem solvers. Artisans of their own lives. The roles are infinite. Solutions and beauty. Lest there be any doubt about the urgency at hand, consider the fact that one of the first applications of the technology revolution is cleaning up after the filthy industrial revolution before it.

This helplessness thing does not suit us. Nor does responding to someone’s success with cynicism and contempt.

As for Elon Musk, I study him. Here is a man who didn’t “buy” Twitter. His success as an innovator is so thorough that his name alone financed that purchase.

The post Study Him appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

The Brookings Institute just released a study indicating that over a fourth of our teachers are leaving this year. We’ve heard the stories, many of them actually go out and buy supplies to meet the needs of our students.

I have an unusual vantage point. I’ve watched thousands of people come through our program to examine and define what they most want out of work. Just under 200 teachers have participated. Almost half of them left the profession. Most of these expats loved teaching but were grinded by a system that routinely mistreated them.

But the worst of it is happening right now. When we threaten our teachers to stay in classrooms while the pandemic rages on, history will show the most talented teachers were the first ones to leave.

Our country is filled with teachers that have gone on to become successful entrepreneurs, CEOs, film producers, authors, talent development, and other ventures.

And you know what?

They ought to leave.

If they were leaving an abusive marriage, we would think nothing of it.

Bad marriages include characteristics such as emotional violence, a message that you are not worthy, dismissiveness over our basic needs, ongoing insults, and the daily threat of physical harm delivered without notice.

It is ironic. One of the messages in this bleep storm is that our kids are learning very little at home.

Several of the world’s largest tech companies already have the knowledge and resources to provide K-through graduate school education on demand and without charge.

We welcome your comments with just a few boundaries. I don’t take abuse or insults. If you disagree with any of this narrative, please be respectful and do a little research. This lazy thing does not suit me well.

Happy New Year!

This is Diva’s reaction after being informed 2021 is over:

From David Harder – President, Inspired Work and workskunk.

The post Basic Intelligence – Why Our Teachers Are Walking Out The Door? appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

What happens when you take over 300 million citizens, put them in isolation for a year-and-a-half, give them time-on-their-hands to think, and force-feed them with constant reminders of their mortality?

Shit’s going to happen.

One of my closest friends, a British rock star, characterized the past two years as, “It seems God has sent us to our rooms to ponder our behavior.”

Americans have never been a self-reflective lot. How much time do all of us spend on looking within and finding our truth? I’ve been helping people look within for 31 years, and many of them come into our programs frightened of what they will see. Yet, more often than not, distinguishing between truth and fiction leads to profoundly better professional lives.

Until we engage in self-inquiry, we live other people’s lives. I am a musician and a human development leader. The only way I could get to college required taking pre-medicine. Coupled with piano performance, I was engaged in two of the most rigorous undergraduate programs. But even the obvious didn’t help. When asked to dissect a bug, mouse, or rat, I passed out. They rolled out a corpse at USC, and the professor asked us to gather around the week-old remains. I had a concussion when I came too. When I returned to class, my professor suggested that my low interest level, passing out, and periodically throwing up indicated that medicine was not my future.

But we inflict this on our kids all of the time. When we tell them to get a “real job,” there can be only two outcomes. The healthier one’s rebel, and the rest either go into a mediocre use of their time, or they rebel later and come to one of our programs.

The spiritual casualties of career development bring their ambivalence to work every day. Now, all of us are in a restructuring of work, the like that have never been seen before. Just prior to the pandemic, about half of America’s workers characterized themselves as “persistently underemployed.”

I believe underemployment is the single biggest contributor to our nation’s turmoil. This huge category of workers doesn’t know how to change. Or they are too frightened to try. Without an intervention, the day-to-day struggle of underemployment has turns on them. When underemployment reaches half of America’s workers, all that it takes is one individual to claim there isn’t enough because of people that are different than us, for the world to explode.

The promises from almost all political leaders don’t inspire the underemployed to take action. Promises tell people to wait.

Two months ago, we launched a new platform called workskunk. One-by-one, we are moving the career and talent development services of Inspired Work into beautiful digital content that is available without charge. We have reduced our signature Inspired Work Program fee by 75%. From rent experiences and growing awareness, this is the least we can do.

My turning point on the underemployment challenges of our country came out of heartbreak. Three years ago, we took a long vacation in Italy. In many ways, we consider this sacred place our second home. We spent a few days with various Americans that live in Milan or Rome. Everywhere we went, people called out their names. One afternoon, the general manager of our hotel took us to the roof and pointed out the history of Rome for over an hour.

On our way home, we had to connect with a plane in Chicago. An hour later, a bad storm moved in, and an announcement was made that all flights were cancelled. In one moment, thousands of people went crazy. Abusive insults were hurled at employees, people elbowed their way into lines, arguments erupted at every turn, and I felt tears.

We had just returned from a country where beauty is celebrated at such a high level most of my friends would buy a book and wait out the storm. Germany, Japan, New Zealand, China, and Canada have talent development strategies that train workers to move up. As technology replaces the old tasks, their talent is already in a new job. We throw people out the door the moment their skills become obsolete.

This is what I want for my America:

• That we reinvent an educational system that prepares our children for the Industrial Revolution.

• That we teach our children that finding work they love is job number one. Because that is the best possible fuel for change. It is also the fuel to develop the skills that allow us to change.

• That we develop those skills that bring freedom and confidence to everyone who works:

• Drawing enough healthy attention to ourselves to thrive

• Finding the right people to help us

• Developing self-inquiry practices to be aware of what we need

• Generously praising others and graciously accepting praise when it comes our way

• Instead of waiting to be fearless, develop the courage to take action

I don’t want to get back to normal. I want abundance, a culture that routinely mentors the less fortunate, a country that assumes each person has a purpose and a gift, communities that build problem solvers, and an educational system that inspires us to grow throughout our lives.

This is who we are meant to be.

We welcome dialogue.

You can join workskunk without charge at: www.workskunk.com

You can get on the path to your finest work at: www.inspiredworkservices.com/events

The post What I Most Want for America appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

Taylor Swift

“Courage is getting up on that horse even when you are scared witless.”

John Wayne

I know the “self-help” industry promotes the notion of fearlessness.

The pursuit of fearlessness, in truth, is an enormous waste of time. In our endless search for comfort, the casualty is action.

My viewpoint of fear changed when I Bob Maurer. He has played a variety of leadership roles in the Behavioral Science Department at UCLA Medical School. More simply, he has devoted most of his professional life researching and communicating the behavior of successful people. Some would think he studies the rich and famous. He learns from people who are successful in every meaningful area of their lives. That means the subjects are happy about their family, love, money, careers, physical and emotional health.

He tells us, “Successful people are used to the experience of fear and when frightened, reach out to another person for comfort.”

Just to be clear, Bob isn’t suggesting that “reaching out” includes taking our friend’s box of candy. For parents and anyone close to children, what happens when they get frightened? For what? Comfort! And when they stop crying, do they want to cling to us until the end of the year? Sometimes I do. But usually, the moment their alarm shuts down, they move on with their lives.

That is until the magic switch turns on. We cry, and an adult turned to tell us, “Shut up, or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Or the watered-down version, “You a big boy now. “Stop crying. That’s for little shameful sissy boys.” Or under the breath, “We’re on a plane, and if you don’t stop, I’m going to have to send you outside.”

Our biology shuts down when we get comfort from another. But when we did stuff it, we moved on to the many ways adults seek comfort.

We lie, become mean-spirited, quit what we’re doing, order a no-contact delivery of two dozen special items from Princess Donut. Some of us drink, watch Oprah, leave town, or run away, smoke, over-exercise, and chase people on the LA freeways.

This is the adult way.

Or we can choose the self-help way.

Human development’s made breathtaking fortunes offering fearless lives. But first, we will have to demonize fear itself. You know, read this book and you will be fearless and pursue the life you really want without the sweat. Try hitting the freeways of Los Angeles without fear, and you will quickly take out your two front low-profile tires on your brand-new BMW. Or, that 50-pound woman in the 6,000-pound sport utility to the right, you can only see the top of her head, but she is texting and swerving into your lane. She’ll crush you as the Queen Mary did to that warship in the middle of World War II. Except she won’t notice because the dim bulb is still texting.

And now, the truth.

The grandfather of human development was Napoleon Hill. For years in the early 20^th century, Mr. Hill was a con artist moving from one town to the next selling land deals, fake stock, and more. He did have a highly developed sense of intuition. Time and time and time again he skipped town just as law enforcement was on the way to get him.

His fortunes turned with his first bestseller, “Think and Grow Rich.” Sounds good to me. In it, Napoleon managed to get Andrew Carnegie, one of the world’s richest men, to share his “secrets” to success. By the way, when you read a cover with “secrets,” a bit more research could be a good idea. Secrets and fearlessness are the two most common themes in self-help markets. I argued with my first publisher about the category of self-help asking they start a new one called, “Get Help.” He was the first person in media to suggest a life without fear. Once again, why did he skip town?

Andrew Carnegie never met Napoleon Hill.

The next big human development leader began adulthood with the name Jack Rosenberg. Loving anyone for their potential is cruel. Jack tortured himself over that one. By day, he was a used car salesman in San Francisco. By night, a husband and father on the other side of the bay. Despondent, Jack enrolled in Scientology. He was pouring money into the volumes of auditing to make himself “clear.”

He describes the morning when, he “got it.” He was crossing the Golden Gate Bridge to work when it all came together. When he was back on land, his life had changed. He took the essence of Scientology auditing, turned it into a group program, changed his name to Werner Erhard, abandoned his family, and launched EST.

A friend enrolled me in it. I sat in the chairs for 18 hours, listened to hours of cursing, watched everyone’s reaction and I lost my fearlessness because I was too exhausted to feel my hands.

Today, Werner Erhard lives in Switzerland, the one country that outlaws the practice of Scientology.

My point?

Don’t wait to be fearless before pursuing the life that you want.

Perhaps the deepest lesson is that even the most imperfect people in the world can contribute to positive change.

Look towards action as being the primary way we succeed. It doesn’t matter whether you are frightened or calm during the journey.

As per my observations, the more we want something, the greater probability we will get frightened.

It is normal. Successful people know this.

Cher has always had a personal stage manager with the temperament to deliver on the biggest responsibility. Cher has had crippling stage fright her entire life. Sonny Bono was the one that dragged her out in front of us. When they broke up, Cher hired someone else to take the responsibility. She cursed, swore, threatened, claim she was sick, cried, and told one of them she would never work again. But, once they pushed her out that door where she turned into, Cher!

Without that intervention, she would probably be Cherilyn Sarkasian, the crazy manicurist at the strip mall.

Our point?

Stop wasting time waiting. Life is almost always shorter than we think.

Imagine arriving at the pearly gates only to declare,

“That wasn’t so special.”

The post Why We Will Never Get Over Fear appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

The way we unconsciously communicate to others determines how the world will engage with us.

When the late and great Toni Morrison accepted the Nobel Prize for Literature, she said,

 “We die. Perhaps that is the meaning of life. But we do language. That may be the measure of our lives.”

I am fortunate to hear a close friend and colleague speak on a regular basis. When we first met, I had concerns about just how precise she is in how she communicates. Would that put anyone off? Then, I noticed just how freely she includes every emotion that lines up with the message she wants us to hear. And, you know what? People hang on to her every word.

As a musician, I have always felt a need to be so prepared that when I step in front of an audience, I can throw the music away and be fully present. As per music, I am a huge fan of Lady Gaga. Many of us believe her stunning performances are because of an innate gift. But it is far more than that. She cares so much for every audience that she spends superhuman hours and scripts every detail so that when she steps out, we, the people she loves, just might remember that performance forever. This is the sign of someone that respects us. Art Pop, the Sound of Music, Tony Bennet, or there Star-Spangled Banner. We remember.

We seem to produce a new batch of junk words with every generation. For some, we use the words to let the listener know, “You are not a member of my tribe.” For some, despite all of the preparations, we don’t quite make it to the finals because someone came in that cares more. Many hear the word charisma and we might think of the Kardashians. In the social media world, Kim is a star. She builds a $200M business out of thin air but that is not quite the truth. Kim builds a business with her tribe. As much research as I have recently poured into social media, she cares about them.

True charisma isn’t about the ego of the speaker. Real charisma is in our ability to focus on the person in front of us; to understand their lives and challenges so much that we connect with them.

The rest of us rely on junk language because we didn’t do the work. Or, we don’t really want to identify with baby boomers because our tribe is 40 years younger. Using junk language signals we don’t care that much or we haven’t done enough work to understand, silence is just as important as the words between that silence. The music was just so perfect until your anxiety pushed you to add more noise.

We hear that, and we also feel it.

Let’s review today’s most common junk words with the people who are listening:

Hope

“I hope that we can solve your problem.”

To clarify, the only time to use the word hope is when we are in a storm with lashing cold winds, our boat capsizes, and we hope someone will find us before hypothermia does the rest. But, when we use it in our everyday language we are telling the world of our reluctance to take action as well as results.

It was Nothing or worse: You Shouldn’t Have

The last time I handed an envelope filled with a trunkload of money in it, she responded: “You shouldn’t have,” I grabbed it out of her hands and said, “Well I’ve got big plans for this.!”

There is the shot across the bow of our kindest praise when they tell is, “Oh, it was nothing.”

Nothing? When we give someone praise like this and they respond, “It was nothing,” what are they actually telling us?

“Don’t look at me, don’t judge me, and do not do that again.”

I’ve met so many people with this kind of “flying below the radar” thinking right after they are laid off. Many of them were doing a great job but no one knew that.

On the other hand when someone gives us a gift and we come back with, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” they will usually not do that again.

Do you know what I mean?

“Yeah.”

What is that? It’s coming up with a whatever comes after generation m or z. It shows up on the news.

“You have been telling all of us to stay out of the office to avoid the plague. What are your thoughts?”

“Yeah.” What is that? I’m depending on my readers to tell me why so many young people respond to every question or directive with, “Yeah.”

Honestly or To Be Honest

Most of us will let it go once. But if you continue to use the word, we can surmise telling the truth is a special event in your world. Is honesty that special? Are you sorting out whether to tell us the truth, will the easiest answer be, “Thank you for coming?”

No Problem

I saved this for last because the words give me life-threatening facial-ticks.

The first time I heard this was while a trauma team was pushing in a chest-tube after a serious accident. I asked them to stop for one second so I could imagine catching my breath, I gurgled out a ‘thank-you’ and the resident gave a vacant expression while responding, “No problem.”

What? I began looking for dead relatives beconing me to come forward.

Like the simple word “thank you,” there is still no substitute for, “I’m delighted to help,” or, “What else can I help you with?”

Years ago, a guru in the diversity movement gave me a bias test. She said I sailed through every possible shortcoming until they found that I am a geographic racist. I replied, “I live in Los Angeles, we change nations every five blocks.”

But, the real source of my wrath was found in Portugal. They practice Fado, which is the art of nonchalance. Please return to the first picture above. That is a face filled with Fado as a service person blows cigarette smoke while filling the bag with groceries.

I guess this is what happens when a country spends thousands of years fighting off Spain and eating fish.

If there are any words you use as junk, there is a solution. Ask two people that spend significant time with you to listen for the 1-3 junk words you use. Whenever they hear one of the words, their hands are to reach forward and you are going to put a $20 in the loved one’s hand.

There is one exception. Whenever you dare to use the words, “supposed to,” send $100.

When someone uses this word on you, there is one reason. It indicates that wherever you are, it’s the wrong place.

Love to all. Stay safe.

The post Words That Cut Our Power In Half appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

The door to my life’s work opened when my record producer suddenly died.

I will never regret letting go of that career to help others find their ideal career. But the demands of Inspired Work grew and music, the primary language of my life, slipped away.

I thought about it all of the time. I used to fly a lot and would close my eyes only to think of how much I missed that part of my life. A year before this story began, a client that produced one of the biggest chunks of revenue asked that I take her to a psychic. Then, she asked that I join her. I drove here there myself. The guy looked a bit like Jabba the Hut. He was also bald except for on long braid coming directly out of his skull. She grabbed my arm and directed, “You go first.”

As I sat down, he looked at me and said, “You’re a musician.” I responded, “You’re the psychic.” My nasty little pushback ended with the next words. “If I am wrong about this, I will also be wrong with everything that follows. You are one of those few people who doesn’t listen to people’s words, you listen to the music in their voice.” I felt all of the air come out of my mouth followed by deep anger. Up until that moment, it was my secret.

Right now, we are days away from launching workskunk. Getting here has been a profound and often difficult journey. I believe that ending underemployment will solve our country’s deepest source of turmoil. Consequently, our core services will be available without charge.

Like everyone else, the pandemic changed most of our plans. Since April last year, we have been working in our caves. We have received support from all over the world. But the day-to-day experience has been developing a platform that is unique, that provides solutions, and retains the profound feel that has accompanied all of our programs.

Every time another obstacle showed up, we treated it with trust, and time and time again, what often felt like a miracle showed up. I have a deep-seated hatred of stock music or playing in bars. In June, I found myself sitting in front of Yamaha’s Montage 8. It is the most groundbreaking technology in music. Like so many of us, I find it easier to lose my life to the mission rather than protect the parts of life that make mine so very unique.

From all that we can find, workskunk will be the first human development platform with original music. We purchased libraries of stock music. When we threw it out, I realized that using that music would make us sound like everyone else. Apparently, God wanted no part of that and insisted I invest the time to do music well.

My reaction to being immersed in music again reminds me of a scene from my favorite career movie, Joe vs. the Volcano. He is near death on top of a raft made from luxury luggage. Meg Ryan is asleep. He looks up and the most magnificent full moon rises over the ocean. Joe struggles to his feet and gasps,

“I never knew how big.”

The post Anyone Sacrificing Their Life for a Mission? appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

Not long ago, our country celebrated a 3.8% unemployment rate. At the same time, about half of America’s workers characterized themselves as underemployed. Most of them were stuck because their world prepared them for the Industrial Revolution. Without intervention, the underemployed hold multiple jobs to barely cover the needs of their families. They hold onto obsolete jobs hoping they don’t get laid-off, but they do. The underemployed consistently hear that technology is taking away jobs. When so many people look to the future and cannot find a place for themselves, of course, we are going to have turmoil!

We will never learn anything of value by studying failure or mediocrity. Our time is far better invested in studying the people that are succeeding in the way we want to succeed. In this particular case, let’s take a look at some of our most revered workplace icons.

The world is facing the biggest restructuring of work in 300 years. Many complain that technology is taking away their jobs. This is true. But, it is equally true that advancing technology offers us the freedom to do far more with our lives. Millions of us are already “in” and using our time to forge unique careers, solve big problems, help and connect with others. Getting from the old to the new requires a new mindset, a new set of skills that require a bit of courage to learn, and the opening of one’s eyes in an era where we can learn anything that we want in just hours.

Helping our people move into the new world of work is critical for our country. We lay people off while other countries rebuild them. Many of America’s global competitors have developed talent strategies that educate workers to grow into new roles. Instead of passively standing by as change make a role obsolete, they are preparing their people to grow and move forward. We ought to study the success of these countries, which include: Germany, China, S. Korea, Canada, and Japan.

The single most important difference between the talent strategies of these countries is startling! The underemployed don’t need promises, they need guidance. America has the world’s most diverse talent pool in the world. Not only do we need to develop the talent that is already here, but we also need to attract the world’s best talent.

Mini-Guide for the New World of Work

Job Number One: Love Your Work

Retooling oneself can be a pain in the ass. Therefore, it is a good idea to not only take care of today’s needs but to also address past missteps. The most successful people in the world insist on finding the work we love.

From Steve Jobs:

“The only way to do great work is to love what you do.”

When we forget to build a foundation, the house above will eventually crumble.

The Industrial Revolution didn’t tell us to love our work. We were told that if we took a job, even one that was monotonous and mind-numbing, we would be rewarded by security and predictability. When children began to dream about their future, they would often tell their parents what they wanted to do with their lives. One of the most common responses was,

“Go get a real job.”

Get this, loving one’s work was always the ideal way to unleash one’s soul. I know this because I have been around thousands of people identifying what they most wanted to do with their lives and how they were going to monetize that.

When we began our business, most of our participants wanted to define their ideal work because it felt spiritually right. Most people continued to do the work that gave them predictability and security. Then, technology rose up like a tsunami, and wash the old model away.

Today, loving one’s work is job number one. Love is the single most effective fuel to retool one’s life. Every time the world speeds up yet again, the need to find the right people to help us grows as well. The need to become visible has grown as quickly as the fact that today’s college graduates will change careers 4-6 times.

Loving our work gives us the juice to include discomfort and develop skills we never had to use before.

From Oprah Winfrey:

“I’ve come to believe that each of us has a personal calling that’s as unique as a fingerprint – and that the best way to succeed is to discover what you love and then find a way to offer it to others in the form of service, working hard, and also allowing the energy of the universe to lead you. ”

Defining and finding the work we love brings positive energy to all of our relationships and a form of enthusiasm that cannot be manufactured.

Job Number Two: Develop Connectivity

Connectivity is a series of skillsets that help us quickly and graciously connect with the right people.

Connectivity allows us to build a customized community that supports our mission, vision, and purpose.

Connectivity gives us the means to be visible and when people see us, they also see our unique value.

Connectivity skills make it effortless for people to tell us what they need and want.

We tend to be hard on ourselves when we are frightened. When we cannot connect, we often turn the outcome into a shortcoming. It is actually a learning solution and one that requires practice. For those of us with deep fears about getting attention, the alternative ought to be more frightening. Don’t wait to be fearless. Use courage to take action now.

From Warren Buffett:

“Without passion, you don’t have energy. Without energy, you have nothing.”

Warren Buffett

Job Number Three: Become an Active Learner

My office window looks direct to Sony Music, a five-story upscale office building that has been empty for almost nine months. Countless employers and business owners are having to find information to not only respond to the health crisis but to understand how to build a strong culture with remote work. Every day, accelerating change impacts all of us.

As a result, active learners have quickly taken ownership of the modern workplace. Today, savvy employers ask a few questions to determine if someone pursues knowledge or not. If the candidate doesn’t have that characteristic, the interview is usually over. Oh, they might look as if they are in their body but they are making grocery lists and reviewing unfinished work.

In a world that moves so quickly, traditional degrees are usually obsolete when the ink drys on the diploma!

Like so many previous outlooks, many families treat education like another chore.

Active learners don’t get laid off, they don’t become obsolete, they grow in ways that are profoundly surprising and moving.

How do I know this? I consume information every single day. I listen to successful people. I’m also comfortable with not having a clue on how to approach a problem. As a result, I’ve learned there is always a solution.

Always.

How do we turn people into active learners?

Love your work and you will learn what you love.

The post Loving One’s Work Used to be Nice. Today, it is Essential. appeared first on Inspired Work Services.

For years, many of our participants have become one-on-one clients. And then close friends. They come through our programs to define in deep detail what they want to do with their lives. Many take that and move forward without my direct involvement. It doesn’t matter how my one-on-one clients practice their spirituality, but I always tell them mine.

There are no guarantees in life. It is far better than waiting for success; we center our energy on improving the probability of success. True optimism is the mindset of believing our actions will lead to good outcomes. Action is almost always the beginning of success. But, when we turn the results over to God, I’m always surprised.

Many of my clients have become dear friends. I’m always surprised at what happens when each takes action, trusts the outcome, and doesn’t over-manage the results. The author came for my help to move from corporate communications to a fully successful author. He gets better deals than me and is writing a new book on an island that I hope to one day in the future, spell correctly.

I think of another dear friend. You know who you are. She left a big studio job. Her imagination is wildly productive, and she uses it like magic. In our time together she never once responded to change with cynicism or contempt. I often say that when someone gets on the right path, we can’t decide whether they are playing or working. Her outcome included moving to work for one of the biggest entertainment icons in Europe. The last time we visited, her new life is filled with so much joy, that she skips through London.

I’m so ready for this year to be over. It is also the year in which we changed how we reach people by working harder than ever and turning the results over to God.

What do I want for you?

• Full employment.
• Work that matters.
• Work that is an extension of your real purpose.
• I want you to skip down the street.
• Remember there is always a solution, especially when we look.

The post 2021 – The Year to Transform Work appeared first on Inspired Work Services.