Check it out here to determine which one you are.

More importantly, if you like the post, be sure to subscribe to the blog to get our new posts by e-mail!

JT

Click here to read it on my new blog www.Careerealism.com.

“STOP HOVERING: 10 Rules for Effective Elevator Parenting”

is now available as a FREE e-book. Simply sign-up below and you’ll receive an e-mail with a link to the book.

What’s the difference between a helicopter parent and an elevator parent?

Well, the book goes into much greater detail, but the key difference is that instead of smothering their children, elevator parents act like their name - they elevate their children to the right floor, but then let them get out and navigate themselves to their final destination solo. In my observations as a career coach to Gen NEXTers, here’s what I’ve learned: the balance of help and empowerment is a fine line that elevator parents seem to master better than helicopter parents. This book focuses on the 10 ways in which I’ve seen elevator parents excel over helicopter parents.

So, if you think you might be guilty of being a helicopter parent, then this e-book is for you. It’s a quick read that can help you immediately assess and ‘tweak’ your approach to helping your child become more independent. Simply register above right now and you’ll automatically receive a link to this FREE e-book. Enjoy!

It snowballed into a post on my new blog, www.careerealism.com, in which I explain the difference between appreciation and compliments, as well as the best way to give an effective compliment. But it didn’t stop there….

Etienne and I decided to throw down the gauntlet and put out a workplace challenge to employees and managers everywhere: Give a really, truly great compliment to someone at work who annoys you - and then tell us about it. So far, the response is great, but we want more!

To sum it up: Compliments are free to give and receive, and thus, in a tight economy, they have the potential to be 2008’s #1 Job perk. So we ask you this:

Do YOU have what it takes to give a great compliment?

Why not try it (and pass the challenge along to others!) and see if we can’t all change a few workplace relationships for the better!

JT

Their story goes something like this:

“In the beginning, I can’t wait to get to the office. Everything just seems great. I love the company, my boss, my peers, my job - it’s all good. But then, after a few months, the excitement starts to go away and I realize that it was all in my mind. The job I was so excited about is just like every other job I’ve had, it’s repetitive, tedious and long. I get depressed and feel like a failure because I can’t seem to find a job that makes me happy.

This is when I explain that nothing is wrong with them, it’s just that work is like peanut butter. What? Work is like the creamy (or crunchy if you prefer), sticky, thick, sweet spread that sits in a jar waiting to go on a sandwich? Yep, that is correct. Let me explain…

Try to think back to when you were a child and first introduced to peanut butter. You’d probably been given all sorts of healthy foods that were dull, but good for you. Smooshed-up fruits and veggies, toast, crackers, blah, blah, blah - I mean blah! Then one day, someone, let’s say your mom, put a cute little sandwich in front of you and said “try this.” You took a bite and your taste buds went nuts (yes, pun intended). A sweet taste, almost like candy, that was easy to chew and full of yummy flavor. Your little brain probably said, “Did mom make a mistake? Does she know what she gave me?” At which point, you immediately thought, “I better show her I like this so I can get more,” and you wolfed it down. The same thing happens when you go on an interview and like what you see and hear. Your brain gets really excited with the possibility of something new and delicious entering your life on a regular basis. You do whatever it takes to land the job, and you celebrate like a 4-year old when you get the offer letter. Perhaps, you even take a peanut butter sandwich to work on your first day. But let’s return to our story…

J.T.’s book, CAREEREALISM: The Smart Approach to A Satisfying Career, is a 100+ page guide for finding a career that suits your unique combination of skills and preferences. Click here to learn more…

Your mom is impressed with the way you devoured your peanut butter sandwich and says you can have it again. So you opt to have it every day. If you could, you’d eat it for breakfast, lunch AND dinner. She paces you, but still, you get it daily and couldn’t be more satisfied…for the first month. One day you realize that peanut butter is a bit boring. You aren’t excited to eat it, and you actually leave half of your sandwich on the plate and ask for carrots instead. Suddenly, peanut butter doesn’t have the same appeal it did when you first tasted it, but now, your mom has added it to the ‘healthy foods’ list and says you HAVE to eat it. The very thing that you were craving just a few weeks earlier is now something you loath. Your mom tries to help by suggesting new variations - jelly, fluff, no-crust, on celery with raisins, etc. She changes up the presentation but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s got peanut butter on it and you are really tired of peanut butter. The same thing happens when you realize that your job is actually work; it’s something you must do. You’ve agreed to do the job, so you need to show up and complete the work, whether you feel like it or not. You try to liven up the job by taking on different assignments or learning a new skill, but it still doesn’t change the fact that you must do this job. Perhaps, you call in sick for a mental health day or plan a vacation. Yet, you still have to return to the job when those are over. So how do you fix your aversion to work? Let’s see how the peanut butter story turns out…

You became so sick of peanut butter that you finally blurted out to your mom, “I hate peanut butter.” After she washed your mouth out with soap for using the word ‘hate,’ she told you that she would find some other foods for you to try that could replace peanut butter. You are excited at the idea of finding something new, but the results aren’t what you were hoping for. First, she gives you liverwurst. You gag, which makes her gag, and she gives you carrots. The next day, it’s tuna fish, you won’t even try it. And on the third day, she offers you egg salad. You immediately ask if you can go to your room and skip eating all together. On the fourth day, your mom sets peanut butter down in front of you and you are pleased. Not excited, not crazed with desire, but pleased. There is your trusted friend, the food you can count on to appease your hunger without making you nauseous. You eat it and think, “Ahh, peanut butter, you are not so bad.” And you go on to develop a strong bond with a food that you know is not ideal, but reliable. You accept it for what it is and what it can do for you. You no longer expect too much from this poor little food that just wanted to sustain you. You are satisfied.

Work is no different. You can go to your boss and let him know you are looking to feel more challenged, but if you can’t be specific as to what you need and what you want to do, you’ll most likely be given more work that you don’t love. Meanwhile, your boss will get upset that you aren’t grateful for his efforts to help you feel better and starts to resent your attitude, especially if you tell him you don’t want the extra work anymore and will just stick with the job you said wasn’t working for you in the first place. I guarantee he’ll assume you are looking to leave and will no longer want to invest time and energy into your professional development.

So, if you can work through the phase where you loath the repetitive, unexciting nature of your job and recognize that the skills and experience you are acquiring are enabling you to do a good job without a lot of pressure or stress, perhaps you’ll finally give your job a break and stop expecting so much from it. Your work is not supposed to make you feel amazing and wonderful all the time. It’s work. If you can come to appreciate your job for what it does give you, i.e. a steady paycheck, benefits, a place to learn and build your skill sets so you’ll always be employable, the opportunity to build professional friendships that could help in the future, etc., you could end up feeling a lot better about work in general.

Now that you understand how work is like peanut butter, why not take a peanut butter sandwich to your job tomorrow and be grateful for what they both provide - sustenance.

Like this post? Subscribe via e-mail (no spam, just career advice) to get J.T.’s blog posts automatically by clicking here: CAREER INSIGHTS BLOG

Here’s the article: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/06/business/06unbox.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

And, if you’d like more information on our 4-hour agile management training module, contact us today by e-mail, or toll-free at (877) 588-5455.

A quiz I use to help people assess their career development and job search skills is now available on-line. The test is FREE and it doesn’t require your e-mail or to sign up for a thing. Just 24 questions that tell you how prepared you are to find career success and satisfaction in today’s workplace.

So, if you’ve got 2 minutes and want to see how employable you are, just give some honest ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers and you’ll find out! Here’s the link….

I was working with a team of college interns on a special project. We were discussing the staggering statistic I had heard which was 80%+ of young people between the ages of 16-24 expected to be rich and famous some day. I asked for their input, expecting to hear something like, “Oh no, not us.” But instead, I got, “Oh ya, every young person dreams about it. We sit around on the weekends and brainstorm reality shows we could star in.” - and they meant it!

That’s when I knew it was time to go back to the drawing board and create something that could help Americans get a handle on their career realities. Don’t worry, I didn’t go negative. I’m not a tough love kind of coach. But, I did work hard to create an approach that can help people tune out the hype and tune in to what works for them. CAREEREALISM offers unsatisfied workers a chance to get organized and focused on achieving career satisfaction. In short, it’s a crash (yet comprehensive!) course on how to create career success on your terms.

CAREERALISM is a book. Technically, it is a new-and-improved version of a guidebook I self-published a few year back for my private clients. It costs$19.95 and is available in most on-line retailers. BUT, if you buy it on my site, there’s a special bonus: Every purchase includes a FREE resume review by one of our professional development specialists as well as personalized feedback on how to improve your job search efforts. How’s that for value?!

So, if someone you know is living a career reality drama (okay, who isn’t?!?), I’d be grateful if you would recommend they check out CAREEREALISM. We look forward to helping them create their own happy ending.

Check it out at www.jtanddale.com, and while your are there, be sure to subscribe to get our blog posts weekly by e-mail!

This made me think about how many people are questioning their career decisions right now, and that led to me write this post…

Did you know that four little words form one simple question that, in my experience, has one of the greatest impacts on how people choose their careers in America? Let me prove it to you:

Imagine you are in a room full of strangers. In order to strike up a conversation, besides introducing yourself and asking a person their name, what’s one of the first questions you’ll ask?

ANSWER: “What do you do?”

There it is. A simple question that is so commonly used in our society, most people ask it absent-mindedly, in the same way they ask a friend, “How are you?” However, the question “What do you do?” has a much more serious implication. That’s because, as soon as we hear a person’s answer, we begin to size them up. Admit it, when someone states what they do for work, we immediately start to think about the profession, our past experiences with people in the field, and then in turn, make generalizations and assumptions about the kind of person they are. In short, we start to decide how much respect we feel we should have for this person.

Now, do I think this is a fair or accurate thing to do? Of course not. How many professionally successful people lead miserable lives? Yet, it’s the truth: career identity plays a huge role in how people are viewed. Which leads to this next observation…

It stands to reason, if we A) know we are going to be asked this question, and B) recognize we are going to be evaluated on our response, then it’s likely that lots of us choose a career based upon its capacity to impress others.

For those of you thinking, “Sure, lots of folks probably pursue a career to gain respect, but not me,” I challenge you to look deep inside yourself. Can you honestly say that your current career choice wasn’t rooted in some initial desire to impress others? If so, then congratulations, you must love your work and feel very satisfied. But for those of you who are pondering the possibility that you’ve been pursuing career success to gain respect, let me prove my point with two additional questions:

1) If you had to stand up and introduce yourself to a room full of strangers, besides your name, what’s one of the first things you would tell them about yourself?

ANSWER: What you do for work.

2) Think of the most successful person you know. Now, ask yourself, “Did I automatically choose someone with career success?” In other words, did you associate the word ‘success’ with professional accomplishments?

ANSWER: Most likely, you chose someone who has accomplished a great deal in their career, yet, you can probably also point out that this success has come at a cost in some other area of their life. (i.e. relationships, health, etc.)

My point is this: as a culture, we place a lot of emphasis on our careers as a way to define us as people. But why? Who benefits? Isn’t the goal to create our own happiness? Then how does being obsessed with professional success as a way to determine self worth help us? Perhaps, it’s time to stop impressing others and start impressing ourselves. I’ve been told by more than a few Europeans that Americans “live to work” while they prefer to “work to live.” And it’s true, for many of us, when work isn’t going well, life isn’t going well, right? But here’s the thing: career success doesn’t guarantee a happy life. In fact, the way many people pursue careers in America leads to very unfulfilled lives. No wonder so many people are dissatisfied with their careers – they’re costing them too much!

I say, it’s time we start to take the pressure off one another and get to know each other better. So, here’s what I propose: stop asking the question, “What do you do?” and instead, simply ask, “What do you like to do?” Now there’s a question that will give us much greater insight into a person.

J.T. O’Donnell is a career coach and workplace consultant. She is the author of, “Find Your Career Path,” a step-by-step guide to acquiring a satisfying career on your own terms. Her book and information on her private coaching services for individuals and companies can be found at www.jtodonnell.com.