JobJoy Bootcamp: Moving you from career pain to job joy in 3 easy steps

By George Dutch

Yes, you may have been knocked down for a bit. And, yes, I know you may not feel like a success at every point in your life, but JobJoy Bootcamp will remind you of this simple fact: you have been successful in life previously; and you will be successful again!

I know this because I refuse to define success in narrow financial terms. I define success in terms of finances, yes -- but also (and probably more importantly!), in terms of health, energy, confidence, courage, self-respect, happiness, and peace of mind... to name a few.

Each of these aspects of life adds to our quality of life -- and finding your right work will help you in all those areas. I know you know this as well as I, as we’ve all tasted that success in the natural talents, strengths, and motivations we all have. Now let’s put those to work in your life and get you the true, well-rounded success you deserve!

How?

Because you can change your job in six months, with financial security and job satisfaction! I know, because I’ve seen it first-hand hundreds times!

I've saved hundreds of careers, including my own, from a trash heap of broken dreams. That's what brings me JobJoy -- I've discovered exactly what works, and what doesn't work, when it comes to saving your work life.

Those same simple strategies can work for you too... I know because they've worked for thousands of people just like you.

Your situation is not unique, and more importantly your situation is NOT hopeless!

The strategies I use have been developed over the last 20 years working with people like you in all kinds of situations and circumstances... and now I can help you change your current situation, and life, too!

• Language: English
• Publisher: George Dutch
• Release date: May 14, 2012
• ISBN: 9781896428024

George Dutch

George has been a Career Transition Expert, Author, Speaker, & Workshop Presenter for almost 20 years. He works one-on-one with individuals to analyze their written stories then writes a personalized, customized JobJoy Report to help each client fashion a new work identity, before coaching them through a significant career transition. His unique approach, based on his book, JobJoy, was recently profiled by Katharine Hansen at A Storied Career (http://tinyurl.com/yyt5bfh). The purpose of his Career Thought Leaders blog (http://www.careerthoughtleaders.com/) is to provide colleagues with tools and techniques that will help them mine gold from their clients' life stories. In order to mine gold, you have to move a lot of ore; moving it efficiently and effectively is what this blog is about.

Book preview

JOBJOY BOOTCAMP

Moving you from career pain to job joy in 3 easy steps

George Dutch

JOBJOY BOOTCAMP: Moving you from career pain to job joy in 3 easy steps

Published by George Dutch at Smashwords

Copyright © George Dutch 2011

ISBN 978-1-896428-02-4

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever including Internet usage, without written permission of the author.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Step 1: Heart Work

Step 2: Head Work

Step 3: Leg Work

Next Steps

Author’s Notes

INTRODUCTION

I wrote this book for my clients, individuals who have some sense of their right work after completing my JobJoy assessment service.

The purpose of that assessment service is to answer the questions where and what. Which organizations are going to recognize, reward and motivate you? What are the job titles that best match your natural strengths and motivations, as well as your acquired education, experience, plus your values and priorities? Assessment is the first step in a career transition process.

The next step is to translate clarity into reality. That may mean moving from where you are now into your right work through a better job fit. Or it may mean moving to self-employment or to your own business, which, as I point out in the chapter on Leg Work, is similar to self-employment but not quite the same.

This book is designed to help my clients to do exactly that. I hope it will assist others as well.

My objective is to help you make a transition quickly and easily through efficient and effective action. That is why I call this book JobJoy Bootcamp.

Why do people go to boot camp?

Traditionally, boot camp was a place where recruits learned to soldier. It was a crash course on how to survive and thrive in a theatre of war. Wars were conducted in the field, where soldiers lived in camps. New boots were issued to recruits as they entered camp for the first time, signifying their need to learn the skills necessary for battle.

In camps, these new soldiers or boots learned skills and acquired knowledge related to marching, shooting, patrolling, attacking and killing. Boots are essential equipment for soldiering. They are one type of equipment all soldiers have in common. In boots, they march into battle; hence, the term boot camp.

Today, soldiers volunteer to fight, and they still go to boot camp. In recent decades, the boot camp has migrated to civilian life as an intense experience, one that involves rigorous training and concentrated learning.

Some people go to boot camp to learn specific skills. A quick online search of boot camps or bootcamps reveals that boot camps can provide intensive training in fitness, parenting, film-making, website construction or job search.

Other people go to boot camp in order to overcome obstacles—both internal and external—preventing them from positive life experiences. Some go to weight-loss, detox or grief camp.

Boot camp is for people who are blocked and can’t get over, under, or around their obstacles. The reality TV show The Biggest Loser is an example of a weight-loss boot camp seen by millions of viewers who enjoy watching the contestants confront their obstacles.

JobJoy Bootcamp is designed as an intense experience to help individuals break through barriers of career transition. In this book, they will learn the skills and practices of successful people, individuals who make progress towards important goals in their lives. Actually, the word career originally meant direction. A career is a direction in life—a highway, so to speak. A job is a stop along the highway.

The world of work knocks many people into the ditch along the highway of life. Most times, they manage to get out of the ditch, get back on the road, and continue to their destination. I hope that JobJoy Bootcamp will be particularly effective for people who are stuck in the ditch and can’t get out.

What knocks people into the ditch can be as different as the individuals themselves – the loss of a job, a loved one or health; addictions that run or ruin their lives; serious illness or injury; divorce; bankruptcy; the dissolution of a business partnership; a violent attack; a demotion; failure; depression; relocation; a betrayal.

Some people end up destitute with little or no financial resources to pull themselves out of the ditch. Others have the financial resources, but find themselves in a psychological or emotional rut, which operates, according to one clever description, operates like a coffin with the ends knocked out. The world knocks everyone into a ditch at some point. Most of the time, we get up to drive another day… but not always.

JobJoy Bootcamp is an opportunity for people in such circumstances to pull the pieces together, to marshal what is left in terms of resources, and make an all-out effort to haul themselves out of the ditch once and for all. They might be full of self-doubt. What they need is encouragement, some positive reinforcement and a clear sense that someone is for them, not against them. They are stuck in that ditch, and they don’t like it. They want to optimize their chances of getting out alive, and they think they can do it in a positive environment. Ironically, a place where fellow participants are struggling with some of the same issues usually provides such an environment.

Others are too tired to pull themselves out of the ditch. They’ve landed there once too often. The current crisis has triggered some familiar issues, ones they thought they had resolved. Instead, here they are again, facing a variation on a tiresome theme.

Previously, they were able to mobilize their defenses against the pain and confusion generated by these issues. They learned techniques that helped them rationalize and adjust to the ditch. They toughed it out, and were able to exert enough effort to get out of the ditch.

Once out, they didn’t see the need for any significant change to their habits or mental models of reality. The fact that they got out of the ditch only made them more convinced that they were right, that their ideas and behavior were adequate to the challenge…until the next time, and the time after that. New events just triggered the same old results, until here they are again—drained, broken, beaten.

They know that the same thing will happen again unless they really deal with the underlying issues. This time when they climb out of the ditch, they need a lot of help. If they can get out of the ditch this time, they are driving in a completely different direction. They are ready, willing, and able to suspend their habits and ideas.

They are open to hearing how they can approach their circumstances in a new way. They sense that deeper patterns of motivation and meaning await them. They want to align their daily lives with a bigger vision for themselves. They want to play big. They are ready to grow again. This is it for them: a choice between life and death.

JobJoy Bootcamp is about tapping into our natural strengths. It will drive us down a new highway of success, one that leads to better health, more energy, greater peace of mind, higher self-confidence, closer relationships, and increased wealth.

It’s about how to access more joy in our lives; how to mine our personal stories for meaning, and how to leverage what really matters to us into specific jobs, careers, or businesses. We learn to use tools that help us deal with adversity. It’s about overcoming obstacles in order to achieve different and better results.

JobJoy Bootcamp is about life. It is about choosing vitality in your daily life, first and foremost. It’s also about building a life of joy on a sustainable basis!

This book is organized around action. Bootcamp is not so much a thinking space as a doing place. Each section of this book is designed to put you into action. There is power in action.

There are three areas of action related to career transition: Heart Work, Head Work, Leg Work. The key is to start now in one area. Each section has Toolbox tips to help you take actions now quickly and easily. I suggest you start with the area that is drawing you to this book. There is no need to read the three parts in sequence but you may find that each reinforces the others, making it easier for you to experience a successful transition by integrating each part into your plans and actions.

Success

You are already a success in life. Yes, you may have been knocked into the ditch. And, yes, I know you may not feel like a success at this point. You are in the ditch, stuck with career pain. Perhaps, you are holding onto the pain because you’ve got nothing else to hold on to, so you stop yourself from attaining positive outcomes.

But JobJoy Bootcamp will remind you of this simple fact: you have been successful in life previously and, even if you don’t feel like a success right now, you will be successful again.

I know this because I refuse to define success in narrow financial terms. Most things in our society get reduced to the value of the ‘almighty’ dollar. It is important to remember that wealth is only one standard of success, and not the most important one in my view.

Take health, for example. Anyone who has ever had a serious injury or illness would probably trade all their wealth for a healthy body, mind, or soul. The statement: Health is the first wealth is a cliché, I know, but clichés are often truisms whose power fades through frequent expression. If you are healthy today, you enjoy a certain level of success.

Perhaps you eat well, sleep well, get regular exercise and learn subjects and skills that stimulate you. All of these things energize you. If you are full of energy and optimism, you enjoy a certain level of success.

The same goes for confidence, courage, self-respect, happiness and peace of mind, to name a few other standards of success. These aspects of life are not easily acquired, and each adds positively to our quality of life. I am sure that 99% of individuals reading this book have, at some time, attained some success in one or more of these areas of life, and will do so again in the future.

JobJoy Bootcamp is about helping you attain better health, as well as more peace of mind, happiness, confidence, courage, self-respect and wealth. When you set a goal to attain or increase your quality of life in all of these areas and move progressively towards that goal, you are successful!

You will need the same skills that successful people use to attain their success. You are already successful because you have acquired some of these skills and used them. You’ve just forgotten! The information and exercises in this book will help you remember those skills and learn new ones.

JobJoy Bootcamp will help you increase your capacity to grow and change your life and will help you create a new future, a better life, one that energizes you.

So, let’s get started! Enjoy the journey.

STEP 1: HEART WORK

While reaffirming your freedom to study the steps in any sequence, I am starting with heart work because I am a firm believer in leading from the heart. What I mean is that I believe in allowing my heart to tell me what to do, then using my head to tell me how to do it.

The physical heart is located near the center of your chest. It is a vital organ responsible for pumping a steady supply of blood throughout your body. In most cultures around the world, blood is used as a symbol of life and vitality. To lose your blood is to die.

A heart gorged with blood is a universal symbol of passion and love, strong emotions felt acutely in our chest, often affecting our breathing rhythms. These feelings are associated with the very core of our being and our purpose for living.

The heart is associated with what really, really matters to us as human beings. In medical terms, the heart is often described as a pump because its rhythmic action ensures that your blood circulates throughout your body providing the oxygen and nutrients you need to survive and thrive.

Physical exercise