For about a year now we have followed the discussion around “Future of Work (#FoW)” and we asked you what you would need to learn if you wanted to be more successful and happier.
You probably know that health and time are your most important assets. You would, therefore, ensure that you exercise, relax and watch your nutrition. You would also guard your time and try to be helpful at the same time. Most importantly, you would celebrate your close friends and family. They will probably stand by you when the going gets rough or when the rent doesn’t get paid.
You are not able to hide behind a manager and let her do the tough jobs only so you can complain that she never lets you do anything exciting. As an entrepreneur, you will stand in the limelight and you will need to perform all of your billable time.
What I have learned over the last few years is that “learning new stuff” took a new dimension for me when I started my business because, in the beginning, you have zero help. You can source support but it is usually too expensive so you will do a lot of tasks yourself that were done by other people in the corporate world. You might have been used to a team and never had to change the paper in the printer. You had a PA who would claim your expenses. Maybe you had a business development professional who would spice up your proposals. You certainly did not have to raise invoices and chase their payments.
On a skill level, we can always improve or learn something. We even need to practice in order not to forget.
If you feel you already know everything, you could write a book or learn Mandarin or Arabic. This will probably humble you.
Stop perfectionism. Start Creation.
Give room for creation.
When you are satisfied with your work because you have a strong purpose, the amount of time you put in is not really that relevant. Your creative process needs a different space than a factory-style task. Deep satisfaction comes from creation, not from the routine and administration. I also believe you can only monetize creation. Routine can be automated and outsourced.
We created the RockMe! App to increase stress for you. No joke. You will probably feel under pressure to achieve when you work with a coach. You might experience though that your energy is more targeted. You will achieve what is important to you and you will do it with pleasure. I advise you to write your three major goals for 2018 in present tense as if you had already achieved them. If you are a visual person try to find an image or photo for every one of the three future states you would like to achieve.
As soon as you start working with the app one of our coaches will check in with you on a regular basis to see how you are getting ahead. Will this cost you anything? Yes. You will need to give us feedback. If you find our work helpful, we assume that you will recommend GPT and the RockMe! App to all your contacts and friends. That’s all.
I wish you a productive week.
Kind regards,
Angie Weinberger
P.S.: Don’t forget to check out Lucie’s post on Expat children and Identity Crisis.
Plus, read this article if you are interested in 12 tips for working virtually in a multicultural team.
My successful friends and I also faced job losses, health issues or international moves in the past. I observe how when we are pulled out of our program of going to work and caring for family, we open up to change.
It is more difficult to change when you are not forced to. When we feel healthy enough we don’t feel like watching our diet or go to the doctor for a check-up.
It is harder to make an effort to learn when you have a well-paid managerial job. The reason for this is not always time. Learning occurs when we stretch outside of our comfort zones but who will do that unless he or she is pushed a little?
Where are the risk-takers, who voluntarily expose themselves to learning situations that keep their brains active? Is an international career and transition into another culture one of those potential stretches you could do? Is it running your own company? Or becoming a mentor to a more junior professional in your industry?
In today’s global and digital world, do you still want to depend on an “employer” and make your self-worth dependent on a title such as “Vice President” or “Senior Manager”? Is that really driving you? Is another suit, car or holiday really going to make your life so much better?
We believe at GPT that we need to deconstruct “career”. If you think about your own professional life, you might be experiencing automation, the death of industry and uberization. Have you asked yourself if you will still have a “retirement” in 20 or 30 years?
Maybe you won’t even stop “working” because your work gives you purpose.
Being a Gen-X, I believe in ‘work hard, play hard’ and at the same time, I would like to make a contribution to the world.
Why would you use all of your energy to make a multinational more successful?
Do you really want to spend hours discussing words on a presentation or numbers in a business case?
We could go on and become the ”Walking Dead” of the workforce.
We could also say that we develop ourselves into the leaders that we really want to be.
Instead of thinking about our next promotion, more money, and the next career step, we could think about what we would like to contribute to the world. We could brainstorm a vision: why do we get up in the morning? We could think about how we can improve society, our company or even our neighborhood. We could write down what we would do every day for a better world. We could paint it, photograph it and have a vision board (on Pinterest).
Would that not make you happy and be better than “making a living”?
Kind regards,
Angie Weinberger
P.S.: related to this topic is also this short blog post from the Middle Finger Project
