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Table of Contents for

Brilliant Career Coach

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Prev Previous Chapter

Introduction
Next Next Chapter

What do you really want to be?
PART 1
You
If a man is called to be a street
sweeper, he should sweep streets even
as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven
composed music, or Shakespeare wrote
poetry. He should sweep streets so well
that all the hosts of heaven and earth
will pause to say, here lived a great
street sweeper who did his job well
Martin Luther King, Jr., American civil
rights leader
Introduction
As change and transformation start from within, the theme of Part 1 of
Brilliant Career Coach is you. In Chapters 1, 2 and 3, you will work out
exactly what needs xing in your career, and of course youll get well
on the road to xing it. From the Career Transformation Formula in
Chapter 1, to the Career Interest Questionnaire in Chapter 2 and then to
the Happiness Challenge in Chapter 3, we take a step-by-step approach
to clarifying:
1 whats wrong with your career
2 how to x it.
Are you ready to go?
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Part 1 You
Next Next Chapter

Whats your story?
CHAPTER 1
What do you
really want to be?
I look to the future because thats
where Im going to spend the rest of
my life
George F. Burns, American comedian
C
hances are that youve been feeling underwhelmed in your career
for long enough, so lets get started. This chapter gets right down
to the nitty-gritty of your situation and how to x it.
To begin with, we need to look at where you are, career-wise, right now,
and where you want to be. Or it may be more appropriate to consider
where youre not right now. So the rst thing to do is diagnose exactly
what is wrong (or, indeed, right) with your career, and why.
In this chapter, well take a look at the best- and worst-case scenarios at
each stage of your career. This gives you an insight into where you t in
terms of job satisfaction as well as further impetus to improve your lot.
Youll do some work on identifying your career highlights and lowlights
so that youre clear on which experiences you want to take with you in the
next steps of your career, and which you want to leave behind.
Well nish this chapter with the brilliant Career Transformation Formula
a winning way to achieve ongoing career success and satisfaction.
So were kicking off at high speed. Were going to get through a lot in
this chapter, so that when youve nished (especially if you complete the
exercises) you will have got everything thats in your head and worrying
you about your career out in the open, and youll be able to see clearly
where you are and where you want to be heading.
Work should make you happy
You will spend around 50 years working. For most of us it will be for at
least 5 days a week and for many of us it will stretch beyond the 9 to 5.
6 brilliant career coach
If you are going to dedicate such a big chunk of your life to something,
Im guessing youd rather it was doing something you actually want to
do, which is why youve picked up Brilliant Career Coach. Good rst step.
According to happiness expert Ed Diener, those who are happy at work
create better career prospects and earn more money. Sound good? They
are also more likeable, better leaders and managers, better problem-
solvers and negotiators, and are more creative and optimistic.
So, in case you were in any doubt as to why you started reading this book,
now you know increasing your career happiness is not only a worthwhile
investment, but an imperative one too. Put simply, achieving work happi-
ness and success boils down to three things:
Choose well are you pursuing a career that suits you?
Manage well are you making the most of your opportunities and
challenges?
Work hard are you investing enough time and energy in your career
efforts?
By providing you with a step-by-step guide to choosing well and managing
well, Brilliant Career Coach will enable you to create the career of your
dreams.
The six million dollar question: what do you want?
How many people do you know who love what they do? Who really get a
kick out of going to work every day? People who have made career choices
that not only suit their lives but also enhance their lives? Can you count
those people on one hand? I thought so.
To maximise the possibility of you being one of those people who is com-
fortable and, more importantly, content with their career, we need to
do a bit of soul-searching.
Which of the following best describes you?
A late developer?
A career changer?
Feeling stuck?
What do you really want to be? 7
Cant nd your niche?
An entrepreneur?
Unconventional by nature?
Have never found what you were looking for?
Loved your career to start with but now it feels stale?
Want something more or different from your career?
Priorities shifted?
Have simply changed your mind about what you want from your
career?
Maybe its a mixture of more than one of the above. The point is that,
whatever your own set of circumstances, you need (a) a career plan, and
(b), just as importantly, a coach to help you get your plan off the ground.
This is exactly what Brilliant Career Coach is about helping you to create
the career you want and become the career person you want to be.
Typical career conundrums
In order to get to where you want to go, its important to know where you
are now. Its likely to be time for a career change if you identify with one
or more of the scenarios in the list below. The extent of that change, be
it a slightly different version of what you do now, the same job in a dif-
ferent industry, or a full-on change of career, will depend on a number of
things, all of which we will systematically work through in the following
chapters. One thing is clear, however: the more radical the change, the
more preparation, planning and investment it demands.
Here are the most common things I hear from my clients see if any of
them ring a bell:
I have never known what I wanted to do.
I fell into this career by mistake.
This job was a stop-gap but Im still doing it 5/10 years later.
I feel stuck.
I thought Id have it worked out by now.
Ive tried so many different jobs/careers and none of them work for me.
I give up.
The key theme running through these sentiments is a feeling of power-
lessness and thats what career crises create. The question is: when are
you going to take control? Now, in a year, never. . .?
You may nd that more than one of the above applies to you many
people do in which case dont be concerned. With the approach out-
lined in Brilliant Career Coach, these are all xable and addressable.
Career crisis vs career confusion?
Its important to make a distinction between a cyclical bout of career con-
fusion (which we all experience now and then) and a full-on career crisis.
Trying to describe a career crisis is not unlike describing a hippo landing
on your desk you will most de nitely know about it if it happens.
Indications that this is a crisis rather than mere confusion are signalled
by your readiness for the hippo landing on your desk and the amount
of damage the hippo wreaks. Clearly a career crisis will demand a much
greater intervention and investment of your time and energy than working
through the day-to-day muddle of career confusion.
Career crossroads vs career cul-de-sac?
Are there one or more reasonable career options available to you from
where you stand, or has your career hit a brick wall? Those of you at a
career crossroads will have a variation of the following choices available
to you:
Should I specialise or pursue a career in management?
Should I continue to work for my current company or move to one of
our competitors?
Should I stick with my current career choice but move to a different
sector? (For more on this, read Chapter 5, which outlines which
sector you are most suited to.)
Is now a good time for a career break? Sabbatical? Secondment to
another department?
I love my job but I want to see the world and now is the time!
Those of you who are in a career cul-de-sac may be feeling something
more like the following:
Ive had enough, I cant do this anymore.
I thought this was going to be fun. Its not.
Ive learned all I can and now its time to move on.
Im going mad, get me out of here.
I should have listened to my gut.
My degree has led me in completely the wrong direction.
Careering to a halt vs career comeback
Your career was going along nicely, moving in the right direction at a
steady pace but now its stalled, or stopped altogether. Youre afraid it
might start to regress and you want to take preventative action. Very
sensible.
Or are you looking to come back into the game? Youve been away for
some time, voluntarily or involuntarily, but you have plenty left to give
and plenty more career highlights to create. But its hard to nd a way in
again and you need some help.
Whatever career conundrum you nd yourself in, you can and with
Brilliant Career Coach to guide you will unravel it.
You get out what you put in
Each phase of your career will make different demands on you and in return
will reward you in different ways. There are times when your career will be
going full throttle with little time or energy or inclination left for anything
else in your life, and times when your career seems to be spluttering to a
halt. Times when you want to give it your all and times when you cant bear
even to get up for work. Then there are the times in between, when you
have a happy balance between the work you do and your life outside work.
The factors that affect your career momentum are likely to include some
or all of the following:
What stage youre at in your career (see the ve decades table on
pages 1214)
Your internal sense of momentum and ambition
Your age/stage of life
Your physical health
Industry opportunities and the wider economy
What other life events are current for you what is going on outside
work.
The important thing is that, throughout your career, you create and make
the best choices available to you at the time.
Does your career t you?
The rst part of Brilliant Career Coach places a strong emphasis on nding
out what you want to do with your career. For most of my clients, this is
the single most important piece of information they want from me when
they undergo a careers assessment the missing piece of the jigsaw, as it
were. And while its really important to answer this question, the answer
is only part of the equation. The broader picture is just as important. You
may nd in your re ections that your core satisfaction derives not neces-
sarily from what you do, but who you do it for, who you do it with and how
you do it. Your career or job choice is only one part of the equation. The
who, with and how are equally important and contribute to the best t
between you and your career:
Do the choices you make about your career t you?
Do those choices re ect not just what you do, but also the who, with
and how?
Do you feel comfortable and at home in your career?
Do you feel you belong?
Do you feel you can be your best in your career?
Your career t is tied to your values and I will discuss this in more depth
in Chapter 3.
brilliant
tip
Your career t will change and evolve over time what you seek now in your
career may not be that important to you in 5 or 10 years time. Be aware of
this as you move through your career and make sure that your choices and
decisions reect your preferred t at each stage of your career and life.
First-hand experience
The case studies in Chapter 10 demonstrate this point really nicely. They
were written by inspirational people who have worked hard to make their
careers work for them, for people who strive to thrive in their careers. All
of them have persevered in nding the best t between them and their
career choices, and the best t between their careers and the rest of their
lives. Sometimes they have got it right, sometimes not. But key to all their
stories, and to their success, is that they continually strive to understand
themselves better, to play to their strengths and to make the best career
choices available at the time.
Five decades is a long time
Your career is likely to span ve or six decades. Thats a long time, espe-
cially if youre not enjoying it or if it is falling short of what youd hoped
for. Think about your own career. Is it going according to plan? Is it what
youd expected? Wanted? Hoped for? And are you thriving, surviving
or despairing? The following table outlines the best and worst of what
happens during each of the ve decades.
Decade What happens Thriving Deteriorating
Twenties
the
eye-opener
Part-time job or
summer job
First real job after
school or college
Apprenticeship
Graduate opportunity
First step on
management ladder
Starting to specialise
in your late 20s
Learning lots
Excited about the
road ahead
See lots of
opportunities
Feeling at home in
your chosen career
Meeting like-minded
people
Working hard to
impress
First job doesnt live up to
expectations so try one or
two others neither do
they
Find it difcult to be
motivated or satised
Everyone else seems to be
doing OK whats wrong
with me?
Sinking feeling of is this it?
Keeping up but its a real
struggle
Thirties
nding
your t
101 years
experience
Clear if you are in the
right eld or not
Key decisions are
whether to pursue
a management or
expert career path
This is the most
common decade for a
career change
House and family
responsibilities are
a big driver of your
career choices
Career path and
potential set in this
decade
Exciting career
opportunities
Maybe embark
on further studies
or undertake
a professional
qualication
This is the decade
where you will make
the biggest strides in
your career
Making a name for
yourself
Putting in long hours
to get ahead but
enjoying it
Still learning lots
have a few great
mentors who help
you along
Struggling to understand
how to manage career
Starting to feel left behind
peers moving ahead
Tried to diversify but it
didnt work out
Younger peers moving
faster while you stand still
Feeling demotivated and
stuck
Would love a career change
but havent a clue what to
do about it
Couldnt possibly move at
this stage in your career
No energy to upskill or
retrain
Get to nal round of a few
interviews but cant clinch
the deal
Work dissatisfaction starts
to seep into other areas of
your life
The ve decades of a career
Forties
up and
away
Most people reach
their career peak in
their 40s
Established in your
career
Hard to think about
doing anything else
This is typically the
decade that you
make it or not
Late developers can
do well in this decade
Firm reputation
established as expert
or generalist
Promoted to senior
team or to head up a
specic function
Most likely to be
headhunted for
senior positions in
your 40s
Valued and respected
in company and
across industry
Love what you do
and excited about
new opportunities
Extra-curricular
opportunities start
to emerge asked
to do talks at your
professional body
Career is ofcially in the
doldrums
Feel resigned to putting up
with this
No hope of catching up
with peers
Being overtaken by younger
workers
Feel frustrated and
despondent
Wouldnt consider a career
change condence gone
and what if it all went
wrong again?
Stress and anxiety become
an issue the stress of
being a square peg in a
round hole mainly
Have got a few interviews
for other companies but not
getting past rst round
Fifties
stabilising
Opportunities will
expand or contract
depending on your
company culture and
your own sense of
momentum
Financial situation
may become easier
and open up more
opportunities
Self-employment
and running a small
business may present
as an option
Work continues to
be exciting and you
are enjoying having
more inuence in
your company and
industry
You can also
delegate a lot more
especially stuff
that you dont enjoy.
There are lots of
younger people to
help out
Enjoying being a
mentor to younger
staff get a kick
out of learning from
them too
Given up looking for job
satisfaction
Turn up to get paid
Feeling bitter about
lost potential and lost
opportunities along the way
I should have done
something about this in my
20s or 30s
My boss is 20 years
younger than me and
seems to value the input
of younger staff members
over mine
Feel overlooked and ignored
Have been shifted to the
dead-end department/
team/project

Sixties
what next?
Opportunities will
expand or contract
depending on
company culture and
your own sense of
momentum
Career wind-down
starts to happen for
most
Self-employment/
consultancy positions
available for
motivated persons
Feeling great about
where youve got to
in your career
Have built strong
relationships along
the way
Some friends and
colleagues retiring
but youre still
enjoying what you do
Have been offered
some consultancy
after you retire
Also want to
volunteer as a
business mentor
Waiting for retirement
Its a long time coming
Seen as dead wood in the
organisation
Cant see where you add
value or are taken seriously
or respected
Why didnt I do something
about this when I could?
OK its not all that extreme
Clearly, the ve decades table gives a very general overview and presents
the best and worst of what can happen at each career stage. But I bet the
stories at each extreme made you sit up and take notice. The truth is that
few people will have a startlingly brilliant career where you thrive all the
way through. Your career, like your life, will have ups and downs. And I
hope that very few will have the litany of depressing events outlined in the
deteriorating column. There is a middle ground, too, where things are
okay but not great. Nothing to get too excited about, but not detrimental
to your mental health either.
Are you happy to settle for that? I didnt think so.
Its your choice
The key message that will be reiterated throughout these 10 chapters is
that most of what happens to you in your career is down to you. Its your
choice. Much of your success and satisfaction are determined by how you
think about your career and what you do. Clearly you can wait around
for a brilliant manager to realise your potential, a concerned partner to
shake you by the shoulders and tell you to wake up, or a supportive col-
league to help you reignite your self-belief. But really its much easier to
do it yourself to take control, make the right choices and create the best
career you can.
Take care
A word of caution before you get started on your career transformation.
Careers can veer in either direction. Your brilliant career can be derailed
unexpectedly, or your career that has lost its oomph can nd a new lease
of life. So dont become complacent; if its going well, mind it; and if its
broken (or breaking), x it. A career is like a relationship: youve got to
choose well, commit to it and then nurture, grow and invest in what you
have, in good times as well as bad. And inevitably, the more you put in
the more you get out. Well thats the simple explanation anyway. Read on
for the nitty-gritty on exactly how to do that.
Thrive or survive?
Generally speaking, people in work fall into one of two categories: those
who thrive and those who survive. Working as a coaching psychologist
over the past 15 years, I have always sought to learn more about these two
categories. The thrivers are those who make work work for them: those
who instinctively make the right career decisions; who effortlessly move
from one great job to another; who nd great people to work with and
for; who nd ways to make work a meaningful, ful lling and rewarding
part of their lives. The reality is that thrivers make up about 10 per cent
of the working population. A further 20 per cent, while not ecstatic about
work, like it well enough. The second category the survivors comprises
the other 70 per cent, who struggle to a greater or lesser extent with all
brilliant
question and answer
An overview of career satisfaction statistics suggests the following. Where do
you t?
10% 20% 30% 20% 10%
Desperately unhappy Unhappy Neutral Happy Incredibly happy
Think about how much better your life would be by moving up even one notch
on the scale.
of the above. Not all survivors are desperately unhappy or underful lled,
but some are. And if youre in the survivor category, all it means is that
theres merit in reviewing your situation and seeing what you can do to
improve it.
Career Transformation Formula
Learning mainly from my clients experiences, and also from research
from the eld of coaching psychology and related disciplines, I have
developed a formula that maximises your potential to be a career thriver.
It guarantees career success and satisfaction if you use it well. Its the job
of this book to make sure you can cover each step of the formula with
clarity and con dence and end up exactly where you should be.
Ive called it the Career Transformation Formula and it is as follows:
V3P3D1R
_______________
5S
2
where V, P, D, R, S
2
and T are described as.
V vision
Do you know yourself? Are you aware of your unique talents and skills?
Can you list and articulate them clearly and succinctly? Do you know
what you want in your career? Have you a speci c career goal to aim
for? Have you clearly worked out whats important to you in your career?
Have you thought about how your personality ts with your career
preferences, choices and goals? Your career vision is a succinct and clear
statement of what you want to achieve in your career and the type of
person you want to be in your career.
P plan
The plan includes the sequence of events that will get you from where
you are now to where you want to be. Think of your plan as a map, which
provides clear start and end points and also includes a number of pit stops
along the way. Your plan will outline the approximate time it will take you
to get to your goal and will also make reference to the list of supports and
resources you will need to execute your plan. Excellent plans will always
include a contingency route just in case.
D discipline
For me, this is the Holy Grail of any and every career strategy. Wherever I
see success and satisfaction in action, discipline is not far away. Discipline
refers to the structure, tenacity and perseverance that you consistently
display in your career endeavours. Discipline ensures that you work
your plan, even (and especially) when the going gets tough. Discipline
ensures that you pick yourself up and battle on after a setback. Discipline
ensures that you remain strong and focused in your mindset. Most career
plans fail or succeed based on the level of discipline you demonstrate
throughout.
R random
Being in the right place at the right time; a chance encounter with
someone who provides the perfect career opportunity for you; a lucky
break? I prefer to subscribe to the adage that you create your own
luck and by following the advice and doing the exercises throughout
this book, I think youll nd your luck increases exponentially. Why?
Because you are the one creating career-enhancing opportunities. As
former US President Thomas Jefferson said, The harder I work, the
luckier I get.
T timing
There are two elements to this: the timing for you personally; and the
timing of events taking place in the marketplace and in the economy
generally. For you personally, this is about your head being in the right
place and having the space in your life to embark on change and personal
and professional development. It is about acknowledging that all types
of investment and sometimes sacri ce need to be made to improve and
transform your situation. And in general terms, the state of the economy
will have an impact on the job market and how buoyant it is. Needless to
say, the healthier the economy, the more opportunities there are available
and the greater your career mobility.
S
2
satisfaction and success
This is what were all after, to a greater or lesser extent: nding a job
you love and attaining your desired level of success. And that is what
Brilliant Career Coach is all about helping you get there in the best way
possible.
Career Transformation Formula in pictures
If you prefer to think in pictures, this is what the formula looks like:
brilliant
tip
In order to make this formula work for you in the most efcient way possible,
you need to go through each parameter and decide what you have inuence
and control over and what you dont. Clearly, planning and discipline are
things that are rmly in your sphere of control, while timing and the state of
the economy are not.
V is for vision
Building a great career starts with one simple task building your self-
awareness. Many of my clients struggle with the V part of the formula.
This is the one parameter that can really stall your overall career
momentum so its important to get it right. Well spend the remainder of
this chapter and some of Chapter 2 working on your vision. Because once
thats in place, the rest becomes much easier to work out and implement.
Past success breeds future accomplishment
There is a lot of truth in the saying hindsight is 20/20 vision. So lets
use that message for looking ahead and creating your career vision. The
rationale here is that just as past accomplishment predicts future success,
past satisfaction can predict future ful lment. So by looking at what has
worked well for you in the past, by deciphering whats been enjoyable for
you to date, you can safely predict where future success and satisfaction
are likely to come from. What are your career highlights and what can they
tell you about your career vision?
Your highlights, please
Choosing the happiest and most successful parts of your career to look
at how you can move forward makes a lot of sense. The career strengths
and highlights exercise overleaf is a great way to remind yourself of all the
positives in your career, something you can easily lose sight of if youre
feeling confused or underwhelmed by your current situation. It is worth
putting a lot of thought and effort into this exercise as it provides the basis
for many of the coaching decisions you will make throughout Brilliant
Career Coach.
What do the key strengths and highlights exercises tell you about yourself?
Making career choices and decisions that are based on your recog-
nised strengths, your preferences and your t is about as close to
a guaranteed successful outcome as you can hope for. The career
strengths and highlights exercise forms part of a series of exercises in
Chapters 13 that will guide you in the best direction and allow you to
articulate clearly your vision for the future. The next step is to develop
this exercise into a synopsis of your career to date. This is useful for seeing
the downs as well as the ups.
The Whats your story? exercise overleaf is the starting point for devel-
oping a strong and compelling career story, one that convinces and
assures you and others that your vision is achievable. As well as being
extremely useful, many of my clients nd this exercise therapeutic and
fun. It always delivers heaps of self-learning and is the source of many of
your best career breakthroughs.
brilliant
exercise
Capturing your career strengths and highlights
Using the following template and prompts, create a spider diagram of your key career
strengths and highlights.
Best working
relationship
Key
achievements
Present work
strengths/
qualities
Memorable
feedback
Key learning
for me
A manager
I enjoyed
working for
Tasks and projects
I really enjoyed
Key talents
and skills
My career strengths
and highlights
brilliant
exercise
Whats your story?
One of the rst exercises I do with my coaching clients is to ask them to write their
career story on an A4 page. If your career is currently in the doldrums, that can become
all-consuming. It is incredible how much of your previous success and satisfaction has
been forgotten, so now is the time to bring those memories and experiences to the
fore. Remember to include all your strengths and highlights as you write.
Now get started! I have included lots of prompts. As you write your story,
re ect on the following:
What is your career story so far?
Why did you choose the career youre in?
Why did you make any moves or changes in direction?
What have you enjoyed most and least in your career?
How would you describe yourself at work?
How would others describe you?
What are you most proud of?
Which work relationship has been the most positive and why?
What kind of people do you get on best with?
What type of work environment do you feel most comfortable in?
Which parts of your story make you happiest?
Which parts would you prefer to skip over or delete?
What does your career story tell you about yourself that you didnt
already know?
To help you further, the following sets out the things I discovered about
myself when I rst did this exercise:
I can do a lot of jobs quite well but only a handful excellently.
My work relationships determine my overall level of job satisfaction.
I thrive when Im working with good people and wilt when Im
working alone.
I like to be my own boss but I dont like managing others.
I am a very good number two deputy boss, that is.
Im not terribly organised but I rarely, if ever, miss a deadline.
I am very practical and I like routine.
I am attracted to small companies that are values driven rather than
commercially driven.
I am not a corporate person; I dont do politics.
I operate on a 7-year cycle.
Pretty simple stuff really, but being aware of these things is very important
for my overall sense of career momentum, and I use this as a checklist for
any new opportunities and projects that come my way. Crucially, I use it
for thinking ahead and deciphering what I want to invest in, and get out
of, each 7-year career cycle.
brilliant
tip
Spend some time on this exercise and do a thorough job to do it well takes
about a day, so you may prefer to do it in a few sittings. It is a valuable
investment in your career success and satisfaction so is well worth the time
and effort. Review and build on your story from time to time and see what
new messages and new learning you get from it.
Convince with condence
What does your story say about you? Not surprisingly, those with a con-
dent and convincing narrative are much more likely to make successful
career transitions. I want you to create the best and most persuasive
backstory to where you are today. Even if your career is not where you
want it to be (and maybe thats why youre reading Brilliant Career
Coach), its important that you start this journey with a positive spring in
your step. So I want your story to be full of your skills, strengths, unique
talents and all-round brilliance. I can assure you that, armed with a
strong story to tell, you will make your career transformation much more
achievable.
From vision to purpose
The exercises you have completed in Chapter 1 are designed to build your
self-awareness and get lots of useful information out there and available
to you for creating your career vision and enhancing your future decision-
making. You will be pleasantly surprised at the amount of learning there
is from these two simple exercises and how much you will draw on that
information through Brilliant Career Coach.
Do you need a quick reminder of what your career vision is?
Your career vision is a succinct and clear statement of what you want to
achieve in your career and the type of person you want to be in your career.
Once you can clearly articulate it, you can start to become it. To help you
envision it further, the case study in the next chapter (pages 3840) illus-
trates how one person clari ed and achieved her career vision.
Fear not. . .
Have the career highlights and whats your story? exercises clari ed
your vision? If not, dont worry Chapter 2 continues to investigate what
your dream career is and how to get there. Youll be using a brilliant career
inventory that measures your level of interest in different careers, which is
especially suitable for those of you who want to change your career.
As you nish Chapter 1, you are already setting the right foundations for
your future brilliant career.
brilliant
recap
In Chapter 1, the learning centred around the following:
The business case for pursuing a happier career what the research and
evidence tell us.
The Career Transformation Formula, which gives you a sure-re recipe for
success and satisfaction.
The concept of career t as key to understanding all the facets of your
job satisfaction.
Looking at the various stages of the career life cycle to help you to
develop a broader focus and a clearer sense of perspective on your long-
term career path.
The key strengths and highlights exercise, which asked you to take a
positive overview of your key strengths, preferences and relationships.
How telling your career story and creating your career vision will set you
rmly on the road to a brighter and more purposeful future.
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What do you really want to be?
Next Next Chapter

Here is the secret of your success
CHAPTER 2
Whats your
story?
When love and skill work together,
expect a masterpiece
Charles Reade, English novelist
C
hapter 2 covers two core themes, kicking off with moulding your
career story. To help you form a complete career story, Ill be
asking a lot of questions. Give them as much thought as you can
each of them is important in fully understanding who you are, career-
wise, and, crucially, who you want to become. Your career story and the
narrative you create in Chapter 6 is hugely powerful in helping you trans-
form your career.
The second theme has to do with exploring your options and we do just
that. Using a Career Interest Questionnaire, a motives table and a range
of other career exploration methods, youll start to make key choices and
decisions about your brilliant career transformation.
Moulding your career story
The power of description
When you think about your career, do you think about what you want or
what an employer wants? Being aware of what you want without relating it
to a job, company or sector is only going to get you so far. So you need to
think of both. I am often asked to sit on interview panels and help com-
panies select the best talent. Sometimes Im not hugely interested in what
people have done, but I am eager to learn why they have done it, what
they learned from it and how they have integrated individual career events
into a cohesive and compelling narrative. Most importantly, I listen very
carefully to how they describe their role in creating the career they want.
Is your story convincing and compelling?
How you see yourself and the role you play in your career success will
determine the tone of the story you tell. If you are trying to change or
transform your career, how you interpret the history of your career to date
has signi cant impact and in uence. You want your story to be clear and
convincing, to tell the listener that you have thought long and hard about
your next career move, that you have a clear rationale for that move and
that you have determined how you will be successful in your next job,
role or company.
How do you see yourself?
There are many ways to interpret the same situation, depending on your
genes, your perspective, your level of self-belief and your life satisfaction.
If, for example, you have remained in an unhappy job for many years,
do you see yourself as passive or powerless? If you have changed job and
career repeatedly without nding a good t, do you see yourself as a per-
fectionist or simply unable to be happy? If you regularly fall out with your
colleagues or boss, do you see yourself as professionally dif cult, or is the
problem with them? If you constantly nd yourself promoted, do you see
yourself as a leader or just lucky? If you learn and develop constantly on
the job, do you see yourself as a scholar or merely adaptable? If you make
a success of a variety of jobs or projects, do you see yourself as a focused
winner or a Jack-of-all-trades? You get the picture.
Creating a strong and positive self-image forms an important part of your
career story and narrative.
Where are you heading?
Think of your career as a journey that will take you to many interesting
places. There will be stops along the way where you can get off and spend
a bit of time or continue straight on to the next destination. You will enjoy
some destinations more than others and some parts of the journey better
than others. There are many routes to where you are headed and you can
choose a different one on the way or when you get there.
Whats your story? 29
What will make your journey most enjoyable, most
productive and most worthwhile?
For some, it will be getting to the farthest destination in the shortest time
possible; for others, its all about the people you meet and what you learn
along the way. And for many, it is what they contribute to it and how they
support others on the journey with them:
What do you want your journey to be like? And what is your role in
this journey?
Who do you want to travel with and where do you want to go?
Who are you and who would you like to be?
When I see people for career coaching, and hear their career story, it
quickly becomes clear what role they see themselves as playing. There are
three main characters that emerge: career driver; career passenger; and
career hitchhiker.
Career driver
You know where you are going and how to get there. You create opportu-
nities for yourself in order to get to your destination as quickly as possible.
But how do you know you are taking the best route?
Career passenger
You allow your career to be managed by your boss or your company. You
are carried along by the momentum that they create for you. You wait for
opportunities to come to you rather than nd them yourself. This can
work out great for you if you have the right manager or employer but
what if you dont?
Career hitchhiker
Your career is waiting to happen and you probably dont really know
where you want to end up. You may be lucky and get the perfect lift to the
right place. Or you may have to take some detours or change your plans
entirely. And you may be waiting some time.
Reect and learn
Understanding your past informs your future in a very real and mean-
ingful way. It provides the greatest opportunity for learning about yourself
and shaping your aspirations for the future. It encourages you to think
through the options and alternatives available to you now and in the
immediate future. Put simply, it ensures you make the best decision about
your career every time.
So how do you do this? Building in regular periods of re ection about
your career success and satisfaction is probably the most important habit
to learn and one that is reiterated throughout this book. By means of
this ongoing re ection, you are creating and growing your self-awareness
toolkit, which will lead you to a bright and ful lling career future.
Which one are you?
Its likely that you will have the experience of being each of the three charac-
ters at different stages of your career. At the start of your career, when youre
not sure of your ground, it often makes sense to be a passenger until you
become more sure of your terrain. Most of us will have a period of being a
career hitchhiker, not too sure of our next destination or how to get there,
and this is particularly true if youve had some kind of set back. One thing
is certain though to achieve any kind of career transformation, you really
need to be in the driving seat. Lets see how we can achieve that, shall we?
Grow your awareness
Self-awareness is the act of focusing attention on oneself . In other
words, keeping an eye on how things are going for you. Why is this impor-
tant for making better career choices? Because research tells us that those
who are self-aware have a clearer sense of where they want to be and how
to get there. Furthermore, self-aware people take more responsibility for
their behaviour. These are all important parts of improving your career
prospects as well as your job satisfaction.
He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is
enlightened.
Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism
What are my options? How do I identify them?
Lets look at the next step which is exploring your options, and how you
can make sure you make the best choice possible. There are many and
varied ways of nding your favourite career so read on and choose the
best one for you.
To prole or not to prole?
As a coaching psychologist, psychometric pro ling is a big part of what
I do when I coach individuals towards greater success and satisfaction.
Typically, I recommend that all our coaching and career-change clients
undertake some form of pro ling (although its not obligatory) because,
put simply, it improves the quality of the conversation I can have with
them.
Most people have a sound level of self-awareness, and the pro ling often
simply con rms what they already know. For those with a low level of
self-awareness, however, it can provide startling and signi cant insights.
Its not a magic wand
Often clients think that the pro les will magically provide the solution to
a problem that has often been ongoing for some years and that simply
isnt the case. The most signi cant breakthrough in their thinking happens
after a period of re ection (which is why there is such a strong emphasis
on the career story in Chapter 1, as it provides a useful structure for that
re ection). And many breakthroughs happen in conversation where, as
a coach, you use your investigative toolkit to probe areas of importance.
There are benets but . . .
I have been using pro ling over the past 15 years, so clearly I am a fan,
albeit one with reservations. The key bene ts that pro ling can add to a
career coaching session are as follows:
It creates a platform for starting a good career conversation.
It can save time in getting to the nub of the matter.
It prompts a number of useful career-related questions.
It provides an insight into different aspects of your preferences,
personality and work style.
It gives an objective view of your preferences and personality, which
can be readily compared with people with similar backgrounds.
It delivers key information in a structured and user-friendly format.
Where does personality t into all this?
As you will see in Elaines case study at the end of this chapter, per-
sonality is a critical part of your t with your career choice. It tells
you how compatible your career choice is with your preferred way
of working and interacting with others. There are also heaps of free
personality questionnaires available online, but be aware that some
of them are of questionable merit and may only serve to confuse you
further! As a free online resource, the following link provides a well-
designed questionnaire covering personality and preferences and it
issues a high-quality report free of charge. Give it a try and see what
you think: www. ndingpotential.com/individuals.
Youve already done this
The career strengths and highlights and the career story exercises in
Chapter 1 are also good sources of information for matching your prefer-
ences and personality and exploring what type of career options emerge.
Phone a friend
We talk in more detail about the type of people who will help (or hinder)
your career plans in Chapter 6. Gaining support at this early stage will
help you move things along, so enlist the help of others. We all profess to
know our families/partners/best friends better than they know themselves,
so put that insight to good use. I saw a client once who arrived for the
session laden down with about 10 letters some of them pages long.
He had written to close family and friends enclosing a questionnaire he
had designed himself canvassing their opinions on his imminent career
change. The responses were both enlightening and hilarious but there
was a common theme running through all of them, which was that he was
a good listener. This strongly tied in with the feedback from his careers
assessment. He also wanted to pursue a career where he could be self-
employed so, after working through and researching a number of options,
he decided to do a degree in psychology in order to pursue a career as a
counsellor.
Critical questions
Here are some questions you can put to your nearest and dearest, and be
sure to ask them to provide examples so you are truly convinced of what
they say:
How would you describe me?
What are your thoughts on my career to date?
What do you consider to be my natural talents?
How would you describe my interpersonal style?
Is there any career you think I would be suited to? Why?
What type of work environment do you see me working in most
successfully?
What do you think I should do in my career?
What would it take for me to ful l my potential?
What might hold me back?
What do I need to be doing more/less of?
Write it down
Paul Mooney, who is featured in the case studies in Chapter 10, advises
his clients to write down any and every job they could possibly do no
holds barred. Then he works through the list with them and helps them
rule things in or out based on a clear set of criteria, and he then creates
a plan of action with them. He reckons that if you invest 10 hours in this
exercise over a few sittings, the answer will emerge as your subconscious
works away on the issue between sittings.
For the creatives and lateral thinkers among you
Its also useful to create a visual of your story. Here are some formats that
work really well:
Use a ipchart to draw your career story use a red marker to circle
the highlights and blue to circle the lowlights. Is there more red than
blue on your page?
Create a mind map (www.mindmapping.com).
Complete a career audit (table of career highs and lows, skills and
preferences).
Use Post-it notes to do a collage of your key skills, strengths,
preferences and priorities.
brilliant
denition
Mind map
Making an arrangement of words into a picture, which has a key concept at
the centre or at the top, and related words and concepts linked to the key
concept by means of lines and arrows.
Hang your masterpiece up in your study/of ce/kitchen/bedroom, some-
where that you will see it every day, to remind yourself of your career
highlights and your brilliance.
What do you want to do with the rest of your life?
The Career Interest Questionnaire
1
opposite gives a general overview
of different careers and activities, divided into six core categories. Each
category contains ve questions. Using the following rating scale, rate
your level of interest in working in each of the areas on a day-to-day
basis. The note column on the right-hand side of the questionnaire
allows you to add in any notes or comments that will be useful to
consider.
3 5 Im very interested
2 5 Im interested
1 5 I have little interest
0 5 I have no interest.
1
Please bear in mind that the questionnaire does not provide an exhaustive list of careers and is
for general guidance only. It is not an accredited psychometric tool. To access the large range
of
psychometric tools accredited by the British Psychological Society (BPS), such as the
Vocational
Interest Inventory, Strong Inventory and Career Path nder, you will need to visit a
professional
career counsellor who is quali ed to level B in psychometric testing by the BPS.
Career Interest Questionnaire
PEOPLE This category refers to jobs or activities that focus on helping,
supporting, advising, leading and healing people.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include medical and nursing
careers; psychology and counselling; management and HR; physical and
mental therapies; teaching and educating; coaching and mentoring;
training and developing others
How interested are you in helping others acquire and develop new skills?
How interested are you in treating people who are physically unwell?
How interested are you in keeping people informed of details and
developments?
How interested are you in advising people to resolve a personal problem?
How interested are you in managing, leading and inuencing others?
Total score per category
BUSINESS and COMMERCE This category refers to jobs or activities that
are concerned with growing and developing businesses and prot margins.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include sales and marketing;
business and nance roles; purchasing and buying roles; entrepreneurial
roles; retail and other jobs with a commercial emphasis
How interested are you in creating new and original business ideas?
How interested are you in implementing business plans and ideas?
How interested are you in negotiating business contracts and deals?
How interested are you in selling and promoting products and services?
How interested are you in growing a business and its prots?
ART and CULTURE This category refers to jobs and activities in the arts
and culture arena, and includes jobs that involve promoting the arts and
roles that are primarily concerned with the aesthetic.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include pure artistic roles such as
artist and performer; roles in the arts administration and museum sectors
How interested are you in performing on stage?
How interested are you in creating a work of art?
How interested are you in promoting the arts?
How interested are you in making arts and culture more accessible to a
wider audience?
How interested are you in being an expert in an artistic eld?

INFORMATION and RESEARCH This category refers to jobs and activities
that involve collating, ordering, analysing and evaluating different types of
information for a variety of different companies and sectors.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include researcher (market or
social); archivist; librarian; information technologist; data executive; legal
roles; operational IT roles; journalist
How interested are you in studying and researching the behaviour of
humans and societies?
How interested are you in analysing information and writing reports based
on that information?
How interested are you in gathering and sorting data?
How interested are you in generating information through a variety of media?
How interested are you in reviewing, auditing and correcting information?
TECHNICAL This category refers to jobs in the technical arena and often
involves working on tasks, projects and machinery. There is often a physical
component.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include jobs in engineering and
construction; manual roles and trades; technical IT roles
How interested are you in the installation and maintenance of machinery?
How interested are you in the design and implementation of technical
systems and solutions?
How interested are you in maintaining quality systems?
How interested are you in designing and building physical structures?
How interested are you in working in the outdoors in a physical capacity?
CREATIVE and CONCEPTUAL This category refers to working with
ideas and concepts and often involves a degree of creativity and
problem-solving.
Score Note
Jobs and careers related to this category include legal roles; creative roles in
IT; creative media roles
How interested are you in designing new concepts, products or materials?
How interested are you in generating new ideas and being innovative in
your work approach?
How interested are you in coming up with novel solutions to new or
existing problems?
How interested are you in challenging assumptions and arguing your case?
How interested are you in designing and implementing the latest
technology?
How to score and interpret your career questionnaire
Add up your total score per category and use the following guide:
Scores This means Note
1215 You are very interested in
working in a job or career
related to this category
This is a top-tier interest category for you. You
will enjoy most roles related to this category
1012 You have an interest in a
job or career related to this
category
There is an overall sense of interest emerging
here. Look at your individual scores to discriminate
between the different aspects of this category
510 You may be interested in some
specic roles or jobs or careers
Look out for any 3s for areas of specic interest
05 You have little or no interest
in working in jobs or careers
Are there any 3s in your scoring? If so, it may
be that you are interested in a specic aspect of
this category
So what now?
Look at the list of jobs and careers under each category in the Career
Interest Questionnaire. Now its time for homework! You will need to
research any areas of interest emerging from the questionnaire. Chapter
6 covers this process in more depth, but for now the following links will
provide access to government-run careers services with lots of useful
information such as job descriptions, entry requirements, typical career
paths and so on. I rmly advise you to make use of the multitude of free
resources available to you.
www.careersadvice.direct.gov.uk
www.learndirect.co.uk/improve-your-job-prospects/
www.careerdirections.ie (Ireland)
brilliant
question
John Lees, in his excellent book How to Get a Job Youll Love (2010, McGraw-Hill), asks
his readers to consider the following: what would you do if all jobs paid the same?
By taking money and status out of the equation, you are able to compare jobs based
purely on the day-to-day content, rather than on the more socially desirable aspects
such as prestige, earning potential or status. These can often act as big distractions
from your true preferences.
Further reading
If you now know what you want to do and are eager to get going,
Chapters 4 and 5 will speed your progress. You can ne-tune your career
choice and decision-making and start setting concrete goals and time-
lines. Theres also a useful table of all the different types of career and a
description of the type of people you want to surround yourself with. In
addition, Chapter 5 contains an in-depth look at learning, development
and retraining for those of you embarking on a career change, plus a step-
by-step guide to researching your next career move.
For now though, lets nish Chapter 2 with a success story.
brilliant
example
Elaine came to see me 2 years ago. She was unfullled and frustrated with her role as
an IT sales executive, despite an impressive track record of success. She had also had
a blow to her condence when her contract hadnt been extended as expected. She
knew she wanted to change direction, but was feeling unsure about how to do it, or
whether she should play it safe and stay in her current eld and make the best of it.
Being a naturally strong individual, she wasnt used to feeling unsure about her path
and found it unsettling.
When I see a career-change client, there are three ways in which I gather information:
First, they complete a range of questionnaires that tell me their career story
rather like the exercise you completed in Chapter 1.
Secondly, they complete a battery of psychometric tests covering three key areas:
occupational interests and preferences; personality and work approach; and
motives and values. The resulting proles give me a really clear picture of their
ideal work scenario.
Thirdly, we meet to discuss all of the above in great detail, with the clear aim of
creating a practical plan of action that reects their prole, their aspirations and
their current situation.
I asked Elaine the three questions that start every career change conversation:
Why did you choose your current career?
What do you want from a new job or career?
What are you prepared to do to make that change happen?
In terms of career choice, after completing her degree in business, Elaine had fallen
into technical sales and enjoyed the independence and lifestyle associated with a
career on the road. She was also successful at what she did, and the fruits of her
labour afforded her a nice lifestyle.
What emerged from our conversation and a full discussion of her proles was that,
while she appreciated the commercial imperative of the business environment, she
was not a natural salesperson. What she was, however, was creative, organised and
people-oriented. And she was looking to utilise these preferences in a business setting
preferably her own business at some stage.
While somewhat nervous about taking a big risk, Elaine was willing and ready to
embark on a new calling but she needed to know she was making the right choice
before taking the leap. She also needed to maintain a solid earning capacity, so full-
time study wasnt an option.
We discussed areas as diverse as human resource management, charity fundraising
and marketing until we started to home in on the creativity angle in more depth.
Elaine told me that she loved fashion and interior design and that most of her spare
time was spent pursuing these hobbies, as well as helping friends with styling and
shop t-outs. We were on the right track. The R part of the Career Transformation
Formula covered in Chapter 1 was also in evidence for Elaine. A former business
contact had a thriving network of small retail outlets and was looking for someone
to manage and upgrade the properties and be involved in running the people side
of the business. He was also interested in expanding the outlets and was looking for
someone with a strong commercial awareness to project manage this.
Was this a good option for her? At rst, it didnt sound like the most creative or
people-oriented role possible, but when we delved further we determined that if Elaine
concentrated on the refurbishment and upgrade of the properties (which incorporated
her creative air) and she was the main point of contact for the existing staff in the
outlets (looking after her people-oriented motivation), this could be a very good role
for her. Added to that, it allowed her the same level of autonomy she had enjoyed
in her previous role, and an equity option in the business after an initial settling-in
period.
Elaine now manages this successful enterprise. Business is booming despite operating
in a recession; she loves what she does and is passionate about being the best in her
eld. Most of all she loves being her own boss and coming up with new and creative
ways to develop the business.

Whats your passion?
In The New Alchemists (2004, Hutchinson) management guru Charles
Handy explores the question of motivation and what drives our career
choices and behaviour. He interviewed a number of highly successful
Elaines career vision
To do something I am passionate about which allows me to be creative and have a
positive impact on others.
Elaines greatest learning about herself
I felt quite anti-business going into the career assessment process after a
disappointing conclusion to my career in sales. So I was hoping to be sent rmly down
a more creative path. The fact that my creative bent was recognised was a big relief
but I wasnt expecting the business motivation to be so strong so it was interesting to
hear about how my business and creative interests could be married.
Elaines top tip
Keep an open mind about your options and give yourself time for your thoughts and
ideas to settle. When the time is right, once youve done your homework and your gut tells
you its okay take the leap into a new area. I did, and I dont regret it for a minute.
Elaines biggest challenge in making a career change
Having no idea whether the transition would work or whether I would have to go back to
sales, which I really didnt want. Doing the assessment, doing my homework and talking to
loads of people about my ideas really helped to give me the condence to take the plunge.
brilliant
impact
Elaine is a great example of what you can achieve if you systematically work
through the information available to you and are prepared to take a calculated risk.
Not everyone can afford (or wants) to go to a psychologist for a full psychometric
assessment, but using the tools and exercises in Brilliant Career Coach and dedicating
the time to them will get you to the same place.
people and heard about why they made certain choices and decisions in
their careers. What was interesting about their comments was the con-
sistent mention of following your passion combined with sheer graft as
being the recipe for success and satisfaction.
Working out what motivates and drives you is the key to discovering your
true passion. Ask yourself the questions in the Work Motivation Chart
below to identify whats most important to you in your work. Taking
an holistic overview of your motives will make sure you make the right
choices every time.
Work Motivation Chart
Key motivational
ingredients
Ask yourself the following questions:
You and your job
Meaningful work Do you nd your work fullling?
What percentage of your work do you enjoy?
Does the type of work you do excite you?
Are you proud of what you do?
Does your work add something positive to your life?
Are you interested in the content of your work?
Is there potential for being passionate about your work?
Clarity of role Are you clear about whats expected of you at work?
Do you know how your role ts in with the aims and objectives of your
team/your department/your organisation?
Is there a clear reporting structure?
Do you have a job description/a person specication/an
organisational chart?
A sustainable
workload
What percentage of your work do you enjoy?
Do you have enough work to ll your day?
Can you complete your work in your contracted hours?
Is your overtime rewarded or recognised?
Feelings of choice
and control over
your work
Is work allocated based on peoples preferences and strengths?
Do your job and career choices suit your personality and work style?
Can you opt out of projects/working groups/committees that are not
beneting from your input?

Key motivational
ingredients
Ask yourself the following questions:
Feelings of choice
and control
over your work
continued
Are there set ways in which you must do your work standard
operating procedures?
Can you have any input into these?
Can you decide how and when you complete your work?
Is there a facility for you to make suggestions about work procedures
and processes?
You and others
Appropriate
recognition
Do you receive regular feedback from your boss?
Do you have annual/biannual performance appraisals?
Do you have regular review meetings or debriefs with your colleagues
after each project?
Availability of
social support in
the workplace
Are you friends with any of your colleagues?
Do you socialise with colleagues outside of work?
Is there a social club at work?
Would you be willing to organise a social event outside of work?
Do you and your colleagues discuss non-related work issues?
Altruistic
environment/
opportunities
Is there a collaborative and supportive culture?
Is there an appreciation of the non-commercial aspect of your work?
You and your
organisation
Money Are you being paid fairly/competitively (in line with your colleagues
and the marketplace)?
Do you have an annual/biannual salary review?
Is there a bonus/share scheme/performance related pay system in place?
Belief in your
organisation
Do you know your companys mission statement?
Are you proud to work for your company?
Think about which of the following work environments appeal to you?
Which do you feel most suits your personality and your work style?
Private sector Public sector Co-operative
Voluntary/charity sector Large corporate Self-employed
Small start-up Family business
Opportunity for
career progression
Are there clear career progression paths in your organisation?
Does your organisation invest in training and development?
Is there a learning culture?
brilliant
recap
Chapter 2 continued the conversation about your career narrative and
outlined the importance of strong and positive content and tone.
Learning to appreciate your many strengths and talents will rmly send
you on your way to a stronger and more fullling future.
You looked at the different perspectives people can adopt in interpreting
and describing their career roles in order to identify who you are and
what it means for your career transformation.
The Career Interest Questionnaire, as well as other methods of exploring
your career options, will provide you with valuable ways to move your
career vision to the next stage.
Learning from the rst-hand experience of a recent career changer can be
helpful.
The Work Motivation Chart is useful for identifying your key motives and
drivers.
Is your story clearer and more positive than when you started reading this
chapter? Have you developed a clear sense of the direction youd like to
follow? Is your career vision clear? You should be closer to clarifying what
it is youre striving for. If not, review the chapter and identify any gaps in
your re ection and analysis. If theres still room for clarity, dont worry
Chapter 3 continues the discussion, so read on.
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Whats your story?
Next Next Chapter

Part 2 Your plan
CHAPTER 3
Here is the
secret of your
success
Knowing yourself is the beginning of
all wisdom
Aristotle, Greek philosopher
T
his chapter brings us to the end of Part 1 of Brilliant Career Coach
the part that focuses on you. So far, you have completed a range
of exercises designed to raise your self-awareness and focus clearly
on the brilliant career that lies ahead for you.
In Chapters 1 and 2, the emphasis was on nding the right career and
making sure there was a strong t between you and your career choice.
But many of you reading Brilliant Career Coach may not want to change
career. You may be perfectly happy with what youre doing, but you want
to improve how you do it, or learn to enjoy it more. And thats what
Chapter 3 is about getting more from your day-to-day work. The focus
is on success; more speci cally, your vision of success and how you can
achieve it.
As well as a full exploration of what de nes success for you, well look
at why a biannual career MOT is great for your career happiness and
success. Looking at whether a career change is the right answer for you is
also part of this discussion, so if youre not sure if now is the right time
for change, read on. And for some immediate intervention on growing
your job satisfaction, theres the Happiness Challenge, which is all about
developing practical and positive work habits.
Well use a similar approach to Chapter 2. After all, all career transforma-
tions, radical or subtle, are based on the same set of principles: enhanced
self-awareness and thinking, leading to enhanced decisions and actions.
What does success mean for you?
When I asked a random sample of clients and associates what success
meant to them, their responses were many and varied:
The secret of your success
Have you ever thought of what success looks like for you? What does it
feel like for you? And how do you achieve it? Success is a purely personal
and subjective notion and one that can be hard to pin down or de ne. But
pin it down you must, as it provides for you the purpose of your career
choices, decisions and endeavours.
Success is often tied to an accomplishment or an achievement of some
kind. But really its much bigger and broader than that as evidenced by
the breadth of the feedback shown above. The way I like to think about
it, and the way that my clients engage most readily with the concept of
What does success
mean for you?
Earning comparatively
more than my peers
Being seen as
an expert
Getting to the top of
my career ladder
Being well known
for what I do
Forging strong
work relationships
and alliances
Earning respect and
recognition from
my boss and peers
Overcoming adversity
and feeling stronger
as a result
Learning from my
career mistakes
Learning to have fun
at work and not take
myself so seriously
Failing, and learning
an important lesson
in the process
Constantly challenging
myself and learning
new skills
To continually grow
and develop as a
person and a
professional
Being myself and
being true to myself
Helping others be the
best they can be
Retiring at age 40!
Being my own boss
Having time for
research and professional
development
Finding the courage to
do what I have always
wanted to do
Here is the secret of your success 49
success, is by thinking about a time when we have exceeded expectations
(our own or other peoples). For some, success is tied to money, status or
power; for others, its linked to the expression of creativity or to altruism;
and for others still, its all about relationships.
In this chapter, we want to make sure that you are pursuing the right
career goals for you. The exercises you have completed in Chapters 1 and
2 will contribute to the overall picture of your preferences and priorities.
And the exercises that you complete in this section will clarify the nal
piece of the self-awareness jigsaw.
After that, its all systems go and you can start planning your brilliant
career with con dence.
brilliant
example
High-ying in the wrong direction
Simon, a coaching client, was an accomplished business analyst with a strong track
record of success and achievement in his eld. He was promoted regularly and had
set himself a clear 5-year plan to get to the top of his organisation. His level and pace
of progression were on track; however, when he came to see me, he had been feeling
discouraged and underfullled.
When we explored what had happened over that time period and what had
immediately preceded it, two events stood out. The rst was a change of boss 6
months previously. On the face of it they got on ne, but he had reservations about
his new bosss values and his way of managing more junior members of staff, which
did not sit well with Simon. Coupled with that, he found that, as he got nearer the
top spot, the focus of his role became more about management than about using his
technical skills.
When we looked at how this direction suited his overall sense of career purpose, and
his picture of what success meant to him, it became clear where his unhappiness
stemmed from a mismatch between his current reality and his aspirations. In
answering the career purpose questions listed on page 54, we discovered that his
core purpose and the driver of his vision of success had two components: rst, the
quality of his working relationships was a clear indicator of success (this had been
Is your mental image of your career picture perfect?
The following exercise is invaluable for exploring what type of work envi-
ronment most appeals to you, as well as how and where you see yourself
in your dream career. In other words, it captures exactly what success
means to you and why, and, crucially, what success looks like. And if you
start to develop a clear picture of this now, it gives you something to work
towards. Its a creative exercise which involves drawing. So, for example,
one person will draw an of ce setting with lots of people, while someone
else will draw themselves boarding a plane or working outdoors, and some
of you may represent a speci c scene in your career standing up to a
tough boss, giving a company presentation or winning an award at an
industry event or nding contentment in the everyday of what you do,
being yourself at work.
Whatever you create holds important information about what success
means to you.
brilliant
exercise
Its really easy to do all you have to do is raid your childs/nieces/nephews art box
to include some or all of the following: colourful paper, paper glue, scissors, colouring
pens/pencils/stencils/stickers/glitter/play dough, paper clips, and any other bits and
pieces you can think of. Then, simply spend half an hour creating a masterpiece that
represents your career dreams and aspirations.
Note that if you dont see yourself as the creative type, it may take a few minutes to
immerse yourself fully in this exercise. Dont throw the towel in persevere. Its well
compromised by his new boss); and secondly, he wanted to be seen as an outstanding
technical expert (which had been diluted by his ever-growing management remit).
It took only a few sessions to work out how to steer his ship back on course, while
maintaining his overall ambition of rising to the top. The solution? Revert his efforts
back into a senior technical role and pursue promotion in that direction (a 3-year
plan). As head of a core technical function, he could build a tightly knit, well-supported
and highly regarded team of specialists around him, which he could start now and
within 3 years have the support of strong relationships to sustain his career efforts.
I did the exercise above many years ago when I moved back to Dublin
from London in my late 20s. I had left a great job as head of career
development at Career Psychology Ltd, a company I loved, to relocate
to my home town. Not long after I moved back, while I was enjoying a
few weeks off to think about my next move, I was invited on a leadership
and personal development course with a well-known American coach. I
jumped at the chance to attend. I was at a critical point in my career and
was looking forward to hearing what this expert had to say.
My options were either to continue my career in an organisational
setting where the job opportunities were plentiful, or to embark on
a much less predictable journey and join my friend John Deely at
Pinpoint a company specialising in career coaching which he had
just founded.
And so I found myself in a room with lots of high- yers from big
companies. We started the day with this creativity exercise. So with
six of us sitting around each table, packed with every imaginable kind
of artistic prop, we were asked to create our dream job on paper,
using the various colourful and sticky materials available to us. There
was very little instruction, so it was really up to us to decide how we
wanted to do this. Half an hour later, I had glued a large red love
heart that took over most of the page. This was accompanied by a
blue sunny sky and a small group of people. I had also included a
very badly drawn acrobat to represent exibility. One of the course
facilitators was doing a tour of our table and stopped at mine and
said, Ah, youre looking for love!? Yes, I replied, a job I love. And,
I realised, one that allowed me to be exible (I have never enjoyed the
9-to-5 drill) and to work with a small group of talented people. The
picture I created allowed me to fully articulate these very important
things I wanted in my career and clearly led me towards the right
career choice.
worth it. And while the exercise on its own wont solve all your career dilemmas, I
guarantee it will help you make a breakthrough regarding something important, as
it did for me (see below). Your best learning can take place doing a task youre not
used to.
When I looked around at all the other offerings, I saw many different
pictures lots of ladders with people hovering precariously at the top!
Many high buildings with a matchstick person sitting at a desk in the
corner of ce on the top oor, and various other indicators of corporate
success made with coloured paper and glue. Even though I had been
ruminating for a few weeks about my next move, my choice was instantly
clari ed for me through this exercise. And while I already had a sense of
what was important to me that which de ned success for me the
visual representation provided the breakthrough I needed to commit to
action.
I rang John straight after the course to arrange our next meeting and
of cially joined him on our edging Pinpoint adventure. We recently
celebrated our 10-year anniversary. It has been a fantastic decade, and of
course we have hit a few road bumps along the way, but it has unquestion-
ably been the best career choice for both of us.
Have a go and see what the creativity exercise on page 50 can add to your
sense of clarity and forward momentum. As well as highlighting whats
important to you in your next career move, it can act as a timely reminder
of what you already have, sometimes without realising and appreciating
it. The following fable communicates this important message succinctly
and well.
Fishing for your future
A tourist boat docked in a tiny picturesque village in Mexico. The harbour
was a hive of activity with shermen taking in their catch from their day
on the open sea. One of the tourists, an American, got chatting to a local
sherman and complimented him on the quality of his sh. He asked him
how long it took him to catch them.
Not very long, answered the sherman.
But then, why didnt you stay out longer and catch more? asked the
tourist.
The sherman explained that his small catch was suf cient to meet his
needs and those of his family.
The tourist asked, But what do you do with the rest of your time?
I sleep late, sh a little, play with my children and take a siesta with my
wife. In the evenings, I go into the village to see my friends, have a few
drinks, play the guitar and sing a few songs . . . I have a full life.
The tourist interrupted: I have an MBA from Harvard and I can help
you! You should start by shing longer every day. You can then sell
the extra sh you catch. With the extra revenue, you can buy a bigger
boat.
And after that? said the sherman.
With the extra money the larger boat will bring, you can buy a second one
and a third one and so on until you have an entire eet of trawlers. Instead
of selling your sh to a middle man, you can then negotiate directly with
the processing plants and maybe even open your own plant. You can then
leave this little village and move to Mexico City, Los Angeles, or even
New York City! From there you can direct your new global enterprise,
importing and exporting sh and other produce.
How long would that take? asked the sherman.
Twenty, perhaps 25 years, replied the tourist.
And after that? the sherman asked.
Afterwards? Thats when it gets really interesting, answered the American,
laughing. When your business gets really big, you can start selling stocks
and make millions!
Millions? Really? And what then?
After that youll be able to retire, live in a tiny village near the coast, sleep
late, play with your children, catch a few sh, take a siesta with your wife
and spend your evenings drinking and enjoying your friends.
Know where youre going in life . . . you may already be there.
Know whats important to you in life, you may already have it.
Career health check
As we discussed in Chapters 1 and 2, self-awareness is the cornerstone
of any good career decision. It is also the cornerstone of your well-being
at work. Research has shown that executives and managers with a high
level of self-awareness make more satisfying career choices and experience
greater career success.
So if youre already in the right job or the right company, what should you
do to carry out regular career maintenance?
brilliant
exercise
My colleague John Deely designed this brilliant one-page exercise to help you keep
an eye on your career health. Even if youre in the right job, its good to be aware of
whats going well for you so you can enjoy it more and of course whats not going
well so you can take steps to remedy it. The career health check focuses on your job
satisfaction: how youre feeling about work; and your progress: how youre doing at
work. These are the two key indicators of a healthy (or unhealthy) career.
Take the career health check
Every 6 months, take yourself out for a sandwich. Bring a pen and sheet of paper. Ask
yourself the following questions:
brilliant
questions
Career purpose
Is your career vision clear (or becoming clearer)?
What is your career purpose?
What denes success and satisfaction for you?
Are your current career efforts leading you in the right direction?
Am I enjoying my role as much as I did 6 months ago?
If yes . . .
Progress What have I learned?
How have I developed?
Satisfaction
and strengths
What was the high point?
What challenges did I overcome?
What is my key talent in my job/role/organisation?
What am I most admired for?
People What relationships have I developed?
Who have I learned from?
Who have I inspired?
If no, why not?
Explore Why not? Is it my role or some of the people I work with?
Has something changed about my role or organisation in the last 6 months
to affect my job satisfaction?
What specically am I not looking forward to in the next 6 months?
Have I taken time off recently or enough time off in general?
Actions for
me
What can I do about it? Is it xable?
How can I get back to doing what I love?
How can I get back to doing what Im good at?
How can I work with people I admire and trust?
Engaging
help
Who can I learn from?
Who can or should I talk to about this?
Is there something in my repertoire or skill set that I need to develop that
will make a difference?
This simple exercise will keep you focused on what you love about your job and what
you want from it. It also allows you to detect and diagnose ebbing satisfaction early
so that you can act fast and prevent a minor issue becoming a major one.
Are you living the six values?
We looked at your motives in the previous chapter, and now we want to
look at values, the things that create a sense of belonging for you in your
work. The six values below
1
paint a picture of a truly joyful work environ-
ment and capture core values that resonate with most people. Are these
values evident in your work, and do you contribute positively to them
in your role? The presence of these values will boost your probability of
success.
1
Adapted from The Six Actions That Make Us Happy At Work by Alexander Kjerulf
(www.positivesharing.com).
Learning
Your career is a journey. Along the way its really important for your moti-
vation and career prospects that you are constantly learning, keeping up
with new developments, gaining new skills and feeling like you are always
improving and staying ahead of the crowd.
Openness
The best environment to work in is one where people can discuss their
ideas and aspirations openly, where communication is honest and trans-
parent, and where people are recognised for their contribution and receive
feedback.
Love
Im not talking about romantic love here (although we all know that it
can happen at work). What I mean by love in this context is work love
creating an environment where people thrive because they love what they
do. The way to create this environment is by nding the best people to do
the job and then letting them get on with it.
Meaning
A continuation of the concept of t between a person and their job. Is
your job simply a means of paying the bills, a way of passing the time? Or
does it enhance you as a worker and as a person? The wider context is a
connection between the employee and their organisation. Do you know
how your job ts in with what the organisation is trying to achieve?
Participation
The majority of people prefer to work with people. Person for person,
high-performing teams outperform lone workers by 30 per cent, and work
relationships are a key driver of job satisfaction. This is because of the
sharing, collaboration and support that are part of the traditional theme
ethos. Added to that, the best way to become better at what you do is by
learning from others, and learning is key to satisfaction and success. See
the example overleaf for a good demonstration of this.
Positivity
I want to focus on this point here because its important for the exercise
youll do on page 61. Optimists are more successful, are emotionally
healthier and live longer than pessimists. And they have higher levels
of job satisfaction. Personally I think that everyone can bene t from
coaching in this area. Why? Because in the face of adversity, we need to
be resilient, positive and optimistic. Transforming your career takes will,
skill and effort, but approaching this change with an optimistic mindset
makes it more achievable and enjoyable.
Whether you think you can or whether you think you cant,
youre right.
Henry Ford, American industrialist
brilliant
example
Youll hear all about architect Angela Bradys career in Chapter 10, but to illustrate
one of the points from the six values, here she talks about the importance of team
and participation. She says, Having a good team in the ofce is important because
we work well together and we do a better job when we share skills and responsibility.
Her staff are encouraged not to work more than 40 hours a week. Angela says, They
all have a life outside the ofce and their own families too.
Angela is heavily involved in promoting sustainable architecture in the public domain
as well as increasing the representation of women in the profession. She is keen to get
as many people as possible to participate in her causes, saying, In order to motivate
and encourage participation on committees, where people are giving up a lot of their
free time, you have to recognise and communicate the idea that together we can add
strength to whatever we set out to achieve.
Should I stay or should I go?
When something signi cant goes wrong in your work life, it has a dis-
astrous effect on your well-being and sense of job satisfaction. But, like
many things in life, when things are tough, thats the perfect time to
learn the most about how to manage your career. So, before you go full
throttle for a new job or even a new career, you need to ask yourself
two things.
General or specic?
First, is your dissatisfaction caused by a speci c event (e.g. a poor working
relationship) or a more general unease about the overall orientation of
your career?
Flee or x?
Secondly, can you x the issue? Clearly, speci c events are much more
xable than general events. If you can resist the urge to ee, however, it
really is worth putting in the effort to x whatever it is that is upsetting
you. In Chapter 8, we troubleshoot a range of everyday issues and prob-
lems that can blight your work life. And there is step-by-step coaching
in how to prevent, manage and rectify these situations by simply having
direct and open conversations with others.
Many of my clients come to me having ed a speci c problem (more
often than not a relationship issue) only to nd that the issue simply
recurs in a new environment. My previous book, Happy at Work (2007,
Prentice Hall), devotes an entire section to xing common problems such
as growing strong and supportive work relationships, being more assertive
and optimistic, and managing your world of work more effectively.
If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are
heading.
Lao Tzu, Chinese philosopher and founder of Taoism
How to manage your mind during this process
Tackling any aspect of your career development is a signi cant under-
taking and you need to feel prepared for the challenge and ready to invest
a substantial amount of energy in improving your situation. Think about
what you have going on in your life at the moment. Are any other major
life events current or imminent? Births, deaths, marriages, break-ups,
health issues, house moves and so on. Implementing any career strategy
takes a minimum of 3 months and often 612 months, so look at your
year ahead and think about the timing. Is now the right time for you?
Note that the converse of this argument is also valid there will always
be other stuff going on in your life, so if your career is constantly being
pushed to the bottom of the list, there may be some avoidance going on.
Ill trust you to make the right judgement about your own situation.
The big picture
In boom times, people prioritise job satisfaction over job security.
Opportunities abound, so job mobility increases accordingly. And the
opposite is true in recessions job security is of primary concern to us
all. People stay in jobs because they feel lucky to have them. Liking your
job is seen as a welcome bonus rather than the prerequisite it should be.
Maybe you want to embark on a new direction but now simply isnt the
time.
When is a career change not the answer?
Are there opportunities staring you in the face that youre not seeing?
Right job, wrong place
Some people are in the right job but in the wrong company or industry.
If thats you then maybe its time to explore other sectors (see the Which
work environment ts you best chart in Chapter 5).
Wrong job, wrong time
Sometimes it is just simply bad timing. Other commitments could stand
in the way of a career change in the short term the arrival of a new baby,
a new nancial commitment, a change in personal circumstances, etc. All
these things can bar the way for career change.
If a job or career change is beyond your scope for now, there are still
plenty of ways to improve your existing situation. The following Happiness
Challenge outlines 10 tangible things you can do, starting today, that are
proven to make your work day better, and you happier. Do 3 out of the
10 activities every day for 3 weeks and watch your job satisfaction soar.
Do you want to improve your job satisfaction by up to 40 per cent? Take the Happiness
Challenge its easy!
Get physical: exercise
for half an hour three
times a week
Introduce a walking club at work and take lunchtime walks.
Join a gym near work with one of your colleagues and motivate
each other to go twice a week.
Sign up for yoga, pilates, aerobics or a spinning class with one of
your colleagues.
Organise a sports tournament at work great for tness, team-
building and morale boosting.
Cycle to work its eco-friendly and saves a fortune. Or take
public transport to work so that you can walk to and from the
train or bus station and there are tax incentives available to
your company too.
Count your blessings:
at the end of each day,
reect on at least ve
things youre grateful
for
This is very effective. Even on a not-so-good day, challenge
yourself to come up with three good things that happened to
you. Doing this reminds you to highlight the positive and not get
sucked into a purely negative frame of mind. Even small things
like meeting a daily deadline, having a nice lunch, beating the
rush-hour trafc or catching up with an old workmate can put a
positive spin on your day. Psychologists call this savouring.
Talk time The two most important relationships for creating a happy work
environment are with your closest colleague and your boss.
Nurture your work relationships by organising weekly catch-ups,
monthly reviews, midweek lunches or after-work activities. Its
easy to chat to your best work buddy, but make time to talk to
your boss or someone outside your team at least once a day.
Plant something: even
if its a window box
or pot plant. Keep it
alive!
Keep a plant on your desk and look after it! If you dont have
plants in the ofce or the common areas, suggest to your boss
that your ofce goes green. Not only do plants improve the
quality of the air you breathe but research has shown that your
physical work environment impacts signicantly on your well-
being at work too.
Cut your TV viewing
by half
Cut your internet surng by half. Workers spend on average 20
per cent of their work day surng the net and much of this is
spent fuelling your consumer instincts via exposure to advertising
and online shopping. Bhutans top spot on the Global Happiness
Index is widely attributed to a national ban on advertising. Think
about it . . .
Smile at or say hello
to a stranger at least
once each day
Do you look at your feet when you get into the lift? Do you
ignore a fellow employee at the bus stop because you only
know them by sight? Do you greet the person you buy your
daily coffee/scone/newspaper from? Smile and say hello. You
dont even need to have a chat but its common courtesy to
acknowledge people you come across on a daily basis, and heart-
warming for you as well as them.

Phone a friend/
colleague
Has a work colleague moved department, or moved company?
Keep in touch every now and again by phone or by email. Its
life-afrming for people to know that they havent been forgotten
about the moment theyre out of your line of vision, so this
works for you and for them (its also a useful networking skill).
Companies that hold annual lunches for retired staff members
anecdotally report increased morale amongst current staff
members who attend those lunches.
Have a good laugh at
least once a day
All work and no play make Jack and Jill dull. Surround yourself
with fun people. Especially if you work in a high-stress area, take
some time out for some light-hearted banter its an important
part of bonding with colleagues. Smiling and laughing are great
de-stressors and using humour cements work relationships.
Seeing the funny side of difcult situations can also be a
good way to keep people engaged and motivated, instead of
feeling defeated or deated. High-stress workers such as those
involved in the emergency services often use humour as a useful
stress-buster.
Every day make sure
you give yourself a
treat. Take time to
really enjoy this
A cappuccino or some chocolate (or even better a herbal tea!)
to beat the 3pm slump, a fancy lunch with colleagues every now
and then, a nice walk at lunchtime, a taxi home from work on a
Friday . . . reward yourself with a treat every day as a reminder of
your unique skills and talents.
Daily kindness: do an
extra good turn for
someone each day
Much of the happiness research points to the role of kindness in
making you happier. Think about how you can practise kindness
in your workplace. Try this out by helping a colleague meet a
deadline, offering someone from the ofce a lift home, making
an extra effort to help a new colleague settle in, or including
people who are on the outskirts youll nd that making life
more pleasant for the people around you has a positive impact
on you too.
(From Happy at Work: Ten Steps to Ultimate Job Satisfaction by Sophie Rowan.)
Call to action
It isnt suf cient just to want youve got to ask yourself what
you are going to do to get the things you want.
Franklin D. Roosevelt
We are approaching the end of Chapter 3, which coincides with the end
of Part 1.
The core focus of Part 1 was on you. But before we recap on where youre
at, its time to make an important commitment to yourself.
Ive referred a number of times to the fact that structure and discipline are
integral parts of nding and following your dream career. So what does
that mean for you? It means that you need to put aside time every week to
work on your brilliant career.
How much time?
Well, that depends on a lot of things: for example, if youre trying to
change tack in your career, hold down a full-time job, plus manage a
range of personal commitments, then you havent got much spare time.
However, you need to nd at least 2 hours a week, and thats the bare
minimum. For those with a bit more disposable time (maybe those of you
who work part-time or who have a more exible routine working from
home), I would recommend 68 hours a week divided into two or three
dedicated sessions. And for those who may have been made redundant
or who are unemployed, I recommend 2 hours a day. When I see career-
change clients at Pinpoint, I am very clear with them about the level of
commitment necessary.
You need to maintain a steady and consistent input into your
career efforts in order to see the right results in a reasonable
amount of time.
What does it entail?
What you will be doing in this time will be clearly outlined with more
detail provided in the coming chapters and includes the following:
Spending time on re ection and building your self-awareness.
Talking to people involved in your preferred job or career to get a
rst-hand view of what the day-to-day drill entails.
Registering with networking groups and attending networking events.
Using the internet to research job descriptions and entry
requirements into different elds.
Reading career books and articles. All the national papers have
dedicated careers and recruitment sections.
Creating a top-of-the-range CV that clearly relates your skills and
experience to your target job or industry.
Signing up with a small number of reputable recruitment agents and
headhunters and arranging to meet them in person where possible.
Becoming familiar with recruitment advertising forums and
uploading your CV to a select number of job search sites.
Enhancing and updating your professional pro le on LinkedIn and
related forums.
Being active on social networking sites.
Registering with career self-help groups online activity or attending
talks and workshops.
Preparing for interview by scripting interview questions and
responses and practising with a friend or family member.
brilliant
recap
Chapter 3 focused on how to make your work life better without changing
career. So if you want to stay put what next?
The Career Health Check exercise shines the spotlight on where you are
currently at in your career, whats going well for you and whats not.
Exploring what success means to you is key to any career decision you will
make and any career action you will take so work it out now.
Is your mental image of your career picture perfect? The creative exercise
helps you to form a clear picture of what your ideal career or career
situation looks like. And its much easier to pursue it if you have a picture
as well as information.
Take the Happiness Challenge, which will result in your story being clearer
and more positive than when you started reading this chapter.
Part 1 Recap
In Part 1, the focus was on deciding what it is youd like to do with your
career. Once this is clear, it makes the actual doing part much easier. By
working through your career to date and working out what you enjoy most
and whats important to you in your career, you may well have a clear career
goal in mind. Dont worry if you dont, though, as Part 2 provides plenty
more food for thought, as well as some active decision-making and goal-
setting to get you well on your way to your dream career.
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