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Cheyenne works as a junior investment analyst for a major investment firm in New York. She spends most of her time collecting data and updating spreadsheets, then handing her hard work over to the senior analysts who get to have all the fun. She’s been at it for five years now, four and half years longer than she’d planned, expecting to be snatched up to play in the big leagues where she thought she deserved to be. And she never misses an opportunity to let the people she works with know how she’s been short-changed and treated unfairly since day one.
Cheyenne is young, grew up in the digital age of social media and instant gratification. It’s simply unfathomable to her that she shouldn’t get exactly what she wants when she wants it. She has no patience for putting in the time and earning her place at the big table. For the last six months she’s been showing up late, complaining from the moment she walks through the door until she slips back out a few minutes early. Yet she’s still utterly amazed that she’s not on a fast track to a senior position. The thing is, when you show up to work with the attitude of a prisoner forced to work the chow line, it’s going to affect your potential for advancement. When all you do is bitch, moan, and complain about how much you hate your job, word is going to travel up the chain of command, and guess who’s not going to be at the top of the list for the next round of promotions?
Listen, it’s estimated that you're going to spend about 1/3 of your life working. That turns out to be about 90,000 hours at the workplace. So whether you're fixing cars or raising a family or coding software or leading a Fortune 100 company, you better freakin love what you do. One of the key spaces in life people work on at our Power Series Weekend Intensives is Career. People come with one of two things:
A Challenge - I hate my job, my boss, my industry, my commute, my coworkers...or I'm bored, uninspired, unappreciated, underpaid and overworked...or anything along those lines.
-OR-
Something to Create - I want to build my business, I want this dream job, I have an invention, I want to 10x my company, I want to make global VP, etc.
If you're in a space of challenge, your first step is to really love what you do. Okay, hear me out, now...I'm not saying you need to stay in a job you hate forever. And I'm not discounting that sometimes it's just not a fit. But, before you burn it all down, you need to become the person who attracts, and fits within, the job you want. So you're going to need to set a vision for what you want in your career, and how you want to feel day by day with that 33% of your waking hours. Do you want to feel inspired? Fulfilled? Joyful? Peaceful? Empowered? Loving? Compassionate? All of the above? What's it going to be?
When you’ve developed a vision for what you want in your career, ask yourself what you want your life to look like, what lifestyle you want to be living. Then ask yourself, How can I do this thing I love to do in such a way that it provides the lifestyle that's important to me? Whatever it is for you, once you've got a vision, it’s time to get training, my friend. Light up that emotion and bring it to your current job, even on the toughest of days. Show up as the embodiment of peace or confidence, infect the joint with inspiration and passion. Bring love to what you do, and you'll be surprised what ideas spring forth and what opportunities (seemingly suddenly) present themselves. Love what you do while you pursue doing what you love.
Cole works as a food server for a high-end restaurant in Chicago. It’s not his dream job, but it’s close. Cole wants to open his own restaurant. Not a fancy place like where he works now, but something with a fun, casual atmosphere, family friendly, with high quality, affordable menu items. Cole doesn’t feel like his current job is holding him back or that he’s put in the time and deserves something in return. In fact, he looks at waiting tables as training and education in his profession.
He shows up everyday ready to provide the best service possible. He treats every customer as a guest in his own home. He’s supportive of his team mates, always willing to jump in where needed and always with a smile and a “let’s do this” attitude. Whenever he has a spare minute, he chats up the kitchen staff, learning what they do and the roles they play in the restaurant. He stays after hours with the manager, learning how to take inventory, place orders, schedule staff, how to adjust menu items based on costs and market prices.
Cheyenne could take a page from Cole’s book. Like Cole, she’s working in the profession where she wants to be, she’s just not moving up as quickly as she thinks she deserves. And that’s the first major adjustment she needs to make. Let’s be clear on one thing: In the world of business, no one deserves anything. If you go into the workplace with the mindset of being owed something, you’re shooting yourself in the foot right off the bat. Most business is merit-based, meaning you’re going to be compensated according to what you bring to the table. And that doesn’t just mean raw skills or level of education. It’s also about the kind of person you are, how you treat your teammates and the work space, the level of respect and honor you bring to everything that you do. Let’s face it, you might be the greatest (fill in the blank) on the planet, but if you’re a real a-hole, no one’s going to want to work with you.
Flash forward one year: Cole opened his restaurant, more than a year ahead of the schedule he set for himself. He was able to get where he wants to be faster because he’s not going it alone. The owners of that fancy restaurant he worked for were so impressed by his performance as an employee that they offered to help bankroll his initial investment. A couple of other servers, two members of the kitchen staff, and one of the assistant managers joined Cole in his new venture, which the owners of that fancy restaurant weren’t entirely crazy about, but since they now had a stake in the new restaurant, they didn’t put up much of a fuss.
Cheyenne, on the other hand, no longer works for that investment firm. For the time being, she’s doing telemarketing for a company that manufactures eco-friendly hair products. But let’s face it, she’s probably not going to be there for long, either. She learned nothing from her experience at the investment firm or the reason she was let go. Management said the company was downsizing, but if she’d been attuned to what she was bringing to the workplace, she might have realized that she was fired because everyone was fed up with her crumby attitude. Even in her new job, she never misses an opportunity to complain about the hours, the compensation, the management, and how she got cheated out of the career she really wanted.
You’ve probably heard the saying, “Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.” It’s a cute saying, but it’s not entirely accurate. Sometimes work is hard. It’s time consuming, frustrating, tiring, confusing, disappointing. Even if you’re doing the one thing you love more than life itself. I’m sure Elon Musk loves what he does. I’m also sure there are days when he’d rather pull all of his hair out, one strand at a time, than sit through another board meeting. But he does it anyway, with enthusiasm and inspiration, because he knows it’s that energy that will carry him through the rough patches.
There’s still hope for Cheyenne, but it rests on her ability and determination to create something new for herself. She needs to decide who she wants to be at work. What is the energy, the emotion, she wants to bring to her job, to her fellow employees, to the culture of the business? She needs to get clear on the type of lifestyle she wants for herself and what exactly she needs to do to get there. In short, Cheyenne needs to completely reimagine and then create who she is and what she wants rather than simply feeling entitled to it.
Take a look at your own life, and if you’re seeing a little more Cheyenne than you’d like, don’t worry! It’s never too late to make a change of course. We've got you covered with the Power Series, where you can create a Vision, create key benchmarks and build an action plan for moving forward. You can learn to leverage your emotions and develop supportive thought strategies, and you can train your Intuition to help you bridge the gap between where you are now to where you want to go! Click HERE to learn more about the Power Series and sign up today!
