On unfulfilling work – one way out!

Zen shows up in the artfulness of the ordinary as well as in the economy of movement of the artisan, the care of the craftsperson, the patience of the gardener.

Is it possible, in your primary occupation, and in the other tasks that you do, with great regularity, to work in this spirit?

Do you feel victimized by your vocation? Are you stuck in a dead-end job? Experiencing burnout? Or do you genuinely enjoy what you do? Someone has suggested hat if you’re unahppy in your work, you’re making a dying, not a living.

What’s possible? Change of job? Change of attitude?

Too often people endure the boredom, the drudgery, because of hte wage they receive, which enable them to live their real life, apart from their work.

The Buddhist point of view regards the function of work as threefold:

- to give the worker a chance to utilize and develop her/his faculties

- to enable that person to overcome ego-centeredness by joining with others in a common task

- to bring forth goods and services necessary for a humane existence.

So what do you do if these noble ideals don’t describe your work setting?

I am convinced that the best antidote to boredom is no escape, but attention. If the situation cannot be profitably changed, then immerse yourself in it. Bring an artisan’s spirit to your work, taking pride in your best, most focused effort

The Coaching Mix

Celebrating the International Coaching Week in Bucharest, thanks to Business-Edu, coaches and clients (as well as potential coaches and potential clients) are enjoying a rare opportunity of sharing thoughts and rising questions together.

My Monday evening topic – The Coaching Mix – focused on the talents coaches use to give value to the process and boost results: intuition (presentation attached), innovation, imagination, creativity and the spiritual quotient (SQ). I was impressed not only by the number of people joining the conversation (we were expecting a dozen maybe, and ended up almost 30!), but by the directions in which the topics drove us.

- What is the difference between wisdom and spiritual development? Is the latter just a fad notion? I need to look into this more, but my instinct was that these words cover the same path with some small, yet important difference: the former is the end of the road, implying experience, while the latter is the path itself, opened to people regardless of age and such…Spiritual development is a way of enhancing one’s intuition (this is how the issue was raised in the first place)…

- Why are we taking about spirituality all of a sudden? I guess it has to do with the fact that more and more people are searching the deep core of their actions and feelings, and coaching assisting them have to deal with spiritual needs at a certain point…

- Is coaching leaning towards psychology? Definitely not, considering the time orientation – psychology deals with the past, tries to explain it and decide based on it, while coaching is related to future actions

The evening made my week because I felt my conviction that the coaching talents approached in this Coaching Mix can be developed (as opposed to being innate) passed on to the group. I sincerely believe we are a 10 in all of them and that it’s only a matter of exercise and discipline to let these talents work for us and our clients. 

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Goal setting experiment – check this out :)

The success rate of new year resolution is not spectacular (at least not in my book), so here’s a though: what about settling for a differentiating, long awaited SINGLE GOAL, which once accomplished would make a significant difference – and sticking to it till accomplished?

Probably a key competence you’ve long yearned for could easily fit into this model – such as a particular leadership competence that requires repetitive reinforcement in order to settle (think self-control or empathy for instance), or a complex skill such as speaking a foreign language or losing 25 kilos…whatever it is, picking ONE to focus on and using a full range of ways to work on it might, just might, make 2010 the year in which you finally did it!

January 1st’s unique value

January 1st is an interesting moment – you eat & drink & party, decide to lose weight and quit smoking, experience fear of the unknown and hight hopes and generally wonder how the plot will unfold yet one more time.

The value of this particular day of the year stems from your openness to think disruptively. We are somehow more open to accepting fairy tale “what if’s” today than perhaps any other day of the year – so let us capitalize on this shall we? Let your mind wonder around for a few moments and picture 2010 at its peak for you as a whole person…inhale deeply and pinpoint that vision.

Here’s mine: I’ll have a wonderful year –  fulfilling, filled with happy days and touching moments, joyful successes and rich in learning. Because I’ll be close to smart, wise, creative, giving people with which I’ll share my best to make 2010 our best year yet.

What we need to do is to conserve disruptiveness across the rest of the year, dance through the daily options jazz style and never forget to enjoy the present. I enjoyed today; mission accomplished. Oh, and starting a new year with a weekend must be a good sign right?

Capitalism 2.0: entrepreneurs vs. speculators vs. governments

In a world devoid of cash, I’ve recently started paying attention to the beautiful world of business funding. What triggered this post though goes beyond the “trivial” hurdles of attracting what are often tiny sums needed for generous ideas that make a lot of business sense, into the bluring vision of “what’s next”…Sramana Mitra’s insight into Capitalism 2.0 generated the title of the post, but more importantly changed my paradigm about sources of funding into a direction that is not exactly favouring them…

To make things even more interesting, I’m going to use the example of a guy I’ve only met a fortnight ago, whom I’ve pledged to help out because of his incredible human value, dedication to a beautiful cause and potential breakthrouth impact. So here is Bogdan H. needing some 120,000 EUR for a project designed to help young people with dancing & acting aptitudes discover & grow their talent, to educate & emotionally empower people, and to promote Romania via its cultural value (as opposed to similitude with the word “rom” or other Dracula-related brand positioning). You’ll have to take my word for the value of the project, because describing it is beyond the point of this post. The point is here: out of the tens of structural funds & grants available between 2009-2013 for cultural projects, none is currently open. Here comes the GOVERNMENT actor mentioned in the title: how is it possible that local & European governments provision obscene amounts of money (I’m talking thousands of million EUR) towards big companies and completely disregard the breakthrough that can be better expected to come from incredibly committed people such as Bogdan?  Swimming around in the same pool of big players is easier to administer and catering is nicer at events, but should these be the only criteria for spendin OUR money? I really want to know some of my taxes are put to better use and perhaps one good starting point is to have in the government apparatus some volunteers with a fresh point of view for this type of decisions…

With the government (who incidentally bears the main responsiblility for education & culture) out of the picture, Bogdan’s chances are in the hands of sponsors (VERY tough job these days if you catch the drift) or Angel Investors – specifically people willing to provide the seed money for this type of social entreprise if you wish. Efforts like his (with all the self-understood sacrifices he and his crew are ready to make for their dream) are such an incredibly safer bet than those of established businesses already getting into the bureaucracy mode. But here’s the catch: he is least likely to generate a “healthy” (to be read speculative) return on the investment, plus he may not be so happy with giving away the control over a beautiful concept in exchange of the funding (as the twist in the concept might ruin his dream). So what do we have here? A bunch of guys willing to self-sacrifice for a beautiful concept with significant social impact versus a bunch of completely different guys looking for a luxurious waiting time for a glorious return of their money.

I’m really upset here. Because the current system does not allow for any other option. (I sure hope I’m off track here and someone will comment to prove me wrong!). We do need Capitalism 2.0 in which people with dreams can find a way out of these Scylla & Charibda choices. If we don’t invent it, if we don’t find a way to reward good people with good ideas that make good business sense, we’re doomed to plunge forever in the world of Maddoff’s and such…