Job Search - Based On A True Story
If someone asked you to describe one of the lowest points in your life, it usually always includes the loss of a loved one. After that it could be many things. And to be fair everything is subjective anyway, what was a horrible period for me was a non event for you etc ..
After losing my mother to cancer when she was only 58, my lowest point revolved around being unemployed at age 50. Worst of all, it was all of my own free will. I wasn’t down sized, fired or laid off, nope, not me! Just walked away from it all. Really!
I actually walked away from a great media career thinking I’d take a 90 degree turn into a new adventure .. hey life is short after all! Now what the hell was I smoking! For any number of reasons I wasn’t as hot a prospect as my ego lead me to believe. Stay with me, I’m making a point in all this.
Regardless of why you are unemployed, you are still sharing my story, and that’s all about not working, not making money, not paying bills, being terribly embarrassed and dedpressed, having your confidence & self esteem eroded by the day, crazy mood swings, becoming unmotivated, watching your personality start to change, and even just avoiding people altogether. Being at the bottom of Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs” triangle was a tough reality. My physiological needs were in ruins. Don’t leave now or you’ll miss the up side to all this.
During this tough period I met an old friend, who was well aware of my past media life as a broadcaster and media executive. He was a Campus Director for a private college. “Hey Mike, have you ever thought about teaching” he said. Immediately that old adage flew though my brain, “Those who can .. do & those who can’t .. teach” .. Well it seemed like a great quote, only while my ego was riding the top of the charts, and truth be told, the quote was incredibly stupid anyway. Better scripted as “Those who can, do .. those who understand .. teach”. Hey there is a point in this rant!
Long story short, I took my old friend up on his offer and taught at the college level for a few years and truly loved it. It literally saved me from financial ruin and gave me back all that I’d lost and then some.
What in the wide world of sports has any of this got to do with you? If you happen to be in a dark place, like the one I was in .. there is a solution. Not a magic bullet fix. If you are willing to follow a few ideas from someone (me) who fought his way back from the war, scars and all, then I think we have a common ground.
As a teacher, I love the interaction, especially when the lesson is learned, even more so when results become the living proof that the lesson was valid. I was fortunate to be able to use a great many anecdotal stories to teach beyond just the curriculum itself. What I’m talking about here is exactly that.
Kind of like my own movie, and “based on a true story”. It’s not the low points of my story I want to dwell on, my God who wants to hear all that pain. It’s the solutions, the small fixes I found that work when you’re in job search mode.
I put together a detailed newsletter of the things you need to change or at least pay attention to when job hunting. Hey, it’s just a process, easy, simple, just follow the steps. None of this is rocket science.
I will detail the “85% rule” that literally saved me. It’s the fastest way I know of to get a job interview and back to work. What this is not .. this is not repackaged material from some self-help guide, it’s real solutions, with proven results, from someone who’s been to hell and back.
http://www.extremelistening.com/
Mike Perras is a former broadcast executive, freelance journalist, business consultant and college teacher. He also tutors & coaches privately. You can write to him at mikeperras@hotmail.com or visit http://www.extremelistening.com If you would like to share this article with others, please feel free to do so.
Tags: job finder, job interviews, job search, search jobs