By Jean Hollands
Jean on the Job
If you are employed or you are independently wealthy, keep reading. Your fellow Americans need you. And if you are unemployed, keep reading too. I have a guaranteed work plan.
For those who are safe, please dish yourself up a big helping of compassion. It hurts so much, from the inside out, to feel unwanted. The thousands of laid off or prematurely retired among us feel frightened. They are mortified to tell their children, their parents, their friends. Others sit staring at an empty checking account and credit lines pulled. Some who invented, owned, founded or loved a business now see the trail endings of creditors and bankruptcy papers. It hurts their ego, their soul and their dinner table.
Most successful people do not like to talk about vulnerable moments in their careers. I just got a letter from someone who said he is nearly catatonic with despair because he can’t support his family. This moment in time is hard on the psyche of the American family. So if you are not in this space, simply offer a comforting shoulder to your neighbor. Even when you feel helpless, you can still say, “I’m really sorry this is happening to you.”
Bring your friend some new ideas. His may be burned out. Offer to buy a soda, bring him a new magazine, send her a gift - a small one, with a note that says, “I know these are hard days for you.”
And now for the guarantee for the unemployed person. If you choose to volunteer at five public benefit companies each day, you will have networked yourself into a job within a month. Try it. You must volunteer at five different places each day for at least four consecutive weeks. It works. You must spend all day and do legitimate work, and the agencies must all be non-profit and need you. Ideas are: Red Cross, YMCAs, Rotacare Clinics, schools, chambers of commerce, preschools, music schools, family planning clinics, nursing homes, environmental agencies, hospitals, churches, and more and more and more.
Let me know if it doesn’t work for you, and especially when it does work. Working takes work. Finding work takes increasing the prospect numbers. Volunteer every day for four weeks. It will take a few weeks to interview and put the plan into place. Don’t give up. Just think, you will have been a service to the world while networking for your new career and life. Every “no” is a possible “maybe,” and every “maybe” is a possible “yes.”
Jean A. Hollands, CEO, Growth & Leadership Center, author of a new book, “Same Game Different Rules - How to Get Ahead Without Being a Bully Broad, Ice Queen or ‘Ms. Understood’,” was voted Business Woman of the Year in 1986 and 1996. Write to GLC, 1451 Grant Road, Mountain View 94040.
