Your Personal Energy is Your Key to Hunting For a New Job
Personal “energy” can appear in many different forms and has many different outlet potentials.
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to conduct a fascinating research project that was my doctoral dissertation in my field of psychology. The study, titled “Life Storied: What are the key learning schemas shaped by storytelling and metaphors in downsized, white male executives 45-60 years of age?” aimed to understand the different transformations that men experience when losing one’s job.
Using a scientific research methodology called grounded theory, I personally interviewed the participants in the study, recorded the interviews and analyzed the recordings in search of common themes. What emerged were six core themes:
1. Letting go.
2. Time to take an account of life.
3. Purpose-Driven work.
4. Renewed self-reliance
5. A new vocabulary of performance.
6. Never naive again.
Interestingly, these themes mirrored past research on men going through job layoffs dating back to the early 1900s, as well as the 1950’s through 2000. Women, too, experience similar issues as well.
Even more interesting was that, even though these men “said” they had a desire to work in a more rewarding career, to try something new, to reinvent themselves in a new career or pursue starting their own business, nearly every participant was actively pursuing employment and networking in the very world of business they just had been terminated. What they really wanted to do was, in fact, out of their comfort zone and knowledge radius, thus making it near impossible to change directions. (Note: money requirements, health, relocation and spousal employment can also be factors of influence.)
The challenge for people to make a dramatic shift in careers later in life can be daunting. Taking calculated risks, even considering a different viewpoint or exploring one’s potentially biased or ignorant assumptions about an industry or profession is very difficult for professionals, having ridden the long train of corporate policy conditioning and climbing the corporate ladder.
What this research demonstrated, as validated by other scientific studies shows, is that one’s ability and willingness to channel energy-mental, physical, emotional-into study, experimentation, research, practice and networking is paramount to creating more options of employment, relationships, vibrant new experiences and even higher compensation. My on-going field research via 78,000 interviews with business professionals over the past 24 years shows such habit patterns consistent over time. It also allows me insights to what are some common traits and behaviors of the more successful, balanced business professionals practice.
To provide you with a grand example of how personal energy can be channeled in different ways, let me tell you a true story. This story will tie the research we just reviewed into a real example for you to chew on. However, please note my warning sign posted here: Do not read this story immediately after eating.
Important fact: They were, after all, laboratory-raised.
Fall Season, 2006: Middle of the USA. The trees are turning brilliant colors and fudge makers from Mackinac Island, Michigan, to Door County, Wisconsin, to Nauvoo, Illinois, along the Mississippi River in Southern Illinois, are ordering walnuts and pecans and chilling their marble slabs anticipating throws of tourists.
It is in these parts that, six months prior to the fall season, a sharp and family entertainment conscious marketing team at Six Flags Great America-a full blown rollercoaster, cotton candy theme park in Gurnee, Illinois-gather for the Monday morning brainstorming session. Today’s topic: Fall Events.
Full Disclosure: I wasn’t at the session and don’t know anybody that was-but I have an idea of how it went.
Let’s set the scene (Names have been picked at random): Director of Creative Marketing, Daniel Swanson, a two-year employee with Six Flags, a University of Illinois graduate with a BA, a major in Marketing, a minor in Park District Administration addresses the team behind closed doors. Daniel’s starting to speak, let’s listen in at the keyhole:
“Team, fall is around the corner and we’ve got to upgrade the tourist counts as well as attract the wealthier clientele. They’re the ones who will buy, buy, buy the products and services we have here. We need something exciting, thrilling and unique that will appeal to such an educated, family-oriented, even health-conscious consumer. Ok, Stephen, grab a marker please and let’s get the white board up and running and toss out some ideas. Sam?”
“How about an apple carving contest that people can only use their teeth?”
Daniel: “Good! Americana all the way-love it. Pauline, what about you?”
“How about we get Alice Cooper to play center stage and have a look-a-like contest? The winner gets to appear onstage with Alice to sing Billion Dollar Babies?”
Daniel: “Interesting. Not sure if that will appeal to a majority of the clientele, but we could-yes, Frank, I see you waving your hand feverishly. What, what?”
“I’ve got it. I’ve got it! Let’s have a live-not dead-cockroach eating contest? And-get this-any person eating one gets a FREE PASS to go the head of the line of any ride for the ENTIRE FRIGHT FEST! Maybe let them bring a few friends, too.”
Total and deafening silence falls upon the room for what seems like three seconds. Wait. Wait. Wait…
“Gadzooks man-that’s it,” Daniel hollers. “Outstanding! You have captured the essence of what fall and Halloween are all about. Why didn’t we think of this before? You just won yourself some Pier One gift cards, Frank. Ok, team, let’s start this ball rollin’. I’ll run it by the chief, but he’ll buy into this hook, line and sinker. Sam, start to write the ad copy for the papers, website and press releases. Eric, get accounting to line up some snappy free pass cards with a bug theme, as well as some logo-ed tee shirts and baseball hats. Pauline, snoop around to find us a supplier of cockroaches. There’s got to be some local place we can get a gallon bucket full for a few bucks. Let’s get cracking, team!”
No, I’m not sure it went exactly this way, but my guess is it’s pretty close.
This is a true story. At least the eating part is. Read the article on page 3 of the Chicago area’s Daily Herald for October 8, 2006, if you don’t believe me.
Under the rubric of fame and famous, once again, we venture to the masses of humans and decision-making prowess that has somehow eluded a few theme park junkies that surmise the cost of a “go to the head of the line” is worth the effort of eating cockroaches. But remember the “laboratory raised” opening line of this story? Well, the roaches were laboratory-raised to reduce the risk of major illness or gastrointestinal problems that could go with eating a THREE INCH cockroach. And, these babies are not your everyday, garden-variety, run-of-the-mill cockroaches. These are Madagascar Hissing Cockroaches. Long as your finger suckers, brilliant black and hard-shelled like a batter’s helmet, requiring a couple of minutes of teeth-gnawing to get them into shallow-able pieces.
You’ll also be happy to know that a certain organization has a real concern with this event. You probably thought I was going to suggest the Health Department would foil such a practice. Correct you are-they didn’t like it. But after they learned the roaches were “laboratory-raised,” they said fine and that was that. Bon appetite la roach.
No, the group that objected was PETA-People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Not ethical treatment of cockroaches-animals. They objected to the event because-get this-they called it “gratuitously cruel.” PETA also added, according to the article, that roaches suffer when they’re hurt.
Six Flags’ corporate spokesperson is no fool. She acknowledged PETA and their concerns, then counters with the obvious rebuttal to such concerns: nutritional data. She pointed out that cockroaches are a low calorie, high-protein food in some cultures. At least some cultures that arrive at Six Flags for such occasions (My words). Guess that settles that.
How does this story relate to doctoral research on men using storytelling and personal change Well, let’s…..crunch the data to give you some insight.
Take the women, for example, who was a winner of the contest. (Her picture is on page three of the newspaper and I wager she’ll never receive a kiss for the rest of her life when word gets out she consumed a cockroach.) Had she been willing to channel the total energies she needed to go through with this eating contest into professional development activities, she could be further ahead than a free pass and some bad gas.
As you seek out and make decisions on what your occupation goal may be or perhaps you’re studying how best to use your time in your current job to be most effective, remember to fight the urge to take a shortcut. In business, there are smart-cuts, not short-cuts. Smart cuts are found when you engage in active learning ans study the habits and traits of successful people and companies. This is your ticket to success faster.
Making a career change, meeting a person from a field of interest that intimidates you, or trying your hand at a new hobby just seems a little easier than eating a cock roach for dinner, doesn’t it?
Oh, almost forgot: All contestants got a free T-shirt, too.
