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Changing Perspectives Using Intentional Serendipity

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Changing Perspective

In my first blog on this topic I spoke about:

[1] helping people embrace chance events in their lives
[2] taking action, and
[3] encouraging curiosity.

Let’s talk about what else you can do as a career advisor to assist people in “intentionally” creating “serendipitous” events to create opportunity by changing their perspective of the situation.

4]    One “gift” we have as career advisors is the ability to reframe events in peoples’ lives in such a way to make it look like an opportunity. (See my article, Advisors Are The Wizard of Oz  http://bit.ly/12nmpIA ).  People bring us their view of unplanned events or surprises in their lives that, all too often, are viewed as obstacles.  Our job is to help reframe the event and to encourage them to look at it as a career opportunity.

Getting laid off from a job, changing their major because “it didn’t work out”, or being rejected again, are events out of their control in most cases.  The old school answer “things happen for a reason” is close but not exactly what people need to hear.

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Intentional Serendipity Can Be Surprising

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I met a person the other day and we ended up talking about how people discover jobs by accident.  His face lit up, “that’s exactly what happened to me!  In high school, I was thinking about engineering or joining the military and then I discovered machine tool.” 30 years later he was the CEO of a large machine tool company and now is a consultant in that field.

While on my honeymoon, I met the Director of a high school technical center.  I had no idea what a Vocational – Technical school was, but four months later,  I was working for him and my life was transformed forever with an understanding and appreciation of all kinds of occupations.

We all have stories about chance events that changed the course of our careers.  Then why is it that students and other clients continue to come in and ask to take “one of those assessments that tells me what to do”. The longer I am in this business, the less assessments I use.

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Designing Your New Work Life

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Designing Your New Work Life: How to Thrive and Change and Find Happiness-and new Freedom- at Work

By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

I totally “get” these guys and love the way articulate how to make your next move in your career. Sometimes it is leaving but they recognize that sometimes it is a matter of redesigning your current job too.

Their advice is solid in that you have to prototype your next move and learn as much as you can about yourself, what you are looking for, and what is out there. You have to take “action” and then be “open to discovering things by accident” which is my philosophy of embracing “intentional serendipity.“

I also love their advice on reframing your situation. I feel like career coaches do this all the time with our student and clients. We help them take another perspective and give them hope.

This book is filled with perspective, hope, and solid advice in how to make your next move.

The World Needs You. By J.P. Michel

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J.P. has written this book for career service providers and provides us with a different lens to look at the career development process. It is not about what do you want to be, but what challenges do you want to take on. He introduces us to the challenge mindset and how we can be career catalysts rather than career matchers.

The inherent problem with trait-factor theory is that it is biased to what we know. It is why so many people choose professions similar to their parents. JP encourages us to ask “What challenges do you want to take on?” And you can do that by using his Challenge Card Sort, or by having the student/client flip through magazines or websites to find articles that are interesting to them. (He has other suggestions too).

This challenge mindset flips the career process from (1) what interests do I have (2) match them to occupations (3) research them, (4) find a company that has an opening, to (1) what challenges do I want to address (2) what companies are dealing with that challenge  (3) who within that company is doing something that looks interesting to me (4) find a way to get close to that job by doing an information interview or internship, or volunteer, or whatever they can do to learn more. Then let “intentional serendipity” bring the job to them.

I love this model because most people can only name 30-100 job titles and there are 20,000+ job titles out there and more coming daily. So when people come to us and want to choose a job title, it really is not effective. Choose a challenge and find out who is working on it, and then explore the various occupations within that challenge.

This is a practical, easy-to-read book with great examples which help the reader understand what JP is writing about. Each chapter ends with a section titled Take Action with specific action steps you can take to tie the ideas from the chapter and put them into practice.

The challenge mindset embraces so many concepts I believe in. The two most important to me are, giving the client ownership of the process, and embracing Intentional serendipity i.e. taking action and being open to discovering something by accident.

If you are a career service provider or a person who is looking to make a change in their career, this book is a great place to start your journey. There is no assessment to take that will tell you what to do. But there is a new way of thinking that can help you discover what you want to give to the world.

You can find more information on the Challenge Card sorts and JP’s work at https://mysparkpath.com/

The Purple Parachute.

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A Woman’s Guide to Navigating the Winds of Career Change. By Paula Battalia Brand

I know the author says “A Woman’s Guide” but this career advice is great for anyone who is in the process of finding a new job or about to go through a career transition. There are some special items for women, but her advice matches my approach to the career development process very well. book cover for Purple ParachuteI love how Paula provides a comprehensive approach to the career process beginning with her ASTER model which looks at these steps: Assess, Seek, Test, Execute, Repeat steps. She walks us through these steps with great explanations, activities, and then stories that bring the steps to life for the reader.

She then talks about the importance of assessing what she calls the V.I.N.E.S.

  • Values
  • Interests
  • Natural Disposition (personality)
  • Exceptional Qualities (I really loved this section because for our clients it is where it really brings out the uniqueness of the person)
  • Skills

This really is a “working” book where there are many activities for the person to think about how what she shares relates to the individual. She makes you think. Then write down your responses which often is where the learning happens. Plus she provides additional resources on her website to help you.

For me, the case studies she shares about herself or clients, really brings what she is teaching us to life. 

And then just because she is so thought-provoking, the chapters begin with inspiring quotes from all kinds of people. For example: from Meg Whitman, “The price of inaction is far greater than the cost of a mistake“. This relates well to my philosophy of “intentional serendipity” where my clients have to be “intentional” and actually take some ACTION and then be open to discovering something by accident.

Paula’s philosophy and approach to career development are very similar to mine. I really appreciate how she has made the process practical, thought-provoking, and action oriented.

Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear

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by Elizabeth Gilbert author of Eat Pray Love

There is so much that I love in this book. Not the least of which is how her “magic” is so closely related to trusting your hunches, instincts, and putting positive vibes out to the universe. She writes this book to those people who are creative and want to do creative work, but I find it applicable for all kinds of people.

She speaks to the inherent negative thinking that blocks so many of us.. I can’t do that…that won’t work…nobody is going to want to publish/read/watch (insert your word) this. She insists that you can’t worry about what others think about your work, keep moving forward, keep working at it, and if you believe it is good “go for it.”

I loved her story about how an editor rejected her story and then she resubmitted a couple years later and the same editor loved it. How often does that happen? Lots. People get rejected for jobs for all kinds of reasons. One errant comment from one of the people on the interview committee may be all it takes for the entire group to just move on to the next candidate.

Also, in Daniel Pinks book, When, he talks about the research that shows people who interview late in the afternoon do not get hired as much as people who interview in the morning. Timing is everything and Elizabeth Gilbert calls it magic. Sometimes magic that is good, sometimes, not so good. But you seldom ever know the real reasons.

I also agree with her belief that the mantra “follow your passion” is not that helpful. She insists that being curious is actually a better mantra to follow. I totally agree with this. If you are curious, you’ll discover things by accident…what I call intentional serendipity.

Page 236 “You might spend your whole life following your curiosity and have absolutely nothing to show for tat the end — except one thing. You will have the satisfaction of knowing that you passed your entire existence in devotion to the noble human virtue of inquisitiveness“.

Be curious and take action. I really believe good things happen when you do, and so does Elizabeth Gilbert.