What’s the secret of all the people who have their company listed in the Fortunes500? Why do they make it, and most of us don’t? That’s the question that Joanna Barsh and Susie Cranston asked themselves when interviewing women who are in the Fortunes500. And they came with some remarkable results.
All the women didn’t lean back to wait for the knight in shining armor, they took life into their own hands. And that’s not easy. “Take your life into your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame” (Erica Jong). All the women in the Fortunes500 found an answer to this challenge. They scored very high on five aspects: meaning, framing, connecting, engaging and energizing. As artists you can’t afford anymore to lean back and to wait for the major record company to discover them and to bring them to world glory. You have to take your life and your career into your own hands too! These five aspects can offer a great support to you.
Meaning is about your purpose, about your contribution to the world. Here some questions that might help you to discover what that is: How does your dream day look like, what do you do, when, with whom, where? How does your dream job look like? Who would be your dream customer? It certainly helps if you are aware of your core qualities. The model of Jaques Ofman can help with that, of using an enneagram.
Framing is about your attitude towards yourself and life. If you want to more on, you can better have an optimistic view on the world, a positive attitude. And guess what? It’s something that you can learn and get better at. Framing is also about fighting the negative thoughts when they come up, like when you have a setback. If you think: “See, I can’t do it, I should never have started in the first place”, you tend to forget the reasons why you started. So do your homework, remember why you started, discover what exactly did go wrong and how you can prevent it the next time.
Connecting is about your network, your family, your friends. It’s about sharing your needs and helping others in their needs. We are all interconnected and offer our know-how, network, radar, time, ear, questions, open offer to each other. So don’t be ashamed to ask others for help, and feel free to return a favor. Connecting is also about the great power of inclusiveness.
Engaging is about choosing for yourself. Though it might seem selfish, it’s not. It’s about awareness of your own needs so you can function better. Presentation of yourself is part of it, your choice of haircut, dress, colors just as your way to walk. And if you know that you get in a better mood if you walk in the woods for half an hour, why shouldn’t you include it in your daily/weekly routine? Everyone around you will profit from it, and certainly your performance.
Energizing is about your awareness of the activities that give you energy and the activities that cost you energy. It’s important to keep a good condition, also physically. Sports and yoga can help. Discover for yourself what activities help you to get into a flow, and take your responsibility for having fun every day!
The great thing of the five aspects is, that they support each other. If you are full of energy, people will come to you, so it’s easy to broaden your network. A positive attitude offers possibilities for engaging, etc.
Good luck in discovering your strong aspects, make them work for your weaker ones, find your way to the positive spiral, to reach the next level of your career!