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Career Tips - Issue # 11 (Feb. 2005) FREE bimonthly newsletter dedicated to your career development. You'll need about 10 minutes to read this newsletter. What Should I do? Should I continue with this job or go for a change? Should I join X company or Y company? Should I change my line of work? Sometimes, the answers to such questions are straightforward. But other times, the situation is too complex and we can't seem to find any answers. So how to know what you should do? There is a way out: let your intuition guide you. Intuition is a combined play of our unconscious and conscious to help us in decision making. Also known as gut feeling, instinct and sixth sense, intuition is a gift we all have. Intuition works in variety of ways. First, you simply get the answer you're looking for out of the blue. Pilots, paramedics, doctors, nurses, fire fighters and others often do not stop to weigh options or make conscious decisions in emergency situations. They leap into action, following their instincts. Second, intuition speaks to you in the form of a symbolic language. For example, you have been toying with the idea of moving into a new line of work and suddenly you happen to meet a person who is doing the same kind of work. Or, you've been thinking of moving from X company to Y, and suddenly you notice an ad in the newspaper with the headline "Move." This is how our intuition conveys the answers we are looking for. Notice what you notice. Everything you notice has a meaning. There are no coincidences. If you decide to follow your intuition, how would you know if you are making a right move? One way is by paying attention to your body. Our bodies are smarter than we think. Billionaire investor George Soros, when asked how he found out when things (i.e., his logic) were going wrong, responded (in his book Soros on Soros): "I feel pain. I rely a great deal on animal instincts. When I was actively running the Fund, I suffered from backache. I used the onset of acute pain as a signal that there was something wrong in my portfolio." So Soros, who takes positions on billions of dollars every day, also relies on his intuition. Another example: Richard Branson, the boss of Virgin Group, says he sizes up people within first 30 seconds. His successful career is a long trail of highly risky but instinctive decisions. Finally, here is what Albert Einstein has to say on intuition: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honours the servant and has forgotten the gift." >>CAREER TIP: When you find yourself locked in complex career dilemmas, be relaxed and turn to your intuition. Listen to what your instincts are telling you. Pay attention to what you're generally noticing in your environment. Wonder every time you come across someone accidentally. Your intuition always has the answer you are looking for but you should be prepared to trust it. Who is Your Role Model? For the past several months, my 4-year-old daughter has been keeping a small table under her possession. She uses it to keep her toys, scattered randomly. She won't allow anyone to remove the toys and use the table for some other purpose. If you try to force the issue, she protests and starts crying. Just as I was feeling completely at loss about her strange behaviour, I came across an experiment called Bobo Doll, which was conducted in 1963 by the famous psychologist Bandura. During the experiment, Bandura made a film of a young woman beating up a Bobo Doll with a hammer. A Bobo Doll is an inflatable, egg-shape balloon with a weight in the bottom that makes it bob back. Bandura then showed this film to a group of kindergartners. Afterwards, they were left in a room, which contained a brand new Bobo Doll and a few little hammers. He observed that the kids started pounding the Bobo Doll with the hammers, just as they had seen in the film. This seemingly simple experiment is one of the most famous studies of human behaviour. Based on the experiment, Bandura developed the theory that much of what people learn is through observation and imitation of others. After knowing about Bobo Doll, it was clear what my daughter was up to. Actually, she was simply copying what I was doing on my own table. Yes, I also keep my table quite messy with papers and books scattered all around. Rightly or wrongly, I had become her role model. She was trying to be like me. For kids, everyone around is a role model. As adults, however, we get stumped when asked, "Who is your role model?" Does role modelling have a role to play in your career? The idea behind role modelling is simple: anchoring ourselves to those we admire, learning from them and following their strategies. In fact, advertisers know it well that it is human nature to be drawn to successful people and copy their behaviour. That's why you find celebrities endorsing drinks, shoes, clothes, beauty products, foods, cars, etc. If Tiger Woods is shown wearing Nike shoes, millions of people around the world feel compelled to follow his footsteps. This is also role modelling but for the benefit of Nike! >>CAREER TIP: Mahatma Gandhi served as a role model for Martin Luther King who went to India to learn about Gandhi's philosophy of non-violence. For Jack Welch, former CEO of General Electric, his mother was the role model. Bill Clinton decided to join public service after he happened to meet President John F. Kennedy in 1962. Clinton was then a boy scout. Whom do you really admire? Whose job would you like to have in the world? Make that person your role model. Read about him or her. Start following your role model's footsteps and you'll add a new dimension to your career. Will be back after two weeks. Atul Mathur FORWARD IT: Would you like to share what you've just read with any of your friends? Click below to send a link to your friends. To SUBSCRIBE to this newsletter, send a blank e-mail to:subscribe Career Tips ***Copyright 2005 Atul Mathur*** |
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