To Be or Not To Be

Whether you want to believe it or not, your life choices are derived from the relationships you have or did not have with your first point of contact to this world – your parents. If you had parents that were not involved, you may repeat the pattern or strive not to be like them by being better. If they were involved, you may emulate some of their good choices, while eliminating the bad or fail because you could not live up to their standards or success.

Even your career path is predestined by the relationship you share (good or bad) with your parents. Don’t think so, let’s review some key points of career paths of our current President Bush and President-elect Obama.

Current President George W. Bush and his father, past President George H. W. Bush have walked almost the same exact career and educational path.
• Both attended Phillips Academy in Andover, Massachusetts.
• Both served in the military. Papa Bush joined the US Navy. Baby Bush enlisted in the Texas Air National Guard.
• Both attended Yale University.
• Both in the oil business. Papa Bush started an oil company. Baby Bush worked in his family’s oil business.
• Both served as President. Big Bush served as the forty-first President of the United States. Baby Bush the forty-third and current President of the United States.

President-elect Barack Obama Jr. and his father, Barack Obama Sr. have a career and educational path that paralleled one another’s.
• Papa Obama received a scholarship in economics, leaving his home country of Kenya to attend the University of Hawaii. Following high school, Baby Obama moved to Los Angeles, where he studied at Occidental College for two years then transferred to Columbia University in New York City, where he completed his degree.
• Upon completing his degree, Papa Obama traveled north to attend Harvard University. On the other hand, after completing his degree, Baby Obama moved to Chicago, where he was hired as director of the Developing Communities Project. Later, Baby Obama would enter Harvard Law School.
• After Harvard, Papa Obama returned to Kenya and was hired by an oil company and then served as an economist in the Ministry of Transportation and later named senior economist in the Kenyan Ministry of Finance. After Harvard, Baby Obama has worked as a community organizer, practiced as a civil rights attorney, served in the Illinois Senate, taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School and will soon led our great nation.

As you can see, there is a strong correlation between parental relationships and career paths. You have President Bush that had his father around and walked in his footsteps, although, current President Bush was not as accomplished as his father was. Then you have President-elect Obama whose father wasn’t around, yet he still followed a similar path as his father, having been an excellent student and careers serving the interest of our society’s economic development.

All relationships become a part of your experience. Most affecting you is the one you share or don’t share with your parents. Regardless, you can allow them to assist in your success or failure. The choice to be or not to be is yours.

Get You Some Business

Women are bombarded with motherhood, household chores and marriage from the time they become aware of being alive. We are given baby dolls, kitchen sets and fairy tales that tells us that prince charming is going to take us away and take care of our every desire and need. With all of the brainwashing, it’s no wonder why women expect men to be their knight in shining armor and expect for them to take care of them, even if they have their own money and have successful careers.

There are women who dream of being the perfect wife, perfect homemaker and perfect mother. While there is positively, absolutely, nothing wrong with that (hell, Martha Stewart made being a perfect homemaker a lucrative business), what happens when the kids don’t need mothering, the home is perfect cause there are no kids to mess it up and your husband is occupied with work and all his interest? What will you fill your time with? Do you even know what makes you happy or peeks your interest?

I was watching Bravo TV’s The Real Housewives of Atlanta and one of the ladies, Sheree, is in the middle of a divorce with a famous athlete and has indicated how she placed her goals in life on hold to start a family and seemed a little bitter. If I had a penny for every time I heard a divorcing woman or unhappily married woman say this, I would be Oprah rich.

To me, this just goes to show that at some point in every person’s life, one comes to a point where an individual asks, “What is my purpose?” or if one knows it, “Why didn’t I pursue it?” And if your reason not to pursue your dreams was due to managing your family, don’t ride that reason to your death. There is nothing sexier than a woman who has interest of her own and knows how to make herself happy.

I recently had a discussion with a woman who had re-entered the work force after being off for thirteen years to care for her daughter. She enjoyed motherhood and had traveled around with her husband in his business. Then one day she said she asked him a question, his reply, “you need to get you some business.” She said that very day, she did. And has had her “some business” ever since.

Having her some business made her feel good about herself and in turn made her marriage better because she was happier. She said that her husband hates when she tells people how she was motivated back to the workforce because it makes him sound bad. But she doesn’t tell the story placing him in a bad light and I didn’t sense that she took his comments in a negative way. She received it as inspiration and knew it was time for her to be about her again and fulfill her dreams and interest.

Diane Carol said it best, “You can have it all. You just can’t have it all at once.” So there is nothing wrong with putting your professional dreams or goals on hold, while you are pursuing your personal dreams of starting a family. However, when things aren’t working out, don’t blame your personal goals for sacrificing your professional goals and vice versa. Just get going and get you some business.

Dress for Success

I’ve often heard the phrase “you have to dress for your next position.” Does this mean, if you are in the mailroom, but want an executive position, you need to start wearing a suite? It doesn’t hurt if it’s going to help you move up to the next position.

Nevertheless, you need to do more than just wear a suite. You need to assume the feeling and the attitude of your desired position. You may also need to obtain the desired credentials for the position of your dream.

All in all, you need to begin a full overhaul to become the person that fits the position you desire.
Dressing for your next position is a process or transformation you will need to go through to shed old ways and habits. It’s like an ugly duckling becoming a beautiful swan.

Depending on where you’re today and where you’d like to be tomorrow will determine how many steps and how drastic of a change you may need to make. There can be many steps to just a few little changes that can get you to where you want to go. However, the challenge for some is in recognizing what to let go and what they need to add.

To resolve that problem, find a mentor. Someone that has the same or similar position you would want to be in. This mentor can be someone from your job, family or friend. If you can’t find a mentor from one of those sources, then find someone you don’t know and research their path of success.

A mentor can be a wonderful resource to help guide you through the pitfalls, thus helping you get to your dream career quicker. Mentors can provide you with the suite or the foundation to begin the planning process to become the person that fits the position you desire. Providing you with a step-by-step process from change A-Z.

Transforming to that beautiful butterfly is a process that can go quickly or slowly. Still a process, nonetheless. You can’t skimp on the steps laid out for you. Often times you see the person in the position you want to be in, but you never realize all the hard work it took for them to get to that dream career until you begin to walk in their shoes.

Remember, you can only put your pants on one leg at a time. Don’t rush the process. It’s just as enjoyable getting dressed for the position, as it is being dressed for the position.

Sacrificing for Your Spouse

The alarm is going off. You hate the sound. You hate that it’s morning. You roll over and your spouse is clinging to the bed even tighter than you are.

Neither of you want to get up. You both know neither of you are going to like what awaits. Nevertheless, one of you nudges the other, forcing the other to face the day first. How cruel? However, the nudger doesn’t care, all they think of is their own pain and suffering. Not because the nudger is selfish, well let’s hope not, it’s just…misery loves company.

Dishes don’t get done, laundry is piling up and the house is a mess. Neither of you want to do anything after you come home from work. You two argue, fight and blame the other person for not keeping up with their chores. You guys haven’t gone out on a date. Who know the last time you two had sex, and even if there is a memory, it wasn’t enjoyable.

You hate him. He hates you. You both think, life’s a bitch and then you die.

The truth of the matter is, if a person isn’t living a purpose-filled life, a life that is rewarding, they won’t be happy with anything they do or with anyone whom they are with. It’s time to make some sacrifices for the team, which will lead to a better quality life for both spouses. Know, what I’m about to suggest is by no means meant to be taken as the cure to every bad relationship, just a way to help spouses each live your best quality life.

Sacrificing for your spouse is in essence, helping one another achieve a career dream, one person at time.

Step 1: Both of you need to convey to the other, the type of career which would make each happy. Tell one another the type of career each would love to have that will bring joy and make one knock the other person out the bed, due to anticipating the start of a perfect day.
Step 2: Mutually decide if it is financially feasible for both to transition to the dream career. However, if you have to focus on one at a time, which I suspect would be the case, decide whose career interest would take the shortest amount of time, money, experience or education to transition into.
Step 3: For the person selected, start the career transition process. The person delaying their dream career may have to add a part-time job to help out the team, if there is a reduction of income in the household.
Step 4: As that person has successfully transitioned into their dream career and earning a living from it, it’s time for the switch to help the other along on their journey.

For the spouse sacrificing for the other’s career goal, remember to be supportive along the way. Don’t be jealous that you still hate your job and your spouse is pursuing a career they love. Be loving and understanding. Know that your turn is coming.

While you wait, your spouse is going to become happier than in the past. He or she will be more patient, loving and giving, thus meeting your needs better than ever before because they have walked a mile or two in your shoes, with your sacrifice, was able to trade up for a better pair. Hopefully, they won’t trade up on you as well!