A post about passion - conveyed with passion

In my ideal world, we all spend our days maximising our uniqueness, living our dreams and letting others get on with theirs. This is a world where we have pleasant, productive conversations and there is no one wanting to ambush our plans or hijack our work. 

In other words, we all live and work in relative harmony. Why not?

Is this a picture of your ideal world? Or are you already objecting, saying things like 'I like a bit of competition, it keeps the adrenalin pumping', or 'That's impossible. The world is not a friendly place. we just have to suck it up. Life wasn't meant to be easy.'

Besides, I hear others say, 'We can't just have everyone doing what they want! That would be anarchy. Who would collect the rubbish, clean out the sewers, gut the fish and change baby diapers? Who would clean up after the incontinent old people and put up with their ramblings'

Actually, plenty of people - probably the same as now. Nobody is holding a gun to anyone's heads, at least in Australia, so one can only assume people willingly take on these roles. Why? Because people are prepared to do some of the shitty work if it means they can do other things they love. And, luckily, we are all different, we have different things on our 'I will never do that' list, just as our hopes and dreams are all different.

As a writer, my shitty work is editing the fourth, fifth, and even tenth draft of what I started writing as an 'almost perfect' manuscript. I would sometimes gladly give that part up and go clean toilets for a week - er, no, not really.

Seriously, if we want to even start having a conversation about passion, we have to see the world as having some kind of natural form and rhythm, as chaotic as it seems to us.

Then, we have to see ourselves as well-formed beings who can instinctively tell where we belong - if only we would stop trying to tell ourselves and each other what we should be doing.

After that, we have to start seeing everyone (including our children - especially, our children) as unique, with skills and talents to bring to the world. As adults, it is our place to nurture their gifts and show them how wonderful they are.

If we don't do all of these things, the world will continue to spiral downwards into a very scary place where humans will start behaving worse than animals (oh wait, that is already happening), resenting the people who seem to have what they don't, who dress differently and who have different belief systems, and complaining about all the injustices in their world without taking any personal responsibility for them.

We have amazing resources at our disposal, inside us, and if we don't use them, we will lose them. Our brains and our souls will frizzle up and die under the weight of indifference. We will become robots who cannot think for ourselves, and like Pavlov's dog will spend our lives salivating in anticipation of the ever-decreasing morsels the corporate machine is prepared to give us - just enough to keep us working.

That scenario sucks doesn't it? But it is happening all around us. On the treadmill, I see people going about their working lives, too tired and too fearful to contemplate that they are ruining their health, their family lives, their relationships, and their chance of happiness.

As you can see, I am passionate about this.

Let's reverse that trend, starting now. Please.

As Dr Seuss wisely said,

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose.

I am not advocating that everyone quits their job and makes their home in a tree. I am advocating that people use those brains in their heads to at least identify how they are being subjected. At the end of the day, if they are truly

happy with this, then all power to them. But - I don't see this, as I look around - instead I mainly see people who are stressed, anxious, depressed, mentally ill, tired and with body parts fatigued by overuse.

Maybe none of what I am saying applies to you. Maybe you love your job, you feel no physical or mental pain, you are never stressed about a meeting that is coming up. You never cringe about needing to explain why you didn't finish something on time or did something wrong - after all, that's what life's about, isn't it? Maybe you always reach your KPIs and only ever work from nine to five (with an hour for lunch). Maybe none of this is true, but you still feel happy and fulfilled. (Are you wavering on that?)

As a career specialist, and I know that not everyone in my field will agree. By passion, I mean a career that is fuelled by:

A strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire 

(that is just one of several definitions, but it's the one that fits my interpretation). 

To my mind, logically, if something is fuelling a passion, this is our instinct speaking loudly to us, guiding us. Denying this is what has led many of my clients to be miserable and disconnected.

For any psychologists reading, no, I am not a qualified psychologist and I speak from a perspective of wisdom, observation, and interest that has been built up through experience - my own personal experience, and that of the people I have worked with. When I started out studying for my Bachelor's degree, I though Psychology would help me to understand people and the world - it did not; my passion was fuelled instead by the disciplines of Sociology, Linguistics and English Literature. These areas of study helped me to give myself permission to write and to work with others who were seeking their own pathways, through work, study and a range of other activities.

I have wanted to say this for a long time. These words and phrases have swirled around in my psyche for years, I have not spoken them out loud or put them down on paper or in a blog post, mainly out of fear of ridicule. This fear still sits in the pit of my stomach as I send this out into the ether, but it is a message that must be sent, and I am the vessel who is sending it. I am my passion, my passion is me - finally.

So, to come full circle back to my opener about my ideal world, in which we all get along; passion-driven careers may cause some debate as people explore their passions, but if everyone is unashamedly working towards self-fulfilment, rather than competing for those empty rewards of dollars and ego-driven recognition, we will be heading to that better place, I am sure. As a career advocate, this is my best attempt from where I sit right now at living my passion, which has, for several reasons, lain dormant for the best part of ten years (and is the subject of one of the books I am currently writing).

How to tell if you have a passion

'Get a real job!'

'You won't make any money doing that!'

'Music/poetry/dancing/drawing/taking pictures (etc. etc.) won't put food on the table.'

'There are too many people already playing sport/reviewing books/tasting wine (etc. etc.) and they are much more talented than you.'

'Wait till you have some money behind you, then go and fulfill your dream if you still want to!'

If you are a creative type, or your passion lies in an area where only the elite get paid, such as sport or theatre, you may have been on the receiving end of this well-meaning advice. You might have even talked yourself out of pursuing a passion using one of these statements.

Whether you want to work in a refugee camp, write a novel or play in the AFL, I have no doubt that you have been warned off such a pursuit by well-meaning family members, friends and professionals.

The problem with passion (and to do any one of these things requires a high level of dedication) is that there are no guarantees of return - monetary or otherwise. The only thing you will be able to say, definitively, that there was the thrill of the chase, the knowledge that you did your best, and maybe making the world a better place.

I often wonder at the competition between money and happiness when it comes to career choice, yet history has shown that the people who we love to hear and read stories about are the people who have faced the odds and done it anyway.

As a society, we have become, increasingly, victims of capitalism - so much so, that it has become a kind of god that we bow to. Only recently I have been noticing that people are saying things like, a little less money would be fine, and a little more time to do what i enjoy beats working 60 hours a week. The tide is slowly turning, we are becoming less sucked in to the money pit, although there are still enough advertisers and manufacturers trying to show us how much we need that new car, holiday, gadget or appliance. 

I have to ask myself, do we really need things more than we need the personal reward of living an authentic life? I have spoken to doctors, accountants and engineers who wanted to do something else. 

The doctor had only wanted to play the cello, but was told to wait till she had achieved wealth. At sixty, she was close to retiring, and had not touched her cello for years. She had completely lost touch with who she was - she was miserable, lost and lonely.

The engineer wanted to be a chaplain, and disliked his environment so much that he had a mental breakdown in his early forties - only in recovery did he realise that his own happiness was worth any sacrifice he would need to make.

The accountant, in his thirties, wanted to travel around Australia on his Harley and write poetry. One day he made the decision, quit his job, got on his bike and rode off into the sunset. Last time I heard from him he was working the mines in Western Australia, with plenty of time off (and money) to write poetry and see the sites on his weeks off.

Did you sense the pattern here? The younger a person is when they decide to live their passion, the easier and more successful it is. it is never too late, but once the flame has extinguished, it is really hard to light it again.

If you have a burning passion to do something in particular, my advice is, don't wait. You only get one stab at life. And who says you won't get paid for it? As human beings, this is the only thing we have that separates us from all the other animals in the kingdom - the ability to go our own way, to take delight in something that is deeply personal to us.

Another question I often get asked is 'How do I know if I have a passion?' This should be easy to answer, but it usually boils down to having at least three of these things:

• You can't go for more than a day or so without thinking about it
• You feel like something is missing when you are not engaged in it
• You bore other people to tears talking about it or showing them something you have done/learned/made
• You don't mind at all spending hours/days/weeks on something
• You feel fulfilled with each achievement, no matter how small or insignificant
• When fully engaged, you suddenly find 'soul mates' that you never knew existed.
• Once you have established yourself along a pathway that is passion-driven, stopping is not an option, even if you have to temporarily wander from the main path (perhaps to take care of someone, earn some money, or overcome a hurdle in your life).
• Financial reward and fringe benefits become less important and meaningful as you realise that you can actually live on very little.

None of this is meant to indicate that you cannot make money from a passion - in fact I have argued on many occasions that if you do what you love, the money will follow, but even if it doesn't, what kind of reward is there in living a life denying that part of you that makes you who you are?

Ten things to do when your work is casual

I have several clients, family members and friends who currently work in casual work settings. This is not by their own choice, but due to the nature of the industries they work in.

This means that, despite them being great workers and good at what they do, and even though some of them have worked for their employers for a long time, they never know from week to week when they will be working, and for how many hours.

The work is seasonal, but also fluctuates on a week to week basis, so until the start of the week they don't know whether they will be required for one, ten, or sixty hours over the following five or six days.

This is bad enough if you are single, let alone if you are supporting a family, which some are doing. 

If you are working as a casual employee, like most who are doing this, you might be hoping that this is just a stop-gap, while you look for a job with a more permanent arrangement. Unfortunately, this is not an option for most, especially in regional areas, where it seems that the casualisation of the workforce is at its most intense. In any case, having worked in, and observed the recruitment industry over three decades, it is clear that we are on a trajectory to even greater workforce casualisation, so we had all better get used to the idea that for many of us, working life will involve juggling two or three jobs each week, or over a year, just to get the required hours and income.

The problems of casual work are ongoing topics of conversation.

In addition to making it harder to manage one's personal finances, being a casual employee makes it harder to get loans, and there is the constant fear of how to exist if the casual job dries up (which can happen quite suddenly), due to there being no more work, or if the person has an accident, develops an illness, or simply wants to take a holiday. Most of these are things that the waged employee has no concept of.

Don't despair. There are several steps you can take to limit the downside of this way of working. With a bit of luck, you will start to see the positives and embrace it.

1. You may want to stop reading at this point, but please don't. It is important. You need to set yourself up an entire and proper budget, so you know what your regular outgoings are, including your rent/mortgage payments, utilities, food and other bills. Write up all these amounts in a yearly format, as this makes it easier to see how much you need to earn and to account for fluctuations. If you can use computers well and calculations don't make you go into meltdown, you can probably do this yourself, using Excel or a specialised system. If not, hiring a service like My Budget will save you heaps of time and worry. I've had several clients who have done this and they have all given rave reports, even those who were skeptical at first.

Once you know what your yearly outlay is (including a percentage buffer - most financial planners recommend adding at least 15% to account for inflation and cost increases), you can break this number down to more manageable chunks - for example, if you are usually paid fortnightly, divide the total cost by 26, if weekly, divide by 52 etc.  (If you want to factor in a couple of weeks off, divide by 25 or 52 - it is a good idea to do this anyway).

Whatever else you do, take the time to get this step right, it is the floor, the bedrock, on which your casual working life will stand.

2. Next on your 'to do' list is to anticipate your earnings over the next year. If you have already been working on a casual basis, this means looking over your past year's income; if you are new to this type of work, you will need to do some thoughtful projecting. Ask your employer when the peak work periods are, whether there are forced down-times (for example, do they close down for the month of January?). Ask other people who work in your industry, or talk to recruiters. When you have finished your guesstimation, check this against your list of outgoings and see if there is a discrepancy. This will help you to work out if you need to make changes to your lifestyle, or perhaps find other work to support you. 

Knowing your financial situation is a precurser to anything else you do as a casual employee. (I presume you are doing it for the money it brings in, not simply for the love of the job. If it is the latter, I have a slightly different strategy for you.) If you are not getting paid enough, this work is only going to cause worry and anxiety, and you will resent the work you do and may fail to work to your own, or anyone else's, satisfaction, causing problems now and in the future.

3. Make sure you use two separate bank accounts. On the weeks when you earn more than your allocated budget, the excess goes into an account that you only touch during the 'dryer' weeks, when you are earning less (or nothing at all). Because you already have your fortnight's costs written down, you will be able to see at a glance how many fortnights you have in store. Pay as many bills as possible in advance, pay others as soon as you get them, or pay in instalments to help prevent the surges (you know, those times when all the bills come in at once.). Just remember that often you pay more when you pay in instalments, so only do this if it is totally necessary.

4. (Nearly finished with the boring stuff, I promise.) Cut up your credit cards. I'm serious. Casual work and a credit card is a bad marriage, and multiple cards will be your nemesis. if you must, keep ONE with a $500 credit limit, but don't use it, if you need that kind of security. You don't actually need it, as much as you think you might, and you certainly won't want it when you get your monthly statement. You can use your debit Visa or Master Card like a credit card, to pay online etc., with the advantage that it is only your money you are spending.

5. This takes us away from the finances into more interesting areas (for me, anyway, and hopefully for you as well). This is about making yourself employable as a casual. Everyone needs to maintain a good set of work skills and attributes, but for casuals this is even more important.

The first way to do this is to provide good value to your employer or employers: turn up when you are rostered, don't ask for changes to your roster unless these are essential, be on time, put in the effort and tidy up before you leave. In any job, the biggest gripe I hear from employers is that a person was late, or that they left a mess behind at the end of their shift. They remember these two things more than anything else, so if you get those right you are already on a winner. Oh, and try not to slack off while you are there, either.

6. Make yourself indispensable. This could mean that you always handle a particular task (preferably one that your boss doesn't like doing). This might be dealing with a difficult customer, if your boss prefers to stay in the background, or sorting out a storeroom to make it easier for everyone to find things. This way, when you are not on shift and something is not working, everyone will be saying 'We need (insert your name) here, to sort this out.

7. Make yourself as attractive as you can in the workforce generally. After all, you know, this job won't last forever. This might mean developing a specialisation. For instance, there might be a new piece of equipment that no one wants to learn how to use. You learn how to use it! You will become the expert in your workplace, and no doubt other employers in the field will be purchasing this piece of equipment, so you have a unique transferable skill to your credit. (Don't forget to add it to your resume).

8. Be flexible about the kind of work you do. Most jobs are relatively easy to pick up, and making yourself available for other tasks makes you more skilled and experienced, with more to offer in this increasingly competitive field. Make sure you get appropriate safety training!

While this seems to be almost saying the opposite to point 7, in which I suggested you specialise, I prefer to see them as a pair.

9. Always make sure in job search mode. Loyalty will only take you so far, and being a casual means you can never be sure you will be employed tomorrow. Scan your neighbourhood for other work, keep your ears and eyes open for other opportunities, and keep your resume up to date. This way you are prepared whenever the axe falls on your current job.

10. Consider becoming your own boss. Plenty of people transition from the casual workforce to becoming a sole operator. You can usually command a higher pay, and while you do need to organise your own tax and superannuation, there is little or no greater risk involved, as a casual. All you need is an ABN and an invoice template to begin. (I will talk more about this in another post). You might even find yourself working for your old boss, but with more klout (and money). 

Autism Spectrum Teenagers - Why is it so hard to get work experience?

Despite all the research that has been done over recent years describing the benefits of employing young people on the autism spectrum, it seems that we have a long way to go before we, as a society, fully embraces the power of the kid with autism (and the adult, as well, mind you).

Evidence abounds that people who display autistic behaviours are actually the ideal employees. Those employers who have been brave enough to employ a person 'on the spectrum' attest to their:

• ability to get the job done without distraction (no social chitchat, slagging off for an hour or two, long lunches etc,)
• learning abilities which mean they usually only need to be shown how to do something once
• attendance record (they hardly take any time off, because, well, work days are work days)
• timekeeping prowess (if you want them to start at a particular time and finish at a particular time, they will be there)
• determination to do the job to the best of their abilities, and
• not providing minute-by-minute updates on just how great they are at their job (they just do it!)

So, I was mightily upset when a local dad posted on the local community facebook page just yesterday that, despite there being so many jobs coming up for young people where 'experience is not necessary' (we are in a beachside area where the crowds swell for summer), his 16 year old son had been rejected for upwards of a dozen jobs. No doubt he would have he had trouble completing the bizarre online form, and answering questions about 'where he would like to be in five years time' and 'how would he deal with an angry customer'.

Clearly, these kinds of stock-standard interview questions are anathema to people on the autism spectrum. They think from day to day, and long range plans are just not something within their scope. Likewise, dealing with a difficult situation can be learned, but without a context, a question like 'What would you do if...' is irrelevant to them. 

The other problem faced by young people with autism is the form-filling stage, which often eliminates them even before they get to the interview. People on the spectrum can be brutally honest, for example if asked about working preferences they might put down that they are not willing to work evenings because they don't understand the concept of evening, or they find it too vague - providing the actual time periods involved would lead to a better level of understanding on both sides.

Interview questions and forms aside, when you consider that a significant number of customers of  nurseries, fast food chains, supermarkets, cafes and hardware stores will demonstrate autistic traits, the owners and managers of these establishments would find added benefits in employing a broader range of workers with 'different gifts and talents'.

Thankfully, the power of social media worked well for this dad and his son - they received several invitations to attend workplaces, and, with a little bit of luck, this young man will be on his way to his first paycheck by now.

With a little support and education, I am sure that most employers would be happy to adapt their practices to enable them to find the right employees. I have developed a check list that I have used in my interactions with employers, which many have found very useful. If any potential employers, or parents of young people with autism would like a copy of this, just let me know by sending your email address in the comments section.