Healthy Mind & Body

-Do you start your day feeling overwhelmed because you didn’t complete all the tasks on your to do list?

-Do you wake up in the middle of the night thinking of all the things you didn’t put on your to do list, and now you can’t sleep because your mind is racing?

-Do you wake up feeling defeated before you start your day?

If so, this stress may pour over into your relationships causing even more stress, anxiety, and pain… Then you’re leaving your house already defeated feeling lousy about your day. 

Sound familiar? 

If so you’re not alone.

Allow me to share some simple tips that I’ve learned to master over the years that you can put in place that will make you feel more at ease, and control of your day. This will you allow to have more productive meaningful days, and allow you to allocate time to what’s most important to you. 

Have an attitude of gratitude

Example. I really do NOT want to go to work/school today… I dread that place.. Replace with… I’m so thankful to have a job/school to go to. 

Take care of yourself

Make sure you’re taking care of yourself mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Think about what you can remove from your day to plug in something that will benefit your well-being. Maybe your routine starts with a trip to Starbucks. Could you replace that with a homemade beverage, and short read of something uplifting, meditation, or a phone call to a friend who always uplifts you…  or a few minutes with family? I know you’re thinking this is only 15mins. It will make a difference. 

Keep a to do list

What did I not finish yesterday? Make a list and prioritize from most important to least. Is there a deliverable due today? If so put that at the top of the list.

You can do this on a scrap paper or something more sophisticated like one-note but this will give you a gage of what you need/want to accomplish

Be agile – If your day starts to fall apart. Take a minute and re-prioritize your checklist. This exercise alone will help you to feel more in control, and on track that you’ve outlined a plan to accomplish all that you want/need to. 

Ask for help

We’re not super heros.  Don’t be afraid to ask for help from peers, mentors, friends, and leaders. It’s not about what you ask but how you ask. Never negative, but always with a can do attitude, and even better if you can give a starting point so they have direction in how to help. 

Delegate

If you can’t do it all think of people that can help you.  ASK for help. In today’s society we feel like we have to carry the weight of the world on our shoulders. I promise you there are people ready, willing, and able to help. We just have to take the first step and ask. 

And lastly do NOT feel like a failure if every day you go to bed without completing your to-do list. Sometimes we give ourselves unrealistic expectations. Sleep sound knowing you have a plan, and most importantly take care of yourself.

-Mandren

Change One.

Every year we look forward to fall break. It’s usually the first week of October, and it has become our favorite time to go to the beach. At least once each trip I enjoy waking up to experience the sunrise. It offers a gentle yet powerful exclamation of the wonders of God’s creation. I also enjoy the solitude and peacefulness of walking on a beach as the sun rises. In the chaos of our daily routine it’s easy to miss these wonders. There are few things as beautiful as watching the sun rise over the horizon and listening to all the sounds of nature waking up around you. These walks on the beach remind me of one of my favorite stories…

Once upon a time, there was an old man who used to go to the ocean to do his writing. He had a habit of walking on the beach every morning before he began his work. Early one morning, he was walking along the shore after a big storm had passed and found the vast beach littered with starfish as far as the eye could see, stretching in both directions. 

Off in the distance, the old man noticed a small boy approaching.  As the boy walked, he paused every so often and as he grew closer, the man could see that he was occasionally bending down to pick up an object and throw it into the sea.  The boy came closer still and the man called out, “Good morning!  May I ask what it is that you are doing?”

The young boy paused, looked up, and replied “Throwing starfish into the ocean. The tide has washed them up onto the beach and they can’t return to the sea by themselves,” the youth replied. “When the sun gets high, they will die, unless I throw them back into the water.”

The old man replied, “But there must be tens of thousands of starfish on this beach. I’m afraid you won’t really be able to make much of a difference.”

The boy bent down, picked up yet another starfish and threw it as far as he could into the ocean. Then he turned, smiled and said, “It made a difference to that one!” (Original Story by Loren Eiseley)

When I first heard this story I thought, probably like many of you, that I would be just like the little boy. Maybe I would, but the reality is that throughout my life I’ve also been the old man… and I’ve been the starfish too. Life presents many chances to pick others up when they need it. And just like the boy in the story, sometimes actions can literally save the lives of others.

No matter how good our circumstances there will be times when we’re like the starfish. We’ll need someone there to lift us up. I also suspect there are times where we’ll be the old man who questions the intentions and impact of those who are trying to make a difference. I hope we’re around people like the little boy who are willing to help no matter the odds… and who are bold enough to guide us if we’re the skeptic… and who are willing to change one outcome. What if we all approached each day to Change One ?

Change One serves as a reminder for why we started Career Launch Group. One at a time, we help get people to a place where they are using their gifts and passions. We help set a course toward a meaningful career journey.

If you’re in the middle of a career transition, or you’re at the beginning of your journey… We want to help.

Change One.

-Wade

Fish Tacos and Your Internal GPS

I had three fish tacos for lunch today, baja style. That means they had cabbage, fresh cilantro, a squeeze of lime, and some sort of tasty sauce.

And though fish tacos are pretty inspirational by themselves, I'll bet that somehow in the next five hundred words, I can connect my lunch with your future.

But first, let me double down. For breakfast, I had a giant cup of cold brew coffee with a decadent three tablespoons of half and half. And a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich on sourdough. I emptied out my one-liter Nalgene water bottle, which means I'm probably about a third of the way through how much water I need today.

So why does that matter? Why did I write down everything that I ate today?

The reason is one of the best ways to change our behavior is to capture it in writing.

In 2017, I lost 25 pounds. In 2018, I lost 30 pounds. So far in 2019, I'm up about 15 pounds. I mean, that's still pretty good right? I'm down a net 40 pounds. But that's about 25 pounds from my target. What's the difference between when I was making progress and when I wasn't? Keeping track.

Our attention is one of our greatest assets. It's the reason why social media companies are multi-billion dollar industries. What would it look like for you to direct your attention on *you* for a little while?

It's a little scary at first because we all tend to walk around with a polite fiction about what we eat, what we do, and what we think. Here's the truth, though. What is, is.

You wouldn't open Google Maps to get somewhere and instead of typing your true starting location put your favorite park, your favorite restaurant, or Paris, France as your starting point. But we walk around with fictional starting points in our heads all of the time, wanting to get to a destination, but not reconciling ourselves to where we really are.

It's much more helpful to enter our current location into the starting point for Google Maps, and then put Paris, France or your favorite park, or your favorite restaurant in the *destination* box. Then, Google will give us all sorts of suggestions on how to get there.

Let's do that with our lives as well. Whether it is our food, our work, our learning, or our thoughts, we have the opportunity to capture an honest assessment of where we are -- like an internal GPS system-- and that will lead us to a much higher likelihood of getting to where we want to be.

You probably aren't here to hear about my fitness journey. You're here to learn about how to better enable our young people to find careers that they're passionate about, develop skills that are marketable, and be able to talk about themselves in ways that are engaging.

More in line with the goals of Career Launch Group, maybe you are interested in how much you're getting done. That might look like an activity log. Or maybe you're interested in what you're learning. That might look like a media log. Or maybe you're interested in communicating your thoughts more clearly and succinctly. That might look like a traditional journal.

What if you kept notes on your true starting point for a day? Or even a week?

Perhaps that would fine-tune your internal GPS and get you started on the adventure you've been looking for.

To the career you're looking for.

Or Paris.

Or maybe even all of the above.

-James

For more about the power of tracking, check out this TEDx talk by best-selling author Laura Vanderkam: https://youtu.be/n3kNlFMXslo

A Personal Crisis - Work Without Purpose

When I graduated from college I had a goal - to get a job. That's what was expected, and that's what I did.  I worked as an operations supervisor for a freight company. I was thankful for the opportunity, and I did learn from it. It paid well, but it was grueling and stressful work. One day an older employee for the freight company, 40 years old at the time, pulled me aside and asked, “What are you doing here?” He said, “This work will make an old man out of you. I think you were meant for something else.” I did kind of hate that job, and I’m pretty sure it showed. I stayed in that role for three years, and it was several years (and experiences) later before I found real purpose in my work.

Do you know people who hate their job? Probably. I would argue that many, if they don't hate it, only tolerate it. A lot of people feel trapped in a job or career. 

Many of you are looking forward to a day soon when you finish whatever you’re currently doing so you can move on to “greener pastures.” If you're waking up some days wondering, What am I doing? Does my life matter? You're not alone. A title of a recent New York Times article was, "Why you hate work," and it confirmed a lot of what you might be experiencing, or if you're not intentional…will experience.  Not loving what you do - there's a huge cost to this.

People have two fundamental needs beyond food and shelter. We want connection, and we want meaning. Now, we can chase after money and status and titles, but what we're really yearning for is that greater purpose.  

A survey by Gallup found that 68% of people in the U.S. are not engaged at work, and those numbers are even worse globally. CLG's core mission is to change this. Disengaged and going through the motions? We don't want this to be you. Showing up for a job with no meaning and purpose? It is a recipe for an exhausting, empty journey. 

We hope you decide that you're not going to be one of the disengaged masses. We want to help people avoid an endless loop of “I have to do this, and it's only about the paycheck at the end of the day.”  We are on a mission to help people avoid career missteps. 

Life is short; fill it with purpose. I bet that's why you're here.

Cheers,

Wade