Money Management
The Importance of Focus and Hope in Your Work
October 5, 2011 | 
Author In psychotherapy and coaching sessions with my gay male clients every day, I’ve noticed lately that a frequent focus is about work issues. This makes sense, given that the news and current events atmosphere has focused on a volatile political and economic climate: we get bombarded with news daily, from everything from Facebook to newspaper headlines to network TV news, about a poor job market, global economic peril, and the almost pathetically comical political race for the 2012 elections about who is going to “save the country” and return us all to prosperity. As much as I believe a lot of that is political posturing, for my clients’ sake, I long for the days where I am helping a client make a decision between which of three new job offers to take, or role-playing with them how to do a salary negotiation, or educating clients on which local gay-related charities I recommend for them to donate part of this year’s large annual bonus to (these are things that used to be much more frequent in my office).
Today, I help my clients do more work on maintaining their current job, working out conflicts within it with colleagues, or helping them to find enough work as an independent professional to keep their incomes stable. I don’t blame my clients for being anxious; there is much to be anxious about, especially when we are all subject to inflammatory media messages on a daily basis that the sky is falling, because, you know, “bad news sells newsapers.”
That’s why I try to encourage my clients facing professional challenges to keep a sense of focus and hope. It does no one any good at all to succumb to the news, however much it’s a mixture of hype versus fact. My clients are often handsome, intelligent, knowledgeable men who have learned to grow a thick skin by growing up gay in a more or less homophobic society. For this reason, they are very often excellent salesmen. They’ve had to learn to “read” people when they developed their “gaydar” to see which men are safe to approach romantically or sexually. They’ve to learn to mount defenses to people who would challenge them. Gay culture, in general, tends to teach culture and sophistication, and we often appear “charming” to straight customers. All of these qualities lend themselves to being an influential salesperson.
This can be sales of a product or service (many of the guys I work with are the top salesmen in their company and the envy of the straight guys, who often don’t look as good in a designer suit or can’t charm female (or even male) clients with the same panache). It can also be selling yourself (not in “that” sense, usually, although I have worked with a number of successful escort boys) in the sense of bringing your creative talents to market – as with actors, TV writers, designers, photographers, fashion designers, architects, and interior designers, all who work for themselves as what I call the “gay male creative entrepreneur” as self-employed independent contractors (West Hollywood is nicknamed “the creative city”, after all!).
And what qualities do my most successful clients exhibit? I think they are focus and hope. Our work is often about maintaining a focus on what mindset, point-of-view, and mental positive statements to maintain to get a certain job “deal,” succeed at it, or parlay that success to the next gig. When challenged by not enough work or not enough of the work projects that are especially desired, it’s maintaining hope that their skills, talents, and abilities are indeed needed, often desperately, by someone, somewhere, who is willing to pay for them. Getting work is often a match-making process between the skills and talents that you have, and the person who needs those skills and talents to achieve something important to their own job (think of a casting director who needs to cast just the “right” actor for a part, or an entire movie full of parts!).
I encourage the use of what’s called “metrics” – which is maintaining some sort of records (it could even be an Excel spreadsheet, Quicken data, or other database; even a notebook) of previous sales, deals, and successes. Then, looking at where they came from, what kind of networking did you do to bring those opportunities about, what skills got you the gig, and what the final benefits were to the client you worked for. By analyzing past data, you can get an idea of what’s worked in the past, and what’s likely to work in the future. If you’re a fashion designer who makes commissioned dresses that are one-of-a-kind, and your last three clients who paid $3,000 each for formal event gowns were high-income middle-aged women in West Los Angeles, then it might behoove you to think about what that demographic reads or looks at online to determine where your next advertising strategy might be. If you’re a salesman and the majority of your last quarter sales were all to small start-up companies with young female decision-makers, you might want to call on other companies in your territory that fit that description. Sometimes the best predictor of future success is looking at where your success has come from in the recent past. This kind of focus helps you maintain the hope that you are making the progress you want to make toward your professional goals this year.
It’s important that if you have fallen into the opposites of focus and hope, which are feelings of being demoralized, scattered, unmotivated, or even resentful, and you’ve lost hope, energy, drive, and confidence, that you work quickly to reverse these and mitigate any damage they are causing to your professional “mojo.” Sometimes you need prompting and an outside person to ask you the right questions, help you clarify your own feelings, and identify your internal strengths or external resources that you might have been overlooking. Counseling and coaching can help, before current circumstances undermine the pursuit of your vision of your Ideal Professional Self.
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November 10, 2010: Do You Have 'Professional Self-Esteem'?
In recent years in my psychotherapy practice, I have noticed a dramatic increase in the demand for more “coaching”-style services, and I have been happy to develop this for my clients. There are personal coaching issues, to be sure, but what I find much more frequently is that clients need professional coaching, especially for what I call the “independent professional solo entrepreneur”, meaning people who make their living as a self-employed professional, in a variety of fields. The fields range from TV writers, to actors, architects, fashion designers, singers, office furniture salesmen, hair stylists, personal fitness trainers, lawyers, doctors, salesmen, etc.
What I find is that in the context of a major national recession, people need support for opening, sustaining, and maximizing their business. We have discussed a number of topics, which include how to have the confidence to start a business, who can support the endeavor, how will it be financed, what is the competition, how will the business be marketed, who is the target niche audience, and how to measure success. We’ve also discussed fear of “failure”, and actually, much more often, fear of success.
What I have concluded after doing this work for quite some time is that there is a concept that I call “Professional Self-Esteem” involved here. I’ve always said that in business, it’s not “the competition” that holds us back, or even a recessionary market, but ourselves, and our negative thinking that undermines reaching our professional goals. Developing professional self-esteem is part of the process of removing the barriers between us, and the success we dream of. Dreams are just “goals without timelines”. In business coaching, we talk about Success Goals, how they are defined, and what resources we need to reach them.
Professional self-esteem, then, I believe, is made of the following components:
- Recognizing ourselves as having the interest, aptitude, talent, and SKILLS required to do a certain profession
- Believing in ourselves enough to close any “gaps” in our skills and qualifications, through education, mentoring, and independent reading/research/study
- Reflecting on ourselves and removing any “guilt” or barriers to fully accepting success
- “Making friends with money” – Being confident that we can earn a good (or great!) living doing what we love, without guilt, because we have a mechanism for giving back (Jack Canfield’s great book, The Success Principles, talks about the “tithe” — giving a percentage of your income to worthy causes, which I’ve done for a number of years with great joy and satisfaction. That way, the more you earn, the more the “causes” you support earn!)
- Identifying and re-writing any mental “negative messages” that we grew up with, that we “can’t” or that we’re not “good enough”
- Evaluating ourselves to know what we do well in our profession, and what needs work. We don’t beat ourselves up; we humbly identify areas to improve, and make a commitment to shore them up. We also identify the resources we need to improve.
- We confidently identify the resources we need to succeed — internal resources, like responsibility, commitment, confidence, stamina, determination, creativity, and persistence, or external resources, like mentors, books, courses, websites, workbooks, research data, advertising/marketing strategies, etc.
- Challenging the belief that life is here to “suffer through” in jobs we hate, or even just “tolerate”, instead of going after our dream job that we do better than just about anyone else we know.
There are more nuances to Professional Self-Esteem that come up in client sessions, but these are the primary ones. Do you have “professional self-esteem”? If not, which components do you need to do some work on to cultivate?
My upcoming book, entitled (appropriately), Self-Empowerment: Have the Life You Want!, has an entire chapter devoted to closing the gap between how life is, and how you would like it to be, in your Career. Stay tuned for additional information on how to get it.
You could also close that gap between where you are, and where you’d like to be, in achieving the ideal vision of your Professional Self, by doing therapy or coaching.
Doing what you love, with the talents you have, and earning a living doing it, can help you to…Have the Life You Want!
Tags: Self-Empowerment and the Three Resources: Time, Energy, Money
Over the course of my 18 years as a psychotherapist in private practice in West Hollywood, California, I’ve come to utilize a number of phrases that summarize the wisdom of various theorists from Sigmund Freud, the “founder” of psychotherapy, to Louise Hay, an 80′s New Age inspirational author. But, also along the way, I’ve developed a few phrases of my own, “Ken-isms” I like to call them, based on my many observations, that have helped many people in various classic problem situations that I see over and over. Perhaps my favorite concept in treatment is “self-empowerment” (which is the name of my upcoming book, Self-Empowerment: Have the Life You Want!), because I believe in helping people empower themselves to improve their quality of life in various areas, such as your health, mental health, relationships, career, and finances. One of my favorite “Ken-isms” is encouraging my clients to spend their resources of Time, Energy, and Money according to their Values, Priorities, and Goals. What does this mean? Let’s take each one of those six elements: Read the rest of this entry »
Managing Recession Anxiety: How to Cope with Layoff
While the current economic recession may spare many of us as gay men, who are often considered an “affluent” segment of society, it will ensnare others. Even the threat of being affected by the recession is enough to cause anxiety, but for those who are laid off, have a partner who is, or who have to be the ones doing the laying off, anxiety pervades. How do we cope? Here are some ideas:
Handling Being Laid Off
According to the Alaska Department of Labor, being laid off includes acknowledging and coping with an entire series of stressors, including the loss of:
· Wages and benefits – the basic livelihood for our lifestyle
· Your role as a worker and provider; independence
· Dignity and self-esteem of work
· Expectations we had for the “American Dream”
· Trust in our economic system
· Feelings of control over your life
· Your daily pattern and comfortable, familiar routines
· Your “work family” of colleagues
· Feelings of patriotism and collective strength
These losses can cause symptoms of stress. But for every stressor, there is often a recommended resource and response. For example, for:
- Getting sick more often? Practice self –care of good food, exercise, and rest
- Feeling tired all the time? Sleep regular hours, eat balanced meals, do some cardio
- Sadness and depression? Seek counseling/therapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy
- Eating more or eating less? Eat a regular diet, small regular meals
- Having trouble sleeping? Ask your doctor for a prescription sleep aid, consider relaxation CDs
- Feeling shaky or dizzy? Consult your doctor, practice meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback or yoga
- Sexual problems? Cuddle, hug, take the pressure off “performance”, seek couples counseling as needed
- Not interested in anything? Seek therapy for possible depression; get outside of yourself and volunteer to help others
- Increased use of drugs or alcohol? Practice harm reduction; reduce or eliminate these; find alternative “treats” and indulgences
- Getting angry more easily? Forgive yourself and others; practice relaxation
- Feeling out of control? Identify things you can control; do 2-3 things per day in support of yourself; say “I could _________” over and over; volunteer for a cause; keep a journal of your small successes each day
Coping with a layoff also involves dealing with the obvious financial crisis this often brings. Various time-honored tips for financial crisis management include the following:
- Evaluate your financial situation – know your monthly expenses and any income or resources; make a budget and stick to it
- Pay minimums on your credit cards and other debts, but keep every debt current
- Negotiate your “exit package” with your employer before you leave your job – severance pay, job search “outplacement” or resume service fees, extended health and other benefits beyond date of separation
- Try to take copies of important documents before you receive notice of layoff or the day of, if you are allowed to according to your company’s intellectual property policy – such as your Rolodex or Outlook contact files, important memos you wrote, brochures you made, photographs of projects, PowerPoint presentations, successful proposals or reports you wrote, – things that would be part of a “portfolio” of impressive work product samples to show new potential employers
- Get recommendation letters from colleagues, and a letter from Human Resources verifying that you were laid off, not fired
- Enroll in COBRA quickly to preserve your health care coverage for emergencies and routine care
- Make personal/professional business cards on VistaPrint.com to network with – give them out constantly after your layoff
- Pretend you have to live on much less than you actually have – try $10/day for everything
- Use social networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Craigslist
- Sell any unused stuff in a garage or yard sale – (Avoid Ebay; its owner is a major Prop 8 supporter!)
- Go back to basics – food, sleep, exercise, stress management, family/peer support
- Brainstorm cheap entertainment – games, books, discount theatres, home-made dinners
- Separate “you” from “you in the job” – you are/were NOT your job – recognize that you have a professional self that transcends any one organization or title
- Research public benefits – Enroll in CA Unemployment, or if you have a physical or psychiatric disability (stress, depression), consider talking to your doctor about enrolling in SDI, the CA short-term disability program (which pays more than Unemployment).
- Register with temporary agencies or make yourself available for consulting. Always network with others with a, “How can I serve you?” attitude, not a, “Give me a job” one.
- Make your job-hunt your new job – Follow a Monday-Friday, 9 to 5 schedule.
- Get new training or go back to school for new work skills, if necessary.
- Be open to taking what you can get job-wise, and make the most of it. Read Jack Canfield’s, The Success Principles for a detailed description of great attitudes to adopt.
- Grieve and vent a little; you have to get these feelings off your chest with someone.
Supporting a Partner Who’s Been Laid Off
Maybe it’s not you, but your partner who has been laid off. What do you do then? Here are some other tips:
- Offer support as he wants it – not how you want to give it. Does he need you to just listen? Give advice? Make jokes? Talk about it? NOT talk about it? Help him with job networking? Role-play “mock” job interviews to build confidence?
- Discuss the issue as a two-person family – don’t think in terms of you/me; it’s “US”
- Review your household budget and try to make some sacrifices evenly between the two of you
- Try to boost your partner’s self-esteem by giving sincere compliments and recognition of things he does well outside of work (I bet you know a few…*ahem*).
- Discuss how if one partner picks up more expenses, the other “contributes” in non-monetary ways such as more domestic duties; discuss what might be fair in terms of money, chores, and other contributions to the household
Handling Laying Off Employees
Perhaps it’s not you, or your partner, who has been laid off, but you’re the one doing the laying off as a manager or director in your company. This is a thankless, unpleasant, and guilt-inducing task, but at times it must be done for the good of the company you represent.
These are ways to cope with this chore:
- Separate your role as a manager/officer of the company from your relationships with colleagues
- Keep in contact with your supervisor and HR – use them as resources so you follow proper legal protocols and not feel isolated in this process
- Focus on your role to keep your whole department “sound” – it’s not about individual employees when you are a manager
- Find trusted “buddies” to vent to – preferably on the same management level (don’t vent to subordinates or superiors)
- Balance the number of “bodies” on your staff in terms of quality versus quantity of workers
- Be quick, firm, but compassionate – offer to write letters of recommendation or take reference calls, if your company allows that
- Don’t be omnipotent. These people are going to sink or swim, with or without you. You can’t take credit if someone leaves and is a success, and you can’t take blame if they leave and have hard times. There are too many variables besides you affecting that person’s success, and they have to take responsibility for their own lives
- Motivate the employees you have left – keep up morale with low-cost recognitions. The book 1,000 Ways to Reward Employees can help.
- Stop feeling guilty – most laid-off employees do just fine, relatively shortly
Finally, remember that economic recessions are inherently temporary. These downturns are to be expected at several points in the long span of your career, and it might help to evoke the ancient wisdom of, “This, too, shall pass.” And then, my friends, the party is ON!
7 Ways to Take Care of Your Financial Self – Now and for the Future
7 Ways to Take Care of Your Financial Self – Now and for the Future
Part of my initial assessment as a psychotherapist for gay men examines their current financial security, goals, fears, risks, and rewards. Our finances contribute to how we perceive our external environment, and they affect mood, feelings, behavior, and relationships. Over 15 years in practice, I have observed certain “true-isms” about guys who have it together financially – regardless of their income bracket. What is the connection between good financial habits and coping with depression and anxiety? Here are some time-honored tips: Read the rest of this entry »