What Color Is Your Parachute? (58 page)

It is a mystery that we cannot fathom, in this life at least, as to why one of us has this Talent, and the other one has that; why God chose to give one gift—and Mission—to one person, and a different gift—and Mission—to another. Since we do not know, and in some degree cannot know, we are certainly left free to speculate, and imagine.

We may imagine that before we came to Earth, our souls,
our Breath
,
our Light
, stood before the great Creator and volunteered for this Mission. And God and we, together, chose what that Mission would be and what particular gifts would be needed, which He then agreed to give us, after our birth. Thus, our Mission was not a command given preemptorily by an unloving Creator to a reluctant slave without a vote, but was a task jointly designed by us both, in which as fast as the great Creator said,
“I wish”
our hearts responded,
“Oh, yes.”
As mentioned in an earlier comment, it may be helpful to think of the condition of our becoming human as that we became amnesiac about any consciousness our soul had before birth—and therefore amnesiac about the nature or manner in which our Mission was designed.

Our searching for our Mission now is therefore a searching to recover the memory of something we ourselves had a part in designing.

I am admittedly a hopeless romantic, so of course I like this picture. If you also are a hopeless romantic, you may like it, too. There’s also the chance that it just may be true. We will not know until we see Him face to face.

Your unique and individual Mission will most likely turn out to be a mission of Love, acted out in one or all of three arenas: either in the Kingdom of the Mind, whose goal is to bring more Truth into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Heart, whose goal is to bring more Beauty into the world; or in the Kingdom of the Will, whose goal is to bring more Perfection into the world, through Service.

Here are some examples:

“My mission is, out of the rich reservoir of love that God seems to have given me, to nurture and show love to others—most particularly to those who are suffering from incurable diseases.”

“My mission is to draw maps for people to show them how to get to God.”

“My mission is to create the purest foods I can, to help people’s bodies not get in the way of their spiritual growth.”

“My mission is to make the finest harps I can so that people can hear the voice of God in the wind.”

“My mission is to make people laugh, so that the travail of this earthly life doesn’t seem quite so hard to them.”

“My mission is to help people know the truth, in love, about what is happening out in the world, so that there will be more honesty in the world.”

“My mission is to weep with those who weep, so that in my arms they may feel themselves in the arms of that Eternal Love that sent me and that created them.”

“My mission is to create beautiful gardens, so that in the lilies of the field people may behold the Beauty of God and be reminded of the Beauty of Holiness.”

Knowing that you came to Earth for a reason, and knowing what that Mission is, throws an entirely different light upon your life from now on. You are, generally speaking, delivered from any further fear about how long you have to live. You may settle it in your heart that you are here until God chooses to think that you have accomplished your Mission, or until God has a greater Mission for you in another Realm. You need to be a good steward of what He has given you, while you are here; but you do not need to be an anxious steward or stewardess.

You need to attend to your health,
but you do not need to constantly worry about it
. You need to meditate on your death,
but you do not need
to be constantly preoccupied with it
. To paraphrase the glorious words of G. K. Chesterton:
“We now have a strong desire for living combined with a strange carelessness about dying. We desire life like water and yet are ready to drink death like wine.”
We know that we are here to do what we came to do, and we need not worry about anything else.

If you approach your job-hunt as an opportunity to work on this issue as well as the issue of how you will keep body and soul together, then hopefully your job-hunt will end with your being able to say: “Life has deep meaning to me, now. I have discovered more than my ideal job; I have found my Mission, and the reason why I am here on Earth.”

There are a lot of people out there, anxious to help you with your job-hunt or career-change, in case this book isn’t sufficient for you. They’re willing to help you, for a fee in most cases. (That is how they make their living.) They go by various names: career coach, career counselor, career development specialist, you name it.

I wish I could say that
everyone
who hangs out a sign saying they are now in this business could be completely depended upon. But—alas! and alack!—they can’t all be. This career-coaching or career-counseling field is largely unregulated. And even where there is some kind of certification, resulting in their being able to put a lot of degree-soundin’ initials after their name, that doesn’t really tell you much. It means a lot
to them
of course; in many cases, they had to sweat blood in order to be able to put those initials after their name. (Or not. Some got their initials in little more than a long weekend.)

I used to try to explain what all those initials meant. There is a veritable alphabet-soup of them, with new ones born every year. But no more; I’ve learned, from more than thirty-five years of experience in this field, that 99.4 percent of all job-hunters and career-changers don’t care a fig about these initials. All they want to know is:
do you know how to help me find a job?
Or, more specifically,
do you know how to help me find my dream job—one that matches the gifts, skills, and experience that I have, one that makes me excited to get up in the morning, and excited to go to bed at night, knowing I helped make this Earth a little better place to be in? If so, I’ll hire you. If not, I’ll fire you.

Okay, then,
bye-bye initials!
Let us start in a simpler place, with this basic truth:

All coaches and counselors divide basically into three groups:

a) those who are honest, compassionate, and caring, and know what they’re doing;

b) those who are honest but don’t know what they’re doing; and

c) those who are dishonest, and merely want your money—large amounts, in a lump sum, and up front.

In other words, you’ve got compassionate, caring people in the same field with crooks. And your job, if you want help, is to discern the one from the other.

It would help, of course, if someone could just give you a list of those who are firmly in the first category—honest and know what they’re doing. But unfortunately, no one
(including me)
has such a list. You’ve got to do your own homework, or research here, and your own interviewing, in your own geographical area. And if you’re too lazy to take the time and trouble to do this research, you will deserve what you get.

Why is it that
you
and only
you
can do this particular research? Well, let’s say a friend tells you to go see so-and-so. He’s a wonderful coach or counselor, but unhappily he reminds you of your Uncle Harry, whom you detest. Bummer! But, no one except you knows that you’ve always disliked your Uncle Harry. That’s why no one else can do this research for you—because the real question is not “Who is best?” but “Who is best for you?” Those last two words demand that it be you who “makes the call.”

Job-hunters and career-changers try to avoid this research, of course. One way to do that, is through overconfidence in your own intuition:
“Well, I’ll just call up one place in my area, and if I like the sound of them, I’ll sign up. I’m a pretty good judge of character.”
Yeah, right! I’ve heard this refrain from so many job-hunters who called me only after they’d lost loads of money in a bad “pay-me-first” contract, because they had been
taken
, by slicker salespeople than they had ever run into before.
“But they seemed so sincere, and charming.”

They cry. I express, of course, my sympathy and empathy (I once got taken myself, the same way), but then I add a sobering note of caution,
“I’m terribly sorry to hear that you had such a heartbreaking experience, but—as the Scots would say—‘Ya dinna do your homework.’ Often you could easily have discovered whether a particular coach or counselor was any good, before you ever gave them any of your money, simply by doing the preliminary research that I urge upon everybody.”

The bottom line, for you: intuition isn’t enough.

Another way people try to avoid this research is by saying, “Well, I’ll just see who Bolles recommends.” That’s pretty futile, because I never have recommended anyone. Some try to claim I do, including, in past years, some of the coaches or counselors listed in the
Sampler
at the end of this appendix, who claim that their very listing here constitutes a recommendation from me. Oh, come on!
This Sampler is more akin to the Yellow Pages, than it is to
Consumer Reports
.

Let me repeat this, as I have for more than thirty-five years, and repeat it very firmly:

The listing of a firm or coach in this book does NOT constitute an endorsement or recommendation by me. Never has meant that. Never will.
(Anyone listed here who claims that it does—in their ads, brochures, or publicity—gets permanently removed from this Sampler the following year after I find out about it.)
This is not “a hall of fame”; it is just a sampler of names of those who have asked to be listed, and have answered some reasonable questions.

Consider them just a starting point for your search. You must check them out. You must do your own homework. You must do your own research.

So, how do you go about finding a good career coach or counselor, if you decide you need help? Well, you start by collecting three names of career coaches or counselors in your geographical area.

How do you find those names? Several ways:

First, you can get names from your friends: ask if any of them have ever used a career coach or counselor. And if so, did they like ’em? And if so, what is that coach’s or counselor’s name?

Second, you can get names from the Sampler in
Appendix C
. See if there are any career coaches or counselors who are near you. They may know how you can find still other names in your community. But I repeat what I said above: just because they’re listed in the Sampler
doesn’t
mean I recommend them. It only means they asked to be listed, and professed familiarity with the contents of this book (current edition, not way back—say, 2001). You’ve still got to research these people.

Need more names? Try your telephone book’s Yellow Pages, under such headings as:
Aptitude and Employment Testing
,
Career and Vocational Counseling, Personnel Consultants
, and (if you are a woman)
Women’s Organizations and Services.

Once you have three names, you need to go do some comparison shopping. You want to talk with all three of them and decide which of the three (if any) you want to hook up with.

What will this initial interview cost you, with each of the three? The answer to that is easy: when first setting up an appointment,
ask
. You do have the right to inquire ahead of time how much they are going to have to charge you for the exploratory interview.

Some, a few, will charge you nothing for the initial interview. One of the brightest counselors I know says this:
I don’t like to charge for the first interview because I want to be free to tell them I can’t help them, if for some reason we just don’t hit it off.

However, do not expect that most individual coaches or counselors can afford to give you this exploratory interview for nothing! If they did that, and got a lot of requests like yours, they would never be able to make a living.

If this is not an individual counselor, but
a firm
trying to sell you a “pay-me-first” package
up front
, I guarantee they will give you the initial interview for free. They plan to use that “intake” interview (as they call it) to sell you a much more expensive program.

When you are face to face with the individual coach or counselor (or firm), you ask each of them the same questions, listed on the form below. (Keep a little pad or notebook with you, or PDA, so you can write down their answers.)

After visiting the three places you chose for your comparison shopping, you can go home, sit down, put your feet up, look over your notes, and compare those places.