Tag Archives: change

Corriendo Olas

autoconciencia, empoderamiento, empoderamiento profesional, tomadecisiones

342491-stephanie-gilmoreSiendo que lo único que no cambia es el cambio – resistir el cambio resulta tan útil como intentar resistir la fuerza de la gravedad.  Así como la fuerza de la gravedad nos mantiene los pies sobre la tierra y hace difícil caminar de lado sobre las paredes, la fuerza del cambio hace difícil la permanencia – y que las cosas sean igual a como eran antes. 

Después de vivir un cambio de geografía, de trabajo y de estado civil – en tan solo 6 meses – no estoy aquí para decirte que cuando las cosas cambian, no se pierde.  Tampoco te puedo mirar a los ojos y decirte que no se gana.  Sin duda que bien manejado, el cambio también es constructivo.

Como una moneda tiene dos caras – el cambio también.  Ver el lado positivo no es cuestión de ser sobre optimista e iluso.  Como un surfista aprende a montar sobre una ola, aprovechando su fuerza y dirección – también es posible aprender a beneficiarse cuando las cosas paran de ser igual a como eran antes:

  1. El cambio es inevitable – y por tanto tu mejor opción ante el cambio, es enfocarte en todo lo bueno que resulta cuando las cosas cambian.  Hablo de las experiencias, aprendizajes y oportunidades que resultan.
  2.  Todos vivimos el cambio – no existe una burbuja para proteger a nadie del cambio.  Por tanto no estas sola – y tampoco maldecida.
  3.  Confía en el cambio – porque es desconocido no quiere decir que es negativo. En vista de que no sabes lo que no sabes (y yo también) por medio del cambio es posible ver lo que no sabias que era posible – o simplemente no tenias en tu campo de visión.

Buena semana.

 

Gracias Herald Sun  por la foto de Stephanie Gilmore – campeona autraliana de surfing.

Una versión groovy

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GroovyBuscando quitarme la reputación de aguafiestas, propongo un repensamiento masivo de la frase popular  “Todo lo bueno en la vida tiene un fin…”  La versión groovy que propongo es “Todo en la vida es impermanente.”

Es decir, tanto lo bueno como lo malo se acaba. Y eso no es ni bueno ni malo – solo es.  (Relee esto cuantas veces necesites para entender que así es.)

Y eso ¿que tiene que ver con tu carrera?

Simplemente que todo – incluyendo tu carrera – esta en constante estado de cambio. Y eso, mas que cualquier otra cosa, representa oportunidades para ti.  Entonces, para ayudarte a sacar el mejor provecho a la naturaleza impermanente del universo – y de tu carrera – te invito a considerar que: 

  1. El fin de un ciclo trae la oportunidad de un nuevo comienzo.  Aunque la tendencia es ver los finales como ocasiones tristes, en realidad los finales son el comienzo de algo nuevo.  Piensa en eso cuando le dices adiós a un proceso.  Y dale la bienvenida a lo nuevo que te espera.
  2. Cambiar es aprender.  Una manera efectiva de prepararse para ese nuevo comienzo es mirar bien a las lecciones que te dejo el camino anterior.  Esas lecciones te servirán como herramientas para sobresalir en el nuevo ciclo. Siendo así, aprende a tomar inventarios mentales.
  3. Las transiciones ocurren lentamente.  Aunque existen los cambios abruptos, usualmente el fin de un proceso toma su tiempo.  Tiempo suficiente para reflexionar y prepararse para el nuevo ciclo que empieza.  Aprovecha ese tiempo.
  4. La flexibilidad se aprende con la práctica.  Es posible que las primeras veces que estés expuesto al cambio lo sientas algo traumático. Te garantizo que con el tiempo, dejaras de sentir esa incomodidad. Posiblemente llegaras al punto donde necesites del cambio para sentir tranquilidad.

Si sigues agarrado con las uñas a tu estado actual, suplicando estar atrapado en el tiempo porque piensas que cambiar será el fin del mundo, y de tu carrera, te invito a que te imagines un mundo estático.  Donde todo es igual y día tras día, año tras año nada cambia.  Todo es predecible.  Apuesto a que no soy la única que siento escalofríos con esa visión.  Namaste.

 

Gracias Digital Photography School por la foto tan groovy.

Una piedra dentro del zapato.

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puzzleEs de esperarse.  Habrá cosas en tu trabajo que se sentirán tan incomodas como caminar con una piedra dentro del zapato.

No es cuestión de crearte prejuicios. Es cuestión de estadísticas. Estadísticamente no es posible que te guste el 100% de tu trabajo – el 100% del tiempo.  Es inevitable que hay cosas – por muy apasionado, obsesionado y comprometido que seas con tu carrera – que no serán de tu absoluto agrado.

Siendo así, mas importante que buscar eliminar esas molestias – es aprender de ellas.  Son las situaciones de incomodidad, aquellas que más te retan, las que a la vez mas te enseñan.   

¿Por que es así?

Porque una carrera no se encuentra – se crea.

Por lo tanto todo aquello que no te gusta, o te aburre o te aturde, te da información acerca de lo que te gusta, te emociona y apasiona.  Y entre mas sabes eso, mas chance tienes de escogerlo para tu vida laboral – y no quedarte sentado esperando a que te caigan del cielo.

Como un escultor va creando una escultura eliminando retazos de material no deseados – tu también vas creando tu carrera – quitando aquello que no te gusta – dejando lo que si.  Para lograr eso – primero debes saber distinguir lo uno de lo otro.

Durante este proceso, ten en mente que se trata de ser brutalmente honesto – no malcriado. Es decir, identificar molestias por deporte, te llevara a muy poco en tu carrera. 

¿Como crees que sé que trabajar con gente mediocre – que se guía por la ley del mínimo esfuerzo – me aturde y hasta desconcentra? Porque por varios años tuve colegas mediocres – que buscaban hacer lo mínimo posible en su trabajo.  Fue gracias a esas experiencias incomodas que adquirí la visión de escoger mejor a mis colegas.  Fue gracias a esa visión que acepté una oferta en un start-up multimillonario rodeada de profesionales brillantes, innovadores, apasionados.

Entonces la próxima vez que sientas ganas de huirle a tu trabajo, a un colega o jefe – pausa.  En vez de buscar aliviar el sentimiento de incomodidad, busca averiguar que es lo que te molesta de la situación y cual es su causa.  Pregúntale a tu cabeza y a tu corazón. Te sorprenderás lo que aprenderás acerca de ti – y tu carrera.

 

Te gusta la foto? Gracias winterofdiscontent.

rEvolución

autoconciencia, empoderamiento, empoderamiento profesional, estratégico y sostenible, libre y relevante, nirvana profesional, tomadecisiones,

evolution_ringCurioso como la palabra revolución esta compuesta en gran parte por la palabra evolución, ¿verdad?

La evolución, lejos de ser destructiva – como se tiende a percibir las revoluciones – es desarrollo gradual, crecimiento o mejoría.

Y ¿que conlleva a la evolución en tu vida laboral?

Los cambios.  Poco revolucionario, ¿verdad?

Es decir, hacer lo mismo día tras día, quedarte en tu zona de comodidad y  vivir lo esperado, son formas seguras de estancarte profesionalmente – y de no evolucionar. (Y seria tan desquiciante como ver el pasto crecer)

Entre las posibilidades de cambio están: aceptar diferentes (o mas) responsabilidades dentro de tu mismo puesto; cambiar de puesto dentro de la misma compañía; cambiar de compañía o industria – a un puesto similar; o cambiar de carrera.

Encuentro sorprendente que la ultima opción – cambiar de carrera – cause mas que todo pavor en vez de emoción al común de las personas.  Según he escuchado a muchos comentar, creen que cuando se cambia de carrera, se empieza de cero.  Buscando romper ese tabú – y apoyar tu evolución profesional – aquí comparto que después de hacer mas cambios en mi carrera de lo que es prudente admitir, sé que eso no es así:

  1. La transferencia de conocimientos es inevitable.  Al cambiar de carrera, rápidamente te darás cuenta que existen denominadores comunes entre carreras, puestos y compañías. Hasta cuando pasé de trabajar en cocinas de hoteles y restaurantes, al mundo de oficinas en el sector corporativo, llevé conmigo un sentido agudo de planeacion y manejo de mi tiempo.  Ambas competencias deseadas en el mundo corporativo.Entonces, así como dicen las instrucciones al respaldo de la botella de tu shampoo, para evolucionar profesionalmente debes:  Aprender – Transferir – Evolucionar – Repetir ad infinitum.
  2. Tener un punto de vista distinto te diferencia – y eso te lo dará una formación no convencional.  Si no me crees, piensa en Unilever – un líder en el mercado de productos masivos – cuyo principal valor es la diversidad.  Se han dado cuenta que las mejores soluciones son producidas por equipos de trabajos diversos.
  3. Tomar riesgos – como lo hacen aquellos que cambian de carrera – es visto como una fortaleza por la gran mayoría de empleadores. 

Así que dale tranquila. No te conformes – es una de las formas mas poderosas de rEvolucionar tu carrera.

El piso se me movió – gracias a un guru de la innovación.

autoconciencia, empoderamiento, empoderamiento profesional, emprendimiento, libre y relevante, liderazgo, marca personal,

Franc PontiSi funciona – cámbialo. 

Así decía la diapositiva que nos dio la bienvenida al lanzamiento del libro mas reciente de Franc Ponti – Los 7 Movimientos de la Innovación.

Admito que la idea de cambiar algo que ya funciona me movió el piso.  Y puso mi mente a correr.

Después de masticar por un rato la propuesta de Franc, entendí porque es considerado un guru de la innovación.  Fue cuando decidí entrevistarlo para mi blog. Y de la forma más amable (y humilde) aceptó mis preguntas – y prontamente me envió las siguientes respuestas – junto con una foto de su cautivador gato Cuco. 

Sobra decir que recomiendo su libro – que leí de atrás para adelante.

SR: Haciendo un paralelo entre el liderazgo y la innovación, crees que hay diferencia entre ACTUAR de forma innovadora en nuestro trabajo y SER innovadores? Es decir, piensas que, tal como es posible enseñar liderazgo a aquellos que no son innatamente lideres, la innovación se puede volver parte del modus operandi de aquellos que no son innatamente innovadores?

FP: Creo que las barreras entre ambas cosas son muy difusas. Uno puede ACTUAR y, luego, a medio plazo, SER. La innovación es ante todo una actitud mental que depende de nuestros modelos mentales y de nuestra actitud. ACTUANDO innovadoramente lograremos SERLO en profundidad. Ello no quiere decir que siempre habrá personas más innovadoras que otras, claro.

SR: Si consideras posible enseñar la innovación,  podrías resumirle a mis lectores algunos hábitos que consideras los llevara a actuar de forma innovadora a pesar de no ser innatamente innovadores?

FP:

– Preguntarse el por qué de las cosas y buscar soluciones.

– Mirar siempre un problema desde perspectivas distintas.

– Aprender a mezclar y combinar ideas.

– Hacer las cosas de manera distinta (ducharse, preparar un plato, dirigir una reunión…).

– Practicar la curiosidad.

– Hacer cosas al revés.

– Divertirse siempre.

– Escuchar puntos de vista alternativos al propio y empatizar.

– Experimentar, probar.

SR: Buscando darle incentivos a mis lectores para seguir el camino de la innovación – cuales consideras que son sus mayores beneficios.  En otras palabras, ¿que consideras que se alcanza a través de la innovación? Y ¿cuales consideras son algunas de las consecuencias negativas de no ser innovador?

FP: Innovando conseguimos divertirnos y hacer cosas útiles para la empresa. Innovar es apasionante y, si se consiguen resultados podemos dar grandes saltos. No innovar es aburrirse, quedarse siempre en el mismo lugar. El entorno se mueve muy rápido, hay que atraparlo.

SR: Pensando en la propuesta del libro Blue Ocean Strategy (Estrategia de Océano Azul)– ¿crees que si todos llegamos a ser innovadores entonces es posible que se pierda la ventaja competitiva de ese rasgo?  ¿Cual entonces consideras que es la estrategia de océano azul en un mar rojo de innovadores?

FP: No creo que TODOS lleguemos a ser innovadores. Sigue habiendo mucho conservadurismo en el mundo de la empresa. Sin embargo, si lo llegamos a ser, habrá que crear una Innovación 2.0. Ese sería el océano azul: innovar la innovación.

Un saludo desde Barranquilla.

A New Kind of Hero for a New Kind of World, Career Hero #13

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(This post is part of a pact I made. Click here for the full story.) 

Meet Cindy.  As you read this post, keep in mind that as I wrote it, I flipped back and forth through her six-page resume. 

Starting with her education, Cindy has a Bachelor’s of Engineering from Auckland University.  A program which she completed in three years, instead of four, because she was awarded direct entry into year 2.   That’s because from highschool she  graduated in the top 1% in New Zealand.  She then went on to complete a Masters of Engineering Science in Biomedical Engineering – and graduated top 3 of her year.  And as of 2002 she can be addressed as Dr. Shin-Yi Lin because she has a PhD in Neuroscience.  As of today, Dr. Shin-Yi Lin has published more than 45 papers and has been an invited presenter at conferences and symposiums around the world, including Japan, Australia, Europe and Canada.  Two years ago Dr. Shin-Yi Lin became a lecturer at the faculty of medicine of the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.  She teaches fundamentals of neuroscience and neuromuscular rehabilitation.  In July she was named Senior Lecturer.

Cindy is 34.

Even for a high-achiever like Cindy, it was not immediately obvious to her what she was put on this earth to do. 

As she shared with me, because she received a ‘typical Asian’ education in Taipei, since the time when she started her schooling, she’s been driven by the belief that academia and being a top student are what matter most.  Inspite of her upbringing, after her first job in academia, she felt that she needed to tone down the pressure in her life.  In her own words: “because of how young I was when I first got my research assistant job, all my colleagues (professors and nuerologists) were at least 10 years older than me.  I felt I had to catch up all the time, in terms of professional aspect as well as the overall maturity. This invisible force or peer pressure has really been a major catalyst throughout my life.” 

She decided to change courses and moved into the business world.   Albeit related to engineering, she held several jobs outside of academia.  Including computer programming, doing a BBC production, developing multimedia and selling biotech solutions.
Even then things did not feel quite right.  In her words: “I was struggling to move into the business world and away from the research world…with my given back ground it was difficult…without an MBA or any commercial experience…”

While staying open to the possibility of some day branching back into business,

Cindy decided to go back to academia.

Evidently it was through trial and error that she finally found her career nirvana. As she wrote to me:  “So far I would say, all (these jobs have been) influential (and have) shaped me….Yet now I think the most influential job is…as an academic lecturing…because I clearly influence all of my students and this to me is a huge responsibility.”

Note to self:  What has been your most influential job?  What does that tell you about your passion?

Lets be clear on this.  It’s not Cindy’s degrees or achievements that I found surprising.  Or how smart and knowledgeable she is.  I know that anyone can achieve anything that they set their mind to.

Make a mental note of that.

What drew me into her story was how down to earth and approachable  Cindy is.  I met her during my Sunday morning swim at the university where she teaches.  She was wearing a bathing suit and flip-flops, casually carrying around a bottle of water.  To me she looked like one of the students.  For no real reason we began to talk.  She asked me what I did. I told her about my blog – and recent book project.  I reciprocated with my own curioisity.  And she briefly told me that she was a lecturer of neuroscience.  She left it at that and we began to talk about star signs.  She’s a libra, I’m a scorpio.

She shared her path with me only after I asked.  Being that the topic of neuroscience is one of my own passions, I wanted to know more about what exactly she taught.  I now feel lucky that I dug deeper.  It feels like I lifted the lid to a wonderful world full of light.

It was not because we were rushed that at first she did not ramble off her achievements.  In time I found out it’s because Cindy feels so comfortable in her own skin, that she doesn’t have a need to seek approval for what she’s done – or achieved.  In her eyes, she’s living the life that she is meant to live.  To her it doesn’t feel grandiose – it’s simply her life.  In line with her simplicity, she confessed (almost apologetically) that her child-hood dream was to become a kinder-garden teacher.  As she wrote to me:  “I can never take my eyes off children and I love to play with them.”

Note to self:  Achieve what matters to you.  How are you meant to be living?

For someone who has looked at brain scans longer than most of us have, Cindy is an extremely extroverted person. “…I love people and I am very blessed to work with some amazing people who have great integrity and I have been blessed with excellent mentors all along my career.”

Note to self:  Are you surrounded by amazing colleagues?  People who are worthy of imitation?

It’s refreshing to hear it from a scientifically-minded person like Cindy that the only constant is change in this world.  “Therefore you can prepare but… the truth is for me I don’t even know myself when it happens…I do plan things in short terms but hardly long terms, since I know you really don’t know what will happen tomorrow…How would I know if I change things will be better?”

Even so Cindy has taken chances and has changed lanes.  In her words: “To me experience = you have DONE it before…and it became your experience.  It could be great, it could be wrong, it could be anything but it’s all part of your own experience and the most important thing to me is, you did take the lesson out of the experience and you learn from it. I am a great believer in for things to happen you need ‘the right timing at the right place with the right people’ otherwise the same thing can have a completely different outcome.”

Make a mental note of that.

In search for more answers, I asked Cindy to tell me what has worked for her and what hasn’t throughout her career. 

In her humble way she wrote:  “Woops, this one is hard, but I am giving it my best shot…What worked? My family and friends and colleagues who supported me throughout the years…What hasn’t worked for me is I wait too long…. I wait for things rather than go and get them… this leads me to answer what would I do differently?  I would love to be more proactive and less conservative… I regret that I didn’t believe in myself more before… I wish I could be more FOCUSed and make my dreams come true!”

Reader, make a mental note of that!

 

Brain scan photo credit: click here.

Cindy chose the underwater shot.

Impermanent is a good thing

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“Don’t get too attached…” said a sales manager to me once in reference to a sales rep she thought would not be around for much longer.

Her words continue to echo in my mind since that day eight years ago.  As a strategic job-hopper I tend to not stick around for long at jobs (my all time highest tenure at a job is 18 months, my average is 14 months). Most certainly impermanence is the law of my land.  Even so, contrary to what most think, not getting attached does not make me cold-hearted.  Learning to let go will not make you ice-cold either.  Knowing that things do not last for ever will drive you to make the most of your current situation, to stop taking things for granted.  And that’s a good thing.

Riding the wave of change will make you better able to:

  1. Keep the lessons from each day.  While situations – good and bad – do not last forever, the lessons that they leave in their wake are yours to keep for life – and to pass on as your legacy.  Learn to take stock at the end of each day (I call this a ‘wrap-up & psych-up’ session). Acknowledge to yourself your accomplishments and the lessons you learned.  Like a snow flake, each day is unique. It has something unique to teach us.  It’s the sum of lessons and experiences that make us who we are.  Welcoming those lessons into your life makes you more open to change and more resilient.
  2. Seize the day.  That’s far from being reckless – and destructive. On the contrary. It means being thankful for the day that you have been given to get closer to your goals.  Sure there are days when we feel like letting our hair down. And that’s okay. As long as the spirit of your actions is constructive – like to unwind and de-stress, not to hurt others or yourself – it’s okay to have fun.
  3. Live with a sense of urgency.  This is far from rushing around.  It stands for being focused and deliberate.  It’s also about identifying interruptions and learning to manage them out of your life.  
  4. Act now.  In case you need reminding, nothing lasts forever.  That includes my life and yours.  It’s okay to put off certain things in order to make time for the more important and urgent.  It’s not okay to live in ‘some day’ mode.  If you don’t give importance to what matters most to you, to what fulfils you, no one else will.  Switch from ‘some day’ to ‘if not now then when’ mode. Do it NOW.
  5. Be more tolerant in the face of challenging situations.  It’s one thing to endure the sting of a syringe in your arm when you know that it will not be forever, quite another when you know that the pain will last a lifetime.  Enduring challenges is just like learning to enjoy holding your breath under water.  Try it next time you go for a swim.  See how much further you can go before you come up for air.  Have fun with it.

Really knowing that things are impermanent will lead you to surrender in the face of change.  Once you do, you’ll find that you’ll be more trusting of the process. 

What are you holding onto with your dear life?  Let go…

 

Love the photo as much as I do?  Thanks Denis Darzacq

A New Kind of Hero for a New Kind of World, Hero #7

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(This post is part of a pact I made. Click here for the full story.)

Meet Penelope.  A professional who has worked out a way for making lots of money, doing what she loves, and changing careers seamlessly.  Perhaps it’s all because she has an inbuilt industrial-strength bullshitake detector.

Read on to get a dose of her tough love.

Like many other creative and sensitive people, Penelope feels a strong need to do what she loves.  Unlike many others, she has not taken the ‘starving artist’ road.  Instead she has gone to great lengths to satisfy her creative cravings while paying bills. That’s because Penelope feels adamant about people having a false belief that they should get paid for doing what they love. In her speak: “A capitalist world needs mundane stuff to be done – stuff people will not necessarily love.  If we’d all really do what we love, we’d be having sex and eating apple pie…”

“In adult life what we’re looking for is the intersection between what we’re great at, what we love and what people will pay us for…”

This is what her career Nirvana looks like:

As she went on to tell me: “The commitment to finding (that point) is the only honest way to find a career.  And if you say that you have a career but you haven’t found that, you’re lying to yourself.  Because we all want to be valued financially…our self-esteem is higher and our sense of personal stability is higher if we can support ourselves.  And so the idea that you change careers to do something that you can’t actually support yourself in, is bullshit(ake)…It’s not negativity (towards) career changing, it’s negativity towards bullshit(ake).  It’s negativity towards being a brat about work life…we all compromise and that’s what adult life is.”

Note to self: Pursue what you love – but don’t feel entitled to getting paid for it.  And please, don’t take this personally. It’s just how the business world works. Instead look outside of your work life to do what you love. Above all, be honest with yourself.

She’s been one to put her money where her mouth is.  During the first decade of her working life she made it a point to have two jobs at the same time.  One job was for doing what she loved, the other job was for paying the bills.  While she played professional beach volleyball, she worked at bookstores.  While she wrote, she taught undergrads.  While she learned about interactive media, she coded HTML.

Even after she started running her own companies at 29, she kept this trend alive.  Today, Penelope is the CEO (and founder) of BrazenCareerist.com, a website that receives 500,000 hits per month and is ranked by Alltop as the top online destination for young professionals. She’s also the author of the book Brazen Careerist: The New Rules for Success, which has been widely successful.  If that was not enough, her syndicated column runs in over 200 publications and her blog has over 32,000 subscribers. (Penelope is also a single mom of two)

Note to self:  Time is only mental.  If you’re committed, you’ll make the time.

Penelope is also a strong advocate for change.  As she described it to me: “Careers are…mutational…(and) the idea of career change is outdated…career change as a noun or a verb is outdated…Career change is kind of like a permanent state.”

“Even if you do what you love – and get paid for it – you won’t want to do that your entire (work) life.  We’re going to have (work lives) for 50 to 60 years.  Anyone who’s doing the same career for that long has brain damage.  It’s just too boring and it’s a waste of a life, and your learning curve flattens, and your personal life changes…So there’s nobody who’s being honest about living a life that is true to them saying: ‘ I’m set in my career for the next 60 years’  It’s ridiculous – it’s just dishonest.”

Note to self: A career is a living thing that is constantly evolving. Both change and impermanence are part of the package.  Rather than resist this reality, prepare for it.

Even so, she recognizes that change is hard – and disruptive: ”Changing careers is extremely scary and (needs to be) well-thought out. (It) involves making compromises in your life. If you’re not feeling that, then you’re lying to yourself.”

As a person who craves challenges, she follows a braid model that allows her to minimize the pain and disruption caused by change. Her braid is woven with three strands – which she keeps very separate.  One strand is for paying bills.  That’s the career that she aims to master.  She knows that the stronger that strand is, the more money she stands to make.  The second strand she keeps looser and more fluid. In this area she looks around for new opportunities, and for intellectual and creative stimulation.  That’s the strand that has allowed her to change courses seamlessly. The third strand she labels relationships. That’s the strand that brings meaning to her life.  As she puts it: “(It’s) a no brainer.  It’s ridiculous to say that work gives meaning.  Work doesn’t give meaning – relationships give meaning. Work keeps things interesting, it makes us feel useful, (it) makes us feel part of a community…People who think they’ve achieved higher meaning through their work than someone else are arrogant and misguided…We achieve meaning through relationships.”

That’s in synch with her child-hood dream – as she wrote in an email to me:

”Childhood dream: to not be lonely”

If you haven’t guessed it by now, Penelope is a planner and quite strategic.  She generally has a solid goal and aims to run her career around it.  Her model is so powerful because it’s pre-emptive and keeps her adaptable.

As she summed it up for me: “The most effective way to do a career change – which is what I’ve done every single time – is I’m always working on two careers.  I have one career I’m becoming great at and earning a lot of money because I’m working hard at mastering…and I have another thing that I’m doing which is looking around, experimenting, trying new things, doing a lot of work for free.  …What it is really, is the commitment to permanent self-exploration so that career changing becomes a seamless part of your life. If you don’t do it that way, every time that you change careers you completely disrupt your life.”

As anyone with business sense, Penelope has an exit strategy.  She knows how to get out before she goes in.

Note to self: Work with the end in mind. Incorporate a bridging strategy into your career. Have two things going at once.

What has worked best for her is self-knowledge and self-trust.  She believes that self-knowledge trumps everything. And in spite of her success, she admits to having felt lonely, afraid and out of step with everyone else.  Twenty years later, she now knows that if: ”you’re feeling those things, you’re probably on the right track…”