THE SECRET OF SUCCESS
(March/April 2006 Issue)

Career counselors and their clients obsess about making the right choice of career. Where does my fame and fortune lie? What am I best suited for? Where are the most promising opportunities? However, success and a happy career do not flow from making the right choice. You can be a doctor and be quite miserable. You can be a lowly administrative assistant in an insurance company and feel excited and rewarded. You can be a red-hot software analyst for a computer firm and be either spellbound by your possibilities or mired in depressed confusion.

It's not your occupational title that matters. Counselors should be helping clients to search for something deeper. It's called making a difference. It's the key thread that runs through every successful career. The phrase make a difference is usually linked with do-gooders who want to save the world. But, truth to tell, every living person wants to look at his/her work and see that it leaves a footprint.

People worry about how to make money for themselves. Instead, when working for a business, they should ask: What can I do that will help the company to make money? Businesses want new customers. What can you do to help get them? A janitor in a consumer electronics store once saw how to re-organize the checkout lines to improve customer service. Traffic increased by 25 per cent once the changes were made.

Every worker can affect the bottom line. A janitor sees the big picture by keeping his eyes open. A typist envisions a new and better filing system. A grocery store checker sees how to improve security in the store. The key variable is attitude - a belief that your intelligence can help any organization achieve its goals better. It is the single theme that unites Democrats and Republicans, females and male, old and young alike. If an organization stifles recommendations for change, you don't want to work there, because it will eventually preside over its own demise.

Sounds trite, doesn't it? Carry an attitude toward improvement. Be a positive force for change. Look for ways to build a better mousetrap. Yet, if you interview people who are happy at their work, they will citedifferences they have helped to make that give them the greatest feelings of satisfaction. Years ago, Gail Sheehy (writing the original Passages) talked to people about satisfaction in their work and found that a sense of purpose was their greatest reward.

If you subscribe to this make a difference theme, then let's flash back to career counseling. We want clients, above all, to chose a field of work where they believe they can affect the lives of others. Where their presence will mean something. If this is as a rock musician, so be it. If as an archaeologist, so be it. If as an entomologist (bugs), let it be so. With the difference attitude, this is where the energy will flow. This is where passion will take root. This is what career success is all about. The I Ching teaches that everything changes. And so will career directions change. Is this a bad thing? No. Paying attention to where one's energy is moving is a good thing.

Clients sometimes confuse following their energy with following the money. In successful careers, the energy comes first and then usually the money follows, because the client is hooked on making the biggest difference possible.

Many years ago I worked at the Port Of New York Authority in New York City. Each day at lunch time I went for my corned beef sandwich to a luncheonette where Frank the sandwich maker held court. Frank sang to the customers, told us funny jokes, and generally orchestrated a hilarious lunch hour for all of us. Business was booming, laughter was everywhere, everyone went away with a smile on their faces. As you, I and our clients go about our jobs, may there be a little bit of Frank in each of us.

Howard Figler, Ph.D., is the author of seven books, including The Complete Job-Search Handbook [third edition, Henry Holt & Company, New York, 1999], a best seller for many years. He is co-author [with Richard Bolles] of the Career Counselor's Handbook [Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA, 1999]. His most recent book is Keys to Liberal Arts Success [Prentice-Hall, 2002]. He can be reached at: Howard Figler, Ph.D., and Associates, 9542 Shumway Drive, Orangeville, CA 95662 USA. Tel: 916-988-6464; e-mail: hefigler@pacbell.net.