The early bird doesn’t always get the worm. At least, it missed one worm I observed while working in the front yard one day. I was blowing lawn clippings into a pile, when I noticed a worm doing an amazing acrobatic dance on the hard dirt. The worm hopped, twisted, flipped, and spun itself frantically, in the summer sun. I was so impressed by the worm’s valiant efforts that I stopped my work, scooped up the worm, and buried him in some soft, muddy earth. Reflecting on the worm’s behavior, I think we can all take a lesson from the worm.

In today’s tough economic market, help is harder to come by. However, if you show effort or share information, first, those positioned best to support or gain from your effort will be inclined to lend you a helping hand. How much effort should you apply? Here’s the worm’s secret: Be generous, expect nothing in return, and be open to getting what you want in less than conventional ways. We exist in a new economy. A new economy tougher than any summer hardened dirt. However, consider the worm’s secret and how this little creature cuts through the toughest earth, daily, to discover a moisture rich world beneath hard pan. If he can do it, so can you. Thanks Mr. Worm!

Speed bumps don’t mean stop! If you’ve completed your driver’s education training, you probably know this little fact. However, this simple driving fact has huge life lessons, too. For instance, the speed bump’s key messages are:
1. “Slow down or I’ll make you wish you had!”
2. “Since you are driving slower, please take a moment to see why.”
3. “A school may be in session near you.”
4. “Increased perception may save yours’ or someone else’s life

If you are unsure of what a speed bump looks like, speed bumps look like:
· Financial crisis
· Deaths in the family
· Job losses
· Illnesses
· Lost love
· Relationship changes
· Conflict (internal/external)
· Debt

These are all familiar speed bumps along life’s roadway. These speed bumps can stop us cold in our tracks! These are big scary life events, which we must overcome or suffer the fate of living forever frozen or controlled by these life events. Stopping on a speed bump may make sense in the moment, because you want the discomfort of the bumpy ride to stop. However, it doesn’t allow you to:

1. Apply knowledge or perception gained while slowed on the road of life
2. Get out of harm’s way (traffic is still moving around you)
3. Keep moving toward your destination and life’s fulfillment
4. Find life’s nourishing experiences that will help you see and navigate future road bumps

Experience tells us to heed the speed bump sign and the physical bump’s message, or else. Let’s be wise drivers along life’s road way. When you approach your next speed bump:
· Slow down
· Reflect on your road conditions (job loss, lost love, debt, etc.)
· Be on the lookout for solutions in your problem (contacts, resources, etc.)
· Carefully ease over your bump – get help, if you need it or simply run out of fuel
· Gently accelerate towards your life’s fulfilling destination

The next time life throws you a speed bump, you’ll know its true purpose, which is to momentarily slow your travel, realize school is in session, and explore your solutions in the problem. It’s not where you’ll stop. It is generally a slow start to a new beginning.

While you are between opportunities, consider taking some time to reassess what fills up and energizes you at work. I share this thought, because it points back to your giftedness - the thing employers don't truly know how to identify, tap, and grow on the job, but desperately seek to hire. Examine your work and life experiences carefully for the magic thread of fulfillment running through out your life.

It shows up as career highlights, awards won, deep satisfaction, and being dubbed
"The Go-to" person for a specific skill or outcome. Imagine being fully focused on the highest return on your talent's investment at work and being filled up emotionally, spiritually, and physically. Having work energize and not drain you. So, take a moment and reflect on what you do that loves you back and consider building your career on that wonderful thing. It has worked wonders for me.

I wrote a book called "The Gift Table". You can read the first chapter in my press kit at http://www.thegifttable.com/. I want you to find within you the thing that gives back to you as much and much more than you give to it everyday of your life.

Recession-Proof Your Career

I think people should examine their gifts/strengths and focus their careers around them. When people engage their gifts/strengths, they get fired up and produce better results on the job. Not only do they perform better on the job, but they feel better on the job and others around them feel better, too. We must all seek to be gift/strength-centered beings that bring that extra bit of horsepower needed for spinning straw into gold – daily.

Marcus Buckingham, the "Play to Your Strengths" guy, did some phenomenal work researching the importance of leaders developing their employee's strengths to greatness. Employees work is easier to do, they get better work outcomes, and everyone wins!

Again, focusing on what you do best will give you that extra bit of differentiation without really even trying. You show up with more ideas, better focus, and truly innovative results - all because you truly wanted to be engaged with the work that is fulfilling both psychologically and physiologically. Yes, the absence of stress doing what you hate can do wonders for your health!

Added bonus, another man’s (woman’s) trash is another man’s (woman’s) treasure. Think of all the projects around the globe employees gripe about doing, examine your gifts, and match your turbo charged gift/strengths to the task and watch the sparks of unbridled gratitude and success fly!

Regardless of boom or bust times, the person showing the most engagement and results gets more of the limited recession dollars than their average to underperforming, complaining counterparts. Wanna move up - discover your gift/strengths, then integrate it into your career.

Perseverance: A Gift Table Moment

Life’s successes exist on the other side of Lake Perseverance. Lake Perseverance is filled with molasses, and must be swum under your own steam. Here, you earn every shoulder burning arm stroke toward success. It pulls every leg kick downward and strains against every leg kick upward, as you propel yourself slowly toward perseverance’s promise.

However, you cannot give up. Every stroke places you closer to your goal. Every stroke builds muscles you did not have before. Every stroke proves you can make it! When you pull yourself from the life draining molasses of Perseverance, you can flop down on the beach of success and cheer other’s arrival. Do not lament perseverance. Embrace your perseverance, because it teaches you what is critical for reaching and sustaining a successful life.

Living with a Dead End Job

In Greek Mythology, Sisyphus was a wise mortal who angered the Gods of Olympus. The angry Gods ultimately condemned Sisyphus to rolling a great rock up a steep hill. Upon reaching the hilltop, the great rock rolled back down the hill. Sisyphus did this day and night forever. Sisyphus became mythology's greatest example of futile effort. If your job makes you feel like Sisyphus, and your job/life seems like a futile, joyless effort, then it is time you unshackle yourself from that great rock. If your job has you feeling like Sisyphus, you are not alone.

Inc. Magazine published an article in 2007 called "U.S. Workers Hate their Jobs More than Ever." They cited 50% of 5000 households polled reported that they hated their jobs. When you factor in:

• Job stress
• Reduced hours/pay
• Benefit cuts
• Severance/Layoff/Termination
• Decreased revenue/profitability
• Increased cost cutting
• Leadership apathy
• Unethical business practices
• Fewer lenders
• Higher line of credit requirements

It's apparent why so many of us hate our jobs. However, you can't leave your job without courting disaster. With jobs in short supply, you cannot leave your dead-end job for something more engaging, when jobs are being cut locally and globally. According to the NYTimes.com (April 2009), the jobless rate topped 8.5%, which means the U.S. economy has lost 5 million jobs, to a lengthening recession. The walls get a little bit closer for you. What will you do? I have an answer: Engage your gift.

Yes, if you cannot engage your job, then engage your gift. Your gift is that special thing you do that not only improves your life, but the lives of those around you. It will grant you respite from your "Sisyphus Experience" and give you something that satisfies the soul. It will put the spring back into your step by doing something positive in a world filled with so many negatives. If you haven't found your gift (shackle key), you can visit http://www.thegifttable.com/ and learn more about your gift, which will be far more than your temporary escape from your dead-end job. It will help you live with and move beyond your dead-end job! It is the new life and career that won't leave you feeling trapped, hopelessness, and in despair at day's end.

Even though you must continue rolling Sisyphus' rock up the hill, each day, and engage your job's futility of effort, promise me that you will spend some quality time exploring:

1. What is your gift?
2. How can you use your gift at work or home, to give yourself greater satisfaction from life?
3. Where could your gift take you post-recession?
4. Can your gifts unlock greater value and opportunity in your current job?

If you need some help, I've written a book called the "Gift Table: Getting Your Giftedness in Gear" (http://www.thegifttable.com/). It has helped many and will help you, too. Finally, your dead-end job is not the end of life. It is a road sign that tells you there are other directions you must travel for fulfillment, excitement, and peace. The vehicle of choice is your gift. Get in, familiarize yourself with the controls, and take life in a new direction. A direction that will replace or help you live better with your dead-end job.

Dreams and Pragmatism Go Hand In Hand

Too often, we give up too quickly on our dreams. Too many of us give up our dreams and become pragmatist. Not that pragmatism is wrong, but should never be taken out of context. It should never be used to escape the hard work needed to breathe life into a dream or fanciful pursuit that others deem impractical, silly, or a waste of time.

Pragmatism works when you know what is important, worthwhile, and fulfilling - like your dreams. It does not work, as an escape from that which is important, worthwhile, and fulfilling (dreams). However, people do it everyday. I hear people say, "I'll become a (fill-in the blank), because it gives me (fill-in the blank). It is generally some practical pursuit based on sound reasoning, but lacks heart, vision, or passion. Unless you are filling in the blanks with something meaningful, well, life's just one big blank!

Hundreds, maybe thousands, are experiencing gaping holes in their existence. They may even gaze up at the stars and wonder, "Why am I unfulfilled." The stars remark, "Because you've left your hopes and dreams up here. Instead of living your dreams, you've abandoned them for a practical life of servitude that brings you nothing but empty promises, sleepless nights, and the list goes on. Take your pragmatism and do something worthwhile, give soundness to your dreams."

When you think about it, many of the inventions existing today, that give us joy, comfort, and fulfillment began as fanciful, silly, and risky endeavors - flight, electricity, automobiles, etc. Dreams are the essence of life. However, a dream is just a dream without a healthy does of pragmatism, which goes along way. Why don't you take your pragmatism and love it: Use it to make sense of realizing your dreams.