Be. Do. Have.
It’s out in the world. Thank you for all your help getting the book to Number 1 in Career Guides (and Most Gifted in Vocational Career Guides!) – and for all of you who are sending me messages telling me you like what you’re reading. It fills my heart with joy.
This is my best feedback so far:
“You have managed to articulate with honesty what most people think but are afraid to discuss, let alone act on.
With the right marketing, this could become the new Harry Potter series for those over 40.
Get ready! You are not just an author but an inspiration.”
Not sure it gets much better. From someone I don’t even know.
Anyway, one small request – please can you leave a review on Amazon. It makes a huge difference if people see FIVE STAR reviews and nice comments when people part with their hard-earned cash. Thank you.
Right on to this week. And I’m actually very excited to share with you the latest episode of the Corporate Escapology podcast. With
(also here). She’s had a 20+ year career as a buyer working for all the major high street brands: Debenhams, M&S, Warehouse, Primark, Bon Marché.There’s not much Nicole doesn’t know about product, customers, global supply chains, margins etc. And so in 2019, she decided to package all that knowledge up into the Buyer & Retail Coach and offer her services to clients – very small side-hustlers to much bigger companies. Check her out here.
But crucially she de-risked her exit by contracting for George at ASDA where she took on a Head of Buying maternity cover.
Nicole is full of advice – I felt like I’d had a coaching session from her. But also she sings from the Corporate Escapology hymn sheet when it comes to conscious detachment, taking time and space to identify what she offers and what she needs from work, exploring options and experimenting.
These three clips scratch the surface of the value in the podcast.
“What are you doing now to build that life you want?“ [A lot of head shaking from me.]
“You’ve got loads of transferable skills. Know that if you leave your job and it doesn’t work out, those skills haven’t gone - you can go back“
“When. you surround yourself by entrepreneurs…you see more of the art of the possible”.
Nicole received some really good coaching before she set up her consultancy – to take a piece of paper, create a 3 X 2 table with Be, Do and Have along the X-axis and two time periods on the Y-axis, e.g. two years and five years.
Then in each row write what you want to Be, Do and Have in two years’ time – and again in five years’ time.
It really helped Nicole see inconsistencies between what she wanted between the different time periods and where intervention was required. As I say repeatedly in my book, writing things down triggers something in the brain – it pushes much more honest enquiry. My brain, at least, is much more tolerant of BS.
I found when I did the exercise that I was much less surprised by the Be and Have, more by the Do. I hadn’t actually thought I wanted to write another book or build a Corporate Escapology outplacement business both of which I wrote down almost subconsciously. I also found both Do and Have to be much harder to write than Be.
I’m going to give it a couple of goes to keep validating the truth and then I think it’s an interesting thing to look back at each quarter and check in.
This week I kicked off something new as I now start thinking about ways to commercialise the book. Several people have asked me about coaching but I felt like the cost was perhaps prohibitive, so I copied my friend Philly who runs group sessions on financial education for women and thought I’d experiment myself.
So if you want to dig a bit deeper, potentially as you work through the book, a group call might help – just one hour each Tuesday 7-8PM BST. Max 10 people, so nice and intimate – I’ll record it if you can’t make a session:
Week 1: Detach - Build an exit mindset and a healthier relationship with work
Week 2: Audit - Inventory your skills, experience and know-how
Week 3: Explore options - Stretch your thinking, see spectrums not boxes
Week 4: Identity & Network - Build the assets that will serve your new future
Week 5: Experiment - Test fast and cheap to de-risk your leap
Already got some takers which is reassuring.
Group calls even appeared on my two year Do – so I’m already ahead of plan!
Remember to add a FIVE STAR review on Amazon - please!
And THANK YOU!
Loved chatting Adam, thanks for having me as a guest