Just How Called Are You?
June 13, 2010
If you look into the history of the word calling in English, meaning the kind of work a person is specifically suited to do, you’ll find out it’s connected to the word vocation. Vocation comes from the Latin word vocare, which means to call. Although vocation now is synonymous with career, its early meaning was a specific kind of work that a person was called to do by God.
Regardless of your religious or spiritual beliefs, this is an important test. When you try to find your calling, are you looking for something that is essential to your fulfillment, something you must do, something that you feel compelled to do by some force greater than yourself, something you were maybe even “designed” to do?
Because if you’re just looking for something that feels happy and nice or entertaining and enjoyable, you might be completely missing out.
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It Was a Fast-Straight-Road Weekend
May 31, 2010
It’s been a hectic Memorial Day weekend totally consumed by… let’s just call it extended-family-madness. I planned to have a little time over the last couple of days to put together a post but life interrupted my plans. But I’m home now and the chaos is left behind.
Fortunately I found a powerful and brief analogy for my recurring warning about focusing on chasing the latest new marketing tactic before figuring out your marketing plan. It was a link in a recent blog post by Seth Godin.
Seth referenced a post by Rich Goidel, blogging at “The Back of the Napkin,” titled Playing with turtles. The core message here is to focus on the important thing — marketing message — and not get distracted by secondary things — playing with marketing channels.
I’m writing a corollary. When someone else has written a beautifully concise post that conveys a valuable message to your audience, call it good, link to it, and shut up.
(Bonus to me: I don’t really have time to write a post, much less edit one to make it good.
Bonus to you: You don’t have to read that meandering post I don’t have time to write!)
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
After Mowing It Over…
May 23, 2010
For years I had a commitment to post something here weekly related to my career journey. A few months back I decided just to post things when I was inspired or moved or had indigestion or something like that. My productivity fizzled.
A couple of weeks ago I decided to get back in the habit of posting weekly again to the Travel Log category, which is the descendant of my original blog. If Ken can post often about doing something daily and Darcy can keep trying to write something regularly to see how it works for her, I figured I could easily go back to doing something I was able to do for years.
Last week it was easy. This week I was left drumming my fingers next to the keyboard for days instead of dancing across the keys. Thank God for mowing!
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Writing sdrawckaB
May 14, 2010
Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been spending a lot of time writing articles and pulling together ideas I’ve collected for an information product for people considering self-employment. I enjoy writing because it’s a slightly new experience each time.
Sometimes things just flow, but the next day I reread what I wrote and it looks like… it flowed, alright, but for a very different reason. Sometimes I wrestle and fight with a piece and don’t like it very much, but other people give me great feedback. Considering that, I might just be writing some of my best stuff ever right now, because I’m having to unscramble things I originally wrote backwards.
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My Own YouTube Channel!
May 3, 2010
Valerie Young of ChangingCourse.com is opening her Profiting From Your Passions Career Coach training program to new students. She brings in limited groups so she can give them the time and attention they need for a few months as they start learning the materials and settle in to the supportive community.
I like to brag about the supportive community because I regularly get ideas and resources and encouragement from them. Sometimes I’m part of the helpful crowd, whenever I have something helpful to say in response to other people’s questions.
Valerie asked me to record a video about my experience specifically as someone trained in the ICF model of professional coaching prior to taking her program. I was eager to explain how Valerie’s approach, her step-by-step system, and her creativity-sparking techniques are a powerful complement to broader coaching skills. But I wasn’t sure about making a video.
So I jumped right in! I recorded the video (it only took me 7 tries to get through it without bloopers) and created my own YouTube channel! I named it Twisting Road Travelers to encourage me to come up with more things related to the Twisting Road theme of uncovering your natural gifts and talents, cultivating them, and designing your life and work around them.
I am really excited I took this step. I don’t know what future videos I will add or what direction my ideas might go, but it’s a new way for me to talk to people about authentic living that flows from the core self. That’s what energizes me, so that’s what I need to be doing!
May You Know the Joy of Sharing Your Gifts,
Steve Coxsey
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