Happy to announce — I’m published on the front page of —  The Fordyce Letter.

The voice of  the independent recruiting community for more than 40 years with an audience of tens of thousands of recruiters from executive search to temp placement.

TFL — is both a print subscription newsletter and a news focused website offering current developments and how-to information on the staffing and recruiting industry.

My cover article is called – Here’s What a Good Career Coach Can Do for You.

Editor John Zappe reached out to me personally for permission to print my article, which you’ll find below, as it appeared.  A big honor for which I am thrilled and deeply grateful.

Enjoy my updated post and please — take a minute to send it on to your friends, connections and social networks to encourage and inform other people.   Help me to have this better known. Thank you!

Michael

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 Here’s What a Good Career Coach Can Do for You

I’ll tell you a story first and then we’ll get to your DREAM JOB.

The first musical I ever saw was, The Boy Friend at my local high school. I was 10 or 11 years old and after that, all I wanted to do was be in musicals.

I acted in every school and community play I could, studied singing and majored in acting and music at college. It was my gargantuan passion (or whatever is bigger than that) and colossal and gigantic dream to live in New York City and sing in musicals.

Right after college I moved there, found a job in a book store and started auditioning. I wasn’t in Actor’s Equity yet but I went to all the union calls, sometimes waiting hours just to sing and act for directors like Hal Prince and Philip Rose, hoping to land a job. I had something to give and I had my dreams and that’s all I needed.
(Important to note how many songs have the word ‘dream’ in them…but that’s another blog.)

Opportunity Arrives

One day there was a musical audition for the national tour of Shenandoah. There’s a solo — ‘The Only Home I know.’  It’s a show piece; a diamond; I knew I could sing hell out of it.

I wanted the part and I was right for it. I phoned up my agent and asked to be submitted because I knew if they heard me sing I’d get the job. He said it would be a waste of time.  I wasn’t in the union and I’d never be seen. My friends encouraged me but didn’t really think I stood a chance.

I didn’t see it this way at all!

Yes, there was lots of competition but I wasn’t afraid because I had great confidence in my abilities and my dream.

I went to the audition. It was on 8^th Avenue and 55^th Street and I climbed four flights of rehearsal hall stairs. The place was packed. I went over to the Equity monitor and said I wanted to audition for the Corporal’s role. He said they had to see union actors first but I could wait. And that’s what I did…all day.

At about 4:30pm the director came out and said, ‘The auditions are over. Thank you.  The musical is cast.” I stood up, “Please. Give me a chance. When you hear me sing you’ll give me the part.” He looked at me and said, “Alright. Come on in and sing then.”

I didn’t sing ‘The Only Home I Know’ because I didn’t know it, but I did sing ‘Danny Boy’ because I love the song and it was very much like the feeling and purpose present in the show’s song.

After I sang, the director smiled and said, “The part is yours.”  I felt I would burst with joy. I got my wish! He took a chance on an unknown, non-Equity actor/singer. He heard my song, my passion and answered my call.
My dream came true.

The rest is history, just like my agent. I continued to dream further and to achieve what I loved doing most. I’m still doing it today.

What Did I Learn?

1. Don’t give up on your dreams. See it, vision it, prepare, be daring and make opportunities happen.

2. You can live your dreams if you believe in yourself and your gifts.

3. Trust your instincts and gut intuition.

4. Make a solid plan.

I had a detailed plan and goal to succeed in NYC and it included training, some talent, a ton of conviction and passion and not letting anyone or anything derail me from my dreams.

All of my experience and training in the theatre fit right in with recruiting and finding people work. The same is true for me now as a Certified Life and Career Coach.

Where Does Coaching Fit in For You?

As a recruiter I mentored candidates and gave lots of advice but I wasn’t a trained Professional Coach. I was not skilled at listening deeply and asking the right questions to have a candidate figure out what they truly wanted for their life and work.

The daily stress people go through trying to find a job, be it a one day temp assignment or their permanent ‘dream job,’ is frustrating and discouraging because of today’s difficult job market.

Recruiters and candidates, at all levels, live with rejection and worry right next to their great hope for success. The two things can tear you apart.

Recruiters are under tremendous pressure to produce and fill jobs, doing it over and over again. Often being seen as uncaring, with no follow up unless you’re perfect for their jobs.

Candidates — real people — interview for jobs and have the same pressure competing, hoping someone will see their value and hire them. They depend on recruiters to manage and guide their careers.

This is where Career Coaching is immediately valuable and successful in helping you to manage and enjoy your life, even under the most demanding of work and life situations. We hire personal trainers to keep fit and relax, why not hire your own personal Life and Career Coach to have your whole life thrive as well as the lives of the candidates who trust and count on you?

What a Coach Can Do

I wish I had found coaching sooner in my life so I could have been much more useful to myself, my colleagues and the people who relied on me to find them a job. It taught me how to have balance in my personal and professional life as well as sincere feeling and interest in other people.

With a Coach you learn how to really take care of yourself.

You work with a results-oriented person who’s non-judgmental, creative and a great listener. A coach helps you ‘think out of the box’ so you can know yourself better, reduce daily stress and negativity — to simply slow down, focus and live a happier life with the success you want and dream about most.

We’re talking about change, which is not always easy, but a Coach enables you to create change, what I call, ‘Clearing for Change’ — being open and available, and seeing what stops you from being your very best. It’s an action oriented partnership where together you work on the most important issues of your life: being more successful, building confidence, supporting and raising your level of performance, overcoming fear, doubt and limitations you put on yourself.

Coaches help you get to where you want to be

 

The candidates who really set me ablaze were the people who wanted to change careers from one industry to another, and even though they may not have had the background to move out of, say finance, into a creative field like advertising or publishing, they had the commitment and burning desire.

That’s It!

They wanted nothing else and were willing to do anything to get there — learn new skills, go back to school, take a pay cut, apprentice — whatever it took. They could say. “Just get me the interview because when they meet me they’ll give me the job. I know I can do it.”

That’s the confidence that a recruiter and a candidate can create through Career Coaching.

The value of Coaching is in the process where we take a person from where they are to where they want to be. Goals are discovered and a ‘change plan’ tailored for their specific needs to get to those goals. It’s not therapy or counseling. Coaches don’t give advice or fix things. We explore what you want for your career and/or life and then go after achieving it. It’s deep, challenging, fun work and you’ll be surprised at the fast and lasting results you can get if you do the work and trust yourself.

Do You Know What You Want?

Many people looking for work don’t know what they want to do. They’ve been through college, majored in something they like but are not committed to, for example, political science, fine arts or teaching.  They’re looking for something special that expresses them truly.

Here’s what one client movingly wrote in a recent assignment about what he wished for:

I wake up in the morning and have a physical destination to go to but it is nothing more than that. I would like to use my day in a more substantive way, where my energies could be applied to a larger goal, or vision with motive and passion.

What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Want?

• You must want to do the ‘heavy lifting’ work.
• You must learn ways of expressing your true self, following your heart’s desire and yearning.
• You must face your doubts and your inner critic, your ‘Heckler’, who will say, ” You’re not qualified. You can’t do it!” Tell him to jump off a bridge.
• You must learn how to face your fears and break through them.

Coaching works! It’s one amazing, logical and magical experience. Why not find out? Take the ‘”Grand Tour” of yourself and find the job or career or calling that you were made for.  Don’t just endure your life.  Define it now. Live and love it NOW.

‘We are such stuff as dreams are made on…’
                                                                                                               — William Shakespeare

Thanks – Michael

Take a look at this also – Find What You Want to Do With Your Life.
Please share it with your Tribe.