So, what's your story?

Every experience we’ve ever had and every decision we’ve ever made has made us each of us who we are today. 

Ultimately, that's how we came together today, me having written these words and you reading them. I hope that you'll glean something useful for your career and jump on to the challenge next week to find out what an ideal role is for you. 

My story goes a bit like this. It's like a metaphor for who I am and what I do. As you read it, think about how the bits of your jigsaw fit together and how your story perhaps creates a metaphor for you. 

I help people to create careers they love that support a lifestyle they choose: to be successful on their own terms.

Its what I love to do and brings together all of the key elements of my past.

Firstly, I help people to decide where to go and to map out the journey to get there. My first career was as a cartographer, making physical rather than career maps, but nevertheless, giving people tools to navigate their own journey.

I also show them strategies, skills and tools  that help them to get there more efficiently. That’s what computer programmes do, and my second career was in computer systems development, creating systems and routines to make the business more efficient.

For example, strategies to feel confident when and where they want to, or to deal with difficult situations at work, or create better relationships with colleagues and customers. They achieve their results more effectively.

That’s my professional background, but my experiences on expeditions in the remote and high places of this world are what holds their career together. Expeditions are about achieving amazing things. Sometimes things we only ever dreamt of or even didn’t think possible at one time. They are also about enjoying the journey, overcoming unexpected challenges, and returning safely to look at the map and decide “where next?”.

That’s what careers are about too. Achieving amazing things, having the mindsets and mental resilience to keep going, to get past any difficulties, and to decide your journey for yourself. 

I once went through an amazing experience called Core Process, facilitated by Andrew Horder. It culminates in a two word phrase that describes the core of who you are that runs through all the key things that you do and have done.

Mine came out as “Inciting Awesomeness” which feels very appropriate to me, and actually there is a play on words which is equally and possibly even more appropriate: 

In-sighting Awesomeness: giving people insight into just how good they are. 

How to find out just how good you really are

If you join the challenge starting next week on Monday 1st November, you'll start to understand just how good you really are, and maybe even be confident enough to articulate it to others. You'll need to put 20 minutes in your diary per day (at a time to suit you) from 1st to 5th November. 

That's got to be worthwhile. You just need to register for the challenge here.