Is It Too Late to Be Amazing?

I recently read a veteran career coach’s advice for displaced or dissatisfied middle-agers wishing to re-enter the job market or make a late-life career change.

His advice:  In today’s changing workplace, you will have to come across as – AMAZING!

That’s worth pondering.

What makes up amazing?  The reality is, most of us don’t think of ourselves as amazing, although deep down we can be – or should be.

Honesty can hurt here – truth is most of us at this mid-life point are coming off of extended stretches at or near the top of the bell curve – neither slug nor superstar.  Comfortable, convenient, middle-of-the-road, don’t-rock-the-boat, needs-based existence.

So now I’m suddenly expected to move to the far right of the bell curve and be amazing?  Uh, I think I’m gonna need some major help here.

This coach’s message has to do with image, personal branding, positioning, preparedness, self-confidence, energy – the components necessary to conduct a successful job search at this stage of life where the challenges are magnitudes greater than what it took 20,10, even 5 years ago.

His point is that every component of the job search process needs to be, well – amazing.  The resume needs to be a Picasso in terms of content and structure; presence on LinkedIn and other social media must be top-notch; commitment to, and energy for, an effective networking strategy must be beyond the pale; elevator speech development, interviewing skills practice, attitude maintenance, self-management discipline – all need to be – amazing.

This coach’s advice is spot on – for the mechanics of a job search.  Question is – is it realistic?  How many can get there?

Pretty tall order, especially if your ego just took a hit because of an unexpected termination.  It’s pretty hard to think amazing when you feel like a slug and that the whole world is “a tuxedo and you are a pair of brown shoes.” (my thanks to long deceased comedian George Gobel for that – doubt that he cares).

My experience in coaching folks in this position is that getting to amazing with all this requires more sustained effort and attitude adjustment than most are willing to undertake.

Why?

Because they don’t see themselves as amazing.

In their mind, all this effort may seem fraudulent, sort of like putting lipstick on a pig.  Twenty-plus years in the grinding corporate world tends to bury our most amazing qualities.

Be your true amazing self at work, and you will either (1) bump up against a manager who will be threatened by you and find a way to remove the threat or (2) be seen as an outsider that doesn’t fit or belong or (3) you will realize you need to take your amazing self outside of the confines of a job.

Needs vs wants

Re-entering the job market or making a corporate career change is typically a needs-based move.  It’s mortgage/groceries/college tuition/orthodontics/golf club membership/luxury car payment/retirement savings/home repair coverage.

Rarely is this type of move a “wants-based” move that acknowledges and satisfies a deep interest or passion and resurrects and ignites one’s uniqueness or essential self.

Certainly, there are exceptions, but working for someone, building someone else’s dream makes it difficult to get to the true amazing self.

By the time we have 15, 20, 25 years of this, it seems pretty late to try to be the true amazing self that one’s unique ability or essential self can produce.  It’s pretty well stamped down and covered over – maybe even forgotten.

So is it too late?

There is plenty of time to be amazing, regardless of age.

Let’s just do a “what if?”

Suppose you are 55 and in good physical shape.  You have a better than 50% chance that you will live to 90.  That means you’ve got 42% left.  With the right attitude and continued good health and wellness habits, you probably fit the “live long, die short” model – that is, your morbidity period should be short, at least shorter than for most. So, we’ll need to take a couple of percentage points off to account for your brief period of dementia, drool and Depends.

There it is.  Could you make “amazing” happen for yourself with 40% – 30+ years – left?

Well, yeah!!

This is the point where most personal development pundits inject the over-worked examples of Colonel Sanders, Grandma Moses, and Ray Kroc.  But I won’t do that to you.

OK bunko, tell me how to be amazing.

OK – here are five steps that will help – in order of priority:

1. Protect your health. Amazing doesn’t happen if you feel like s__t!  Become health care literate. Know your body; learn your biology; understand your biomarkers; take control of your health and don’t turn it over to your doc – co-partner with him/her but stay in charge; get your heart rate up every day and stop eating crap!
2. Adopt an attitude of gratitude and altitude. Much of success emanates from an attitude of gratitude.  You are gifted.  Start each day with a mental list of the good things in your life that you are grateful for.  And then think lofty thoughts, dust off the dreams and be grateful that you are now a masterpiece-in-the-making.
3. Find your “essential self” or your “uniqueability”. Invest in and digest Martha Beck’s “Finding Your Own North Star: Claiming the Life You Were Meant to Live.”  From that, you will learn how to identify your essential self and how to:  “- stop conforming to the pre-designated patterns offered by your cultural environment.  Instead, you will turn your life into a work of art – an absolutely original expression of your unique skills and preferences.”

  Or understand the concept of “uniqueability”, the success principle taught by the planet’s most successful entrepreneur coach, Dan Sullivan of Strategic      Coach.  It’s that unique giftedness that all of us have that we’ve yet to manifest.  You can learn all about it and how it leads to “amazing” by listening       to podcasts #137-140 at 10xTalk.com.

4. Dust off the dormant/suppressed dreams. What were you drawn to and got you most excited when you were 6, 8, 10?  There is likely a link between that and your essential self/uniqueability.   What passions or deep interests have you tabled in favor of dedicating yourself to a paycheck and mortgage coverage?  Think on these things, let them resurface – they are a path to realizing “amazing.”  My July 9, 2018  article featuring the story of a successful late-life entrepreneur is a good example.
5. Find a mentor or coach. Being your amazing self will take time and commitment.  You can get the journey started and benefit from the low-cost/no-cost coaching available online and in books.  And these are essential tools but, by themselves, extend the journey.  Engaging an experienced life or career coach in addition to these tools will accelerate the process by helping remove the clutter, build your confidence and hold you accountable to the steps on the journey.

We’d all be amazing if it were easy.  But being amazing doesn’t so much fit the way our culture thinks and works.  We need a lot of non-amazing and conformity for our system to work – a lot of folks that are content at the top or to the left side of the bell curve.

But if you got this far in this article, that’s not you.  You’ve already said, “I’m amazing.” And now realize it’s “never too late to start but always too soon to quit.”

Or, to paraphrase the late, great Zig Ziglar:  “You don’t have to be great (amazing) to start, but you have to start to be great (amazing).”

Let me know if I can help you get your journey started.  Email me gary@makeagingwork.com or call my office at 720-344-7784 and let’s chat.

If you are on that journey now, tell us how it is going – leave us a comment below.