From now on we are all self employed

From now on, we are all self-employed

The past is a library from which to gain knowledge and obtain information but it is not a guarantee of future success.

With past events in the American and Puerto Rican economy, as well as most countries in Europe, we must understand that no one is coming to our rescue. Everything that happens from now on is entirely up to us. Either elected politicians do what they have to do or they will be voted out of office. Of course, with the exception of Castro and Chavez.

If you are blaming the government, your company, society, spouse, even your children, now is the time to stop and assume responsibility.

Let’s face reality: all of your decisions or not making decisions, and your behavior and actions up to today, have had a compound effect on creating the situation you are facing at this very moment in your life. If you want things to change and I assume most of you want some type of change, you will have to take complete charge of your situation and make things happen, because they won’t happen by themselves.

I am not saying you will not need somebody else’s help. You will definitely need someone else’s help; no one can do anything by himself or herself. We live in an interdependent society but dependent on individual actions and responsibilities.

This process is called self-discipline. It is all about grabbing the steering wheel of your life and driving towards the direction you need to go in order to achieve the dreams that you need to turn into goals and then focused action.

Every successful man or woman I have ever met, at some time in their lives, often after many failures, made a decision to stop failing and to start winning. 

In this article, I will give you a few tools to steer you in the right direction. These are just ideas that you will need to analyze and adapt to your own situation.

You must first analyze where you are right now in your life. Where are you in the five essential elements of wellbeing?

Your career, you social life, your finances, your health and your environment, meaning the community in where you live.

You then must take an inventory of your strengths, what you have learned, what you know, what skills have you acquired that will serve you well in this economy.

For example, a friend of mine, understanding that with the price of gasoline so high people will not want to buy big cars, he changed dealerships and went to sell small, fuel efficient cars. He is selling lots of cars now.

You will also need to assess what knowledge or skills would you need now in order to compete in the market you want to enter or gain a competitive advantage.

Seagram’s Venezuela was a very good client of mine. The president of the company, the most efficient woman executive I had ever met up until that time, decided that she wanted to change companies. To be able to be hired by the company she was looking at, she went to an executive development program in Harvard and came out with the skills she needed to work for that company. She became the president of Nabisco Mexico and luckily hired me in that company after she took over the job.

You are a bundle of resources, you simply sometimes forget about some strengths that you have that could be very valuable for you in the future.

Most people think they have limited knowledge or skills. They define themselves only in terms of what they do, such as I am an electrician, a secretary, a salesperson or a manager. Sometimes, if they at least respect their companies, they will say I work at X company as a bookkeeper or whatever.

There is a problem with this. You tend to become what you think about and what you communicate. The more you describe yourself as what you do, the more your mind starts believing that is what you do. And, should you be fired or lose your job, you will have a tough time because not only will you lose your weekly paycheck, you will also lose your identity and you might enter into a state of depression.

Smart people see themselves and describe themselves in a total different manner. They will understand everything that they are capable of doing and then adapt their skills to the opportunities that present themselves.

For example, Danny, a guy with artistic abilities, asked me to find him a job in a television station that was my client. I got him the interview and he got hired in the department that prepares the set before programs start. He used his drawing talent and applied it to creating sets that were beautiful and could be used in many of the live programs that station aired.

When you look at your capabilities, you are probably able to apply at hundreds of jobs. The federal government has identified more than 20,000 job categories and you will probably be able to handle a few of them. 

I have to think about what the psychologist Abraham Maslow wrote years ago: “the story of the human race is the story of men and women selling themselves short”.

Let’s face it, the average Joe tends to settle for a lot less than he or she is capable of and then is surprised why he or she never attains the levels of success that he or she should, thus feeling dissatisfied and frustrated with their existence.

The next step is for you to take action. You can’t sit around until opportunities come around, you must create the opportunities.

What problems are you able to solve, who would pay you to solve those problems that you know how to solve better than anyone else?

I hope I have sparked some hope even in the challenging but full of opportunities climate we are living in.

Just for fun, let me give you the formula for becoming a genius that Marina Abramovic shared with the world:

“My secret formula on how to become a genius is:

1 tablespoon of talent

5 drops of popularity

1 drop of luck

10 kilograms of discipline

6 glasses of self-sacrifice and 3 grams of spirituality.

Mix all the ingredients and leave them overnight to cool down. Drink the substance in the morning when the sun is rising and facing east”

Not a bad formula, don’t you think?