Note from Erik: The following is part of series of articles written industry and career coaches. This feature will appear every Monday.

A couple of years ago, when I left my job as creative recruiter for Digitas to work for myself, it was exhilarating and terrifying at the same time.  Everyone was very supportive (including the people at Digitas which spoke volumes about them), but there were times where I felt that so much rested on my shoulders.

Yes, there are many benefits to working for yourself.  I don’t think I could find one person who hasn’t fantasized about working from home where you could set your own schedule, take your laptop to the coffee shop and if you’re dog crazy like me, have your faithful pet by your side.

But after the novelty wears off there’s usually a certain amount of discomfort that settles in – you notice that it’s 3:00 pm and you haven’t spoken to another person yet. Or you’ve talked to plenty of people, but none of them have anything to do with your work.

After I’d been working on my own for a few months, a very smart and industrious recruiter who had a business much like my own introduced herself to me. We’d known of each other’s work from afar, and she thought it would be nice to get to know each other personally. After my initial suspicions (she was technically my competitor after all), we met for lunch and immediately hit it off.  She told me about a network of like-minded recruiters that she had formed to share resources, compare best practices and make money together.

I needed time to process her invitation.. As is often the case, the primary obstacle was my own ego because, after all, didn’t I want my company to grow and be better than everyone else’s?

But then, I thought about my time.  Did I really want to kill myself to beat the others?  Did it really matter? Didn’t I just want to make money so that I can enjoy the things that I truly enjoy in life?

This is probably not everyone’s experience, but I wasn’t working on my own to become filthy rich, but to have more ownership of my time. (Not that I would object to wealth if I could achieve it without killing myself). I liked to be able to work when I was at my best, get in a daily yoga class and to think about the time I saved by not commuting.  My quality of life in that way had improved tremendously already.  But after a couple more months I was ready to connect more with people who were doing what I did, so I called my friend, met the group (over the phone) and joined.

We share emails about jobs we’re working on, questions about contracts, situations with clients and industry news.  We also have a monthly conference call where we discuss our respective jobs and share information.

We all have the potential to make money and most of us do, but for me the best part is the collaboration.  Just the act of collaborating with other recruiters seems so unique, and that, even alone, is satisfying.

I’m now career coaching and no longer recruiting, but I’m still connected with the group and have taken what I’ve learned from them to continue to expand my network and look for new opportunities for collaboration.

If you can get creative and think about working with your peers rather than against them, you may have a shift that expands your knowledge, perspective and opportunities.  But, don’t be naïve, ask questions, do your homework and trust your gut.

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Anne Hubben is a creative career coach, partnering with creative people to help them make meaningful changes in their careers.  Her blog and more information about coaching can be found at http://rubycreatives.com

MONDAY MORNING COACH

Note from Erik: The following is the fifth in series of career coaching articles written by Jeanne Schad. This feature will appear every Monday.

My senior year in college, a professor asked us to write down our five and ten-year goals. I came across this list a few years ago and was surprised to discover I had met or surpassed most of them.  Y’ay me.

But something wasn’t right. When I looked around me, I couldn’t find anyone I wanted to emulate. There were lots of wildly successful people in my chosen field, but not one of them had the life I wanted.  Once I reached my personal “top,” I realized I didn’t like it there.

At July’s TED Global conference, author and workplace expert Alain de Bolton highlighted how the modern definition of success is in need of a kinder, gentler approach.  He noted that the self-help sections of bookstores are paradoxically filled with achievement topics on one side, and repairing low self-esteem on the other.  De Bolton makes the claim that one follows the other in a society where “It’s easier than ever before to make a good living. It’s perhaps harder than ever before to stay calm, to be free of career anxiety.”

So, this begs the question: What’s your definition of success? And if you realize it’s not quite what you expected, are you enlightened enough to evolve it?

If you took de Bolton’s advice of developing a “kinder, gentler” approach, how would you define success for yourself?  Does anybody else have a different expectation of success for you?  If you had different parents or didn’t have the friends you have or didn’t marry your spouse, how might that definition of success change?

Taking a few moments to write, blog or doodle about these things can help you clarify exactly what you want. Something as simple as a pros and cons list can crystalize what success actually means in your terms.  If you’re job seeking, this can help you focus your job search to what you want NOW.  Not what you wanted when you were concepting at ad school. Not what you wanted when you were 10.  The now you.

Bottom line: define success for yourself, write it down and use pencil.  Keep it handy and amend as your needs change.  Allowing your goals to shift with life’s circumstances will give you more control over your own success.

Sounds like a pretty good way to pass the workday, doesn’t it?

Cheers to a successful week.

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Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource.  This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers.  You can join Jeanne for a webinar each Wednesday for out of work ad agency professionals on topics like: defining your own success; designing a job search action plan and staying accountable; finding fulfillment and a paycheck.  Jeanne can be reached at jschad@internalrelations.com or (310) 823-8607, @jeanneschad, or http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanneschad.

Monday Morning Coach

Note from Erik: The following is the fourthin series of career coaching articles written by Jeanne Schad. This feature will appear every Monday.

So you just got laid off.  If you missed last week’s blog, check out Part 1 to take you through some necessary stages for the first month.  While it’s tempting to skip this step and move straight to finding the next gig, chill for a month.  You can find your way through a driving rainstorm by inching along slowly; or you can wait a few minutes for calmer weather and have a faster and easier journey.

Once you’ve taken some time to clear your head, connect with your old colleagues and begin weaving your web of networking, it’s time to start putting yourself out there.  Here are a few next steps to take on:

Day 30 – 40:  Start practicing your “I just got laid off” speech. You’ll be having this conversation soon with prospective employers so it’s important you feel confident and comfortable in discussing what’s probably still a very painful event.  Start off easy with a few friends and family just to get comfy with the words you’re using.  Then try it out in one of your toughest settings: among your former colleagues.  Every agency has a hangout bar where people often meet for an after-work drink.  Invite yourself to one of those happy hours and get comfortable having the conversation with your former coworkers about your current status.  Keep in mind each of them are now former colleagues, but still very much part of your network. So, though it’s tempting, try to keep the company bashing to a minimum.

Day 40 – 50: Get clear on what you’re looking for. If you are unsure about what qualities your next job needs to have, click here to do an exercise that will help you begin clarifying.  If you have an idea of what you want, I recommend putting it in writing in a form you can give to people who want to help you.  This is not your resume; it’s your networking document.  It should list a paragraph summary of the qualities of the next position and the industry/sector it will be in.  It also lists your strengths so that your network contact can speak to them.  Finally, it lists the target companies you’d like to go after.  This document will make it easy for you to answer the question “how can I help you” when people ask. It can also exist as your own website if you want but be sure to have something in writing you can give to people when you meet for lunch, coffee or happy hour.

Day 50 +: Look in all unexpected places for that new position. Follow up on all leads – even if (and especially) the indirect ones.  If your mom’s friend wants to introduce you to her son who does something completely unrelated to your business but she sees a connection, call him anyway.  Your job now is to connect with as many people as possible. Give them your networking document and broadcast who you are and the results you get.  In simple advertising terms, remember to extol your benefits, not your features.  Your features are X years experience on X kinds of accounts; your benefits are how you can transform a brand, a team, or a piece of business and how your client was better off having you.

Following this process will get you through the first two months and on track toward your next step – employment, freelancing, entrepreneurship.  You might notice nowhere in here did I say “update your resume”.  This is a vital part of the process but not the most important.  Hire it out (www.blueskyresumes.com) or do it yourself when you feel most powerful, confident, and capable.  If you’re not feeling that way, make sure you’re doing something to get you there.  Having confidence and a true belief that you’re of value and benefit will help the resume update and the job search go more quickly and easily.

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Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource.  This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers.  You can join Jeanne for a webinar each Wednesday for out of work ad agency professionals on topics like: defining your own success; designing a job search action plan and staying accountable; finding fulfillment and a paycheck.  Jeanne can be reached at jschad@internalrelations.com or (310) 823-8607, @jeanneschad, or http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanneschad.

What To Do Right After Losing Your Job – By Jeanne Schad

Note from Erik: The following is the third in series of career coaching articles written by Jeanne Schad. This feature will appear every Monday.

It’s the middle of September — AKA, the end of Q3. Layoffs are coming. You can be sure of it.

If you should be one of the unfortunate many, there are some things to do right away. And one of them is not updating your resume. It’s not time yet to look for another job.  Seriously.

If you’re like most people who get that special surprise one Friday afternoon, you’re feeling rejected, angry, betrayed and scared.  I certainly felt that way when I got laid off six years ago from an ad agency.  This is not a good time to be marketing yourself.  Best do that when you feel whole, capable and confident again.

Here’s a loose timeline you can follow to help get yourself there:

Day 1:  Take care of business. Review your (hopefully sizable) severance package and put any due dates on your calendar (with a reminder).  Take a quick look at the unemployment rules in your state and mark when you have to apply.  Just spending a couple hours to make sure you don’t miss important deadlines will allow you to better do the next step.

Days 2 – 15:  Unplug completely for a couple weeks.  When celebs go into rehab, it’s always in a beautiful natural surrounding.  Being in nature brings us closer to the ways humans have lived for centuries and allows us to experience life without distractions.  Psychologist Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote about the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  According to Kubler-Ross, people must experience each stage in order to heal and skipping a stage doesn’t work; it only gets delayed.  So take time in a beautiful setting to experience your loss.  Then you can look at moving on to feeling better.  Ask around, post a note on your Facebook; likely somebody has a place in the middle of nowhere they can lend you for cheap or free. (Craig’s list offers house swap postings).  Bring a journal or sketch pad and spend a little time on yourself.  When I was laid off, I hopped in the car with two friends who had also been let go and drove to my parents’ cabin on a lake in Iowa.  We spent two weeks fishing, cooking, sleeping, eating, chilling and most importantly, healing.  It was a fantastic retreat.

Day 16:  Make your announcement. Update your LinkedIn and Plaxo profiles to indicate that you’re in transition and what you’re looking for.  Put something in your FB status.  Send an email to everybody in your contact list.  If you walked out with a company directory from your last job, fantastic. If you didn’t, see if a friend on the inside can snag one for you.  Names and email addresses of colleagues will slip quickly without daily reinforcement.  Do the same for client contacts for each account you were on.

Day 17 – 30:  Weave your web.  Spiders catch their prey by spinning webs much larger than where they can move immediately.  With the job search, your network acts as your web, expanding contact you alone can make.  For the rest of this month, simply weave your web of connections and capture them in a way you can be in quick communication.  Whatever your system (LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, email), get back in touch and connected with anybody from your last job who you think had a favorable impression of you and your work.  Be sure to include support staff; their job is to know resources and can be great networkers.

This gives you one full month to heal, prep, connect, lick your wounds and get yourself ready to look for a job.   Now, what exactly are you looking for?  If you’re clear on that, fantastic and best of luck.  If you could use some pointers, check out part 2 of this blog, to be posted next week.

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Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource.  This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers.  You can join Jeanne for a webinar each Wednesday for out of work ad agency professionals on topics like: defining your own success; designing a job search action plan and staying accountable; finding fulfillment and a paycheck.  Jeanne can be reached at jschad@internalrelations.com or (310) 823-8607, @jeanneschad, or http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeannescha

Surviving a Layoff by Being Fluid – By Jeanne Schad

Note from Erik: The following is the second in series of career coaching articles written by Jeanne Schad. This feature will appear every Monday.

A layoff is an unexpected interruption to whatever career path you may have planned for yourself. Picture a river that just had a giant boulder roll into the center of it. It won’t take long for that water to find a path around the boulder, no matter how large and menacing it might seem. If you’re open to being fluid, you’ll also find your own way around this career interruption.

When I was laid off six years ago, my career was focused and moving quickly in account service. I had invested nine years working hard and sacrificing my personal friendships and holidays with the family to give myself to this career. As much as I gave, it just didn’t give back.

Around that time somebody asked me to look at people I had worked with and see whose life I wanted to emulate. Was there anybody in the agency whose life I envied? There wasn’t. Not at my last agency. Not in any agency I’d ever worked in. When I realized this after my layoff, it was a pretty scary notion and I watched a giant boulder roll into my river.

For me, there was no rolling that boulder back. I took a job in media sales and eventually made a transition into coaching, an emerging field in business that helps people and organizations align. Even now as a business owner, being fluid gives me what I ultimately want: to continue the life I have working in a field I feel passionately about.

What can being fluid do for you? Perhaps there are job possibilities that would give you what you ultimately want but perhaps take a different path that you haven’t yet considered. Here’s a quick exercise in being fluid:

1. Write out a short paragraph describing your ideal next job. If the phone rang tomorrow with an offer you couldn’t refuse, what would it be?
2. Take a look at that vision you just recorded. What does it give you that you don’t have now (or didn’t have in your last job)? Money? Status? Freedom? Passion? Write down everything that comes to mind.
3. Now look at those qualities. Which of them are things you really value? Circle those values that really resonate with you.

Now you have a good start on a list of criteria by which to judge opportunities that come your way. Add to your list other values that you want in your life and in your work as you discover them. Perhaps you value freedom, innovation, social responsibility and maintaining your current lifestyle. Yes, you can get those things as a copywriter for a big agency. But there are many other jobs that honor those values.

I’ve known people who left advertising to do corporate communications for a wind power startup, deal art made by small villagers around the world, and someone else who started their your own vintage apparel website. Each of these new roles honored their values and explored their talents in new ways.

As of the end of May, there were currently 2.6 million jobs currently open. The U.S. Department of Labor posts trends by industry sector here. Add to this the entrepreneurial opportunities and the possibilities are even wider.

Knowing what you want in your next job and what your values are will help you recognize where you can be more fluid. It will also help you identify what you aren’t willing to compromise. Being open to wider possibilities opens up more choices and ultimately gets you what you want – a job, new business, freelance project — faster.

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Jeanne Schad is owner of Internal Relations Professional Coaching Resource.  This former agency account service suit now works with companies to coach their people to have more fulfilling careers.  You can join Jeanne for a webinar each Wednesday for out of work ad agency professionals on topics like: defining your own success; designing a job search action plan and staying accountable; finding fulfillment and a paycheck.  Jeanne can be reached at jschad@internalrelations.com or (310) 823-8607, @jeanneschad, or http://www.linkedin.com/in/jeanneschad.