Don't be a business opportunity 'sucker' One of the consequences of the mining boom is that there are still a lot of semi-skilled men and women, earning $100,000 - $150,000 a year who don’t like the environment, remoteness or sameness of the work they are doing. There are also many people who work in well-paid jobs they feel are boring, unfulfilling, tedious or unpleasant or that their co-workers are difficult or uncouth (they have terrible manners) or find the customers or clients difficult to deal with. Quite a few such workers come to me as clients, having tried for years to get out of their job. They had not been able to find anything that paid as well and they had spent quite a bit of money on their attempts to find another job. They would be much better off if they had saved that money.
A particularly difficult part of this process of trying to get away from a well-paid job is that we try to get away from our job out of a need, rather than out of an expansion. What is wrong with that? The problem with a need – and it is a very big problem – is that when we are in a need we become suckers, and ‘suckers’ is the right word, for anyone who promises to fulfil our need. This could be something that appears to be relatively benign such as doing unnecessary or unsuitable university courses or it could be one of many scam ‘business opportunities’ on the internet that promise a great deal but do not deliver and cost a lot of time and money. The big surprise is that there is a very simple way out of this. So why am I not telling you just yet what it is? Because it is simple but at times hard too! The way out is very simple: Learn to love your job, regardless of the challenges. Understand that it is about people. It is always about people as even if you never meet anyone at work, what you produce affects people. Learn to feel and see what is beautiful about people, including difficult and unpleasant co-workers and customers and terrible bosses. When you can see both the beauty and the ugliness and can reduce or eliminate your reactions things start to look very different, people will very often respond differently to you and more clarity and choices will open up to you. It doesn’t mean you become a marshmallow or a doormat, you may actually in some cases become much more stern or assertive or very clear and direct in your expression. On other occasions you may simply see what is happening, respect that other people have the choice to be as they will and understand that you do not need to take it personally or feel hurt. However, the crucial first step is to embrace yourself and then people. The more progress we can make in being loving to ourselves, the easier it is to be loving and truthful to other people. It can be quite hard in the beginning to go against deeply ingrained habits but the payoff is immense and then it becomes easier and easier.
