How to Have A Career Break Through? Break Your Pattern— Here’s How.

What if, before boosting that bank and ending up dead on the LAX tarmac, Robert DeNiro had met a GREAT parole officer?

Yes, there would probably be no 'Heat' or any other heist movie. But we'd have a lot more happy ex-cons.

"Here’s a shift - delegating. I don’t have to be the one who solves it every time. Realizing that as a leader - I now ask: what can I outsource? Maybe my first inclination is not the best. Instead I slow it down. Build in time to change my mind"

I love when clients tell me they're changing their actions to find time and space to do the things that actually move their long term career goals forward.

J's thing used to be that she's hold herself so accountable and care so much about contributing that even when she knew she was leaving her last position after 10 years, she wanted to put together one last project to help the organization finally see the blind spot she'd been working to get them to see for nearly a decade. So: remember the heist movie?

I think we alllll see where this is going...

This is how they all start: the con, fresh out of jail or off the decision to go straight catches wind of 'one last job.' It's the biggest job. It would be so easy. It would finally get him the security he needs. That was J. At the end of her term at her last job but jonesin' for one last hit, one last try at Fort Knox. Like Danny Ocean, J hasn't been out of jail for long enough. She's still a con. Maybe it's not yet clear she'll ever be anything else. Like Danny, if she thinks she's a con, she'll act like a con.

It's human nature to live a heist movie. We all repeat patterns, habits, actions we KNOW aren't going to help our end goal. Try as we might to do it differently, it always ends in a shoot out with Al Pacino.

George Clooney is a baaaaad influence.

What if, on the other hand, Brad Pitt had had a great parole officer - someone reminding him of his long term goals, keeping him to his own standards - I said a *great* paroled officer. That's not unlike a coach - who said: "Hey, if you say you want to go straight, who would you be instead?"

Maybe he'd say chef, or garbage man. Then Brad Pitt would go act like one - cook or empty dumpsters, whatever. Maybe it's not glamorous, but he'd be a con no more. Brad Pitt would be a garbage man. And that would be a whole other movie.

That's J. She figured out she was a leader and stopped her 'con' ways. She DID NOT do that project and now considers how to respond - including saying no - when people ask her to do stuff that doesn't contribute to her forward momentum. She asks other people to do the parts that are below her pay grade or outside her area of awesomeness. And she's moving faster. And telling me so. It's amazing to watch. I'm proud to be her parole officer :)