Man plans and God Laughs

As we walk through life, with all of its unknowns and surprises, many of us can't help but plan for the future and hope for the best. As a wise friend once told me, "Man plans and God laughs." The following is an example of just that. Additionally, I have included components of an effective problem-solving tool that is a useful coaching technique as well.

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Finishing Fordham: A Student’s Quest to Finish Her Degree from South of the Mason-Dixon Line

Not long ago, a former boss underwent a triple bypass. Shocked as I was at the sudden open-heart surgery, I was more surprised to witness how calm he remained throughout the ordeal and subsequent recovery period. He called one afternoon in June to share with me the irony at finally looking at his calendar and seeing that the day he went in for the operation, he was supposed to have left for a two-week trip with his wife.

“Emily,” he said, chuckling. “One makes plans and God laughs.” I chuckled with him, enjoying the rapport with this boss and just happy that he was handling the situation so well. Little did I know that his wise words would soon touch my world in a deep and significant way.

I moved up to New York after college and planned on staying there. Jon and I spent many a cold winter’s night and hot summer evening discussing how long we would stay in the city before heading to Westchester for wide open spaces and good public schools. I left a good-paying job in the corporate world to enter graduate school, planning on leaving five years later with a few more degrees, and a career ready-made for fulfillment and flexibility.

Girl plans and God laughs.

Jon worked at Lehman Brothers for seven years before finding his passion in real estate. He moved to the Firm’s real estate arm in January 2007 and loved the work—at least until it dried up in September 2007.

“The mortgage crisis won’t last long; there’s no need to worry”, the real estate bosses said at first. We all planned on that being the case. God laughed.

“People were laid off today but it was performance-based and shouldn’t happen again,” Jon said one cold day in January.

Corporate executives made plans and God chuckled.

“Got a sec?” Jon asked over the phone two months later as I was running out the door for work on that fateful Monday in early March. “I was just laid off. It was tenure-based and I am—was—the newest member of the group. I got a great severance package and have six months to find a job. I think I want to focus on hospitality real estate groups in Manhattan.”

Man planned. Girl sighed, focused on classes and their upcoming wedding. God continued to laugh.

The mortgage crisis worsened, hitting all aspects of the economy and financial world. Jon was up to his eyeballs with city-based hotel industry contacts, all of whom told him he was a great candidate but they did not have any positions open.

We were married in May; celebrating our union with 200 of our closest friends and family. After the wedding, Jon refocused on his job search and I was finally able to concentrate on life after the wedding: coursework and a career. I was busy making long-term plans for pursuing both in Manhattan when Jon mentioned broadening his job search to the rest of the country.

Yeah right, I thought. Like we’d ever leave behind our family and friends and go somewhere else...did I just hear laughter somewhere?

As summer progressed, the possibility of moving elsewhere continued to grow. Denver…The Bahamas …Philadelphia…Atlanta. They were all thrown into the mix and I began to wonder about my plans. What about school? What about my career? Part of my rationale for leaving said corporate job was to a) pursue something I actually liked and b) be flexible enough to balance a career and children. However, I didn’t foresee being that flexible at this point. Seriously, where’s that laughter coming from?

Philly fizzled. The Bahamas never happened (much to my dismay). Denver came through though it was only for a year before coming back to New York. I could manage that, right? Atlanta came through as well but there was no time-frame for returning. Being that the latter was a better offer, Jon strongly considered accepting it.

I had begun some planning for such a scenario weeks prior when I realized that I should have a more definite plan…just in case we really had to move. With only a few classes to go for the Masters, I thought, wouldn’t it be nice if I could find a way to finish my degree with Fordham from a remote location in a timely manner?

Before moving on, I would like to take a moment and address a common theme throughout the early discussion of this situation with family and friends: I was repeatedly questioned about whether or not I would feel comfortable staying in New York to finish up the classwork for a few months while my husband went ahead to his new job location. Although some people may be okay with such an arrangement, I felt (and still feel) very strongly about us moving together. We lived on different continents for six months right after we met and I spent a subsequent year and a half finishing up college in a different state. Although I am a strong believer in the idiom “Distance makes the heart grow fonder”, I also believe that I am done with that period of our relationship. To quote Forrest Gump, “That’s all I have to say about that.”

Throughout the weeks leading up to Jon formally accepting the position, I felt a need to figure out a plan of my own, no matter what happened. Luckily, one of my Masters classes dealt with the research behind problem-solving. I applied said techniques to this quandary and started by asking myself what I could conceivably do in terms of finishing the degree. Below are a few of the options:

1) Could I work with Fordham to transfer credits or make other special arrangements?
2) Would I consider continuing/starting over at a new school?
3) What is in Atlanta that will allow credit transfers from Fordham?
4) What real-world internships are available in [Atlanta]?
5) Can I make progress from a distance (i.e., with special arrangements)?

The second step was to generate ideas for each individual’s challenge. While some suggestions were a little silly (but still valuable), many were quite feasible. Below are a few of the options I chose to look into:

1) Finish degree with Fordham using flexible scheduling
2) Figure out some potential distant grad class options/online class options

3) Find a suitable internship
4) Take a few independent studies
5) Do research at another school to make money and gain credits for transfer

6) Have Jon continue looking for NY-based jobs
7) Look into weekend classes
8) Research schools in new city to finish degree there and/or transfer credit back to Fordham

Not long after formulating this list, Jon formally accepted the Atlanta position. Having this piece of the problem solved, I felt that I had even more information at my disposal with which to work. I had spent the previous few days thinking about not only the options I believed to be the most feasible, but also those I truly wished to pursue (I did not want to push Jon into looking for only New York-based positions). At this point, I had narrowed my options down to the following four:

1) Look into a combination of distance classes/independent studies to finish classwork in the fall
2) Figure out 5-6 dates when I will be in NY throughout the fall semester and can be in

class/meet with professors
3) Look into Atlanta-based programs/schools for credit transfer
4) Research internship options for credit

I decided to actually pursue one independent study and remain in one Fordham class that would allow me flexibility in completing the majority of work outside of class time. Now that I am down in Atlanta and feel very happy with the way my courses have worked out, I still can’t help but feel sad at having left New York long before I intended. Such is life, I suppose, but at least I can plan on enjoying the remainder of my coursework from my bigger, less expensive apartment in Atlanta. That’s the plan at least.

Is that giggling I hear?
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In your own life, have you made plans for the future only to see them change due to unforeseen obstacles? How did you deal with them? Do you have any plans now that seem a little uncertain due to current issues with the economy and its impact on our daily lives? How do you plan on dealing with these issues? Feel free to send me your issues and I will compile them for a later post.

Reflecting on my Own Steps

The idea for Refresh Your Step did not appear out of thin air, as if a light illuminated above my head and I suddenly realized what I was meant to do as a career. Part of me wishes it had been that easy, that a light switched on at some point in college; the rest of me, however, realizes now that each step I took prior to this, my career successes, pitfalls and subsequent lessons, all led me down this specific path. For this, I am deeply grateful.

As a bright-eyed and idealistic college senior, I thought I had it all figured out: I loved journalism, I had the connections from a summer internship at NBC in New York and I had the drive. After graduating from the Univesity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I would simply move up to New York, continue working at NBC and, yada yada yada, I'd be the next Katie Couric. What could go wrong?

This was my general train of thought the fall of my senior year, though the little voice in the back of my mind was desperately trying to get through. What about seeing your family? Or living your own life? As much as I tried to tune out that voice with constant reminders of my passion for journalism, I couldn't help but reflect on how miserable many of the reporters and producers seemed, how often they mentioned failed relationships and marriages, never seeing their family or friends and how their original career passion had dwindled as their success rose. I wasn't married at the time but there was the idea of marriage, perhaps children and a life where I could balance it all. As idealistic as I was at the time, I had to wonder if perhaps I needed to think into the future and re-evaluate my career choices?

As I inched closer to graduation, my attempts at muffling the voice began to fail and my idealistic self started to fade. At the same time (or perhaps it was more cause-and-effect) this new rational side of me appeared (I know, it scared me too). I thought that by moving into a field related to journalism, I could still be passionate about my job but also strike a balance between a career and my personal life.

This decision eventually led me to a plum position as the assistant to/analyst for the head of Corporate Communications at Lehman Brothers. This particular public relations position was tied to the media (i.e., journalists), I was able to write and I had an opportunity to learn about finance--what could go wrong? A lot, apparently.

To sum up the experience, I worked for the financial world's version of the Devil who wears Prada (except her clothes weren't quite Prada-esque). Regardless, she screamed, schemed and made me dream of a better day; a day where walking into the office didn't mean a pit in the bottom of my stomach and I didn't tremble in fear every time she called my name. I also dreamt of nights and weekends that were my own and not spent in the office.

Though I eventually switched out of Corporate Communications into a role with the campus recruiting team at Lehman, I couldn't help but feel that my time in the first position at the company impacted me more than I originally thought. Yes, I learned quite a bit about finance but I also learned about the ways of the corporate world.

(Now, I must ask for your forgiveness before moving forward, as I will be stereotyping to a degree; however, the stereotypes are based on both my own experiences and those of others. The consistencies across both companies and industries were remarkable so I will use them for now. That being said, I love to hear about people's positive experiences with their bosses, colleagues, etc. Please email me those at emily@refreshyourstep.com and I will put the stories into a later blog post.)

As I moved through my time in the corporate world, I couldn't help but be struck by all of the extremely successful, highly intelligent and insightful people who, despite their career achievements, spoke frequently of the path not taken, of being frustrated by their work and thought frequently about making a change but simply didn't know how to do so. Many of these same people were also frustrated by the challenges and other unforeseen obstacles that blocked their steps up the ladder.

Concurrent to hearing these spoken thoughts, not to mention thinking them myself, I pondered my own path not taken. In addition to journalism, I had always been interested in psychology, in understanding people so as to help them get to a better place. One day, as I walked my dog through Central Park, a light did turn on over my head. Go back to school...go back for psychology...learn how people learn and what makes them tick.

To begin wrapping up this exorbitantly long blog piece, that's exactly what I did. After researching various programs to teach me such material, I settled on the Educational Psychology program at Fordham University. Though I knew going into the Masters program that I would learn the research behind our learning process, I did not foresee that each class would open up my eyes to additional aspects of our learning processes. I read the research on motivation, cognition, self-regulation, creativity, problem-solving and more; though the information gleaned from these classes was meant for the classroom, I saw the potential for something more.

A vision began to take place early on in my Masters program--I wanted to work with people in the corporate world (or any industry, really). I wanted to help people who were wondering if they had taken the rights steps in their career, unsure of the path they were on, if they should--or even could--switch job paths. Additionally, I wanted to help those people who faced obstacles in their chosen path and wanted to figure out how to surmount said obstacles and continue moving on in their field. Lastly, I wished to help all of my clients learn how to manage their work life so as to maximize their personal time.

To be perfectly honest, the thought of career coaching crossed my mind from time to time. Come to think of it, I believe it was the same tiny voice in the back of my head as I continued telling myself to get the PhD. You're not interested in research. You want to work with people. Why spend more time and money when you can start on your real career now? I eventually started listening to my voice of reason again and voila! Refresh Your Step was finally born.

After several steps down a path filled with career successes (in some way), pitalls and a series learning and reflection, I know what I want to do. I have the tools and drive to do it and am ready. I am prepared to work with every client who crosses my path, to make sure that they figure out the best path for them and to find the strategies to get there.

I've refreshed my step...now it's your turn.
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As a follow-up, I invite you to share your story with me. Have you had a boss and/or job that makes you anxious before you even walk into the office? Have you ever thought about the steps you've taken in your career and wondered if they're the right ones for you? Have you asked yourself about the path not taken? Send me your story and I will put them together in a future post.

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As another follow-up, I promise not to publish any more ridiculously long posts!