The August edition of Love your Job - the newsletter of Amazing People is now available for download.

August 2008

Happy Monday and I’m a bit late again, but with a month like I had … I lost my voice early July, struggled on, which wasn’t good and made it worse by carrying on talking, well croaking to clients. I’m now being much more careful about resting, not raising my voice and trying to get sufficient sleep (not easy when camping at festivals).

July was a fantastic month - we celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary, and this was particularly meaningful as we had to cancel the party planned for our 10th anniversary due to the floods last summer. With two years to prepare this was going to be awesome and it was!

We planned it to be like a mini festival ,with flags, and tents, but no mud as it was a prefect day - from chilling with Pimms on the lawn in the afternoon through to the evening with Les Barker, Alex Chapman and me making my debut on the decks. If you are on Facebook you can access all our photos through there.

We are now into festival season so weekends will see me having a great escapism from my work, I think this is one reason why I love music and dancing so much as it gives me a chance to escape from my head into my body!

I‘ve had some great feedback from clients - from a one hour decision making session to a young man completing the gold programme and saying it was a life changing experience. I’ve also had a client give me less than positive feedback. I do encourage feedback good and bad and hearing what she had to say enabled me to put things right and now she’s happy! Partly this was due to a mix up over what email address to use, so I’ve now made some process changes to make sure I ask clients their preferred contact method.

I do hope you are having the summer you want to have and look forward to talking to you again in September.

July 2008

I’m delighted to get in touch with you again, and sorry this is a bit late, I’ve been ill, still am, and it’s certainly challenging to communicate with clients when you have lost your voice. I’m taking great care of myself and have appreciated clients waiting for my voice to come back.

Writing this newsletter and looking through my diary at everything I did in June it’s probably no wonder that I’ve become ill - and it’s a wake up call to me to make sure not to do too much.

Alongside all my wonderful clients I’ve also spent 2 days on DJ training with DJ Tanz of the DJ Academy. I love music and had such fun, and it certainly is making me listen to music in a different way.

I get a lot of enquiries, but I try to be careful that there’s a good fit. Over this past month I was approached by someone who wanted me to write his presentation for him to use at his assessment centre - I will help people to put a great presentation together but I work with the clients material, I don’t write things for the person. This person cheekily wanted me to do it for them - I obviously declined. I’ve also had my first non payer - he said he’d forgotten his cheque book so I said he could pay online when he got home, but he never did. This is disaapointing and now means I will ask for money at the start of a session.

A lot of people are getting concerned about their career - more people are being made redundant and it can cause feelings of uncertainty. I’m working with a senior manager from a construction company who loves her job but she is being made redundant and all other construction companies are in a similar position so she is looking for something different and following the Gold Career Programme. I’ve written an article on this.

I offer many different assessments, particularly focused on those most useful when people seek to change careers, but some clients seek to work with me for personal development. They seek greater self understanding to help them be more effective in their job. I’ve been using the 16PF with people, but am now recommending Saville’s Wave which is incredibly powerful and clients love it. .

I love to work with my younger clients and in June worked with Lauren, Toni and Lizzie, helping them all to understand themselves better to make the right education choices for them. It’s too easy for young people to go to University without thinking through if it is the right thing for them to do at this time so it’s well worth putting a bit of effort in to make sure the right decsion is made.

In this months issue you can read:

• Article 1: The threat of redundancy
• Featured Service: Ask a question
• Article 2: Saville’s Wave (personality questionnaire)
• What Denise did last month
• In the Blog

I hope you enjoy reading this. Do get in touch if you think I can help in any way, and I look forward to talking to you again next month.

To read the rest of the newsletter

 The June issue of Love your job is now available.

In this months issue you can:

• Read an article on Career planning for graduates
• Read about the Featured assessment -The Strong Interest Inventory
• Read an article on Where to get career help
• Read about my media appearances! - Radio Gloucestershire and The Apprentice Magazine

You can access the newsletter here: http://www.amazingpeople.co.uk/newsletter/June2008.dwt

best wishes

 Denise x

Love Your Job - Helping you to love your job or to find a job you do love - the monthly Amazing People newsletter

April 2008

Welcome to the April issue of Love your Job. I can’t believe how quickly the time is going this year, and whilst it’s good to be busy I am trying hard to have some balance in my life. That’s one of the little challenges about finding a job you love, it doesn’t feel like work and so you can end up spending too much time on it and I usually manage to squeeze an extra appointment into a week when I have a client in distress.  To help my work/life balance I spent Easter at a health spa and really can’t get over how much good it did me. I left the laptop and work behind and took a novel but really didn’t plan to do anything to tax my brain and I didn’t! So I spent 4 days being pampered, eating healthy and taking time to use the gym and go to exercise classes. The holidays I’ve been going on over the past couple of years have been adventurous but certainly not restful so this was very good for me and my short break was worth a 2 weeks holiday! I’ve also kept the feeling for the past 10 days and hope to keep this feeling till my next trip!

My work has remained varied with clients ranging from a senior executive preparing for a Director post in a blue chip company to young graduates who need to get started on their career path. Clients have travelled from as far afield as Liverpool, London and Hull.  I’ve also undertaken more advanced training on the Highlands Ability Battery and I’m putting a proposal together for a large scale career initiative with a major company.

Technological wise I have now got my blog looking just like my web site. I’m very interested in design and think that it is such a great step to make the blog look integral to the site rather than something different.  If you are interested you can sign up to get the blog entries delivered direct to your in box each day. I currently have 2 subscribers to the blog feed (not many and I’d love more).  I think most people don’t understand how feed burner operates but if you have a bit of time to stay its worth signing up – I get 5 peoples blogs straight to my inbox each day, usually I have a quick scan and delete which only takes seconds, but sometimes there is a really useful article and I’m so pleased that I got it.

By the way, I now have 1041 subscribers (at 1st March) and I really appreciate all of you, do please forward this newsletter to anyone who wants to love their job and suggest they sign up for their complimentary copy of the 10 steps to a job you love eProgramme.

So hope you are happy in work and if not what are you going to do to make a change?

In this issue:

• Keep an achievement folder
• Career coach on tap
• Media
• Client feedback
• What Denise did last month
• In the blog

• Quote of the month 

To read more

December 2007

Welcome to the December newsletter. May I begin by sharing some great news. I’ve won a national career award for my Gold Career Programme. The competition is sponsored by The Independent Newspaper and I was delighted to win first prize in the working with adults category. I’ve got a great piece of crystal on a bookcase, a certificate on the wall and recognition for all the work I’ve been doing with clients. I’m delighted that so many of my previous clients were happy to write testimonials which, I think, really enhanced my application.

I’ve also been working incredibly hard. I’ve got a lot of projects on the go, I’m manage to juggling them ok but will be glad to get them completed. 

Very soon you will be able to visit my new web site. I don’t have the technical capability to do what I want it to do and it will take too long to learn (I’m not a web designer but a career guide).  I’m using an expert and making better use of my time, but I still have to rewrite text, think about structure, choose graphics, and liaise with designers. I don’t think I had realised just how much time this would take.  

What have I learnt from being so busy?  Perhaps to think about if I really do need to do everything right away. I didn’t need to have new business stationery and business cards created at the same time, and this could have waited. However I did decide not to help my husband with his business idea – I’ve told him he’s my priority when I’ve finished my urgent and essential pile.  

All the other tasks I have are piled up in order of priority so I can focus on the most essential tasks first. It would be so easy to get distracted by the nice to do, but that isn’t finishing off new web pages.  I’ll let you know when its up.

In the meantime plenty for you to read this month

In this issue:

• Winner of National Career Award

• Enjoying Christmas

• Active Listening

• Amazing People Career Services

• An update on what Denise did last month

• What’s on the blog  

• Quote of the month

Take care, and talk soon

I’m delighted to send you this newsletter and trust it gets through to you. With so much spam, reputable mailings like mine can get caught up and people may never know they haven’t received it.

I’ve been busy this month, both with clients and business. This month my clients have included a 15 year old student getting started on career guidance before choosing A levels, two men made redundant in their 50s on an outplacement programme, plus many people who are unhappy in their work and want to find something more satisfying.

Within my business I have also decided to be systematic with the way I write on my blog and am now posting each day. I like systems so I’m writing entries each evening ready to post in the morning and have also got a few in stock for those busy days!  Changes are also underway with the website but this will be a long job - still preparing the spec to get quotes for a complete overhaul.

 Two articles for you to read this month. The first is all about creating a personal portfolio, a really interesting way of sharing personal achievements at interview. The second is the text of a talk by Steve Jobs which I find inspiring. In this issue:

• A Personal Portfolio
• You’ve got to find what you love,’ Steve Jobs
• Don’t waste your talent, the book of the Highlands Ability Battery
• An update on what Denise did last month
• What’s on the blog  
• Quote of the month

I hope you find this issue interesting and a big hello to the 21 new subscribers this month. I’ve been getting some great feedback on the 10 steps programme so I hope it’s been helpful to you. Please get in touch if you have any questions.

That’s it for this month, hope you find things of interest and don’t forget to visit the blog.

 Also, if you are interested in exploring how we could work together we can talk by phone! I do spend a lot of time emailing people as this means we both have copies of what is said, but sometimes it is good to talk. So if you would like to talk let me know and we’ll agree a convenient time.  I wrote about our over zealous use of emails in a blog posting earlier which lead on to a few comments on the blog. Emails are great but sometimes it is much better to make a personal connection. Take care, and talk soon

x

October 2007 Newsletter now out:

I’m late with this issue, and I apologise. I’ve been doing too much, and got distracted. That’s one of the strengths and weaknesses of my personality type. As an INFP (using Myers Briggs Type Indicator terminology) I love to visualise the future, gather information but I leave too many things to the last minute.  This is partly because part way through doing a task I get distracted on to something new.

I’m also late because, on reflection, my camping safari in Namibia was not that relaxing and I came back tired. A lesson learned, I need to ensure I get some time to chill out alongside my adventures.

So, what do I have to share this month? Well, alongside looking after my clients I have completely revamped my assessments website. I’ve learnt a new website design software, much simpler than FrontPage and reworked my descriptions and examples. You can read more about the MBTI here and then go and visit the rest of the new site.

 The latest edition of my newsletter is now available, you can access it here:

http://www.amazingpeople.co.uk/Blog/august_07.htm

Love Your Job - Helping you to love your job or to find a job you do love.

August 2007 I’m delighted to send you the latest edition of my newsletter. It’s been an eventful couple of weeks for me.  I live in Tewkesbury and we’ve been severely hit by floods and disruption to our water supply. You’ve probably seen my town on the news and I’ve had quite a few emails and phone calls asking me how we are. Someone thought they had seen be being airlifted off a roof.  It wasn’t me but it was close by a cottage we had looked at when looking for our home, but decided against it once we had heard it had been flooded before. On 20th July, I had a client with me for a CV review, I remember saying about how I’d never seen such heavy rain but never imagined we would get trapped in the village. I waved her goodbye but she was back in 5 minutes, and then I saw the flooding, about 3 foot, with a stranded car in the midst of the water.  Luckily our house is on higher ground so we were safe.  Since then there has been a problem with our water supply - no water for 6 days, but at least last Friday afternoon we got water through the taps for flushing loos, showers and clothes washing.  We are using bottled water for drinking, cooking and washing up. Thus has made me really value water and realise just what an impact a lack of resources can have. The first day I queued for about an hour for 4 bottles of water, I thought this was going to be a daily occurrence but they delivered some bottles to the village which was great. This has had an impact on my business - cancelled meetings, clients unable to get through, me unable to visit certain areas … thank goodness thinks are now improving. Onwards … in this issue you can read: Article: Stress and holidays Article: Competency based interviews An update on what Denise did last month What’s on the blog   Quote of the month In the news This month I have had 28 new subscribers - a very big welcome to you. I’ve been getting some great feedback on the 10 steps programme so I hope it has been helpful to you. For you, and everyone else please do get in touch if you have any questions. I’m hoping August is a lot less eventful, and that we all have an enjoyable and relaxing month. I’ll be back in touch in September, Kindest regards,