RANDY PAUSCH



Randy Pausch  (1960 - 2008) 

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“Don't bail; the best pieces of gold are at the bottom of the barrel of crap.” - Randy Pausch






This week, out of the blue, my name somehow landed on the mailing list of a photographer that I know casually, because we both post pictures on the same website, BetterPhoto.com. The photographer is Usman Bajwa, and being on his mailing list this week has turned out to be, if not a life changing experience, certainly a life molding one. It has affected me so deeply, in fact, that I want—no—need to share it with all of you. If you have already seen the video, you are lucky, because it may have, in a poignant way, “saved” the rest of your life. If not, please make time: one hour and sixteen minutes and look at it. Find a quiet place. Make yourself comfortable, sit back, have your shades handy. You are about to see some gleaming, sparkling SILVER!





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On September 18, 2007, Carnegie Mellon professor and alumnus Randy Pausch delivered a one-of-a-kind last lecture (his body was wracked with cancer, and he was dying) that made the world stop and pay attention. It became an internet sensation viewed by millions, an international media story, and a best-selling book that has been published in 35 languages. To this day, people everywhere continue to talk about Randy, share his message and put his life lessons into action in their own lives.


Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture (YouTube)




Randy died July 25, 2008, at the age of 47.



I’m not going to write very much of my own words here. The lecture speaks loudly for itself. But in case you can’t find the time to look at it now, I’m going to insert some quotes from Randy below. If you are unemployed, frustrated, depressed, or if your self confidence has taken a hit, please watch it. If you looked at it before, but it has been a while, please watch it again. And then pass the link above on to the people you care about.
--
  Michelle

Quotations from Randy

•  "Brick walls are there for a reason. The brick walls are not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to show how badly we want something. Because the brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want something badly enough…”

Michelle Alton

• "Luck is where preparation meets opportunity."

•  "When you're screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they've given up on you. That lesson has stuck with me my whole life. When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody's bothering to tell you anymore, that's a bad place to be. You may not want to hear it, but your critics are often the ones telling you they still love you and care about you, and want to make you better."

• "When there’s an elephant in the room introduce him."

• "When we're connected to others, we become better people."

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•  “Don’t complain; just work harder.”

•  "Too many people go through life complaining about their problems. I've always believed that if you took one tenth the energy you put into complaining and applied it to solving the problem, you'd be surprised by how well things can work out."

•  "Find the best in everybody. Just keep waiting no matter how long it takes. No one is all evil. Everybody has a good side, just keep waiting, it will come out."

•  "A good apology is like antibiotic, a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound."

• "I'm sorry. It's my fault. How do I make it right?”

•  "Experience is what you get when you didn't get what you wanted. And experience is often the most valuable thing you have to offer."

•  "It’s not about how to achieve your dreams. It’s about how to lead your life. If you lead your life the right way, the karma will take care of itself. The dreams will come to you."

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•  "There are more ways than one to measure profits and losses."

•  "The person who failed often knows how to avoid future failures. The person who knows only success can be more oblivious to all the pitfalls."

• "No job is beneath you. You ought to be thrilled you got a job in the mailroom And when you get there, here's what you do: Be really great at sorting mail."

•  "You cannot change the cards you are dealt, just how you play the hand."

• "He had high hopes for society, and though his hopes were too often dashed, he remained a raging optimist."

• "My coach knew there was only one way to develop self esteem): You give children something they can't do, they work hard until they find they can do it, and you just keep repeating the process."

• "Want to have a short phone call with someone? Call them at 11:55 a.m., right before lunch. They'll talk fast. You may think you are interesting, but you are not more interesting than lunch."

•  "It's not helpful if we spend every day dreading tomorrow." ~Jai

• "And even though I did not reach the NFL, I sometimes think I got more from persuing that dream, and not accomplishing it, then I did from many of the ones I did accomplish."

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•  “Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”

•  “It’s such a shame that people perceive you as so arrogant.  Because it’s going to limit what you’re going to be able to accomplish in life.”

•  “I’ll take an earnest person over a hip person every day, because hip is short term. Earnest is long term.”

• "Focus on other people, not yourself."

Michelle Alton

•  “Don't compare your life to others'. You have no idea what their journey is all about.”

•  “Don't have negative thoughts of things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.”

•  “Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.”

•  “Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.”

•  “Try to make at least three people smile each day.”



•  “Dream more while you are awake.”

•  “Don't remind your partner of his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness.”

•  “If you know GOD you will always be happy. So, be happy.”

Please watch the video, even if you have seen it before!

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If you have a moment, I think about now you might enjoy my Best of Floral Photographs slideshow, and the gorgeous background vocal by the late, brilliant Eva Cassidy. And if you have another moment, I'd love to hear what you think about it.  Thanks for looking!
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  Michelle

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More Evidence for SILVER LININGS

MORE EVIDENCE FOR SILVER LININGS!

Last week was a killer one for me. But, dear friends, if you hang with me for a few minutes, you’ll see how I have found it possible to find -- through all the gray days-- that it is getting easier to find “silver linings” if I keep an eye out for them. You can too—and really, you MUST! Your worst enemy during these down periods is despair!




I’ve known for a while now that my personal world view has gradually come to be almost wholly and directly related to how well my computer is performing. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Well, it is…but just knowing that it’s crazy, unfortunately, doesn’t change the effect a computer crash has on me. I could be otherwise soaring on Cloud Nine, all systems go, optimism ruling the day. And then my computer starts limping as though it has some broken bones, and I know that imminently, something really bad is going to happen!






Omen of Despair

  

For a while I tried to tell myself that the seemingly interminable white screen on boot-up was not really a symptom, though secretly I knew I was living at the edge of disaster, and it was just going to be a matter of time before my World crashed down around me. In my mind’s eye, it looks like a building implosion!




(Google Image)



But now I’m out of work, no severance pay this time, and I’m trying to slow the “bleeding” by attempting to be somewhat frugal with my spending. And yet, I know that my computer is the lifeline to my most fervent passion – Photography. To merely imagine that lifeline being severed, even for a few days, fills me with horror and revulsion, the likes of which can suddenly transform me, Florence Nightingale, to Medusa, the mythological monster with snakes for hair!

(Google Image)



To that point, I have learned to warn my husband to keep a few dozen arm’s lengths between us while I’m trying to solve an electronics problem. If he forgets, invariably he is exposed to a couple of bared fangs, which I can assure you, is not a pleasant experience!  So, duly warned, husband brought me beverages and the occasional morsel of food, and otherwise kept his distance through the three-day ordeal.


So, it happened. And it happened right after a major Windows Update in the middle of the night. As I tried to rub the early morning blur from my eyes, it was clear that my screen was frozen. And after trying everything I could think of to unfreeze it (mainly cntl-alt-delete), my only option was to turn the thing off and turn it back on again (as in, when all else fails, REBOOT!). But I had a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach, and my heart was racing madly. This was not going to be good.




"A Sick Feeling"   (Shot at Magic Gardens, South Street, Philadelphia)



Well, I’m not saying that Microsoft was to blame for this impending disaster, but ever since this high-end laptop was delivered to my door, with the (unnamed here) operating system that has since been discontinued, it has been nothing but problems.

If this was to be an unrepairable crash, then it will have been the fourth one in three years and the fourth one that would require a complete Operating System re-installation. And that means having to reload every piece of software that came pre-installed on the computer, and every program that I had added since, including every photo editing program and plug-in.  And then I'll have to locate every serial number and license key. Each such incident took more than 24 hours of work to get up and running again. And a lot of hyper-ventilating along with a fair amount of shed tears (well, who needs tears anyway?). And if they have not been recently backed up to a portable storage device, it could also mean the loss of all stored documents and precious photos.


Silver Trinket #1  (Google Image)



So here’s the first bit of silver ore I found: All that stuff had been backed up to storage media the day before! And when I checked my backup drive, all the documents and photos were present and accounted for.  Great!  (Smiling)








So--back to the incident: When I turned the computer back on, it kept cycling through the black and white screen that says, “Windows was unable to start.” If you don’t press an option within a minute, it then tries to boot again…and again…and again! Not looking good at all.


Summing up the next three days in a few sentences:


• My computer’s hardware was still under warranty, but…


• The operating system was not. And since the problem appeared to be with the O.S.--


• I would have to pay more than $200 to get assistance with troubleshooting this issue.


• Over a period of three days I spoke at length with two novice technicians-- both of whose heavy dialects I could not parse, and one of which was also rude -- for a total of about 10 hours, until the case was finally escalated to a special group that handles “near hopeless” cases.


• On one technician's strong recommendation, ordered an installation disc for Windows 7, which didn’t resolve the problem because it would not install on my computer.


• Several telephone lines dropped, causing me to have to repeat my story multiple times at great length.  Finally I was connected to the technician for "lost cause" software issues.


• Good news! He spoke very plain English and was full of apparent sympathy for my dilemma. And after a few hours of going through all the same steps as the day before and the day before that, he, with all the patience of a saint, walked me through the start of the very long, unabridged hard drive diagnostics routine. “Let it run to the end, however many hours it takes, and if any errors occur, just write down the message. I will call you at 12:30 pm EDT tomorrow to find out what happened.” And the fatal error happened about two minutes after we hung up. The hard drive was compromised and had to be replaced.!!!


• So it had taken more than 15 hours of telephone time to be able to justify the replacement of a $200 part. Penny wise and pound foolish? I was totally drained.


I don’t remember anything after climbing into bed that night, but woke up the next morning refreshed and thankful for all the pieces of shiny silver ore that I had mined over the last few days:

Glory Be!

Silver Pieces:

#2 Silver Piece: I started off with one lovely but lame computer. At the end of the ordeal, I’ll have two beautiful, fast, and sleek high-end laptops with a total of 1300 gigabytes of storage space.


#3 Silver Piece: With 8 gigabytes of RAM, Photoshop will NEVER crash again because of too little memory to finish a task! And with a new, super-duper graphics card, I’ll have a gorgeous display and no more graphics crashes!


#4 Silver Piece: As wonderful as the other two bits of silver linings are, this one is, for a middle-aged female, Far-and-Away, the very biggest and best silver nugget:

In three days, I have lost, hopefully forever, FIVE POUNDS of ugly, depressing FAT!

Could I ask for More?  Could anyone?


Of course. What we all need is a great job, and if we keep our spirits up and do what we need to do, it's going to happen!  I believe it!

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Do you have a "Silver Lining" story to tell? 

Email it to me ( ganesh5555@hotmail.com ).

I'll publish it here* --with photos-- if it fits the theme. Could be fun!

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   Please visit my photo gallery at Your Best Shot Photography

* with minor discretionary edits

(Unless otherwise indicated, all photography by Michelle Alton)

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Climbing Back Up from the Abyss: Part II

When I found myself suddenly UNEMPLOYED a little over three months ago, I began, in an unorganized way, to explore the online job sites, “the Ladders,” “Monster.com,” Link-In,” and others. But like Lord Ronald, in Stephen Leacock’s nonsense novel, “Gertrude the Governess, or: Simply Seventeen,” I said nothing; flung myself from the room, flung myself upon my horse and rode madly off in all directions!

Disorganized Flight

I wasted lots of time and energy and some money doing it that way. Those sites, unfortunately including the Linked-In site, barrage you with “how to” articles of every sort, and scare you into thinking that whatever you are doing in your job hunt, you are DOING IT COMPLETELY WRONG. That, unfortunately, may also be correct.  The rules around job searching have changed.   But how do you distinguish the articles that offer excellent advice from those that exist primarily to scare us into subscribing to the services of this or that coaching or resume writing service?

One fantastic document--the “yellow brick road” to job search success--came serendipitously to me while browsing discussion groups on Linked-In. It is Olivier Taupin’s concise and highly informative slide presentation, LinkedIn for Job Seekers: Advanced Techniques For Finding A Job Quickly On LinkedIn. I have absolutely no affiliation with Olivier Taupin, I assure you. I’m just sharing with you a resource that I feel is certain can help you. 

I suggest, if you do NOTHING ELSE to prepare yourself for the job search, this should be your bible for getting started. Read it and take it seriously. Once you get the knack, you’ll be using Linked-In to its maximal effectiveness, and coming up with your own ideas to get yourself noticed. Olivier’s information is golden. Once I started following his suggestions, the number of people who read my profile and the number of times I appeared in searches, increased by leaps and bounds. Emails began to land in my mailbox, and the phone began to ring. I recommend that you read it carefully, save a copy in your favorites.  Refer to it often, and you won’t be disappointed.

In today’s economic recession, almost nothing about job searching works the way it did a mere two years ago. If you were accustomed, while you were working, to being canvassed almost relentlessly by professional recruiters, forget about it--the times have changed. You can’t just post your old tried-and-proven resume and sit back and wait to be contacted. You must actively seek out the attention of recruiters. Unquestionably, you need to change your style. That means you have to do a lot of things, in Linked-In, while you search, to make yourself stand out in the crowd.

I’ll be back later to tell you about the most effective steps I’ve taken to get noticed in positive ways (Hint: this blog is one of them). In the meantime, take good advantage of your current and past relationships—those that you have formed in business, and even your friendships. Friends outside your industry may KNOW people at target companies, and those relationships can help to get you introduced to hiring managers. Let everyone know that you are out of work—there is no stigma to being jobless in this recession, regardless of how bad you may feel about it.

And you are NOT worthless. You were great when you were working, and nothing about that has changed. If you are feeling down, out, and alone, take heart:  You are NOT alone!  You will find that people WANT and are eager to help you. If this comes to you as a revelation, you’ll be very pleasantly surprised. You will also find yourself changing in wonderful ways.

You are not alone

And never forget…you need to do all you can to help others too! Offer to write Linked-In recommendations or otherwise open doors for friends and colleagues. You’ll get a lot of personal satisfaction from simple acts of friendship like these. And your “luck” will begin to change.

Simple acts of Friendship

Just remember, unless you are very lucky and grab the brass ring quickly, today’s job searches tend to take more time than they once did.  Keep in mind: This IS NOT happening because of anything you did—you are no less competent than you were when you were working.  Drum that into your brain!

Try hard--Try very hard-- to not appear to be down or depressed, even if you're feeling like proverbial "Dirt!."  As much as possible, be your old optimistic, cheerful old self and, most of all, do not let BITTERNESS consume you. Prospective employers will not be positively impressed by the story of your misfortune.  They are looking for people whose presence enhances their own work experience and the atmosphere in the workplace.  By trying like hell, to present yourself in positive ways, soon it will become easy.

But you MUST dig in, prepare for a long haul, and learn the proven ways to get yourself noticed.  The effort will work if you work at it!

The Road Ahead

Stay tuned.

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All photos by Michelle Alton
http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellealton

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Climbing Back Up From the Abyss: Part I

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I was laid off three months ago after having enjoyed a successful career in which there had never been a single day of unemployment. The company meeting began that fateful day with the President saying, with his best-practiced pained expression:


“Our company has had good days and our company has had bad days. And unfortunately this is going to be one of the VERY bad days.”

And it was all downhill from there. Just about half of the workforce was let go that day, as we stood around in the hallways after the meeting, Blackberries in hand, waiting to see who among us would be losing our jobs. One after another, the buzzers went off for everyone in my group, save one. And it was not I who was spared.

"Teardrop"

It was then that the emotional roller coaster began. In the week that ensued between the announcement and the “separation,” the first evidence of our misfortune was the way in which our former associates interacted with us. Most didn’t talk very much to us, except for during “knowledge transfer” activities. I guess it had something to do with what is known as Survivor Guilt. It seemed to be more uncomfortable that week for those who were left behind, than it was for those of us who would be leaving.

Soon enough, though, our relationships with THE COMPANY, were at their end, and we were set out into the job market during the biggest economic recession since the Great Depression. In the Industry in which we had worked, Biotech/Pharma, a series of large mergers and downsizing measures had placed tens of thousands of people like us on the street, competing for the same meager collection of jobs. This was NOT going to be easy. And after the first couple of weeks of attempting to get into the swing of the job search, the roller coaster swiftly morphed itself to carry me into a steep, swift plunge into the depths of depression.

Sound familiar?

Probably like you, over the years I had been sought after almost on a daily basis by recruiters, who while in pursuit, would become my fast and best friends—always there. Now, most had become unusually scarce. I had to call or write to them to follow up on the meager leads that I had sent their way (None were flowing to me in the other direction). Those recruiters who had long been in my network gave me little hope that the job market would open up any time soon, and were encouraging me to consider pursuing jobs that would pay less than half of my former salary. What??? Seems their commissions have been thinning out too!

Enter Linked-In. Intrepidly, I uploaded the tried-and-proven resume I had used, with minor updates, for pretty much the past ten years, and used it to create my online profile. While cruising around on the site (and searching online job boards), I waited to be found. And I waited. Nothing. Not only was I no longer sought after by hiring managers and recruiters; NOW I was almost entirely overlooked by them!

Deeper plunge into the depths. Now I was all the way down to feeling weak and worthless.

WORTHLESS!  Me?

"Why Me?"

The few jobs that had looked promising initially had been awarded to existing employees, or had been cancelled because of budgetary considerations, or suddenly, my phone calls were no longer getting responses.

Fellow travelers on this roller coaster, if you are still spending more time in the dips than in the rises, take heart. You can turn it around. Though it is not a rapid process, it IS a process and you can take control of it and drive it to success—just as you had been doing in your career up until the dreaded day!

No, I am not yet back among the gainfully employed.  but I'm climbing the hill now, without any recent serious backslides into hopelessness. It may still take some time, but I feel very confident that the road ahead will lead to a new beginning.

"Rising Up"

Next week I’ll start the story of how things seemingly SUDDENLY began to turn upward for me. I hope it will help some of my fellow journeyers who have not yet reached the turning point. If you’re one of us, please follow my blog for a few more days; you may find the information to be useful.

For now, I wish all of us the best of luck in early 2010. I think it’s going to wind up being a positive experience!

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All photography by Michelle Alton

http://www.linkedin.com/in/michellealton

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The Silver Lining of being Unemployed

Well, it's now been slightly over three months since the devasting RIF that left me unemployed for the first time since I dropped out of college (later earned my degree while working full-time) at age 19. I won't say how many years ago that was, but it was a long, LONG time ago, to be sure!

Silver Lining

It's been a difficult time for a middle-aged Senior Director in Biotech/Pharma Clinical Operations to be in the job market in the Northeast/Mid-Atlantic region. Tens of thousands of qualified professionals have been turned out on the streets due to mergers and downsizing, and there are dozens and dozens competing for each open position. Figuring out how to get your resume to be READ is a major mystery, and to actually reach the point of a face-to-face interview is a feat of monumental proportion! And we are competing with hungry, career-building, talented folks who are willing to do the job at discounted salaries, just to get the proverbial 'foot in the door." Tough business, this job hunting is!  It can seem like the most vast of wastelands.

Ghost Ranch, New Mexico

And how many times in the past three months, have my hopes been stoked, only to learn that "we decided to promote an internal candidate," or "the job position has been revoked due to budgetary condtions," or "Sorry, but you are way over-qualified for this position?"


But...after living for three months on the lower end (never higher than mid-level) of the depression/exhilaration curve, I've come to the point where I can see a "silver lining," and my fortune is starting to turn around.



So here it is, and let me be the Upteenth person to tell you: There IS hope out there for us--Never Give up!

Never Give Up

Up until this unfortunate jobless period, I had never been very much of a networker. Though books like "Never Eat Alone" extoll the virtues of a lifetime of reaching out, I hadn't even read it until this happened to me. So, thank the Good Lord that Linked-In has come along. It's an amazing tool.

Well, I don't know about all the "how to" articles that are out there on the job sites; I believe most are really there to churn up business from job searchers needing the services of various types of coaches. For every bit of advice out there, there's another bit -- equal and opposite. And some are, in my opinion, utter travesties, like one I read recently about how to "take ten years off your age." (Don't take a newspaper to your interview because only OLD people read newspapers.) Jeepers!

So you could spend a lot of time getting lost in the bog of advice--How do we know which advice is Golden and which is Rubbish?

Bridging the Bog

But -- Linked-In, if worked to the maximum, finds people from your past, with whom you may have had positive working and personal relationships, but who you probably haven't thought about in many, many years. It's like the play, "Six Degrees of Separation," which proposed the notion that one can find a relationship to any person in the world through no more than six connections. As an example, Linked-In somehow connected me to my brother, who works in the BANKING industry--pretty far afield from most of my professional network in the Pharma/Biotech industry!


In the past three months, Linked-In has brought people back into my life who I have been fortunate enough to have mentored, starting with my first management position. Many of these people have seen their careers blossom over the years--because they are downright great at what they do. But now, they are telling me that I had a lot to do with their success, and they have, in some ways, modelled their own management styles after mine! Can you imagine how wonderful it has felt to hear that? So I have the opportunity to rekindle some terrific friendships.

Friends Rekindling

But, the phenomenal thing is that all of these people have developed their own networks, and are providing ideas, contacts, and recommendations for me. It's astonishing. And, the extra, added benefit is that all this works as a super, non-pharmaceutical mood enhancer for the out-of-work job hunter! Self confidence comes rippling back, and it is reflected in all of one's contacts with recruiters and hiring managers.

Recruiting Contact

I don't have a job yet...these things do take time. But just yesterday, I was told by an astute company recruiter (for a job that is being created that I would just LOVE to have), "Think of this period as a vacation, Michelle. With a background like yours, you won't be without a job for long--and let's keep in contact at least once a week!"



Even if nothing comes of that particular opportunity, the New Year begins with a huge blast of growing hope and confidence! Thank you, Linked-In. With the New Year comes a New Beginning!

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All photography by Michelle Alton

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