LYJ Five Questions for Katja Kullander

I am pleased to kick off a new LYJ series with people who love what they do. We begin with Katja Kullander, a Swede who moved to New York a decade ago to pursue a career in music. Katja is the owner of Sing From Your Heart Music Studio where she teaches voice to people of all ages (currently students from ages 8-80!) and walks of life. I’ve known Katja for a few years and during that time I’ve heard her say on more than one occasion how much she loves her job which is why I chose her to start us off.

1. What do you love about your job?

I love my job because it is a combination of working with wonderful personalities and music in one setting. In one day I hear anything from songs by Mozart to Janis Joplin! I witness miracles every day in the field of finding your natural voice and connecting your unique sound to your heart and soul.  It is a deeply touching experience to see my students beautiful transformation when it comes to opening up their voices and freedom of expression.

2. Did you always know this was the job or career path for you?

I studied voice in college and I had the opportunity to be the substitute teacher for my college professor on several occasions and I enjoyed it immensely. I got an even  deeper satisfaction from teaching than performing, which really surprised me. It would take many years for me to really admit that to myself. When I work it feels very right. I am totally present in the moment feeling the beautiful flow of life and focusing on the students. It does not feel like work, it feels like life- A joyful existence!

3. What are the most important lessons you have you learned along the way?

The biggest lesson for me is realizing that even in business, like in life, there is a constant fluctuation of ebb and flow and that no matter what, you have to stick with it and keep focusing on your dream. Realizing that your own fear is not a fact and keep taking action towards your dreams will make your own doubts disappear. Our biggest enemy is usually ourself!

4. Tell us about a defining moment for you related to your work.

The defining moment for me was when I decided to branch out on my own and left the safety of a supportive music school environment. I was now on my own and had to completely rely on my self, my craft and my knowledge of business. It really was worth it taking a risk to try flying on my own! It worked!

5. What advice do you have for people looking to find work they love, in your field, or any field?

Listen to your heart! Go for it! If you don’t know what your dream is yet, look at things in your life that you love doing. Things that when you do them you are totally present to the experience and you feel blissful. Do one small thing a day to get closer to your vision. Never give up. You can accomplish anything you set your mind and heart to do. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t. Prove them wrong and yourself right. I am a true believer in “Do what you love and the money will follow”. I am certain that there is a place for everyone’s unique abilities in this world. We can all flourish together!

Learn more about Katja at her website: http://www.singfromyourheart.com

What I’m Reading Now

Ever since I renewed my Brooklyn library card I’ve been ordering tons of books delivered straight to my local library branch. It means I’m reading 5 books at once!

Here’s the latest:

Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern – This book is helping me to see all of the areas I can improve upon the way I organize my day and is getting me excited about purchasing a new daily planner.  She has another book which I have out from the library called Never Check E-mail in the Morning though so far I prefer the other.

Live It, Love It, Earn It by Marianna Olszewski – A friend of mine gave this to me as a gift and I’ve started the beginning and am very excited to read it all the way through. LYJ friend Manisha Thakor did a wonderful interview with the author this week on the Huffington Post.

Today I am picking up from the library Martha Beck’s Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! which I remembered I wanted to read after seeing it on the Obligation Nation Essential Reading list and Womenomics: Write Your Own Rules for Success by Claire Shipman and Katty Kay.

I recently read The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks about the limits we have on our own capacity to take in success and how to get around this, and Get Financially Naked: How to Talk Money with Your Honey by Manisha Thakor and Sharon Kedar which has inspired me to see how important finances are to relationships. More to come on this book.

What books are you reading?

LYJ (Love Your Job) Search Starts February 1!

I’m excited to offer my fourth class for women jobseekers beginning February 1 for five consecutive Mondays. See all of the details here. I know that 2010 holds much opportunity in store for jobseekers and I’m glad to be able to work with talented women in NYC on their searches. Please email me at lyjnow (at) gmail.com for more info and to secure a spot.

Here are a few testimonials from some of the women I’ve been so fortunate to work with:

“I’m so happy that I participated in Suzanne’s LYJ workshop. Suzanne provided the right combination of tools for personal and career exploration and concrete search methods. I really enjoyed meeting other fabulous job-seekers whose support and feedback helped revive me in my job search!” -Rosalia

“I want to thank you for your ongoing support. It truly keeps me uplifted in challenging times. I feel lucky to have met you – and actually many great people – through this search process. I certainly could not have looked at my life in March and seen all these wonderful new people and opportunities.” -Jessica

“LYJ, and getting to know Suzanne, changed the way I approached the crucial work of job-searching. Suzanne introduced to me a compassionate, thoughtful approach to job searching. The seminar made me a believer in affirmative thinking around the process, as well as equipped me with a whole new toolbox full of tools to make the best use of my time working towards my dream job. Suzanne has an amazing talent for seeing all possible connections between people: a modern guru on networking. Suzanne has maximized her natural talents to help others with LYJ, which was tremendously valuable for me.” – Summer

LYJ Best Year Ever Workshop Kicks Off 2010

LYJ Best Year Ever Workshop on Sunday, January 17

Here’s a picture from our Best Year Ever workshop on Sunday. We had ten fabulous participants all excited about what’s to come in 2010. The most powerful part for me is flipping around limiting beliefs into new statements about who we want to be in the New Year. We’re excited to offer 3 check-ins during the year to follow up on progress. A great way to start off the year!

2010 Best Year Ever Goal-Setting Questions

As part of the pre-assignments for the 2010 Best Year Ever workshop Nicole and I are leading on Sunday, January 10 and Sunday January 17, we ask participants to consider the following questions. I answered many of these same questions myself in 2009 in order to create a juicy full year and intend to do the same for 2010.

Guided Goal-Setting Questions – (Answer as many as you’d like)

• What was the MOST FUN you had in 2009? Is this something you can yes to immediately for 2010?
• What was something that has been on your mind to do for the past 3 years, 5 years, 10 years?
• What’s a place you’ve visited that you’ve been dreaming of going back to?
• What’s a place you’ve never been to that you’ve been dreaming of visiting?
• What personal goal, if accomplished, would really make you proud and happy?
• What professional goal, if accomplished, would really make you proud and happy?
• What would your best summer ever look like? (Best fall? Best spring? Best winter?)
• What didn’t you get to do last year that you’d really like to do this year?
• Who didn’t you get to see last year that you’d like to see?
• What makes you feel alive and like life is GOOD?
• What’s a larger goal you have that might take 2-3 years, 5 years or 10 years to complete?
• What could you do in 2010 toward the above goal?
• If 2010 came to an end and you thought – that was a fantastic year – what kinds of things would have taken place?

Painting a Vision

I was talking to a good friend the other day who recently had a baby and is really loving her life at the moment. In addition to enjoying every moment with her adorable son, she and her husband are both working part-time and so have time to spend with each other and with their son as a family. Both of them work in demanding jobs as attorneys so achieving this life for themselves was no small feat. Before now, it was not unusual for one or both of them to work late into the evening, sharing take-out over a speaker phone. Now they’re both home before dinner, preparing home-cooked meals and spending quality time together.

How did they get there?

When I asked my friend this question, she responded:

“Even before I had a baby, I held a vision in my head of what our lives would be like as a family – even though I wasn’t sure how it would happen, I saw both of us working on a reduced schedule, with enough time to enjoy our lives, spend time with our baby, and be home in time for dinner. No matter what was happening outside, I continued to hold the vision in my head, until one day . . we arrived.”

This concept of painting and holding a vision one’s future can be incredibly helpful in any job search and in life. Alice in Wonderland, an amazing book, and a source of many of my favorite quotes can also be instructive on this point:

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where … ” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

Many times when I talk to individuals about their job search, they ask me what job openings are out there that match their qualifications. This is definitely useful information in any search, but another more important question is “where do you want to go?”. The answers to this question will have a significant impact on your next career move.

For example, if you’re an attorney thinking about the next step and hold a vision of yourself as a partner at a firm, then you might want to join a firm where you could see yourself growing and spending the next several years of your career. If you’re an attorney with the same skill set who would prefer pursue a passion for music while working only part-time, your path and choices regarding your next position would be markedly different.

Asking yourself “where you want to go” can be an intimidating question if you start out without any idea of where you’d like to end up, but a few smaller questions can be illuminating:

When you picture yourself at age 40, 50, 60 … 90 what are you doing?

How are you spending your time? Working? With family? With friends?

How much time do you spend on other pursuits?

What are those other pursuits?

What accomplishments in your life are you most proud of?

How do others in your community view you?

As the Cat points out, even if you don’t know where you want go, you will surely end up somewhere, it just helps to know where you’re going if you want to know which direction to move in at any particular point in time. And if you’re picturing yourself on a 100-foot yacht in the middle of the ocean, retired at age 35, or imagining some other Wildly Improbable Goal but thinking it may be outside your reach, here’s another tip from Alice In Wonderland, this time from the Queen:

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said, “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.

“When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. . . .

Why sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast!”

Five Imaginary Lives

As I head into Week 4 of my LYJ Search class, I am posting what I will be asking students tonight to consider. This is an exercise that comes straight from Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. It’s a tool that gets you to think freely about possibilities for joyful work, without self-imposed limitations. Here goes:

Five Imaginary Lives If you had five other lives to lead, what would you do in each of them? I would be a pilot, cowhand, a physicist, a writer, a psychic, a monk. You might be a scuba diver, a cop, a writer of children’s books, a football player, a belly dancer, a painter, a performance artist, a history teacher, a healer, a coach, a scientist, a doctor, a Peace Corps worker, a psychologist, a fisherman, a minister, an auto mechanic, a carpenter, a sculptor, a lawyer, a painter, a computer hacker, a soap-opera star, a country singer, a rock-and-roll drummer. Whatever occurs to you, jot it down. Do not overthink this. The point of these lives is to have fun in them – more fun than you might be having in this one.

My addendum to Julia Cameron’s exercise is that in these lives you have all the tools, talent, money and help you need to be successful at whatever you choose.

I don’t think that you should run out and change careers as a result of the answers to this question, but I do believe they provide clues about meaningful activities that could bring your life joy, and perhaps, a new career path to explore especially as we prepare to enter a new year and new decade. I like to ask students what’s one tiny action they can take toward one of the items on their list. For example, when someone in my last class wrote down artist, her tiny action was buying one tube of paint and a paint brush.

My 5 Imaginary Lives are things I dabble in already: Writer, Artist, Musician, Cookie Baker and Tea Shop Owner. Lately I’ve been adding a sixth which is Astronomer. What are your 5 imaginary lives?

From Renter to Homeowner: Tackling Major Goals Starts with the Smallest Steps

Today marks the third week since I officially became a homeowner. I have to admit that it feels great to have accomplished this major life goal. LYJ blogger Suzanne Grossman encouraged me to post some reflections on the process that translate to setting long-term career goals:

• The first step in moving forward on your goal is simply to state it out loud and then share it with your network. When I moved into my apartment three and a half years ago, I told my friends that it would be the last apartment in which I lived—the next place would be a place of my own. This set me on my path to home ownership even before I had saved the first dollar of the down payment.

• Do your research and mobilize your resources. Real estate is a language unto itself—I had to learn the lingo. I logged countless hours watching “House Hunters” and “Property Virgins” on HGTV, I read a couple of books and stayed on top of The Washington Post’s weekly Real Estate section, and I talked to friends who had recently bought homes in the area (my new home ownership mentors). In my case, I embarked on this goal with my husband, so I had to take inventory of what we could each contribute (financially and emotionally) to the process. When approaching a major career goal, researching the field, the steps you need to take, and who can help you get there will be key to your success.

• Create a visual reminder of your goal. Earlier this year, I placed two important items on my fridge: 1) a wipe board where I simply wrote my savings goal, two pieces of furniture I want to buy for the new house, and the phrase, “Buy a house,” and 2) a photo of a house in one of our target neighborhoods and in our price range. Despite the numerous types of homes we viewed, the house we bought actually looks very similar to the house that adorned our fridge for many months. Whether you enjoy making crafty collages or prefer a simple approach, an informal “vision board” can do wonders (and perhaps stir a little magic) in helping you stay focused to accomplish your goal.

• Be patient and persistent—you’re in it for the long haul. My home ownership plan became a two-year process full of many small, weekly steps. I monitored my credit score, researched the price ranges for different neighborhoods, set up an ING savings account and made automatic monthly contributions into my “house fund,” identified my realtor, viewed properties, etc. When I first started, I probably spent about an hour or two each week on this project; in the final three months of the process, I spent 30-90 minutes each day. It certainly took a level of dedication and focus, but it was do-able. I often acted on the good advice fellow LYJ bloggers have suggested of tackling one thing a day. 

What can you start doing today that will get you where you want to be in two or three years?

Week 2 of the Negotiation Gym

From Ask For It: How Women Can Use the Power of Negotiation to Get What They Really Want, by Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever.

Week two and we’re starting to stretch. The goal for this week is setting a high target. Choose small things that aren’t that important to you. Determine the most you think you can get. Now double that. 

Here are the examples from the book:

If you’ve been planning to offer 10% less for an item in a second-hand or antiques shop, see if you can get it for 20% less. Do you want to ask for a few days off? Ask for a week off plus another week for the holidays. Need a new office chair? Ask for the chair and new blinds for the windows.

The second part of this week’s exercise is the giggle test: ask for as much as you can without giggling, blushing, stammering or exhibiting your own personal nervous tic. Figure out your give away—your behavioral cues—and work to not give yourself away.

Good luck gym rats! Oh yeah, tell me what you’re asking for before the end of the week to inspire me.

Week 1 of the Negotiation Gym, Warm Up and Sum Up

Even week one started out hard.

Like I mentioned before, I see myself as self-reliant and independent, so it was difficult to think of things to even ask for. But once I practiced a couple of times, it did get a little easier and I started identifying more opportunities. I think the self-reliant self-concept (like the obsession with being perfect) can be a trap for women in different ways. We let it sap too much of our time and energy, we spend time doing things we could easily delegate to others, and we let it get too wrapped up in our sense of self, so when we aren’t perfect or self-reliant, we take it too personally. I’ll never be Blanche from A Street Car Named Desire, but I did manage to ask every day of the week for something.

Here’s what I asked for:

1. I asked my husband to help clean up the kitchen
2. I asked the executive assistant in the office to get my printer working (this was dicey for me since she’s older than me, I’m new in the office, and I’ve never had an assistant before)
3. I asked the assistant I share with several other editors to send me the documents I was missing
4. I asked to get a flu shot through the office even though I’m a temporary employee
5. I asked for more hot water for my tea at brunch (you can laugh, but I never do!)
6. I asked to be seated before our whole party had arrived (this is the only one I struck out with)
7. I asked a friend and her new boyfriend to help me get my stuff out of storage and drive from NJ to NYC with it
8. While waiting on line, I asked a stranger if she had a mint or gum
9. I asked a stranger to help me get my bag down from the overhead rack
    

Everything I asked for was pretty small, but in some cases it was still a surprise when people said yes. And it was a good feeling to speak up and affect what happened to me and my environment, even in a small way.

Anyone else give it a try? What happened?