Feeling Like You’re Swimming Upstream? Career
Coach Dan King
Hear the Interview
(requires
Windows Media Player)
 Dan does not advocate using your spouse or
partner as your career coach, ““It’s not the basis of that
relationship and there’s an awful lot of room for
inappropriate information, wrong information and stress.” He
has, however, invited the spouse or partner to coaching
sessions and given them a role to help in the process. “It’s
very hard to keep yourself positive and as upbeat as you
need to be in a job search when it just feels like your
world is crumbling around you. And the role of the spouse or
partner really needs to be the support, the understanding,
not someone who is contributing to the stress. So often I
will give the partner or spouse a role: running the other
person through some interview drills, or maybe they’re a
better writer and they’d be better at taking the resume and
doing some reformatting of it; or maybe they can explore
another industry that might be important. I think that when
there’s a task or a role to play that gives you some
semblance of control over it, it makes for a much smoother
transition for everyone.”
Dan has another exercise that he recommends, something he
and his wife call a “Wine and Whine.” If either one of you
has a particularly bad day, you declare a “Wine and Whine”
to get it out of your system. You get one hour to whine
about your career in any way that you want. The other person
cannot try and fix it, they have to just be listening, or at
least pretend to listen, but they get to drink wine. It
makes for a much better evening.”
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