🛠 Company Pivot to Career Coaching 🎉
It’s time to pivot! I just want to help others bloom with career coaching. Hit me up!
Note: The dates-read included with each book listed are not writ-in-pomposity. They are there to add context to my journey, and why Peace is Every Step meant so much to me; I read it with intent and context of my life.
Introduction
Salutations, dear reader! It is kind of you to spend time reading this, because it’s a personal article. Though, it is relevant to SoBo.Red!
The author, Yeshua (the author will switch back to first-person after this introduction), has gone through a lot of self-discovery, epiphanies, and passion-pivots the last few months. The journey started decades ago, when Yeshua’s Great Grandmother, Rosanell (Nell) Roebuck, seeded-and-watered a passion in them for scholarly study.
Nell home-schooled Yeshua and taught them: Home Economics, Science, Mathematics, Philosophy, Anthropology, History, Language, Literature, and much more. She was a strong-and-worldly woman born in 1925, and she was a professor at the Mississippi University for Women. Yeshua is more-than grateful for her wise rearing.
It has been a journey indeed; one that they are happy to see the endless beginning-and-end of. “Beginning-less and Endless.” (Thich Nhat Hanh [TNH]; I Bow Deeply; Peace is Every Step; read in 2015)
Yeshua hopes that Nell is proud of them, wherever she may be. The part of her that’s in them still is what guides them down the path to career coaching; to help others bloom.
I want to write this early, so it is not lost in the sauce: while SoBo.Red has pivoted to career coaching, technical articles will remain the focus of this blog. Interlaced will be motivational-and-helpful articles that may lean toward being less technical, and that’s okay.
SoBo.Red has been a conduit for many of my passions over the last seven-or-so years. It has been a tremendously tumultuous-and-turbulent journey. That’s part of my mud. That and everything before is part of my mud. Those that showed me compassion, understanding, patience, and guidance pruned me into the lotus I see myself as today.
There are many (too-may!) names to reference here. For that reason, I will write genuinely-and-generally: thank you to everyone that showed an autistic, young man a little patience-and-understanding. One person in particular handed me a book back in 2015 at ZendCon. I sincerely doubt they understood the impact that book would have on me; the path-and-journey it would guide me through.
That book was-and-is: Peace is Every Step by TNH. For convenience-sake, I shall refer to this book as PIES for the rest of this article. It was helpful in grounding myself; to find my inner peace. The book that followed was: The Art of Power by TNH. More on that in a bit. First, a short story about TNH that touches on Alan Watts just a tad; to convey why I admire-and-respect TNH so very much.
Origins of TNH
TNH, the author of PIES, has a very intriguing origin story. He was a Buddhist Monk in Vietnam during the Vietnamese War. During-and-before that time, Buddhism was a close-to-the-chest practice. Meaning: the monks never left the monastery. Instead, those seeking enlightenment needed to go to the monastery. This was purposeful. It was to weed out those that would intentionally waste the energy.
Anyway, TNH saw so much suffering during the war, he convinced his monks to go out and teach peace-and-grounding to everyone they encountered. TNH’s intention was: at least while everyone suffers, they may know grounding, peace, and unconditional love; understanding.
TNH and his monks would even hold hands across lines of fire to stop the bullets. Some of his monks died during this. Eventually, Vietnam banished TNH from the country for being anti-war. He spent the rest of his days in a monastery in France of his own making; Plum Village. He wrote many books while he was there. One very important one is Peace is Every Step.
TNH and Alan Watts are the persons whom brought the wisdom-of-Buddhism to the Western World. Alan Watts is a curious player, because he’s boisterous; anti-pattern for a monk… An abrasive Westerner that had learned-how-to and practiced mindfulness.
The Art of Power
The Art of Power (TAP) by TNH (read in 2015) is antithetical to The Art of War (TAW) by Sun Tzu (read in early late-teens). TAP is based on a World Conference that TNH held for all world leaders to attend. The conference taught, and its book teaches; that power inherently comes from altruism, compassion, and understanding. Power need not be fought for or won. Funnily enough, this is the main moral of How to Win Friends and Influence People (HWFIP) by Dale Carnegie (read in early teens). More on that awesome book in a bit.
In my humble opinion, one must read both TAP and TAW to understand the full conveyance of peace from TAP. It’s even more helpful if one has read Ender’s Game, Speaker for the Dead, (Orson Scott Card; both read in early teens) Children of Time, and Children of Ruin (Adrian Tchaikovsky; both read when released in 2015) also. These are fantastic Science Fiction series-and-novels that have these same morals but from different perspectives. It’s always good to learn other perspectives!
In summary
TAP – one understands-and-loves everyone, even their enemy, and they forgive (read Speaker for the Dead); they inherently gain power; selflessly.
TAW – one understands (still love but lacking empathy; read Ender’s Game) their enemy. They understand their motives-and-intentions. They understand enough to annihilate; crush their enemies. Selfish power; they lack empathy. Affluism & nepotism runs a-muck in this mess. In most cases, people that seek power this way have never truly suffered. They do not understand the human condition in its true form: societal evolution; which is what human evolution is.
Power can be gained inherently instead of taken, and I plan to teach this through the career coaching I will be providing.
Many have described the hustle of a career as a “rat race.” One is welcome to view it as such, but I see it differently. The rat race is society, and we can quell this anxiety-inducing race by taking a breath and realizing: we’re all in the rat race together. Let’s work together to get that cheese. I plan to apply this thinking to my career coaching methodologies.
“A rising tide lifts all boats.” – No one really knows, but most Americans attribute the phrase to JFK.
Andrew Carnegie, Dale Carnegie, & How to Win Friends and Influence People
How to Win Friends and Influence People (HWFIP) was a (what I consider to be) very-fun read for my young, autistic brain. I read this very early on in life, before any diagnosis was given to me. This book used to be required reading in most schools (way before my time!), and it helped me to break through the Autistic Social-Interaction Spectrum relatively quickly; mainly for self-preservation reasons; to blend in and not attract… unwanted attention at an early age.
One of my favorite parts of the book is when Dale Carnegie introduces Andrew Carnegie and describes his origin story.
When I first read this story in my early teens, I related heavily to it. My autism and other unspeakables had given me a keen sixth-sense to read people and their desires-and-intentions. HWFIP (and this particular story) helped me hone that skill into something empathetic, caring, and inherently-powerful; in my eyes at least.
Always bear-in-mind: beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and only oneself may behold oneself wholly. We are all beautiful. We need only to behold ourselves to be. – Yeshua
In my eyes, part of career coaching is building the proper type of confidence; the kind that has the least amount of ego.
Below is an excerpt from How to Win Friends and Influence People, starting at page 84; I believe.
What was the reason for Andrew Carnegie’s success?
He was called the Steel King; yet he himself knew little about the manufacture of steel. He had hundreds of people working for him who knew far more about steel than he did.
But he knew how to handle people, and that is what made him rich. Early in life, he showed a flair for organization, a genius for leadership. By the time he was ten, he too had discovered the astounding importance people place on their own name. And he used that discovery to win cooperation. To illustrate: When he was a boy back in Scotland, he got hold of a rabbit, a mother rabbit. Presto! He soon had a whole nest of little rabbits – and nothing to feed them. But he had a brilliant idea. He told the boys and girls in the neighborhood that if they would go out and pull enough clover and dandelions to feed the rabbits, he would name the bunnies in their honor.
The plan worked like magic, and Carnegie never forgot it.
Years later, he made millions by using the same psychology in business. For example, he wanted to sell steel rails to the Pennsylvania Railroad. J. Edgar Thomson was the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad then. So Andrew Carnegie built a huge steel mill in Pittsburgh and called it the “Edgar Thomson Steel Works.”
Here is a riddle. See if you can guess it. When the Pennsylvania Railroad needed steel rails, where do you suppose J. Edgar Thomson bought them?.., From Sears, Roebuck? No. No. You’re wrong. Guess again. When Carnegie and George Pullman were battling each other for supremacy in the railroad sleeping-car business, the Steel King again remembered the lesson of the rabbits.
The Central Transportation Company, which Andrew Carnegie controlled, was fighting with the company that Pullman owned. Both were struggling to get the sleeping-car business of the Union Pacific Railroad, bucking each other, slashing prices, and destroying all chance of profit. Both Carnegie and Pullman had gone to New York to see the board of directors of the Union Pacific. Meeting one evening in the St. Nicholas Hotel, Carnegie said: “Good evening, Mr. Pullman, aren’t we making a couple of fools of ourselves?”
“What do you mean.?” Pullman demanded.
Then Carnegie expressed what he had on his mind – a merger of their two interests. He pictured in glowing terms the mutual advantages of working with, instead of against, each other. Pullman listened attentively, but he was not wholly convinced. Finally he asked, “What would you call the new company?” and Carnegie replied promptly: “Why, the Pullman Palace Car Company, of course.”
Pullman’s face brightened. “Come into my room,” he said. “Let’s talk it over.” That talk made industrial history.
Back to me, Yeshi.
There are many morals to Carnegie’s story. The main one that many take away is: Carnegie knew how to use the Ego of others to sate his own. I find this a selfish way of reading the story. In fact, Dale Carnegie is careful to explain early on in HWFIP that the key is to be genuine and shed your ego. This is how you win friends and influence people.
I view the moral differently. Carnegie came to America when it was being built, and he wanted to help build it. I don’t think Carengie had the maniacal ego that most of his peers had in that era. No – he was no egomaniac-or-megalomaniac. Instead, I believe he was full of Ethos, Pathos, and Logos; even if he hadn’t studied Greek Philosophy. Ethos, Pathos, and Logos have aspects of Ego to some, but they are much more than simple Ego. In fact, I would argue that Ethos, Pathos, and Logos help to snuff out the bad aspects of Ego; leaving behind the only good part: confidence.
Personally, I find it… humorous that Carnegie‘s name is everywhere worldwide, and one rarely hears or reads the name Pullman. In fact, the only Pullman I care much about is Philip Pullman; the author of His Dark Materials (read as a preteen).
Could it be that Carnegie inherently gained his power by helping others? The Art of Power by TNH reminded me of Carnegie and his story; history.
I believe it was Malcom Forbes that coined something along the lines of: “He who dies with the most toys, wins.” Elaborated: “He who dies with the most money, loses; he who dies with the most toys, wins.” The moral: dying with a ton of money is pointless unless you’re building a legacy, and even then; it isn’t a competition. Instead, enjoy your money. Get toys. Make donations. See family.
“Give people their flowers while they are still alive, while they can still smell them.” – Anne Frank
Carnegie enjoyed his money. He donated a lot. He built libraries, schools, and gave back to society in many ways. I believe this is why his name remains today, regardless of his care for it or not… And now we’ve circled back to how power can be inherent, not necessarily fought for.
I have studied Carnegie’s history in depth, not just what I have read from HWFIP. Through this rigorous study, I learned a lot about what it takes to be genuine and helpful to a point that it can increase one’s wealth. I plan on applying these lessons to the career coaching I am pivoting into.
Summary – TL;DR
I have read a lot throughout my lifetime. My great grandmother, Rosanell (Nell) Roebuck, was my home-school teacher, and she bestowed her love of literature and anthropology into me; quite literally, but that is for another time. I am forever grateful for her insight.
PIES by TNH helped to unlock grounding and focus for me. This book allowed me (though it took years) to peer deep inside and see me for me. The journey of studying Buddhism gave me a myriad of self-discoveries.
Over the last seven years with the help of: past-read science fiction novels; specifically dystopian, a lifetime pursuit of philosophy, rampant study of languages & other cultures, Buddhism, and a myriad of other factors… I have found myself. I am agender, and my name is Yeshua; as I have wanted it to be since I was a young teenager.
This is all well and good. However, it has always been my goal to help others in any way that I possibly can.
🛠️ Here comes the pivot! 🛠️
Now that I have found myself, grown a confident in-noggin knowledge base, and am comfortable with myself; I’d like to help foster the communities I am and will-be a part of. I shall write articles for SoBo.Red, Zend by Perforce, and anyone else that requests me to; within reason. I have embraced my writing once again, friends.
I shall submit to all Call for Presentations. This is more-so a promise to myself, because my autistic-driven anxiety has kept me from it in the past. This will no longer be so. I have completely shed my care for what others think of me. I’m grounded in myself now.
While focusing on my role as Senior Solutions Architect & Community Steward at Zend by Perforce, I will simultaneously be helping my peers in their careers through career coaching and consultation.
🎉 Welcome to the new SoBo.Red 🎉
I am excited to pivot into career coaching. I have always felt like I’m good at helping others traverse their career, since I’ve had to intently study how to do so myself; lest I be lost amongst the horde of extroverted people-experts!
If you want to be part of the pro bono group (beta tester, perhaps), simply reach out.
Anyone that has my email may just email me too. It’s plastered everywhere and easy to find. The contact form is for convenience.
