The Fire Fly Manifesto

Bad Economy | Just Got Fired | Time To Fly
By Jonathan Fields | JonathanFields.com

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hetheryouflipburgersorswapderivatives,losingajobjustplainsucks.I’mnotheretotellyouotherwise. Especially, when you were following the rules, you did everything right, you worked your ass off, you sacrificed what you really wanted to do for years or decades on the promise of a better life…and still got sacked or, worse, watched your entire company go down in flames.

What’s going on in the world and the economy right now is frightening. Nobody knows when the other shoe will drop, what it will look and feel like when it does, or if another shoe even exists. And, for many of the hundreds of thousands of folks who lost their jobs this year, the position you’ve lost simply doesn’t exist anymore…in any company. So, going back or making a lateral move isn’t an option.

But, I’ve got news for you...

What feels like the end of the the world to you now may, in fact, be the window you’ve dreamed of for decades. How many of you have spent months or years secretly praying to win the lottery so you could stop doing what you were doing and finally do what you loved? How many of you have felt locked into a tired, life-sucking career by a suffocating marriage of golden or lead handcuffs, fear that you’d be judged or ridiculed for changing paths and a life-stifling lack of belief in your ability to make a living doing what you love?

Thing is, if that’s you…

 

The economy has just served you up a big, fat opportunity!

In fact, you may never get an opening like this again. A chance to make a bold change, take a shot at doing what you love, and not be judged for trying. Not that it’s impossible to change paths anytime, it is. I’ve done it many times. But, you’ve got a once-in-a-lifetime window here created by a once-in-a-lifetime event.

The meltdown has everyone re-examining how they earn a living and what they want out of their lives and careers. Promises have been broken on a scale we’ve not seen since the Great Depression. Expectations have been destroyed. The old paradigm no longer exists.

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nd, if you lulled yourself into believing that a honking pile of money or a seemingly Teflon job with a big, established company was your ticket to security, you’re likely smack in the middle of a really rude awakening. Everyone’s worlds are being shaken and in this shaking, sometimes violent thrashing, lies a massive opportunity—the chance to come alive. We are now in the midst of a once in a generation window…

For those who’ve never explored a career with equal helpings of passion and prosperity out of a fear of being judged, unsupported or ridiculed, judgment has been suspended. For anyone who’s decried the lack of time it would take to rebuild their livings around the life they want to live, time is your greatest asset. And, for anyone who’s felt trapped by a long, emotional investment in a career you loathe, the slate’s been wiped clean.

This crisis just served up public justification on a platter.

 

It’s given you a massive, defensible reason to explore a radically different approach to the way you earn your living. And, if you don’t take it now…

 

You may never have the will to do it again

Simple truth—life is not all about sacrifice, suffering or giving up what matters most in the name of being a grown up. Passion, purpose and fulfillment matter. They make us come alive at work and at play. And, pursued the right way, they can be had along with a healthy serving of prosperity.

In fact, a growing movement of Career Renegades are proving this out every day. Breaking rules, bucking convention, doing what everyone around them says is un-doable and, along the way, building massively meaningful careers with generous incomes...often from their kitchen tables or home-offices in small towns across the globe.

Questions is...Are you ready to come alive?

 

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ou’ve worked for years, maybe decades, sacrificed time with the people who suppos - edly mean the most to you—friends, family, lovers, spouses, partners, kids—all in the name of creating a secure, “opportune” future. Because that’s what successful people do. Only, as you may have just discovered...

It’s a lie…

That’s what sleep-working, anxious, depressed, unfulfilled, walking heart-attack, over - weight, unfit, stress-riddled, job-hating, no-way-out, relationship-falling-apart, kids-barelyknow-you, getting-number-by-the-day, Monday-morning dreading people do. All based on the insanely false assumption that there’s no other way. That this is success.

Well, if that’s success, then I want to fail!

Ponder this—what if the way you’ve defined and pursued success for years or decades has been based on a lie? What if beyond being able to comfortably pay your bills, money, merchandise and prestige, the bastions of modern-day success, had little or no relationship with true success? What if they were largely disconnected from health, happiness, opportunity and that elusive sense of security?

Would you feel conned?

 

If you’ve just lost your job or you’re getting anxious about the increasingly obvious utter lack of control over it, you probably already know what I’ve just shared to be true. In fact, the deafening crush of a faltering economy has literally whacked this realization into the heads of millions over the last few months. For many… Modern-day success has been a long, slow death.

But, still, whether you’ve recently lost your job or lost your belief that it’ll be there for you much longer, there is a huge temptation to jump back into what you know…simply because it’s what you know.

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t may be wrong for you, it may kill your spirit, alienate you from those you care about and destroy your health. But, the temp- tation to rush back to what you know is huge. Because we can’t stand the anxiety of uncertainty. Here’s the thing, though, as Kierkegaard said...

 

Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom

And, I’ll take control, responsibility and the shot at a career of my dreams over surrender, blind faith and a slow life-sucking march to a retirement that may never come any day.If you’re still hanging onto the illusion that plugging along in a field that means nothing beyond the chance to get paid is the right call, though, I am going to go one step further. Because, I don’t want you to be a repeat job offender...at least not long term! Before you go running back to into a career devoid of meaning in order to avoid the uncertainty of a path with the potential to fill you up, I’ve got something for you—The Case For Coming Alive.

What is it? It’s the evidentiary brief of a lifetime. A30-page document packed with hardcore, peer-reviewed, published research and case-studies that will serve as irrefutable proof of the destructive impact of the mad dash for cash and security. (I’ll be releasing it at CareerRenegade.com very soon, so be sure you are subsribed to the blog for early notice). It’ll be free, no strings attached, no gim- micks. Use it to convince yourself, then share it to convince everyone else you know that...

It’s time to wake up…

Why become just another statistic when there’s another way? Why retreat to the prison of the repeat job-offender, when you’ve got the chance of a lifetime to join a new movement, to become a revolutionary, a true Career Renegade. To redefine what you get out of work for the rest of your life.

I know you are in pain now and it’s not my intent to belittle or discount what you’re feeling or experiencing in any way. I also know that, for some, you may have to take a temporary detour back into your “old” path in an effort to pay your bills while you plan your next step. You’re not alone in that journey.

But, even if you do, do it with a commitment to yourself to invest every free moment in the pursuit of researching, creating, then launching your next great adventure. Acareer built around the life you want to live, not the other way around. Acareer defined by the marriage of passion and prosperity. Use this window like it’s your last…it just may be. Which leaves us with a burning question...

If money, toys and prestige aren’t success, what is?

 

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eyond earning enough to live comfortably and simply in the world, more money, merchandise and power add little to how happy or satisfied we are. Nor do they make us feel a whole lot more secure, that’s a fantasy (See my soon-to-be released brief, The Case For Coming Alive, if you’d like to see the research). In fact, to the extent the pursuit of these things takes you away from other activites and people who truly do make you come alive, they may very well do the exact opposite.

So, if these things aren’t success, what is?

 

I wonder what might happen if, instead of holding up money, merchandise and the illusion of security as the currency of success, you valued relationships, purpose and impact instead.

What might unfold if you identfied what you loved to do first, then tapped the wealth of tools, strategies and technologies that have only come onto the scene in the last few years to build a substantial living around what makes your entire life smile?

What if, instead of scrambling to find another “job” that sends you spiraling back into years of sac - rifice in the name of a life that, in the end, you’ve already discovered you didn’t really want, you went about crafting your career from this point forward in a very different way?

Try this on for size…

 

Will this choice allow me to:

• Spend the greatest amount of time
• Absorbed in activities and relationships that fill me up
• While surrounding myself with people I cannot get enough of, and
• Earning enough to live comfortably in the world?

It sounds so simple. This is the standard I’ve used to guide my own evolution from six-figure, beaten down mega-firm attorney to lifestyle entrepreneur, blogger, author, copywriter, marketer and, yes, even yoga teacher…oh, and still earn enough to live very comfortably in the world and support my family in New York.

Fact is, this definition of success keeps me honest

And, with good reason. It’s evolved out of thousands of hours of testing and exploring a broad spectrum of career paths and entrepreneurial ventures, interviews with a wide cross-section of successful career renegades, from maverick CEOs to internet-earning soccer moms and extensive research into the field of applied positive-psychology.

It integrates concepts like famed cognitive scientists, Mihaly Csíkszentmihályi’s seminal work on cultivating “flow” states with Gallup researcher, Tom Rath’s eye-opening studies on the critical impact of friendships in the workplace.

 

Apply it, test it, kick it’s wheels & see what unfolds

 

Having had the opportunity to digest this short manifesto, understanding you now are faced with an incredibly rare window of opportunity, I wonder how you would answer the following question:

Do you consciously choose to pursue a soul-sucking path defined by excess money, toys, burn-out and increased agitation, anxiety, depression, alienation and false security or will you take this window as an opportunity to rebuild your living around the quest for purpose, passion, health, friendship, love, time spent doing what you love with people you love, a body that doesn’t horrify you, a heart that’s not on the verge of failing and a career that fills your soul and provides enough to live very comfortably in the world?

Because, if you’re ready to rise to the challenge, you’re going to need to...

 

Do something about it. Join the movement.
Begin it now...
1. Dont Freak

You may have left your job, but you haven’t left YOU! Your skills, abilities, experiences, connections, knowl - edge, work ethic and drive go with you. So, if you succeeded by applying these things to a field that held little interest to you, imagine what you’ll be able to achieve when you turn these same qualities loose on something you love

2. Own Up To Your Passion

Step back and revisit what really makes you come alive. Most of us already know, we’ve just buried it deeply, because we assume we can’t earn enough money doing it and, even if we tried, nobody would support the quest. Agrowing movement of Career Renegades now obliterates this assumption. Your job is to own up to what you really want to do, then...

3. Research Your Career Renegade Path

Changesintechnologyandinternetaccessoverthelast5yearshave created a wide variety of renegade paths to profitability. They’ve made it possible to turn things you thought would never generate much cash into serious businesses and delivered a worldwide market of customers, clients and colleagues to your doorstep. Learn to leverage this technology and the world becomes a much richer place (in all senses of the world). Making a great living doing what you love isn’t a matter of “if” anymore, it’s a matter of “how.”

4. Speeducate Yourself

Whether you just need to brush up in the area of your passion or train intensively, you can now find massive amounts of information, education and even certification and licensing for nearly any pursuit online. Much of it is free or available at a very reasonable fee and it’s there for the learning whenever your schedule permits. So, if you have the desire, you can master a ton of information about nearly any field in an astonishingly short period of time and then...

5. Turn Out Your Tribe

Once you know what you’re talking about, tap the world of blogging and social media to publicly demonstrate your mastery to a massive number of folks who are literally hanging around the online and face-to-face worlds just waiting for someone to step up, answer their questions and lead them. Whether your next step is within someone else’s organization or launching your own adventure, establishing yourself as a known, go-to person in the area of your passion puts you in the driver’s seat...and it costs next to nothing to do.

6. Rally Your Rabbis

Nobody does it alone. In order to succeed in your quest to become a career renegade and rebuild your livelihood around what you love to do, you’ll need people on your team on two levels. You’ll need to rally those closest to you to your cause (the economy just opened a whole new chance to do this). And, you need to find and connect with one to five “rabbis” or mentors, who’ve already achieved what you want to achieve and will agree to help guide your evolution.

7. Master Your Mind

Given equal qualifications and abilities, who do you think the job, the support or the funding goes to? The person who’s the most confi- dent, calm, collected, resolute, overtly-passionate and likable. Want to be that person? Get your mindset act together. Commit to a set of simple daily mindset practices that will allow you to destress, refocus, cultivate lasting peace of mind and remain calm, cool and collected in nearly any situation or setting.

CAREER RENEGADE PROFILES: INTERVIEW SERIES

What would you give to sit in on a series of in-depth conversations between a growing braintrust of career renegades, people who’ve already done what you’re desperate to do, worked through the struggles, challenges and questions and emerged with the living, life and lifestyle you want?

On December 1st, 2008 my Career Renegade: Profiles teleseminar series launches...and it’s absolutely FREE!

Every week, you’ll dive into a new one-hour, in-depth interview with a true career renegade, people with families, mortgages and serious responsibilities who’ve made gigantic changes in career and not only lived to tell about it...but ended up making great liv- ings doing what they love.

Some names you’ll know well, others have been happily crafting insanely fun and lucrative livings in relative obscurity until now. Nofluff, no talking points or pitchfests. Just real, gritty, actionable information. The Profiles series is where the juiciest, most power- ful conversations unfold. And...

You’re invited to join in the conversation...as my guest

The call-in series kicks off December 1^st2008 (when you reserve your complimentary spot, you’ll also get access to all preivious calls, for later listening and download).

Visit CareerRenegade.com/profiles to reserve your spot today

 

©2008-9 by Jonathan Fields. Career Renegade is a registered trademark of Jonathan Fields. Copyright holder is licensing this under the Creative Commons License, Attribution 2.5. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/. You’re welcome to post this on your blog, website or e-mail it anyone you think might benefit from it with attribution.

 

About a dozen years ago, I left my job as a mega-firm lawyer to rebuild my living around what I loved to do and the people I loved to be around. Since then, I’ve become a dad, husband, serial health & fitness industry entrepreneur, author, blogger, copywriter, marketer and even yoga-teacher. I’ve been featured in the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Self, Vogue, Elle Fitness, CNBC, The Today Show and too many websites and blogs to list. I write the Awake@TheWheel blog at http://jonathanfields.com, the Career Renegade blog at http://www.careerrenegade.com, contribute to a number of Technorati Top-100 blogs. And, I founded NYC’s top-rated yoga center, Sonic Yoga NYC, boutique marketing group, Vibe Creative, and am launching more companies in 2009.

After years of being asked how I’ve done what I’ve done, I decided to pour everything in my head into a book, Career Renegade: How To Make A Great Living Doing What You Love. Then, I started interviewing a bunch of other career renegades and what emerged surprised even me. The book grew into a veritable manual, packed with hundreds of killer resources, strategies, case-studies and links that will allow you to take almost any passion and turn it into a source of serious income. Even if everyone else says it’s impossible.

“Career Renegade is a game changer…hell, it’s a life changer!”-Karen Salmansohn, NYTimes
bestselling author of Be Happy, Dammit! and The Bounce Back Book

 

“...If you’re tired of following the herd, and yearn to go your own way, you need to read this wise, in

 

spiring book. Now.” -Daniel H. Pink, New York Times bestselling author of AWhole New Mind and The Adventures Of Johnny Bunko

May I give you 16 hours of training...for free? Let’sbehonest,here,Iamnotgettingrichoffthisbook,but, on the other hand...you might not only get rich, but happy...really happy. And the chance to help you and millions of people like you means a lot to me, so I am going to make you an offer that’s essentially impossible to refuse...

Pre-orderthebooktoday(it’soutJanuary13th)andwhenyoudo,IamgoingtogiveyoucomplimentaryadmissiontomyonlineFlight School training that goes live January 1, 2009. This 16-hour online training builds on the book to accelerate your career evolution, bring to life the paths, strategies, tools and resources, case-studies and actions and demonstrate them on-screen with tons of live examples, stepby-step screen capture videos and more. I’m not even offering this as a paid program anywhere right now, but if I did, it’ll be valued at more than $1,000. And, all you have to do to get it is drop $11-$14 to pre-order my book. Seriously, what valid reason can you come up with not to do this right now?

Step 1: Click here to pre-order the book (or visit amazon.com)

 

Step 2:Click here to reserve your free VIP Flight School Ticket (or visit CareerRenegade.com)