I also feel bad for author John Locke, who wrote a blog  a year ago celebrating Paterno as a father figure in absentia, as his own father died when he was only two years old. He wrote of the “squeaky clean” athletic program that Paterno ran, how Paterno was his role model while he was growing up and about a book Locke wrote that Paterno inspired, called The Qualities of Character. As a single-parent child myself, I know how desperately important it is to have role models to fill in the hole where a parent used to be. I find myself wanting to send my condolences to John.

We all need role models, even as we become big kids in business suits. But what happens when that role model falls so far so fast? So horribly? Just a couple of days ago I wrote an article about what to do when you lose respect for your boss. Now here I am writing a piece on what to do when you lose faith in your idol.

Remember that the idol may have plummeted from the pedestal, but that doesn’t mean the ideals are invalid. The ideals that your idol represented to you are still valid in your heart and within your reach. Just because your idol fell short on them, that doesn’t mean that they’re unrealistic. If they speak to your heart, that’s reason enough to cherish them – and to still give their inspiration the credit for making them come alive in your life.

Use the crisis to recommit your own dedication to being the person you thought your idol was. You really are the person you’ve been waiting for. And the good news is that you are much closer within reach than your idol is (or was).

Learn compassion for failings. I’m not about try to measure or take a stand on Paterno’s actions. I’ll leave it to the experts to sort that out. But in most workplace scenarios, when much admired leaders, mentors and teachers take a big tumble, it rocks the culture. But does it really have to destroy their standing as an inspiration of the kind of excellence is truly possible in your career and organization? Probably not. Separate the isolated action from the overall contribution. And, if you can, use the experience to show the younger employees that redemption, forgiveness and a welcoming back to the community are all still possible.

Recommit to your duty to represent your ideals to those who are following you, whether your followers are your children or your direct reports. I think an essential part of growing up is realizing that you’ll never be perfect, and, fortunately, being perfect isn’t a prerequisite to being valuable – and inspiring to others. The time has come to take up the work of showing future generations what really can be accomplished in the name of fair play, hard work, dedication to values and optimism.

I’m reminded of a story a former s/vp of HR told me of the time when her cherished boss and mentor suddenly died. At the funeral, she said to the new widower, “Who is going to lead me now?” His response: “It’s your turn to be the leader.”

Whether you know it or not, you’re probably the source of someone’s inspiration. Use that position to inspire yourself to excellence. Consider your own idols, specifically what characteristics they stand for, and keep your standards high. At the end of the day, it’s not about who your idol is. It’s about who you are. At heart.

As far as your HR career is concerned, there is little but downside to the lay-off process.  You know more than you want to know about your co-workers.  If the company is big enough, or your community small enough, you know more about the future of your entire region than you want to know.  You start to feel like the grim reaper just going to the supermarket to replenish your Tums. You can’t help the feeling that you’re walking among ghosts unawares.

You’re the one who has to deliver the news and take the first blast of blame on behalf of the company.  And the fact that you have terminated 5 or 1,700 employees is not exactly anything to crow about on your resume.  (And wouldn’t it be a red flag if a prospective employer was especially excited about that particular aspect of your experience?)  And the loneliness that comes from being part of this process? Well, you know.

So how much are you really expected to know about your own fate, when everyone else is taken by surprise? And when do you wise up and realize that your name might also be on the list?  How about right now?  How you handle the possibility that you will have “one more package to do” might be the ultimate test of your professionalism.

Here are seven considerations to fold into the way you redesign your own career as your company sorts itself out:

Be alert.  Don’t interpret this sudden spate of busy-ness as you’re assigned to participate in developing new org charts or assembling lay-off packages as a sign that you’ve been tapped to stay.  You could have just been handed your last assignment. Do you know why the company is going through a round of layoffs?  Is it an organization-wide experience?  Or just one business unit or department – like, say, yours?  If you’re tied to a division that’s shrinking, the instant you realize it is the time to start putting out feelers throughout the expanding divisions of your company or outside the company altogether.

Be discreet. Keeping your own counsel is one of the core competencies of HR (even if it’s not an official SHRM competency, you and I both know this is true).  Blabbing is a sure-fire way to get fired, as opposed to laid off.  This is going to be a lonely time for you. And if your company is a major employer in town, you’re going to be even more isolated.  You probably can’t even talk to your spouse about the very things that will affect you both.  You’re going to need to find someone to trust, who will keep mouth shut while giving you the advice you need to move forward. Your therapist? Your minister? Priest? Rabbi? Lawyer? Choose wisely.

Be open-minded. While you’re closed-mouthed, you must be open-minded. Now is a really good time to take a 35,000 ft. view of your own career path.  If you’re seeing a growing number of empty cubicles and whole sections of your floor dimmed by shut-down lights, rise above who you are now and what your immediate task load is.  And consider:  What’s my next step in building my career over time?  This could be your perfect opportunity to build experience in another aspect of HR or your business or your industry or your community to keep your own career path moving forward.

Be flexible.  You know better than anyone else in your company does:  Just because the job is shut down, that doesn’t mean that the work just stops.  Someone has to do it. What not a consultant?  Why not you?  As a consultant, you’re less expensive to your organization than you are as an FTE.  You have all the necessary relationships in place to get the work done efficiently.  And it will keep income coming in while you look for a new position, ride out this time of contraction, or discover that you like working in your pjs anyway, so what the heck? (No hate mail from consultants please, I’m one too. It’s 4:07 am right now, and so I’m wearing pjs. Deal.)  If you can successfully propose this alternative scenario before you’re handed the tower of lay-off packages to distribute, so much the better.  You’re outtathere, with trust and relationships intact.

Be friendly. Your day is constantly fractured with calls from vendors, headhunters and wannabe candidates.  Who wouldn’t feel a little superior (or stand-offish) when their day is interrupted with contacts from people who want a piece of you and who are calling “just to touch base?”  It’s time to remember to be receptive to interruptions from the outside.  Those headhunters who threatened to poach your organization yesterday could be helpful in rescuing your own career tomorrow.  Vendors might need someone just like you and your experience (I know someone who leapt from lay-off-ville directly into a fantastic role with his main consultant, it happens).

Be kind.  If you’re knee deep in layoff packages, you’ll be tempted to shut down a piece of your humanity, just to save your sanity.  Who can blame you?  But keep all human parts open, especially your heart, even if it hurts. Let me just tell you this quick story:  A friend of mine, Susan, started a new job. Less than a month later, her new boss, Marilee, was summarily terminated. Appalled by their manager’s cold behavior, Susan chose to do the emotionally difficult thing and keep Marilee company as she packed up her office.  Susan helped her with the boxes and then stood with her in the parking lot until Marilee was composed enough to get safely behind the wheel.  Fast forward a couple of months later, Susan was also terminated.   Upshot:  Susan is working with Marilee again, because the newly employed Marilee never forgot Susan’s kindness and reached out to her the minute she heard.

Be prepared with Dream B. Yes, have your financials in order and preferably enough money socked away to see you through some months of uncertainty.  But equally important: Have some back-up dreams that excite you.  Just last week I was catching up with a wonderful, dear HR leader – one of those people you fall in love with after only 20 minutes of knowing each other.  We hadn’t spoken in at least two years (probably longer) but it didn’t matter.  He was telling me of how the HR departments of his company was shutting down one by one like organs in a dying body. So many unanswered questions about the coworkers he loves, and, to be honest, his own life. So sad to see such loss.

“So, Don,” I say, “What’s your back-up dream in case your work at this company comes to an end?”

To my astonishment, he was ready with the answer!  (Very ready with an answer, if you ask me.) The next 20 minutes were devoted to the story of a little restaurant that’s for sale in a little piece of paradise.  The weather in his spirit shifted instantly as he spins out this dream that he and his partner have obviously been incubating on the sly. And now I’m thinking, “Hmmm, I’m hearing the makings of Dream A here.”

Take heart. There is life after lay-off. Even for HR. And the time to start dreaming is now.

Question:  What’s your Dream B?  We’d really like to know! Finish this sentence:  “If I were laid off tomorrow, I’d finally have the chance to  __________”

“Should I start looking for another job?” The quick answer would seem to be an obvious yes. But maybe at second look, a better answer might be, “Yes, but don’t be too quick to jump ship.” Becky is in an interesting position. On one hand her long-term career prospects are at risk, because she’s learning bad things from the wrong people. On the other hand, she has the unique chance to fast-track her steep learning curve and build a resume that could turn her into a star in her profession.

When you search for a new job, you’re looking for more than a paycheck. You’re shopping for an opportunity to build your career, with the guidance of people you respect and trust. What do you do when you discover that you’re working for idiots? At a company that’s doomed? You carefully think through the answers to the following questions:

Will my continued association with this company wreck my future job prospects? There are so many businesses these days that don’t just fail. They fail notoriously. The higher up you are in the org chart, the more closely your name will be associated with the failure. Still, even if you’re at the beginning of your career, there will be a taint of failure on your resume that you won’t deserve. What kind of impact do you think this company’s name will have on your professional reputation?

On the other hand, will this company’s brand cachet burnish my resume, even though I happen to be working for a doofus at the moment? If you’re working for a company renowned for its excellence in its market or the way it does business, you stand to learn a great deal within the walls of the organization. And your resume will be able to bask in its reflected glory for years to come.

My boss is an idiot. Is there someone else here whom I can learn from? It’s not unusual for employees to seek out mentors inside their companies who are not their boss. So reaching out for professional guidance from others shouldn’t offend your supervisor. Just don’t use your relationship with your mentor as an opportunity to vent your complaints about your boss. This is about your career, not making the world change just because you’re unhappy with the person you work for.

Does having an ineffectual boss put me at risk of learning the wrong things? Or does it give me the opportunity to take on projects that will fast-track my career success? I once knew someone whose boss drank in the afternoons. After lunch, the soundtrack of her workday was filled with the sounds of sliding and slamming as he opened and closed the desk drawer where he kept the Southern Comfort. The work still had to get done. So she did it. And she learned a lot fast – condensing about five years of professional learning into a six-month time frame. She wisely sought out the professional advice she needed from professional colleagues outside her organization and industry.

Will learning how to deal with an unreliable do-nothing supervisor add to my professional toolbox of interpersonal skills and politics? You’ll be dealing with difficult people your entire career. The sooner you learn how to work with the variety of personality types and the many ways they’ll make your life miserable, the more effective you will be. And then one day you can be someone else’s idiot boss.

Will accommodating this jerk land me in the slammer? It’s one thing to keep your boss’s confidences. But do you know where the line is drawn between being a trustworthy employee and colluding with a crime? Do you know what your legal obligations are to your company’s clients, the public, stakeholders and employees? Do you really want to get up on a stand and testify against the people you work for? If you start worrying about the legalities of your work – or the secrets you’re being asked to keep – it’s time to talk with an attorney, preferably someone who doesn’t work for your company.

So. Is it time to start looking for a new job? As far as I’m concerned it’s always smart to keep yourself and your resume in circulation. And you should always be nice to headhunters who interrupt your busy day with their fishing expeditions. Therefore it really is just a matter of whether you want to turn up the heat under your job search pot that is in an ongoing boil mode anyway. Default answer: Yes. Just do it prudently and discreetly. Which you would do anyway, because who wants to get fired — especially in this job market?

In the meantime, don’t “quit in place.” While you’re waiting for your next job opportunity, take advantage of being where you are. Take on new projects so your future interviews will be filled with conversations around what you accomplished and learned, rather than how frustrated you have been. Network around the other departments to see if there are other opportunities you can take advantage of.

Give yourself every chance at success. Even when your only immediate option at the moment is working for a monkey.

Question: Have you ever worked for a doofus? If so, how did you manage the challenge?

I could go on forever about how fabulous this person was. No script, patient listening while I ranted in a somewhat disorganized way, she gave me more information than I thought I wanted. When I thanked her profusely for her wonderful service, she rhapsodized about how much she loves taking care of customers’ needs.

But she didn’t want anyone to know about what a great job she does. When I asked her her name (which she shyly gave me one piece at a time), I then asked her, “Who do I talk to about how wonderful you are?” After putting me on hold for half a heartbeat she came back with an audible sigh of relief to report that they have a “compliment line.” But it’s broken, she said. Which was just fine by her, she said, because she feels really uncomfortable being in the limelight of praise.

So, I did want anyone would do: I took the proverbial bull by the horns (probably the only bull available on Wall Street these days) and wrote a letter directly to AmEx’s chairman. (Won’t she be surprised if this little piece of news gets back to her.)

My point here is this: When employees are reluctant to haul their lights out from under the proverbial bushel, more than just themselves and their careers suffer. The entire company culture suffers, and, by extension, perhaps its bottom line. Here we have an employee who is positively over the moon about her job. And she does it so well that a fanatical customer blogs about it that very day, naming the company and everything! As they say: You can’t buy that kind of PR.

How contagious could that enthusiasm be if she were encouraged to toot her horn – perhaps beyond her own limits of what she would consider appropriate? (I’m thinking that somewhere in her past an influential person told her that it is unladylike to seek attention and claim credit for a job well done.)

Some people just don’t like to brag or rhapsodize. And it’s easy for managers to overlook those quiet people glowing in the corner. But a culture-wide emphasis on encouraging people to tell their stories of how they delivered over-the-top service to their customers will encourage these people to speak up. And when the chorus of joy grow and grows, so will what I call the passion literacy of your company culture.

When you encourage your people to brag, you’re discovering which employees are high-potential talent who deserve to be cultivated. You will find out what specific skills and passions solidify that bond between your company and your customers. And you’ll create a positive culture that celebrates high service and high passion.

If I were queen of the world, or at least the head of a large organization, I’d hand out little toy horns to everyone in my group, announcing that “This is the year of the toot!” And I would begin every meeting – preferably a weekly group meeting – with the question: “What great thing happened in your job this week?”

The change may be a little slow to take hold. But, boy, once those horns start blowing, you may be surprised who will step out of the shadows and let ‘er rip!

There’s so much great material that came out of these interviews, so inspiring, so refreshing, that I’ve decided to share it with you here.  Most of the conversations will be around my trademark question:  “Does your work relieve pain, restore hope, or bring beauty into the world?”  (I’ll tell you about the origins of that question one of these days soon.) So you’ll be reading about the power of HR to influence hope, relief and beauty. A lot.

In this clip you’ll see Judy West, VP of HR for the Maine Medical Center in Portland, speaking about how the passion and decency of her people extend not only beyond the campus of her hospital but also deep into the future.  Do you remember when Christa McAuliffe said that teachers “touch the future?”  Here Judy talks about how hospital staffs touch the future and benefit lives long after their patients leave the hospital.

Okay. So let’s take it one step (or several steps) further:  HR pros — especially the ones who love their work — touch the future and solidify the hope that “people are fundamentally good” to generations of employees and their families.  The way people feel about their jobs directly influences the way their children look forward to a future of their own.  And HR has all the power in the company (yes, no arguing) to create a culture where employees see every day that people are fundamentally good.

What better foundation for building a life, a career and a business than the belief that people are fundamentally good? It sets the stage for great encounters with coworkers, direct reports, managers and ultimately customers. Start with “people are fundamentally good,” and you stand the best chance of walking away from any business encounter happy — assuming, of course, that everyone else agrees with you.

As the HR leader, you probably have the most power in your organization to make this belief an essential foundation of your culture. That’s the hope of HR.  Enjoy the clip!

(And, even if you’re not in healthcare, it applies to you too!)

Because I interview engaged employees as part of my consulting practice, I’m collecting miles of wisdom in the form of great video footage. With the permission of my clients and interviewees, I’ll periodically post highlights from powerful conversations. Like this one.)

Meet Kristy Silveria, director of employee relations for the Fremont-Rideout Health Group (Yuba City, CA). In this moment in our interview she tells the story of her most powerful a-ha moment as a very young warehouse manager for Sears — when she discovered the power of doing the right thing for her people. Not for any fancy managerial theory reason. It was just because it was the right thing to do.

Why is this a customer loyalty story? Your people learn about your expectations for customer service by the way your managers treat them.  Encourage your managers to build relationships with their people beyond the transactional level of the job description. Demonstrate caring, noticing, anticipating your employees’ needs (especially the unspoken ones), and they will care, notice and anticipate your customers’ needs.

When you go beyond what your people expect, they will be inspired to do the same for your (no, their) customers. Watch this inspiring video and see how Kristy’s lesson from few years ago still inspires her today.  And imagine how her current coworkers in health care benefit from her time at the Sears warehouse.

The more I get to know what healthcare HR faces every day, the more amazed I am. I don’t know how you do it, frankly. But I’m so glad you do. And I’m so impressed that even in the face of regulatory, legislative and other strategic challenges that threaten to get in the way of you doing your best work, you don’t lose sight of the fact that there are people in your organizations who really see the deep human meaning behind the work they do. And they draw inspiration from those small golden moments where everyone stops to remember: It’s about the people — their human needs, dreams and the little miracles that occur daily.

That takes a lot of emotional fortitude, especially when you’re dealing in organizational environments that are both high drama and high hassle. And it takes a lot of strength to be willing to tap into that rich emotional well to feel a sustained gratitude for the HR profession — especially in the healthcare world.  Meet Maureen O’Keeffe, system vice president of HR for St. Luke’s Health System, in Boise, ID.   This short clip is the first of several from our interview that I will be posting in upcoming weeks.  You’ll see that her emotions are very close to the surface, which is exactly the way I like to operate as well. Makes for some great stories.

Which brings me to the next thought:  If you’re in HR, how do you become the keeper of a workplace culture that cherishes the passion of your people? One answer: By being the caretaker of their stories.  Everyone has one. And that story elevates them above their job description and turns them into philosophers, poets, customer service experts, adventurers.  While some stories might be amazing stories, the smaller, quieter gems seem to be held closer to the heart. And they are the first to emerge when I feel that the time is right as an interviewer to ask the question that invites the wisdom.  Everyone I ask has that story top of mind, tip of tongue.

So, now I’d like you to meet Kristine Cassidy, and you’ll see what I mean. As vice president of ancillary services at Fremont Rideout Health Group, Yuba City, CA,  she is definitely tied into the issues of patient care and experience. But you wouldn’t expect her days to be filled with particularly moving moments. Here she tells the story of what happened one day when she was asked to give a father a sentimental tour of the hospital nursery. She is not a heart surgeon. So this isn’t a story of heroics on that level. But she did help heal a broken heart that day when a grieving father came to her with a simple request that meant the world to him.  It was one of her finest moments that has become a story that she shares with her hospital colleagues when given the chance to talk about why she loves her work in healthcare.

What stories, what hidden gems of inspiration and healing, are held in the hearts of your employees?  As the HR leader in your organization, you can be the one to hold those stories safe for your people. Just be prepared to be amazed. Every day.

In this era of unprecedented lay-offs of so many really great people (which might include you), that’s just so wrong.  Oh, and stupid.  Just because that person over there has managed to keep his job is no guarantee that his IQ is any higher than a kielbasa’s.  So let’s just say that if you’re out of work through no fault of your own, and you’re having trouble landing interviews, I’m totally on your side here.

So let’s see how we can get around this business of you being between jobs.

1. Understand that this discrimination is not about you.  Maybe it’s about their fear of hiring someone else’s cast-offs.  Maybe it’s some old vestige of an outdated automated resume tracking system that needs to be reprogrammed to be more welcoming of people with resume gaps.  Maybe the recruiters are just devoid of all imagination. Either way, it’s no reflection of your value to the working world out there.  Small consolation, I know, but at least it might take the sting out of the stories you tell yourself with all this annoying extra time you have on your hands now.
2. Take away the risk of bringing you in for a meeting. One of the most interesting pieces of selling wisdom I’ve ever heard is that prospects are largely motivated by the fear of making the wrong decision. So take away the fear of meeting you, making the first meeting about something other than a job interview. Find a way to be your target’s peer – not someone desperate for work.  Assign yourself an industry or professional research project/white paper that would require a meeting in which you’re the one interviewing your target for information.  (Actually write the thing and publish it online. That will give you another reason to contact the person.)
3. Don’t be a stranger.  You’ll have to use your imagination here, but there are so many other ways to meet your targets than simply sending a resume to an online destination and crossing your fingers.  Get active in the professional associations they belong to (Linked In is a great source for that kind of information).  Find someone who knows someone who knows someone who can introduce you.  Find out what kind of help your targets need and offer it.
4. Hire yourself. What’s stopping you from starting your own business, LLC’ing it, and putting yourself to work?  Yes, I recognize that entrepreneurialism takes a separate kind of dedication (believe me, I’ve been doing this since 1989).  This is what I’m talking about:  Pick a company name that’s not your own, hop on an online legal site like Legal Zoom, get the paperwork done, and give yourself a title that’s close to the kind of title you’re seeking out there in the work-a-day world.  And then put yourself to work, taking on projects that keep you busy keeping your resume fresh and up to date. Is this being dishonest? Only if you don’t get out there marketing yourself with every intention of landing assignments (it’s much easier snagging short-term assignments than full-time jobs right now).  You may discover that you have a knack for this free-agent life.  (What’s so secure about a full-time job, anyway? You’ve already seen that full-time job security is an illusion.  And there’s a lot to be said for being the captain of your own career ship — which you are anyway, like it or not. Seth Godin has an interesting blog on this subject here.)
   
5. Own your career path. You’re not just someone who is out of work.  You are someone who is bringing to the marketplace a set of skills, contacts, wisdom and passion for the work you do.  Careerwise, you’re not what you don’t have (a job), you are what you bring to the table – the value you offer to your clients and employers.  Keep that in your mind and heart and you’ll remain an insider in your own professional community.  And you will be the obvious choice when the right opportunity opens up – which will be soon.

I’m bringing him up here because his story is not so much a story of surviving a brutal start in life. It’s about the help of people all along the way who noticed him, saw his potential and gave him that little bit of extra help that changed his life at each turning point.  From the teacher who was the only one to see the smarts glimmering in the eyes of the emotionally overwhelmed little boy, to the academic secretary to promised to make sure his grant application would be on the top of the stack, he got what he needed.  From people who noticed.  And then helped. As a result, he carried within him into adulthood a strength that would help generations of other families dealing with the same challenges his family had to survive.

And then there was the Washington, DC, lobbyist for The Humane Society of The United States, where we both worked in the early 1980s. She gave me what I think is the most valuable piece of advice around building relationships.  (And if anyone knows how to build relationships, let me tell you, it’s the Washington, DC, lobbyists.)  She said this to me:  “The best way to make friends is not to offer them help.  It’s to ask them for help.”

What a revelation that was! In a culture where “that’s okay, I got it,” is the common response to anyone who wants to reach out and lend a hand,  that completely turned my thinking upside down.  Actually receiving help when by all rights we should be taking care of ourselves?  Well, maybe taking care of ourselves involves asking for help every now and then, sometimes from even complete strangers.

Being needful, especially around job hunting (especially if you’ve been laid off), feels humiliating, doesn’t it?  Even if being between jobs is not their fault, it makes a lot of people feel small and powerless – and maybe ashamed of their frustration and anger. And if they open their mouths to ask for help, the sound that might come out could either by the high squeak of air out of a constricted throat. Or a bellow that would blow people away like that farmhouse in the old atomic testing films from the 40s.

That’s a very isolating way to be.  Just when you need to be connected more than ever.

So what’s the networking tool that beats Facebook hands down?

Answer: Reaching out for – and accepting – help from friends and even strangers.  (You can even do that through Facebook!)

Who are the people who might be surprising sources of help?  Here are just a few people off the top of my head:

Teachers.  Sign up for continuing education courses taught by teachers who have full-time jobs in your field.  These people have networks and contacts that are current and broad.  Just be careful that the courses that you pick are related to your career and the knowledge you will need to prepare for your next job.

Your former boss.  Or your boss’s boss.  If you’ve been laid off, these people feel really bad about what happened to you.  And assuming they’re basically decent people, helping you land on your feet will make them feel better.  Do them a favor, give them the chance to help you out.  Do it gracefully and kindly. And they might even realize that there’s a job in your former company that you’d be perfect for.  I personally know that to have happened.

Your vendors/suppliers/consultants. A friend of mine was so successful in his job that his company laid him off.  (His core responsibility was fulfilled, they didn’t need him anymore.)  He’s the kind of guy who makes friends with his consultants (I was one of them).  And so we were among the first people he told.   Fast forward about two months, and he agreed to become the western region vice president for one of the consulting firms that helped him achieve that success.

Your clients.   That same client?  He is one of my favorite networking sources for  the Bay Area.  As much as he reached out to me for help, I reach out to him for help.  We see each other as friends. And we want each other’s success.  Another client of mine is helping me develop a new team-building workshop. He’s my ideal client and his professional circles are made up of guys just like him.  Once the workshop is ready to share with others, he’s going to help me spread the word.  Why? Because we care about each other. Just feels good.

Your neighbors. There’s no shame in being in financial or career trouble anymore.  Your neighbors want to help however they can – even it’s only for selfish reasons. They want to keep the neighborhood intact.  Don’t burden them with your anxieties – you don’t want to be the person that causes people to cross the street when they spot you coming towards them.  Just let them know you could use some networking help. Be specific about what kinds of introductions you’re looking for.  Be specific about the kinds of people who need the kinds of help you can provide.  That way it’s about the value you can bring, rather than just your need.

Your mom’s church friends. Don’t laugh.  I know of one guy who kept dismissing his mother’s suggestion that he call her church friend.  Over the weeks she kept saying, “Why don’t you call Annie? She’s got this daughter….” he kept saying “I will later, Mom.”  And continued banging his head against the wall in his job search frustration.  Finally he called Annie.  Turns out Annie’s daughter had just started a lavishly funded IT company and she needed a guy with skills just like his.  A couple of weeks later, he’s sitting at his new desk doing the work he loves.

The friends you meet on Facebook.  One of my dearest friends is someone I met on Facebook.  We met each other very much the same way people have met and made friends throughout the centuries.  We noticed each other.  We saw a set of shared values, similar ambitions, similar sense of humor and life stories that we could identify with.  And soon we came to want to help each other. We share business leads with each other all the time now. We’re no longer Facebook friends. We’re friends.  And as such, we want to help.

So what is the networking tool that beats Facebook hands down?  It’s a two-parter: The ability to ask for help and the knowledge that you’re surrounded by people would be absolutely delighted to help you grow into the future that you have already earned in so many ways.

As a result of my dad’s regular applications of the message, “OMG! We’re going to die!”  (and variations on that theme), I became really good at managing overwhelming swamps of anxiety –  primarily by just passively letting them roll over me until they dissipated.  But at the same time we can’t so habitually turn a deaf ear to the shouts of Emergency! that we’re still snug in our beds snoozing away while the ship we’re sailing is taking on water. There has to be some way to sort through the red alerts and the horse hockey.

Managing fear is actually about being a wise consumer of fear messages.  We just don’t buy and take home every little thing that hawkers and hucksters put in front of us.  So we have to ask ourselves: Which ones do we buy? Which ones do we take a pass on after doing our research? Think about it:  We take more time researching and buying a refrigerator than we do evaluating which messages we’ll allow to send our anxiety levels skyrocketing. Maybe it’s time we wised up as anxiety consumers.

Too bad we can’t have a special edition of Consumer Reports magazine, like that annual Fall car roundup, to give us some guidance on this.  Especially now. Especially around our jobs.  Until we do, here are some considerations I’ve picked up over a lifetime of hearing more bad news than I knew what to do with:

Does the anxiety message encourage you to make choices that reduce your options or expand them?  If there is one thing to keep in mind in this ever-changing career landscape, it’s this: Take steps to grow your options and opportunities. That means: learn to love building out a huge network of contacts. Learn a new language. Learn new skill sets that you can logically connect with the skills you already have.  Shut no doors. Burn no bridges. Don’t get yourself into a situation that you can’t back out of quickly.

Where’s the fire?  Is it your sense of timing or someone else’s that’s driving your decision? Last week Obama repeatedly requested that Congress pass his new  jobs bill now.  In 2004 I bought a house I didn’t want because with each blink of the eye its price seemed to leap by another 10% — and I allowed a small collection of well-meaning, controlling friends tell me so, several times a day.  In my inbox right now there’s an email from See’s telling me it’s my last chance to buy coffee walnut caramel! Really? My very last chance? Ever?  Even though you may feel caught up in the forward momentum toward to a forced decision, you can always stop and give yourself the time and chance to think it through. You may discover there’s no fire at all.  Just more manufactured urgency from someone who wants to sell you something. Now, before his bills come due.

Who’s selling the anxiety? What’s their angle?  Do they want your money? Your vote? Your sympathy? Your time?  Are they somehow better off for turning you into a charred heap of stress hormones?

On the flip side, who’s telling you not to worry? Are they somehow better off leaving you all snug as bug in rug while pink slips rain down around your fluffy pillow? What’s their angle? To be honest with you, I’ve always been a little suspicious of that whole Law of Attraction thing.  While I accept the principle that negative thinking won’t get you anywhere, resolutely focusing only on that imagined heap of gold that you’ll be sitting on will only get you a refrigerator box and a bridge to call home.  In the meantime, guess who’s gotten rich?

Are you being told to be afraid? Or be prepared? You’ll know the answer to this by the number of options laid before you. If there’s only one, your advisor is selling you something.  If you have multiple choices (including doing nothing) and you’re given the chance and all the time you need to think it through carefully, your advisor is on your side.

How clear is the projected outcome? When you invest in a refrigerator, you want one that you can count on to work, right?  When you invest in a solution to a dread scenario (your job is being phased out, for instance, and you need to acquire a new set of skills), you want to make sure that by the time your investment is due to pay out you have an excellent chance of enjoying the rewards of that investment.

I understand. With refrigerators you can reasonably expect a guarantee. And with career planning, not much is certain (as I write this Bank of America just announced it’s laying off 30,000 people).  But still, I’m hearing way too many stories of colleges selling skill-based academic programs to students with the full knowledge that there are no jobs on the back end.  To my mind, that’s criminal.

Due diligence is your job. Caveat emptor, and all that.  Just don’t let career fear rush you into investing in a future you weren’t so crazy about to begin with and that might not even be there waiting for you when you’ve achieved the credentials you’ve been told you need.

I’m not about to tell you not to worry.  That would be unhelpful, to say the least.  My suggestion is to you is this: Be a smart anxiety consumer and invest your worry energy wisely.  You’ll avoid rash and expensive decisions. And you’ll keep yourself on the life’s path that will hold the most meaning and value for you over time.