Page 21 - Free Yourself From

4 It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor

of my comfort zone, take a risk, and take control of my destiny. If I
didn’t, I would most likely be visiting the unemployment line for
some time.
I knew this was what I needed to do to solve my immediate prob-
lem of getting a job. But I also had a glimmer of understanding that
I was taking an important step toward building a career.
This was the beginning of my appreciation that it’s important to
have a vision of who you want to be and to continually take small,
mindful steps toward that vision.
I began thinking of my job search as a process for self-evaluation
and set out to learn about all the different aspects of who I was.
What were my strengths, beliefs, fears, and motivations? I decided
to pull over for about six months and take a hard look at what I
wanted to do, as well as at my key drivers and decide how they
would help to determine my next job. I found a book about manag-
ing your career and there was an exercise on identifying and living
your values that I began to fill out. What was fascinating was that
the top five values I had listed—relationships, creating and building
new business opportunities, taking risks, continually learning, and
helping others—were the very things that had motivated me in my
first two jobs.
I then began to reflect back on the conversations I’d had with
my father, Max Shambaugh, at the kitchen table when I was a little
girl. I was always fascinated by the fact that he had built a third-
generation family business into one of the largest construction com-
panies in the country. My father instilled in me an approach to work
that I still value today. Specifically, he encouraged me to take risks but
to be prudent about it, to build on my strengths and relationships,
and to follow through on things I’m passionate about.
I used these things I had discovered about myself to focus and
expand my job search. And within six months I had three job
offers—two in the Midwest and one on the East Coast. I ended up