Zentertainment Radio
This past week, I was lucky enough to be interviewed (you can listen here) by an amazing woman, Jo Davidson who hosts and produces Zentertainment Radio.
When she first contacted me, Jo initially asked me to talk about our book, Women Work and Autoimmune Disease: Keep Working, Girlfriend! But it soon became clear that Jo had questions of her own concerning living with chronic illness.
Jo is a composer, writer, photographer and has accomplished some pretty spectacular things in her life. You have to listen to her music on her site! Jo also lives with Lyme’s Disease and chronic fatigue syndrome. It’s clear that she’s quite brave and resilient. Although it’s not something she’s comfortable doing, she exposed her fears and battles around this as she “interviewed” me. Because she thought people would benefit from hearing this. Wow.
We spoke at length about the work I do as a career coach (cicoach.com) for people with disabilities because this is something she faces daily.
I had a wonderful time with her. I think you will, too, when you listen.
Rosalind aka cicoach.com
I met with a friend today and showed him a copy of our book. He’s my network chiropractor, and does a lot of speaking about issues pertaining to heath and healing. I asked him where he thought I might talk to groups of people about what to do about working when you live with an autoimmune disease or chronic illness, and about what, specifically. We agreed that talking about self-employment, using the assessment factors I discussed in chapter 7, “You’re fired – By Your Body or Your Boss,” would probably be the best topic because of the questions it raises.
He then told me that his Mom had fibromyalgia - news to me - and had to go out on disability leave as her health deteriorated. While she was out she got so much better that the day she reported back to work, she turned in her resignation. He didn’t give me any more of the back story, only said that the difference in her health away from work compared to on the job was so drastic she felt she’d be able to maintain her health if she didn’t return to that job. She has.
He also told me that at one point his mom did consider starting a business but by then her husband was getting ready to retire so launching something at that time of their life didn’t make sense to her.
Our conversation turned to health insurance, always the biggest negative factor when deciding about self-employment. Now that both his parents are “retired” they’re paying for their own health insurance. It costs them about $1000/month for just her portion of their coverage. That sounds about right to me.
Clearly, his Mom chose well-being over working for health coverage, and even without knowing their specific circumstances I think it’s safe to say that she had the option to make this choice, as aggravating at that insurance cost may be.
My friend’s story reminded me about the issues Rosalind discussed in her chapter, “Diagnosis, Disease Course and Career Development.” Your decisions about your options regarding work are influenced by so many factors, and there is no one answer. The variables that impact your decision about working include family and marital status, where you are in your career development as well as your career aspirations – or not – and your actual health at any particular time. My friend’s Mom, unlike many women who develop autoimmune illnesses, became ill fairly late in life so her choices and options were different than if she’d been in her 20’s.
Joan
P.S. If you live in California and belong to a group or organization where a discussion of self-employment as an option would benefit the members, please write me through my web site, www.lifeworkpartners.com/contact .
Publishing a book is a funny thing. Tell someone, “Oh, and my book was just published…” and the response is, “Wow! What a big deal that is.”
End of conversation. Sometimes I shift my feet - or look away.
What do you say from there when, in fact, nothing HAS changed for me?
I didn’t dream of being an “author”. My brother is the family writer - a novelist. But 12 years ago, when I was struggling to reinvent my career, I got the light bulb idea that a book like this would help me! Someone should write it.
Four years ago, I narrowed my business focus from executive coaching to coaching highly motivated people (aka “professionals”) living with a chronic illness around their careers, cicoach.com. I thought about writing this book — it would build momentum and attention to the issues and it be so useful for those people I couldn’t/wouldn’t get to work with but who wanted to hear this message.
It came together when I “met” Joan. Joan & I met virtually (she lives in CA and I live in MA) through our mutual virtual assistant, Angie Robertson, a very generous soul. She knew we had several things in common, such as living with chronic illness and being coaches, and said we should “meet”. In fact, Joan and I have only met in person once for a few hours over the past 3 years we’ve been working together.
In our first conversation, I mentioned that I was thinking of writing a book about living and working with a CI. Joan aid she’d always wanted to write and it sounded interesting. A few more conversations and we decided to go for it. Speaking for myself, I was clueless about what this meant in terms of time and commitment. But if felt right and that’s how I often make big decisions.
Honestly? We’ve had to work at working together — duh! We agreed on one thing at the outset that became our mantra. We had to have fun doing this - - particularly since we didn’t expect it to make us money. We’d be lucky to recoup our cost. Yes, the book is part of my business plan but not so for Joan.
There have been times when email created confusion. And one of us would pick up the phone to talk it out. I know we were both grateful that it always got clear and felt right. We didn’t have to be best friends but we’ve been supportive and nurturing colleagues.
It took two years and many drafts to write the manuscript. We were very lucky to find a fantastic editor, Elle Mansfield, who pulled our ideas together and massaged the chapters. We’d always intended to self publish. I never thought a publisher would want this and didn’t have the energy or desire to try to sell it. But when the manuscript was done and I’d sent it to some colleagues to review, it was passed it along to Nora Henson at Demos Health which was building their patient education division. She contacted us, wanting to publish it. I’d heard bad things about first authors and publisher relationships, so I had to be convinced. Boy, am I glad I was - they’ve been terrific to work with.
One year after the first conversation with Demos Health and the book is selling .
We’ll see what changes - I can’t say I wouldn’t love it to become a New York Times Bestseller. But for now, next Monday, I’m going to be interviewed on Zentertainment Radio. You can tune in and listen to me there!
Rosalind aka cicoach.com
PS: If you didn’t read Joan’s last post, this blog is changing focus to being solely about the book - rather than working with chronic illness issues. You can read my other blog, Working with Chronic Illness or Joan’s other blog Toolbox for Entrepreneurs.
If you’ve been subscribed to our feed for this blog for some time, then you may have grown accustomed to receiving 2 posts per week, one week from Rosalind and one week from me. If you also subscribe to Rosalind’s other blog, Working with Chronic Illness, we know that’s quite a lot of reading…and I’m sure you can imagine, a lot of posting, too.
Though I’m a bit quieter on our blog, I, too, post to my own blog, Business Toolbox for Solo Entrepreneurs, and write a bi-weekly newsletter, the Dare to Series. So, we’re writing women!
Until our book, Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease, was available for purchase, we wanted to use this blog to share little snippets and ideas we discussed in our book, as well as create awareness for the book and this important topic. Now that our book is out, we believe you can get a more comprehensive overview of the topics we cover in our book through the book, itself. Have you bought your copy yet?
We’re not going away, we’re just going to post less frequently. I’ll post once a week, and Rosalind the next, and so on. We’ll bring you news about where you can see us or hear us, about how the book is being received, and what impact it is having on the issues that surround living and working when you have an autoimmune disease.
We will continue to advocate on behalf of the women and men in the workforce who must include such an unpredictable dimension in the mix.
========================
Speaking of a bit of news: someone from our publishing company attended the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers meeting and brought 10 copies of our book with her - and all 10 were purchased. We’re told they referred to our book as “MS Chic Lit.” Cute.
========================
We thank you, always, for your interest, for telling us how our book supports you, and for asking questions requiring us to see just how varied the circumstances of the women and men sharing this particular life path.
Joan
Forget rising oil prices, food shortages or the mortgage crisis. A new study, by Price Cooper with the World Economic Forum, shows that chronic disease threatens the world economy.
And you thought that it was just YOUR paycheck that was suffering!
According to this study, “The rising cost of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and respiratory illness, are threatening health systems and economic stability around the world. The rising cost of chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and respiratory illness, are threatening health systems and economic stability around the world.”
The report points to workplace wellness programs as one way to “tackle” the problem. That’s all well and good. Who can argue with the idea of doing some thing in the face of such need? But these are too often too simplistic band aids that don’t address the root of the issue. And these programs don’t show the desired big improvements, these employers will throw up their hands and say, we wasted our money. Why bother with stuff we can’t fix?
Do you know of any workplace wellness programs that include such things as: expanding services covered to include prevention, employer practices that encourage rather than discourage people from taking care of their health and a better trained health care provider system about the multiple layers of chronic disease and pain management. Do you see this happening anywhere?
Rosalind aka cicoach
Last February, I posted a survey to find out more about the concerns of people, like you, living with chronic illness and working (or wanting to work).
This is what I learned. Of those who responded:
2/3 or 66% worry about staying employed in the future
1/3 or 33% worry about finding employment
1/4 or 25% worry about advancing in their current job
Does that sound like you?
It certainly sound like me. I’ve been there and so have my clients.
That’s why I’ve created a specialized career coaching program, the Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook, for people, like you, who either aren’t ready, don’t have the time or maybe lack the money to work with a career coach. The Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook is a system that been designed to complement the book Joan and I wrote, Women Work and Autoimmune Disease, Keep Working, Girlfriend!
And while the book lays out and explores the challenges and opportunities you face - the workbook provides the practical foundation that you can use to build on your talents and strengths.
The Keep Working With Chronic Illness Workbook system is literally packed with the assessments, exercises and programs that I’ve created for my clients over the years. So it’s precisely tailored for people living with chronic illness. This will become your “Go To” guide. And it includes special bonuses (including a downloadable audio version).
Do you wonder…
- What’s the best job for me with unpredictable health?
- How will be keep working if I can’t work the way I used to?
- How will this illness affect what I can do?
- Who would hire me for a new job when I have a chronic illness?
I can honestly say that there is nothing else comparable to The Keep Working with Chronic Illness Workbook home study system — at least not that I’ve seen or heard about. The beauty of this is that you can use it on your schedule, use only those parts you need and work with it when you have the time. Even better - it gives you the tools you need so you don’t have to be afraid any longer.
PSST: To celebrate the publication of our book, the Workbook is being offered at a very special price for a limited time only. Don’t wait! Buy it now so you can get started before summer vacation — or you’ll put it off for yet another season! Got any questions? Email me: Rosalind@cicoach.com. And if the links above don’t work for you, paste this into your browser to read about it yourself: http://www.cicoach.com/workbookpromo.html
Rosalind aka cicoach.com
I thought it would be interesting to learn what a recruiter could tell us about the issues of disclosure and interviewing for people with chronic illness. I spoke to a leading recruiting consultant in Southern California who has interviewed thousands of candidates for companies. (She does what is called “retained search.“) I asked her 5 questions to find out what happens if and when a job candidate tells her about a health issue, and what she’s seeing from companies.
Keep in mind, she specializes in specific industries and professions, so I don’t pretend that she is in touch with all levels of employment. In her own words, “I work primarily in certain industry sectors and not all. I suspect there is a variance in how this issue is being addressed – with some industries or even companies within those industries still more forward thinking than others.”
Q. When you’ve interviewed candidates for positions, have any told you about ongoing health issues or do they keep quiet?
A. Well if they’ve kept mum – I sure don’t know about it but yes, I’ve had candidates disclose either current, past or recent past health issues (some are chronic and some what I would call health events).
Q. If people do disclose something to you, might you still forward them for an interview, or do you outright “reject” them?
(This is probably a question she could only answer the way she did as I know it’s not OK to outright reject a candidate. I thought her answer informative regarding the expense a company might have to account for in their budget for appropriate accommodations.)
A. The only factors that I use to determine the validity of a candidate’s candidacy is are they qualified and equipped to do the job that is required. If someone would need accommodation that would far exceed their ability in comparison with other candidates, or would present an expense attached to a position that could not budgeted for – I imagine that would be limiting. Otherwise, I am focusing on the technical skills and cultural fit.
Q. If you do recommend them, do you let the company know about health concerns, and/or counsel the candidate about how to approach the topic?
A. If someone needs accommodation to leave early twice a week for doctor’s appointments – I would probably encourage them to address their needs with the hiring manager fairly early on.
Q. Have you noticed any trends in the companies you’re working with to make accommodations for candidates they’re really interested in hiring if they reveal a health issue? Is this even discussed, or is it still hush-hush?
A. I haven’t seen any trends that I can acknowledge – other than Human Resources [HR] working more as a business partner with managers. When HR is more embedded in the business in general, I think there’s an ability to do overall “just in time” training on many issues including these.
5. If a someone is interested in a position, can do the job, has a history of unpredictable illness symptoms, what advice would you give her?
A. Be an active listener, before you talk. Disclosure is I imagine an important aspect of coping with an illness – but understanding the pacing of when it is appropriate to address – is really vital. Too early, and it seems like “too much information” – too late – and it seems like “why didn’t he/she mention this sooner?”
I think she’s quite right about this last. I know I’ve been caught with ‘wrong’ timing with this a couple of times. I suppose it’s a bit like dating and disclosing. It’s not the first thing out of your mouth, and knowing the right time isn’t always easy. I like her suggestion to be an active listener.
Finally, she offered this last tip. “The “bible” I work with every year is the Fortune issue with the “Best Companies to Work for” – this list to me would probably represent the very best example across industries of “who gets it”.”
Joan
I’ve read with interest some of the concerns voiced in the posts and reviews about Women, Work and Autoimmune Disease, and our point of view. I’m glad that our particular point of view has uncovered more sides to the discussion of the issues that face women who are required to figure out how to survive in the face of the unpredictability and pain associated with autoimmune illnesses. I believe that this dialogue ultimately serves all of us.
I admit I had not given much thought to the fact that some women who have to work may not see their work through the lens of hav