My Deepest Gratitude: Thoughts to End the Year

I began my still-in-process retirement journey in 2019 following the PARWCC Conference in Clearwater, FL, and the transfer of leadership from the Fox Family to the Phares Family. Now in 2025, as I whittle down my remaining activities, I am confident that Lili Foggle is the right person to lead CIC moving forward (Certified Interview Coach), that originally began in 1998 as CEIP (Certified Employment Interview Professional). I often say, ‘it doesn’t matter what we know; rather, it’s how we optimize and advance what we know.’ And Lili is the ideal person to advance CIC for today and tomorrow’s AI-driven, complex interviewing and hiring process. Thank you Lili.

PARWCC Spotlight

This is my 396th Spotlight Article since PARW was formed in January 1990 (later to become PARWCC). And I have signed up for another 12 issues. I will break, in all probability, the 400 mark. So, a special thank you to Margaret and Doug Phares for giving me the opportunity to continue to have a voice in this great association.

CEMP (Certified Empowerment and Motivational Professional)
In addition to my monthly Spotlight article, I will continue to facilitate CEMP. As anyone who’s followed me knows, I have a Type-A-Passion for empowering job seekers, ‘with specific techniques,’ to enjoy and become fully engaged in the resume writing process… and inspiring people to design their worklife and their future on their terms.  

I have always had a vision of our profession becoming one of the most respected and sought out professions that enhance people’s quality of life. I still believe in that vision. I am grateful I will be working with a number of you in 2026, who understand the success principle that, ‘mindset optimizes skillset,’ and who register for CEMP.

A Special Thank You to You – the Members

With just the monthly Spotlight articles and the CEMP program, I’ll be 85% industry retired. So I want to take a moment to thank ‘you’ – and the tens of thousands of members over 35 years, who have invested in an association dedicated to your growth and professional well-being. I was the first member of PARW on January 1,1990. Now there are close to 3,000 of you in more than a dozen countries. It’s you, the members, who have always made PARW/PARWCC such a special association. A place to learn, grow, contribute, and make global friendships. And most importantly to me and most of you, it’s about helping people find their way in the workplace with enthusiasm and self-confidence… dignity.  

Vision and Courage as We Approach 2026

Over the past few years, as I’ve wound down The Jay Block Companies, I’ve often been asked what one thing, of all that I have learned and taught over 35 years, was most important to my success and those I worked with. Hands down, it’s the power of developing a compelling vision.  One that stirs the imagination to its limits. 

Napoleon Hill, in his classic, Think and Grow Rich, wrote, “Whatever the mind (and heart) can conceive and believe, you can achieve.”  Jim Rohn asked, “When do you start building a house?”  You can only start building the house once you’ve envisioned it completed in your mind’s eye. Where do you think blueprints come from?” 

I am a greenhorn, at best on the Bible, but I often quoted Proverbs 29:18 that says, “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” I took the liberty of interpreting this as meaning: Where there is no vision, the people’s potential will perish.  

From a career coaching and resume-writing perspective, successful job seekers must have crystal clear goals with a high degree of passion (the ‘why’) behind their goals. This results in a compelling vision that fuels the disciplined-action process required to achieve the vision. A compelling vision leads to conscious and subconscious breakthroughs. It’s truly profound. Where there’s a will (compelling vision), there’s a way (breakthroughs that pave the way – the ‘how’). 

If I didn’t  visualize myself signing books in my favorite bookstore ‘every night’ for over a year, especially on those nights I felt like burning the damn manuscript, I certainly would have. The same holds true for job seekers. A powerful vision leads to conscious and subconscious breakthroughs, like rapid employment… especially on those nights they feel like burning their resumes and giving up.

Courage

It takes courage to be a successful job seeker. It takes courage to be a successful professional and business person. Why?  Because, as we know, in the pursuit of anything worthwhile, adversity and setbacks are inevitable (watch a baby trying to walk). And the pursuit, like a job search, often requires venturing into uncharted territory, managing significant discomfort (like networking and interviewing), and managing a gazillion daily distractions (mostly negative) that attempt to befuddle our consciousness, placing goals (new jobs / new clients) in jeopardy.

But here’s the thing, adversity tests resolve. I love that word – resolve. Resolve means never quitting; doing whatever it takes to succeed. Courage builds unstoppable levels of resolve, so when adversity makes its expected attempts to sabotage a job search, job seekers simply need to turn on their fearless constitution – their courageous character. 

But this requires training. 

In the military, all recruits go to boot camp (basic training). The purpose of this is to strip them of their civilian mindset, and reboot them with a military one. Job seekers must also go through a boot camp-type process to strip them of their fears and beliefs about the job search, and reboot them with a winning, confident, and courageous mindset (CEMP is PARWCC’s rapid employment boot camp).

Over the 35 years I’ve been a coach, it’s been my experience that obstacles can awaken a job seeker’s creativity and resourcefulness. We just need to show them how to open those doors of possibility, by teaching them how to tap into their courageous constitution. And it can be taught!

Courage is the antidote to fear, and it’s something our profession needs to do a much better job at preaching and teaching.  

How to muster courage

In CEMP, we teach 14 specific techniques to build courage and maintain high emotional engagement and optimism in the pursuit of anything worthwhile (like a new job or new clients). Below are three effective ones for job seekers and coaching pros: 1) Ask higher quality questions, 2) Focus on where you want to go, not where you’re at, and 3) Work harder on yourself than you do on your career or anything else (last month’s Spotlight topic).  

1) Ask higher quality questions

Asking higher quality questions leads to higher quality answers because questions shape the direction and depth of thought. There’s a difference between asking, “Why me God?” and “What lesson can I learn to succeed the next time?” Instead of asking, “Why don’t publishers want to publish my manuscript?” I asked, “What do I have to do to change my presentation to be more attractive to publishers?”

Instead of asking, “How am I going to find a new job at my age?” a higher quality question might be, “How do I best display my value on a resume and in an interview to land a better job than I had?” A good mantra for this is:  Ask a Better Question. 

2) Focus on where you want to go, not where you’re at

Job seekers (and resume writers and career coaches) must focus on where they want to go, not where they’re at, because success is built on vision and forward momentum. When President Kennedy said that we’ll put a man on the moon and return him safely by the end of the decade – an impossible task at the time – did the scientists and engineers focus on getting to the moon and back, or being stuck on earth? Are job seekers focused on the future or the past? Career coaches who guide clients toward possibility rather than circumstance empower them to create their potential. Success comes not from today’s reality, but from consistently moving toward tomorrow’s goals.  A good mantra for this is: Change your focus.  

3) Work harder on yourself than you do anything else  

Yes, that was my November article title, but it’s worth mentioning again. I learned the key to all success is to work harder on ourselves than we do on our careers – or anything else. This is profoundly important because we are the foundation of everything we do. Success in business, relationships, and life stems from who we are, not just what we do. By sharpening our mindset, skills, and character, we expand our capacity to handle difficult challenges and seize extraordinary opportunities. Here’s the take-home message: When we become more, we’ll attract more. 

Final thoughts

My life’s mission statement has always been: “I want my life to matter.”  PARW and PARWCC played a pivotal role in helping me accomplish that professionally. For that, I am eternally grateful to my dear friend, Frank Fox (RIP). I had a vision, and mustered the courage, alongside Frank, to be outliers for what we perceived as needed change within a profession that really wasn’t a profession back then. Cheers, again, Frank. We had a great run. 

Finally, a personal message to you. If you are growing and evolving in this most  fascinating profession, I sincerely hope that you will have as much enjoyment, success, and personal and professional fulfillment as I did over the past 35 years. Today, there are nearly infinite opportunities just waiting for you. You just have to see them. And then, muster the courage to pursue those that matter most to you. 

Wishing you a happy and healthy 2026.  

Live with passion and purpose!  

Jay.