This is a guest post from a job seeker I met who wanted to share his story.

Focus can help you find the right job

From Robert:

I did not lose my job, I left it to save myself.

After working for over 2 years in a highly stressful operations management job that drained me of my energy, robbed me of my self respect and confidence, and strained my home life, I decided to spend the serious time deciding what I should be doing.

During the next 4 months I thought long and hard about what I wanted to do next. My knee-jerk idea was to get back into an operations management position. My soul and worn out body kept telling me this would be a mistake.

I used LinkedIn to stay in touch with my connections, make new connections in the area and relevant industries of my past positions. I also worked hard to connect and network with various recruiters.

Thinking that a big shift in career would be a good idea, I took real estate classes. But, I knew deep inside that I did not really want to make this big shift. Taking the classes and learning the real estate business however kept me busy and led me to my soon to occur epiphany.

While studying I met a Keller-Williams Team leader who gave me a copy of the book “The One Thing” by Gary Keller (founder of Keller-Williams) and Jay Papasan. I highly recommend this book. While reading this book, the words leaped at me and gave me clarity and became a significant epiphany in my life. The book spoke about channeling your energy on being good at one thing. Many people, myself included, try to wear too many hats and are not able to do this well. I knew hat I was good at operational management. I also know that I am good at Lean Manufacturing. I also knew that my previous role as an operations manager demanded far too much of my time, energy and life. 80+hrs/week is not a healthy life work balance for anyone, and expending that much energy in any job does not allow for consistent quality results.

Focus can help you find the right job

I decided that focusing on Lean Manufacturing would be a much better career choice for me. I enjoy this work and know that I am successful doing it.

Once I made this focused decision, responding to the recruiters who wanted to interview me for operational management positions became easier. I had received two good offers and two solid opportunities that I could pursue. The pay was great, and companies were good organizations. However, despite all of the potential, I declined these positions because they were contradictory to my new focus on a Lean Manufacturing position.

Up until I made this decision I had not received any leads or job opportunities in the Lean Manufacturing area. I decided that with my new focus I would start searching more deliberately in this area.

I had no idea of the importance of this statement until this happened – Focus can help you find the right job

I’m not sure how this happened, but soon I found a job on indeed.com with a local Greensboro NC company. I saw the posting the day before the posting was to close. I quickly prepared a good cover letter and relevant resume. With time running out, I posted my application before the closing time.

I received a phone call on 7:30AM the next morning. I did not expect this rapid of a response. I also had no idea that I would interview 7 different times via phone, Skype and in person. In less than a week I received a good offer.

Even though the income is less than what I was making, the job, working environment and the ability to implement Lean Manufacturing locally, in multiple states and internationally, is a professional challenge that I am excited about being apart of. I get to coach younger supervisors and managers as well as expand my Lean Manufacturing experiences in many different ways.

I have no idea where this job will lead. Maybe a long term engagement, maybe a spring board into a consulting business.

I would never be able to tell this story if I had not read “One Thing” and made the decision to focus and channel all of my energy on being an expert & great in one area of business.