"Take Advantage of This Amazing Time We Live In"

Friday, January 27, 2006 at 10:31PM
Michael Chacko Daniels

“I left a well-paying job in order to follow my own bliss and be self-employed,” says Amanda Gerrie in this month’s Career Visions for a Small Planet.

She is doing what she has coached her clients to do over the years—to create “work that you love that supports you and your family, gives you freedom, feeds your soul, and brings joy into your life.”

Gerrie, who, as Manager of the Alameda One Stop Career Center, provided services to Jobs for Homeless Consortium clients as well as referred homeless persons to it, says because she hates searching for a job, she really empathizes with her clients “as they bravely interview or start a business.”

“Amanda is a pragmatic optimist,” says Katie Hudson, formerly RelyAble Choices Staffing Services manager, in a recent e-mail, after nominating Gerrie for a Career Visions’ interview. “She has a truly unique ability to walk the line between dreams and reality and to help others do the same.”

These dual skills will surely stand Gerrie in good stead as she follows her bliss in her current ventures.

After working in non-profit and public sector jobs for over a decade and a half as a social worker, counselor, coach, and program developer, honing her skills in housing and homelessness, workforce development, welfare, children and youth services, education, organizational development, and small business start-up, Ms Gerrie is now coaching people through her own small business—Pathways Career Consulting. [Web address: www.pathwayscareerconsulting.com, Phone: 510/325/6959.]

She has also collaborated with Kim Coulthust to form Pathways Consultants with the vision “to assist organizations in nurturing a healthy, caring and passion-filled work environment” and to support “each organization to realize its own vision, whether for one meeting or the entire company.” Between the two of them they have a combined 23 years of management and human service administration experience. [Web address: www.pathwaysconsultants.com]

Gerrie’s professional background also includes stints as Employment Specialist and Social Worker for the San Francisco Human Service Agency, as Manager of the Alameda One Stop Career Center, and at Larkin Street Youth Services in San Francisco, where she led the nationally recognized HIRE Up program.

Joseph Campbell on
If You Do Follow Your Bliss

“. . . if you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.”

--The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell

An Amanda Gerrie Data Bank

High School
J. Eugene McAteer
School of the Arts
San Francisco

College
B. A.
UC Santa Cruz

Master of Public Administration
Cal State Hayward

Teacher that influenced Amanda Gerrie the most
Ms. Vera Eby, my Russian and English teacher in High School
She arranged annually for a group of Russian youth to come visit our school and a group of our students to visit them in the North Ossetian region of USSR (now part of the breakaway republic of Chechnya). Who knows what happened to those kids. We visited before the USSR broke up. They were such sweet and genuine people.

Books that influenced Amanda Gerrie
Catcher in the Rye
Birdie
Roots
Grapes of Wrath
Interview with a Vampire

Favorite Philosopher
Jürgen Habermas

Favorite Singer
Ani Di Franco

Favorite Quotation
“The future belongs to those
who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
-Eleanor Roosevelt

Amanda Gerrie’s Published Works
Bi-monthly e-zine called
Follow Your Bliss
To subscribe, send an email to:
Amanda Gerrie at
pathwaysconsult@sbcglobal.net
Articles in
East Bay Moms
Neighborhood Parents Network

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

Tell us about yourself.

What makes you who you are?
__________________

AG I find it odd that I have landed in employment services. I HATE job searching.

I originally wanted to be a child psychologist, but along the way to doing that I found that I really enjoyed helping people pursue employment opportunities and seeing the profound impact that it has on the individual and the family.

I worked for many years as a social worker and employment counselor running programs at Peralta Colleges, Larkin Street Youth Services, and San Francisco Department of Human Services. I really enjoyed designing human service programs and organizational development consulting.

I recently received my master's degree in Public Administration with an emphasis in Organizational Change

In terms of work, I was taught that work is something that you do because it has a personal meaning for you. Some way that you were inspired or hurt or moved growing up is the root motivator for your life’s work. My mom, for example, grew up with horrible acne. Today she owns a very successful facial salon helping to teach people how to care for their skin and helping them heal from acne. Not everyone has that clarity of purpose and knows what it is. It’s my job to help illuminate that spark and help people to actualize.

On a personal note, looking for work is horrible for me and I hate the self-degradation that accompanies the process. I really empathize with my clients as they bravely interview or start a business. It’s a grueling endeavor. Today, I own my own consulting and career coaching practice called Pathways Career Consulting. I help people who are longing for a more fulfilling career through career exploration, job search assistance, business planning, and executive coaching. I also offer human service and organizational development consulting services.

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

What was your vision of

society that brought you to

the work you do?
__________________

AG My vision is one that allows people to take advantage of this amazing time we live in. There’s a utopia and a dystopia associated with globalization. I try to focus on the utopian values of living in a highly intellectual-based global economy; one in which everyone develops a talent or skill or knowledge base that they bring to the market and we exchange services and products with each other.

In my vision, workplaces recognize this knowledge-based economy and treat people as if they have unique value rather than as expendable units. Organizations we work in see that creating humanistic and thriving cultures helps retain employees and sees doing so as a means to thriving and making a profit.

The only part that I can’t reconcile in my mind is that there are always winners and losers in globalization. I wish that business could also see that acting with a social conscience and environmental awareness also is a means to thriving. If people thrive in their workplaces, we’re happier and our family and friends around us are happier.

I practice what I preach as well. I left a well-paying job in order to follow my own bliss and be self-employed. Every day is a challenge, but I’m continually growing my practice and I am making my own dreams a reality. Owning my own business gives me the flexibility I need to be a good parent to my one-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

Q_____________________

New River Free Press International

What do you think we

should remember as we remake

the world through the work we do?
______________________

AG Right action, right consciousness, right speech, right thought. Check-in with your own moral compass whenever you are working and ask yourself:

• Is this right for me and my body?
  
• Is this right for my community, family, friends?
  
• Is this right for the animals, and plants, and insects?
  
• Is this right for the earth?
  
• Is this right for our children and our children’s children.

Many times we feel the answer in our bodies before we’ll let our minds consciously know that there’s a problem. I have clients who come to me with physical symptoms as a result of not feeling good about the work they are doing: eye tics, choking sensations, trouble breathing, etc. . . .

If you are struggling to answer these questions when you’re on your way to work, there’s got to be another way. I know that people need to work and feed their families, but it all starts with the individual. One little person’s decision to do work that is negative for themselves, their community, their environment has a ripple effect in ways we can’t even perceive.

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

Has your vision changed

as you have participated

in the remaking of the world?
__________________

AG I’m more open to seeing working for large corporations and making money as not necessarily an evil thing. When I was in my early 20’s, I used to feel a lot of judgment and guilt about those two things. Doing the right thing is subjective for me now.

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

What challenges do you

perceive in achieving your

vision of society?
__________________

AG People are asleep and let the comfort of money and benefits paralyze them from making changes that would ultimately make them very happy and do a lot of good.


Q__________________

New River Free Press International

What needs to be done

to overcome these challenges?
___________________

AG

• Universal health coverage
• Better resources (loans, tax breaks, grants) for starting businesses or non-profits
• Discussion about careers and jobs in high school and in college. Really help people make the connections:
  

What you LOVE to do + what you study = satisfying career

• Paid family leave and disability payments for self employed
• Mandatory minimum number of leave days that reflects the value that the whole person, not just the worker, is important. We need to rest in order to contribute to the work place. The U. S. falls at the bottom of the list.
  

Legally mandated vacation days

Sweden 32
Portugal 25
Denmark 30
Netherlands 25
France 30
Belgium 24
Austria 30
Norway 21
Spain 30
Switzerland 20
Ireland 28
Germany 18, 30
Japan 25
USA 16

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

What pointers would you

give young people of the 9/11

generation as they work in

public service assignments?
__________________

AG Talk with people older than you and get advice. Continue to conduct informational interviews throughout your career to help you make decisions regarding career moves and education. Watch for trends that will really impact the world of work: the price of fuel, immigration patterns, armed conflicts and environmental crises. Educate yourself about something that will make you be an expert when one of these inevitable trends becomes part of our national consciousness. Give back to your community and connect with its members in a real and authentic way.

Q_________________

New River Free Press International

What personal lessons have

you learned from the

post-Hurricane Katrina

tragedies in New Orleans?
__________________

AG The caste system is alive and well in the U. S. and African Americans are still struggling to get a piece of the American Pie that they so rightly deserve. There is power in the collective and our relationships with each other. The people in New Orleans waited for someone from the government to save them rather than pulling together and working together. I realized that my neighborhood needs to be able to fend for itself for longer than 3 days. We have strength in numbers, if we work together, we can do much more than if we compete with each other or wait for the government to fix our problems.

Q___________________

New River Free Press International

What personal and public lessons

have you learned from the

devastation caused by the

Asian Tsunami and the

South Asian Earthquake?
____________________

AG Life is impermanent. Live every day as if it were your last. We tend to think things like the tsunami don’t happen in the U. S. but then Katrina hit and we saw how little support and resources those victims received. It could happen here.

 

 

This Interview Is Also Published On

 

http://careervisionsamandagerrie.blogspot.com/ 

Article originally appeared on New River Free Press International: Visions of Survival & Improvement by People Remaking Our Small Planet (https://indiawritingstation.com/).