Posts filed under 'mid-career professionals'
I love this post from Dave Navarro, the personal productivity and internet launch coach with the same name as a famous guitarist.
I consider myself as an independent thinker, able to separate everyone else’s agenda from my own and to stay firmly attuned to the latter. But then I read this post and I realize, of course other people control my life. And they control yours, too.
Think about who you admire, who you respect, who you envy, who you love, who you fear, who you rely on, who you value personally and professionally, who you cannot stand… They all have a hand in shaping your self-image, your world view and your actions. Make sure they shape it in the right way.
Dave will break it down for you:
http://www.rockyourday.com/5-people-who-secretly-control-your-life/
What do you think? Are you immune to the sway of any or all of these?
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April 29th, 2010
Here’s a good question to start your year off: How do you define career satisfaction?
My career has a few pieces to it, which I think is part of my career satisfaction. I enjoy juggling several different tasks at one time and each of the “jobs” I do feeds me in a different way.
As a writer, it’s about telling the best compelling and authentic story for the goal of the assignment, whether it be a bio, a resume, a blog post, an article, a speech, or some other piece of written (or, in the case of a speech, verbal) communication. When I am doing my corporate work, it’s about solving a big problem or completing a project in a smart way. And when I am doing career consulting, I am helping my clients find the balance of between what they get the most personal satisfaction doing with where they can make the most money (along with some other factors which allow us to design and implement a strategy).
So, for me, career satisfaction boils down to storytelling, problem-solving, and helping others find their own source of career satisfaction.
What about you?
Photo courtesy of stagewhisper.
January 1st, 2010
I am of a generation with a large population of women who had or are having- or are trying to have- children later in life. The second half of our 30s- and sometimes at the beginning of our 40s- is when we are ready.
We have been chastised, as a group, for waiting too long, thus making the biology more complicated and often less cooperative. There are generally two reasons, two valid reasons, we didn’t have children earlier in life and it has to do with the lessons we learned in childhood:
Lesson #1. Divorce Sucks. We came of age during a boom in the divorce rate. Even if your parents didn’t get divorced, it was happening all over the place. The grown-ups didn’t know how to handle it or how to communicate to their children, so of course it made for a very unstable environment for them.
Lesson #2. Being a working mother is really hard. We saw our mothers- or our friend’s mothers, if we didn’t have working moms- juggling the demands of work and home. They were exhausted and felt guilty and torn by competing demands. We also often heard the working women being criticized by the stay-at-home moms.
So where did those lessons lead us?
#1. We are picky about who we marry. We waited, didn’t settle, sometimes choosing to be alone rather than with someone we knew we couldn’t go the distance with. As a result, some of us weren’t with the right man until we were in our late 30s or later.
#2. We are hesitant to face the competing demands of being working mothers. We took the struggles of our mothers to heart. We worry that pulling the trigger on having a child will make us unable to cope with our job responsibilities and that we, our careers, our marriage, and our children will suffer. As competent as we are in our professional lives, we also worry or that we will simply not be able to handle motherhood.
So here we are. Late thirties/early forties and a lot of us are ready to have children now. And we know the deal. It is complicated. Sometimes biology puts up roadblocks, yes. I have a friend who is 43 and ready to give birth in June and one who has just “pulled her goalie” and is ready to start trying. I also have a friend who is 43 and whose numbers told her a few years ago to not even bother trying with her own eggs. Too late.
And yet the ones of us who really want to be mothers usually find a way. Some go the IVF route, others, like myself, end up adopting. What about the lessons of our youth?
Waiting to have kids with the right person was incredibly worth it. When your child won’t stop crying and it’s the middle of the night and you are both exhausted, being with the wrong person would be glaringly evident and make the situation much, much harder.
Juggling working motherhood, while difficult, is nowhere near near impossible. A lot of the time, it’s logistics. The same qualities that make us successful professionals make us good at figuring out the baby thing. And unlike our mother’s generation, there are systems in place and everyone knows the drill. And those men we worked so hard to find are ready, willing, and able to do their part.
Now that you know we don’t need a reminder, quit asking when we’re going to get pregnant. We may be wondering the same thing and we don’t want to have to discuss it with everyone we know.
Also, if we tell you we’re adopting, quit telling us you’re sure we’ll get pregnant now that we’ve stopped “trying.” We know you mean well, but biology doesn’t work that way. If we do get pregnant and carry it to term, it’s not because we quit trying. It’s a coincidence.
And if you are a woman struggling with age-related fertility issues, give yourself a break. You don’t need to feel guilty for waiting too long. If you want to try the IVF, try the IVF. If you want to adopt, start that process. And if you want to make peace with not having kids, do that. There are no right answers. There is only what works best for you and your partner.
Photo by kton25.
April 28th, 2009
It's Good to Be King
How many times do you think Denis Leary was told his dreams were too big? How many agents didn’t want to rep him, how many clubs didn’t want to book him? How many friends told him to maybe try something else? How many empty rooms he did stand-up in, how many hecklers he endured? How many pitch meetings were cancelled because the executives thought his career was over, when he knew it had just begun?
Think about that the next time you are watching his critically-acclaimed, long-running FX show, Rescue Me, or reading his best-selling book, Why We Suck. (Good job, Denis!)
April 16th, 2009
I spent about an hour and a half on a conference call last week for a woman who was trying to decide whether to keep her web-based business open, transform it into something else, or close it altogether and move on. The call had been put together by a blogger/social networking consultant/operator of successful web-based community (busy gal!) and included a publicist, two other entrepreneurs, a couple of other smart women with different career paths, and myself, initially wearing my entrepreneur hat.
Though most of us did not know the business owner, we were all familiar with her business and were fans of the idea, and we’d been prepped as to what the problem was. We all quickly dove in, discussing the issue, throwing out ideas on how to overcome it or work around it, good ideas, but of course, ideas which involved time and energy and, in some cases, financial investment.
To each idea, the owner of the business tiredly informed us that she’d already tried some version of the solution being proposed. Her tone started to feel familiar to me, one I sometimes heard when initially meeting with Career Rutbuster clients. Exhaustion, disillusionment… surrender.
I put on my career consultant hat at that point and and gently said, “You sound pretty down about the the whole thing.” A small voice answered back, “Yes.” Fighting emotion.
It had become clear to me that this entrepreneur was not in a place to take another passionate stab at making her business model work. She was just too tired, too down. “How would you feel if I suggested taking a break from it, doing something else for a while… maybe three months?” I asked.
The rest of the conversation was mostly about how she couldn’t quit, she’d put too much into it, she was too old to admit defeat and start new with something else. And no matter how many times we reassured her that we were just talking about taking a break, putting the business on hold (something that actually was possible in her case), she kept coming back to the same concept: FAILURE.
You see, this woman was facing The Dip. The Dip, as defined by Seth Godin in his aptly titled book, is either a temporary setback that you will overcome if you keep pushing or it’s a Cul-de-Sac, which will never get better no matter how hard you try. Godin’s belief is that winners quit fast and quit often, and quit without guilt– until they commit to beating the right Dip for the right reasons.
I have no idea whether the business owner on the conference call is experiencing a temporary Dip she could/should overcome in order to hit the big time and make her business thrive, or whether it’s a dead end she should walk away from on the way to something else.
All I knew when I was on that call– and YES, I did recommend the book to her (and now that I think about it, should probably remind her of)– was that she was not in a place to answer that question for herself.
The idea of walking away from her business- or even making it into something else which was not the exact model she had been working on for the past few years- was the equivalent of admitting defeat. And my point- which was Godin’s point- is that some Dips should not be overcome. They are not failures- they are steps along the way to finding that something that will work, whether it is a business or a job or a political movement.
So if you are finding yourself in a Dip these days and trying to make sense of it and decide your next move, check out The Dip.
April 14th, 2009
Secrets of Six-Figure Women: Surprising Strategies to Up Your Earnings and Change Your Life by Barbara Stanny is not just for women, but it’s well-established that women are more likely than men to fall into the trap of working in jobs with low pay ceilings OR working in jobs where they allow a low-pay ceiling to exist because they are too scared, for whatever reason, to ask (demand) to be paid what they are worth.
This book is for any chronic underearner, as Barbara Stanny terms herself (at the time) and anyone making well below their earning potential. She interviewed over 150 women and identified the issues and road-blocks they had (or did not have) to making over $100,000 (and often a lot more).
She names the “must-haves” for busting through a low earning ceiling: a profit motive, audacity, resilience, and encouragement, and provides relevant stories from the interviewees lives in their own voices. In some of the cases, the women had a transformation that took them from an anemic paycheck to big bucks and in others, the women knew they wanted to make a lot of money from the beginning of their careers and went for it. Both types are instructional.
The book has a very readable, conversational format. Barbara’s own story of financial transformation, depicted along with those of the interviewees, gives the book an intimate, personal tone, and there is something for anyone looking to break through any barrier to six figure (or seven figure) success.
March 30th, 2009
One of the cliche interview questions that recent grads are told to prepare for is “Where do you see yourself in five years?” When I was a recent grad, I found that type of question a puzzle, if not a trick. Though I don’t remember actually answering it, if I did, it was some lame “best guess” I presented because honestly, I had no idea where the next five years would lead me. Plus, five years seemed an eternity.
After the first few years of ones’ career and certainly when one is well into mid-career (and perhaps middle age, for that matter), I firmly believe one can and should should have an idea of where they want the next five years to take them. Creating financial, professional, and personal growth benchmarks are key for making progress in the long run and making decisions day-to-day based on overall priorities and desired direction.
So if you don’t have one, get a notebook out and start working on your five year plan and interim goals. It will be a roadmap to get where you want to go. After all, at the end of that time, wouldn’t you rather get where you intended to go than get nowhere at all?
Photo by brain_farts.
March 23rd, 2009
When I’m not busy helping you people get better jobs, one of the (many) other things I do is write bios for professionals and businesses. Because of my relationship with the Personal Family Law Program (I am their recommended biographer!), a lot of the individuals I write bios for are lawyers.
Lawyers get a bad rap.
Almost every single lawyer I have talked to is passionate about what they do. Maybe it is because of the nature of the PFL program, but the lawyer I spoke to today was not a PFL member.
Now let me just tell you– I love doing bios. I get to pry. They pay me to pry and then to write a story about them. (Joy!) Among the questions I ask is why they chose to become a lawyer and then I ask why they chose the particular specialty. And I usually get a really interesting, personal answer.
For some of the lawyers I write about, there was a family experience, where a relative was wronged. The lawyer I talked to today, who is based in Portland, Oregon and was fending off his two restless kids while he grabbed 20 minutes on the phone with me, specialized in personal injury. He told me he had applied to law school when he was finishing college and then worked for a short while in a very large law corporate law firm in Boston. He decided, based on that experience, to pull his application and do something else.
Cut to several years later, after travel, a couple other careers, starting a family, and putting down roots in a community. He realized that he didn’t have to work for a big, impersonal firm which represented corporate entities nobody at the firm particularly cared about. He could be his own kind of lawyer.
Now he and his partner have a practice which represents individuals who have been seriously injured through someone else’s fault. They severely limit the number of clients they take on so they can focus on the cases they have and provide the very best care to those clients. Sometimes they even fight big law firms like the one he worked at out of college.
I asked him if any of his recent cases had impacted him strongly and he told me about a husband and wife in their 70s. The husband had taken care of the wife, who was wheelchair bound and had other health issues, until they were in a car accident. As a result of the injuries the husband sustained, he was no longer able to take care of his wife at home and he had to put her in a home. He was heartbroken. He was totally in love with this woman and it killed him that he couldn’t be with her. The lawyer told me that as a result of the settlement his firm got for the husband and wife, they were able to hire in-home care and the husband and wife could be together again.
That’s a pretty powerful story and an extreme example of making a true difference. Not everyone is in a profession that has that opportunity, but we do all have the opportunity to use what we do in a way that brings us satisfaction.
I love writing a great bio (and not just because I’m a nosy person). I love helping clients figure out how to get more out of their careers and crafting resumes and cover letters that will land them better jobs. I even love writing blog posts that will provide my readers with something to think about.
Now let me ask you… Are you the kind of lawyer or writer you want to be? Is there somewhere else you could apply your skills- another company, type of company, or field- that would give you the kind of personal fulfillment you long for in your career?
Photo by Mike Willis.
March 14th, 2009
I know, I know. Enough with the Top Chef. But I can’t help it. It’s a microcosm of the business world. People trying to make it, to land on top, to get the big title and the corner office (or restaurant).
The season finale was on last night (SPOILER ALERT).
Carla had been gaining ground the last few episodes, really shining and showing what she could do. But on last night’s episode, she let herself be led out of her sweet spot by another chef. Carla’s insecurity made her doubt her own ideas. She went with dishes that weren’t “her” and… you can guess…
Stefan had been the star all season. It was his to lose, really. And the last few episodes, his confidence got the best of him, especially last night when his performance mattered most. He went with a fancy technique in order to show off, but one which didn’t preserve or enhance the flavor of the food he was cooking, and he settled on a tried and true dessert which the judges felt was tired and not-so-true and… well, you can guess here too.
Which lead Hosea. Hosea knew his strengths, he had confidence but not arrogance, he stayed away from a danger zone (for him, dessert), and he went the distance.
If you haven’t watched the show because you don’t cook or don’t like cooking shows, give it a shot anyway. It’s not about the food. Trust me.
February 26th, 2009
You can find career and life guidance anywhere you look as long as you keep your eyes open and your brain on. Here are three lessons I’ve gotten from Top Chef this season:
The Importance of Editing- Jeff is a good cook. Nobody doubts it. And he’s made some good dishes during the season. But the guy doesn’t know how to pare down his many ideas, how to pick one thing and make it a complete dish. More often, he ends up with several disparate and not-that-impressive items on the plate which compete for his attention in the kitchen and the judges’ palates during tasting.
Focus- Personal feelings, whether a grudge held against a seemingly arrogant co-worker, a crush gone out-of-control or something else of that nature, can cloud your judgement and ability to concentrate on the task at hand. The winners in these types of reality competitions, as well as the people who triumph when faced with challenges in real life, are those who can set aside emotional turmoil and hone in on whatever is needed to get the job done. And the lovebirds and others who pay more attention to the other players than their own performance go home early, wondering why they failed to take the prize.
Confidence- On episode 9, Restaurant Wars, two of the contestants, Carla and Stefan, had issues with their desserts due to a malfunctioning freezer. Carla lived with the effects, resulting in an unappetizing sorbet “stew,” while when Stefan, who has been accused by other contestants of being full of himself, realized there was an issue and immediately set about problem-solving. Stefan is so sure of himself, when he is faced with a setback, he has no doubt he can overcome it. And so he does.
What lessons have you gotten from reality TV?
February 5th, 2009
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