The explosion of educational MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) seems to indicate a large, renewed interest in nontraditional educational opportunities. People are looking for new opportunities to learn when and where they can. While there are a tremendous amount of large MOOCs available, and you should be investigating them, this trend has also sparked my own thinking about smaller, self-directed learning opportunities. You don’t always have to rely on someone else to create your learning opportunities, like traditional schools and universities. You, along with a small group of friends, family, or coworkers can create your own time and place to learn together. In some ways, I think that these smaller groups can help you learn more deeply, in a more intimate learning environment, than any MOOC possibly could.
Looking back over my own long career, and the careers of family, friends and Career Opportunities listeners and readers, I have struck upon 7 Skills that can help to insure a successful career for any careerist, regardless of their work industry, their position in a company or their goals as a careerist. These fundamental skills form a solid foundation for any career and, in many ways, also enhance life outside of your career. In this introduction I will give an overview of of the skills and then explore each one further in its own, upcoming, Career Opportunities column.
I am not a big player of video games, but my teenage son has introduced me to a few in the last several years. Even if I don’t play the games themselves, I do often watch videos of the game play to stay informed of the state of the art and also to enjoy the stories. Although video games are often dismissed as time-wasters and corrupters of youth (and adults), I find that there are a number of career lessons that can be gained from them. Like everything in your life — your family, your hobbies, the books you read — video games can yield some interesting lessons if you take the time to think beyond the actual gameplay itself.
It’s pretty safe to say, that when you finally come up with your million-dollar idea, nobody is going to understand it at first. They many not laugh in your face outright, but they’ll probably scratch their heads, at least.
Like I wrote in my first book, Ignore Everybody, great ideas have lonely childhoods. Great ideas also change the power balance in relationships, which is the main reason why people initially resist them. People like the status quo, thank you very much.
And then maybe, just maybe, your million-idea isn’t worth a million dollars. Maybe all it’s worth is years of heartbreak, stress and zero money on your end. What Joseph Campbell describes as the golden chalice turning to ashes, the moment the hero steps out of the dark forest. It happens all the time.
But you press on regardless. Why? Because you have no choice. Because win or lose, you really don’t have a better reason for being alive. That to try for a safer, easier route was not what God had planned for you. And nobody wants to try to prove God wrong.
Now if you can only get those naysayer voices inside your head to shut up…
I have spent the last 30 years helping people to learn about technology in a number of ways and there has always been one, constant theme to this process — people hate to “feel stupid”about technology — or anything, for that matter. I think “feeling stupid” should be a diagnosed clinical physiological problem for all the damage it causes. Too many times, I have seen people suffer both personal and professional trials, simply to avoid the embarrassment and fear of “feeling stupid.” Let me tell you, though, avoiding the fear of appearing stupid to your friends, family and co-workers could be the most damaging act you take in your life and career. It can have far-reaching effects that limit your effectiveness, productivity and future success. Embrace “knowing what you don’t know” and then seek to learn.
There is a great difference between Failure (with a capital F) and failure with a lowercase “f”, but sometimes it can be hard to see that. While it is part of the human condition to fail on occasion, and despite what we might learn from those failures, failure is never, ever, easy. Given enough failures, in fact, and you might start feeling like a complete Failure. This is a dangerous place to tread, though and can lead to greater problems down the road if you don’t come to some sort of understanding with yourself, your life and your career. Don’t let failure stop you in your career tracks. Face it, deal with it and then move forward.
I recently did a Google Image search on the word “career” just to see what it would turn up. There I found lots of pictures of signposts and arrows, lots of uses of the word Career in various typographic styles and, of course, eager, young (almost exclusively) workers attired in suits, ties and/or skirts, often carrying briefcases. While I wasn’t that surprised by the search results, I find myself continually surprised by the icons from the past that we still use to represent work and career. Almost like the stereotypical usage of an old, rotary phone being used to represent a telephone or any type of call, the use of the briefcase or the suit and tie is just as outdated..
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A few weeks ago I talked about how to attract work and opportunities to you, instead of constantly begging for your next job. One of the biggest elements of attracting work to you is using social media to share the most interesting aspects of your life and work and show people “what you do and how well you do it.” Of course, it is worth taking some time to think about what you might share on your social media feeds that contribute to this end goal. Here are a few ideas to get you started in sharing the right kind of information.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
Privacy is in the news a lot these days and it is a valid concern for all of us. That said, when you are trying to build the career you deserve, an excessive focus on privacy can make your careerbuilding more difficult, if not impossible. This is due to a large change in how we find jobs and develop our careers. The days of resumes and job fairs and networking are over, at least in the traditional sense. Today, you need to be spending every moment telling people “what you do and how well you do it.” If you insist on keeping every aspect of your life private, you are severely limiting the number of people that know about you and the opportunities these people may be able to provide. When it comes to your career, you can’t “hide your light under a bushel” and expect to achieve the career results you want.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
The current form of career development/management is flawed. First, you discover what work you might like to do and are qualified to do and then you go in search of someone offering a job/needing someone with your skills. Once you settle on a particular line of work, you make the rounds, resume (if not hat) in hand, begging someone to give you a job. It has been this way for centuries, but I think that is exactly the argument for why it shouldn’t be done that way anymore.
* A portion of each sale from Amazon.com directly supports our blogs ** Many of these books may be available from your local library. Check it out! † Available from the LA Public Library
