Career Opportunities

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Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Question everything

If you really want to get your thought processes moving, questioning the “truths” of our time is a great way to start. Maybe viruses and spyware are a good thing. Perhaps managing spam email isn’t the best idea. Maybe faster isn’t better. The mind reels at the possibilities. The truth is, you never know what wrongheaded ideas you might be carrying around until someone points them out. Why not discover them yourself?

Start boosting your thinking today by questioning everything. Question whether the sky is blue or the Intel Core Duo chip is really what companies need. Question whether a GUI is really an improvement over a command-line interface. Question whether technology helps or hurts society. The more sacred the idea, the more profane your thoughts should be.

The goal of this exercise is to get you thinking beyond your average, everyday thoughts. Too often, we simply accept the “truths” of life without ever wondering if they really are true anymore. It can be mind-bending, but in an incredible useful way. Imagine how doctors felt when presented with the microbial theory of disease after hundreds of years controlling the bodily “humors.” What might have astronomers been thinking when a solar-centered universe solved all the problems of how the heaven’s moved? Remember, someone once thought that 64KB would be more than enough memory for any computer.

Maybe, maybe not

There are several ways of applying the concept of “impossible” things to your work and career. Do you often hear management or your co-workers explaining, “it has to be that way” or “we’ve always done it like that.” This is a clear sign that some deeper thinking needs to be done. Is there a form that everyone hates, but can’t seem to stop using? Why? Would the company fall apart? Dig deeper. Is this form still necessary or is it only an unconscious ritual from a long gone process?

Is your company expending tens of thousands of dollars on technology that really isn’t needed? Could entire servers be replaced by a simple, new procedure? Are you trying to automate your way out of a problem when human nature is really the culprit? You may laugh, but I can imagine that every one of you has faced just such a problem in your career. As high-tech workers we often believe in the ability of technology to solve any problem. We throw hardware and software at a problem when training, hiring and firing would be a better response. Perhaps we should be questioning this concept most of all.

If you want your career to flourish, you need to engage in a little impossible thinking. Too many ideas we carry with us today are out-dated, unconscious beliefs that may have served us well in the past, but now limit our thinking, our creativity and our productivity. Be like the Red Queen and start each morning by believing a few impossible things, or, at least, thinking about them. I am sure you will find that what you might think a fanciful exercise will become one of the most important aspects of your work. The greatest leaps in human history have come from those who dare to think the impossible and then find out they were true all along. What new horizons might you discover in your life and your career?

Question of the Week: What impossible things can you believe today about your life and your career?

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Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

When I talk about learning and education, I am not necessarily telling you to go back to school or college. In my own life, I see education as something I do every day in every way. In recent years, I have watched my wife return to college and achieve her Masters and Doctorate degrees. I am amazed at how much work and dedication she put into the process, but I also realized that that path was not for me.

Instead, I am a self-directed learner. I follow whatever topic strikes my interest, often going “down the rabbit hole” on a particular topic and totally immersing myself in it. This works for me. It keeps me learning and allows me to see connections between what may otherwise seem to be totally unrelated areas of knowledge. The best part, though, is that it has never been easier in the history of man to be a self-directed learner. The Internet has brought  a wealth of information directly to our homes, computers and hands. Never before have we been able to access so much information so quickly and easily.

My Method

One important method I use to engage in lifetime learning is stopping. Whenever I am confronted with a word or topic I do not know, I stop, immediately and look it up. Maybe the word bifurcation pops up in a newspaper story or I see mention of the Teapot Dome scandal in something I am reading. For me, it is important that I stop and take a moment to learn a bit more before I move on with my reading or work. It may sound like an interruption in your work or day, but this style of “just-in-time” learning has helped me greatly over the years.

A few resources

So, where do I turn when I want to learn something new? Below are a few resources to start your own journey. These are my “go to” sources whenever any topic piques my interest.

Wikipedia

I know, I know. You hear all sorts of disparaging things about Wikipedia, but the truth is that it is a great source to start your learning. Wikipedia offers an overview of nearly any particular topic or area and might even include enough detail to answer your question. Sure, the more controversial topics can be a little contentious, but for your average areas of interest, it is a great place to start.

YouTube

I often hear that the joke that “everything is on YouTube” , but in some ways this is almost true. Want to learn how to format columns in MS Word? Done. See an old silent movie that is difficult to find otherwise? Done. Want to see a lecture on DNA/RNA replication? Done! Sure, the quality may vary from video to video and you might have to search for a while until you find the exact information you are looking for, but there is a host of great information to be found there.

New Learning Sites

Lately there have been an explosion of web sites dedicated to learning. Recently I was using Khan Academey’s algebra lessons to help my son, and I have watched videos on many topics there as well. Even established colleges are getting into the act including computer science classes  and more from Stanford University and MIT. Sites like Code Academy are enticing everyone to learn a little bit about the programming that surrounds our lives today. Finally, iTunes U is back in the news after Apple’s recent announcement about electronic textbooks. Revisiting iTunes U recently, I was amazed at the breadth of content available there. It isn’t all just computer science. There are classes on creative writing, art, history and just about any topic you can imagine.

In 2012 you truly have no reason or excuse to avoid learning something new every day. Sometimes you will be learning it for your career and sometimes you will be learning just because you want to learn. Regardless of the reason, lifetime learning will continue to be one of the largest factors in your success. Keep learning. Keep growing. Keep applying what you learn and your are on a clear path to the career you deserve.

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Listen to this Podcast

Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Listen to this Podcast

Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Start a blog

We all have something unique to say. We all have unique experiences that make us an expert in something – cooking, computing, crafting, cars. You have heard me say before that an important part of any career is telling people “what you do and how well you do it.” Guess what? A blog is the #1 best way to share that expertise with others. Using Blogger.com or WordPress.com, you can have your blog online in about 5 minutes. Then you have a place to start showing people what you have to offer. Post your special ideas, your special knowledge, your special experiences and people will find you.

Publish a book!

Write a blog long enough and you are sure to have enough content for a book.   Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing makes it easy for anyone to produce an ebook that can be read on nearly any device – Kindle, Mac, PC, Android, iPhone, iPad and more. Why not take advantage of that? Do you have a piece of writing, long or short that you would like to share with the world? Get it into the Kindle Store and then start telling your friends, family and whoever else will listen. You don’t have to charge for the book. You can give it away as a freebie to introduce your writing to people, as a reward for reading your blog or as an incentive to sign up for your mailing list. You can also just do it for the fun of it. Heck, you never know, you might even make some money at it.

Take Photographs

Ever been on a photowalk? Think of it as a hike where the object is not miles travelled, but images captured. You, your friends, or even strangers, gather somewhere and start taking pictures. This can be an urban setting or out in the country, something traditionally picturesque or gritty, it doesn’t really matter.

The goal of a photowalk is to set aside an hour or so to “see” again. Photography forces us to slow down and pay attention to what is right in front of us. The    effects of this “seeing” spill over into other aspects of our lives. It shows how we can can pay more attention to everything we do — how to be present in the moment — instead of letting our mind dance over all the coulda, woulda, shoulda, thoughts in our heads.  And you can post your photos on your new blog!

Make Music

Over the years, music has become a passive activity. We sit and listen to others make music or their recordings instead of making music ourselves. A century ago, most everyone could play an instrument, sing a song or play the spoons along with others. I think that this is something that is greatly missing in today’s world. Making music feeds our analytical mind through the skill of reading music and discovering the mathematical patterns within, but it also feeds the soul. Making music is as different from listening to music as cooking is to watching a cooking show. Find a way to play music, by yourself or, even better, with others. It can open your mind in some amazing ways.

Make Money

Money is not the root of all evil. The actual quote is “The Love of Money is the root of all evil.” Money is important, but you may be ignoring ways of making money outside your regular job. I mentioned publishing a book above, but there are other ways, too. Maybe there is a product you can make and sell on eBay or Etsy.com? How about consulting with others about an area of your expertise? Maybe you could hold a class for your co-workers or the interested parents at your child’s school. There is a host of ways to make  some money and you might even find these tasks more rewarding, both personally and financially, than your current job. It doesn’t happen for everyone, but it is a possibility worth pursuing in the new year.
These are but a few action items that can jumpstart your year. Choose one of them, or any that jumped to mind while you read or listened to this column. Remember, the point is to take action — any action — to get you moving and keep you moving towards your career and life goals. Even the smallest step can get you started.

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Listen to this Podcast

Cultivating Your Career Reputations

11,000 Words

While we often talk about one, monolithic, Reputation – with a capital R — I believe that there are a series of reputations that make up the whole. This book will focus on the combination of reputations that make up your one, overarching, Reputation. By examining each of these reputations in detail, I hope you will find specific areas where you can improve your work, your actions and your thoughts so that your overall professional reputation grows.

Why break your Reputation down into its constituent parts? It is often said that you can’t “do” projects, you can only do the individual tasks that make up the project and achieve the desired result. The same can be said for reputation. You don’t build your reputation as a whole, you cultivate the smaller reputations that create it. Each individual action builds your reputation in unique ways and each requires some thought as to how they relate to the whole.

Why is action so important? Action breaks through the inertia that often holds us back – “objects at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force”. This inertia freezes us in place, stuck, while the world speeds by us. Even worse, it is far too easy not to take action. All we have to do is sit there and the world will gladly move around us. Still, we can break free if we take even one, small, seemingly unimportant action. This movement frees us from the mire and gives us the advantage of the other side of inertia — “objects in motion will remain in motion.” Allowing even the smallest action to get the ball rolling and get us moving again.

Am I suggesting that you act out, on anything, without thinking about it or planning it? Yes!. The fact is, over-planning, over-thinking, over-fearing are just a symptom of inertia and therefore some of our biggest enemies. It is far more likely for us to be stuck in inertia than stuck by taking too many actions. Sure, you can move into an area where you are taking too many wild actions, but I have found this to be very, very rare. More often I see people stuck by the side of the road thinking about what their next action might be.

Standing still is easy. We can find hundreds of reasons why we shouldn’t do something with very little effort. What we need, though, is the one reason FOR doing something that allows us to take action and move forward. There is another name for this syndrome — analysis paralysis. We are figuratively paralyzed by the number of choices we have or, we are too afraid to act because we never think we have enough information to make a decision. For someone like you or I, this is career death. The world will speed by us and we will find ourselves so far behind we might never catch up.

What I suggest, as I often do, is a sense of balance. Balance your actions with your planning. Taking a lot of action requires a lot of planning, too. If you balance your action with your planning you will be much less likely to get stuck. You will always have the ball rolling even if you are not exactly sure which way it is headed. This can mean that you will sometimes be acting on an idea, a hunch, a gut feeling. You might feel you haven’t planned enough. That is okay. It is often in these unplanned actions that we find our greatest triumphs. We can’t always predict where our lives and careers are headed, so throwing in a bit of randomness might just expose us to something amazing and beyond our dreams.

How do you see if you are truly stuck? One easy method is to note how much you talk about actions and compare that to how often you actually take action? The Texans have a phrase for someone who talks big but doesn’t have much to show for it — “all hat and no cattle.” These people are pretending to be cowboys without the requisite cows. If you are honest with yourself, it is pretty easy to see when you are stuck in this cycle. It is just as easy to see when you are moving out of it. Make something happen, anything, and other things will begin to happen for you. Even a small movement from you can get the world turning again in your favor, if you let it.

Finally, your worst enemy in your action battle, other than yourself, are those people around you who are stuck themselves. Writers who are stuck hate writers who are working. Artists who are stuck hate other artists who are being productive. Even worse, they will do anything to make those writers and artists as unproductive as they are. They will attack you, your work and your actions. They will spread their pessimism and try to control you. Put as much distance between them and yourself as possible. Take your actions no matter what anyone might say and carefully consider the source of demeaning and angry words. They might just be jealous that they can’t be as productive as you are.

Starting today, think of ways of taking action this year. It doesn’t matter if these actions are big, small or in-between. It is the ACT OF TAKING ACTION that is most important. Some days you will find that taking the simple action of going for a walk might be the most productive, and healthful, thing you do all day. In that small action, though, are the seeds for more action, more movement, more opportunity and more success. Embrace action and all that it can do for you this year.

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Time passes

For me, time’s passing is one of those things that is simply not worth worrying about. Time will pass regardless of what you do. It is truly something that we have no control over at all. I can’t slow down time, nor can I stop it in its path. It simply “is”. Worrying about it only darkens my days and takes attention from those things that truly matter. While I might not advise you to forget about important things like stopping smoking or losing a few pounds, as for time, I say forget about it. Take each day as it comes, because come it will without any help from you.

Instead of letting the ticking clock rattle around in your brain and rattle your nerves, focus on what really matters in your life…doing great work! The good we do with our time here on Earth is something we have in our direct control. Every action can work towards good or ill. Every movement can help ourselves and others live a better, brighter, more enjoyable life. You will be surprised how little the ticking clock matters when you are in the midst of life changing work. I know for myself that great work is a like a time machine. I might be growing older physically, but my spirit grows younger. I emerge from a great work session energized, excited and exalted. While I am so deeply involved, I can’t hear the ticking clock or even acknowledge its presence. This is where you need to be, too.

The here and now

The past is history. The future is yet to be decided, but the present is here and now. How you spend your time right now — the next minute or hour — is what truly matters. Too many of us allow ourselves to be swept away on future dreams or future horrors — ignoring the present that is all around us. I am sure you know people like this. Their worries carry them farther and farther from what truly needs their focus until they spend more time worrying about the future, or lamenting their past, than trying to make their present better.

Don’t be like them, please. Past and future take care of themselves, but the present needs your attention. What small actions can you take in the next 5 minutes that make you happier, smarter, richer? What small actions can you take for others that help them with the same? If you could do anything right now — and I believe you can — what would you do? What would do the most to drown out the ticking clock and allow you to forget it even exists? Start making a list. I can guarantee you that once you start thinking in these terms the ideas will begin to flow. Be prepared to capture them and work on them in the days to come.

“Time and tide wait for no man” has always been true and no more in our seemingly accelerated present. They need not wait, though, and you need not wait, nor pay attention to them. Your focus is on your good work, your accomplishments, your happiness, not some arbitrary tick of time from the mantle shelf. Don’t fall victim to the endless ticking. Stop your clocks, if it helps you to break free. Instead of 60 ticks around the face of a clock, see 60 accomplishments, 60 tasks, 60 individual actions that lead up to a great life for you and and those around you. In this way, it matters little when your clock stops ticking as you can be assured you made the best use of your time possible.

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Why do today what you can put off until tomorrow?

Humans are great at procrastination, especially if pain, either physical or mental, is involved. We can convince ourselves in any number of ways that we are better off ignoring the problem instead of facing it. You might think to yourself, “It isn’t the right time”, “They are already suffering”, “They’ll only get mad at me”, “They should just ‘know’ what the problem is”. The truth is, now is always the best time to discuss and act on a problem. Once a problem is discovered, each passing day makes it harder and harder to address. Our resistance builds up. Our courage falls away and we just tell ourselves we’ll talk about it…later.

I see this very often with parents. Instead of addressing a behavior issue immediately, they convince themselves that they will address it later…and later…and later. The problem is, of course, that addressing a problem immediately will usually quash it forever with very little emotional pain, but trying to resolve a long standing problem can be gut-wrenching. If you have allowed your son or daughter to engage in a behavior you dislike for years and years, their reaction to the conversation is going to be much more forceful and dramatic.

In some extreme cases, you might not be able to solve the problem at all. By allowing the problem to continue year after year, your tacit approval has shown that you don’t really think it is a problem at all. Children may even lash out at you for being unreasonable after so many years. The conversation quickly becomes about you and your behavior instead of the problem at hand.

In the worst cases, addressing a problem too late can even cause a split in the family, in the relationship or in a marriage. Imagine facing a painful problem that could have and should have been addressed years before. While you were trying to avoid a little pain, you eventually caused yourself a great amount.

What to do?

The most important action to take when faced with conflict or problems is to talk about it. If something bothers you, say so. Don’t let it fester inside of you. Get it out now, when it is a small problem. Start the conversation early. Yes, if you are like me, you might feel uncomfortable for a little while, but it is nothing like the discomfort you will feel if you leave the problem unresolved.

As a son from a somewhat reserved farm family in Ohio, I learned a great deal about conflict from my Sicilian-American wife. She doesn’t let a problem pass. If she is peeved, angry or upset about something, she will let you know immediately. We might even have a bit of loud discussion about it. That said, what’s over is over. Everyone says what needs to be said. Everyone gets heard. Changes are discussed and devised and life goes on. As my wife often said about her Sicilian Grandfather, “We might fight tooth and nail during the day, but every night we kissed each other on the cheek before we went to bed.”

It might look and sound volatile to some, but getting the problem out into the open and actively discussed and debated is the most healthy way of dealing with it. It is only when we sit and stew, harboring resentment for days, weeks or even years, that problems turn into hateful arguments, resentful families and broken marriages. 
Don’t let the fear of a little pain stop you from addressing important issues. Talk about them now. Deal with them now. Solve them now. If you don’t, they will only grow more scary, more intractable and more painful with each passing moment.

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