Career Opportunities with Douglas E. Welch

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A Year of Self Preservation with Douglas E. Welch @ Tuesdays with Transitioners

Tuesday, February 19, 2013, 12 Noon to 2 pm

Congregational Church of Northridge
9659 Balboa Blvd, Northridge, CA

Please RSVP on

Facebook — Meetup.com

It is a fact of nature that we often spend many hours of each day focused on someone else. We focus on our boss, our job, our family, our projects — but one person is usually left out of this focus — you! We can easily lose ourselves in the clamor for our attention. This year, though, I call for “A Year of Self Preservation”. A year of returning the focus to ourselves and our own lives, so that we can continue to help others.

It is my firm belief that we can only, truly, help others when we ourselves are in a good position. If we try to do too much, without the support of friends, family or a stable income, we risk placing our own life, work and income in jeopardy. This isn’t selfishness. Self preservation is about establishing a firm foundation where you can stand so you can offer a helping hand to others.

The tenets of A Year of Self Preservation are:

• A rested parent/worker/caregiver is a good parent/worker/caregiver
• Taking care of yourself first — not last
• Knowing when and how to ask for help
• Learning when and how to say — No
• Distancing yourself from negativity and avoiding the downward cycle

Join Douglas at Tuesdays with Transitioners and see how you can make 2013 the best year possible.

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Showing people “what you do and how well you do it” is an important part of every career. You need to be visible so that people can seek you out for opportunities instead of always feeling you have to go begging for a job.

Visibility and Your Career was presented at LaidOffCampLA on May 1, 2009.

If you do not see the video above, please watch “Visibility and Your Career from LaidOffCampLA” on YouTube.

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A self-directed education is a wonderful and productive thing. Sometimes, though, it can be difficult to know where to aim your educational focus. To offer a bit of help with this, I have put together some resources around a particular topic to get you started. In this first “Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study” I am focusing on creativity and innovation, two very important topics for any careerist.

Career Opportunities Course of Suggested Study

Creativity and Innovation

We all have in us the ability and the necessity to create. Whether we are working on the next great technology or the next great recipe, creativity allows us to combine old knowledge with our own experience and create something new and wonderful. In order to “build the career you deserve” you need to explore this creativity at every opportunity and in every way. Deny your creativity and you will lose it. Honor your creativity and it will honor you back with great ideas, innovation solutions and idea that no one has thought before.

Questions to Consider

• Why do we create?
• How do we create?
• Is every job a creative job? Why? Why not?
• Can creativity lead to a better life and career? How?
• Is creativity the gift of a precious few or is everyone creative?
• Can you set aside “creative time” in your calendar?
• What would you create, if you took the time and energy to do it?

Resources

• The Accidental Creative with Todd Henry – Blog | Podcast | Book
• Killer Innovations with Phil McKinney – Blog | Podcast | Book
• The War of Art by Steven Pressfield – Web Site | Book
• A Whack in the Side of the Head by Roger van Oech – Blog | Books
• Goosing Your Muse with JoAnn Braheny – Blog | JoAnn’s Creativity Book Recommendations
• Video: Elizabeth Gilbert on nurturing creativity from Ted.com
• Video: Tim Brown on creativity and play from Ted.com
• Video: Charles Leadbeater on innovation from Ted.com
• Video: Gever Tulley teaches life lessons through tinkering from Ted.com
• Book: Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking
• Book: Feel the Fear . . . and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers
• Book: Flow – The Psychology of Optimal Experience by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Book: If You Want to Write – A Book about Art, Independence and Spirit by Brenda Ueland
• Book: Jumpstart your Brain by Doug Hall
• Book: Orbiting the Giant Hairball by Gordon MacKenzie
• Book: Writing Down the Bones and Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

*Many of these books are available at your local public library. Save yourself some money and look there first.

Share your thoughts!

What did you learn from this Suggest Course of Study? Do you have questions or comments? Would you like to discuss this with your fellow Career Opportunities readers and listeners?

You can create and continue the discussion on Creativity and Innovation here on the blog by posting a comment, or starting a conversation on the Career Opportunities Facebook page or the Career Opportunities page on Google+. You can discuss this topic in real-time on the Career Opportunities Work Room at Hall.com. This includes a chat room and video conferencing capabilities. Contact career@welchwrite.com for an invite.

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I am working my way through this program on entrepreneurship and think that you might find it it useful, too. It delves into the basic concepts and concerns of being an entrepreneur and might just give  you some ideas on how you might create your own business.

I believe that entrepreneurship is one of the driving factors of careers today, regardless of whether you are working for yourself or within a traditional corporate environment. You have to DO for yourself as much as you DO for your company or you risk being left out in the cold when the company no longer needs you or your skills. Don’t be caught off-guard. Start thinking like and entrepreneur today!

The new entrepreneurs by The Open University

Course Description

Whether you’re thinking of starting your own business, looking to improve one you already own, or are simply interested in understanding more about how the business world works, this learning pathway is a storehouse of ideas, techniques and real-life stories to inspire and inform.

It includes resources to help you assess and evaluate an idea using comprehensive, practical techniques, and explore a range of business types – from home-workers and ‘mompreneurs’, to family businesses, social enterprises and ‘lifestyle’ entrepreneurs. It also looks at entrepreneurial psychology. What are the qualities you need to succeed? What are the downsides to being your own boss, and how can you prepare for them?

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Here is another educational opportunity that has nothing do with computer science at all. (LAUGH) This show some of the depth of the curriculum available on iTunes U.

Writing creatively: plays
by The Open University

Course Description

For those interested in English language or literature, or with ambitions to write plays, the creative activities throughout this learning pathway provide an overview of the process of playwriting – from capturing ideas through to character, structure, dialogue, stage directions and editing.

Leading contemporary British playwrights, including Alan Ayckbourn (the most performed living English language playwright), Bryony Lavery (also author of ‘The Woman Writer’s Handbook’), and Willy Russell (‘Educating Rita’) give tips and practical advice on how to write plays. Their tips include how to read, watch and understand plays – using examples from Shakespeare, Ibsen’s ‘A Doll’s House’ and Caryl Churchill’s ‘Top Girls’.

This pathway encourages experimentation as well as learning by reading and questioning. You will also be able to listen to linguistics professor David Crystal at the London Globe Theatre re-evaluating Shakespeare by exploring the original pronunciation.

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I started watching the class on iPad and iPhone App Development via iTunes U. iTunes U provides lots of great educational opportunities in a wide variety of areas including computer science, history, humanities, language, literature and business. You can check out the entire catalog at the iTunes U information page or directly in iTunes.

I’ll be highlighted other educational opportunities to build your career in the coming weeks.

iPad and iPhone App Development (Fall 2011)

Course Description

Updated for iOS 5. Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone and iPad platform using the iOS SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multi-touch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller paradigm, memory management, Objective-C programming language. Other topics include: object-oriented database API, animation, multi-threading and performance considerations.

Prerequisites: C language and programming experience at the level of 106B (Programming Abstractions) or X. Recommended: UNIX, object-oriented programming, graphical toolkits

Offered by Stanford’s School of Engineering, the course will last ten weeks and include both the lecture videos and PDF documents. Released with a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.

This is a series of video lectures and accompanying materials in PDF format.

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Due to personal family issues with the scheduled speaker, I will be speaking at this weeks’s Tuesday’s with Transitioners meeting on the topic of “A Year of Action!”.

Action — any action — can help us to get our careers and lives moving forward. Douglas presents a few “action items” you might want to explore or use as jumpstart points for your own ideas.

Learn how action benefits you no matter what your job, current job status or career!

Please share this event with anyone you know who might be interested. All are welcome!

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What: Douglas speaks on “A Year of Action” at Tuesdays with Transitioners

When: Tuesday, January 17, 2012 – Noon-2pm

Where: Congregational Church of Northridge, 9659 Balboa Blvd, Northridge, CA 91325-1902

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I first met Susan M. Baker, from Escapehatcher.com almost a year ago and I have thanked my lucky stars ever since. We recently co-chaired CareerCampLA and meet regularly together with some other great people for a monthly New Media Mastermind. I never fail to be enlightened, educated and excited by Susan’s insight into the entrepreneurial world.

In just a few weeks, Susan is presenting The Bootstrap Sessions (a two night event), along with Nathan Hangen.

Having seen how Susan works up close and personal, if you want to “Get over the fear of failure” and “Build your business on a dime” I would highly recommend attending The Bootstrap Sessions. It would be a great way to start moving forward on you business and career plans.

Here is some more specific information from The Bootstrap Sessions web site…

THE BOOTSTRAP SESSIONS

When: June 15th and June 17th at 8PM EDT

Where: Anywhere You Want! (Call in or use your internet connection)
Over the course of two evenings, we’re going to teach you how to build a passion based lifestyle business. We’re going to help you overcome the hurdles of getting started, and teach you how to get past go.

Session 1: The Mindset of an Entrepreneur (60 minutes + Q&A)

Here’s what you’ll learn:

Why failure doesn’t matter
The #1 trick to dealing with fear
How to deal with naysayers and critics
Why you shouldn’t try to please everyone
How to create a clear path of ascension

Session 2: Bootstrapping (60 minutes + Q&A)

Master the art of:

Creating a quick business fund
Build a business fund from scratch
Make money right now!
Create something worth selling (something you love)
Turning your passions into a business

Need some more info before you sign up? Check out their FREE “Virtual Happy Hour” event.

Join Susan and Nathan for the 1st Ever Virtual Happy Hour!

Friday, June 11th, at 7PM EST

A once in a lifetime networking event!

Hosted by rockstar designer: Erica Swanson!

Pull up your cocktails and come join us for a virtual happy hour! We’ll get to know each other a few nights before the event kicks off…we can talk about your businesses, ideas for your businesses or just about anything you want to. You may even have questions you’d like to throw out that we can address during the workshop.

We will even send you a recipe for our signature cocktail called “The Bootstrap” a few days before in case you want to join us in that fun.

No ticket required, simply sign up here!

We’re looking forward to meeting you, getting to know you better and helping you bootstrap your way to success!