Alexandra Levit's Water Cooler Wisdom

Book Review: Dorie Clark's Reinventing You

I first met Dorie Clark at a Deloitte-sponsored talent management conference last summer.  Since then, we have kept in touch, and I am continually impressed with her insights around career development and personal branding. 

For those who don't know, Dorie is a former presidential campaign spokeswoman and a frequent contributor to the Harvard Business Review, Forbes, and the American Management Association's publications. At the young age of 18, Dorie graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Smith College, and two years later received a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School.  She's currently a marketing consulting for companies like Google, Yale University, and the Ford Foundation.

As you might gather, Dorie has reinvented herself professionally a bunch of times, and there's no one more qualified to write the book, Reinventing You: Define Your Brand, Imagine Your Future. 

Some of you might remember that I also wrote a book on career reinvention called New Job, New You. I like Dorie's addition to the field because its strategies are easily accessible to anyone and everyone.  Career change and even personal branding can be daunting propositions, and people may hold off on both thinking that they have to involve a major life overhaul.  Dorie shows that this is not the case. 

One of my favorite recommendations in the book involves a personal 360 review.  Dorie suggests learning about your strengths, passions, and areas for development by gathering a group of friends in your living room for a few hours one evening.  By asking the people close to you for their honest views about your potential, you will receive the gift of a fresh perspective far more powerful than simply relying on soul searching.

Dorie Clark has gone places, and she's still going places.  Let her take you along for the ride and show you how to go places yourself!

Lessons from a Startup Junkie

My friend Chris Guillebeau has become an expert at helping people opt out of traditional employment and create the time and income to pursue ideas they find meaningful.  He is joined by people like Jun Loayza, the co-founder of RewardMe, a digital rewards program for restaurants and retailers.  Jun is something of a startup junkie.  Through his career, Jun has raised over $1M in funding, failed at two startups, and successfully sold one startup.

I thought it might be useful for those of us considering startups to learn from Jun’s experiences, so on the Fast Track blog, we distill some of the most critical lessons he derived from his success and failures. Hope you'll check it out.

How to Identify the Next Hot Trend in 2013

There’s no better way to ensure your value  than to identify a trend and capitalize on it before your competitors get to the table.  But how do you do this without a crystal ball or a time machine?  Here are some suggestions for honing your sense of what’s coming next in your field.

Notice Systems That Are Broken

If a broken process or system affects enough people, they will start to complain – and loudly.  When the noise gets too deafening, someone enterprising (hopefully you) will inevitably step in to fix the problem.  A current example is online plagiarism.  Right now, we can’t seem to stop people from copying the work of others and posting it on their own websites without attribution.  Writers are getting pretty ticked off, and I think it’s reasonable to expect that within the next five years, a solution will be developed to prevent this type of fraud.

More advice on finding the next big thing in 2013 is available at the Fast Track blog.

Imagine That You Are Free

When my grandfather passed away over the summer, he left me a book called The Seth Material by Jane Roberts.  Without going into too much detail here, the book is about an intelligent consciousness that has survived death and uses Roberts to share the universe’s secrets with living humans.

One of Seth’s messages is that we create our own reality.  Apparently, this notion is supported by quantum physics, which suggests that physical reality is created by and differs for every individual.  20^th century Nobel Prize-winning physicist Max Planck had this to say about man’s effect on matter:

“There is no matter as such.  All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together.  We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind.  This mind is the matrix of all matter.”

I have touched on the idea before that changing our thoughts can improve attitudes at work.  And if consciousness is really the birthplace of physical reality, then we can also create situations by believing in them.  Here are some ways to get started on the right path.

If you could spend your time doing anything in the world, what would that be?  Think about where you would be right now if you were unencumbered by your current financial or familial constraints.  Jot down how you would use your expertise to benefit society if you weren’t held back by mitigating factors or extenuating circumstances.  Imagine that you are free.

Over at the Fast Track blog, I talk more about how to create your own reality and happiness.  I hope this can be my gift to you this holiday season.

Take Control of Your Career Today

Don’t you love it when the fates align? At the same time that I was writing a New York Times op-ed on the rise of the independent workforce, I had the opportunity to meet Nacie Carson, a twenty-something author and steadfast proponent of training people in her generation to be prepared for a world of temporary, contract work.

In her new book, The Finch Effect, Nacie warns professionals that instead of waiting for a recovery in the job market that is never going to come, we must take our careers into our own hands. Using a set of five strategies, which Nacie calls “the Finch Effect” (in honor of survival of the fittest Darwin’s avian inspirations), we can evolve productively in the years to come.

For Nacie's advice on taking your career into your own hands today, check out my post on the Fast Track blog.

The Magic Formula for Entrepreneurs

As an entrepreneur, I face a significant challenge.

When you’re working in a large company, some form of mentorship is a given. Even if there is no formal program in place, your manager is responsible for providing you with regular guidance and opportunities for growth.

Entrepreneurs, on the other hand, are on their own. And given that I started by own business when I was 28, I find this scary. I still have significant gaps in my skills due to the absence of senior people who have been in my shoes from whom I could learn.

I’m not the only entrepreneur with this issue, and in response, a unique type of mentorship culture has emerged. In-person conferences and meet-ups organized for entrepreneurs and independent consultants are popping up everywhere, filling our need to trade ideas, share war stories and view our business problems from a fresh perspective. Such events are not only a great place to get support, but they are also ideal for networking with potential partners and customers and for identifying funding sources.

For more on how an entrepreneurial conference can help your current or future business, check out my full post on the AMEX Open Forum.

Is a Staycation Day at Work Totally Unappealing?

When I posted on the Fast Track blog about taking a staycation day (i.e. mini sabbatical) at work in order to rejuventate one's career, I received quite a bit of pushback.  It seems that many people object for a variety of reasons.  So I wanted to pose the question to this community:

Would you ever take a staycation day at work?  Why or why not?

Please check out the post and let me know what you think!

A Business Launched with Help from a Dead Grocer

I’ve been thinking about what small businesses can teach larger ones about establishing and sustaining a strong culture, both in front and back of the store. I found at least one answer: Invite conversation and connection.

No small business I’ve encountered demonstrates this as well as Katie McCaskey and Brian Wiedemann’s George Bowers Grocery in Staunton, Va.

Head over to my column at the AMEX OPEN Forum to see why you might want to drive a few hundred miles for the experience of shopping there!

 

4 Steps for Success Working Overseas

Whether you’re a small business owner or an employee in a cast of thousands, you may find yourself working overseas at some point.

According to PriceWaterhouseCoopers, a  major uptick will occur in the number of cross-national business assignments in the next 10 years. This is an exciting development for some people, and intimidating for others.

But working in a foreign culture is not so different than simply taking on a new role in your country of origin. You have to hone your general business acumen and your communication, language and problem-solving skills.

Check out my post at the AMEX OPEN Forum for four steps to help ensure that you can assimilate effectively.

How to Start Thinking About Passion

Passion.  If you have a job that you like reasonably well, you might not even want to go there.  This is understandable.  After all, passion is a vague term that is often thrown around, but in fact means different things to different people, and exploring it can be confusing and overwhelming.

Chang’s Theory of Passion

Richard Chang, who wrote The Passion Plan, describes passion as both content-based (activities like writing, hosting events, or racing cars) or context-based (themes like innovation, nurturing, and risk-taking).  Chang says that we can experience both types of passion in our work, and can often find ways to weave our passions into a current job without making a drastic career change.  Indeed, in my speeches to would-be entrepreneurs, I often suggest that the passion for innovation be satisfied by joining an “intrapreneurship” committee that develops ideas for new products, services, and efficient operations on behalf of the well-established organization.

Formulate Your Definition

However, in order to find ways to pursue your passion at work, it helps to have a concise definition.  According to Tom Siciliano and Jeff Caliguire, authors of Shifting into Higher Gear: An Owner’s Manual for Uniting Your Calling and Career, coming up with such a definition involves analyzing:

• What you do really well
• What makes you unique
• What moments in your past have proven the most memorable to you (examples: “I can still remember shouting with excitement when I was teaching my neighbor to ride her bike and she first took off on her own” and “I recruited the kids on my block to open a lemonade stand – we made a ton of money!”)

• What you have that the world needs

Every individual has a distinctive mix of physical traits, personality, gifts, skills, natural abilities, experiences, training and interests, which means that only you can do the work you do in the exact way you do it.  And when you accomplish something you’re perfectly suited for, you feel alive and fulfilled, as if you’re making the world a better place.

Most Importantly

Depending on your point of view, this might seem overly scientific or overly abstract.  Remember that the point is to identify what you love doing, where your energy comes from, and why.  Take a few hours one day and really think this through.  You won’t regret it.

This post was originally published on Intuit's Quickbase blog.