If you’re trying to make professional connections, LinkedIn is clearly the place to be. Everybody’s there, everybody’s connecting.
But I’m surprised at the number of people who haven’t given much thought to the image they’re projecting.
You’ll hear lots of variations on the “80/20 rule”:
I’m having a discussion with someone, and they just don’t seem to get it. Everything is so clear in my mind, so obviously they’re not as smart as me – otherwise they’d know what I’m saying.
There’s many a slip ‘twixt the mind and the mouth.
The problem is that communicating with other people is a very messy and imperfect activity.
How much is your time worth?
I know some people who would say that all of their time should be judged by the wage that they get paid on the job. Suppose you’re paid $20 an hour, then you should think of your time spent eating meals as if you’re NOT getting paid $20 an hour to do that. If someone asks you for help, you should be thinking about whether it’s worth $20 an hour of your time to give them some assistance.
I don’t buy it.
What puts you “in the zone?”
We’ve all been there. It’s the place where you’re fully engaging all your energy, your passion, both the left and right halves of your brain.
You’re in the zone when you lose sense of time, and you have a heightened sense of engagement and accomplishment. And you’re having fun.
When I work with people on their career plans, I’m often asked what I mean by creating a long-term plan. Does this mean you’re supposed to detail out what you’ll be doing for the rest of your life? Impossible!
I had a client a few years ago who had a career plan for the next 25 years. Seriously. Personally, I find it challenging to map out five years.
We all have our famous heroes that serve as models of what we dream of becoming. That’s all well and good, but it can tend to make us into passive observers, rather than active contributors.
I might hold up Nelson Mandela as a personal role model, but I don’t really have the opportunity to make the kind of contribution to the world that he has. My situation is much more modest.
I’m as ambitious as most people, I suppose. I’m always looking for new experiences, new things to do, more ways to win.
But some days it’s good to recognize the blessings you have.
Sorry to tell you this, but there’s a good chance you’re going to lose a job in the future. And quite likely it’s going to be something outside your direct control.
Fine. So what have we learned from the last few years? After all, a lot of us have had our lives totally upended through our own job loss, or those close to us. It would be great if the next time didn’t cause quite so much heartbreak.
It happened. You had that important presentation to the big boss, and it went down in flames. You were worried about it, and your worst fears came true.
Yikes!
Okay, now that you’re a little further away from the event, how do you recover?
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