The Career You'll Love » influence

Visibility for your expertise

Carl — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 15:15:17 +0000

I had a wonderful opportunity last week to deliver a presentation to a bunch of software company CxOs who were gathered for a conference in Denver. It generated a whole lot of excitement and good interest in my coaching services.

The primary value was to show a lot of people in different companies what kind of expertise I have. The same concept can be applied to others as well.

There’s a good chance that you won’t be working for your current employer for the rest of your life, so it’s wise to start building visibility for what you can do. Sorry, a résumé or CV isn’t nearly as powerful as getting out there and showing people.

Of course, giving a presentation ALSO looks good on your CV, because people will expect that you’re more expert in your field when you’re able to go outside your current company.

I understand that a lot of people are terrified at the idea of giving presentations. So even though it can be quite powerful, perhaps it’s not quite within your grasp yet. Look into other opportunities:

Writing an article for an industry journal
Becoming a member of a small cross-company mastermind group
Mentoring others
Writing a book
Leading a discussion group at your church or kids’ school

It’s really only limited by your imagination.

I’m going to be presenting for an Entrepreneurship class at the local University – just an hour talking about my experience in setting up businesses, successful or not, and leading a discussion with the students. It’s a chance to contribute to the community and build my presence in general. Is it likely to bring in coaching clients for me? Not especially – although it certainly can’t hurt.

You have expertise that most others don’t. How can you start showing others outside your current employer how useful that might be?

P.S. If you’re interested in my presentation I gave last week on employee retention in the software industry, go check out my other blog.

Carl Dierschow is a Certified Small Fish Business Coach and author of the career management guide, Mondays Stink! 23 Secrets to Rediscover Delight and Fulfillment in Your Work. He is a career coach for those going through interesting transitions, and works with small business owners who need to create breakthroughs in achieving their business goals. Find out more at www.Dierschow.com and www.SmallFish.us.If you are interested in individual career coaching, group coaching, or other resources which might help you with difficult choices, please contact Carl at carl@dierschow.com.

Connect with Carl on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get timely updates and connections to a broader range of professionals.

The right amount of worry

Carl — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 20:44:19 +0000

War! Famine! Insane politics! The world’s falling apart!Yes, I have days like this too. It’s just amazing how many things there are to worry about these days. And the news is so instantaneous, so global, that any problem anywhere can instantly contribute to my stress level.What do people do? Turn off the news, retreat into Facebook and mindless entertainment.

What would be better? To have a general awareness of the world to provide context, but to focus 98% on the things you can actually affect: your family, your community, perhaps one or two larger causes which connect with your core purpose.

The ideal is to spend your worry on things you can help improve.

For example, my list of passions at the moment are:

My family, including my daughter’s wedding and my son’s career launch
My spiritual life, including devotion to learning and promoting sacred music
My business success, including learning, establishing credibility, getting clients, and delivering awesome coaching
Contributing to the success of small business in the community
Helping the disadvantaged and needy

I was pondering whether to include anything about the American political system in that, but honestly, I won’t start thinking much about my vote until much closer to the election. Until then, I maintain a bit of awareness of progress on key issues, but I don’t worry much because there’s not much I can do.

OK, I could do something, but I choose to spend my energies elsewhere. I’m just fine with that tradeoff.

These five things tie back very closely to my core beliefs and goals right now, which is what makes them so powerful. If there’s something that needs my energy to worry about, it also warrants spending some energy to help fix it.

How are your worries aligned with your beliefs and goals? Are you worrying about things you have no intent to try to improve?

Nurturing optimism

Carl — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:57:56 +0000

I’d like to be optimistic, but it’s not that easy. The economy’s terrible, the election’s coming up this year, people are still losing their houses, …

Here’s how I do it.

You may have some friends or colleagues who are “toxic people.” You know the type: For every positive sign, they can recite five negative ones. They relish in the opportunity to point out the black cloud behind the silver lining.

And, let’s face it, there’s a certain amount of perverse pleasure in complaining. It’s easy, and doesn’t carry the risk that you might actually have to DO something.

But the end result, over time, is that you take on the attitude of a slave. Other people have the opportunity and right to do things, and all you can do is to respond. You’ve lost all your freedom.

That’s no way to spend your life.

So the first challenge is to limit the amount of time you spend with these toxic “friends.” If three minutes a day is all you can take, then listen for that time, don’t participate much, and walk away. Maybe they’ll learn and adjust over time, but it’s not your job to try to “fix” other people.

Do the same with the media you consume. I had a podcast that I listened to faithfully for several years, and really enjoyed. But it was all about complaining and pointing out faults, not about coming up with useful solutions. I started noticing that after listening, I would become cynical for the rest of the day.

Because I don’t want to be that kind of person, I had to give up the podcasts. Guess what? I’m more positive now.

The third thing I do is to actively look for – and celebrate – positive signs. Last week my son had two high-value interviews, after having none for a year. Let’s consider that as a sign that his industry is turning up, and that he’s shifting his focus to get a little more serious about the job search. A year’s worth of new experience has helped as well!

I’ve been getting a sense that there’s more optimism here in January 2012 than there was in January 2011. Measurable? Not really. But I’ve been doing my part to tell people that this has helped me to be more upbeat, in the hopes that I can spread it around a little more. It seems to be working, little by little.

A couple of months ago, on one of my blogs, I mentioned my little experiment with changing the standard hallway exchange: “How’s it going?” “Fine.” This actually means nothing in our culture, other than acknowledging the other person’s existence. It certainly doesn’t mean that I’m “fine”, it’s just the standard response.

I changed my response to things like “wonderful!” or “excellent!” in order to see how people would react. And they noticed, yes, but more important, it changed my outlook on the day. I found that by telling someone I was having a wonderful time, that it actually increased the chances that the day would indeed be wonderful. Because I was working to make it that way.

And don’t we all want wonderful days?

Connect with Carl on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get timely updates and connections to a broader range of professionals.

Ten people you really should know

Carl — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 02:08:03 +0000

It’s not WHAT you know, it’s WHO you know. Right? So who is it that you should know?

The implicit assumption is that if you want to get a new job, you need to know people who have jobs. But that could be ANYbody with decision-making authority, so it’s not as helpful as you’d like to think.

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

10 ways to improve your career over the holidays

Carl — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 01:37:51 +0000

Whew! It looks like we may actually survive to the end of 2011 – and it’s been a brutal year. If you’re lucky enough to have a job, you’ve probably worried about whether you’d keep it.

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

How gratitude makes your job better

Carl — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:15:30 +0000

Some years ago, I ran across a person who asked me, “How’s it going?”. I issued the standard answer, “fine,” thinking nothing of it. End of conversation, nothing interesting said.

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

Ten ways to improve the relationship with your boss

Carl — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 00:38:30 +0000

Yeah, your boss is a pain. Always getting on your case about something or other, and she never listens to your requests for some time off or making your job easier.

Realize that being a manager is a real job, and your boss is a real person. She probably doesn’t WANT to make your life miserable, she just finds it a necessary part of getting the work done.

Pick the right battles

Carl — Sat, 08 Oct 2011 02:39:07 +0000

Your spouse just called and told you that the weekend is now all booked up. You were hoping to have the chance to get some fun stuff done around the house, and now your hopes have been dashed. And you’re going to have to disappoint your friend you were going to meet up with.

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

Brag while being modest

Carl — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 02:00:06 +0000

I’m an awesome coach. Good looking, tremendously experienced, and I help my clients succeed in amazing ways.

How did that sound? Authentic? No, I didn’t think so.

Read more on my Workbloom blog»

The balance of giving and taking

Carl — Mon, 25 Jul 2011 18:11:50 +0000

The Career You’ll Love

Sponsored by Carl Dierschow’s career blog at www.Dierschow.com

Welcome to my career tips newsletter! I encourage you to pass this to anyone who might have an interest in revitalizing their career – instructions for subscribing are at the bottom.

The balance of giving and taking

I have several blogs, as you may have discovered. On a regular basis, I get emails from other blog sites which say something like:

I’ve been following your blog for some time, and like what you have to say. You might want to know that I’ve just published a new article on ________. If you find it interesting, I’d appreciate if you could mention it on your blog.

Now, I really like helping out other people, so on occasion I’ve obliged. But after having received dozens of nearly identical requests, I’ve stopped participating. I feel a bit of a curmudgeon for doing that, but this is what’s been concerning me:

Even though the sites have looked a bit legitimate, I have vague suspicions that there’s something underhanded going on. Especially when there’s no contact details on the website and the description is something vague like “we provide resources for people who ….” – it sounds like maybe they’re just trying to build up their Google rankings with not much value for real people.
One day, I received essentially identical requests from two different names for two different websites – at about 3am, my time. This would indicate that there’s probably some Google ranking company pushing their services out in Asia someplace. I don’t buy services from those kinds of companies, and I don’t want to contribute, even indirectly, to plugging their companies.
I’ve never once received any kind of thank you for having done this, and I get no sense that the writer knows or cares anything about me as a person.

The first two are logical, the third is an emotional reaction. But social interactions – people helping people in communities of shared interest – are built primarily on emotional attachments.

What do we learn from all this? That your work in building networks, increasing your influence, and knowing the right people, is built on both emotional and logical connections.

Don’t downplay the emotional.

When you give freely to others, when you show gratitude, when you put yourself at service, you create emotional bonds that are incredibly resilient and memorable.

You can carry this into manipulation, of course. In that e-mail above, the person said they appreciated my blog. That felt great – it stroked my ego – the first couple of times, but I’ve discovered that it’s inauthentic. What’s different from REAL appreciation is that this person said nothing specific, either about what I’d done or the value they received.

It’s easy to say “I appreciate what you do.” It’s much harder, and has much more impact, to explain WHY.

The same goes for social media. Most comments I see aren’t conversations, they’re just throwaways which are generated by people who have too much time and easy access to technology. This is exactly how Twitter has gotten such a bad image to the non-Twitterverse.

In my case, I don’t spend much time on social media networks. When I do, I’m looking for substantial conversations where people are helping each other.

Other than that, I’m looking to help people In Real Life. For real.

If you are interested in individual career coaching, group coaching, or other resources which might help you with difficult choices, please contact Carl at carl@dierschow.com.

Connect with Carl on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to get timely updates and connections to a broader range of professionals.

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