Archive | Career Success Tips

Less is More

Simple phrases make us think, energize us, and help us with our efforts to improve and reach new levels of understanding, happiness and achievement.  One of my favorites:  Be all you can be.    Here’s a valuable and proven phrase to help your job search, or career quest.  Less is More. 

Do you have a phrase that comes to mind or rings in your ears as a challenge or inspiration?

Focus your Message and Response

This applies to your job search documents as well as your conversations (including interviews).  Start by developing your success profile and then your documents (including your 1-page resume).  Your profile is your brand, your foundation, and is relevant to a possible employer. I encourage you to practice your examples and stories (preferably less than 60 seconds) for each of your traits/strengths.  Time is precious to you and those with whom you converse/interview.  Many have said that KISS is a powerful acronym and a way of life:  Keep It Simple, and Smart.

Shed and De-Clutter

Whether it’s our garage, desk, or mind, we can improve our lives with the acts of letting go of the past, embracing the future, and living in the present.  These are truly liberating actions.  Some suggestions include:  read Spencer Johnson’s The Present and being and living less in the past and future; try selling some of your `unused stuff’ and, consider sharing and giving and volunteering (whether it’s your time, talents or treasures).  Are you going to interviews with questions and an open mind or are you going with `all the answers’ and with `complexity’?  Most experts suggest that you leave the bling and bravo sierra behind.  Simplifying is liberating.

Think Outside the Box

Take time to think about alternatives, possibilities, and new directions.  Many have described insanity as `doing the same thing, over and over, and expecting different results’.  Remember that you’ve developed a variety of experiences and talents; and that someone needs you to help them solve problems and achieve their objectives.  Is it time to consider new objective(s) and/or a different and improved path for your pursuit of a new job?  Take Action and enjoy the journey, today!  Carpe Diem – one step at a time, one action at a time, and by:

• Networking – expanding your circle with a call, a follow-up, and a personal visit.
• Volunteering (offering assistance) and Learning while seeking your new position.
• Procrastinating less and taking more (positive and improved) action!

GO for your quest with this mantra:  Less is more.

My Own Job is an Attitude

Many of you are considering starting your own business; and some of you have done this in the past or have recently started a new venture.  Working for oneself in your own business is full of opportunity and some peril.  Literature, internet research and anecdotes from friends and family will detail the numerous plus and minus factors.  This issue profiles an entrepreneur and describes my own job?

An Entrepreneur:

An entrepreneur is a person who takes the risk of organizing and starting a new business venture.  S/he creates her/his own unique business or works as a member of a team as in multi-level marketing.  The successful ones demonstrate several characteristics such as:  are careful about money; earned money when they were teenagers; are competitive by nature; are risk-takers who trust their hunches and act on them; have a `head for business’; are usually loners rather than joiners; are usually honorable people who do business on a handshake or a promise; set aside time for leisure activities and family; don’t `retire’; are professionals and don’t let outside influences distract them; have high energy, feel self-confident, set long-term goals, and view money and financial security as a measure of accomplishment and peace of mind; compete with themselves and believe that success or failure lies within their personal control or influence; and work hard. [This profile is by Daile Tucker, publisher of Smart Shopper]  In a recent survey, over 80% of potential entrepreneurs said that `being their own boss’ was the main reason for becoming one.  You’re the one who has to make the decisions.

Do you have this profile?  With the help of thoughtful self-examination and feedback from others, you can answer this!  Then … develop an idea, a product or a service, and go for it.

My Own Job:

My own job is the attitude of working for oneself as well as working for and with others.  It is not only about providing the very best work output (products and services) for others but also an attitude of taking responsibility for quality, improvements, and relationships.  It is bottom- line empowerment.  It is not about dictating, controlling, or protecting your turf which are behaviors that stifle growth and create barriers to successful relationships and results.

Being an empowered employee or a boss is positive, rewarding and benefits others.  It requires developing both skills and personality traits.  Read or re-read Seven Habits of Successful People by Stephen Covey and work on one or two of them if you’re serious about your –my own job.

The bottom line is that our work lives require working with others: customers, and clients and patients; and colleagues, and teammates and subordinates and bosses; as well as investors and suppliers.  Successful work lives are about:  developing these relationships; developing our personalities; understanding and serving others; learning and applying new skills; and, producing and delivering the very best products and services.