Work is full of planning and goal setting. Annual business plans. Monthly plans to meet sales goals. Weekly planning meetings. Daily to-do lists that tie to those goals and plans. Yet, we don’t typically have that same type of planning for our career and our life...
Gallup has focused on measuring employee engagement for over 20 years. Since 2009, engagement has been steadily rising through 2020. Then, the decline began. 2021 brought a drop from 36% to 34% and with the 2022 data the numbers are now down to 32%. This takes us back...
There are two distinctive camps when it comes to loving our work. Do what you love. OR Love what you do. Do what you love suggests we follow our passion. “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” - Confucius On the other side, loving...
Many articles have been written about soft skills and life skills that schools don’t teach. The skills can loosely be grouped into the categories below: Home Management – Personal finance, cooking, and cleaning Career as a Business – Job Hunting, Negotiating,...
In 2009, Paul Graham coined the difference between a maker and a manager schedule in a blog post. In the world of work, these schedules are quite distinct. The manager schedule is the more traditional schedule seen in corporate environments. Managers...
As we continue to see more hybrid professionals in the workplace, they will be creating careers that satisfy all their passions. Some of those may be passions described as more analytical or technical. Another side of their interests could be creative and...
I came across a note I had taken from a book or podcast that said this: “Paths (career/education) pull you back, while passions and purpose propel you forward.” Unknown The quote intrigued me and tied to the long-standing debate around following your passions. A...
Many individuals have multiple interests. Some they are trained on or went to school for, while others are learned through self-discovery. Personally, over the years, it has been difficult to sort out where to put my focus and understand the relationships between my...
Yesterday, we discussed how personal development can be thought of as a quest. Thinking deeper about this, the journey of life is full of quests. Living on our own. Raising babies….toddlers…teenagers…young adults. Navigating our careers. Starting a business....
An adventure is a trip without a destination. A journey is when experience is more important than the destination. The quest is focused on exploration and discovery seeking a goal or result. Quests are personally relevant and can be done alone or with a group. They...
There was an article in The Guardian titled “Feel like quitting your job or your relationship? Maybe you should…”. The premise of the article that we may have gone too far with the Grit Culture made popular by Angela Duckworth’s book Grit: The Power of Passion...
Companies have a board of directors. The group provides high-level guidance on business strategy and performance. Board members offer an outside perspective and have different areas of expertise. What if we had the same for our career development? A group...
A career coach is often only discussed as someone is well into their career. The concept of having a coach is foreign to many. Common questions include: What is the role of a coach? How is this different from a mentor? And how much does it cost? There are many...
When we look for advice on our career, there are a lot of options. You can seek advice from books, 1on1 with others, and even within groups. Some options are free, while others take an investment. With each alternative, there is preparation needed. The...
When we hear the word portfolio, our minds typically go to a creative portfolio. This is where a designer, copywriter, photographer, or other creative can highlight their work. Why isn’t this practice present for knowledge workers in other disciplines?...
The concept of thought leadership has been on my mind lately. The dictionary definition of a thought leader is “a person whose views are taken to be authoritative and influential. Some articles suggest that thought leaders have a following while “regular”...
We will each hold an average of 12 different jobs in our lifetimes. This means that we will have many opportunities to adjust to how we fold into a new position. With each move, we need to learn a lot about the company, work, and co-workers. At the same time,...
While there aren’t any statistics available on the percentage of the population that identifies as being multi-passionate, there are some trends that indicate an increase in following multiple career passions. Rise of Gig Economy – Individuals working in the gig...
Yesterday we talked about “unicorns” at work introducing the concepts of I-, T-, and M-Shaped individuals. Today, I want to expand that conversation to another category. These are the multi-passionate or sometimes referred to as hybrid professionals. They...
Companies are looking for more creativity and innovation. This creativity often comes from looking at problems through different lenses. At the team level, this can be fostered by increasing the diversity of the team members ensuring there are varied...
I read a recent article in Fast Company titled “Five Key Skills New Managers Will Need This Year”. This is a good article full of statistics about transitions back to the office and hybrid work. The focus is around the responsibility of implementing return to office...