Career
What Is Your Special Sizzle That Creates an Unfair Advantage?
There is no level playing field in life, despite the popularity of schools, companies, and services jubilantly claiming, “We create a level playing field!” Please. Who are you kidding? You can’t go through life as if you are playing a board game by the rules. Making sure that everyone is playing fair, and that no…
Read MoreHow to Navigate the Social Anxiety Minefield of Work
Psychology Today reported on a study that examined social anxiety and one’s awareness of it. The gist is that people who recognize, admit, and accept that they experience social anxiety are better at coping with it than people who blame themselves for having it, or try to pretend that it isn’t happening. The first step…
Read MoreDoes Job Hopping Actually Guarantee an Amazingly Successful Career?
Research has found that it is normal for us to think of work in one of three primary work orientations: job, career, or calling. Given my decades of experience across a vast range of industries and multicolor-collar jobs, I’ve seen that most people get their life satisfaction outside of work. For them, a job is…
Read MoreWhat Do I Actually Mean by “Career Freedom”?
Freedom is one of those words that gets tossed around so much that it sometimes loses meaning. In addition, freedom is an entirely subjective feeling. What provides and feels like freedom to one person can be absolutely oppressive to another. And the pursuit of freedom by one can sometimes lead to a loss of freedom by others. We’ve…
Read MoreNo, You Don’t Deserve to be Rich
I want you to say this out loud: “I deserve meaning” Not, “I deserve to be rich.” Not even, “I deserve to be happy.” No one deserves to be wealthy. The universe owes you nothing, despite the popularity of manifesting. Furthermore, research has increasingly shown that boosts in income may affect self-report of life satisfaction, but it actually does not improve emotional well-being beyond a certain…
Read MoreMedium Article – How to Leverage Introversion as a Career Strength
Most of us understand what it takes to advance our careers when we first start out as individual contributors (non-managers, or ICs for short): Get better at your craft, produce high-quality work on time, be dependable and reliable, work well with others, and don’t be a jerk. This approach worked well enough for me when…
Read MoreLarry Cornett podcast interview on Build Live Give
I was recently a guest on the Build Live Give podcast with the founder, Paul Higgins. I talked about my own career experiences over the past 23+ years, shared some startup pitching and funding advice, career tips, some of my favorite tech tools as an entrepreneur, and even a little about the age discrimination I’ve seen…
Read MoreThe Product of You – Receive the Recognition and Compensation You Deserve
When it comes to what you do for a living, you are the “Product.” You have decades of experience, a lifetime of knowledge, natural talent, and honed skills that you’ve been perfecting during the tenure of your career. You apply all of this to achieve results of some sort across units of time. Someone purchases…
Read MoreCareer interview with Mike Tschudy, Head of Design at Mint.com
I had the pleasure of talking with Mike Tschudy about his career path recently. Mike is the Head of Design for Mint.com. He shared a ton of good advice about intentionally planning your career, finding good sounding boards, and taking a step back occasionally to reevaluate your path. The full transcript of our discuss is below…
Read MoreHow to maximize your lifetime earning potential
Your biggest salary jumps typically occur when you accept a new job at another company. Once you’re inside the system the policies for raises and promotions aren’t very flexible. Your manager has a little wiggle room, but not much. That new job offer is your chance to make the biggest impact on your lifetime earning…
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