Threshold Consulting: It's Your Life, Own It!

Career Advice – From the Dating Section

Being an avid Men’s Health reader, I’ve nearly devoured my January/February issue with advice for making 2008 a great year. I admit to being a little disappointed with the career section. It offered good advice on ways to improve your job today, how to double your salary in two years, and the eight best days to take off work – but seemed pretty short range in terms of career impact.

On the other hand, there was better long-term advice in the dating section which offered “5 Ways to Meet the Love of Your Life.” So, what’s that got to do with careers? Think networking, and especially consider the time it takes to build significant and meaningful relationships. With some adaptations, here is the advice:

Strike up conversations with 10 strangers a day. According to the article this is a great way to “build up immunity to rejection, … [and] … practice ice breakers and quick responses.” Not up to striking up that many daily conversations with new people? Find ways to be in touch with people in your network, whether it’s a quick e-mail or phone call to let them know you’re thinking of them or wonder how they’re doing. Most people will appreciate the thought.

Are You Preparing for Careers 3.0?

I recently read and reviewed Thomas L. Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. Essentially, Friedman discusses what he calls Globalization 3.0, and pointed out lots of implications for how people will work and learn to remain competitive. Not surprisingly, in the course of reading the book and writing my review, it occurred to me that there must be a 3.0 version of managing your career.

If so, I believe it will include: 

- the ability to leverage the “flat-world” platform, including the ability to function seamlessly in a digital, mobile, personal, and virtual world;

- a  shift toward running one’s career on a more a more creative, collaborative, value-oriented, and customer-focused basis;

- having a grasp of one’s unique promise of value as well as one’s strengths – and the ability to communicate that to clients and customers;

- being proactive and responsible:  creating not waiting for work assignments, and figuring out what to do next and not who to blame next.

You can read my full Amazon review here. Then, if you haven’t already done so, read this book and see why you need to take your career to the next level.