Monthly Archive for July, 2008

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The coaching explosion

Published on July 14, 2008 in Society. 0 Comments Tags: .

photo by pixel_addict

I’m begrudgingly hiring someone to do a resume and cover letter makeover. Begrudgingly, because it seems absurd that I should need that service, but I’m not getting results myself.  And in considering Einstein’s definition of insanity — “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results” — it’s high time I shake things up after almost a year of getting no where.

When I was in high school — a long, long time ago in the 1990s — a conscientious student took at SAT prep class to ensure the best scores possible.  I spent my summer with the Princeton Review, an instructor who brought a pet hedgehog in for show & tell, and a guy who frequently arrived to class shoeless because he liked to drive barefoot.  That class covered the parental responsibility of their child’s college preparedness.

Today, parents hire pre-school admissions counselors and overbook their 2 year olds.  Teens are more self-conscious than ever; thanks to media, parents, and peers; creating a need for self-esteem coaching. SAT prep classes are no longer optional, and college application counselors are run of the mill, but it’s not the end of the coaching story.  Pending college grads need resume writers and career coaches before setting off for the real world.  Just around the corner is the quarterlife crisis, another bump in the road we all work to smooth.

Once you’ve made peace with whatever kind of career you want to have, the promotion choo-choo is calling all-aboard.  So you can hire coaches to make you a better communicator and to develop your leadership potential.

But let’s say you settle into a job you love, surrounded by great friends.  If you are unhappy that you haven’t found “the one” yet, you can turn to a variety of dating coaches. But once you’ve found “the one”, chances are you’ll want to be one size smaller come your wedding day, so you can hire coach support for that endeavor as well, beyond the personal trainers that push you to do one more set of crunches.

Since women juggle their career with a larger slice of the parenting pie in many homes, a motherhood coach just might be in order.  But don’t fret young dads, you can hire the sleep coach (I’m not kidding) to best manage baby zzzzs, so that everyone gets a more restful shut eye.

At this point, you’re dragging your children into the world of coaching, while you turn to a variety of experts for your own growth at different stages of your personal and professional life.  At what point is enough, enough?  This coaching culture reinforces the feeling of inadequacy that the advertising industry works so hard to instill.  Do we really have to spend what amounts to a second college degree on umpteen sets of rules on how to be good, better, best?  Can you ever be good enough at anything to warrant putting a stop to the coaching?   When I’m in my final years of life, will I be hiring the hospice coach that will teach me to drape, just so, across my pillow, so I can expire with the best show of dignity and resignation?

It makes you wonder, what happens to all the people who can’t afford coaching?

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QOD: Women Who Run With the Wolves

Published on July 12, 2008 in Books. 0 Comments Tags: , .

“Do not cringe and make yourself small if you are called the black sheep, the maverick, the lone wolf. Those with slow seeing say a nonconformist is a blight on society. But it has been proven over the centuries, that being different means standing at the edge, means one is practically guaranteed to make an original contribution, a useful and stunning contribution to her culture. . .

If you have ever been called defiant, incorrigible, forward, cunning, insurgent, unruly, rebellious, you’re on the right track. Wild Woman in close by.”

Clarissa Pinkola Estes, author of  Women Who Run with the Wolves

Video of Day: Arianna Huffington on Life

Published on July 11, 2008 in Useful Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , , , , , .

I wish I could post the video here, but WordPress makes it really difficult to post non-YouTube stuff.

Click through to listen to Arianna Huffington’s 23-minute talk on work-life balance, self-doubt, relationships and giving back, given at the 2008 WEB Women in Business? conference. It’s worth a listen.

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QOD: Dawna Markova

Published on July 10, 2008 in Uncategorized. 0 Comments Tags: , .

I will not die an unlived life.
I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.
I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me,
to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart
until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.
I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed,
goes to the next as blossom
and that which comes to me as blossom,
goes on as fruit.
— Dawna Markova, Author of The Open Mind: Exploring the 6 Patterns of Natural Intelligence

Practice, practice, practice

Published on July 9, 2008 in Useful Stuff. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

I keep telling people I have lots of ideas, that I’d love to pull into a novel, but I’m so worried about writing badly, I don’t even try.

As one friend pointed out to me — thinking about all the cars on the roads in the US. Very few are porsches that go from 0 to 60 in seconds. Writers are the same way, very few are brilliant coming out of the gate, which is why there are rewrites and multiple drafts.

Thanks Blue Gal!

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YouTube find: Lisa Nova as Affirmation Girl

Published on July 7, 2008 in Entertainment and Gen Y. 0 Comments Tags: , , .

Lisa Nova periodically uploads episodes featuring the life of Affirmation Girl, a women who is hell bent on embracing positive affirmations, despite the ongoing drama in her life. It’s R-rated YouTubery, so you need to have an YouTube account (making you age verified) to view.

Welcome: Affirmation Girl

Your Body is a Temple

In other parodies by Nova, enjoy Dumb Water

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Part 2: The Personal and Professional Benefits of Philanthropy

Published on July 6, 2008 in Society. 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

photo by mickyates

In Part 1, I discussed how volunteerism is cool again.  In this post, I will share some of the direct personal benefits of community service.

A long term commitment to volunteering for a cause you believe in is more than a line item on your resume. Here are 5 reasons you should find a 501c3 to support with your time and energy.  Since there are almost 2 million of them in the US, there’s at least one that matches your interests.

Networking

There’s no better opportunity to meet friendly people in your community.  If you’re new to town, charity work introduces you to locals with at least one thing in common with you — your own cause celebre.

While volunteering, you also might find yourself crossing paths with others in your industry.  While tutoring underserved teens or teaching Fido to sit before adoption day, you might meet someone at a competing firm with an opening that peaks your interest or find another client for your business.  If you’re exceptionally ambitious, you might research where key executives (at your company of choice) volunteer, so you can intend to make their acquaintance over your “shared” love of Hungarian culture.

Leadership skills

I’ve already discussed the implication of early and steady development of leadership skills in part one.

Since non-profits rely on volunteers to keep the mission alive,  these students would have real world, quantifiable experiences. Imagine helping raise $1 million to fight cancer or doubling membership numbers for an organization before the age of 21.  Accordingly,  it might give college graduates a chance to bypass the entry level grunt work that yields corporate churn and help allay Boomer concerns about inexperienced twenty somethings looking for a fast track to management.

New and existing skills put to use

Volunteers typically look to apply skills they already have. If you work in PR, you can hone your pitching skills garnering some media coverage of local charity events.  If you’re in business development, perhaps you can offer to cultivate potential cause marketing relationships and other partnerships.  Sales professionals might just find they can help with fundraising if they apply their schmooze skills to corporate giving decision makers.

I’ve found the opportunity to learn new skills even more satisfying.  Knowing I wanted to move out of research, I looked for gaps in the offerings of Step Up Women’s Network, an organization I regularly volunteer with.  In focusing on how to extend their brand on the web, I put together a proposal looking at the best sites to target and how competing groups use the space.  Since then, I’ve worked to implement some of those proposed ideas.    So I now have a great example of my ability to identify a weakness, strategize potential solutions and implement the best ideas using limited resources.

And who can’t benefit from improved communication skills.  Volunteering at events turns you into an ambassador for the organization.   Successful liasing with guests and members could yield important donations and sponsorships for the organization.  These interactions make you more prepared to handle clients and senior management at the work place.

Local recognition

People like to be validated for their efforts.  That’s why the local chamber of commerce, leadership groups, and, very likely, your favorite charity acknowledge the contributions of community members throughout the year.  Just being nominated means an invitation to the festivities swirling with potential business contacts.  Whether or not you take home a certificate, your name is out there as someone committed to the ideals of the group.  And being associated with a commitment to philanthropy and improving your community is NEVER a bad thing.

Feel good fuzzies

At the end of the day, it just feels good to do something positive.  Trust me, you’ll sleep better knowing that you’ve brought a smile to a cancer patient’s face or that those three dogs that would have been euthanized have new homes because you sold their adoptive parents on the joys of pet ownership. Being a Big Brother or Sister to a kid living on the poverty line helps you to count your own blessings and put your problems in perspective.

Sure, being altruistic can seem selfish at times, but all the best relationships are two-way streets.

How has volunteering impacted your life?

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QOD: Ray Bradbury on writing

Published on July 3, 2008 in Books. 0 Comments Tags: , .

photo by travelinlibrarian

To sum it all up, if you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling.

You must write every single day of your life.

You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next.

You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads.

I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime.

I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you.

May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories – science fiction or otherwise.

Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.

Thanks Melissa!

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Networking must: business cards

Published on July 1, 2008 in Business. 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Whether or not your company shells out for business cards, it’s in your best interest to have a set and keep several on your person at all times. Anytime you leave your apartment (and when your roommate has guests) you have an opportunity to build your network.

There’s nothing worse than making a connection with some one, and neither party has readily available contact info.

Last year I ran into a friend at an event.  Having just started at a new job, she didn’t yet have business cards.  Her solution was to jot down her info over and over again in a mini-spiral bound notebook to distribute.  I wondered why she didn’t just type up her info in a word doc and cut and paste a dozen times per page over two columns.  Seemed like a simpler and less time consuming way to go.   And then there’s my friend who jots down her deets on a post it note. . .it’s not the best first impression you can make, and there’s no guarantee the other person will be able to read your handwriting.

Make it easy on your self and order your own cards.  Vista Print literally gives away boxes of business cards, offering 100 different designs.   If you want to be a little more creative, visit Moo.  While you can choose from a variety of designs on the site, for the same cost you can personalize their products. They offer adorable mini-cards, and you can upload the graphics of your choosing to grace the flipside of the card.  What’s really cool is that for every box of 100 cards (at $19.99 plus shipping), you can upload up to 100 images, so you can have each card be entirely unique, or you can stick with one signature image. I’m waiting for my latest order to arrive, using 10 different images.

They just introduced full-size business cards this month.  Though a bit more expensive at $21.99 for 50 cards, they offer the same customization options.  And until July 31st, you can take 20% of your full-size card order by using the discount code 2TJWUN when placing your order.

Having your own cards looks professional and leaves one less thing to think about when networking socially or for work.  Always keep a few in your pocket, preferably the left pocket,  so while you shake with your right hand, you can whip out your cards with your left.

As a random aside, I recently ordered a pack of their stickers (uploading about 80 different images) to decorate my new MacBook, which is just too white.  It looks like I’ll need to order one more book of them to full cover the white spaces, but I’ve definitely made my computer my own.

Past post on business cards: Golden Rule of Networking

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