by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 21, 2011 | Career Skills, Coaching, Higher Education
The unfortunate reality of being a convergent is that people don’t get you. As I mentioned last week in my posts on game theory, convergents are hard to “get” because people try too hard to fit them neatly into their own boxes (or circles) and to define what they know and what they do in familiar terms.
Convergents are not happy when constrained by familiarity and party-line thinking. They like to learn what others are doing, and integrate new knowledge, practices, and ideas into their own personal frameworks. They are those who give birth to new ideas and ways of doing things.
Convergent thinking and convergent practice have always been at the center of my personal journey and progress. The idea for Higher Ed Career Coach was born out of convergence of my personal and professional circumstances, and what I recognized as the needs of a field straining to adapt to the realities of reduced budgets, economic pressures of the marketplace, the changing expectations of Millennials coming into the workplace, and the impacts of new technology and social media, upon the education industry’s ecosystem.
I’d reached a point in my career when I knew…absolutely knew that the system as a whole was broken, and that my personal circumstances were a great example of what was wrong with the system. I also knew that my frustration with that fact was going to ruin me and my career. So the best thing I could do, for myself, my employer, and for the profession, was to move on.
But I had a strong commitment to the profession, and a strong belief that I could be a part of the broader discussions that would move our institutions and our field forward. So I founded my websites and began developing my personal brand as a life and career coach for persons in higher education. I’d been talking about becoming a coach on and off for five or six years at that point, but had finally taken some practical steps to research coach training programs and to really work on understanding the best way to become certified through a reputable program and to make a radical career change. That’s my story. What’s yours?
- What points of convergence have led you to new discoveries in your career?
- How can you bring together your personal interests into a career concept that will help you move forward?
- What can you do to drive change in higher education?
- Are you doing those things?
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by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 20, 2011 | Coaching, Higher Education, Interview Tips, Job Search, job search tools, Student Affairs
Are you still looking for a job in higher education? If so, my summer coaching special may be for you!
I’ve been having a few issues with getting my sales page done for the summer coaching special, but wanted to let people know the details. Sales pages can come later. The important thing is the offer.
Here it is:
For $50 month for 3 months and the balance $150 within 6 months? ($300 total), here’s what you will get:
- 4 sessions of 45 minutes to an hour (4 coaching hours) over 3 months-by end of September
- Unlimited brief e-mails and phone coaching/catch-ups of 20 minutes or less for 6 months. (until the new year)
- Membership in the online group and all activities there, to do on your own, and work out your strategy. I will be participating in the discussions.
- Free admission to select job-search webinars and teleseminars for 3 months.
- Ability to renew at the same rate for 3 more months if you don’t have a job.
- Money back guarantee if you are not satisfied for any reason, as long as you have actively engaged in coaching and activities.
If this sounds okay to you, I can invoice you via PayPal for $50/month for the next 3 months. You would need to pay the PayPal service fees. Or you could send me a check.
Either way, I am hoping there will be interest. I am equipped and ready to take a maximum of 20 job-seekers at any time, so respond now if you are interested. I will have a waiting list, if necessary, but if you need help now, that probably won’t do it for you. So don’t wait!
If all this sounds good, e-mail me at sean@higheredcareercoach.com and I will get you online access to the course and an invitation to the course e-mail list.
I have already had several inquiries without even advertising, so I expect this group to fill quickly. Don’t let that discourage you, but also don’t sit on your hands.
Let’s get you a job this fall. Act now.
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by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 20, 2011 | Career Skills
All my life, I have been an outsider. But not a conventional outsider, in the Rebel Without A Cause, the Outsiders, or even a [insert your favorite John Hughes film title] kind of outsider. I’m something different, and I thought that understanding a bit more about me and who I am might help readers relate to my coaching philosophy, and to understand the Unique Value Proposition of the Higher Ed Career Coach site and the programs and services I offer. I’m doing this in response to feedback from my recent reader survey, and as a result of some conversations I’ve had with others recently about what exactly this brand is and is not about.
As I mentioned, I’ve always been an outsider of sorts. But I’ve always been an insider of a different sort, or of several different sorts. I wasn’t a jock, I was the manager. I wasn’t a complete nerd, but definitely a geek. I was in AP classes but thought they were boring, and never tried very hard in them. I wasn’t a redneck, a prep, a punk or a stoner, but I knew and got along with all of them. I’ve spent all my life existing at points of convergence…those areas where circles cross, lines get blurred, and no one is exactly sure where to say it is that you belong.
It’s the burden of people that Jack Kerouac called the “mad ones” in his epic They danced down the street like dingledodies, and I shambled after them, as I’ve been doing all my life, after people who interest me. The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes “Awww!”
These are the people who this brand serves…the people like me, who have various interests and skills, but somehow find themselves stuck, because they “get” too much, but focus too little, who believe more in honesty and drive than in positioning and “angles.” The ones who want to do good work, in many areas, and earn the respect of others for their intellect, honesty, integrity, creativity and originality.
These are the people who exist and are most comfortable living at points of convergence, moving in and out of groups, because of an innate interest in relating to people and their interests. They are the people that smash old ideas together and bring new ideas to life.
They are the convergents. They are my people, and if you are reading this, you are probably one of them. Welcome to our point of convergence. Let’s see where we can go, together.
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by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 16, 2011 | Career Skills, life purpose, Negotiation
Games are played when you take calculated risks, in anticipation of potential rewards. So let’s finish out this week’s discussion of game theory, careers and business by examining the risk-to-reward ratio, and how you should figure it out.
If you work with me, you do have some level of risk, because I will tell you outright that I can’t get you a job, and I won’t guarantee that you end up with one. Nothing takes that responsibility off of your shoulders. I can only offer my personal commitment to my clients, and I don’t work with every client who comes to me. I only work with those I feel I can help. To do otherwise just amounts to taking people’s money. And like I said earlier, I’m not motivated by money. I do fear not having it, but in reputational businesses like coaching, you are only as good as two things…your coaching skills and your honest commitment that if you can’t help someone, you’ll return their money. I will.
I’ve been blogging for two years and coaching professionally for year and a half, and so far (knock on wood!) no one has ever asked me for their money back. I’ve offered to return payment to a couple of clients who had a hard time getting jobs, and even offered one client more than once, but so far, I’ve never had to return a client’s payment. I don’t even have a time period on asking for it back. I may some day, but for now, I’m the Land’s End of the coaching world. Satisfaction guaranteed or your money back. Period.
For me, what are the risks and what are the potential rewards?
Well, here is where I’m going to be brutally honest with you about what I’ve risked to get my business and my websites to this point, and what the rewards have been.
Risks:
- Left a standing position at a great university that I could have retired from.
- Left all the benefits that came with it, except for COBRA, which expired at the end of last month. Probably the most risky thing I did, because I knew that leaving a group plan might mean that I would lose my health benefits and not be able to get them back, because I have a neurological condition. We have insurance for Sarah and the kids, but I’m having to go through some hoops and am currently uninsured, though I’m hoping that will be done soon, too.
- I now have to self-fund my salary, pay all my expenses for my home, my life and my business out of savings and income, and now I have a lawyer, more insurance and an accountant. I’m not going to go into numbers here, but let’s just cut to the chase…I’ve spent way more than I’ve made, and I’ve given away at least ten times what I’ve sold. It hasn’t been easy, but I have no regrets. Not one.
Rewards
- A sense of personal satisfaction when I help people get jobs they want, or into the graduate programs they hoped for.
- Less stress in my daily life, and almost complete control over my projects and my schedule.
- More time with my wife, kids, and extended family.
- More time for community activities, like Athfest, the Athens Half Marathon, and talking with people who interest me, like artists, musicians, writers, small business owners and even the homeless people who hang out on College Avenue in downtown Athens across from Holmes/Hunter Building and the Arch.
- More time to write, create, philosophize, and stir the pot, to come up with new ideas, crash old ones together, and see where the conversation goes.
Taking a look at all the above, and factoring in what I have spent, versus what I have made, you might be tempted to say I’m not winning. But you’d be thinking about the battle, while I’m thinking about the war, so you’d be wrong. I know what I am fighting to do, and why I am doing it. If you don’t understand that, then maybe you’re not playing the same game.
What rules are you playing by?
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by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 15, 2011 | Career Skills, Coaching, life purpose, Negotiation, Site News
In my last post, I talked about game theory and how it informs my view of careers and business, and concluded that I need to do a better job explaining what game I am playing.
Let’s get to it!
If I have a game, it’s called Putting Your Purpose to Work. The point of the game is lifting people up to live according to their purpose, and creating conversations that help organizations change in ways that allow them to do so. Specifically, I am doing this because I know it is needed, and that people like me need it.
I work primarily with educators because we (and society) routinely undervalue what we do, and we normalize it by accepting conventional wisdom and ways of doing things that are just plain wrong. The rules, as we are taught to accept them, limit the potential of those participating in the system, by strictly defining who can or cannot play, who is allowed on certain turf, and what rules apply, whether they make sense or not. Kind of reminds you of the times in elementary school when no one picked you for kickball, right? Well, that happened to me a lot, so I stopped playing kickball.
I played by the accepted rules for a long time, and it was killing me. So I changed the game, I bought my own turf, and I’ve been giving away tickets to the game for the last two years. Attendance has been low (only about 20,000 visits over the last two years), but for most of that time, I was playing it safe (or being overly cautious and driven by fear of bankrupting my family.) I have not been jumping the gate into anyone else’s stadium, I’m not playing their game nor accepting their rules. I’m not borrowing their field, and I’ve brought my own ball. This is a different game, I’m playing to a different audience, and I intend to win. I hope you win, too.
Who has an unfair advantage in this kind of scenario? Some might argue that it’s the established system, the old guard, and those people they accept and embrace as the next era of visionaries. Me, I say “meet the new boss, same as the old boss.” That’s business. That’s institutions. That’s closed-system thinking, which assumes that the only people who can get into the game are those with a ticket, or those who jump the gate.
I don’t need to jump the gate. I have my own stadium. It’s got great loudspeakers, a few loyal fans who get me (you know who you are, and thanks!), some others who seem at least mildly intrigued by what I am doing (even those who are annoyed by it or don’t completely understand it), and the beer’s pretty good over here. (No point in owning a stadium if you aren’t going to serve good beer, I say.)
What’s your game?
Whose rules are you playing by?
Do you intend to win?
If you do intend to win, will it be at someone else’s expense?
Did You Enjoy This Post?
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