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.
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?
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?
- Please take my reader survey and tell me what you think about Higher Ed Career Coach. It’s 11 questions and shouldn’t take long. Also, SurveyMonkey will be selecting one recipient at the end of June to receive a $25 Amazon gift card. So give your feedback and get a chance to win!
- Please like the Cook Coaching Facebook page and join the career discussion boards there!
- Follow Higher Ed Career Coach on Twitter
- Connect with me on LinkedIn
- Sign Up for our mailing list and get early announcements about upcoming site features, workshops and coaching specials.
- If you are interested in one of the upcoming summer groups or workshops, follow the links below.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | Jun 14, 2011 | Career Skills, Negotiation, Site News
Games are always a part of business, and many times a part of life. Whether you enjoy a game or not depends on a couple of factors:
- Whether you want to play a game
- Whether you are playing the same game others are playing
- Whether you agree with the other players about how the game should be played
- Whether one side or the other has an unfair advantage (or is cheating)
- How big the risk is, in comparison to the reward
I’m not a hard-core gamer. I appreciate those who are, and can identify with where they are coming from. I used to play video games quite a bit, but I wasn’t very good at them. Not terrible, just easily bored. I only have a certain amount of energy to put into playing a game, and when I get bored, I usually stop playing and don’t go back to the game for a long, long time–and then more to figure out why I liked it, or to intentionally waste time. So, in most cases, I don’t want to play games (at least not the ones other people are playing.) Tactical exchange bores me easily, because I’m less worried about objectives, and more worried about winning the war.
This is different for me if the game is strategic, but most video games aren’t. They are tactical, and have clear objectives, definite results, and limited rewards. I like that stuff for a little while, but overall, I am a strategic, long-haul thinker, and as a result, people don’t get what I’m doing, because I am often playing another game altogether (a game within the game, or a game I am making up outside of the game.) So it’s about understanding game theory, more than winning a particular game
I also don’t believe that life is a zero-sum game, like poker, where someone has to lose for others to win. I actually think that cooperative games, played over the long haul, can result in unexpected outcomes for all players. The point of playing the game is still to win. But more than one person can win, and it doesn’t have to be at the expense of others.
This doesn’t remove the need to be self-interested and protect your goals. It just means that you don’t have to take something away from others to win. It does reinforce the inherent need to keep others from causing you harm. Like I said before, I generally prefer not to play games. But if forced to play, I do my best to win. And if people go for my throat, I don’t hesitate to fight back, and to do so on my own terms.
In a couple of recent conversations, I’ve tried explaining to people what exactly I am trying to do with my coaching business, programs and websites. They didn’t get it. I had a conversation with another person about these conversations. It was a social setting and this was a friend, so our talk was free-flowing as we had beers with a few others involved in a community organization (Athfest) that I am involved in.
These are the conclusions we arrived at:
- I need to do a better job explaining myself and what I do.
- Other people probably still won’t get it, because they think I am playing a different game. And…
- People will understand what I am talking about in five years, when it’s an established way of doing things, and accepted as common wisdom and common practice.
What game are you playing?
Whose rules are you playing by?
How committed are you to winning?
Did You Enjoy This Post?
- Please take my reader survey and tell me what you think about Higher Ed Career Coach. It’s 11 questions and shouldn’t take long. Also, SurveyMonkey will be selecting one recipient at the end of June to receive a $25 Amazon gift card. So give your feedback and get a chance to win!
- Please like the Cook Coaching Facebook page and join the career discussion boards there!
- Follow Higher Ed Career Coach on Twitter
- Connect with me on LinkedIn
- Sign Up for our mailing list and get early announcements about upcoming site features, workshops and coaching specials.
- If you are interested in one of the upcoming summer groups or workshops, follow the links below.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | May 27, 2011 | Career Skills, Job Search, Podcast
In any job, some things come easy, and some come hard. This is definitely true for positions in higher education, even at the entry level, but even moreso as you move up the ladder. This week on the Grill, John Mayo and I will be discussing the right ways and the wrong ways to answer questions in your interview about what you think will come easily in a new position, and what will require a steep learning curve.
This weeks we tackle two thought-provoking and tightly connected questions that ask you to share your thoughts about how your strengths and weaknesses match up to the position you are applying for.
“Given your current level of education, skills and experience:
- What part of the position will be easiest for you, and why?
- What part of the position will require the steepest learning curve and how will you approach closing the gap?”
The show today is pre-recorded and due to a minor disaster here in Athens (see photo), we will not have the live call-in portion of the show, as a storm blew down a branch onto my house and cars and I am working on cleanup and insurance-claim-related stuff.
To listen, use the player in the sidebar.
by sean@higheredcareercoach.com | May 19, 2011 | Career Skills, work/life balance
Paralyzed in fright by a choice in front of you?
It’s easy to build up a decision in your mind until it’s reached monolithic heights. The more important a choice feels, and the more distinct the options you choose from,
the higher the likelihood that you will feel paralyzed by it. This is especially true when you find yourself needing to choose between things
you are passionate about and weigh them against the things
you need to do and
your available time.
More than likely, you have at least one situation in your life that tugs on you this way, and leaves you feeling that the choice is always
all or nothing. I wrote about this the other day, in reference to a friend’s dilemma in setting priorities so that he could devote more time and energy to his business.
My answer to this sort of “analysis paralysis” that strikes many job-seekers and career-builders: do what the
Ghostbusters always did in their movies.
People told them not to cross the beams, but they did.
Every. Single. Time.
And the ghosts went away.
Nothing in life is all or nothing.
- What if you took your multiple passions out of the different corners of your career and crossed those beams?
- Could you bring your colleagues into your life, your family into your work, and find ways to combine your personal interests with your career goals?
- Could you really have it all?
- And if so, why are you spending your time and energy fretting over a choice, rather than looking for ways not to choose?
When you follow your passions, you get others to help carry your load, and get the “likable authority” points that come with bringing the right people together. It’s a different kind of wealth that you build when you do this. It’s not money, but you will get steady, purposeful work and hopefully, time to nurture your ideas more fully.
So cross the beams already. I double-dog dare you!
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