Patterns, not problems, will ruin your business. . . “Problems aren’t the issue. Problems are the work.” --Dr. Henry Cloud As I've been thinking and writing about career resilience, one of the main points I've been emphasizing is that resilience is about the patterns we build into our lives. We tend to think of our careers as being very event-based, but in reality, the events we experience are a product... Read more →

Regular readers know that I'm a strong proponent of working for yourself. Even if you have a day-job, I think you should always be looking for ways to diversify your income streams as the next lay-off could be right around the corner, despite your best efforts. Yesterday's post on career resilience in action got me thinking about how the 4 patterns of resilience apply to those who run their own... Read more →

A few weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who started a solo business last year. I was sharing with her my thinking about career resilience and the 4 patterns of success, describing each in more detail. When we got to Connecting, she grew thoughtful. "I don't think I've been doing a lot with the Connecting pattern," she told me. "I've been focused on Clarifying and Creating and have... Read more →

I'm currently facilitating an 8-month long leadership course that meets monthly. Yesterday's topic was networking and connecting. As part of our work, I had them go through some exercises to look at their networks and diagnose where they had gaps and needed to do some more work. What started to emerge as we went throught the exercise was how many of the participants network and connect on behalf of their... Read more →

Last week I wrote about career resilience and the need for us to develop four patterns in our work lives: Clarifying Connecting Creating Coping One thing that I've observed about resilient people is that they persist. Even when things are at their worst or it seems like they are going nowhere, resilient people are persistent people. As Steve Pavlina puts it, "they press on, even when they feel like quitting."... Read more →

I wrote a couple of long posts in February on the two major factors most job seekers are dealing with in this economy. The first was on the reality that there aren't enough jobs for everyone who wants one. The second was on the poor quality of many of the jobs that do exist. After writing these, though, I was left wondering what it is we can do to operate... Read more →

A few weeks ago I read Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project, which chronicles Gretchen's year of personal experiments to increase her happiness--her version of the 30-Day trial! . One section on goals vs. resolutions really struck a chord with me. This is what she writes on her blog about it: You hit a goal, you achieve a goal. You keep a resolution. I think that some objectives are better characterized as... Read more →

Last week Allison Jones pointed to an excellent post from Amber Nusland on letting go of the things you're not good at. In it she says: Part of why people struggle in their careers is our collective insistence that they do things that they aren’t really good at. Almost every bit of business literature you read these days (don’t even get me started on some of it) talks about how... Read more →

One of the best tools I've found for my own ongoing professional development is a career journal. I began journaling for professional purposes about 7 years ago when I bought an artist's sketchbook to maintain all of my ideas related to a particular project I was working on. Since then, my journaling practices have evolved and in this post I want to explore the different ways you can use a... Read more →

Jay Cross, one of my favorite learning experts, announced on his blog last week that he has a "new muse": For the better part of forty years, my work has focused on adult learning. I’ve strived to make learning at work more effective, relevant, enjoyable, and cost-effective. Today I am shifting direction. My new muse is well-being. I'm intrigued by how and why people make the career transitions that they... Read more →