Home Leadership Turn Archives Me RampUp Solutions  
 

  • Categories

  • Archives
 

Golden Oldies: You Are the Total of All Your Experiences

Monday, January 20th, 2020

https://www.flickr.com/photos/luigimengato/16053504967/

Poking through 14+ years of posts I find information that’s as useful now as when it was written.

Golden Oldies is a collection of the most relevant and timeless posts during that time.

Who you are includes all the previous yous in your life. And each you developed unique skills appropriate to what you did and what was going on in that you’s life.

That cumulative effect made the current you deeper, richer, more valuable, smarter, and more adaptive. It doesn’t matter if the skills were developed in response to a need at work or a situation in your personal life. They are there to use if you choose, but first you need to acknowledge them — which can be difficult in a world that worships youth, AKA, no experiences / no depth.

Read other Golden Oldies here.

For decades, I’ve said that people have two sides to their head, personal and professional, and rarely do they use the skills from one side in dealing with the challenges on the other. For example, when you have two employees arguing by email with each other and copying the entire group use the skills you use with your kids. They work on the adults because, in situations such as this, the adults are acting like kids.

Sad as it is in a world where career change is more drastic than ever before, it seems that these self-inflicted barriers are increasing; not so much in general skill usage, but rather in “specialized” skills.

I know several investment bankers, unhappy with what they were doing, who moved to companies in senior operational roles, but don’t use/adapt many of their banking skills to the new environment. The same is true for many of what I call radical career changers—engineers who move to financial services; salespeople who become technical and vice versa.

Because I run into it more and more, I’ve spent time figuring out why it happens and the easiest way to eliminate the barriers. Partly, it’s because people often go back to school for their new career, and so assume that their old skills don’t apply, but it’s also a language thing.

Every type of work has its own language, i.e., applying industry/job specific definitions to various words; because the meaning changes, the associated skill is often relegated to the “previous life.”

Humans are cumulative animals, without an effective delete key, so, when you’re adding new skills be sure to keep using the old ones by remembering to recognize when it’s the language that’s changed, rather than the action, and learning to tweak previous skills to apply to your new situation.

Image credit: Luigi Mengato

Ryan’s Journal: State of Your Union

Thursday, February 1st, 2018

https://www.flickr.com/photos/youneon/4545893297/

The State of the Union address was on last night. I’ll be honest I, typically look forward to the event. There is pomp and circumstance, high drama, and the occasional surprise. To cap it off you get to have a speaker from the opposite party offer a rebuttal. Without fail the night can be informative and completely ridiculous in a single span of time. However it does offer a snapshot of both our ideals and fears.

As I thought after about the address, I thought I should take stock of my own Union. Am I living up to my potential, am I taking ownership over my life?

I’ll be honest, my assessment wasn’t that positive. I tend to take a dim view of my own accomplishments in life and try to downplay them. But the event was cathartic as well. When given a chance how often do we truly evaluate ourselves?

The company we work for can hold a lot of our identity. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad, but we spend a lot of our day at work and it dominates our time. Is that Union strong? What about your family relationships? Friends?

You may be asking, why the sobering talk? Quite simply it’s important to remove the blinders from time to time and truly look at life unfiltered. Take the time to look at your strengths and weaknesses and look for opportunities for growth. I can assure you everyone will be better for it.

One thing I learned this week is to set the example.

It sounds minor, but I tend to come in a few minutes late to work sometimes. Typically it’s because I’m grabbing a coffee or with my girls for a few minutes.

Today, my manager spoke to me about it and said he doesn’t care that I am late, but he needs me to set an example for some of the junior folks on the team.

It went from what could have been a discussion on a trivial matter to a coaching opportunity. And you know what, he was right!

And the Union is that much stronger for it.

What makes your union strong?

Image credit: ewe neon

If The Shoe Fits: The Importance Of ‘Whole Self’

Friday, October 13th, 2017

A Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here.

5726760809_bf0bf0f558_mThe suicide of Austen Heinz, CEO of Cambrian Genomics and other founders in 2015 that focused a spotlight on the increasing levels of depression among entrepreneurs.

The same people who are responsible for their company’s environment, as well as its culture

Have you created an environment for your people in which they are as productive, creative, confident, and happy as possible?

Is it one that welcomes their ‘whole self’?

Or just the easy, socially acceptable, whatever-it-takes-to-fit-in version?

The above traits are enhanced when people can bring all of what makes them them to work.

It’s well-known that startups reflect the attitudes of their founders.

If founders choose to ignore or, much worse, deny the importance of ‘whole self’ and the positive mental health associated with it they should expect problems (not challenges).

The more pressure to fit in the more energy is spent camouflaging/hiding and even denying parts of one’s self.

That’s energy that would be spent on more positive efforts in a different environment.

An environment that actually welcomed ‘whole selves’ in fact, not just in talk.

Use the links; read the articles.

Then take a hard look at how many of your people are actually bringing their ‘whole’selves’ to work.

And if it’s not 100%, then do something about it.

Image credit: HikingArtist

RSS2 Subscribe to
MAPping Company Success

Enter your Email
Powered by FeedBlitz
About Miki View Miki Saxon's profile on LinkedIn

Clarify your exec summary, website, etc.

Have a quick question or just want to chat? Feel free to write or call me at 360.335.8054

The 12 Ingredients of a Fillable Req

CheatSheet for InterviewERS

CheatSheet for InterviewEEs

Give your mind a rest. Here are 4 quick ways to get rid of kinks, break a logjam or juice your creativity!

Creative mousing

Bubblewrap!

Animal innovation

Brain teaser

The latest disaster is here at home; donate to the East Coast recovery efforts now!

Text REDCROSS to 90999 to make a $10 donation or call 00.733.2767. $10 really really does make a difference and you'll never miss it.

And always donate what you can whenever you can

The following accept cash and in-kind donations: Doctors Without Borders, UNICEF, Red Cross, World Food Program, Save the Children

*/ ?>

About Miki

About KG

Clarify your exec summary, website, marketing collateral, etc.

Have a question or just want to chat @ no cost? Feel free to write 

Download useful assistance now.

Entrepreneurs face difficulties that are hard for most people to imagine, let alone understand. You can find anonymous help and connections that do understand at 7 cups of tea.

Crises never end.
$10 really does make a difference and you’ll never miss it,
while $10 a month has exponential power.
Always donate what you can whenever you can.

The following accept cash and in-kind donations:

Web site development: NTR Lab
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 2.5 License.