I really want to do a bunch of giveaways this year… I want to do it weekly, but not sure if I’ll stick to it. I have more than 50 things to give away this year.
Today we start the 2010 Giveaway thing … here’s how it works:
- You answer a question (see below) in the comments,
- Someone judges it (in this case, Alex is going to be the judge!) after 72 hours, which gives some time for those who get the post the next day via email,
- Whoever wins gets her newest book, New Job, New You (subtitle: a guide to reinventing yourself in a bright new career)
I like Alex – she’s a very sharp career person who has been writing and thinking about this stuff for a long time. I like her ideas, and her writing style, and I bet YOU will like her book!
If you aren’t the lucky one to win the book, you can get your own from Amazon.
The question:
“What will you do in 2010 for your career to really get it going in the right direction? Think Career Management!!”
Go for it – answer in the comments OF THIS BLOG POST (not Facebook, or Twitter, etc.). Short or long, I don’t care. Alex is the judge (a sentence or two might not be enough… :p)
Take complete complete control of my fate. Pitch in more detail, more passionately and more often. Wake up each morning thinking “I know what I’ll achieve today” and not “What do I have to do?”.
I’m going to “connect the dots.”
A great example of this is when Steve Jobs dropped out of college and decided to simply follow his curiosity and intuition. He decided to take a class in calligraphy because he was drawn to the artistic and historical nature of fonts and typography. At the time, calligraphy did not “appear” to have any practical application in his life.
But 10 years later when designing the first Macintosh computer, all of the things Jobs learned about typography were incorporated into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.
We all have things from our past that seem like they are of little or no value on their own. But these past experiences (or dots) can provide enormous synergistic value when connected with our current career or path in life.
“Dots” can be people, places, classes, books, travel…pretty much anything. Creatively connecting the dots in my life will transform my career like never before.
The truthful answer to this question is: “Take account of my limitations.” I don’t think this is what Alexendra Levit, or anyone else, wants to hear, but it is the truth, and furthermore it has taken me a long time and a lot of effort to reach this point. A combination of the dot.com crash (Remember that?), changing locations, the needs of my children, and rather spectacular health crises — a stroke at 50; heart surgery; and chronic conditions (autoimmune hypothyroid and severe pain) that can only be managed, not cured — has meant that I have not earned income for eight years. But I am only 55 and despite my health challenges my life expectancy is another 30 to 50 years. I certainly want a new job! And I would love a new me, in the conventional, exciting sense implied by the illustration on the cover of Ms Levit’s book. But, as I have just recently begun to admit to myself, I have limitations I never expected to have, and that are not going to go away just because I wish they would, and no matter what I do. So in 2010 what I am going to do for my career — for the sake of ever having any career — is to explore my limitations, and figure out how to work around them and also, perhaps even more importantly, how to work with them.
Thanks to each of you who have left comments… these are touching and eye-opening!
Warren, very cool analogy about connecting the dots.
Helen, very touching. I really, really like what you say: Take account of my limitations. I think sometimes we don’t do that, and knowing what our own limits and boundaries are, is really important.
I plan to do 25 new things that I have never done before in 2010. Every day I will read, walk, seek and be open to opportunities that help me to grow in my strengths and seek opportunities to match them.
I’m going to make my niche market work for me in 2010…and I’m going to change a few lives in the process. I’m going to fight to remain in Michigan, despite the desperate economy, and I’m going to pull much-needed new social networking tricks out of the bag to make it all happen.
Or, there’s my default plan: winning the MegaMillions… 🙂
I am going to make a bold prediction that Facebook will surpass LinkedIn for career management, job hunting, and recruiting by the end of 2010.
Clearly LinkedIn is a better platform for recruiting and job searching right now but Facebook has some unique advantages and more importantly it has 7x as many people on it. Ultimately recruiters need to go where the candidates are and job seekers need to go where the jobs are.
I think if we could educate job seekers to complete their profiles with full job history on FB and regularly ‘talk’ about their job search in status updates which would both be searchable then FB could become the #1 recruitment platform in 2010.
In the LinkedIn Answer forum at https://bit.ly/4vxbC1 you can see more responses to this question and my list of how I am using FB for recruiting.
Whats your opinion?
Greig
um, so I think we all deserve to win 😉
(no really, who did?)
Hey everyone, thanks so much for all the terrific responses. Jason and I have decided that Helen is going to win, because she is grappling with such important life lessons that we all have to face at some point. Good luck in 2010, Helen, and we hope you enjoy the book. PS – please send your address to arl@alexandralevit.com so I can mail out your copy.