The Madison Job Search Presentation

I arrived in Madison, Wisconsin last night about an hour after dinner closed at our hotel.  Drove through a torrential rain which kind of felt like driving through a waterfall for the last hour or so.  It was crazy stressful/fun.

Why hasn’t anyone ever told me about Madison, Wisconsin?  This place is BEAUTIFUL!  The green landscape is overwhelming (I’ve lived in a desert for the last 22 years, from northern Mexico to Idaho to Utah, I’ve missed all of the green, trees, and oxygen).

Apparently, there are thirteen beaches in Madison.  The capital building is the second largest in the country, second only to the White House.  The people are delightfully nice.  You are right that Wisconsin knows and likes its cheese, but did you know that Wisconsin is a huge paper producer?  According to the Wisconsin Paper Council, Wisconsin “is the #1 papermaking state in the U.S.”  Utah doesn’t even have a “paper council.”

Anyway, I’ll have more on my speaking tour later.  You can see where I’ll be over the next month here. I am not “getting my head in the game.”  Tonight I speak to a bunch of people interested in their career.  They had to close registration because the room is at capacity.  And there might be people who didn’t register but just show up.  Like in Minneapolis, one year when I presented at Right Management… people where all along the walls, and even in the halls. I know it was uncomfortable.

I’m not sharing this because I’m awesome.  I’m sharing this because people want to know.

They want to know there are options.  They want to know what to do.  They want to know that what they are going through is okay.  They want to know that they’ll get through this.  They want to know there is hope.

A few years ago I was at lunch with Dick Bolles and his wife, after a presentation in Danville, CA, and he said “Jason, your message and my message are the same.” I was honored and intrigued. I was curious to know what he thought my message was (he was at my presentation only an hour earlier).  He elaborated: “Ours is a message of hope.” Read my immediate thoughts on it in this 2010 blog post.

Do you want to know what I’m talking about in a few hours?  I’m talking about hope. And options.  And your career.  It’s a message I have shared in Boston, and San Francisco, and Tampa and Seattle, in Albuquerque and Houston, and Twin Cities and San Diego, in Salt Lake City and Phoenix.  And tonight, I share it in Madison, Wisconsin.

In my job search I had lost hope.  And it was miserable, and I was ineffective.  I want YOU to have hope, and get out of misery, and get results.  That is my message.