Careers and Transitory Works: How to Step Up

I was watching Sym-Bionic Titan, Genndy Tartakovsky latest work, and it felt as if he was using it to experiment and stretch himself.  Of course this is the man whose done work for such beloved animation work as Dexter's Laboratory, the Powerpuff Girls, and Samurai Jack.  He's a man of considerable talent, but this latest series felt as if he was creating something new, something to go a bit farther – to transition himself to an even more advanced set of skills and work.

"A transitional work" is what I christened it.  It inspired me to talk about the fact that many of us need do have works that let us change who we are and what we do in our careers.  It also gives me an excuse to go from giant robots to discussing your career – something I love to do.

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Are You Responding Or Carrying Out?

It's hard to get organized.  Trust me, as a busy person I realize this.  Many people end up busy but somehow never getting actually toward their goals.  They KNOW they're active, they can list all the things they've done, but they're not getting anywhere.

(You're probably nodding your head.  I've been here myself.)

I finally came to realize that one of the biggest causes of this is that sometimes we're not following our grand plan (if you don't have a grand plan you have an entirely different problem).  Instead of following that plan we're just responding.

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Turning Hated Expertise Around

You ever get a call from a family member to help you with a computer problem that they could have figured out with some research?

You ever have a friend doing an interview who called you to ask you what the person he was interviewing was talking about?

You ever find yourself cornered at a party or get-together to explain something about your job or industry to someone, and wondered how they didn't know something that simple?

Yeah.  Me too.  When we do something for a living, when we're truly into it – in short, when we're progeeks or would-be-progeeks – everyone uses us as a source of information.  It gets annoying.

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