Geek Job Guru: Skill Spread

What lets you do your job and carry out your career? Well you could say your position, connections, etc. But I’m talking actual productivity, and what lets you actually do things is skills.

When it comes to skills, that’s a huge part of our career. We measure them with tests. We get certifications to show we have them. We get rated on the job or by clients. We seek them out or develop them. In short, a big part of your career is the ability to do something.

So more skills is good for you because it’s good for your career. Ehancing skills is good for you because skills are good.  And so on.

Now we geeks in many ways are people with multiple careers. Sure we have what pays the bills, we also have our hobbies, and many of us have something in between. Your average highly active geek-type is probably doing two or three jobs at any time, and in many cases only one of them actually pays the bills.  Sadly for some that’s “barely” pays the bills, so enhancing what we can do is even more important.

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Use Your Job In Your Hobby

We're here to encourage professional geekery, of taking your fantoms and making them your profession.  But I'd like to take a moment to encourage the reverse.

Yes, I'd like to encourage you to think about how you can do your regular job in your hobbies (assuming there's enough of a difference).

Now we'd love to drag our hobbies into our jobs, so encouraging the reverse may seem different.  Aren't we trying to encourage you to take your hobbies and make them into jobs?

So here's what I'm thinking . . .

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Cause and Effect – The Power of Hobbies

As you may have guessed if you've . . . well read most anything I've written or published in the last few years . . . is that I'm big on how people's hobbies can lead to and enhance careers.  I'm always exploring the power of hobbies and how we can leverage them as part of the big picture of our life – and our careers.

Usually I focus on things like skills or networking, or occasionally the psychology of things like confidence-building.  But there's something I've noticed recently as I've talked to fans and profans, as I've explored people using their hobbies in their careers.

Our hobbies teach us about repercussions and connections, of cause and effect.

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