success

Frustration Friday: The Best Isn’t The Best – Again

by

OK, let me go and say something I've been telling people for awhile.

Your competency at a profession is not based on any one skill.  It is based on if you have the skills that SUPPORT that skill so you can use it, and thus have a job and a career.

  • If you're the world's greatest artist and have no social skills, you're probably not going to get hired, or even let people be aware of your talent.
  • If you're the world's greatest writer and you're disorganized and ever complete anything, that legion of half-finished novels will never see an audience.
  • If you are a brilliant programmer and don't know the industry you're in, then you will not be able to deal with clients, make plans, and get the job done.

For that matter if you're a brilliant ANYTHING and can't do a job search, network, and market yourself you're probably in trouble anyway.

Read more

Visualization: The Beacon and the Television

by

Visualizing your goals and dreams is a part of succeeding in your life and career that you can't avoid.  I am a big advocate of having a vision for your life with as much detail as possible.  I want you to not just see, but be able to taste, hear, smell, and feel the vision you have, as big and bold as possible.

Yet, if you know me and read this blog, you know that I also decry a lot of the "visualization" exercises and self-help approaches out there.  I despise "The Secret" and it's offspring and it's siblings; the idea that if you visualize it it will happen, the dream-and-be-positive exercises, and all the rest.  Yes, I advocate visualization while decrying some visualization methods and exercises.

There's a reason for what seems to be inconsistency.  This reason is not visualization itself, but the attitude taken towards in the various exercises people promote. I'm all for having big dreams, as visceral as possible – but its what those visualizations mean to you that changes what they can do for you.

Read more

Technology, Speculation, and Failure

by

I've talked a lot about technology in this blog – it's both a geeky subject, and something we're all interested in and dependent on.  Technology is changing fast and that changes jobs for ALL of us.

I want to address how technology is changing the nature of speculation and of failure in our careers.

For many of us progeeks and fan-to-pro types, technology is making some or all of our career ambitions easier.  If you want to be a writer, you can self-publish the first edition of your novel, comic, or book.  If you want to do a webcomic, the tools are there – including publicity tools.  If you want recognition as a history teacher you can edit wikis, write for blogs and websites, etc.  If you're a musician or an aspiring one I don't even HAVE to talk about what technology has done for you.

We all look at what technology lets us do from a positive side.  I'd like to call out another advantage that the onslaught of new technologies has done for us that we may not be looking at – speculation and failure.

Read more