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  Taking shortcuts is never the answer to success. Sure, you may have some short-term wins. You may beat your competitor to the punch a time or two, but it’s not sustainable. Sooner or later you’re going to lose. There is no shortcut to becoming great at something. I am currently enrolled in Bernadette Jiwa’s Story Skills Workshop. I’m sure there are people who registered for the workshop hoping to find a shortcut to writing and telling great stories. The bad news for them, there isn’t one. Storytelling is difficult to do well. It takes practice. A workshop can show …

I always found it interesting when I was recruiting how many generalizations were used when trying to filter out candidates. So often, a good candidate would surface but a recruiter or hiring manager would make an assumption about someone they didn’t even know. Someone they have zero backstory on. Someone they haven’t even spoken to about why they were interested in that company or the role. A common profile, for instance, is the person who decided to leave the corporate world and start their own company or become a freelancer or consultant. Hiring managers and recruiters think of a million …

Attention is earned. Just like in marketing, building your personal brand is important to becoming visible. People don’t know you exist until you show up. People won’t give you their attention until you prove you’re worth it. Showing up – drip-by-drip, day-by-day. Gets you in front of people. It shares what you know., how you think, with other people. That’s how you connect with the people like you. People that have the same values as you. People you can build and form long-term, productive, mutually-beneficial professional (and personal) relationships with. Keep in mind, it’s also just as important to realize …

  Perhaps you’ve heard of OKRs – Objectives and Key Results. Maybe you’re lucky enough to work for a manager or company that has implemented them. If you haven’t, this article will provide more detail into what they are and how they can be a powerful tool for your career. What are OKRs? The concept of OKRs isn’t new. In fact, it has been around (at least formally) since the 1970s. It was developed and implemented at Intel by Dr. Andy Grove. As mentioned, OKR is an acronym for Objectives and Key Results. The objective is the what. The key …

As I mentioned in my most recent podcast – “Dream Jobs – The Reality” here are links to the books I mentioned that I’m currently reading and listening to: The Fortune Cookie Principle by Bernadette Jiwa Start with Why by Simon Sinek I also just finished the book Tribes by Seth Godin and highly recommend it to anyone who is currently a leader (or people manager) or who wants to be one. Tribes by Seth Godin

Photo Credit: Emma Simpson Saturday, August 24, 2019 Missoula, MT- A funny thing happened this morning. I was running in the River City Roots 4-Mile Run and realized how similar it was to how life works – both personally and professionally. Like any project you start or new journey you begin, there was a lot of excitement at the starting line. I felt good. The weather was perfect for running- about 60 degrees and overcast. The gun went off and I took off. Probably way too fast. I was eager to get going. Did I mention that I felt really …

Lately, I’ve haven’t been able to get enough of Bernadette Jiwa’s marketing books. I just read “Marketing: A Love Story” and am now reading “difference”. If you are a fan of Seth Godin then you’ll automatically be a fan of Bernadette. I was going back through “Marketing: A Love Story” today and something caught my attention. It was her advice about focusing on the present instead of the future. It resonated with me because I think way too often about the future. Constantly, as a matter of fact. Some of my actions are future-driven instead of present-driven. That needs to …

Photo Credit: unsplash-logoRyan Stone Last week I proposed a 3-week plan to help with the information overload I was feeling. I proposed this via a blog post because I realized I’m probably not the only one that felt this way.  The plan goes something like this: Week 1: Don’t change any habits, just track your time and activities Week 2: Purge all unnecessary information for 5 days.  Week 3: Evaluate and create an information ingestion strategy Yesterday (July 22, 2019) was Day 1 of tracking my time and here’s what I learned: It’s more difficult to get distracted by the …

Knowledge is power. But access to too much information could have a negative effect on your life and career. Over the past week, I’ve been waking up every morning with a sense of dread. A sense of being overwhelmed. This seems to be a cycle. And it’s all self-imposed.  I have an active mind. I love trying new things and learning and am always coming up with ideas. I’m definitely the ‘idea guy’ and not the organization/project manager guy. I’ve recognized this and recently delegated the project management I’ve typically been responsible for to someone on my team whose strengths …

[Image Credit: Joao Tzanno] There’s a reason our brain is much larger than our mouth. Before you ask someone for help when you’re stuck on a task, think about the problem and whether you could fix it – or come close – if the person you are about to ask for help was gone for a month. There’s also a reason that we have two eyes and two ears and only one mouth. And that babies learn to see and hear before they can talk. If you work at a place that values talking for the sake of talking over …