Blog - Page 2 of 2 - The Winding Road

Critics are Irrelevant

by Travis L. ScottSeptember 16, 2019December 1, 2019

Photo by NordWood Themes on Unsplash Nowadays, I mostly go for runs as a way to spark ideas. It’s amazing. When you can eliminate the distractions that constantly bombard you and just think, great things happen. In order for these ideas to come about, I usually have to listen to a podcast or audiobook about marketing. Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot of audiobooks by Seth Godin and Bernadette Jiwa. I like their style and the way they think about marketing is different than how I thought about it before. Self Doubt During a recent morning run, I was …

You Only Have to Matter to One

by Travis L. ScottSeptember 4, 2019September 5, 2019

Photo by Matthew Bennett on Unsplash It’s About Who You Know When you’re looking for a new role it can be a discouraging process. You apply and apply to all of these roles you think you’re a perfect fit. Then it’s crickets. Nothing. The reality is you only need to matter to one company- and a lot of times just one person. The person that will be your manager or that person’s manager. Of course, it can vary. Larger companies have more layers, so naturally, their hiring process does as well. This is why building relationships with people over time …

The Dip is Real

by Travis L. ScottAugust 24, 2019September 5, 2019

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 …

Forget About the Future

by Travis L. ScottAugust 22, 2019September 5, 2019

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 …

What I Learned From One Day of Tracking My Time

by Travis L. ScottJuly 23, 2019September 5, 20192

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 …

3-Week Information Detox

by Travis L. ScottJuly 18, 2019September 5, 2019

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 …

Is Your Mouth a Bottleneck?

by Travis L. ScottJuly 16, 2019September 5, 2019

[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 …

How the Fear of Failure is Limiting Your Career

by Travis L. ScottJune 25, 2019September 5, 2019

(Read Time: Approx. 6 minutes) Fear. I’m not talking about the fear we may have of clowns or being eaten by a shark – both legit fears of mine. I’m talking about the fears that go through our minds every day. Hundreds to thousands of times a day. Sometimes they’re subconscious, and we aren’t aware we’re even thinking them. Other times they’re conscious, and we’re well aware of our thoughts. As with the fear of sharks, these daily fears occur as a part of self-preservation. When we’re evaluating a situation, it’s more difficult to imagine the positive outcomes that could …

Did You Recently Ghost an Interview?

by Travis L. ScottJune 6, 2019September 5, 2019

The economy is humming. Jobs are plentiful. Recruiters reach out to you every day. Times are good. You’re not really thinking about a time when all of that will change- and trust me, it’s gonna change. But you should be very conscious of the sure-to-come downtick in the economy and job market. Why? Because the actions you take now will come back to haunt you. I’m talking about the selfish, disrespectful actions of ghosting a recruiter that scheduled a phone interview with you. Or maybe you ghosted an in-person interview. Even worse, you ghosted an employer on your first day. …

The Not-So-Secret to Professional Growth: Continuous Learning

by Travis L. ScottMay 20, 2019September 5, 2019

Continuous Learning is the Key to Professional Growth The single, most impactful thing you can do to advance your career is to never. stop. learning. People tend to get older and they get comfortable, they get complacent. They think they’ve reached the top and feel like it’s time to put things in cruise control and learning turns up in the rear-view mirror. So, they stop putting in the effort to learn new things. To learn from others who have already done what they’re doing; people who made the mistakes you will inevitably make if you don’t know to look out …