Coming to you from London Englad today, where it’s cool and cloudy.

In my search for interesting, relevant material for this career advice blog, I subscribe to a lot of blogs, ezines and article sites.  I don’t often read all of the information that comes my way.  This is not the case with Bob Bly.  Bob is, in my opinion, the world’s greatest copywriter.  His direct response ezine always has great information on writing and marketing. 

The other day I received an email from Bob.  I thought that the ideas in it were so powerful that I asked him if I could share them on this career advice blog.  He graciously agreed.  Check out what Bob has to say about relationship building, a key component of life and career success…

Dear Direct Response Letter Subscriber,

When I tell you this story, you may think it makes me look like a jerk. But it conveys an important lesson for every entrepreneur and marketing professional.

And the lesson is this: to communicate effectively, it’s incumbent upon

YOU to really understand the other person – what they think, what they want, what’s important to them – and NOT the other way around.

Okay. So here’s what happened….

A person I don’t know called me at work out of the blue the other day – while I was frantically writing to meet a deadline.

“I am reading your book,” he said, naming one of my books. “There is a typo on page 383,” he said triumphantly, as if dropping the biggest bombshell since Hiroshima.

“Thanks, but you don’t need to tell me about it,” I said politely.

He stammered, absolutely stunned.

I knew it was not the response he was looking for.

From past calls like this, he expected me to write down the information he was about to give me, and possibly engage me in dialogue … which a lot of book readers want to do with authors.

Instead, I simply thanked him for calling, and ended the call.

I didn’t lecture him on the realities of life, but if I had, here’s what I would have said:

“Sir, I don’t know you, and I am not sure why you feel compelled to take time out of your day, call me up, and report that there is a typo in one of my books – or what kind of satisfaction it gives you.

“But I’ve written almost 80 books, totaling more than 16,000 pages. I am sure there are a number of typos within those 16,000 pages.

“The book you are referring to I wrote more than 20 years ago.  It’s already printed, and is not going to be reprinted again. So there’s nothing I can do about the typo you’ve found.

“Also, I have a dozen projects on my desk this week, all with deadlines. To finish this work and run my business, I have about a hundred tasks on my priority list.

“So taking a look at my printed books — and fixing typos in them — wouldn’t even make the list. In fact, it’s not even on my radar as far as ‘important things to do’ is concerned. Sorry to disappoint you, but that’s the reality of life.”

As I said at the beginning of this article: you may find my response to my anonymous proofreader offensive. After all, wasn’t he just trying to do me a kindness?

In my experience, that’s possible.

But from two and a half decades of getting such calls as an author, I have found that kindness is often not the primary motivation behind such calls.

Often the caller revels in showing the published writer that he made a mistake.  Or he hopes that the author will become a friend or (unpaid) advisor – and that pointing out the typo will open up a relationship in some way.

But the point is this: if you want to communicate with someone effectively … and establish a relationship, whether personal or business … you have to, as the cliché points out, “put yourself in the customer’s shoes” … whether you’re selling a product, service, or idea.

As a marketer, it’s imperative that you understand the CUSTOMER … what he thinks, wants, needs, fears, and desires … what’s important to him – NOT what’s important to you.

In the example of my anonymous proofreader, for example, a better way to establish the contact with me might have been as follows:

“Bob, this is Joe. I’m reading your book and I have one item in it I’d like to briefly discuss with you. It will take less than a minute. Do you have time now?”

This approach, by the way, works beautifully in selling – either when cold calling or following up on inquiries. People are busy today, and they cannot abide it when others don’t respect their time or understand just how pressured they are.

I ALWAYS ask when calling someone I don’t know: “Is this a bad time for you?” If they say yes, I ask when would be a better time to talk.

He could have continued: “I found a typo in the book. Do you want to know about it?”

This is also a good strategy in selling: before launching into your “pitch,” ask the prospect for permission to proceed.

If you want to communicate or establish a relationship with other people, it’s YOUR job to understand them and where they’re coming from … and asking questions is one way to do this.

Bob really nailed it with this piece of career advice.  He’s providing not only some good advice for salespeople and marketers but for anyone in search of life and career success. 

Tweet 125 in my career advice book Success Tweets says, “Get to know yourself.  Use your self knowledge to better understand others and build mutually beneficial relationships with them.” That’s what Bob is talking about when he says “it’s YOUR job to understand them and where they’re coming from.” 

Here’s a real life story…one that happened to me.  One of my clients is a big detail guy.  I’m a big picture guy.  He likes things to be very organized and predictable.  I am more comfortable going with the flow. 

One day, I arrived at his office in the late afternoon.  I was going to facilitate a team building session for his leadership team the next day.  He asked me what I planned on doing in our meeting.  I explained it to him verbally. 

He said, “Do you have an agenda?”  I responded that I just told him what I was planning on doing.  He said, “I heard you, but I’d like to see the agenda.”  I told him I had no written agenda.  Being a detail guy, he wasn’t too happy about this.  So before we left his office to go to dinner, we spent 15 minutes putting what I told him I planned to do in the meeting on a PowerPoint slide.
  
There is an important career success lesson here.  My client has high needs for structure, and an agenda is a way to structure a meeting.  I am very comfortable having a rough idea of what I’m hoping to do and accomplish in a meeting and then going with the energy in the room as the meeting unfolds.  This works for me – but not my client. 

The career advice here is simple.  He’s the client, I have to adapt my preferred style of facilitating a meeting to his needs, or I am unlikely to be successful in building a long term, mutually beneficial relationship with him.  It was up to me to recognize our differences and to adapt my behavior to something that will make him comfortable – not the other way around.

The common sense career success coach point here is straightforward.  Successful people understand themselves, and use this knowledge to better understand others.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 125 in Success Tweets.  “Get to know yourself.  Use your self knowledge to better understand others and build mutually beneficial relationships with them.”  Use your understanding of yourself to compare and contrast your needs and wants with the people around you.  Adapt your behavior toother people.  This makes it easier to build strong relationships.  The next time you run into someone who looks at the world differently from you, see what you can do to adapt your communication style and behavior to his or her style.  If you do this, I guarantee you’ll be on your way to building a better, stronger relationship with that person — and your life and career success.

That’s my career advice  – and Bob Bly’s for that matter – on building strong relationships by understanding  yourself and other people and how you are similar or different from them.  What are your thoughts on this?  Please share them with us by leaving a comment on this post.  And as always, thanks for taking the time to read my musings on life and career success.  I really value you and your input.

Bud

Here’s a news flash for readers of this career advice blog… 

March 8 is National Be Nasty Day.  Hard to believe, but true.  In my book, being nasty is never good, nor the way to life and career success.  The other day, I got a press release email promoting a book called The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition.  Here is an excerpt from the email…

This year, on National Be Nasty Day, celebrate by refreshing yourself on some of the greatest insults ever uttered in film, television, politics, and literature!  The Snark Handbook: Insult Edition provides a comprehensive list of the perfect insults for every situation, spoken by everyone from Oscar Wilde to David Letterman!
 
Snark expert and bestselling author Larry Dorfman, who is also the author of the original Snark Handbook, comes up with witty phrases on a daily – even hourly – basis! Here are some of his latest snarks:

“Christine Aguilera has had a tough few weeks after her Super Bowl snafu. She had been offered an opportunity for a “do over” by the Brooklyn Cyclones, a Mets farm team, but refused. Word is that she’s also recently been rejected for the lead singer slot in two Christine Aguilera cover bands.”

“A former mayor of Fort Wayne, Indiana, who served four terms and was one of the city’s most popular leaders, won’t get a new government center named for him because of his name. Harry Baals (pronounced like you think it is) is the current favorite in online voting but two members of the city council, Anita Head and Holden McGroin, have refused to allow it.

“NYC’s mayor Mike Bloomberg is in trouble again for making an insensitive stereotypical Irish joke at a dinner for the American Irish Historical Society. Something about drinking. He’s allowed…after all, a man of his stature automatically becomes and honorary leprechaun.”

The press release writer seems to have an exclamation point addiction! 

But I digress.  I shared this press release not because I think that being nasty is a good thing to do, but to reinforce a point I make in my latest career advice book, Success Tweets.  Tweet 50 says, “Jettison the negative people in your life.  They are energy black holes.  They will suck you dry; but only if you let them.”

Insults and snarking are the mark of cynical people.  Cynics like Larry Dorfman are negative people.  They are also dangerous, because they are seductive.  Even I admit that the three snarks above are funny, albeit in a cruel way. 

That’s the problem with cynics.  They always have something witty to say about others – usually others’ shortcomings.  At first, they seem to be funny and amusing.  But spend time with cynics, and you’ll find that they have little joy in life except in pointing out and reveling in others’ problems and failures.

Ambrose Bierce may well be the world’s biggest cynic.  I often see quotes attributed to him on line.  In the early 20th century, he published a book called The Devil’s Dictionary.  Even I admit that some of his definitions are pretty funny.  However, I get tired and frustrated after reading more than one or two.  Here are a couple of quotes from The Devil’s Dictionary…

“Optimism:  The doctrine that everything is beautiful, including what is ugly, everything good, especially the bad, and everything right that is wrong… It is hereditary, but fortunately not contagious.”

“Calamities: Two kinds — misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”

No wonder ole’ Ambrose was called “Bitter Bierce” by his contemporaries.  First he bashes optimism, then he suggests that human beings see the good fortune of others as a personal calamity.

Here are a couple of other entries in The Devil’s Dictionary…

“Politeness: The most acceptable hypocrisy.” 

“Perseverance: A lowly virtue whereby mediocrity achieves an inglorious success.”

Do you know any people like Ambrose Bierce and Larry Dorfman?  If you do, my best career advice is to hold them at arm’s length.  While you may find them to be witty and entertaining at first, they will drag you down in the long run.  They will not help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

Point 6 of The Optimist Creed says…

“Promise yourself to be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are of your own.”

This is 180 degrees from what Ambrose has to say.  Successful, self confident people aren’t jealous or upset by the success of others.  They are genuinely pleased when they see others succeed.  They see the success of others as an inspiration.  They use it to motivate themselves to achieve bigger and better successes. 

Cynical, negative people choose to see others’ successes as a personal affront.  Take it from a career success coach, these kinds of people will not help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

The common sense career success coach point here is clear.  Successful, self confident people don’t let negative people into their lives.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 50 in Success Tweets.  “Jettison the negative people in your life.  They are energy black holes.  They will suck you dry, but only if you let them.”  Avoid cynics.  They are jealous and petty; unhappy when others succeed.  Make a conscious choice to spend time with positive, optimistic people.  Avoid negative, pessimistic ones.  And you’ll be on the road to the life and career success you want and deserve.

That’s the career advice I take from National Be Nasty Day.  What do you think?  What do you do to distance yourself from the negative people in your life?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us by leaving a comment.  As always, thanks for taking the time to read my musings on life and career success.  I value you and your feedback.

Bud

Today is President’s Day in the USA.  If you are lucky enough to have a day off, enjoy it. 

They played the NBA All Star game yesterday.  That reminded me of one of my favorite career success stories.  Read on to check it out…

Communication is a key life and career success skill.  The ability to engage in meaningful conversation is a key communication success skill.  Tweet 104 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says “Learn how to handle yourself in conversation.  A brief conversation with the right person can greatly help – or hinder – your career success.”

As I always tell my career success coach clients, assumptions can kill a conversation.  As I write this, I’m reminded of one of my favorite George Bernard Shaw plays, You Never Can Tell.

Mr. Bohun is a character in the play.  He is a know-it-all.  He repeats the line, “You think you do, but you don’t” several times in the play.

What does this have to do with assumptions?  Everything, in my book.  As we engage people in conversation, we often think we know everything about them – their backgrounds, motivations, likes and dislikes.  Unfortunately, we think we do, but usually we don’t.

Now to the basketball part of the story.  Ioften tell this story when I am speaking to my career success coach clients… 

Rob Likoff is a friend of mine.  He is a partner in a very successful internet marketing services business.  Rob lives in New York City and is a huge New York Knicks fan.  If you’re not a basketball fan, the Knicks are the professional basketball team in New York.

Rob is such a fan that he has Knicks’ vanity license plates on both of his cars.  These plates have the Knicks logo in the middle.  One has the letters FST BRK (fast break – a basketball term) on either side of the logo.  The other has the letters SLM DNK (slam dunk – another basketball term) on either side of the logo.

One day, Rob was with a woman client.  They were going to lunch, and were taking his car with the SLM DNK plates.  As they approached the car, she said, “Have you met many women with your license plate?”

Rob thought this was kind of strange, and said, “No, why do you ask?”

She replied, “Because of what it says.”

Rob said, “What do you think it says?”

She said, “Simple, Single Ladies Man, Divorced No Kids.”

Pretty bizarre, right?  Wrong. 

Both Rob and his client thought they knew what the license plate says, but they didn’t.  Rob is a basketball fan.  He assumed that anyone seeing a license plate with the Knicks logo in the middle and the letters SLM DNK would automatically know that it meant “slam dunk.”

His client was a 30 something, single woman.  She had mentioned to him on another occasion that she feels her biological clock ticking.  She would like to get married and start a family.  If you look at it from her point of view, you can see where “slam dunk” would mean “single ladies man, divorced no kids.”

Back to George Bernard Shaw and Mr. Bohun  — they both thought they knew, but they didn’t.

And that’s the common sense career success coach point for today.  As the career advice in Tweet 104 in Success Tweets points out, a brief conversation with the right person can greatly help or hinder your career success.  Good conversationalists don’t make assumptions.  Assumptions can really derail a conversation.  Never make assumptions about the other person or his or her thoughts and motivations when you are in a conversation.  When you find you are making assumptions, test them out.  Ask, “Why do you thing that is so?”  Remember, in many cases you really don’t know what the other person is thinking or feeling.  To quote Bernard Shaw, “You think you do; but you don’t.”

That’s my best career advice about how assumptions can be conversation killers.  What’s yours?  Do you have any funny stories about how assumptions have hampered some of your conversations?  If so, please take a minute to share them with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.

Bud

I often tell my career success coach clients that it is important to be impeccable in your presentation of self – in person and on line.  Tweet 72 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says “21st century technology has created new etiquette rules.  Learn and use them to appear polished when you’re on line.”

The other day I received an offer to do a guest post for this career success blog from Greg Coyle.  He is the co-founder and Director of Product Development at My Web Career. For the past year, Greg and his co-founders at My Web Career have been working on developing online career success tools that enable you to discover, evaluate, and monitor your professional online brand.

Greg is providing a great career development resource here.  Check out what he has to say…

Why Your Online Presence is Important and How Your Career Score Can Help

This is the new age of career development. Social media platforms are the new resumes, and you need to be able to sell yourself. Establishing credibility and visibility in your field—whether or not you’re looking for a job—is essential to building beneficial relationships and elevating your online presence.

According to CareerBuilder.com, “One in five employers use social networking sites to research job candidates, and close to 59% of them are influenced by your online presence.”

You already have a personal brand, whether you know it or not. How, you say? Well, if you’re on Facebook or have a Twitter account or blog, you have an online presence. Your posts, tweets, comments, pictures, etc. are the building blocks of your online persona.  They can help or hinder your career success.

In today’s extremely tough job market, being considered for a position has gotten more and more competitive.  You’re special and unique—let employers know it.  Not only does your on line presence create leverage for you with potential employers, but effectively marketing yourself can actually bring opportunities straight to you.

With changes in technology and communication nearly every day, your personal brand is essential to your career success. You have the resources at your fingertips.

That’s where My Web Career can help. We’ve created an online service that enables you to uncover and evaluate your digital footprint and help you see the areas of your online presence you many need to polish up.

The objective is to provide consumers with insight into their professional online brand and to offer tools to make these data accessible, manageable, and actionable.

We use sophisticated link analysis, visualization, and semantics technologies to enable you to quickly evaluate and explore data that relate to you. You get a score showing the strength of your professional online persona. Think of it like a credit score (FICO), but for your online presence. The Career Score allows you to easily assess your professional online brand and stay on top of any changes to it.

My Web Career sees how you are connected both with companies and other professionals, and what information you’re showing at all times. Keeping a checkered score will be anything but hard.  Just remember, the higher the score, the more positive your online presence.

If you like what Greg has to say about your online presence and career success, you can visit the My Web Career beta site at www.mywebcareer.com and get your free, personalized Career Score.

I think this is a very valuable service.  I visited and found that my Career Score is 757 out of a possible 850.  According to My Web Career, “A Career Score above 750 indicates that you have an excellent Professional Online Brand.”  That’s pretty cool.  But then again, I’ve been blogging for five years and am active on Twitter and Facebook.  I suggest you check out your Career Score on My Web Career.  They’ll not only give you a Career Score, they’ll tell you how to improve it for your career success.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  In today’s world if you want to create the life and career success you want and deserve, you need to be aware of, and pay attention to, your online presence.  The folks at My Web Career have created a simple career development tool to allow you to do just that.  As Greg Coyle, one of the founders of My Web Career says, “You already have a personal brand, whether you know it or not.”  I say, why not make the most of it?

That’s my take on the career advice provided by Greg Coyle of My Web Career.  I suggest you give their beta site a try and see what you can do to improve your on line persona.  Once you do, please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.

Bud

Tweet 61 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says, “Create and nurture you unique personal brand.  Stand and be known for something.  Make sure that everything you do is on brand.”  A strong personal brand will get you noticed in a positive way and enhance your career success journey.

The other day I saw a WikiHow that listed 12 pieces of career advice on how to stand out from the crowd.  While creating and nurturing your unique personal brand is my best career advice for standing out from the crowd, I thought that the WikiHow made some interesting points.  Check them out…

1. Decide what standing out from the crowd means for you.
2. Think for yourself.
3. Don’t be swayed by the crowd.
4. Take chances or risks and work hard.
5. Do things differently.
6. Have good manners.
7. Do what you say you’ll do.
8. Show initiative.
9. Dress stylishly and wear what suits you.
10. Check your posture.
11. Be attentive.
12. Remind people how great they are.

Success Tweets has a tweet or two that addresses each of these 12 pieces of career advice.  In this post I’d like to focus on the career success advice in point 11 – be attentive.  Being attentive to others is a great brand aspect and good career advice. 

Tweet 106 in Success Tweets says, “Demonstrate your understanding of others’ point of view.  Listen well and ask questions if you don’t understand.”  That’s as good a definition of being attentive as I know. 

I have developed six pieces of common sense career advice on how to be attentive to others…

First, acknowledge other people as equals.  You cannot have a good conversation if you don’t recognize one another as equals.  Regardless of your hierarchical relation to the other person – if he or she is your boss, peer or subordinate – remember that we are all human beings.  As such, we are entitled to respect and dignity. Talk with people, not to them and you’ll be surprised at the quality of your discussions.

Second, be curious about other people.  People are fascinating.  I have had some of the most interesting conversations with limo and cab drivers.  Often they are immigrants.  It’s interesting to hear their take on life in the USA.  Be curious about the people you know too.  People are always growing and changing.  When you express your curiosity you’ll be bound to find out new and interesting things about old friends and acquaintances.

Third, help others listen to what you have to say.  Think before you speak.  Speak clearly.  Ask them questions; answer the questions they ask you.  Remember, communication in general and conversation in particular, is a process fraught with potential misconnects.  So listen hard to others and make it easy for them to listen to you.

Fourth, slow down.  Think and reflect.  When you slow down, you;ll find that you have time to think. Don’t be afraid to pause and reflect on a question.  This shows the other person that you are carefully considering your response – not just saying the first thing that comes to mind.  Other people will appreciate you for your thoughtfulness, not knock you for not being quick or clever enough.

Fifth, remember that conversation is the natural way for humans to think together.  The idea of thinking together is great career advice.  George Bernard Shaw, my favorite playwright once said, “If I have an apple and you have an apple and we exchange apples we still each have one apple.  If I have an idea and you have an idea and we excahnge them, we both have two ideas.”  That’s thinking together.   The world would be a better place if we all thought together instead of thinking separately and trying to convince others that our thoughts are better than theirs.  I would love to see political debates where the candidates worked together to develop an approach to handling a problem or issue – instead of watching them advance their ideas while taking swipes at the other person’s ideas.

Sixth, conversation and attending to others can be messy.  That’s OK.  In fact, I think it’s great.  Some of the best ideas come out of messy conversations.  The willingness to get into the mess and slop around is what frees your creativity.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are attentive to others.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 106 in Success Tweets.  “Demonstrate your understanding of others’ points of view.  Listen well and ask questions if you don’t understand.”  Listening and being attentive to others takes some work, but it is worth it in the long run.  It will help you become a dynamic communicator and build solid relationships that will fuel your life and career success.  Remember my six pieces of career advice for being attentive to others:  1) Acknowledge other people as equals.  2) Stay curious about other people.  3) Recognize that you need other people’s help to become a better listener.  4) Slow down to have the time to think and reflect.  5) Remember that conversation is the natural way for humans to think together.  6) Expect it to be messy at times.

That’s my career advice on building your brand by being attentive to the needs of others.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my musings on life and career success.

Bud

I often tell my career success coach clients that business meals are not about the food.  They are about the conversation.  Tweet 75 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says, “Learn and use simple table manners.  Good manners make you look polished and poised.”

The other day, I saw a great article by Kirk Baumann on the Corn on the Job blog.  It was about how to handle job interviews over lunch.  Check it out…

For recruiters or hiring managers, the lunch interview gives them additional perspective and insight into the “real you”.  People can memorize GREAT answers to the toughest interview questions; having a phenomenal resume, even appearing to have excellent communication skills can only get you so far.  The lunch interview (or dinner – whatever) puts you to the test.

It’s designed for two reasons:

1. To allow the recruiter or hiring manager to get to know you on a more personal level.

2. To see how you react to situations out of your comfort zone or element.  You’re not in the office conference room with the interviewer or a panel.  You’re in a much different setting with all kinds of variables to throw you off your game.

A few tips to help you make the most of your lunch:

• Bring a notepad and something to write with – just because it’s lunch doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be taking notes
• Be polite to the host, wait staff, ANYONE you interact with at the restaurant – people are watching and listening.  I’ve even known hiring managers to arrive late and ask the staff about their interaction just to test the candidate.  NOTE: Wait for the interviewer to arrive before being seated.
• Know before you go – check the restaurant’s menu ahead of time.  Most are online these days.  If you have dietary restrictions or are watching calories, you’ll have plenty of time to pour over the menu.  Select 2-3 (just in case the restaurant doesn’t have your first choice) dishes that look good and keep them in mind when ordering.  Be prepared and know what you want – you’ll  make a good impression.
• Order something simple – the point is to land the job.  You can order the rack of ribs during your celebration dinner afterwards.  Stick to things that can be eaten easily with a knife and fork.  I’d also recommend water or other non-alcoholic beverages.  If the host orders wine, politely decline. 

Kirk is right on with this post.  A recruiter friend once told me the story of a young man who lost a sales position with a very prestigious company because he did not know the proper way to eat a foil wrapped baked potato. 

The proper way, by the way, is to cut into the potato with the foil on, open the potato, add condiments (butter, sour cream etc.) and eat the potato while it is still in the foil, leaving the foil and potato skin on your plate when you are finished.  The young man  removed the potato from the foil, balled up the foil and placed it on the table.

I think that the sales manager who decided not to hire this oung man was a bit impulsive.  If he was an otherwise outstanding candidate, I’m sure that once he was told how to properly eat a foil wrapped baked potato, he would not have repeated the mistake.  Unfortunately, he lost the job because of this gaffe.

There is some great career advice here through.  If you know basic table manners, you won’t have to worry about faux pas like this.  And, you’ll be comfortable at the lunch or dinner table because you’ll be able to focus on the conversation, not on worrying about the rules of dining etiquette.

Business meals provide you with a great opportunity to make a positive personal impact. They also can be disasters waiting to happen.  If you know and follow the simple rules of dining etiquette you’ll be fine. 

Here’s an embarrassing business dining story from my youth that goes to Kirk’s point about ordering something simple…

About 30 years ago, I had just accepted a job as the Training Manager for a division of a large company. Our division was located in New Haven, CT, a city with a large Italian population and a lot of great Italian restaurants.

About a month after I began my job, the VP of Human Resources for the corporation was hosting a two-day meeting of all of the senior HR people in the company at our location. Since the meeting was at our location, junior people like me were invited to a dinner held the evening of the first day of the meeting. I was looking forward to this dinner.  It was an opportunity for me to impress some senior people in other divisions.

One of my junior colleagues was a local woman. She was excited about the choice of the restaurant. Of course it was an Italian restaurant. She had been there on special occasions with her husband. She was very fond of a dish called zuppa de pesce, a medley of seafood served over spaghetti. A couple of days before the meeting she told me about that this dish and that it was available for two only and asked if I would be willing to share it with her. I said, “Sure.”

We arrived at the restaurant, and sure enough, zuppa de pesce was on the menu. My friend and I ordered it. What a disaster!

First the waiters brought lobster bibs for both of us. No one else had ordered this dish, so we were the only ones wearing our bibs. When the food arrived, everyone had a dish of pasta, or some grilled fish, or a steak. The zuppa de pesce was served on a silver tray so big that the waiters had to bring a side table for it. There was enough fish and pasta to feed the entire table. My friend dug in and really enjoyed her dinner. I felt like I was a character in The Godfather.

I spent my time trying to carry on an intelligent conversation with people I wanted to impress while I was wearing a lobster bib and working hard to make sure that I didn’t spill any red sauce, or “gravy,” as the waiter called it, on my suit. 

I didn’t lose any points that night – but I didn’t make any either.  It was pretty apparent to most people that I was there for the food, not for the conversation.

I learned a lesson that day. Always order something that is easy to eat and don’t call attention to you as you eat it. I try to be a good friend, and in social situations, I will often share an entrée that is available for two only – but I never do that in a business situation.  Because business dinners are not about the food.  They’re about the conversation.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Business meals are not about the food.  They’re about the conversation.  That means you need to follow the career advice in Tweet 75 in Success Tweets.  “Learn and use simple table manners.  Good manners make you look polished and poised.”  You want to look polished and poised during business meals.  If you know the rules, you’ll be able to spend time focusing on the conversation – not worrying about which fork to use.  As Kirk Baumann points out in his guest post on the Corn on the Job blog, this career advice is even more important when you are being interviewed over lunch or dinner.

That’s my take on the Kirk Baumann’s career advice on lunch interviews in his guest post on Corn on the Job.  What’s yours?  Do you have any funny stories about business meals?  If so, please take a minute and share them with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading these musings on life and career success.

Bud

You can find career advice in a lot of different places. But you have to pay attention.  The other day, Cathy my wife, received an email that was making the rounds of her friends.  Check it out…

I had a problem yesterday, so I called Eric, the eleven year old next door, whose bedroom looks like Mission Control and asked him to come over.

Eric clicked a couple of buttons and solved the problem.

As he was walking away, I called after him, ‘So, what was wrong?

He replied, ‘It was an ID Ten T error.’

I didn’t want to appear stupid, but nonetheless inquired,  “An, ID Ten T error? What’s that? In case I need to fix it again.”

Eric grinned…. “Haven’t you ever heard of an ID Ten T error before?”

“No.” 

“Write it down and I think you’ll figure it out.”   So I wrote down:
 
ID10T 

Eric was being a smart-assed kid, but there is some career advice in this little story.

Tweet 36 in my latest career advice book Success Tweets says, “Don’t be afraid to fail.  You fail only if you don’t learn something from the experience.  Treat every failure as an opportunity to grow.”

Most people fear mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection.  It’s only normal.  We all want to feel good about ourselves.  Mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection are not pleasant experiences.  They lower our self esteem and make us feel bad about ourselves, so we often avoid doing things that we think might lead to mistakes, failure, criticism or rejection. 

However, if you want to become create the life and career success you want and deserve to be, you have to have the courage to do things that might result in mistakes, failure, criticism or rejection.  More important, you have to learn from mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection.  If you don’t, you’re an ID10T.

Failure, criticism and rejection provide you with the opportunity to grow and develop – to succeed.   You can’t take mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection personally.  Mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection are outcomes.  They are a result of things you have done.   They are not who you are.  We all make mistakes and fail.  We all do things that cause others to criticize or reject us.  This doesn’t mean that we are failures.  It means that we have made some poor choices and done some not so smart things.

Mistakes, failures, criticism and rejection provide the opportunity to start over – hopefully a little smarter.  Buckminster Fuller once said, “Whatever humans have learned had to be learned as a consequence of trial and error experience.  Humans have learned only through mistakes.”

That’s why fear is the enemy of self confidence and career success.  Take it from a career success coach.  If your fear of making a mistake, failure, criticism and rejection paralyzes you to the point where you aren’t willing to take calculated risks, you’ll never learn anything or accomplish any of your career success goals.  You’ll be an ID10T.

Don’t be too hard on yourself when you make a mistake or fail, or when others criticize or reject you.  My best career advice is to put your energy into figuring out why you failed and then do something different.  Here are four career success coach questions to ask yourself the next time you make a mistake, fail or get criticized or rejected.  They will keep you from becoming an ID10T.

1. What mistake did I make?  Why did I fail?  Why did I get criticized or rejected?  What did I do to cause the mistake, failure, criticism or rejection?
2. What could I have done to prevent the mistake, failure, criticism or rejection?
3. What have I learned from this situation? 
4. What will I do differently the next time?

If you do this, you’ll be using failure, criticism and rejection to your advantage.  In Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill says, “Every adversity, every failure and every heartache carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.”  I know it’s hard to see the benefit or opportunity in failure, criticism and rejection.  But it’s there – you just have to look hard enough.  But it all begins by facing your fear and acting.  The less you fear mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection the more career success you’ll create.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  You are an ID10T if you don’t learn from your mistakes and failures.  Successful people are self confident.  Self confident people face their fears and act.  They follow the career advice in Tweet 36 in Success Tweets.  “Don’t be afraid to fail.  You fail only if you don’t learn something from the experience.  Treat every failure as an opportunity to grow.”  Our most common fears are failure, criticism and rejection.  Follow this career advice.  Choose to find — and use — the learning opportunity in your failures and you will become more self confident and successful.   It’s sad but true – mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection are often the tuition you pay for becoming a career success.  Facing your fear of failure, criticism and rejection and acting will pay big dividends when it comes to your life and career success – and you won’t be an ID10T.

That’s my career advice on not being an ID10T and learning from mistakes, failure, criticism and rejection.  What your take?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my career success musings.  I appreciate you.

Bud

People often ask me where I get ideas for this career advice blog.  My answer is that there is no shortage of ideas if you just pay attention to what’s happening around you.  Last night the closing story on the NBC Nightly News was about a college baseball coach who has donated a kidney to one of his players.

Wake Forest University Baseball Coach Tom Walter donated one of his kidneys to outfielder Kevin Jordan.  As it turns out, none of Kevin’s family was a match while the coach was.  Jordan has a rare condition that causes abnormal antibodies to attack white blood cells and damage his kidney.  Prior to the surgery he was on dialysis 22 hours a day and was close to death.

Kevin Jordan is a freshman at Wake Forest.  He has yet to play a game with the team, and he won’t be playing this season.  He will be recuperating at home.  He plans on playing next year. Coach Walter says that he will be with his team when they play their first game against LSU in two weeks.

You might be wondering what the career advice is in this story.  It’s simple.  Successful people realize that no one goes it alone.  They need strong relationships to create their life and career success.

Tweet 127 in my latest career success book Success Tweets says, “Pay it forward.  Build relationships by giving with no expectation of return.  Give of yourself to build strong relationships.”  You don’t have to go to the lengths that Tom Walter did.  But he is a living example of giving of yourself to build strong relationships.

In 2009 I participated in a writing project with my colleagues at the Creating WE Institute.  We published a little book called 42 Rules for Creating WE.  The rules were short essays that contained a lot of great career advice. 

I contributed three rules.  One was called “There is No Quid Pro Quo in WE.”  This rule goes directly to the idea of paying it forward described in Tweet 127.  I’d like to share the career advice in this essay – with a few minor edits — with you here.

WE is built on relationships; the idea that we are all connected, and that through a WE-centric, rather than a traditional I-centric approach, our collective wisdom grows and evolves.  This kind of thinking creates stronger organizations and societies.  It fosters mutual shared respect for the unique contribution every person is capable of making.  Solid, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships are at the core of WE.  Giving with no expectation of return is a great way to create these types of relationships.

This is a quid pro quo world: you do for me and I’ll do for you.  While there is nothing wrong in reciprocating a good deed or a favor, there is a fundamental problem with quid pro quo.  It is reactive not proactive.  Too many people wait for others to go first.  They adopt the attitude, “When and if you do for me, I’ll do for you.”  This scarcity mentality is not conducive to creating WE, or building strong relationships.  When you come from a scarcity mentality, you focus on holding on to what you already have.  This can prevent you from receiving what you might possibly get.

On the other hand, giving with no expectation of return comes from a proactive abundance mentality.  When you give with no expectation of return, you are acknowledging the abundance of the universe.  You are demonstrating faith that the good you do will benefit others close to you and the world at large – and that good things will come back to you.

Giving with no expectation of return is ironic.  I have found that the more I give, the more I receive; often from unlikely sources.  But that’s not my reason for giving — and I hope it is not yours.  The best reason for giving is the basic joy of making a difference in other people’s lives and in creating a WE-centric world.

I love the Liberty Mutual Insurance “responsibility” ads.  They are a very visual demonstration of the ideas behind creating WE – especially giving with no expectation of return.  You’ve probably seen them. 

They begin with someone going a little out of his or her way to do something that benefits others; picking up a piece of trash, opening a door for another person who’s hands are full.  Another person observes this and goes out of his or her way for someone else.  The cycle repeats several times during the ad.  The message is clear.  We are all better off when we help each other.

Giving without expectation of return not only helps you create a WE-centric culture, it helps you build strong partnerships.  Larry Agresto is a WE-centric guy.  He says, “Truly successful people never compete, they network and leverage their relationships by providing value and giving more than they receive.”

In the end, giving with no expectation of return comes down to your mentality – scarcity or abundance.  If you come from a scarcity mentality, you will live by quid pro quo, and perpetuate the I-centric status quo.  If you come from an abundance mentality, you will give with no expectation of return and begin to create a WE-centric world and create the kind of strong, mutually beneficial relationships that will help you create the life and career success you want and deserve.

I choose abundance and paying it forward.  I agree with Winston Churchill who once said, “We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.”  When you give with no expectation of return you will get a good life.  You’ll also get a better world; one in which we all look out for one another.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Successful people are adept at building strong relationships.  They understand and use the career advice in Tweet 127 in Success Tweets.  “Pay it forward.  Build relationships by giving with no expectation of return.  Give of yourself to build strong relationships.”  Paying it forward is the opposite of quid pro quo.  When you go first – give of yourself to help someone else, with no expectations of return – you are laying the foundation for a successful relationship.  When you wait to reciprocate a good deed by another person, you are engaging in quid pro quo behavior that usually results in lost relationship opportunities.  Do yourself a favor, follow this career advice when it comes to relationship building – pay it forward. 

Those are my thoughts on the powerful career success lesson that comes from the Kevin Jordan – Tom Walter story.  What do you think?  Please take a minute to share your thoughts with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading these musings on life and career success.

Bud

I’ve been fortunate with this career advice blog lately.  I’ve received lots of requests from folks who want to do guest posts.  Brian Jenkins is one of those folks.  He works with Braintrack.com.  Brian has written a career success post directed at freelancers on staying motivated while working from home. 

However, I think Brian’s career advice applies to anyone who works from home – and I’ve found that more and more of my career success coach clients are working from home more and more often.  So I think that Brian’s career success advice applies to most everyone who reads this career advice blog.  It certainly applies to me as I work at home when I’m not traveling to visit clients.

Check out what Brian has to say…

Useful Tips for Staying Motivated While Working from Home

At times, staying motivated is a big challenge for freelancers who work from home. These folks sometimes miss the stimulation that results from collaborating with co-workers. Here are some helpful tips to keep you motivated while working from home.

Goals: Increase your degree of motivation by setting goals for yourself. For example, set a goal to gain eight new clients every month or to increase your sales by 20% during a given year. Set your goals a little higher than what seems practical, because you just might reach them!

Office hours: Regular office hours remind people working from home to be professional and to focus on work and not on surfing the Web and eating snacks. Also, don’t perform chores during your set working hours.

Productive hours: Most people have specific times of the day when they’re more productive. Don’t use this time to play video games or perform routine tasks. During these hours, work on challenging or high priority projects. And when you’re in the zone, avoid taking that three hour lunch.

Be organized: A messy office isn’t conducive to productivity. An organized office makes you feel more professional.

Take time off: Take a short vacation every quarter. Get away from the computer and spend time with friends and family members. Unfortunately, Facebook can easily become the social life of people who work from home.

Dress for work: Don’t wear pajamas while working. If your personal habits decline it will probably lead to a decline in your work habits. Dress as though a client is showing up for a meeting.

Exercise: Take one or two walks during the day or do some aerobic exercises, and try to get up from your chair and stretch on occasion. Try not to think about work while you’re exercising. Being active will definitely make you feel better.

Change projects: If you get bogged down on a project, put it to the side and work on something else. Select a project that’s completely different from the one you were working on. When you return to the other project perhaps you’ll have new ideas and inspiration.

Distractions: Pets, children, email, telephone calls, text messages, and social networking websites can take up valuable time. You don’t have to instantly respond to unnecessary “What’s up?” text messages from friends. Use your call display to decide if you should answer the phone during work hours. Only respond to personal email during scheduled break times. And don’t take additional breaks unless something truly crucial comes up. A desire to snack on cheese puffs is not a good enough reason! If you have kids at home make it clear that they shouldn’t interrupt you unless it’s an emergency.

Freelancers make more money when they’re motivated, and motivation also prevents boredom. Following this advice will help you work more productively from home.

Following Brian’s career advice will help you work more productively from home – even if you’re not a freelancer. 

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  More and more people spend more and more time working from home.  Working from home can be helpful to your career success – you can get more done if you manage your time well.  Working from home can also hinder your career success – there are more distractions and you might not be as disciplined as you would be in an office setting. 

Brian Jenkins provides some great pieces of career advice on working from home.  Here are four that I think will facilitate your career success.  1) Keep regular office hours.  2) Work on high brain tasks, during your high brain times.  3) Dress for work.  4) Most important, manage the distractions that come with working at home.

I hope you found this career advice about working from home by Brian Jenkins to be helpful as you pursue your life and career success.  Let us know what you think about what Brian has to say by sharing your thoughts in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading this career advice.  I really appreciate you.

Bud

Brian Jenkins writes about a variety of career help topics for BrainTrack.

Tweet 96 in my latest career success book Success Tweets says, “Good truly is the enemy of great.  Don’t settle for good performance.  Today, good performance is mediocre.  Become a great performer.”

You have to be productive if you want to become a great performer and career success.  My friend Dr. Sharon Melnick has some great career advice on how to develop productivity mindset. 

She says that perfectionism – a disease with many of us are afflicted – is a mindset that will keep you from becoming productive, and will not facilitate your life and career success.  Sharon shows people “how to get out of their own way.”  She knows what she is talking about.  If you want to unleash your full potential I suggest that you check out her website at http://www.sharonmelnick.com.

Check out what Sharon has to say…

Being a perfectionist will keep you from getting work done, getting home earlier and becoming a career success. Why? There is the time you waste agonizing over every word in emails. Then there is the time wasted worrying over whether the finished product will be good enough. Finally, there is energy wasted procrastinating.
 
How can you keep high standards but not let perfectionism get in your way?

Try these shifts in your mindset to get control of your productivity:

Old mindset: “Perfect is the only way to get it done.”

Productivity Mindset: “Done is better than perfect”

Old mindset: Figure it all out in your head, worry what people will think of your ‘smarts’, and deliver something that is perfect on the first go around.

Productivity Mindset: Put together a well thought out first draft, get feedback from your colleagues, clients and or customers. Then rapidly iterate a next ‘better’ version until your project or offering is highly responsive to its audience and has wide buy-in.

Old mindset (for corporate employees): Your work needs to be 100% perfect all of the time.

Productivity mindset (for corporate employees): Employ the “80-20″ rule to get work to the point of ‘good enough’ to be sent out (because you have 5 other projects you have to deliver by the end of the day!) Further, make decisions rather than putting them off, expect that your judgment will be correct 80% of the time (and learn from the 20% it’s not.)

Old mindset (for business owners): Everything I say and write will be scrutinized by prospects and clients to determine whether they want to work with me.

Productivity mindset (for business owners): Leave an impression on prospects and clients through your consistent presence, empathy, and provision of solutions to their problems. There will rarely be one particular memo or meeting that is a referendum on whether a client wants to work with you.

This mindset shift is just 1 of the 29 strategies Sharon has developed to end procrastination. She can also show you how to…

• Control the never-ending stream of tasks and prioritize when you have multiple competing projects.
• Eliminate 85% of interruptions and distractions.
• Overcome confidence blocks that get in the way of your productivity.

Sharon’s career advcie on personal productivity has some great benefits.  If you apply it in your life and career you  will gain: 1) Peace of mind –knowing you are keeping up and won’t let critical items fall through the cracks; 2) Balance — from gaining an extra hour of time with your family each day; 3) Income — expect more income each month or more recognition as a respected contributor to your organization because of your increased productivity; and  4) Control over your life  — rather than being stressed out and consumed by never-ending tasks.

The common sense career success coach point here is simple.  Your personal productivity is very important to your level of performance and your life and career success.  If you want to increase your personal productivity you have to change your mindset.  Think “done is better than perfect.”  Get things done fast – review and revise as necessary.  A productivity mindset will help you put the career advice in tweet 96 in Success Tweets into play. “Good truly is the enemy of great.  Don’t settle for good performance.  Today, good performance is mediocre.  Become a great performer.”  Great performers have a productivity mindset that helps them create the life and career success they want and deserve.

That’s Sharon Melnick’s career advice on developing a productivity mindset.  What is your career advice for developing a productivity mindset?  Please take a few minutes and share it with us in a comment.  As always, thanks for reading my career success musings.

Bud