The M.A.P. Maker

Advice for new graduates

As we hit the graduation season, it's time for a re-post of my advice for new graduates finding their way into the work force.

In my work, I help people find passion in their careers. Typically my clients are making a mid-career change after realizing they're not on the right path.

At a time of year when new graduates are up to their eyeballs in what-do-I-do-now, I have some advice for them to help ensure that they never need someone like me.

What is it? "Don't worry about making the 'right' choice as you launch into your career - because you probably won't."

You can imagine that raises some eyebrows. Of course there's more to it (read on for that). I just like to say that because it gets people's attention.

The reality is, most recent students entering the work force simply haven't had the real world experience to be able to accurately say, "This is the career I want for the next twenty years." I was no different. Thinking back on my days as a new graduate, I shake my head at what I thought I wanted out of my career.

I see it in my clients all the time. I find that people don't start coming to see me until their early thirties (and often older, of course). I call the first ten years out of college the incubation period.

Coming out of college they have this rose-colored, sexy view of what they think they want to do (or what they "should" do), and it takes a few years of real world work experience for them to really start to clue into the fact that "somethin' ain't right here," and, more importantly, "Something needs to change."

So, on to the rest of my advice...

It's really unlikely that your career is going to follow a straight shot trajectory based on the step you take right now. So don't stress about that step as defining your career, because it's almost guaranteed that it won't.

Rather than trying to make the "right" choice right now to launch you into a career for the next twenty or thirty years, look at the next five years as a big R&D project. Spend the time to really get to know what lights you up. Find out where you really feel energized.

Pick a direction that appeals to you, and then treat your life as a big lab experiment. Along the way, keep asking yourself, "What do I love about this? Why? What is it about that that's so fun? What drives me nuts about this? Why? What is it about that that rubs me the wrong way?"

Spend the first years of your career really figuring out what makes you tick.

The fact is, success is going to come a lot more easily for you if you are on fire about what you're doing. So spending the time to really understand what that is can be one of the best career investments you can make.

And investing in that kind of awareness (and committing to basing your decisions on what you discover) will ensure that you never have to come see somebody like me and say, "This path is SOOO wrong. I need to change, but I don't know to what, or how." 

You'll be too busy loving your life.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

Free Teleforum - Competitive Career Advantage: How to use passion to stand out from the crowd

In today's economy, you need every competitive edge you can get. Whether you currently have a job or are looking for work, passion can help you stand out from the crowd.

Please join me on Wednesday, January 7th at 12 p.m. Pacific time for a free teleforum focused on how to turn passion into a competitive advantage in your career.

Why should you invest an hour of your valuable time on this call? During that hour you will learn...

• How passion can feed your success.
• How to identify your Passion Factors (the underlying characteristics that tend to be in place when you're on fire).
• How understanding those Passion Factors can help you distinguish yourself from the competition.
• How to use those Passion Factors to consciously create a career path that lights you up.
• How understanding your Passion Factors can make you a stronger job candidate.

To register for this free teleforum, please e-mail me.

Details:

What: Passion as a competitive advantage

When: Wednesday, January 7th, 2008, 12 p.m. - 1 p.m. Pacific time

Where: By phone

How much: FREE (you pay only your carrier's long distance fees, if applicable)

Please forward this information to anyone you know who would benefit from this teleforum. For more information on future teleforums, go here.

I hope to "see" you there. Enjoy!

Curt

www.passioncatalyst.com

Job search: Passion as a competitive advantage

This post is part of a collective Job Action Day effort to help people thrive in the face of the current economic turmoil. You can find a list of other participating blogs here.

If you’ve ever interviewed for a job, you know how important it is to be able to clearly, concisely answer the question, “Why should we pick you?” Now more than ever – as increasing numbers of job seekers pursue a dwindling supply of open positions – it’s vital to be able to position yourself competitively.

I hear people talk about skills and experience when it comes to their job search, but not so many talk about the potential for passion to be a competitive advantage. And that’s a shame, because it’s a great way to stand out from the crowd.

Differentiate yourself with passion

Picture this scenario. Two candidates are in the final running for a job. They’re both similarly qualified. They share a similar background and similar skills. But there’s one huge difference. Not only is one on fire about the job she’s interviewing for, but she is also able to convey why it lights her up. She can say, “This is what lights me up, and this is why I’m going to be on fire about this job.” She can give specific details, not just vague positive generalizations.

Which one would you pick? If you’re a hiring manager, the answer is a no-brainer. You want employees that are energized and engaged by their work. When they can convincingly articulate why they would be, your decision just got easier.

How important can this be? Very. I recently had a client who was trying to make a change in the large technology company he worked for. He wanted to move from a programming role to a marketing communications role, which was a much better fit. Because of the work we had done together, he was able to make a convincing case for why he was perfect for the job, and he was hired.

Find your Passion Factors: Ask what, then why

As a job candidate, having passion for the work you do is great. But if you want to fully leverage the potential of your passion, you have to be able to communicate it. You have to take it out of the abstract and show how it’s relevant to the job you’re interviewing for.

To take passion out of the abstract and into the real world, identify your “Passion Factors.” What are those? Your Passion Factors are the underlying reasons why you love what you love. They’re the underlying characteristics that tend to be in place when you feel energized and engaged.

To identify your Passion Factors, take a look at what you have loved doing over the course of your life – work or play – and then ask, “Why? Why is this so much fun? Why is it so interesting? What is it about this that is so compelling?”

What you love is only part of the equation. Whether you realize it or not, when you say, “I love _____,” what you really mean is, “I love _____ because of _____, _____, and _____.” You and I might love the exact same thing, but the reasons why we love it might be completely different. Those reasons why that are your Passion Factors.

Do you love writing code? Why? What is fun about that? Do you love marketing research, or writing a strategic plan? Why is that so appealing? As you explore multiple things you love, you’ll find similar themes start bubbling to the surface. Those are your Passion Factors.

Maybe you love piecing together puzzles. Or maybe a sense of exploration and discovery is always there when you’re feeling the juice. Maybe you delight in analysis, or getting lost in that creative flow.

Whatever they are, when your Passion Factors are in the picture, you are more likely to feel energized by what you’re doing. Knowing those Passion Factors takes the guesswork out of it.

“Here are these underlying characteristics that tend to be in place when I’m on fire about something,” you might think. “And here’s this job that is chock full of these underlying characteristics that tend to be in place when I’m on fire. What are the odds that I’m going to be on fire about that job?” They’re excellent!

Communicate your passion

Understanding your Passion Factors allows you to clearly articulate not just how your knowledge and skills make you a good fit, but also how the very nature of the job will actually give you energy – energy that you can then put back into optimal performance. In essence, you can say, “I’m perfect for this job because it’s going to fuel me. Here’s how, and here’s why.”

To help you communicate your passion story, try this. For each of the Passion Factors you identify, write one or more vignettes from your past work experience where that has come into play. Think of it as creating a cheat sheet to help you tell the passion story. Demonstrate where the energy comes from.

Next, identify elements of the job you’re interviewing for that tie into your passion factors. You can do this both ahead of time and by asking questions during the interview. For example, let’s say the job requires a strong degree of organization, and you love, Love, LOVE organizing and creating order. You can use those vignettes of your past experience as examples, then illustrate how those Passion Factors apply with the new job as well.

Ask questions to find alignment

Do you want a job you know won’t energize you? Probably not. Not just because it won’t be fun, but also because you are less likely to shine if the work is out of alignment with what makes you tick. When you understand your Passion Factors, you can ask questions in the interview to really understand if the job is a good fit for where you’ll be at your best.

Keep planning for passion

Finally, once you do land the job, remember to keep using those Passion Factors to help guide your path. Use them to evaluate opportunities that arise. Share them with your boss so he or she knows what makes you tick. Having a clear understanding of what energizes you makes it that much easier for him or her to guide you down a path where you can deliver on your highest potential.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

--

by Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst

The positive ripple effect of passion

And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.

- Marianne Williamson

Have you ever been around someone who is so on fire about what they're doing that their enthusiasm rubs off on you? You end up feeling energized even if the actual focus of their excitement isn't especially relevant for you. It's like that saying, "a rising tide lifts all boats." Their energy tide just lifted your boat.

As I've mentioned before, my definition of passion is, "the energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do." When you base what you do on who you really are, rather than spending your days being who you're not, it's an energizing experience. And that energy has an impact on the people around you.

How you live your life - the choices you make and the direction you take - has the potential to have a profound effect on the world around you. If you think of the world as a big energetic work of art, then showing up authentically gives you access to a palate of colors that lets you add splashes of vibrant color (or rich, subtle tones, if that's more your style).

Finding passion in your career (and your life) isn't just a self-absorbed effort with no external impact. When you are in your groove, it can have a very real positive ripple effect on your surroundings.

One of the things I've heard repeatedly from clients, for example, is that their (husband/wife/partner) made a comment to them along the lines of, "You're so much more enjoyable to be around now." Think that's having any impact on that relationship?

And when you show up as who you really are, you set an example. You, as Marianne Williamson notes in her quote above, give the people you come in contact with permission to let their own lights shine as well.

So how about you? What kinds of ripple effects is the way you're living your life having? What kind of ripple effects could it have?

   

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Can regret help you create a career you love?

Too often in our lives, we encounter regret only in hindsight. But what if we used it with foresight to help us create the future we really want? Over on the U.S. News blog today, I wrote a post exploring how you can use the question, "What would I regret?" to help you create a career that lights you up. Check it out.

And if you want to read my other posts over there, go here.

Enjoy!

   

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Word-paint your self-portrait for an energized life

My Passion Catalyst work is about helping people manage the Gain to Drain Ratio in their lives - bringing more of what gives them energy into the picture and jettisoning what drains them. It's all based on my definition of passion: The energy that comes from bringing more of YOU into what you do.

With that in mind, I loved what Howard Behar (former President of Starbucks International and Starbucks North America, and author of the book, "It's Not About the Coffee") had to say when I interviewed him for the most recent M.A.P. Maker Podcast. Behar's description of bringing more of you into what you do is "one-hat living." 

One-hat living is being totally in synch with who you are as a human being...what are your values? What matters to you? How do you want to live your life?

And you’ve got to write those things down, because if you don’t, then it’s just talk. And they’re not written in stone just because you write them down, but it’s kind of like painting a picture of yourself in words.

When you put all these words together and they paint a picture of yourself, then you should be looking for things to do, places to work, wherever you’re going to live your life, your significant other in your life, that fit with that.

Because that’s how you’re going to have a happy, productive life. If you’re constantly in conflict with your values and how you live your life, where they don’t match with each other, it’s a recipe for disaster in life. You will see problems, and you will have problems, and you will be unhappy.

I love the idea of painting a word-picture of yourself. If you don't have the clarity about who you really are - not just a vague sense of "I know it when I see it," but a really solid understanding of what makes you tick - it's next to impossible to consciously bring more of that into the picture.

You can start painting your own word-picture right now by asking yourself some questions...

• What do I already know I want in my career?
• What do I love doing? Why? (Don't limit yourself to career-related activities - you're interested in the underlying reasons why you love it, not the activity itself.)
• What do I care about?
• When am I at my best?

The more you know about yourself, the more you fuel you have for creating an energizing, inspiring future.

--

Time for a career change? Launch it with...
The Occupational Adventure Guide:
A Travel Guide to the Career of Your Dreams

Kim & Jason say, "Follow your passion!"

If you're reading this blog, odds are good that you have more than a passing interest in creating a career chock full of passion. With that in mind, you should probably zip right over and download a brand spankin' new copy of Kim & Jason's  quarterly newsletter.

This issue focuses on following your passion and includes an article from yours truly. I have a copy of the paper version, and it's a pretty impressive piece of work. 

While you're over there, spend some time on Kim & Jason's blog.  I love what  they're up to (Less stress! More fun!).

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

Want to energize your life? Maximize your Gain to Drain Ratio

The nutshell description of what I do with my work is "helping people put their passion to work to make a difference that inspires them, in a way that lets them thrive."

Another way I describe my work is even simpler - it's about energy management. In essence, it's about identifying the sources of energy and incorporating them into your career, and your life.

At the heart of the energy management idea is what I call the Gain to Drain Ratio. Maximizing your Gain to Drain Ratio is simple, really. All you do is:

• Bring as much as possible of what gives you energy (the Gain part of the equation)
• Do whatever you can to minimize the things that drain your energy.

In terms of your career, the two key Gain components are passion and meaning. The more you can incorporate the kinds of things that energize you, and the more you can put that to work towards something that inspires you and pulls you forward, the more Gain you have.

By the same token, the more you can change the things that suck your energy away - whether by doing something major like a career change or something less drastic like taking small steps to do things more in alignment with how you naturally function - the smaller your Drain will be.

The Gain to Drain Ratio idea applies throughout your life, not just your career. For example, a big source of Gain or Drain can be diet and exercise. The more healthily you eat and the more consistently you exercise, the bigger the Gain. Living on twinkies and potato chips, on the other hand, can be a massive Drain.

And of course the net effect from things like diet and exercise have an impact on other parts of your life. You might be doing a job you love and making a super-inspiring difference, but if you your diet and exercise habits create a big Drain, it's going to reduce the Gain to Drain Ratio.

(Feel free to skip the next three paragraphs if numbers and ratios make your eyeballs roll back in your head - it's just another way to think about it).

If you want to put it all in more concrete terms, think of it in terms of measuring things on a scale from 1 to 10. Maybe you love your work and give it a 9 on the Gain scale. There are a few things that drive you buggy, so maybe the Drain is a 3. So your Gain to Drain Ratio is 9 to 3. If you're mathematically compulsive, you could reduce that to 3 to 1 and say, hey, I've got a Gain to Drain score of 3.

If you made some changes and eliminated the things that drive you nuts, that Drain might drop to 1. Now all of a sudden it's 9 to 1, or a Drain to Gain score of 9 (out of a maximum of 10).

The same idea applies the other way. If the Gain from your work is far outweighed by the Drain - say, a Gain of 3 and a Drain of 9 - now all of a sudden you have a 1 to 3 Gain to Drain Ratio. Or a Gain to Drain score of 1/3.

(OK, enough of the mathematical interlude - back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Take a look at your own career, and your own life. What does your Gain to Drain Ratio look like? Try looking at the Gain and Drain in different areas, like...

• Career
• Health
• Relationships
• Finance

When you start getting a feel for how the different components of your life affect your overall Gain to Drain Ratio, you can start exploring ways to maximize the Gain and minimize the Drain.

And that's what it's all about!

--

Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM

 

101 Ways to Get Wild About Work - now available!

At long last, 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work is ready to go! Written with the busy professional in mind, it's a perfect way to start working towards passion in bite-sized tidbits.  

Check out the book's web page for more information and some free samples from the book.

Sneak preview: 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work

[Update: The book is now available here.]

Whoo-hoo! I've been working on it off and on for over two years, but I'm finally just about to publish 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work.

I'm completely psyched to finally be ready to share it with you. It has the potential to spark a lot of positive change in people's lives, and I can't think of much that lights me up more than that!

The book is packed with insights and action steps to  help you turn your dreams into reality. Each bite-sized idea stands on its own and is short enough to easily read, absorb, and put into play in your life.

You can either start at the beginning and work through it front to back, or take a self-customized approach, flipping through it and working with ideas that feel particularly relevant to where you are at the moment.

Here's a sneak preview of what you'll find:

Introduction (suggestions on how to use the book)

Topic Guide

#1 - Define Tomorrow by Its Potential

Want to be among the very first to know when it's available? Drop me an e-mail and I will send you a note to let you know (hint: It will be in time for New Year's).