Background
Often Said, Public Transportation is the only means I get to meet people these days.
As I waited on the DB1 Bus, a young lady came up.
We chatted a bit.
Got on the same bus, and afterward the same train.
What advice do you have for me?
I asked what she is up to.
She replied on way to School.
As we spoke more, she looked up to me, and tenderly asked what advice do you have for me.
I know she really needed a thoughtful and authentic disposition from me.
Outline
Here is a rough outline of career advice:-
- Know You
- Manage You
- Brand Management
- Career Planning
- Long Term Planning
- Invest in your Wellbeing
- Portfolio Management
- Run
- Keep your promises
- Understand the cost of No
- Working For & Not Working For
- Identify those you are working on behalf
- Those you are not working for
- Role Modeling
Know You
Know Thyself.
Quite a bit of yourself will sip into your career.
And, same the other way, your job will likely sneak some into your life.
Work hard on you and your work will benefit.
Work hard at work and be able to leave it at work each day.
The critics will question you, but in a witness of two or more, the lone naysayer’s words will not hold as much say.
Manage You
Do not be a pushover, an errand boy for stupid projects.
Find ways to say No.
Seek out management that can protect you, even if they are stairs above you.
Brand Management
You are a brand.
Those who get paid the most know this.
Ask any Entertainer, Athlete, Medical Doctor, Lawyer, or Politician.
Watch over how the aforementioned obsess over themselves and their image. Do same over you.
Career Planning
Look at your career in stages.
Draw it out in sketches of few year brackets.
See what you will like to be doing at each stage.
Is it progressive?
Are there prerequisites and corequisites to it?
How are you managing and getting those prerequisites out of the way?
Are you able to blend the corequisites in?
Long Term Planning
What will you like to do as you sunset your career?
Is it Real Estate, Writing, Community Involvement, Children’s Development?
Again, how are preparing educationally, co-employment, networking, temperamentally, location wise for that later life.
Invest in your WellBeing
Again, eat well.
Sleep well.
Do not needlessly feed drugs into your body.
If you do not currently have addictions, don’t prime your body.
Walk and take in nature.
Develop a need for exercise. And, feed that need.
Portfolio Management
Choose Industries that are growing.
Choose companies that are growing.
Choose partners that are growing.
Choose vendors that are growing.
How well-meaning are they? How ethical are they?
Do they destroy their ecosystem?
Only the rarest people can carry an Industry.
The same goes for a company.
Run
Even workplaces will have people you need to run from.
The gossipers.
The take, take, take crowd.
People who will set little, booby traps for you.
Run from them.
In some cases, you will not be able to run, yet find creative ways to hide from them.
Keep your promises
Make and Keep promises.
Make as it shows you are paying attention and see needs.
Keep as those needs still remain, even when you gloss over them.
Understand the cost of NO
There are costs to No’s.
Personally Organizationally, Environmentally, and beyond there are costs and consequences to our No.
Do you say No to new education and learning?
Do you say No to system upgrades?
What are your reasons? Where are your justifications?
Are there tools to protect those less fortunate, less represented in the workplace?
What tooling do you participate in to circumvent those tools?
Working For & Not Working For
Identify those you are working on behalf
Those you are not working for
Unfortunately, you will not be able to work equally hard on behalf of everyone.
Some people do not deserve to be worked hard for; they are not honest, they are not ethical, they heap on you false praise just to get their way.
And, turn around and laugh at your simpleness.
With every vigor and plainness granted you in Heaven, walk away from these types and ask daily for God to protect you from the ilks.
Role Modeling
Hopefully, you have built up generational wealth in your family.
Wealth not just as a financial measure, but as work ethic, work preparation, work management.
If not so much, choose friends that have.
Choose Wisely.
Good families will see your unfortunate blind spots and will encourage you.
Summary
This is a tough post for me, for various reasons.
Yet, keeping a promise to the young lady stands over my Forbearances.
Learning in the Open 