I received this email from someone just the other day….

I recently graduated from …. MBA program and have not really found it to be providing any of the opportunities that  I had hoped for, even given the current economic and employment conditions. I have a desire to change careers and would like to ….., but unfortunately, I have no technical training or experience. I am currently …………. I have been doing this for 10 years, and I have hit the wall. I have to do something else, but I am having a very hard time finding what that something else is exactly as well as how to get there. I just know there is more out there, and I know I am capable of so much more than what I do or have done up until now, I just have no experience in anything else. Constantly surfing employment boards and firing out resumes is not getting me anywhere. I thought that a MBA would provide these for me, but …..

I have left the details as …. to protect the particular programs they are talking about. Fact is, the details do not matter. I hear this from so many people in so many career paths. It has become the mantra of the current tech community.

A few key points here…

1. An MBA is NOT the answer. Yes, I have one – and it was not the answer for me either!

2. Firing off resumes is not the answer!

What works?

1. Change your thinking! The education system most of us were programmed by (yes – I said programmed) is broken! You need to think differently. You have to think like an entrepreneur – even if you want a job! See a reading list you should add to your library.

2. Networking. But not the same old hat networking you have been told about. For most technical people that type of blind networking strikes fear into their hearts. Remember walking into a crowded room and seeing tons of unknown faces. You search for a face you know, but your hands get sweaty and your heart starts to race. You look to the door and think about running. Guess what – this does not work – for the obvious reasons. Instead do something that DOES work.

Try Networking for Introverts! Click Below to Read Parts 1 and 2 of this process (and there are few videos in there too!)

Part 1

Part 2

I do some work in the home school market writing DVD courses for home school math. This week we’ve really been swamped with calls and emails about parents getting ready for the Fall and needing answers to some key questions.

In getting all of this done, we missed one phone call. The lady had called us and left a message but during the recording her phone clicked out just as she was saying the last digits of her phone number. So we couldn’t tell what her number was to call her back. It was right on the day that we were updating our phones, too, so we didn’t have a record of the missed call and had no way to call her back. It wasn’t really anything we could have avoided, and she took the time to email us later so we talked eventually, but it was an enlightening moment.

Even things we can’t avoid or change will impact our customer service, which impacts how our companies are reflected to the world.  I think too many companies let customer service fall second on their priority list. Returning the phone calls or getting back on that email are not put up there as being important. But they really are just as important–if not more important.

As you are looking at your business, whether you have your own company, or you are in a contract with another company that you serve, you have a customer. And as you are serving this company or your company’s customers, remember that how you treat people matters a whole lot more than whether or not all your i’s are dotted and your t’s are crossed. How people feel they were treated by your company is what they will remember when deciding to do business with you. Keeping up good relations is always better than trying to mend broken ones. Make your service a priority.

Last night I was in a ministry team where the leaders and the pastor were
struggling to find out why they could not get people to show up for their
“ministry”

It came down to this. They needed to define who they wanted to serve, and
then what do those people value. Marketing! Same problem we have on our job,
getting a job, or running a company.

Anything meaningful we do in life involves serving others! Sometimes money
changes hands – other times it does not- But – we are always serving. And -
to serve effectively we have to know:

WHO are we serving? and What do they value?

I got this email the other day:

“Something small on reverse interview:  I talked to my boss and asked him how he got to where he is today.  I used the reverse interview technique.  This worked well, he opened up and this has helped improve our relationship.  I now find him making more eye contact with me during meetings and I feel more comfortable in speaking up.”

This is one of the powerful things you get from this reverse interview – you get to know people on a more personal level. You open up the doors of communication and find common ground by getting past the corporate sterile conversations.

When you look at starting a new venture–a new business, a new move, or really anything “new” and shall we say “adventurous”? — The temptation is to be reluctant on the grounds of being responsible. And you have to sort of weed between the two. Being responsible and planning are both good things to do and to be in anything in life. But realize that while saying that you are a responsible person might make you feel less guilty about never trying that one idea you had, or while it might make you feel less self-resentful that you never even tried to reach your goals in reality, self placating is all you are doing. Don’t let responsibility be the scapegoat for your fear

If you are starting a new business and you really believe in what you’re doing, just go for it. Don’t sit on a great idea and never try it just because you don’t know how you’d be able to swing it.

Like, take this situation: You have a very smart, very like-able guy. He is in his 50′s now, but right after high school he started at medical school. Being a doctor was his dream job. About halfway through school, he got married, had a baby, and chose to pursue those family things instead of his medical career. Now a granddad, he works 50+ hours a week (sometimes arriving and getting off at 3, 4, 5 in the morning) at a job he hates, so he can “pay the bills”. He and his family live on an income that barely gets them by. They are constantly counting pennies, getting into debt, and scraping by financially. He is a happy person, but it is safe to say he is not very fulfilled.

Then you could have this situatiuon: There is a great guy, but he spends his time bouncing around from job to job. And when I say job, he is in his thirties, holds 3/4 of a college degree (he, too, ran out of money to finish), and works pizza delivery type jobs to support his wife and kids.

For both these men the goal is paying the bills. Not happiness, not personal fulfillment, not working at a job you love instead of just one that just gets you by. They have no ambition and no drive for life.

A friend of mine commented on these situations really well when he said “The difference is the mindset. For you, it is about making a job but for them, it is about finding a job”. Both of these hypothetical men want to change careers, but instead of making for themselves a career they love–by staying focused on what they WANT instead of what they can live with—they are choosing to put in applications at Papa Johns and Publix because those are the places who “are hiring”.

I don’t know about you but when I look out at my life and my future and I think about what my children are going to remember me as being, I don’t want pizza delivery guy to be how they think of me. Don’t get me wrong, I love pizza and I’m glad people deliver them, but to me those are the kind of jobs that “pay the bills”. If I could advise these two guys I’ve been talking about I would ask them why they aren’t using their extra time to carve out a career they WANT.

I get that babies have to eat and the lights have to be paid for, so sometimes you have to hold down the job that best supports your family and that is a noble, responsible thing to do. But while you’re doing that, be planning, be saving, be thinking, of how you can get from where you are to where you want to be. If your dream job is a pizza guy then go for it! But if you want something more from your life, then MAKE IT HAPPEN. Stay focused on what you want and don’t wait on life to hand it to you.

When you have just graduated high school, the world is before you. You have all of your dreams and aspirations ready to go. You look at your parents and say things like “I want to major in acting. I want to be an actress” or “I want to go into photography” or maybe “I want to major in a foreign language”.More than likely your parents stare blankly back at you with doubtful looks.

But you didn’t care back then. You had no fear about stating these things then, because they were purely, simply, exactly, what you wanted to do with your life.

Then you graduate with those degrees and feel dismayed because all of the “now hiring” signs are not looking for a photographer, an actress, or a specialist in foreign language. So what happens?

These same people go on to get jobs waiting tables, being a sales clerk, or punching cards behind the desk of some government job, because those places were “hiring”. The job made money, the money paid the rent, and that was the main priority.

Thus, we have an entire society of people who “have to have a degree” but they almost never work in their degree field.

What’s wrong with this picture? Well aside from the discussions we could have about businesses who require you to have a degree, then don’t care what your degree is in, mainly we need to talk about why people don’t choose the things they want AFTER college the way they did before.

Ignorance? Fear? Practicality? Responsibility?

There is nothing irresponsible about pursuing the career you want instead of just pursuing anything that pays money. In fact, pursuing money above all else, is the exact kind of mentality that leads to criminals. Set your priorities towards what really matters. You may need a job to pay the rent, but you aren’t doing your family any favors if you come home every day miserable because you just spent 10-12 hours doing something you hate.

If you got that degree in acting, see if you can’t make a career of that. You don’t have to be a starving artists. Keep the day job, but be looking for ways to create yourself a career that is fun for you AND makes the money you need for your family.

Looking to be a photographer? Who says you can’t open up a website where you sell your photographs? That doesn’t take anything away from what you’re doing now, but it allows you to be doing something you love. and who knows? As that website grows, maybe you can reach a point where that is your main career. Really, it is possible. IF you work at it.

The point is, as you look at your career, stay in what you’re doing if it is what you WANT to be doing. Otherwise, don’t be afraid to pursue change (responsibly)

A friend of mine and I were talking the other day and they were telling me about how their brother had recently lost a job. Not only that, but the job he had just applied for that he thought was a shoe-in, had fallen through. So now this guy was telling me about the hard-luck story that his brother was having trying to pay bills.

Now, obviously, the story is tough. But honestly, my reaction was “How free he is now!” This guy just lost his job, he doesn’t have income. That’s the bottom. It can only go up–he can finally CHOOSE what he wants to do.

But what was he doing? He was putting in applications at every local shop in town and sitting back, waiting on a job to waltz across his threshold.

I was shocked.

“Doesn’t this guy have a degree in mass communications?”, I asked.

“Yeh” my friend replied.

“Then why isn’t he contacting some people in mass communications or searching out internships in that field, or even starting his own business doing something he likes? He doesn’t have anyone to answer to anymore. He’s free. He can go for his dreams now. Why isn’t he?”

My friend was at a loss for words.

When you are out of a job, you have two choices: you can find a job, or you can make a job. Odds are that if you make for yourself a career that you WANT, you’ll be much happier, much more fulfilled, and most likely, you’ll make more money.

So if you’re in this boat, where you need a job, then MAKE ONE. Go out today, right now, and MAKE YOUR DREAM JOB HAPPEN.  The alternative is to to be sitting at home waiting to hear back from applications. So why not give it a try? there’s no better time than now.

According to CNN Money Magazine’s list of Best Places to Live , when you’re looking for the brightest, most attractive city for happy people, Eden Prairee, MN tops them all.

After you ask “where is that?” you might ask “why is that?” Well, you can see where by clicking here. But the “why” might surprise you.

We talked about how to “Find Opportunity” but the exact quote from CNNMoney.com is suggests that people are looking for their opportunity in places that are “best for families.” There is not a single “big” city on there. Nothing in New York, LA, Atlanta, Chicago, or any of the “it” towns. I was surprised.

In this world of go business, go business, big business, high rises, sky scrapers, money, money, money!!!! It is tempting to think that family oriented, calm, safe, clean, way of living is out of date. But apparently not. The number one most talked about topic in today’s google searches, is all about the best place to live if you want to raise a family.

So apparently, family values are not only hugely popular, but they are also good for business. Just thought you might want to know.

Born October 8, 1939, he died early in the morning July 12, 2010 at his home in Cleveland Heights. He is a famous American comic strip writer known best for writing the comic strip “American Splendor” where he chronicles the every day life of the every day man. He created an entire career out of things we do all the time.

He started out as a file clerk at a VA Hospital and through the advice of friends (see “reverse interview” and “Networking“) he made a career out of his hobby, and spent his life doing what he loved.

Famously a “curmudgeon”, you can see his trademark curmudgeon-ry here in this clip of an interview with David Letterman:

According to Nick Swinmurn, a 30 year old billionaire  the key to success is to “be scrappy”. In an interview for the BBC news blog, he talks about how it is the guys who don’t give up that succeed the most. It doesn’t matter, he says, if you don’t know how you’re going to do it. It only matters that you DO something. Fight against the odds, go against the grain and “try everything and just fight and claw and keep adapting, keep trying things.”

Don’t let yourself get distracted with side-ideas. While you’re working if you come up with something else that might be awesome–great. But make a list. Finish one thing well, then move on to the next. Don’t chase 4 million rabbit trails. If you spent only one dollar on each of those rabbit trails, you’ll be broke instead of 4 million dollars richer. Or $800 million dollars richer in the case of Nick. He just sold his latest company, Zappos, (a shoe selling company) to amazon.

Watch his video here. And while you do, ask yourself: Why aren’t you making shoes again? (or whatever it is that you haven’t tried because it is “too simple” or “wouldn’t work”) Yeh, maybe you should take a second look at that “crazy idea”.