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Posted by Dan Zubrzycki | 09, Feb, 2012
The consulting and contracting world is inherently isolated. You’re out on your own, finding new clients, surmounting new problems. In a traditional work environment, we are surrounded by other professionals who provide advice, examples and a support network. While they also provide competition, those around you can be a great resource when you’ve hit a wall in a project. Especially the sagacious advice of one who has been in your field much longer than yourself. These mentors can help you navigate office politics as well as provide insight in tough business situations.
The contractor and consulting world is full of opportunities to develop such relationships. In fact, they are more important in the independent employment world. Mentors help guide you toward projects that will further your career and strategies that will help develop your work skills. It’s equally important, as you develop in your career, that you allow yourself to be a resource to others.
Be Humble: It requires a measure of humility to allow yourself to be mentored. Admitting that you aren’t experienced enough to handle every situation that comes your way, or recognizing that you could use a second opinion is something that many aren’t ready to do. Once you get beyond that stigma, you are guaranteed to benefit from having a good mentor.
Reach Out: While sometimes a mentoring relationship develops organically, other times it requires something of a cold-call process. You can attempt to develop that relationship organically by simply send queries and career questions to someone else in your industry whom you respect. Otherwise, it can be beneficial to simply state your desire directly: I’m looking for someone to provide some advice as I start up in this field. What you’ll find is that – rather than seeing competition – most people will see potential to help someone grow.
Absorb Wisely: Sponges have one major issue in that they absorb indiscriminately. Your new mentor will be helpful and you would be wise to keep your eyes and ears open to any advice that comes your way. However, you should also take everything with a skeptical eye, if it doesn’t seem to make sense, perhaps it does not. Test each hypothesis in your mind before blindly pursuing it. Weigh your mentor’s opinion heavily, but don’t follow it religiously.
Be Open: Mentoring someone doesn’t take huge amounts of time. Yes, you are working for free on some level, but you are helping someone else achieve their goals. It’s hard to put a quote on that, isn’t it? I’d err on the side of accepting rather than rejecting. Of course, you can’t take it on as a full time position, so keep your reigns tight as your time tightens.
Be the Well: You are the well of experience that someone has come to draw from. Accept that your anecdotes and advice – though you may sometimes feel they are insufficient - are precisely what you’re there for. Even as some projects or events fall outside of your experience, your general aptitude and intelligence will provide sound advice for whoever comes seeking it.
Reap the Rewards: While you wont be paid, mentoring someone does have it’s rewards. Friendship, first and foremost, is difficult to avoid in this scenario. Also, you may be called upon for projects beyond the person’s capacity. You expand your network and develop a list of people who owe you on some level. You develop a reputation as well, as an individual of intelligence and merit. That kind of personal investment is never truly forgotten and down the road may come back to pay you many times over.
Despite the lone-wolf mentality of the independent workforce, there is strength to be found in numbers. When we are starting, we must draw from people of experience. When we are experienced, we must give back into the pool from which all future work will be developed. It’s a cycle which benefits everyone.
Posted by Dan Zubrzycki | 03, Feb, 2012
When you’re out in the start-up world, looking to create your own business or to get your name out as the go-to consultant in your industry, you probably devour mounds and mounds of tips on how to start. If you do your research you’ll discover 2 important things:
Hustle is the take-no-prisoners approach to development. When someone offers you a contract, you say yes. If it falls out of your skill set, you dip, dodge, duck, and dive until not only is the project done, but you are an expert in whatever field was on your plate. The hustle mentality keeps you on your toes and ready to pounce on any opportunity. Aggressive growth and the implacable will to succeed makes the hustle mentality appealing. It’s the made-for-movie entrepreneur who has got to make it big. The upside? Assuming all is going well, you are going to rake in cash and develop an incredible skill set. There is a problem, however, you’re pulling long hours, you will definitely burn out a bit. You also cannot become an expert at everything so you risk under performing on things you aren’t as skilled with.
Flow is Hustle’s counterpoint. Where hustle is an ADD child bouncing and pouncing and chugging coffee, Flow is sitting back sipping tea quietly confident that their plans will come to fruition with due diligence and patient anticipation. Flow selects the projects that will further their career with the strategic mindset of a chess player. Their contracts build their niche, their clients build their vision. Everything they do is measured. People who build their career with flow have it all planned out from the onset. The plus side? They will probably sleep a bit more and suffer a few less ulcers, certainly. They also can clearly explain where they are and where they are headed. The down side is that even their best laid plans might get thrown to the wind and suddenly the inflexibility is a pitfall.
As mentioned before – as with most things – the middle road is the path to choose. The hustle mentality can be great in the nascent days of your business, however it has to taper off. Hustle cannot sustain itself, it is a whirlwind and a fire that must at some point die. Flow, too, may be too slow in the very first days of your business, but will inevitably help you toward your goals later on. The key is to know when to shift gears from one to the next. Always maintain a balance between your hustle and flow.
Posted by Corpcorp | 03, Feb, 2012
As a part of Uplift My Career’s tech webinar series, Corp-Corp.com is conducting a webinar about Technology Opportunities – Now and Future – What can you do to cope with this? on FEB-17-2012 (Friday) at 12:00 PM (12:00 PM to 01:00 PM EST)
Posted by Dan Zubrzycki | 30, Jan, 2012
Success is a constant horizon. For most of us, each peak reached only gives us a better view of our next challenge. When we’re on a journey, often we hit road blocks or unexpected difficulties. Our basic equipment and our linear mentalities may not be enough to get around. However, if we tie that 50 foot cord of rope to that ice pick and weigh it down with the…
Nearly every problem we face in our life – and even things we think we have a solution to – could use a bit of innovative thinking. The problem isn’t finding places to implement innovation, it’s finding the inspiration for that innovation. We’re stuck in seeing the systems we’ve been taught, the uses for tools that they were designed to perform. We see our own limitations, our own failures. Here are some places to find inspiration to innovate.
The non-expert is a powerful tool in the modern day. With an American Congress that has single digit approval, an overarching business structure that has thrown most of the world into a recession, people look to new thinkers to shed new light on old problems.
Children: Many people scoff at the notion of a child having insight into “adult problems.” You can almost here the proverbial father saying “let the adults talk, sweety.” However, we forget a few basic things. Children are in their most influential developmental periods. In fact, before the age of 10 it’s shown that children and adults have one massive difference: Children think in terms of possibilities whereas adults think in terms of limitations. Share your problems in a communicable way with your children and you may soon learn Naivety and innocence may be simple preludes to innovation. A child’s creativity is a powerful thing.
For more on that, check out this TED lecture by Adora Svitak, child prodigy.
Other Disciplines: You’re an entrepreneur and you’re looking for some advice on a recent business proposal. Call another entrepreneur? Sure. But if you want some seriously interesting, insightful advice call up that friend from college who studied philosophy. Ask an artist or explain your situation to a doctor. Lateral experience – transferable but unrelated in the field – will give you some serious thinking power to draw from. The fact that these are well educated and/or creative individuals who are not limited by your experience in your field – they don’t see the restrictions the way you do – will give you interesting ideas about how to solve your dilemma.
When we’re presented with our weaknesses, we might throw up our hands in defeat. It’s sometimes difficult to see a purpose in our darkest hour, or a way around a tough situation. See your weaknesses as a clearer lens to see a problem through.
Finding ways around: A big boulder in your way? Find a path to walk around it. Clever solutions often clearly avoid the problem. If you can avoid the difficult terrain, it is no longer a problem at all. What’s important in this methodology is that you are creating a non-problem. You no longer need to engage something you aren’t skilled in.
Finding ways through and to improve: When the first train tracks were laid across the United States of America, the workers would run into a rather interesting problem. That problem was Mountains. You may have heard of mountains. They are this massive slabs of rocks that are incredibly difficult to build on. However, they also run hundreds and thousands of miles long. It would be incredibly expensive to build around a mountain and hugely time consuming. So what did we do? We went through. (We’ll leave the ecological side of this discussion for another day). Humans aren’t natural burrowers, so we developed ways to burrow. By adapting and excelling, not only did we achieve the goal of a trans-national railroad, but also a number of influential construction strategies were developed.
When you’ve hit rock bottom, you will have an absolutely crystal clear vision of your faults, your failures and the places where innovation is more sorely needed. The difficult thing that we find at the bottom is not find what needs change, but finding the will to change.
Posted by Dan Zubrzycki | 27, Jan, 2012
As a consultant, your time is your most important asset. Theoretically, every minute of your day is a billable time. utilizing strategies to increase your effectiveness can open up more space to work or to play. If you’re happy with your work load, use time saving techniques to increase your free time. If you feel overwhelmed, use time saving strategies to condense the amount of time it takes to finish your projects. Everyone has their preferred techniques. In this article, lets look at the Pomodoro technique.
The Pomodoro Technique predicates itself on your ability to gain an understanding of your accomplishments. Created in 1992 by Italian Francesco Cirillo, the Pomodoro technique has gained an intense following.
The basic premise is that we break down our time into 25 minutes and grant 3-5 minute breaks to absorb our accomplishments and plan for the next unit of productivity. By creating indivisible units or work time, we place ourselves into the mentality of unbreakable productivity. The mile marker keeps us going and allows for us to sink into deeper thought and intense concentration.
When you hit the end of 25 minutes, take that page and mark it down as a unit of productivity. Record what you accomplished and take a quick break. In that time blow through all of your distractions, don’t let your email and text get in the way of your next unit. Take a moment to praise yourself and prepare for the next unit. When 4 units are completed, grant yourself a longer break.
What we’re really looking to do is to increase our flow and focus. Our flow and focus drives us into real progress. We sabotage ourselves every day. Think about your days. How frequently do you really hit a nice rhythm? Sometimes I think we’re even afraid to engage that rhythm, finding things to do to distract us from our real goals.
Like all good strategies, the Pomodoro has been monetized. Click through here to check out one of these sites.
Now you can buy books and specific timers and special stationary, or you can download a simple timer to your laptop. You can even use a watch. Simply Keep track of your time (and, hey, if you happen to forget that break, well I guess you’re really in a flow).
Work smart, don’t beat your head against a wall.
