I read in the Boston Globe about this guy, Jim Fannin, who is a mental coach for hundreds of people, including twenty-two major league baseball all-stars. So I decided to interview him, thinking that I’d be able to implement his program for my own goals.
Most of what I know about mental coaching comes from my experience in professional beach volleyball. At the top of any sport, the difference between players is not physical skills because everyone has them. The difference is mental. Who can stay focused and believe in themselves during every game.
I couldn’t do that on the volleyball tour, and I know this shortcoming holds me back in my work today, too. So I was very curious about Fannin saying that he can teach people how to gain mental focus.
It turns out, that Fannin teaches people how to be top in their field by teaching one thing: Play a movie in your head of you achieving your big goal. For Alex Rodriguez it was being a top hitter. And he became the American League MVP. Not just in his own movie, but in real life.
Sounds easy, but for most people, getting to the movie is very hard. (Which is why Fannin wrote a book.) Here are the steps you have to take:
1. Know exactly what you want. A defined, very specific goal. Not “start a company” but “open a dog-grooming business in Portland.”
2. Know exactly what reaching the goal will look like — the steps leading up to the achievement. If your goal is to win a Nobel Prize, you need to imagine yourself making the great discovery.
3. Organize your life around your goal so that you can play your movie in your head before you go to bed and immediately when you get up. This means you need to get to some sort of meditative point where you can sit still, for maybe ten minutes, while you play your movie in your head.
4. Find optimism. Lots of it. Because you have to believe in yourself enough that you will actually do this exercise every day until you reach your dream.
I believe that this will work. It makes sense to me, and it’s worked for thousands of people. Not just athletes.
But this morning, when I woke up, I realized how hard it was going to be. I had no movie to play in my head and I had not set aside time in my schedule to day to plan what my movie will be. So I guess I’ll start tomorrow.
Here’s an email I got from my mom, who is an information technology manager at a Fortune 100 company:
Sweetie,
I was reading through a pile of resumes that human resources gave me, and there was one resume that was so good, but the guy was too high level for what I needed.
Then I thought to myself, he’ll definitely get a job soon, and I’d like to have HIS job, so I should send my resume to his company right now.
You should tell this to your readers.
Love,
Mom
If you want to know the inside dirt on being a top-flight waiter, Waiter Rant is the blog to read. Yesterday he wrote about the stress of the Memorial Day crowd. I am always shocked by the insane and totally out of line antics this guy has to put up with, which is why his blog is so popular.
Some of the most stressful jobs are the ones where you have to negotiate among difficult personalities. You could be launching a rocket to the moon, but if everyone is getting along and working very well together, it’s might be less stressful, in the moment, than managing a room full of screaming airplane passengers who have been told their plane won’t take off that day.
My best negotiating lessons came in couples therapy, when my husband wouldn’t get his bike out of the apartment (we live in New York, in a tiny space). The couples therapist did not, as I was hoping, tell my husband to shut up and put his bike in storage. The therapist had us read Getting to Yes and then negotiate a solution we could both live with. (For those of you who doubt my negotiating skills, the bike is gone, but believe me, it was a lot of hard work, and I recommend that book.)
The most important part of negotiations is understanding the other person’s motivations. You could learn this by being a waiter, or any of a long list of service workers whose job is to read people in order to make them happy. (My friend is a hairdresser-to-the-very-rich and has the same types of stories as the waiter.)
But it takes a lot of years of being a waiter or a hairdresser to be great at reading people. You might do better checking out Speed Reading People by Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger. These are people who have mastered the art of bringing the personality test to the masses. And in this book you learn how to apply the Meyers-Briggs principles to people you meet so you know how to communicate with them.
A lot of your workplace stress could be alleviated if you were better at negotiating — asking for less work, better projects, getting co-workers to stop annoying you, convincing your boss to listen — these are all negotiation points. So when you are feeling stressed, think about how to solve the problem through negotiation. And meanwhile be thankful you don’t deal with the customers on Waiter Rant.
Women who want to have kids should make it a high priority in their early twenties to find a partner. This week’s Newsweek cover story, Marriage by the Numbers, says is okay to wait until after 35 to get married. Newsweek is revising the saying that a woman has more chance of getting hit by a truck than getting married after age 35.
But the article ignores one of the most pressing issues facing Generation X: Infertility. No generation of women has had more trouble with fertility than this generation who received the terrible advice, “Wait. You have time. Focus on your career first.”
In fact, you have your whole life to get a career. This is not true about having a baby.
Even if you are past your early twenties, or not heterosexual, if you’re single and want to have kids with a partner, you need to find one now. Take that career drive and direct it toward mating because your career skills will outlast your ovaries.
In case you think you’re waiting for “the right time,” there is no evidence to show when in a woman’s career is best to have kids. At any point, she is thrown off track. At any point when a woman has kids, statistically she will start to earn less money even if she takes no maternity leave whatsoever. There is no evidence to show that it’s easier to take time out of the workforce at a certain point in a career. People just plain don’t know.
Phyllis Moen, professor of sociology at the University of Minnesota, told me in an interview, “Don’t wait until the right time in your career to have a child or it will never come.”
However there is lots of evidence to show that a woman’s biological clock takes a nose-dive at age 35. I know, because that’s when I started having kids. The geneticist showed me and my husband a graph of Down’s Syndrome and we nearly keeled over when we saw the cliff at 35. We had no idea. That Down’s Syndrome cliff, though, is a stand-in for everything, because a huge percentage of fertility statistics get bad at 35.
There is also lots of evidence to say that having kids at least two years apart is best for the kids. However there is a distinct advantage for first-born kids. They are richer, smarter, and as if that’s not enough, year after year 90% of Harvard’s incoming freshmen are first-born. You can mitigate the impact of birth order on your second child by having three years between kids.
If you start when you are thirty-one, you can have two kids, three years apart, before you’re thirty-five. But this plan does not take into consideration that about 20% of pregnancies end in a miscarriage. This means you have almost a 50% chance of having to go through three pregnancies to have two kids, which means you should start when you’re thirty.
If you want to have babies when you’re thirty, then you probably want to be married when you’re twenty-eight. This is good news because if you marry very young you’re more likely to get divorced, but the statistics get much better if you wait until you’re twenty-five. For a healthy marriage, experts think people should be married two or three years before they consider having children. A reasonable expectation is to meet someone, date for a couple of years, and get engaged with almost a year’s time to pull off a wedding. So you need to meet the person at age twenty-four.
So this means that it may make sense for men to work full-speed ahead on their career in their early twenties, but women cannot afford that. Women need to make time in their lives to search for a mate in the same systematic, focused way that women have been searching for careers in their early twenties. And don’t tell yourself you’re waiting until you know yourself better. Getting to know yourself is a lifelong process, and after age twenty-five, waiting to get married won’t decrease your chance of divorce.
The good news here is that a large body of research shows that you will gain more happiness by being married than by having a good job. Yes, you should not have to choose between a good job and marriage. But this column is not about what is fair or what is just. It is about what is real.
You have a biological clock that does not pay attention to issues of social justice. You cannot control your biological clock and you cannot control the workplace. But you can control where you spend your time and energy, and you should look hard for a husband early on. Line up the marriage first, then the career.
None of you should be concerned about jobs getting shipped off shore. That's because the jobs going off shore are jobs you wouldn't have wanted anyway. The highly creative, innovative, thought-leadership jobs are staying right here in the United States.
In an interview, Dan Pink, author of A Whole New Mind told me we are in the “conceptual age where key abilities will not be high tech but high touch,” the ability to make connections will matter most in an age where information is a commodity.
Some people have to worry about losing their job to a PhD earning $10 an hour in India: If you like to sit in a room and code without having to talk to anyone else, you will find yourself out of work. If you like to take orders and never want to have to risk being told your original idea is stupid, your job can definitely be done by someone who works when Californians are sleeping.
But take a good look at yourself. If your job is going overseas, then you probably are not being your best self at work. Because everyone is creative and everyone has a spark to share with the world. So take some time to find yours.
If you can only see yourself alone in a dark room, you are probably lonely. And if you can only see yourself taking orders, you are probably bored. You're just not admitting it. Don't tell me you are a genius. If you were a genius you'd find a way to be creative and save your job.
Okay, so Danica Patrick still has not won a race, and now that the Indy 500 is over, a new round of complaining has started. There is truth the complaining. Patrick does have very good equipment in a sport where equipment matters a lot. And she does have more sponsors in a sport where other competitors have had to win a lot of races to get sponsors.
But instead of pointing out all the factors that make Patrick an anomaly, look at how she is like you: She is looking to do something she loves, and she is figuring out a way to make it work. She sees an opening — selling herself to the media as the only woman driver — and she takes it. This is not unfair. In fact, Jamie Birch reminds us that having a unique selling proposition is integral to good business and we all need one.
So as you’re doing your job, keep an eye open for what will make you pull ahead of the crowd, and don’t be discouraged in a field of fast drivers. You don’t need to win a race to have the best selling proposition.
You do, however, need to have a good understanding of what you offer. Be realistic of why someone is coming back to you. Patrick wishes people loved her because she wins races, but they love her because she’s the first woman. Don’t be so picky about why people love you — just leverage that affection to do the work you want to do.
The more you like your job, the more you should network. If you have a great job, you probably have a lot to offer people. Do all your favors now, when you don’t need any in return. The problem with networking to get a job is that you are not that attractive when you need a job. Who wants to network with unhappy people?
Recently I interviewed a bunch of recruiters for my column, and they were absolutely gung-ho about social networking. Recruiting advisor John Sullivan told me that referred candidates have a 50% higher retention rate than candidates who come to the company via a job site. To land that referral, he recommended, among others, LinkedIn.
This surprised me. In the past, I have delete emails from people who ask me to be in their network. I never considered that the networks were so useful.
So I took the advice of the recruiters and I checked out LinkedIn. I was immediately impressed. To get a job, if you are qualified for the job, all it really takes is a third-party connection. I was shocked at how quickly the world opens up to you with a social networking site. And I was surprised by how much we can help each other by offering up our networks to friends in a searchable, useful way.
My first instinct was to search for who has the most contacts, but I couldn’t figure out how to do that. So I filled out a cursory profile, which the recruiters say is a no-no. (You should fill it out in great detail so people know what you have to offer.) Then I started trying to figure out who I knew that would be on the site.
The first few names I tried did not work. But that was because I tried the people I’d be most comfortable asking to be in my networks (it’s a request that seems a little weird to me, still). Instead, I started trying the email addresses of the people I know who are comfortable with technology and good at networking, and the first four names I tried were listed.
One is Dylan Tweney. After about an hour of dealing with LinkedIn, I had four contacts. Dylan has 150. I asked him how he does it, and he said he sent email to everyone on his email list. I had contact envy. There were some people who have more than 500 contacts. I wondered how they did it.
Then I heard that the CEO of Linkedin — who has more than 500 contacts — will not speak to analysts unless they can get to his network. One senior banker at a top firm has been trying for months. It gives me hope: It seems that people who have large networks are not those who make the most money, it’s those who offer the most to their friends.
Happy Memorial Day. I am working today. I used to think it was lame to work on a holiday. I used to think it was a sign of poor boundaries when I would go into an office to catch up when the rest of the world was at a picnic.
But today I am working and I’m happy. It’s taken me a while, but I’ve learned that an insane work schedule to one person is a dream schedule to another. You just need one that’s good for you.
One of the perks about working for myself is that I can set my own hours. And what I really love is routine, a schedule that never changes. I have set things up so that I work every morning, seven days a week, at a coffee shop by my apartment.
Today there are not a lot of people awake in my neighborhood at 7am. My regular coffee shop is closed and so is my backup coffee shop. But my gym is open, so I am working there, and I am happy to be doing my regular routine, even on Memorial Day. Besides, I never realized my gym had such a fast Internet connection.
Just about every major business publication has run something about how diversity improves business performance. If you are on a diverse team, you’ll probably have more success than if you’re on a homogenous team. And, to some extent, we can each control the teams we’re on.
For one thing, you should pick companies to work for that have a diverse group of employees. You can also do what you can to build your own diverse teams.
One way to think of diversity is race. A professor at the University of Chicago conducted a study about workplace racism in which he sent 5000 resumes to want ads in Boston and Chicago. He sent duplicate resumes, but changed the names. The names that sounded white (Emily Walsh) were fifty percent more likely to get a call back than a name that sounded African-American (Lakisha Washington).
You are probably saying to yourself that you would never be racist at work. But that is probably not true. Because almost no one will admit to being racist, but a lot of it is unintentional, and it’s definitely not limited to the scope of that resume study.
While you’re busy denying that you’re racist, consider that diversity is not all about race – or gender, for that matter.
I had an eye-opening experience when I wrote an article for the LA Weekly about medical issues for “non-whites”. I could not write “minorities” in the LA Weekly, because in LA, Hispanics outnumber whites. (Interesting side note, from the article: Many top doctors who study this topic are advocating separate but equal treatments for blacks and whites.)
So, try thinking about diversity in terms of experience. Look for diversity in economic experience, in schooling, politics. The June issue of Harper’s magazine ran a little piece about how “living libraries” that have taken place in Denmark, Hungary, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and Portugal. The idea is that there are real people that you can borrow for an hour in order to explore your own prejudices and stereotypes. Here are some examples of the kinds of people you can borrow:
Animal-rights activist, black person, bureaucrat, environmentalist, ex-football hooligan, ex-illiterate person, e-neo-Nazi, feminist, Jew, Muslim, priest, unemployed person, asylum seeker, blonde woman, disabled person, ex-drug abuser, ex-homeless person, ex-prisoner, gay person, lesbian, police officer, skateboarder, vegetarian.
The charm of the list, of course, is that we each ask ourselves who we have the most prejudice against. For me, it’s the football player. I’m not sure, frankly, that I’ve ever talked to one for more than a couple of minutes.
So maybe diversity you need to create in your work teams is as wide or as narrow as the kind of experience you are missing in your own life.
Blogging is good for your career. A well-executed blog sets you apart as an expert in your field.
Ben Day blogged his way into a career as a high-earning software consultant while maintaining the freedom to schedule frequent jam sessions and performances as a keyboard player. Blogging gave him the opportunity to stand out enough to support the life he envisioned for himself.
Phil van Allen, a faculty member of the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, said to me in an interview, “For your career, a blog is essential. It’s the new public relations and it’s the new home page. Instead of a static home page, you have your blog.” It’s a way to let people know what you are thinking about the field that interests you.
Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them. Blogging gives you a way to control what employers see, because Google’s system works in such a way that blogs that are heavily networked with others come up high in Google searches.
And coming up high is good: “People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible,” branding consultant Catherine Kaputa told me.
But pick your topics carefully and have a purpose. “The most interesting blogs are focused and have a certain attitude,” says van Allen. “You need to have a guiding philosophy that you stick to. You cannot one minute pontificate on large issues of the world and the next minute be like, ‘My dog died.'”
Day realized the value of focus after a misguided mashup of his politics and business. “I used to have liberal politics on my website as well, but my mentor said, ‘Dude, you gotta trim that off.’ Which was fine because in the world of liberal politics I was just another piece of noise.” Now his blog is all about software development with an emphasis on technologies such as NHibernate and C#.
Once you zero in on your topic, here are eight reasons blogging helps your career:
1. Blogging creates a network.
A blogger puts himself out in the world as someone who is interesting and engaging — just the type of person everyone wants to meet. “A blog increases your network because a blog is about introducing yourself and sharing information,” says Kaputa.
2. Blogging can get you a job.
Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that “tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley told me that the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.
3. Blogging is great training.
To really get attention for your blog, you’re going to have to have daily entries for a while. At least a few months to get rolling, and then three or four times a week after that. So you will really get to know your topic well.
4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
To escape the entry-level grind, you can either pay your dues, working up a ladder forever, or you can establish yourself as an expert in the world by launching a blog. High-level jobs are for people who specialize, and hiring managers look for specialists online. “Decision-makers respect Google-karma,” writes Tim Bray, director of Web technologies for Sun Microsystems — on his own blog, of course.
5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
You can’t make it on your own unless you’re good at selling yourself. One of the most cost-effective and efficient ways of marketing yourself is with a blog. When someone searches for your product or service, make sure your blog comes up first.
Curt Rosengren, a career coach, periodically Googles “career passion” — words he thinks are most important to his business — just to make sure his blog, Occupational Adventure, comes up high on the list. He estimates that his blog generates at least half of his coaching business.
6. Blogging provides more opportunities.
Building brands, changing careers, launching a business — these endeavors are much easier once you’ve established yourself online. Rosengren told me, “My blog is a foundation. I’m building an awareness that I can leverage to do other fun things with my future, such as product development, or public speaking.”
A blog gives you a leg up when you meet someone new. Dylan Tweney, a freelance writer, told me his blog, the Tweney Review, gives him instant legitimacy with clients.
7. Blogging could be your big break.
Visually creative types can blog beyond just text. Mark Fearing has a cartoon blog. “Cartooning and illustration are very crowded fields,” he says. “My blog has gotten me more notice than any other publicity tool I’ve used. Plus, the blog gives me a way to have a new conversation with potential clients about other work.”
8. Blogging makes the world a better place.
“Blogging is about giving stuff away to a community,” says Day. “For years, as a junior developer, I would go to the Internet for solutions and I would always take, take, take. Now I am happy to be a contributor and give something back.”
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