Category: Adapt, Innovate, Win

Career Intelligence:  Aligning your career with the way your brain works will increase your ability to excel in the workplace.

How can you shape your career around the way that you are smart?

What Kind of Solutions Come Easy for You?

Creating a career that matches the way you think can empower you for success.  To understand how your brain works, consider these two types of problem solving.

Convergent Thinking

Some people have terrific skills at solving problems with only one answer.

2 + 2 =?

The only answer is 4.

When people solve this type of problem, they are using convergent intelligence.  Their reasoning converges or comes together to settle on this one answer.

Divergent Thinking

Divergent thinking skills enables people to see multiple solutions to the same problem.

For example, many people climb a mountain by following a well-marked path.  This is the path everyone sees and the only path most people try to find.

However, other people can see multiple paths for climbing the same mountain.  These people not only discover new paths.  They discover new things along the way.

What Type of Problems Do You Like to Solve?

If you like to solve problems with convergent thinking, developing skills for solving those types of problems should be enjoyable for you.

On the other hand, some industries rely heavily on creative solutions.  For example, inventors and innovators are examples of people who have success with divergent thinking.

When to Use Both Ways of Thinking

If you are starting a company, you may have to solve problems as well as seek solutions. You are alone or have a small staff.

For example, website development is a combination of technology and art.  You have the skills to put together the website.  You also have the skills to create a compelling look for your website.

However, as your company grows, you can outsource jobs that are challenge your patience.  Furthermore, you can become more successful working in the areas where your attention goes first.

When are You Most Effective?

Some people are naturally more gifted to think convergently.  These people learn quickly and can apply what they learn to solving problems

Other people are more gifted to think divergently.  With less knowledge than convergent thinkers, the people see options intuitively.  They excel in helping companies find new ways to succeed in failing conditions.

Career Intelligence

Finding jobs where you can use your career intelligence most effectively will help you become more successful.

Developing skills in areas of both convergent and divergent thinking will help you throughout your career.

However, working the area you most enjoy will increase your drive to get to work and complete tasks.

Being busy means nothing.  Success comes from getting things done. ~ www.jaywren.com

Productivity: Some people have a successful career based on their ability to get things done. Other people accomplish less and their careers fail. Why?

1. Have a Simple Productivity Process

Bricklayers start the day with the same tools and supplies.  From there they lay one brick.  Then another brick.  By the end of the day, bricklayers have finished a section of a wall or a complete wall.

Each day they use the same process to build walls.  They finish a project.  Then, using the same simple process, they start a new project.

2. Stay on Tasks

Productive people finish one task before starting on the next task.  They cut the wasted time of going back and forth between tasks.  Through the day, they steadily complete more tasks than people who waste time going back and for between tasks.

3. Eliminate Distractions.

Focus is as much about what you don’t think about as it is what you do think about.  If a phone is not important to their work, productive people turn off their phones.

Successful people cut the noise that disturbs their focus.  They don’t listen to music or podcasts and they don’t have the television on in the background.

4. Take Breaks that Clear the Mind

Snack breaks and lunch breaks cut the energy loss from hunger.  Furthermore, sitting quietly clears your mind and restores your energy and focus.

5. Schedule a Time for Distractions

Yes, schedule specific times for distractions. Scheduling time to surf the web and play with cell phones cuts the risk of distraction during work.

The time to schedule distractions is before we schedule our work.  Scheduling distraction time cuts the feeling of being deprived.  Furthermore, knowing that we have a time specifically for distractions reinforces the awareness of cutting distractions from the periods of work.

Luck comes to those who act.  Fate decides who wins.  But acting often and acting smarter increases our odds of turning fate in our favor.

Luck needs action. We must play to win. In the Lottery, buying a ticket comes before success.
~ www.jaywren.com

Good Luck

I have had good luck and bad luck.  But without work, I could not have had the luck to do so many things I enjoy.

My luck in college increased greatly when I realized I didn’t have to be the smartest student.  At least for me to be lucky in school, I had to be the hardest working student.

I was lucky to get into Naval Officer Candidate School. However, if I had not worked hard in college, I would not have  had the opportunity to become a bridge officer on the carrier, USS Midway.

As a business owner, I had success and frustration.  I learned early on that I could not control the results.  Results are about fate.  However, by making the phone calls, working the extra hours, changing with the changes in technology, I had enough luck to run a successful business for thirty years.

You Can’t Control the Results

At least, I can’t imagine how anyone can control the results of their work.  The results are fate.  We work hard.  We do the correct things.  But the world changes.  Technology, industrial dynamics, economics, and other things change.   Furthermore, it is the things that we can’t control that decides our fate.

Poker is a game of betting on the cards you have and the cards you hope to have.

Poker players know as well as anyone how fate controls the outcome of a hand.  Holding aces never guarantees a win.  But playing the hand, and playing it smartly, increases our odds of winning.

Not only in poker, but in everything I do, I play to win.  I know that taking the right action increases my chances of prosperity. Also, acting helps me build stronger family ties, gives me greater friendships, and rewards with me better health.

Self-Empowerment: What are the things that successful people do for themselves to create power other people never have? Are they things that you can do?

People who empower themselves don’t see the world as the source of their problems. ~www.jaywren.com

What is Self-Empowerment and How Can We Achieve it?

Self-empowerment is taking control of your behavior to reach your goals and achieve success. This trait empowers us to do the things that we can do. Furthermore, it enables us to recognize our weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

Horrible things happen to all of us. Things beyond our control. But self-empowerment changes the questions about our predicament. We stop asking, “Why me?”  Instead, we ask, “What are my steps for today?

Hustle

The people who hustle move ahead of the competition. They are the ones who recover the fumble, catch the rebound, or bring their product to market before competitors do.

Integrity

There are many quotes about integrity. Usually these quotes look something like this:  Integrity is what you do when nobody’s watching.  However, integrity is a quality that builds success whether people are watching or not.

People without integrity lie in public, con people into choices, break their commitments. They lack loyalty, fairness, decency. No one trusts people who don’t have integrity.

On the other hand, people with integrity do none of these things. Nor do they have any of those bad qualities. Additionally, people trust people who have integrity.

Self-Honesty

There are two types of honesty. Cash register honesty is one. Certainly, cash register honesty is important for building trust and staying out of jail. However, self-honesty enables people to see their shortcomings. More importantly, self-honesty enables people to correct their mistakes and strengthen their weaknesses.

To have self-honesty, we must be open-minded and have a willingness to change.

Priorities

Anyone can make a list of things to do. However, a simple to-do list is not a list of priorities. Successful people must have the ability to know the difference between the things that they should do today from the things that must do today.

Action

Do not confuse motion with action.  A swivel chair has motion, but it is not going anywhere. People who move into action create self-empowerment to reach their goals.

Relentless

People who are relentless don’t give up on themselves or their success. Through effort and intelligence, they move past obstacles to achieve their goals. I write two to three blog posts a week. Sometimes, I don’t feel like writing. Other times, I can’t think of ideas for writing. However, I have a relentless attitude to continue to read and grow and find powerful ideas to share on my blog.

 

No Job Plan: To increase your income, do you plan to change jobs every three years?  On the other hand, do you plan a career at the same company?

No Job Plan: Why Long-Term Career Plans Fail

Are you basing your career on changing jobs every three years to increase your income?  On the other hand, do you plan to build a long-term career with the same company.  Plans are great.  You can’t know how to reach a destination without knowing where you are going.

But the world changes.  Industries change.  Career opportunities and options change.  What should you really be doing in a world of career uncertainty?

Are You Risk Averse?

If you are risk averse, setting up a job plan to reduce risks is smart.  You find a company that has stability.  The company has guidelines that reduce the uncertainty of your job requirements.  You love what you are doing.  Furthermore, you feel safe.

What Are the Risk of Playing It Safe?

However, playing it safe can also lead down blind alleys.  For example, you develop a specific set of skills for a job with a well-established company.  Then, another company buys your company and outsources your work to another country.

You will find that playing it safe has created anything but safety.  Playing it safe can leave you with a limited set of marketable skills in a world where job skills change often.

What Are the Dangers of Job Hopping for Income?

Frequently, I read articles that highlight the income advantages of changing jobs every two or three years.  The idea is that you get a larger pay raise through a job change than you get through merit raises with the same employer.

There are several problems with this theory.  One, you are giving up increasing benefits that come to long-term employees.  Furthermore, you are creating a resume that shows that you are less reliable than people with career stability.

No Job Plan

Everybody has a plan.  Sports team have a plan to play against other teams.  Consumer companies have marketing plans to compete in the market place.

To quote Mike Tyson, “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

What the “no job plan” means is the flexibility to make changes to your career as conditions change.  If you have stability at your current job and continue to learn new skills that make you more marketable over the long-term, changing jobs for a pay raise is a mistake.

Furthermore, if you find that you are in a job where you are overqualified, you can begin to explore new jobs that match your skills and pay you for those skills.

The important thing is to remember that career assessment is an ongoing process.  You don’t focus on a plan.  Rather, focus on the changes conditions and adjust to make the most of the conditions that will help you throughout your career.