Category: Success

I get a ton of email.  By clicking the reply button, I can reply to that email.

However, some of this email is confusing as to who sent it.

For example, if you use some clever name like Soccer Chief for your email name or just your first name and your email address is 5552541@me.com, some people may not know who sent the email without additional information.

If you are sending your contact information in an attachment (resume or cover letter), you are putting yourself at risk of not getting a reply from people who give up on opening on attachments every time they reply to you, especially if that attachment is not on every email.

Sometimes it is easier and more effective for the recipient to reply to an email with a phone call.  Not having a person’s phone number with the email makes this option slow to impossible.

To hiring managers, how people use emails can be very telling.  To draw an analogy, plants are in the ground. They wait for life to pass. An animal moves around and eats the plants and some animals even eat other animals.

If a person sends us an email to ask a question, we try to answer that email by the close of business that day.  If a person sends us an email to request a call, we try to call the person that day. However, if a person sends emails to request a call, questions will arise as to a person’s level of interest and as to their personality type:  is the person is a plant or an animal?  Do they sit around and expect others to come to them or do they go after what needs to be done and get those things done?

Emails help recruiters and hiring company’s observe a person’s attention to detail in a shifting environment.  In business emails, a person normally has a closing at the bottom of the email. The closing normally includes a cordial expression such as “Best regards,” the person’s name, city, state, phone number, and email address.  When communicating with a recruiter or hiring manager regarding a career change, the person begins to use personal email.

Many people only send personal email to people who have their contact information attached to memory.  When shifting to using personal email in making a career change, a person with strong skills for details in a shifting environment will intuitively include that information a personal email account.

Another aspect of adding a closing to personal emails is that this type of detail is an indication of a person’s thoughtfulness.  The etiquette of email is to include that information.  The location helps the recipient know the time where the sender can be reached. The phone number and email address may be the only contact information that gets through intact with the email. The name is important because it spares the recipient of having to research the sender’s identity in case the return field does not adequately identify the person or if the recipient is going back through records that may not contain the return field.
A closing to an email may look something like this closing:

Best regards,
Name
City, State, Zip
Phone Number
Email Address
Website if you have one

Other helpful contact information.

LinkedIn public profile
Twitter Address

The World’s Most Noble Headerhunter!

I have  heard that it is impossible to smile and be sad.  I can never remember to test the idea when I am sad.

Motivational speakers often emphasize the importance of thinking positive thoughts.  I have heard the expression “fake until you make it.”  I take this to mean act successful and happy and you will be successful and happy.

When I was in high school, I had a multi-millionaire (owned banks, a ranch, a successful restaurant, and other businesses) tell me that if you laugh the world laughs with you.  If you cry, you cry alone.  I decided not to argue the point since my father worked for this millionaire.

So today, I am going to use happiness as a tool.  I know me pretty well and I know that as the day goes along how I feel may shift as normal moods pass along, but even if I have to lie, I am going to tell everyone that I am happy.  I am going to laugh. I am going to smile at everyone I meet.  Even if I have to fake it till I make it, this is going to be a make me happy and make other people happy day.  I am going to use happiness as my tool.

Going through a career change or any life change can bring feelings of uncertainty, inadequacy, and uselessness. You may also feel that you have less energy and less interest in life in general.

Home projects during these periods can be hard to start. All the feelings and loss of energy during challenging life changes can reduce your motivation and make you feel physically restrained from taking physical action on anything.

Yet finishing a home project provides immediate, visual results. You can see what you have accomplished. These visual results can create energy and rebuild your self-esteem,

Fitness training offers many benefits: cardiovascular conditioning, flexibility, strength building, and body shaping.

However, for an understanding of how exercising for fitness compares to plan old DIY, I did a comparison of calories burned for an hour of various activities. Here are the estimates.

Washing a car – 300 Calories
Painting/carpentry – 350 Calories
Yardwork – 500 Calories
Mopping floors – 330 Calories
Pool cleaning – 400 Calories
Playing with kids – 330
Walking – 330 Calories
Weight lifting – 400 Calories
Stationary Bike – 330 Calories
Spinning – 400 Calories

I enjoy being a do-it-yourself kind of guy. I had installed my own sprinkler systems in the front and backyard. I had built the wooden deck in my backyard. When my wife and I had a pool built in the backyard, I reinstalled the sprinklers in the backyard.

As my business grew and my kids got older, I felt challenged but not overwhelmed to continue the do-it-yourself projects.

Not because of affluence, but because of the type of development in the area where I live, there are gardeners in this area every week. The monthly costs are negligible, especially in light of the fact that employing a gardener eliminates the cost of gas to drive to a gas station to buy gas for my own equipment.

So for years, I had a gardener for my yard and eventually added pool attendant to service my pool. I took my car to the drive-thru car wash. I often ate meals purchased at the drive-thru restaurant and ate them in my car: Eyes on the road, left hand on the wheel, and hamburger in the righthand. Cup holders were designed for people who eat while driving, right?

The following figures are disappointing to realize. During this time, I drove to a health club, where I burned 300-400 calories per session for a total of 1500 to 2000 calories per week.

A few years ago, I reduced the number of services I used. My kids were grown. I was no longer involved in coaching their sports teams, participating in parent organizations, and hanging out with them in public or around the house.

I realized that in using the gardener I had lost sight of the condition of my yard. The shrubs had become trees and the once beautiful blue grass was full of crab grass. The deck I built had built had begun to crumble with aging.

One afternoon, I decided to wash the family SUV that my wife and I had used to for years to haul kids to college and family trips through the Sierra snow.

I had to find the sponges and solutions I had used years before. As I washed the car, I became aware that I was not as fit as I thought I was. In reeling out the hose, I discovered that the 100-foot rubber hose was not that easy to handle in the tight spaces along the walkway to the car. During the squatting and the standing, the bending and the reaching, and the physical aspects washing the car with the sponge, I began to realize that washing a car can take a bit of exertion.

I brought out a ladder and washed the top of the car. Once I had washed the car and toweled it dry, I realized that I had been through every bit of a good workout at the gym.

I looked at the car and I felt good. I had rediscovered what I had lost through the years of drive-thru service. There is a sense of pride, a sense of the accomplishment, in doing things yourself.

Somewhat sadly I released the gardener. He usually arrived early and had become a person I greeted for years. Less personally I released the pool service that simply dumped chemicals in my pool and left the cleaning to the pool sweep.

I rebuilt my deck. My fantastic wife and I garden again. I wash my own car, which in California is not necessary very often.

So if you are going through a career transition or any other stressful change in your life and have perhaps become a drive-thru addict, you might find that DIY can be terrific therapy and excellent source of physical conditioning.