YouMap
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“So, what do you know that other people would like to know? What is something you’re good at people would like to get good at?
“Maybe people tell you how much they love your iPhone photos and ask, 'How do you take such great pictures?’ Maybe people admire how well-trained your dogs are and say, 'I wish my dogs behaved like that.’
“The first step to creating a meaningful career where you get paid to do work you love is to leverage your talents and skills into a business where people pay you to do that FOR them or to teach that TO them.”
Want more ideas? Check out Sam Horn’s book, IDEApreneur: Monetize Your Mind at tinyurl.com/ycshmcnh.
Stretch Projects
If you’re currently employed, it might be possible to gain exposure to potential new roles through special projects. As part of your goal planning for the upcoming year, you can approach your manager with stretch project ideas, perhaps collaborating with someone in a role you’re interested in moving into.
When I was working as a Learning & Development leader, one of my direct reports, Charlene, was really interested in creating learning content and graphic design. As part of her stretch goals, I had her collaborate with our Instructional Design Manager, Kimberly.
Charlene learned to use instructional design tools and was able to tap into her creative nature to generate graphics for training modules. She later went on to complete a User Experience (UX) Design program and has now transitioned from a training coordinator to a UX designer.
Job Shadowing
Job shadowing pairs you with a person experienced in a specific role to give you a glimpse into a day in the life of someone working in your target role. This person can show you the ropes and answer questions to help you determine the suitability of a role and the path they took to get there.
Remember to share your YouMap® with the person you shadow so they can weigh in on your role fit. If you’re currently employed, speak to your manager, mentor, or coworkers about job shadowing opportunities.
Mentoring
A mentoring relationship is one of the best ways to advance, or even transition, your career. Your mentor should be someone who has worked in the role you’re seeking because they know what it takes to do the job and can offer useful development advice.
When I was an operations manager, I asked the vice president over Learning & Development to be my mentor. When a position opened on the team, I applied. Because my mentor had experience with me, she knew I was ambitious, strategic, and had strong interpersonal skills.
I ended up getting the job, which I doubt would have happened if not for the exposure from the mentoring relationship.
Mentors are advisors. They suggest direction, identify obstacles, and assist you in overcoming those obstacles. Mentors are an ally. They provide candid, forthright opinions to increase your self-awareness. Mentors serve as brokers by assisting you with establishing and increasing your network contacts. Mentors are also catalysts. They promote understanding of organizational culture and clarify employer expectations. Finally, they are communicators who facilitate discussion, interaction, and the exchange of information.
Your role as a mentee is to:
• Fully engage in the relationship
• Be open to constructive feedback
• Set meetings and agendas
• Show up on time and prepared for scheduled meetings
• Follow up on action items
• Identify and track goals
• Align key learnings from the mentor with your own situation
Emily, one of my former direct reports, was interested in transitioning from training to project management. I introduced her to my friend, Vidya, who was a manager in the Project Management Office. Vidya began mentoring Emily, resulting in an opportunity for promotion that might not have happened without Vidya’s sponsorship of her.
Any serious career management plan should enlist the help of a mentor.
Tip: To choose a mentor, identify someone who is or has been in a role you’re considering. Share your career goals and the time commitment you’re asking them to make. Maybe it’s one hour per month. If they can’t mentor you at this time, explain why you chose him or her and ask if they would suggest another mentor and perhaps make the introduction. Leverage their network so you’re not starting at zero again.
Internships
Internships are a great way to get in the trenches and experience a role firsthand. You can use LinkedIn.com and Glassdoor.com to find internships as well as websites created for that purpose, such as Internships.com and WayUp.com.
A couple of years ago I led a career workshop at a high school and asked participants to raise their hand if they had experienced an internship. One of the students shared what he learned from his internship: “That I never want to work in an office.”
Some internships are paid; some are not. Not everyone can afford to work in an unpaid internship. Other options to research are the Peace Corps in the US, CUSO in Canada, and European Solidarity Corps in the EU. You can also search “Paid Internships” in your area.
Learning what you don’t want is valuable information.
Work Attribute Preferences
Speaking of learning what you don’t want, not only do internal drivers lead to career satisfaction, but external drivers, as well. The YouMap® defines internal drivers of career fulfillment. However, it’s also important to consider environmental variables. Start with your internal drivers of career motivation, and then narrow down your choices by ruling out options that do not have desirable environmental attributes.
The American College Testing (ACT) Program has identified twenty-five common attributes of work associated with personal job satisfaction. The assumption is if the attributes of a job match one’s personal preferences, then one is more likely to be satisfied in that job, all other things being equal. Below you will find the twenty-five Work Attribute Preferences (WAPs) listed alphabetically with their definitions. Sample jobs associated with each attribute are shown in parentheses.
1. Authority: Similar to management, but toward nonemployees, as in a traffic cop job—telling people what to do or what not to do (lawyer, consultant)
2. Certification: Careers certifying competence by a degree, license, etc. (doctor, actuary, Realtor)
3. Creating Order: Using rules to arrange things (quality inspector, administrator)
4. Easy Re-entry: Easy to move or quit and come back, as after maternity leave (sales, mechanic)
5. Financial Challenge: Advising others so that much could be gained or lost (investment/financial planner)
6. 40-hour week: Work that entails no overtime, taking work home, on-call status, etc. (postal clerk)
7. High Income: To be in the top 25% of money earners (NFL quarterback, executive)
8. Immediate Response: Working/performing around others where immediate feedback is the norm, such as applause, laughs, boos, cheers, attaboys, handshakes, etc. (comedian, flight attendant)
9. Influencing Others: Convincing without authority (sales, counseling, health care, social work)
10. Making or Fixing Things: Working with your hands or tools on electro-mechanical objects (mechanic)
11. Management: Planning, directing, and evaluating the work of others (manager, supervisor)
12. New Ideas: Creating new ways to do things—trying new combinations of ideas (advertising, consultant)
13. Non-Standard Hours: Preferring work that is seasonal, temporary, part-time, shifts, etc. (consultant)
14. Occasional Travel: Out of town travel about once each quarter (small business owner)
15. Physical Activity: W
ork that results in a significant amount of exercise—walking, lifting, sporting (construction, firefighter, baggage handler)
16. Precision: Work that is done according to exact standards or procedures (assembler, fabricator)
17. Problem Solving: Spending time figuring out how to do things, to get things done, to fix things (consultant)
18. Project Work: Tasks lasting one week or longer (project manager, engineer, architect)
19. Public Contact: Work in which you can talk and be seen by non-coworkers (customer service, sales)
20. Routine Travel: Getting out of the office/town once each week or more (many sales positions, consultant)
21. Short Training Time: Requires less than six months’ training after high school (construction work, receptionist, delivery driver)
22. Working in an Office: Working most of the time inside, in an office (accountant, writer, banker)
23. Working In/Out: Working partially inside and partially outside (material handler, elementary school teacher, coach)
24. Working Outside: Working outdoors in the weather, good or bad (cowboy letter carrier, door-to-door sales)
25. Working Separately: Requiring little talking or other contact with coworkers (bookkeeper)
To evaluate a role’s fit against your desired workplace attributes, create three simple columns like the table shown below.
List the twenty-five work attributes in the first column.
The second column is where you capture if the attributes appeal to you (Y/N/?).
In the second column, after reading each definition, indicate “Y” for yes (Yes indicates you like the attribute.), “N” for no (No indicates you don’t like the attribute.), and “?” (A question mark indicates you’re unsure or neutral about the attribute.). For example, if you don’t want to work with the public put “N” in the second column next to Public Contact.
The third column indicates if the attribute is present in the role.
In the third column, indicate “Y”, “N”, or “?” for opportunities you’re considering based on the knowledge you’ve gained by working through the “Blaze Your Path” section and researching the role.
Add additional columns if you’re evaluating multiple opportunities and rename the “Role” heading with actual job titles.
Finally, assess the gap between your desired attributes and the actual attributes of the role. For example, how many attribute matches are there? How many mismatched attributes?
After doing your research, speaking to others, evaluating the workplace attributes, and testing the waters, you should have a better idea of your next step. If the occupation you were considering doesn’t turn out to capture your interest, you can review your YouMap® again and discuss it with trusted advisors or mentors who can make suggestions based on your information.
If you end up identifying a new direction, you can begin the process again with the research phase and then work through the recommendations in “Blaze Your Path” with your new target. Try not to be frustrated with the process. Life isn’t linear, and a big component of career exploration is experiential discovery. If you’ve selected your next career move, let’s move on to the next step: “Show the World!”.
My brother, who is also an author, wrote this wonderful piece about the nonlinear nature of life, which I included as the foreword in my first book, Follow Your Star: Career Lessons I Learned from Mom. I include it again here because the lesson is priceless.
What I’ve Learned by Looking at Trees
by Wayne K. Spear
HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED, as I did recently, what determines the seemingly random pattern of tree branches?
A case of “every which way,” it appears. One branch projects confidently toward the sky—another launches tentatively in one direction, suddenly adopting a new trajectory.
A life is the same.
I know this, because I can see my own life in these branches. That little ragged outgrowth that goes nowhere? That’s a girl I dated in high school. The long, straight branch which stops suddenly? An office job I once had. The fat branch with many small offshoots? My writing career. The trunk? That represents my upbringing: the formative experiences which established my values, outlook, and dreams.
To this day, my trunk is nourishing the new branches which sprout in my life.
I noticed that there are a lot of dead ends on a tree: but look at those branches, and you’ll see many outgrowths. Again, I think of the times I’ve come to the end of a path. Maybe it was a goal I didn’t reach, or a job I didn’t get.
When you’re standing at the end of a path you thought and hoped would go farther, you only see losses and failures—the job you didn’t get, the money you won’t make, and the things you won’t be able to do and have because you won’t get that pay check.
Looking back, you can see that those endings are in fact launching points, like new shoots from a branch. My first business, which I created in high school, was the result of having the doors to gainful employment shut in my face. Within a month, I had more business than I could manage. I made more money and was far happier than I would have been in a job, but I felt depressed and defeated all the same when my plan to be hired by someone else didn’t work out.
What I learned by looking at trees is that you can reverse engineer the process, applying it to your future. You can look forward as well as back. Today I see “dead ends” and “failures” as intrinsic to the organic process of creating a path of your own.
A tree is the sum total of its experiments in reaching the light, and rarely (if ever) is this effort a straight line from vision to reality. We humans, however, seem to be addicted to the idea that life works (or at least should work) as follows:
Aspirations ———> A Well-Laid Plan ———> Goal Achieved!
I know this kind of thinking has often been applied by me. Many times, I’ve been disappointed and discouraged because I haven’t been able to draw, and then pursue, a straight line from Point A to Point B. Even when I’ve “known” life is more complicated than that, I’ve acted as if it weren’t.
The prime directive of a tree is to reach the life-giving light. All that apparently crazy, here-there-and-everywhere is in service of the tree’s need for sun. And that’s why I’ve changed my thinking, as well as my way of creating a path.
You see, the tree is on to something—and I think I know what it is.
I’m not talking about creating 10 new businesses or launching 50 new projects. I’m not suggesting you should run, willy-nilly, in every direction. That’s certainly not what I do. Instead, I focus on activating as many potential trajectories in my life as I can, by nourishing relationships in my life and business. Just as the prime directive of a tree is to reach the life-giving light, my prime directive is to nurture my community, every day.
The second thing I do is to introduce as much variety into my life as I can. I take long showers. I go for walks in the woods. I meet with, and talk to, as many interesting people as I can. When I really need to be productive, I get away from my desk.
Because here is the worst way I’ve found to be productive:
Sit at Computer ———> Work Eight Hours ———> Get Results
And yet that’s still how we see work, as a linear process.
The fact is that we are addicted to straight lines and old ways of doing things. I know how hard it is to let go. I’ve made painful adjustments. I used to believe in things like:
Go to School ———> Get an Education ———> Work Hard ———> Succeed
or
Get an Agent ———> Find a Publisher ———> Write Books ———> Make Money
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br /> or
Get Hired by a Newspaper ———> File Stories ———> Get Paid ———> Retire
None of these things have worked out as advertised. I’ve only been miserable and unfulfilled pursuing them. It took a painful adjustment, and months of study and effort, to let go of the old ways of thinking. And that was after years of emotional work, gradually getting to the place where I could admit that what I was doing wasn’t working—and would never work.
Going in a new direction is hard. You may have a decade invested in that branch of yours. It may be the favorite branch on your tree. Maybe it’s the only branch. You probably imagined it soaring one day above the canopy, into the full and glorious life-affirming sun of a new day. But what if it doesn’t?
If you build your life on the principle of abundance, each day nurturing a wide network of relationships, being open to many possibilities—sending out many branches—you’ll never have this problem. You’ll soon realize that your life is, like a tree, the sum total of its trajectories, explorations, and so-called “dead-ends.”
A tree, like a life, is nothing less than the sum of its experiments.
Show the World!
“Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.”
– Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon
After you’ve completed the first two sections, here is where all your hard work pays off! You’re almost ready to display your unique brilliance to the world in networking conversations, cover letters, through your resume, LinkedIn profile, and in job interviews.