People without food, homes, jobs, health. self-respect, family, etc. don’t have many choices. Most of us have a ton of choices (like the cereal aisle – 100 kinds of cereal – really?)
We’re so invested in our comfort and conformity that we literally say… we have no choice but to… work a job we hate, stay in relationships with people who harm us, believe things that make us hate other people.
Here’s a little inspiration by Liz Strauss. I don’t know Liz except for her twitter posts. but I really loved this.
Be a treasure.
Start a quest. Create and conspire.
Be a mentor, a leader, a teacher. Inspire.
Be a beginner, a learner, an adventurer. Aspire.
Shine at being you.
Shine because being brilliant is what you do.
Do it because YOU have decided you’re living up to being a treasure.
Do you understand that you are a treasure? Do you know how much you can influence the world? Start with yourself. If you’re not sure where to begin– try being quiet; the answers will come to you– I promise.
Maybe you’ve heard of a company called Zappos. In 1999, they began selling shoes on the Internet. I remember thinking… no one will buy shoes online. I was wrong! In less than 10 years, Zappos hit $1Billion in sales.
What’s even more amazing about Zappos is their culture. It begins and ends with customer service. I mean real service. Sad that a focus on the customer is so unique.
But the real magic of the organization, according to CEO Tony Hsieh (pronounced “shay”) is in the hiring. When interviewing at Zappos you might be asked,
“What’s your theme song?” or “How weird are you?”
By asking these questions, Zappos finds out if you’re flexible, creative, funny and interesting. So would you want to work in a place where these were the interview questions? I would.
I’ve often said I’m a little too weird for the normal people but too normal for the weird people. So add this (maybe) to the list of interview questions to prepare. What’s your favorite interview question?
When I was on unemployment, I was really happy. Don’t get me wrong, I love having my own business but getting paid to meet people, learn new things, think about my potential, help people and so on was great.
If you are unemployed, do you see yourself as lucky? Are you having fun? Are you showing your children how to thrive in times of change? (Believe me, whatever changes you have seen in your life will be child’s play compared to what they will go through.)
Put on an elaborate puppet show for your kids (fun, colorful socks work great)
Join (or start) a book club and actually read the assigned books
Write a thank you note to an inspirational high school or college teacher
You may or may be surprised at all the “yes buts” I hear everyday. “I would join a book club but when I go back to work I won’t have time.” ” Why should I help someone else, I need help!)” blah, blah, blah. Just do it, you lucky, lucky dog.
Ok, you need to have a resume if you are looking for a job and all those things the ‘experts’ tell you about resumes are true.
-Tailor your resume to the job
-Don’t ANNOUNCE that you are dinosaur (older like me) or just out of school
But you don’t have to use the same old format that everyone else uses. You can (and should) be creative with your resume. For instance, make sure that you have live links in the electronic version so the person reviewing it can easily link through to company websites or other content.
Orange resumes is a cool site that helps you create resumes that show a potential employer how you are different. As you look through the samples, you’ll see that you can create something “different” that is also very good, appropriate and even enhances your positioning.
I know you’re saying, but those resumes are for creative types and I’m an
enginneer/finance person/blah blah
Let’s go back to the goal of your resume… hmmm… The goal is to get an interview.
If you create an interesting, results-oriented resume that also shows you are creative and the organization doesn’t want to talk to you, then maybe you don’t want to work there. Just sayin….
Creativity is like soap. Just when you’ve got it in your hands and it feels good – it slips away. Many people don’t understand that creativity needs to be nurtured; others think that creativity is just for “artists.”
Creativity is an important component of a happy life. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the kitchen, the garden, the classroom, the boardroom or the cocktail party. It’s really more of an attitude and a skill combined.
How does a creative person behave? How do they think?
Who do you think is creative? Watch them, listen to them, support them.
Not sure how nurture your creative side? Try this – 29 Ways to Stay Creative.
There was a blog called “In 3 words” that would pose a question and then ask people to submit their three word response. A typical question was: “What’s the last thing that made you want to tear your hair out? ” – which elicited responses like, ‘my older daughter’ and ‘bosses bad day’.
One of my favorite bloggers, Chris Brogan, took the concept and suggested that people use the idea to come up with 3 words that will be their guiding pillars for the year. Yes, I know it’s March, but it’s never too late to get a new lease on personal and professional growth. For 2011 — his 3 words are: package, reinvest, flow. Not inspiring to me personally but I’ll bet they are helping Chris focus. Here are some of the submissions this post elicited:
Smile, Fight, Create
JUICY SO WHAT? WORTHY
Get OUT There!
Challenge, Empower, Collaborate
Passion, Confidence, Balance
Pleasure, People, Publish, Practice (Louise can’t seem to follow rules!)
Integrity, Wisdom, Patience
My 3 words are: This One Day. My goal for 2011 is to conscious of the day, every day as I live it. That includes paying attention to my surroundings and the people I come in contact with as well as accomplishing my daily work. Looking forward to hearing about your 3 words.
Ok, today we’re playing jeopardy. I’m giving you the question: What is Quora?
– A tool for improving dental hygiene?
– A movie about the attack on Pearl Harbor in WWII?
– An element of new math?
– A supplement guaranteed to help you lose 50 pounds in 3 weeks?
Give up? If I told you it was another social media tool and that it’s pretty cool, you would never have started reading. But I tricked you… (are you still reading?)
Quora is a “continually improving collection of questions and answers created, edited, and organized by everyone who uses it.” Hmmm, sounds like Wikipedia. Here are some ‘questions” that I’ve opted to follow:
If you have a curious mind, you may enjoy Quora. Oh by the way, here’s advice on using Quora for your job search. Now go start laughing, learning and collaborating!
I enjoy teaching because I love that moment when I see my students nodding their heads. Eureka, they are getting it! Light bulbs are going off! It’s a great feeling. But even more importantly, my students always teach me so much; about myself and the world (as they see it!)
If we are parents with children at home; we of course recognize that teaching them is part of our role. But do we also see that we are students of our children? That they are teaching us as much as we are teaching them?
Everyday we meet new people. Are we open to learning about them? To learning about what they have to teach us?
Everyday I set a goal of seeing if I can make a difference in someone else’s life by doing something small like: listening to them, thanking them, noticing how hard they work or how much THEY make a difference. It’s a simple and small thing but it gives my life meaning. The well-known poem Desiderata puts an interesting spin on this. Here’s an excerpt from this simple guide for living a happy life.
As far as possible without surrender
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons,
they are vexatious to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter;
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
At Reputation.com you can pay the company to ‘manage’ your online reputation. Hmmm. This strikes me as very odd. Now I realize that there can be circumstances when a person may need to have some help in “fixing” things online. Everything from an old school photo to an errant rant might need to be managed.
But as a rule, the idea of paying someone to change, improve or alter your digital reputation or “digital footprint” sounds crazy to me.
I know a lot of people don’t like Google but the reality is that Google’s search algorithms (their own self interest notwithstanding) are designed to give real people who are creating real content the best chance possible of being found by other real people.
Before I came across this article, A Primer on Online Reputation Management, I didn’t even know these companies existed. While I appreciate the entrepreneurial spirit, I question whether this is a viable alternative for 99% of the population. Here is one of the tactics employed by such organizations; they “include things like “astroturfing,” or the creation of anonymous commenter accounts to buttress a positive piece of content or lash out against a negative one.” Another tactic is to “sneak a client’s name into a site with a lot of rank with Google, such as IMDB.com.”
The whole point of a reputation is that it be a true reflection of who you are. Trust is built by being consistent and ethical. What many of us love about ‘social’ networking/media/business/commerce is the transparency. You can manage your own online presence by paying attention, reading and commenting on blogs, posting to Linked In and so forth. For heaven’s sake be genuine because if you get exposed as a fraud– you WILL need to pay someone to help you get rid of that and good luck doing so!
In the only question you need to ask in an interview we talked about asking questions. Now I’m encouraging you to think about how you answer questions and talk with your interviewer. And I do mean talking with them.
In 25 Oddball Interview Questions, the author lists interesting interview questions from companies like Google, Goldman Sachs, AT&T, Facebook and Amazon. These interviewers learned a lot from the responses to these off the wall queries.
You might think, no one is ever going to ask me, “How many traffic lights are in Manhattan?”, but if you get asked an oddball question; will you be prepared with a creative answer? More than ever, organizations need people who can be flexible and think differently about problems.
If you’re hiring manager and had, say, 3 candidates all of whom were equally qualified – how would you figure out which one to hire? You might try asking one of these questions to see how creative and spontaneous the interviewee can be.
So, how would you answer: “How many basketballs can you fit in this room?” Here are a few answers:
Probably the same number of soccer balls
One. You didn’t ask what is the maximum number of basketballs you can fit in the room
Measure the room in basketballs. The room is 16 basketballs (length) by 12 basketballs (width) by 9 basketballs (height). Then it’s just a simple volume multiplication.
My answer would have been, “Why do we want to bring basketballs into this room? Hmmm, what does that tell you about me?
Choices, do you have too many or not enough?
Life Transitions, personal development, reputation management, skills | Deborah | 
June 12, 2012 7:35 am | 
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