Personal Career Success: A Trilogy

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

When I die, what will comfort me most, my personal legacy will be written in the thousands of impactful people I've had the pleasure and privilege to help along their career journey.

Some careers were early embers fanned into flames. Others were flames fanned to fire of reinvention. A few, were experienced fires who let me walk with them as they became a forge that created weapons of positive productive progress that will change the world.

Anyone who knows me, or reads my posts here knows that I love to share books that teach, transform and translate ideas to advance careers.

Dorie Clark; professor, author and writer - has created this powerful trilogy of books anyone who is anywhere on their career journey NEEDS to know about to reach the next level.

Here's what these books can do for you:

Discover Your Super-Power

Her first book "STAND OUT" functions like a digital microscope that helps you reflect on your strengths and skills to unpack the DNA of what makes you successful.

Many peers in my network, at all ages and stages of their careers have just simply let their careers happen to them and moved from job to promotion to next job because it was in front of them. Letting their superiors take what the company needs, letting the company define their professional development based on a job description and not by helping them discover their big idea, their "super-power" - the thing that you are BEST at not just in the company but maybe in their entire industry.

YOU, need to discover your super-power, distill your big-ideas and define what you want your career to be about. This isn't an 'on the job' exercise, it's a personal reflective journey you need to take on your own and Dorie's book 'Stand Out' is the perfect guide for this task.

Reinvent Means Represent

Her second book "REINVENTING YOU" is not just for those looking to reinvent themselves or their career it's for people looking to simply represent their best career self using the framework of their super-power.

"But I don't want a personal brand" Paul, is what many people in the 'thinking class' ( also known as introverts ) often tell me. Professionals who think for a living often look down on personal branding as the unclean activity of extroverts and self-promoters. These same people are the ones who work hard and secretly wonder or lament how those they regard as "sellers" get ahead. You do NOT have to sell yourself, you simply need to know how to succinctly represent your best self! Want to do this and not feel slimy?! This is the book for you.

And for those who ARE looking to reinvent themselves, who know that after decades of doing the same thing and maybe even being good at it, that it is time to go "up market" and evolve. It has been my personal terror to discover that promotion to the top of the managerial food chain does NOT bring automatic fulfillment. Many 'masters of the universe' types (CEO's, award winning leaders, intellectual-celebrities) I have met have confessed to me deep personal lack of purpose. Especially people who have reached the top only to be fired when their employers get what they want and leave senior experienced experts who sacrificed their networks, skills and public marketability in the name of organizational loyalty.

Make a deposit into your career evolution and pay this small premium (time, I know is a precious asset) on an employment insurance policy . Read. This. Book.

Side-Hustle to Career Muscle

Why would a successful person at any age or stage WANT a side-hustle?

Dorie's most recent book "ENTREPRENEURIAL YOU" is the ultimate roadmap to marketing your ideas and super-power BOTH inside your organization and independently to whatever market you need to tackle.

Globally respected marketing expert and best-selling author Seth Godin has articulated the massive power of understanding the difference between doing work and making art for a living. That any robot ( human or soon mechanical ) can do work, undertake tasks but only a human can truly turn passion into purpose into productivity that is sold as a product.

Most people have, for a lifetime, sold their product to their employer in exchange for a salary, benefits, security. We know this is all changing as the #futureofwork advances. That the #gigeconomy ( which is turning out to be mostly bullshit propagated by corporations are successfully conning hard working people into precarious work for less of everything that makes a life worth living ) is perversely warping the idea of a career into a jumble of low paying task-work. But that doesn't mean that this new way of working won't stop. It will only speed up and YOU need to get ahead of this evolution.

Enter, the "Portfolio Career". Still a collection of work, but managed and controlled by YOU and not a corporation or boss. Even people who still work for a company need to transform themselves into intra-preneurs ; life-long learners who are good at marketing their talent BY pursuing relentlessly pursuing their curiosity using the power of the side-hustle swap. Doing good work, growing an outside skill using passion fueled by purpose and then selling THAT new skill back to their current employer. YES even senior executives need a side-hustle, because it builds career muscle!!

No, seriously, read this Harvard Business article by Dorie on this idea.

I happen to work in the social-profit sector. For decades it was called the 'non-profit' sector but frankly that has resulted in both organizations and individuals framing their work and life ( career and salary ) by scarcity. Many of my peers, myself included had to grow the courage to monetize our skills into side-hustles ( watch Dorie in this video on this topic ). But what happened is that as Seth Godin said, those side-hustles fueled by curiosity ( and the desire to earn a decent living and live an abundant not scarce life ) BECAME my core job.

This has happened several times for me - look at my LinkedIn profile at my jobs and volunteer roles. Although my purpose the whole way through has been philanthropy, I've moved from:

• Fundraising > Using a curiosity of 'planned giving' to philanthropic advisor
• Philanthropic advisor > Using a curiosity + side-hustle of technology to a digital charity
• Digital charity + Planned Giving > Using my love of teaching to full time teaching and influencing through leadership

If I can be of help in your career, or your team's professional development please reach out.

I leave you with a great video on Dorie's latest book - pick it up, let it do for your what it's done for me:

Find your purpose. Define your career dream. Turn that dream into reality.