Project 52: Week 8 (1/15/24)

A Happy Martin Luther King Day to all.

Our invitation, reflection, and prayer...

“It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence.”

“We have been forced to a point where we will have to grapple with the problems that men have been trying to grapple with through history, but the demands didn't force them to do it. Survival demands that we grapple with them. Men for years now have been talking about war and peace. But now no longer can they just talk about it. It is no longer a choice between violence and nonviolence in this world; it's nonviolence or nonexistence. That is where we are today.”

“We mean business now and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world.”

“We mean business now and we are determined to gain our rightful place in God's world. And that's all this whole thing is about. We aren't engaged in any negative protest and any negative arguments with anybody. We are saying that we are determined to be men. We are determined to be people. We are saying that we are God's children. And if we are God's children, we don't have to live like we are forced to live.”

~ Dr. Martin Luther King's final speech 56 years ago

“Being human is not hard because you're doing it wrong; it's hard because you're doing it right. You will never change the fact that being human is hard, so you must change your idea that it was ever supposed to be easy.”― Glennon Doyle, Untamed

We are delighted to continue with a year-long offering.

Welcome to Project 52: Week 8 (1/15/24)

Personal offering (brand) and marketing

As students -- and individuals of all ages, we may feel humble about asserting our value in the world. However, in service of what matters to us (and those around us) and our spiritual calling, we all can prayerfully reflect and discern how we want to present ourselves in the world and prayerfully shape that offering through education, experience, reflection, practice, and interaction with others. How do others see us, including family, friends, fellow students, religious community members, teachers, and mentors? How would we like them to see us? What are we called to do if we are called to believe in a higher being?

To think of ourselves as having a “personal brand” may seem crass, secular, or manipulative. Still, the concept of the brand can have a profoundly principled and spiritual meaning. What can you uniquely contribute to the world, society, and communities you belong to, and how does your offering serve and create value for others, your family and loved ones, and yourself? This approach can be the principled foundation for developing a personal spiritual “brand.”

In thinking about your personal brand, you may want to consider the influences you have discovered through an Ikigai journey (see related article on Ikigai):

• What do you love to do in faithfulness to the Spirit?
• Where have you been given the gifts to be skilled or experienced?
• What does the world need from you?
• What will the marketplace pay you to maintain your practice? What might be your version of “tent-making”?

Combining these elements may help you create a succinct expression of your personal offering to the world and, in due course, to the marketplace rewarding work.

We'd like to invite you to frame a brief and concise statement of your personal offering.? You may want to consider some of the skills, talents, and capacities we described in our invitation to a learning plan or ideas from other sources. These were

Skills of learning, creativity, and dialogue

• Creativity and innovation
• Critical thinking and problem solving
• Communication - listening, speaking, reading, studying, writing
• Collaboration and facilitation

Information media and technology skills

• Information literacy
• Media literacy
• Information, communications, and technology (ICT) literacy

Human contact, life, and career skills

• Pastoral skills
• Coaching and helping skills
• Flexibility and adaptability
• Initiative and self-direction
• Social and cross-cultural skills
• Productivity and accountability
• Leadership and responsibility

Proficiency and accomplishment in key domain subjects and 21st-century themes

• Languages and cultures
• Theology
• Philosophy
• Religious texts
• Social structure and social justice

Which of these skills, areas of knowledge, and capacities can you already demonstrate proficiency and delivery? Which do you aspire to acquire and/or offer? Consider your spiritual and academic journeys, hobbies, extracurricular interests, and relationships with people in the full range of human contexts.

Ways to crystallize your personal branding

Brief personal statement

In a few clear sentences, what can you see yourself offering to the world, to the marketplace?? If you had only a minute or two to speak to another person, what would you be inspired to say about what you could offer to the world - currently or aspirationally?

Remember that each of us is unique in our experiences, skills, and talents. There has never been and never will be another person in creation with exactly your experiences, learning, and insight. What is unique about you from the perspective of your spiritual Ikigai (see related article)?? Your inspired passion, as well as your skills, can be highly relevant. Your statement can be highly aspirational. With your own personal growth and learning plan in view, what kind of a personal “brand” - in service - do you feel called to develop and/or grow into?

Some people feel they have little to offer compared to others with more training or experience. As we reflect, however, we will also discover that individual history of learning and expertise creates highly valuable and distinctive assets we can offer.? We encourage you to practice this prayerfully and share your experience with friends, family, and trusted others. As you bring your personal growth plans to life, we expect you will find that your personal “brand” statement develops and becomes richer, particularly as you attend to it.

CV/resume

We encourage participants to have a spiritually inspired personal resume or curriculum vitae. Your personal statement (see above) can be a good summary or header for your resume.? Other articles in this series will go further into how to develop and improve your resume.? Please don’t let this become a pressure exercise. Give it space and let it come.? Especially in the introduction of your resume, let your personal statement inform what you write.

We will go into greater detail about resumes in further articles in this series.

LinkedIn profile

Your LinkedIn profile is similar to your resume; it is a public version. We encourage all our participants to have a LinkedIn profile when they feel comfortable and stretch their comfort zones to get present on LinkedIn.

Your LinkedIn profile allows you to be visible to others early in your career, connect with others you know, and start building your network early. We will write more about LinkedIn and your profile in this series. And I will actively support you in getting started.

Your profile begins with a summary about you; this is a perfect place to crystallize and express what you feel called to offer and aspire to offer to the world, a concise and elegant statement of your personal “brand.”

Social media presence

Your social media presence can be - it usually is, whether intended or not - an essential part of your personal brand. Although many people use social media for purely social purposes, you can use it to express the person you want to become and the professional stance you wish to occupy and embrace.

LinkedIn is a great place to start from a professional point of view, possibly leaving other social media platforms for personal matters if you wish. Please remember that your social media presence can be widely visible. Please be sure you will be proud of the persistent posts you lodge on social media.

You can start on LinkedIn at any time and continue to build. You can use your LinkedIn summary to communicate your personal brand; equally, you can begin to reach out and build your network. You can also start to have a voice by liking, commenting on, or sharing the posts of others. When you are ready, you can also begin posting in your name. Your network, the people you follow and connect to, and your interaction with others become part of your brand.

As we will explore in separate articles on networking and following threads, LinkedIn can be a great way to discover people and ideas to connect to and learn from. All of this helps you decide and communicate your brand and personal offering.

Email Signature

Your email signature can reflect your professional stance.? You might consider having one email address for personal, friendly, and private dialogue and one for more professional purposes.

We'd like to invite you to include appropriate contact details in your email signature so people can find and contact you. Please format it in an attractive and creative, if professional, manner. Consider adding some tasteful elements that reflect things that have inspired you spiritually or that you are passionate about. Possibly a quote or a motto that inspires you and reflects your brand. How is your personal branding, in the best sense, captured and reflected in your email signature?

We'd like to invite you to allow these expressions of your personal brand - and others - to emerge and develop over time.

As always, I'm available and very willing to be a thought partner to support and accompany you in your explorations.

Please be invited to Week 8 of our year-long series of installments, introducing our framework perspective Tri Cosain, Irish Gaelic for three pathways: inspiration, learning, and career.

We are pleased to accompany you on this journey.

Monday, 15 January 2024

Gerald Doyle,

P.S. Click here to read Project 52: Week 7

Additional resources for Week 8.

Doyle's note: I picked this book up in 2008 and have kept it near my desk for the last 15-16 years -- returning it regularly for reminders of some simple truths. As we begin 2024, I'm focusing on #3, 5, and 6. How about you? And, as I reflect on Dr. Martin Luther King's legacy, I'm reminded that he was always focused on "Leaving an Imprint" for us to make our own.

The Adventures of Johnny Bunko: The Last Career Guide You'll Ever Need

Author, Daniel Pink ; Art by Rob Ten Pas

It has six takeaways when it comes to one's career.

1. There is no plan.
2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. (Work on what you are good at rather than where you have to work on weaknesses.)
3. It's not about you. (Contribute to team, project, etc.)
4. Persistence trumps talent. (No, it doesn't contradict 2. Think about it.)
5. Make excellent mistakes.
6. Leave an imprint (wherever you go).

Tri Cosain materials are developed with my colleague and friend of 40+ years, Scott Downs.

Copyright Scott Downs and Gerald Doyle, 2023

Residing in Chicago, Gerald Doyle provides ministry placement research and consulting for Career Services at the Catholic Theological Union and career services and coaching to students, families, and community members at Wolcott College Preparatory High School. He advises several edtech companies, including Upkey and GetSet Learning; he has also joined TSI - Transforming Solutions, Inc. in their Higher Education and Career Services practice.

Scott? Downs, a former investment banker, management consultant, and entrepreneur, now works as an Agile coach, seeking to call forward great leaders and great organizations based on great cultures. He is a consultant with Expleo Group and is an associate of the TrustTemenos Leadership Academy.

Scott and Gerald are co-founders of Tri Cosain, a practice that weaves inspiration, learning, and career for leadership in life and work. Gerald and Scott co-authored 9 Questions for Leadership in Life and Work, Conversations of Inquiry, and several other volumes in the Tri Cosain series. Their work embraces equity, inclusion, diversity, and well-being as foundations for personal leadership.