The need to identify your career success drivers

Ensuring a successful and rewarding career is not simply about gaining some specific piece of knowledge and then taking on a role that appears to be appropriate. Knowledge is only one component of any career role that you have to take care of and manage - no matter what it is. Depending on the role itself others components (to varying degrees) include;

1. Ongoing demand for that role in the economy/organization

You cannot assume you can continue to perform your current role, in its current form, forever and gain the same financial reward. You need to determine why your role is in demand and ensure you move along with what is and will be required.

2. Leadership and management ability and understanding

This is just not about being a leader or managing others - it's about understanding and having empathy with those who lead and manage you. There are many styles of leadership and management and both as a leader and someone being lead you need to comprehend what is best and how to adapt to the varying styles with which you will be faced.

3. Time and stress management

Put simply, if you do not manage or your time or stress levels then your career performance will suffer. Two key drivers of performance are focus and dedication - being stressed and not allocating time to important tasks will not allow you to be either.

4. Networking

More and more careers are requiring some kind of networking to be undertaken - even if it's inter-departmental. Don't shut yourself off in your cubicle, home office...These days it's very much who you know as much as what you know.

5. Personal presence and confidence

Personality plays a large role in career success, no matter how knowledgeable you are in your role. If you want to progress and develop in and beyond your current role you have to be confident (not cocky or bragging) that you can handle your role and more. This is just not about ensuring promotion in your career. If you wanted a flexible work arrangement for say family reasons, there is even more reason to appear that you are confident you can perform in this situation.

6. Health and well-being

More and more evidence points to the fact that if you are strong physically it will allow your mental capabilities to be fully utilized. Mental health and well-being is also a critical component of performance and you must ensure meditation and relaxation is scheduled into your week.

7. Identification of re-education required

Associated with Point 1, experience will only take you so far - as the world changes, the economy changes and thus demand for goods and services changes. Your knowledge of today will not suffice for what is required tomorrow and you have to ensure you keep yourself up to date - this can mean subject matter knowledge, marketing and sales techniques, IT etc. If you don't, then you run the risk of becoming redundant in terms of skills on offer and career options will be limited.

8. IT ability

You need to assess the basic level of IT skills required now and in the future. This basic level will continue to rise so don't think being young means you automatically know everything required.

9. Perseverence and drive

This is one of the most important components. You need to work hard and smart and don't regard failure at any point as the end of the journey but as part of the journey. Success is not achieved overnight and you cannot assume that once you have achieved one thing that it will not disappear if you don't continue to perform. You need to understand your motivations and values for performing.

If it was only knowledge that was important then those with the highest IQ would have the most successful careers - and this is not the case. Aspects of emotional and social intelligence play a major role in success apart from IQ.

The next three important steps are the following; (1) identifying the rank and percentage of the total current role related to the above components, (2) produce a plan on how to improve your performance of each and (3) do the last two things for your next planned career moves. It's no good finding out you don't know how to drive or drive well when given a car....you have to plan in advance.

"Yes we can" starts with YOU

Great day for America and perhaps the world with Barack Obama starting off his presidency. Crazy crowds, a lot of hype and excitement and some would say the start of a new era. But wait a second...this is just one man we are talking about here. Once the hype dies down (don't forget everyone was excited that George Bush was leaving as well) it will be back to the daily living of life. Nothing has changed yet in anyone's life except for the perception that change will happen. However Obama is not a god, he is one human person who is shouldering a lot of responsibility given to him by the public. Talk about pressure and the chance for letdown.

Let me say that I went to a talk tonight that looked at a methodology that uncovered drivers of individuals' behaviours which was different to the personality assessments that usually look at the prediction of behaviours themselves. I will go into this in more detail when I have undertaken some research. But the bottom line is that Obama is regarded as a 'Peacemaker', one that is a visionary, does not want conflict and looks to bring people together. Whether by himself he is a strong leader or achiever is yet to be seen. But this is the thing...he cannot be strong at everything. The Peacemaker brings people together to perform and that is the nature of Obama's message, that everyone has to help themselves in order to help each other. That means many YOU's make a WE.

Obama's been incredible at breaking down all kinds of barriers in the USA and across the world. Again part of his personality profile. However he needs a contribution from everyone, needs everyone to be emotionally intelligent in order to work together and be self-aware of the contribution they can make to society. No act is too small. So I would encourage everyone, me included, to think of just one thing (to start) that we can do to improve our society. We may not all be great leaders or visionaries but we can surely manage one small act, thought or behaviour that when combined will go a very long way. This is what Obama is looking for, nothing more, nothing less.

Why you need to identify each of the 'components' of your career

Ensuring a successful and rewarding career is not simply about gaining some specific piece of knowledge and then taking on a role that appears to be appropriate. Knowledge is only one component of any career role that you have to take care of and manage - no matter what it is. Depending on the role itself others components (to varying degrees) include;

1. Ongoing demand for that role in the economy/organization

You cannot assume you can continue to perform your current role, in its current form, forever and gain the same financial reward. You need to determine why your role is in demand and ensure you move along with what is and will be required.

2. Leadership and management ability and understanding

This is just not about being a leader or managing others - it's about understanding and having empathy with those who lead and manage you. There are many styles of leadership and management and both as a leader and someone being lead you need to comprehend what is best and how to adapt to the varying styles with which you will be faced.

3. Time and stress management

Put simply, if you do not manage or your time or stress levels then your career performance will suffer. Two key drivers of performance are focus and dedication - being stressed and not allocating time to important tasks will not allow you to be either.

4. Networking

More and more careers are requiring some kind of networking to be undertaken - even if it's inter-departmental. Don't shut yourself off in your cubicle, home office...These days it's very much who you know as much as what you know.

5. Personal presence and confidence

Personality plays a large role in career success, no matter how knowledgeable you are in your role. If you want to progress and develop in and beyond your current role you have to be confident (not cocky or bragging) that you can handle your role and more. This is just not about ensuring promotion in your career. If you wanted a flexible work arrangement for say family reasons, there is even more reason to appear that you are confident you can perform in this situation.

6. Health and well-being

More and more evidence points to the fact that if you are strong physically it will allow your mental capabilities to be fully utilized. Mental health and well-being is also a critical component of performance and you must ensure meditation and relaxation is scheduled into your week.

7. Identification of re-education required

Associated with Point 1, experience will only take you so far - as the world changes, the economy changes and thus demand for goods and services changes. Your knowledge of today will not suffice for what is required tomorrow and you have to ensure you keep yourself up to date - this can mean subject matter knowledge, marketing and sales techniques, IT etc. If you don't, then you run the risk of becoming redundant in terms of skills on offer and career options will be limited.

8. IT ability

You need to assess the basic level of IT skills required now and in the future. This basic level will continue to rise so don't think being young means you automatically know everything required.

9. Perseverence and drive

This is one of the most important components. You need to work hard and smart and don't regard failure at any point as the end of the journey but as part of the journey. Success is not achieved overnight and you cannot assume that once you have achieved one thing that it will not disappear if you don't continue to perform. You need to understand your motivations and values for performing.

If it was only knowledge that was important then those with the highest IQ would have the most successful careers - and this is not the case. Aspects of emotional and social intelligence play a major role in success apart from IQ.

The next three important steps are the following; (1) identifying the rank and percentage of the total current role related to the above components, (2) produce a plan on how to improve your performance of each and (3) do the last two things for your next planned career moves. It's no good finding out you don't know how to drive or drive well when given a car....you have to plan in advance.

Validating and valuing your personal brand - Part 1

There is more and more talk these days around ebranding and creating an effective personal brand, though it is still an art form and in its early stages. However there is no denying the fact that your personal brand in society and online, in respect to society's perception of it, should be treated with care and your career and/or business plan must make this a high priority item to manage.

There are many entrepreneurs and consultants that are starting to claim an 'expert' tag in respect to personal branding. Tom Peters, Dan Schawbel and a few select others are very highly regarded in the field of personal branding and provide a lot of good information as to managing a personal brand, what it means, how to differentiate yourself from your competitors and the tools you need to create a successful personal brand. However there are two aspects, which I would regard as key, that in my mind are still questions are this stage. The first is to ensure you are on the correct path to obtaining the 'personal brand' perception that you think you want. The second is to be able to 'value' your personal brand in the market. Without each of these you will simply be undertaking actions that may or may not create the correct personal brand image or alternatively you may just create a 'worthless' personal brand.

I am one that totally agrees with the concept of personal branding...it's always been in our lives, professionally and personally, in respect to what others perceive us to be and represent. It's just never before been a focus - until now because the workplace demands it. However creating a personal brand is not something to be taken lightly. No one can yet tell you what has to be done to create a brand that will provide a certain perception...for a company yes, but not for an individual. No one can even tell you how to value your brand ie just because I'm perceived a particular way does not guarantee results due to the influence of external events that cannot be controlled. Inherently a personal brand is inflexible as the core foundation of the brand is you and with that comes specific motivations, values, genetics and emotional intelligence etc

So my suggestion is to look and understand all of the tools that influence your personal brand 'value' in the market - online presence, social networks, image, knowledge of personality and emotional/social intelligence. But take with you two things; you are no marketing or branding guru and thus creating 'the' personal brand is going to take time but the good news is that a lot of personal branding is simply common sense so don't be awed by all you read - just spend time to think about who you are and what you want. That is, get to know yourself and take control of your life.

Goal setting in face of financial adversity - part 1

When it comes to discussion around goal setting and achievement of those goals all the text books talk about having clear values, motivations, action plans and the like. They talk about time management and keeping focus as if it is something unknown to the 'uneducated' masses. But of course we might suspect that the people writing these books are not goal setting 'gurus', they are just writers who have decided to write a book that they hope to sell to make money. Quite simple.

However the one thing that many writers of goal setting books, coaches etc do not take into account very well is the influence of life/other uncontrollable or even some controllable events on the human psyche. Even the best laid plans for goals, even those you thought were important, can be adversely affected by other matters that are important. Today, briefly, I want to talk about how to consider setting goals even when you are being impacted by negative financial events.

So by now even the people living underground know that there is a massive upheaval in financial markets, asset worth and capital allocation in the world at the moment. Many of us are losing a good portion of wealth, seeing assets fall in value and becoming burdened with debt. Now another topic I will talk about soon is the fact that wealth is not real....but to most of us increased wealth makes us feel good and decrease makes us not feel so good. Many people I speak to say that their life goals are impacted by this feeling of becoming 'less wealthy' and seeing money being taken away from them. Many other goals are being pushed aside because of the stress of financial pressures and this is causing lack of motivation, determination, vision - even from those people who would state that they are not motivated purely by money.

This is not something that can be covered in one setting so I've made this part 1. At this time I would choose to leave you with these five thoughts;

1. Learn to focus on what you can control, not what you cannot control. Financial markets move in cycles and for 99.9% of us we cannot determine what happens. Therefore do not blame yourself for what has happened.

2. Whilst we all need money to live, take a breath and truly think about what money means to your lifestyle and way of life. Do you really need the money today? If financial markets move in cycles do you never expect your wealth to increase in the future? Exactly what have you lost? Perhaps it's not about the wealth itself, rather you feel something has been 'taken' from you. Take the emotion out of this thought!

3. Own up to yourself that being financially secure or even independently wealthy, or whatever it is, is important for you. Perhaps look at what you can do to control your finances better...but only within the realms of you can control.

4. Revisit your goals and ask yourself do you still want what achieving the goal will provide? Do they still equate to what you value as a human being. Refocus on these benefits and even include what you can gain financially. Standing still and doing nothing is not going to get you anywhere - if you keep on moving forward things will happen. This is a fact of life - action results in change of status quo.

5. Look at improving your knowledge of investments and perhaps consider taking charge of your own finances a little. Many finance professionals know little more than you in many respects. My other advice is to invest in what you know - I have a friend who invests only in his business only because he knows the value of this in detail.

Society's evolution - better balance or lazy and immature?

The world is one crazy place today...war, heavily political, business development all over the world in developed and undeveloped countries, more greed then ever before, more stress than before and the continual search for wealth and a work-life balance. Makes for one convoluted existence doesn't it?

So when it comes to assessing where our society is and what it represents the question arises....is society maturing or becoming more immature? I think there can be arguments for both.

On the one hand society seems to be going through a changing phase that is simply more pronounced than ever before in history. This is reflected in changing values, attitudes, motivations that appear to make life unpredictable with no structure and no clear goals. People want wealth but do not want to work like in the past...is this progress and commonsense or unrealistic and lazy? It appears more and more people want it all which is therefore making it difficult for more of us to achieve this - don't tell me everyone can 'have it all'...limited resources means that this cannot be the case. To support the maturing argument it is simply that change is occurring faster than in the past because it can - not so hard to understand. The society, in the developed parts at least, are looking to achieve a better balance, work smarter not harder lifestyle and perhaps could be seen as more well rounded.

However the immature side has a strong argument. Everyone wants more wealth with less effort, greed is more prevalent then ever before, the age that is acceptable to become mature and responsible is now mid 30's rather than mid 20's, lack of respect of finance and investment principles and it is often more about caring for one's self rather than your community. Life choices are more 'me' then 'us' and in many aspects it appears we are regressing rather than developing. Stress is increasing rather than decreasing even in the face of all our technological advances. The majority of society would take a lottery win and live a life of luxury over work.

Only time will tell whether we can conclude more mature or less mature is the consensus agreement as to our society's progression and level of emotional and social intelligence. The key determinant of course will be the perceived concept of what mature or immature represents.

How to achieve higher levels of performance - Part 1

For many people what I am about to say is not new and a principle they live by on an everyday basis. However for many it is something either not known, not recognized or just ignored. What I am talking about is the concept of blocking out emotion and old mental anchors when it comes to breaking through new barriers to achieve new goals.

I would consider myself as intelligent as the next person so of course I would say I understand what I am talking about today. But do I follow this principle day in, day out? No. Do I think what held me back from achieving certain goals, blaming everything but myself? Yes. If this is you and you want to stop the frustration when this occurs by not making it occur then keep on reading. Otherwise feel free to continue with the old habits.

I am not sure why but on the rowing machine at the gym yesterday I was putting in quite an effort and the body and mind was becoming weaker as time went on. But I had said I wanted to hit certain numbers on the rower and unless I upped the pace I wouldn't make it. At one point I thought (well the instinctual self or Id part of who I am)'who cares, I'm still getting a good workout' but the Rational or Ego self and Internalized/Ego Ideal self said 'no way, you need this to improve plus you already said you were going to do it. If you don't you'll continue to make average okay to achieve'.

Very good you may say but what next. Then I determined a purpose and defined the principles for what I was about to do over the next five or so minutes; better health, keep word to self, achieve goal, feel better - this created a value framework which I could operate within and move forward, rather than perform an action 'out of habit'. When the going gets tough, the principle of instinctual self will look to protect you and make it okay not to follow through unless you have a stronger underlying principle that supercedes. This is a key factor in achieving new goals or targets.

So I had resolve, princples and purpose but still some pain and exhaustion. Well I looked deep down and asked myself 'how did I truly feel'. The answer was actually not bad...my brain had created a upper limit based on past exercise and it was sending me a message that I was nearing this threshold. However what the brain knew was not what my body was capable was - in fact no where near it. The pain was not real, the state of exhaustion was not real. It was all a mental perception based on past experiences and performance. Therefore the trick was to focus on the actual task of rowing along with the breathing etc and believe it or not the physiological change improved my emotional or mental state.

Therefore in finishing off what allowed me to achieve this task, better than I had before was; define your goal clearly and necessary action, establish principles and purpose for goal - including keeping your word to yourself and thirdly, be task oriented and do not let old barriers determine your emotional state and thus your physiological or mental performance. Focus on doing and you'll find your emotional state switches and supports you.