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Make Your Career As Resilient As Your Body

Your career needs your attention as your body does. Many of us act when someone admires our body’s pleasing development or notices our depreciating condition. At first, we do what comes to us naturally as a casual effort until reality hits and the seriousness lingers.

When I pursued my certification in personal training a few years ago, the more I learned about anatomy, the more amazed I became of the human body. I took away life to change perspectives of what the body can endure and what can break it down.

I attended sessions by personal trainers who trained in kinesiology who showed how muscles perform under stress and adapt to training. Your body adjusts to the lack of training (and often weakening) and to high-volume training (strengthening and endurance).

In working with people, most people think weight-loss will only require increase activity without considering a modified diet. Think about it, and it is not the exercise we lack.

If we’re overweight, and our metabolism is slow, and the pancreas is wearing out, we will need to modify our eating habits over time. Our bodies need to re-align a healthy body with a healthy lifestyle.

One of my favorite books in the last few years is “The Rise: Creativity, The Gift of Failure, and the Search for Mastery,” written by Sarah Lewis. Her book offers examples of many heroes who embraced the “near-win” yet showed the power of resilience to survive and eventually experience the gratification of mastery.

She tells the story of Ben Saunders who went to the North and South Pole solo and on foot. Saunders explains it in detail in this TED talk. The idea of surrender and, “…of not giving up but giving over to something much larger than yourself and circumstance and by releasing that resistance, finding the resources that you need to move forward.”

No matter how warm you can perceivably dress for 50 degrees below zero, your body still must resource the ability to resist freezing to death. Someone on Saunders team lost all of his teeth because of the uncontrollable chattering due to the extreme cold.

Your career must resist many changes during a lifetime, as does the body when it’s challenged to survive. As your career grows in resilience, more times than not, will thwart some of the residual of trauma and catastrophe of life. Just remember resilience does not avoid failure, which is a building block of success.

Here are some suggestions to make your job search and career more resilient:

Adapting to changes in job climate

Your body does the best it can to adjust to the lack of or volume of training you provide. You must look at your career trajectory the same. You will see multiple changes in any career path or industry. Today, those who navigate their careers anticipate change and keep fingers on the pulse of their training.

Know when and how to find time for training

When you’re consistently engaging your network via conversations, tea, or social media, training is easy to find. Too many times professionals are behind finding the needed training for career advancement. It costs a lot of money to register late for relevant training. More times than never, the cost discourages them from signing up.

Planning fuels motivation

People do well with nutrition management when he or she plans ahead. When you have budgeted and planned your actions, strategy becomes easier to execute. When you partner with someone who shares your motivation and goals, moving forward is easier.

Comfort is last when change is priority

Eric Heiden, the famous gold medalist skater, trained until he threw and continued his training. Successful careerists find ways to use the time and resources available no matter how scarce. It’s easy to find comfort when there is excess as it often masks the need. When comfort is rare, the power is using all at your disposal. You find rest, but it doesn’t equal comfort!

Similarly, you can control how well it survives even the worse conditions. Being laid off. Or falsely accused of something and you had to leave your job. Or being fired. Or just performing well enough. The good news is we’re all resilient. It’s a dominant attribute all of us have to survive along with grit. What differentiates each person is our ability to deploy it, as we choose to enact it.

No one has had smooth roads to success. Most of us are searching for our success, or an overload of satisfaction, and often the two can mean the same and co-exist in our lives simultaneously. Your body can do it. Your career can do it too. As Sarah Lewis’ book suggests, almost does count. You can use almost and some grit to finish–and land your next job.

image by: pixbay.com

by Mark Anthony Dyson

Two Conversations Parents Must Have: The Sex and Career Talk

My original article was first published on the Good Men Project!

Most of us dads jack up the sex talk and never have the career talk. That’s right. We concentrate on just talking about sex without helping them to have good sex. Or even, to perform like we’ve been there before. I mean to do all the right things to do before sex includes having the right kind of relationship, treating his partner the right way, being optimally considerate throughout. This means many things to many men, and although the means to an end is targeted towards marriage in my household, you can find multiple applications in this discussion.

Now, you’re thinking that the career talk is sending them to college or trade school, and telling them to find a job is the career talk. My argument is you couldn’t be farther from reality than our dads were with us. Today’s job search is complex, and many of the old rules don’t exist. The sex and career talk are complicated and requires an ongoing discussion with both parents whenever possible.

As the parental units, we need to stop the madness our parents passed on to us:

Telling them the world is theirs, but limiting “acceptable” career choices
Living our career aspirations vicariously through our children (it should be a sin)
Not know their heart’s desire but only know what you want
Lacking the tolerance of them changing their minds even if it’s 20 times between high school and college
College is not for everybody and anybody. We can argue the worth of a college degree later. It’s not a bad idea to explore organizations to get your son career ready
There’s no sin in your son to major in film school, liberal arts, or classical music majors

The career talk is as complicated as the sex talk. Although, with our son, it’s the relationship talk and both are related in this way: The better the relationship optimizes the physical engagement. Yet, as a family, we want to emphasize the results when the relationship building is the most critical. As fathers, we have an ugly assignment when talking about sex. As a teen, I grew up with my Aunt, she explained how beautiful sex is but I was so lost because I didn’t know how to get there or recognize it when I got there.

In the same spirit we need to change the dialogue about careers need to apply to the sex talk:

Relationship and sex are not synonymous
Sex is just an act
We never talk about sex (I don’t want to know)

Hopefully, you started early with the sex talk in talking about good touches and bad touches. Why not have the talk about doing work and getting a job? In my opinion, it is an entirely different discussion than “chores.”

Careers are talked about in the same way. We’re told the world is ours, and we can be anything but we were lost in conducting a fruitful job search. It’s difficult for young people to connect to how disconnected employers are intentional with job seekers. Employers set-up this wall of security for them (not for you) called the Automated Tracking System (ATS) to filter out the unqualified human beings. Many large companies are using computers and robots to do the work for them. Relationships are the best chance to reach and engage humans:

1) Both require sustaining relationships

Relationships are required for the long path of support and renewed faith of who are? When we lose jobs, or a relationship we wonder are we the same person or have we lost our way. Assessment tests don’t read our eyes, listen to our tones, or judge our behavior. Nor can they put a reassuring hand on our shoulder, tell us it’s alright, or reignite the faith we lose. I was a slow learner when it came to relationships, obtuse in my understanding of them, but thrived when I valued them both professionally and personally.

2) Both talks keep them accountable in ways that matter most

If you are just teaching them about sex, as you are teaching how to get a job, where are you leading them? A great career as in a great relationship is a continued learning. Much of the best lessons are from failure. As a parent, you can’t protect them all of the time. You can manage his expectations through helping them value relationships. The best talks with my first son and I had with his first job were immediately when he came home from work. We focused on his working relationships, not the work incidents. This made a difference in how he has navigated his search for other opportunities.

3) Both talks deepes our relationship with our sons

Our sons will feel weird about talking about either sex or career. Once my oldest (and now my youngest son) starts to trust because of his experiences, triumphs, errors and even failure, he is more open to deepen any part of the ongoing dialogue. We need patience in order for them to absorb all we say contrary to their peers, but he will rebound and adapt parts if not all we share. If he rejects it, don’t worry, he will grow into what makes sense for them. In most cases, the bonding will infuse your world with his, which will mean much to both of you.

4) It’s the catalyst for healthy relationships and life

Since there are many definitions of what a healthy relationship looks like, there is no argument of what it means to our life experiences. It also builds a sustainable careers path and also creates depth in romance.

Getting a job, or just having sex solely for the act has a long-term low expectation of meaningful success (if that’s your definition). The sex talk these days about sustaining the right relationship, education, and respect. The career talk today is not just getting a job, but navigating and building a meaningful career throughout several opportunities, not one long stand with one company (that’s not bad, it is rare for an individual to do so).

by Mark Anthony Dyson

10 Soft Skills Employers Want from You

This article was originally published on Career Metis!

In a recent study by Payscale, employer respondents indicated soft skills is a major factor new college graduates lack. Although the lack of soft skills is not exclusive to graduates, it is a concern as the skills gap continues to widen the gap in hiring talent.

In my discussion with Rich Thompson, Chief Human Resource Officer of Adecco North America, hiring managers will ultimately use his or her instincts as the determining factor. In other words, employers may identify the core skills needed for a job, but need to feel you will “fit” when you demonstrate learning and communication skills adaptable to the company’s work environment.

I have been in involved in the hiring process many times from beginning to end, and admittedly, most hiring managers can’t tell you what he or she doesn’t like until seen. Although much of it’s gut level, these are necessary:

1. Patience

Employers can sense desperation a mile away because most job candidates apply with just getting the job in mind. Most job seekers are not strategic nor intentional in putting their best foot forward. The way you ask questions during an interview or the way you follow-up after you first contact employers tell them everything they want to know about you. If you call back a week after they said to wait two weeks, or if you’re asking the same questions several times then you’ll fail their character test.

2. Personality

I have always maintained my position companies can’t train great characters. It’s hard for them to find qualified job seekers with required skills AND a personality. If you want to stand out and be memorable, show a smile, ease, responsiveness, and a little humor (appropriate and family friendly). It’s not just the way employers make you feel, but what companies experience with you after you leave.

3. Proactive

If you are networking with people in a company you want to work for, you should be learning what makes the environment tick. Then you can use the information to include on your resume, and to bring to the interview to impress employers. If you don’t know anyone, you should use resources such as Glassdoor or a LinkedIn Forum to see if you can gather more intelligence. Another way is to find out what the competition is doing when interviewing with other companies.

4. Honesty

In the news, we have seen every level fail in showing transparency and honesty even in the application phase. If you can prove your accomplishments through social media, or testimonies, you will immediately stand out to employers. But even without proof, your body language, actions, and speech will vouch for your integrity. References and testimonies about your work make this your most powerful tool. If you don’t have any references on your LinkedIn profile, make it a priority because it is the best place to show it’s a real person who is testifying about your work.

5. Resilience

Part of your career story should include how you were steadfast during challenges in mergers and acquisitions, changes in leadership, withstanding a hostile culture, or how you handled disappointment. I know managers who ask about how someone’s job search is going and sift out those who complain about the way other employers handle the interviewing process. Employers measure character as an essential part more than ever. You can show them you are steadfast in cultures requiring you to pivot constantly.

6. Quick and perpetual learner

Showing you’re a perpetual student also says you’re coachable and teachable. And for some jobs it’s everything. It costs employers a lot of money to train and if you can shorten training because you quickly absorb information will make you valuable. If you are positioning yourself to talk about your accomplishments and results such as, “I learned this system in this XXX time which is X% ahead of schedule.”

7. Persistence

People are drawn to individuals who are persistent especially when coupled with enthusiasm. Where it matters is after meetings and interviews and follow-up without being annoying. Usually, employers will define for you what they consider annoying and what is respectful. Follow-up is essential to your job search, and persistence is a needed elements to achieve results. Furthermore, it impresses employers with the right amount of patience.

8. Courage

Showing you’re unflappable during changes impresses employers. Courage is associated with leadership and rarely disappoints. Part of your overall career story should include a narrative where you were willing to do something no one else volunteered to do. Not that you needed attention on you but in seeing the bigger picture, there was a need. It is not found how much or volume but in how significant and what it made others feel.

9. Perseverance

“How do you manage stress” is often asked by employers. This is answer comes in all shapes and sizes but best displayed in stories, and it’s better when validated by others. Every employer would love to hire a persevere-at-all-cost employee, but examples through storytelling make your case.

10. Purpose

A person who has personal reasons to serve and desires to make a difference owns intrinsic reasons to excel. It is a rare attribute to drive a career, but it makes a job candidate pretty attractive when accompanied by the right set of skills. Staci Parker is a Ph.D. candidate, and educator, certified resume writer, and certified coach states through reflection and visualization empower the individual to find a driving force behind his or her career aspirations.

I am sure there are more, but again, these can come through when you share stories of your accomplishments. Why would an employer do without any of these softer skills? It’s like the first date with someone you like or dislike and you don’t know why. Then you meet someone who has It; then it becomes hard to put into words.