How To Have That Hard Conversation

How To Have That Hard Conversation When we are in job search, we feel vulnerable. We might feel incomplete, not strong, less-than, etc. Sometimes, even though we feel all of these things, we need to make a very hard phone call.  This is a call where we say that it was our fault.  We rightfully take the blame.  It might be for something as simple as oh my gosh, I totally missed our lunch appointment and left you stranded in a restaurant for an hour to something harder like I thought I sent that email about you to just the other person, and am totally embarrassed that I sent it to you, too. Yeah, that email that talked poorly about the person that you now have to apologize to. So, how do you handle this?  Whats the best thing to do? My advice is to just make the call. Plan it, first, but dont delay. In your call, you should plan to: Really apologize. This isnt an empty sorry if I offended you or sorry that some people get offended or something like that.  You are not apologizing for their feelings, you are apologizing for what you did, or didnt, do.  Whether they accept your apology or not is not on you.  Even if they choose to yell at you, and tell you why you are horrible, that is not on you.  You are simply and sincerely apologizing. Minimize excuses. Many times I can tell people sorry, my call went over, and thats why I missed our call.  But I wasnt on a call in the first place.  I could give a white lie excuse, and it really would be no big deal.  But, to me, it is a big deal. Its a question of personal integrity. Its better for me to not give an excuse, or make something up, and just own that I made a mistake.  I find the more people give excuses that I dont need to hear, the lamer they sound, and the less apologetic they seem.  So, simply leave it at the apology, and let them know that youll share WHY, or your excuses, but only if they care.  The important thing is Im sorry. Accept the right and fair amount of responsibility. If you did wrong, then own up to it. If they have some ownership in the wrong, then you dont need to own that, but dont turn this into a blame game. Whether they own up or not is NOT on you.  Whether they apologize or not is NOT on you.  You just do what is under your control, and do it sincerely. Be ready to have this be water under the bridge. If you apologize, and they accept, then move on.  You dont need to rehash this. Your mistake doesnt necessarily define you as a person.  You need to forgive yourself, too.  It doesnt take too long working with people to know that apologizing, while it can be just a few short words, is a BIG step in building a relationship of trust and professionalism (and friendship).  Dont dwell on this, be as good as you know you are (or as good as others think you are). Realize that they dont have to accept your apology. If they dont, thats okay. Youve done what you can. Relationships, and people, are complex. But youll know that youve done the right thing, for the right reason, and youll show you are a person of integrity. I recently had a call like this.  It was a genuine call where the person apologizing was very sincere, obviously uncomfortable, and took full ownership.  The other person accepted the apology just fine, and that was that.  Any harm done was easily rectified with this simple communication, even though it was a hard call to make. Trust me, making these calls will help your relationships stronger rather than just ignoring the problem and hoping it fades away. How To Have That Hard Conversation When we are in job search, we feel vulnerable. We might feel incomplete, not strong, less-than, etc. Sometimes, even though we feel all of these things, we need to make a very hard phone call.  This is a call where we say that it was our fault.  We rightfully take the blame.  It might be for something as simple as oh my gosh, I totally missed our lunch appointment and left you stranded in a restaurant for an hour to something harder like I thought I sent that email about you to just the other person, and am totally embarrassed that I sent it to you, too. Yeah, that email that talked poorly about the person that you now have to apologize to. So, how do you handle this?  Whats the best thing to do? My advice is to just make the call. Plan it, first, but dont delay. In your call, you should plan to: Really apologize. This isnt an empty sorry if I offended you or sorry that some people get offended or something like that.  You are not apologizing for their feelings, you are apologizing for what you did, or didnt, do.  Whether they accept your apology or not is not on you.  Even if they choose to yell at you, and tell you why you are horrible, that is not on you.  You are simply and sincerely apologizing. Minimize excuses. Many times I can tell people sorry, my call went over, and thats why I missed our call.  But I wasnt on a call in the first place.  I could give a white lie excuse, and it really would be no big deal.  But, to me, it is a big deal. Its a question of personal integrity. Its better for me to not give an excuse, or make something up, and just own that I made a mistake.  I find the more people give excuses that I dont need to hear, the lamer they sound, and the less apologetic they seem.  So, simply leave it at the apology, and let them know that youll share WHY, or your excuses, but only if they care.  The important thing is Im sorry. Accept the right and fair amount of responsibility. If you did wrong, then own up to it. If they have some ownership in the wrong, then you dont need to own that, but dont turn this into a blame game. Whether they own up or not is NOT on you.  Whether they apologize or not is NOT on you.  You just do what is under your control, and do it sincerely. Be ready to have this be water under the bridge. If you apologize, and they accept, then move on.  You dont need to rehash this. Your mistake doesnt necessarily define you as a person.  You need to forgive yourself, too.  It doesnt take too long working with people to know that apologizing, while it can be just a few short words, is a BIG step in building a relationship of trust and professionalism (and friendship).  Dont dwell on this, be as good as you know you are (or as good as others think you are). Realize that they dont have to accept your apology. If they dont, thats okay. Youve done what you can. Relationships, and people, are complex. But youll know that youve done the right thing, for the right reason, and youll show you are a person of integrity. I recently had a call like this.  It was a genuine call where the person apologizing was very sincere, obviously uncomfortable, and took full ownership.  The other person accepted the apology just fine, and that was that.  Any harm done was easily rectified with this simple communication, even though it was a hard call to make. Trust me, making these calls will help your relationships stronger rather than just ignoring the problem and hoping it fades away.

Why You Should Pursue a Career in Logistics

Why You Should Pursue a Career in Logistics Have you been wondering where your career path might lead you once you’ve left education? It may not have been an industry you had considered, but a career in logistics and the supply chain industry can provide attractive opportunities to young professionals, and it’s a sector that only continues to grow. Here are some of the benefits of pursuing a career in logistics: Flexibility A lot of the activity in the logistics industry can happen outside of normal working hours. It could be driving a lorry across the country, supervising a warehouse or managing a client contract â€" your hours will largely depend on who you’re doing business with. If it’s an international client, you might even be working across different time zones! So, this means you’re likely to have a lot of flexibility with your working hours. You can arrange your work schedule to fit in the daily school run or that one-off dentist appointment! Global Connections Many logistics companies operate both domestically and internationally, so getting on the career ladder within this industry can mean plenty of opportunities to work or relocate abroad. Regardless of where you’ll be based, you’ll gain vital experience of working with companies from all over the world and understand how businesses operate in different countries. You can even practice your foreign language skills, which will be a great asset to any company. Plenty of Scope The logistics industry encapsulates plenty of jobs, whether it’s in sales, operations or business development, so you’ll find the perfect job role regardless of your education level. You don’t need to have a degree in logistics and supply chain to apply for jobs in this sector. For example, delivery companies like Tuffnells appreciate soft skills, like great communication and organisational skills. They recognise that these can form a good basis for developing your career and offer an early careers programme to get you started on the right path. Rewarding The logistics work environment is demanding, but also one that has a strong community. When you work in the industry, you’ll appreciate the high level of teamwork and collaboration that it offers. Also, many logistics providers offer internal job training and career development opportunities, which leads us on to our next point The Opportunity to Advance There’s always the opportunity to advance into a management position, and the logistics industry tries to nurture and train entry-level employees and shape them for promotion rather than hiring from outside. Stable Employment One final point is that the logistics industry has a significant impact on the domestic and global economy, which means you can enjoy a very sustainable career when you choose to pursue a job in this sector. As the logistics industry continues to advance, there are plenty of innovations that suggest that logistics is here to stay. With plenty of scope to progress too, it’s the perfect industry for those getting on the career ladder.

Curating Your Career by Creating a Career Scrapbook - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Curating Your Career by Creating a Career Scrapbook - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career What the heck is curating your career? Curating your career is collecting information, maybe projects you were involved with, awards you won, campaigns you created and putting it all together in one place in a way that lets people visually comprehend what your career has been about. It’s a little like keeping a scrapbook. You can also include stuff that’s related to your career but not just about you, that helps the social angle. As a child of the 1960's and 1970's, when we had real photographs and we received in depth news via newspapers and magazines we would collect items that we wanted to remember or maybe show off. We kept scrapbooks. You know the ones that your grandmother wanted to show you or the ones you created for a school project. I had a scrapbook of newspaper articles where my name appeared. My last two years in high school I was a pretty good quarter miler and my name would appear in the local newspaper every time I finished 1st, 2nd or 3rd in a major meet. If I won, my name might appear in an article. Pretty good stuff for a teenager in the 70's. Pictures and articles went into my scrapbook. Your Career Scrapbook I have been blogging over the last couple of months on using social media to manage your career.   I have been discussing using blogs, LinkedIn and social media in general to promote your personal brand. One way of showcasing your talent or promote your personal brand is to curate content online or create a scrapbook of interesting webpages, pictures, articles, I have been using a product called RebelMouse. RebelMouse allows you to create an online scrapbook.  I created the Career Pivot BoomerJobTips page on the Career Pivot website using RebelMouse. I have set it up to automatically pull content from my CareerPivot Twitter feed, other users Twitter feeds, RSS feeds, and FaceBook pages. At this point you can rearrange the content however you would like by going to the native BoomerJobTips RebelMouse page. It is just like having an online scrapbook. I found this a fascinating way for people to view content that I have selected. They do not need to be on FaceBook or Twitter. (Yes, a lot of Baby Boomer guys are not on Facebook or Twitter!) Oh by the way it is free or at least for now it is free for the basic features. Did you have a scrapbook as a kid?   Do you like finding and collecting interesting articles on the Internet? Are you curating content and did not know it? Go  curate some content and promote it among your friends. (Disclosure â€" I have no financial connection to RebelMouse other than being a happy customer.)

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Project Puts Productivity Tips to the Test

On the Job by Anita Bruzzese Project Puts Productivity Tips to the Test There is a lot of advice these days abouthow to be more productive, such as getting up earlier to start your day, meditating, cutting out sweets and caffeine and dumping your smartphone. But do any of these strategies really work? Chris Bailey decided to find out. After graduating from college and receiving two full-time job offers, he instead opted to spend a year trying out various productivity advice to see what worked. His conclusion: Much of the productivity advice out there is bunk. I interviewed a lot of so-called productivity gurus, but most really arent, he says. In his new book chronicling his project, Bailey says he found some of the most helpful advice came from successful executives. What I discovered is that these people are the most deliberate about what they do. Even on a moment-to-moment basis, he says. They dont work faster or longer theyre just reallyfocused on what is important. He also discovered that many people confuse busyness such an dealing with emails with productivity. When busyness doesnt lead you to accomplish anything, then thats laziness, he says. So what other habits or strategiesdont lead to productivity? Among the experiments Bailey tried: Working more, sleeping less.For every hour of sleep you give up, you lose at least two hours of productivity. Giving up caffeine.When you drink caffeine habitually, your productivity eventually flatlines after your body adapts to how much caffeine you consume. But when you dont give it up completely and drink it strategically, your productivity jumps because you benefit from bringing more energy and attention to the task. Living in isolation for 10 days.Bailey says this is the experiment he learned from the most because he came to realize that without people around me, my motivation to get work done plummeted. Without social connections, research has shown workers are less happy, engaged anddriven to accomplish more at work. Working longer hours.While working 90-hour weeks, Bailey discovered that he accomplished only a bit more than when he worked 20-hour weeks. When you workconsistently long hours, or spend too much time on tasks, thats usuallynota sign that you have too much to do its a sign that youre not spending your energy and attention wisely. Starting work at 5:30 a.m.Bailey a self-professed night owl found that he was groggy the first two hours of his day and got tired of missing out on time with friends because he had to go to bed early. Research shows there is absolutely no difference in socioeconomic standing betweensomeone who is an early riser and someone who is a night owl we are all wired differently, and one routine is not inherently better than another. On the other hand, Bailey found there were several productivity tips that were valuable: Meditation.With the work we do today, it is beneficial to bring all the focus we can to it, Bailey says. And studies show that the more mindful a manager is, the better the team performs. Using a smartphone for only one hour a day.This was(read more here)

Encore Episode Jonathan Rauch, Author of ?The Happiness Curve? [Podcast] - Career Pivot

Encore Episode Jonathan Rauch, Author of ?The Happiness Curve? [Podcast] - Career Pivot Podcast #158 â€" Against popular wisdom, your best or most satisfying days are ahead of you. Jonathan Rauch delves into the science and the data of happiness in this discussion. Description: Jonathan Rauch, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute in Washington,is the author of six books and many articles on public policy, culture, and government. He is the contributing editor of The Atlantic, and recipient of the 2005 National MagazineAward, the magazine industry’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize. His latest book is TheHappiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50. Marc is asking for your financial support for the Repurpose Your Career podcast. Please donate at Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer to support this Podcast. Key Takeaways: Welcome to episode 158 of the repurpose your career podcast. My name is Marc Miller and I will be your host every Monday for a discussion on what it is like to repurpose your career. If you are new to the Repurpose Your Career podcast, I want to welcome you to the show. I am running my annual Repurpose Your Career podcast survey. If you would be so kind to go to careerpivot.com/podcastsurvey and take my annual podcast survey, I would be very grateful! I will collect some minor demographic information as well as ask a few questions about your favorite episode of 2019 and what you would like in 2020. We are back on a weekly publication schedule and I have many great episodes scheduled in the coming months. Next week, I will be interviewing Alexandra Gordon who is the owner of HouseSitMexico.com. Alexandra retired with her husband 10 years ago in Mexico, but a few years ago she had the opportunity to buy the domain “housesitMexico.com” and is now working on turning it into a thriving business. It is a fascinating story of someone in the 2nd half of life turning on their entrepreneurial juices. Repurpose Your Career: A Practical Guide for the 2nd Half of Life 3rd edition is available on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com, Powells.com, BooksaMillion.com and many other fine online retailers. I am working on the audio version of the book but this is taking longer than planned. Look for this to be out in February of 2020. Now on to the podcast… Download Link | iTunes|Stitcher Radio|Google Podcast| Podbean | TuneIn | Overcast| Pandora Marc gives an introduction for Jonathan Rauch and welcomes him to the podcast. How do you measure happiness? How satisfied are you with your life? Since the 1950s, millions of people in virtually every country have been surveyed about how contented they are with what’s going on in their lives. People are reliable in gauging their happiness. There is amazingly good data on life satisfaction. What is the U-shaped happiness curve? Jonathan explains what the data means. As we age, our outlook changes. We cope with stress better. We focus more on family relationships. We feel more contented. What is the difference between a mid-life reboot and a mid-life crisis? Jonathan tells a personal story about his own dissatisfaction in his mid-forties. In his book, Jonathan shares stories from many people he interviewed. The experience is normal but it is not something to confront alone. Marc refers to Episode #075, with Dr. Joel Dobbs, who climbed the ladder of success only to find it was leaning against the wrong building. Jonathan talks about the mid-life feedback trap. Find out where your unhappiness originates before making a change you won’t like. (It might not be the building that makes you unhappy.) Jonathan endorses the idea of a career pivot for the second half of life. We should expect to want change. As we get older, we age out of “standard ambition” and into mentorship and giving back. Jonathan likes the CareerPivot concept. You keep one foot on the ground. Marc looks back at his seven career changes by half-steps. Society is not prepared to adapt to our 20 additional years of active life on the upswing of the U-Curve. There needs to be social and institutional change. Marc has no intention of retiring. What everybody wants is freedom. They all know they need to keep working, but it’s probably not punching in and out for a paycheck. Jonathan suggests institutional and intellectual changes that would help, such as different workplace roles not working toward advancement. People don’t want to retire, become pathetic, and then die. We need to change the way we think of elders. Marc talks about an interview he had last year where the discussion turned to the kinds of work we will do in our 70s, and how we need to start preparing for those roles in our 50s. Jonathan’s book looks at the Transition Network of professional women, age 50 and up, who help women coming along behind them to prepare for repurposing their lives. It’s so much easier to transition with a support network. Marc has an interview coming up with Carol Fishman Cohen, the CEO of IRelaunch. They help people who have big career gaps. What about people who want to have everything continue as is? Portfolio careers are becoming normal. Many jobs are going away. There is not a job that is not affected by technological changes of the present and future. If you’re a highly-successful, achievement-oriented person; life has been good to you, you’ve hit mid-life and you can’t figure out why you’re dissatisfied, don’t be alarmed or ashamed. There is nothing wrong with you. You are preparing for more satisfaction than you have known before. The best thing to do is wait it out. This is a ‘we’ issue, not just a ‘me’ issue. There is likely somebody in your life right now who is going through the trough of the U-Curve. Be the support for someone going through it. Marc really enjoyed this book and learned a lot about his own life. Marc highly recommends this book to you. Click here to purchase The Happiness Curve. The Career Pivot Membership Community continues to help the approximately 50 members who are participating in the Beta phase of this project to grow and thrive. This is a community where everyone is there to help everyone else. Marc is recruiting new members for the next cohort. If you are interested in the Career Pivot Membership Community and would like to be put on a waiting list, please go to CareerPivot.com/Community. Marc invites you to connect with him on LinkedIn.com/in/mrmiller. Just include in the connection request that you listen to this podcast. You can look for Career Pivot on Facebook, LinkedIn, or @CareerPivot on Twitter. Please support the Repurpose Your Career podcast by going to Glow.fm/repurposeyourcareer. This link is also at the top of the show notes. You will find the show notes for this episode at CareerPivot.com/episode-158. Please hop over to CareerPivot.com and subscribe to get updates on this podcast and all the other happenings at Career Pivot. You can also subscribe to the podcast on iTunes, Stitcher, the Google Podcasts app, Podbean, the Overcast app, or the Spotify app and on Pandora! Marc Miller Like what you just read? Share it with your friends using the buttons above. Like What You Read? Get Career Pivot Insights! Check out the Repurpose Your Career Podcast Do You Need Help With ...