I’m a huge fan of Gaping Void — really enjoyed this artwork/cartoon on Acceptance that he posted today:
Text in the artwork:
ACCEPTANCE
You can’t achieve your destiny until you’ve accepted responsibility for it.
I’m as guilty as anyone… Often I’ll be grumpy about my situation even though I knew full well that (A) my situation is pretty darn sweet, actually and (B) I entered into the situation 100% willing.
Sometimes we have to remind ourselves… and keep reminding ourselves.
Entrepreneur and blogger extraordinaire Neil Patel just wrote a post called “You’re the reason why you don’t have a job“. I saw the tweet, and clicked over, expecting him to talk about your lack of passion, innovative thinking, creativity and the like.
Instead, he covered the mundane basics — things like having a 2-page (or shorter resume), personalizing your cover letters/intro mails, being on time, networking, etc.
I think the things he covered are the oxygen of job-hunting and interviewing — that is, if you aren’t doing those, you are going to be out of luck forEVER in today’s economy.
I think the real reasons that most people don’t have jobs go far beyond his list — these are the types of things that really get the door opened, and people paying attention:
1) Show Passion! Your cover letter should contain your login/profile for the website (if it’s a consumer web company), your top idea(s) as to how to improve the experience, questions you have about things that puzzle you about the company, and more — show that you’ve dug in and are willing to question the status quo.
2) Go beyond networking. Have back-channel feedback loops installed (i.e. ask a friend to introduce you, even if you’ve already made an initial outreach). Get active on blog comments and/or tweet streams. Show passion in user communities (i.e. if you’re an active Twilio-an, you’re much more likely to be noticed in the interview loop)
3) Volunteer/make a bold offer. No one wants people to work for free (at least, ethical employers don’t want that), but we DO appreciate people who are willing to make us offers we can’t refuse. That, plus a strong background, passion for our work, and social justification (#2 above), make it much easier to pull the trigger.
4) Get off your ass! So many people sit around ‘waiting for people to hire them’; they’re the same people who bitch and moan about being asked to put in extra effort once they’re hired. Get used to selling yourself, your skills, your abilities, and your passions — no one else is going to do it for you.
Also, refer to my ‘how to hire/fire at startups‘ — focus on the inverse of many of my examples — look for things that are trigger points in the relationship, and then just think the inverse.
I’m 41, and just realized what the 3 important things are for a happy life.
Long Form:
1) Be healthy (eat healthy, exercise, sleep)
2) Surround yourself with family, friends and loved ones (lots of dinners, calls, conversation and games – create multiple ‘homes’)
3) Go for it (challenge yourself professionally, and personally — strive for bold goals)
Short Form:
Do It, Be Healthy, With Friends
Inspired by:
Annie Chen and her thoughts on how homes are created with bunches of friends
Lyndi Thompson and her question about ‘advice you’d give your 10-year-from-now self‘
Someone just sent me this blog post today, and it’s one of the best I’ve read in month — talks about how great employees tend to not only show initiative, but they show it in the right direction. The world’s seemed to slow down on reblogging of late. This one’s worth it.
I was just organizing/cleaning up my desk at home, and found this passage — I love re-reading this often — I hope you enjoy it too.
Anything is one of a million paths. Therefore you must always keep in mind that a path is only a path; if you feel you should not follow it, you must not stay with it under any conditions. To have such clarity you must lead a disciplined life. Only then will you know that any path is only a path, and there is not affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you to do. But your decision to keep on the path or to leave it must be free of fear or ambition.
I warn you. Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question. This question is one that only a very old person asks. My benefactor told me about it once when I was young, and my blood was too vigorous for me to understand it. Now I do understand it.
I will tell you what it is: Does this path have a heart?
All paths are the same, they lead nowhere. They are paths going through the bush, or into the bush. In my own life I could say I have traversed long, long paths, but I am not anywhere. My benefactor’s question has meaning now. “Does this path have a heart?” One makes you strong; the other weakens you.
The trouble is nobody asks the question: and when a person finally realizes that they have taken a path without heart, the path is ready to kill them. At that point very few people stop to deliberate and leave the path.
A path without a heart is never enjoyable. You have to work hard even to take it. On the other hand, a path with heart is easy; it does not make you work at liking it.
For my part there is only the traveling on paths that have heart, on any path that may have heart. There I travel, and the only worthwhile challenge is to traverse its full length.
And there I travel looking, looking breathlessly.