Tag: empowerment

Will you waste it?

FabrizioLeave a comment

It is fairly easy to step out of anonimity for a moment, particularly in this world in which everybody has unlimited access to tools and channels to reach a wide variety of people.

Of course, sustaining it for longer is as intense as a job. It’s not by chance that nowadays bloggers, youtubers, influencers that have spent time and effort building a dedicated audience get paid to produce more content.

But if you break through even just once, even with no intention to continue on the same track, there’s an important decision you have to take: what will you do with the attention you have gathered? Will you just waste it and move on to trying the next thing, or will you follow up to signal and build something, even small, that can make an impact?

Careful, though, as while you think about it, the needle moves faster and faster towards the former. At some point, it will just be to late to choose otherwise.

Either-or

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you broadcast a message, some will get it and subscribe, while others will resist it and deny it.

You can either foster and engage with those who get it, or you can attempt to convince and prove wrong those who resist it. Sometimes it will look like you are doing both at the same time, but do not fall for it. It’s either one or the other.

Spend your limited time wisely.

Building bridges

FabrizioLeave a comment

When you engage in a new connection, expect friction.

You are trying to tie-in two (or more) parts that were separated before, and therefore it is granted there’s going to be misunderstanding, resistance, overreaching and suspicion.

Your role is to not misinterpret all of that as a signal a connection is not needed or wanted. Building bridges is the only way to progress, and you have to keep motivation high and fear low to gather people around a vision, a concept, an idea.

Hang in there.

You don’t know it

Fabrizio1 Comment

What should you learn next?

Should you double down on something you are already good at, trying to refine your expertise in that field?

Or should you try to fill a gap, working on something that you and people around you see as a weakness?

I have changed my opinion over time on this particular topic, and now I am more inclined to invest on further developing traits that are already strong. This might vary at different career stages, though.

One important thing to keep in mind should you decide to put effort in learning something you don’t know is the following.

You don’t know it.

Progress might be slow, you might hit a wall more than once, your motivation might falter. And when that happen, remember.

You don’t know it.

Be extremely kind with yourself, as beating yourself up for something you don’t know is like beating yourself up because you are not tall or your hair are not the type you desire.

You are learning something new: it’s going to be difficult, you have to give yourself time, it’s an opportunity not a matter of life and death.

By the way, you should never bet your career or your possibility to be hired in an important role on something you don’t know. It’s just not worth it.

Skills and opportunities

FabrizioLeave a comment

What is it that you are good at, and that you genuinely enjoy doing?

What type of companies would be interested in that?

Career and job seeking are areas in which past commitments do great damage. We get stuck looking at our worth through the lens of boxes everybody got used to look at: education, experience, field, language (for expats like myself).

Perhaps we put a lot into those boxes in the past, and therefore we are unwilling to let them go easily. And yet, years pass, things change, roles go by. We know something is not quite right, but as we have already invested so much into our path (and everybody is telling us that was, and still is, the right thing to do), we fail to veer from it.

What is it that you are good at, and that you genuinely enjoy doing?

What type of companies would be interested in that?

These two questions have the power to unlock change. Ask help to answer them. Those who have worked with you know what you are better at; those who have more knowledge of the job market know what opportunities might lie ahead.

The world is yours.