Professional Development

Visualization: The Beacon and the Television

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Visualizing your goals and dreams is a part of succeeding in your life and career that you can't avoid.  I am a big advocate of having a vision for your life with as much detail as possible.  I want you to not just see, but be able to taste, hear, smell, and feel the vision you have, as big and bold as possible.

Yet, if you know me and read this blog, you know that I also decry a lot of the "visualization" exercises and self-help approaches out there.  I despise "The Secret" and it's offspring and it's siblings; the idea that if you visualize it it will happen, the dream-and-be-positive exercises, and all the rest.  Yes, I advocate visualization while decrying some visualization methods and exercises.

There's a reason for what seems to be inconsistency.  This reason is not visualization itself, but the attitude taken towards in the various exercises people promote. I'm all for having big dreams, as visceral as possible – but its what those visualizations mean to you that changes what they can do for you.

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Weekly Challenge: That Book

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Your challenge this week involves books.

I'm sure there's many books you wish were written to help you in your career.  So ask yourself if there was one book on one subject, what would it be?

* What would it cover?
* What kind of audience would it be pitched to?
* What extra information would it include – a good bibliography, web links, or something else?
* How up-to-date would it be or have to be?  Yearly, every two years?

Sit down and ask what this special book would be.  Take ten minutes or so.

Your next step:
1) Break the book down into search terms – and go to Amazon.com, google.com, etc. and do an actual search.  See if you can find what you want or find something close.
2) What would you have to do or learn to write this ideal book yourself?  Perhaps that's something you can do in the future . . .

– Steven Savage

Weekly Challenge – Your REAL business card

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So it's your weekly challenge, that chance to get your progeek brain juices flowing.

This week, we're talking business cards.

Imagine you're making a business card – only it's not for your current job or even your ideal career.  It's for you.

If you had that small slip of cardboard, what would you put on it to help communicate who YOU are to people:

  • Would you give yourself a title ("Lady of Fangirls", "Datamage", etc.)
  • Would you put on a website, a Facebook page, what?
  • What would you say about yourself?
  • What design would you use to communicate who you are.
  • Would you have a photo of yourself?  A portrait?  A symbol?

Give yourself ten minutes to think over what kind of business card represents "you."

Now for that matter, why not get one made? It's a fun way to network . . .

– Steven Savage