How To Evolve Your Career Call it vocational Darwinism: Seeing similarities between the Galapagos Islands and our recession-era ecosystem, Nacie Carson wrote The Finch Effect to help you be more like those titular birds--which adapted their beaks to environmental changes within a single generation--and less like the species that have perished around them. Fast Company spoke with the author about the evolutionary benefits of owning your career, the intersecting axes of personal branding, and why natural selection is not survival of the strongest. This interview has been condensed and edited. FAST COMPANY: The Finch Effect is all about adaptation. NACIE CARSON: What we need to adapt to as modern professionals is the rapid changes that we're seeing in the job market. The truth is that because of different factors like outsourcing and how fast communication happens, the pace at which changes in the job market happen is not going to slow down. How do you take that responsibility? So how do we add to our buoyancy?
Business Plans Are a Waste of Time. Here's What to Do Instead If you're taking time to carefully perfect a business plan to help ensure your company's model is sound and that it will be a success--stop. That's the word from William Hsu, c0-founder and managing partner at start-up accelerator MuckerLab. Hsu, who's been both a successful entrepreneur and an executive at AT&T and eBay, says that starting a company is "a career for really irrational people. In all probability, whatever the idea is will fail. Building a reality distortion field is how entrepreneurs convince themselves and their employees that this is a good idea." With that in mind, he advises: 1. A great team trumps a great idea every time, Hsu says. In either case, having great team members can fill in any areas where the entrepreneur lacks strength, he says. 2. "Whatever hypothesis you have about the market, it's probably wrong by definition," he says. Then, he says, pivot and reconfigure on the basis of that market response. 3. Does that mean you should never look ahead?
9 Keys to Business & Career Success I'm fortunate enough to know a number of remarkably successful people. Regardless of industry or profession, they all share the same perspectives and beliefs. And they act on those beliefs: 1. Time doesn't fill me. Deadlines and time frames establish parameters, but typically not in a good way. Forget deadlines, at least as a way to manage your activity. Average people allow time to impose its will on them; remarkable people impose their will on their time. 2. Some of your employees drive you nuts. You chose them. Think about the type of people you want to work with. Then change what you do so you can start attracting those people. Successful people are naturally drawn to successful people. 3. Dues aren't paid, past tense. No matter what you've done or accomplished in the past, you're never too good to roll up your sleeves, get dirty, and do the grunt work. Remarkably successful people never feel entitled--except to the fruits of their labor. 4. 5. Ask people why they have been successful.
Sheryl Sandberg's Full HBS Speech: Get On A Rocketship Whenever You Get The Chance Why Face-To-Face Meetings Are Overrated You know the feeling. Everyone’s sitting around a table, ideas are building on ideas, and intellectual sparks are lighting up the room. It’s tempting to think that this kind of magic only happens when people can see and touch each other. Let’s assume for a second that that’s true: Breakthrough ideas only happen when people are interacting face-to-face. Given that, you’re only going to frustrate yourself and everyone else if you summon the brain trust too frequently for those "a-ha!" This is why at 37signals we don’t meet in person all that often. But what about those spur-of-the-moment rays of brilliance? By rationing in-person meetings, their stature is elevated to that of a rare treat. Reprinted from the book Remote: Office Not Required by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson.
Make a Great First Impression: 7 Smart Tricks Research shows that customers decide whether or not they want to work with you within two seconds of meeting you face to face. That puts the burden on you to make certain that those two seconds really count. The only way to do that is to prepare ahead of time. These tricks may help. 1. Your energy level is dependent upon your overall level of health. This does not mean that you need to be a bodybuilder or Hollywood thin. 2. Different industries have different norms about what's appropriate in terms of personal appearance and meeting behavior. 3. Your semiotics are the signals that your appearance immediately communicates to other people. As far as is practical, make sure you are consciously creating a set of visual signals that is most likely to communicate that you're the kind of person that's it's appropriate to do business with. 4. There are three parts to your greeting: your smile, your words, and your handshake (or your bow, in some parts of the world). 5. 6. 7.
5 Tips for Creating the Perfect Profile Pic No matter how much quality information or witty repartee we send out into our social networks, first impressions are almost always visual. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that the first thing we see when checking out a new Twitter follower, Facebook friend, or LinkedIn connection is a profile photo. And in a world of quick clicks and divergent attention, if the photo you present isn't eye-catching, or illustrative of your personal brand, you may miss your shot at making a positive first impression. We asked social design experts for their take on what makes for a killer profile pic, and they've provided some strategies on implementing your personal brand, and a few tools for snazzing up that boring Facebook self-shot you've been clinging to. 1. Start With a Quality Photo This may seem obvious, but we've all come across countless social profiles with blurry, dark, or low-res images. 2. A rule of thumb touched on by many is consistency. "Don't change it every few days. 3.
How the Rich Get Rich John D. Rockefeller, America's first billionaire, said, "If your only goal is to become rich, you'll never achieve it." Easy for him to say, but his point is well taken: If the only thing you care about is making money, no matter how much money you make it will never be enough. Still, even though we all define and calculate success differently, most of us would like wealth to factor into our equations. To find out how, check out the 400 Individual Tax Returns Reporting the Largest Adjusted Gross Incomes, an annual report issued by the IRS. (The latest report is for 2009, which to you and me was a long time ago but to the government is really, really up to date.) In 2009 it took $77.4 million in adjusted gross income to make the top 400. A mere $77.4 million only got you in, though; the average earnings were $202.4 million, a lot of money but well down from the $334.8 million average in 2007. Where it gets interesting is how the top 400 made their money: Obvious conclusions:
Email Tricks Of The Super Successful Over the past month, the most successful people I know have taught me a very important lesson: be a great emailer. Nearly all of them have a few simple tricks up their super-efficient sleeves: be ridiculously fast (responding in 30 minutes and no more than 24 hours), keep messages short, delegate responsibility through CC, and be available every waking moment. Because I don’t want to turn this article into the name-dropping olympics, I’ll forgo identifying the people who inspired this post; suffice to say that it’s part of my job to occasionally deal directly with house-hold names in technology, media, and government and my interactions with them spill over with important life lessons. Responsiveness Engenders Trust: Being a responsive communicator builds loyalty and support throughout your entire network. As an example, take social media powerhouse, Mayor Cory Booker, as an example. Sorry 2 hear. Keep It Short: There’s only one way to dig through 500 emails a day: be brief.
Top 10 tips on how to create a successful CV When it comes to applying for a new job, your CV could be just the ticket to get you that initial foot in the door and secure an interview. But how do you ensure your CV is added to the ‘interview pile’ rather than straight to the bin? Putting together a successful CV is easy once you know how. It’s a case of taking all your skills and experience and tailoring them to the job you’re applying for. But what if you haven’t got the right criteria, I hear you say. Well, I’ve put together the following top 10 tips to help you create a successful CV… 1. There is no right or wrong way to create a CV but there are some common sections that you should cover. 2. A successful CV is always carefully and clearly presented, and printed on clean, crisp white paper. 3. A good CV is clear, concise and makes every point necessary without waffling. 4. The clues are in the job application, so read the details cover to cover. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
How to Be Way More Productive Wake Up With More Energy Many people feel tired in the morning not because they didn't sleep enough but because they have low blood sugar. You can minimize this by consuming a tablespoon or two of unsweetened almond butter before you go to sleep. It's a very simple way to stabilize your blood sugar. (I've tested this by having a continuous glucose monitor implanted in my side.) Double Your Reading Speed in Five Minutes Write down a sentence, any sentence that has eight to 12 words and fills a single line on a page or screen. Clear Your Inbox in Half the Time The only consistent way to get to inbox zero is to respond to fewer emails, because each response breeds more email. The first is five.sentenc.es, which gives you a footer that says, "Why is this email five sentences or less?" Boomerang is an extension for Gmail. The last tool is emailga.me, which forces you to go through your email sequentially without an inbox view, with timers and other gamifications.