Career Explorer's Journal 2012
“Discover where you want your career to go”
Paul Diamond
* * * * *
Published By Paul Diamond at Smashwords
The Career Explorer's Journal
Copyright 2010, 2011 & 2012 Paul Diamond
Cover Illustration by Atholl McDonald (with apologies to Dr Seuss)
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Smashwords Edition, License Notes This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author's work.
* * * * *
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent,
but the one most responsive to change.”
The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection
Charles Darwin
“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself any direction you choose”
Oh, The Places You'll Go!
Theodor Seuss Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
* * * * *
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 - The Art of Exploring
Chapter 2 - What does an explorer look like?
Chapter 3 - The Career Explorer’s Journal
Chapter 5 - Defining a Great Exploration
Chapter 6 - Essential Tools for Career Exploring
Chapter 7 - What Do Explorers Value?
Chapter 8 - Your Career Values
Chapter 9 - Valuing Your Journey
Chapter 10 - Exploring Values Further
Chapter 11 - Developing Talent for Exploring
Chapter 12 - Exploring Your Talents
Chapter 13 - An Explorer’s Goals
Chapter 14 - The Career Goals We Choose
Chapter 15 - Where We Go From Here
Chapter 16 - Exploring Careers Together
Chapter 17 - Exploring Redundancy/Lay-off
Chapter 18 - Starting with a Clean Slate
Chapter 19 - Exploring Self-Employment
Chapter 20 - One Explorer, One Career
Chapter 21 - Exploring to the Core
Chapter 22 - Career Leadership Questions
Chapter 23 - Mid-Career Change
Chapter 24 - Always an Explorer
Chapter 28 - Your Recruiter Relationships
Chapter 29 - New Companies & Potential Employers
Chapter 30 - Failure, Hardship & Difficult Times
Chapter 31 - Exploring Further Ahead
Chapter 32 - The Wisdom of Explorers
Chapter 33 - Career: A Definition
* * * * *
Introduction
Are you the kind of person who reads book introductions or do you prefer jumping straight to the story? These days I’m more likely to give an introduction a chance but if it doesn’t capture my imagination by the end of the second sentence, I’m off and away to Chapter 1. You might already have an opinion on book introductions but it’s also worth pointing out that reading this far makes you the kind of person who reads book introductions, at least some of the time. If you’re wondering what introductions have got to do with exploring your career, the link is in the way we answer questions for ourselves. The art of exploring brings us closer to our experiences and makes it easier for us to reflect on what we’re learning. In other words, if you had an open mind about book introductions you now have a new experience to help make up your mind.
If you can start with the same open mind about exploring your career, your journey through this book will be full of new experiences and lasting career discoveries. The Career Explorer’s Journal is the ideal environment for you to ask questions, gather evidence and decide on the next-steps that feel right to you. Exploring your career in this journal begins with a look at some of the inspirational qualities of great explorers from the past. After that we’ll take a closer look at your experiences and your values, talents and goals. Values, talents and goals (VTGs for short) are rather like an explorer’s map, compass and notebook - simple tools that confirm we’re on the right path.
The second half of the book introduces stories from new career explorers just like you. Their experiences explain how exploring and VTGs work together, making all the difference in real-world career situations most of us face. In the same section you’ll find chapters on CV/Resume writing, networking, interviewing and dealing with difficult times, all of this present so you'll feel prepared and supported when you and your career need it most.
Speaking as a fellow career explorer, I know from experience that the journey ahead will build your trust in a great many things to help your career now and in the future. To help get your new exploration off to the best possible start, you can put your trust in these three simple things,
• You can make great career decisions using your experience
• There’s no such thing as a right or wrong answer
• You know more about your career than anyone else
You’ll find the evidence to support this trust and much more besides, as you explore your career through this book and beyond.
Good Luck on your unique journey of career discovery!
Paul Diamond, 2012
exploreyourcareer.com
* * * * *
Part 1
“I am prepared to go anywhere, provided it be forward.”
David Livingstone
* * * * *
Chapter 1
The Art of Exploring
In 1831 a young Charles Darwin set off on a great exploration of the vast seas, huge skies and unfamiliar lands of the Pacific Ocean but as the ship’s botanist on HMS Beagle, Darwin was part of this great journey to study the smaller things too. You may already have a picture in your mind of Charles Darwin but in 1831, he wasn’t the serious-looking, big-bearded figure we often imagine when we hear his name. Charles Darwin was just twenty-two years old when he set out on this now famous voyage. He was full of life, full of questions and, perhaps most importantly, he was full of exploring.
An old journey taken by a young man who went to look at animals, rocks and plants doesn’t sound all that relevant to our modern-day careers but there are more similarities than you might think. As he explored his new surroundings each day on this journey, Darwin made notes in a journal. Charles Darwin recorded his experiences in the moment as he explored and it was this simple, deliberate act that created a wealth of evidence he could look back on - evidence that made a significant contribution to a much bigger picture as his career progressed. Charles Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection (or evolution as some of us know it) was a big idea but the roots of this big idea can be found in much smaller discoveries. The tiny differences in the beaks of mockingbirds Darwin saw for the first time on this journey are a good example of smaller discoveries that got Charles Darwin thinking.
Two simple choices Darwin made all those years ago on his journey of discovery bring us right back to the present day and our careers. If Darwin hadn’t taken the time to look closely at the details of his experience and his surroundings, he would never have seen the big picture of Natural Selection. If he hadn’t recorded his encounters, his thoughts and his ideas in his journals, it’s safe to say that the story of his career would have been very different indeed. The same is true for every career. We can apply two incredibly simple explorer’s principles in exactly the same way as Charles Darwin and change the story of our careers forever. Like Darwin, it will be us driving the changes but doing it through evidence and discovery rather than chance, guesswork or circumstance. New evidence and new discoveries follow when we do these two simple things:
• Pay attention to details
• Record what we find
As you read on through this book you’ll learn how to apply these principles but instead of the landscapes, plants and animals of the Pacific Ocean, you’ll apply them to exploring your career. By putting these simple yet enormously powerful principles into practice, career explorers like us can make important new discoveries. Much of what we discover will be small, subtle or seemingly insignificant, just as it was for Charles Darwin as he explored, but everything we see and learn adds something to a big picture - the big picture of our careers and where we want to go.
Famous explorers like Charles Darwin will help you see and discover new career evidence throughout this journal but these famous explorers aren’t here just to tell us great stories or give us towering figures to look up to. They’re here because everything they applied in their careers is now open to you on this new career exploration. Every example and every question in this book is here to help you pay attention to those all-important details and create the time, space and encouragement to record what you find. Owning this journal is perhaps the first step in your personal journey of career discovery. You now have a place where experience turns into evidence, just as Charles Darwin did over two hundred years ago.
* * * * *
Chapter 2
What does an explorer look like?
If I asked you to picture an explorer in your mind, who or what would you see? In the past, I always pictured explorers as rugged individuals, full of energy and a strong, pioneering spirit. None of that sounds too bad until I also confess that the explorer in my mind’s-eye was wearing a leather jacket, a fedora hat and carrying a bullwhip. In other words the picture in my mind looked exactly like Indiana Jones but that was before I did some exploring for myself.
Taking the time to look into the lives of great explorers changed the way I pictured them forever. I realised that explorers come in all shapes and sizes, that some of the greatest explorers were and are women. I also discovered that every culture and every corner of the world celebrate their own great explorers and that the art of exploring has been with us throughout history. Explorers and their art couldn’t be further away from the one-dimensional image I held them to, they are in fact as rich and diverse as the many subjects they choose to explore.
Exploring might be old but it also stays current in an ever-changing world, perhaps it might even be future-proof. Explorers are among the first to ask questions and they’re comfortable when it comes to looking forward too. My ‘Hollywood’ view of explorers was changed forever because the evidence was there to show that you don’t have to look a certain way or be a particular ‘type’ in order to explore and get something important out of exploring. As it turns out we don’t have to be tall, muscular, male, studious, wear glasses or even own a hat to be an explorer. Anyone can be an explorer because exploring is a way of doing things, a way of facing challenges and a way of learning from what we find. Exploring is open to any of us and the same reasons we learn and benefit from it apply to us all. All we have to do is choose a subject we feel like exploring, pay attention to the details and record what we find. The picture of explorers in my mind has changed permanently because explorers can and do look like anyone. An explorer can look like you, like me or anyone else. It’s up to us to decide what an explorer looks like, we only need the leather jacket and the hat if it suits us.
* * * * *
Chapter 3
The Career Explorer's Journal
As we now know, Charles Darwin created evidence by making notes in a journal. This meant that he didn’t need to rely on memory alone when he returned from his travels, it also meant his experiences could grow and develop over time as he re-read and looked back on them. Darwin’s journals and careful note taking created evidence that he could continue to explore long after his journey was over. Ideas and facts Darwin wrote down could refresh his experiences and bring important moments to life all over again, giving him a critical series of facts he could work with. Everything Darwin wrote in his journals didn’t need to be right it just needed to be written.
Explorers like Darwin record their experiences because it makes their work and their lives so much easier. It may seem like a humble act, perhaps even dull or pointless at times but notes in a journal have the power to change careers forever. With The Career Explorer’s Journal you can begin recording your own evidence, which means you’ll no longer have to rely on memory or best guesses alone. This book is here to help you capture and recall the experiences, events, encounters and details that are important to you and your career, the same way Darwin did on his exploration. You may be recording something very different to the tiny differences in mockingbird beaks and tortoise shells Charles Darwin saw for the first time on his journey around the Pacific but the effect on your career will be the same.
Having a journal helps us to reflect on where we are now, where we’ve been and where we’re going. Our careers don’t have to take us far away from home but they have other things in common with great journeys of discovery - we too can record our experiences, we can assist and refresh our memories and create a series of facts to work with right now and in the future. We can also have a place where discoveries happen and what we learn can stand out and become clear over time. As you begin to record your findings in this journal, what you write down in your own notebooks or electronic files on screen, might seem small or insignificant but it’s exactly these small and seemingly insignificant details that lead to big ideas and big pictures coming together. ‘Mockingbird moments’ happen in every career but only explorers ever capture them because they choose to make a record, turning them into evidence with the help of their journals.
* * * * *
Chapter 4
You Are Here
Explorers often find themselves in unusual surroundings. They go to places they never planned to visit and end up in tight-corners they didn’t know they’d have to figure a way out of. You might think it’s all part of the job description but it’s the way explorers respond to these situations that becomes interesting to our careers. Even when an explorer has every right to feel lost, he or she can play their trump card of paying close attention to where they are and making sense of what they find. It will come as no surprise that explorers aren’t alone in getting themselves into difficult and unexpected places. This can happen to us at different times and different stages in our careers too. Learning to explore and starting right where we are can help us return and recover from the unfamiliar places and tight-corners our careers sometimes visit. In fact, if we are willing to explore and learn from our experiences, no career situation can ever be called hopeless, a way forward we believe in can always be found.
The starting point makes little or no difference when we’re exploring our careers. In fact, we can start exploring at any time and from any place and one of the best ways to do this is to think about one simple question.
• Where do I want my career to go?
A career exploration truly begins when you can write down an answer to this question or at the very least record how this question makes you feel. However rough or incomplete your answer to this question, it’s worth recognising that the most important step we can take is to write or type an answer down. Your answer to this question, whatever it is right now, is the first piece of genuine, personal evidence you've collected on this new journey. It is your first taste of genuine career exploring and the experience it creates.
Before I get too carried away with what a milestone like this might represent, we need to feel certain that evidence is being created whatever your answer. If you wrote anything down you’re already well on the way but what if your answer to this question was,‘I don't know’ or‘I’m not sure’ or you simply didn't know what to write down? Don’t worry if that was the case for you because admitting we don’t have all the answers has been the starting point for almost every great exploration. No explorer ever set out on a journey because he or she knew everything first. A simple answer like, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I want to find out’ is one of the most powerful motivations there has ever been to explore. Whatever your answer is right now, you will become more certain about it over time as you explore, pay attention to the details and record what you find.
#
Here are some new questions for the new exploration we’re just beginning. Like every other question in this book, they’re here to help you see things in more detail and to help you explore. Just like the menu in your favourite restaurant, you only need to pick out one or two things that appeal right now, the rest will still be here when you come back. Remember to pay attention to the details and record what you find.
• What’s the biggest career issue you're facing right now?
• What’s the most important thing in your work and life at this moment?
• What would an explorer see if he or she was with you right now?
• What would an explorer record and what evidence might they find?
• What do you want to explore more than anything else right now?
Your journey will have a new record of progress if you have recorded your thoughts on any of the above questions. Evidence that feels small or insignificant right now will find its rightful place in a bigger picture over time, like Darwin on his first day of sailing, this journey has only just begun.
* * * * *
Part 2
“It’s not that I’m so smart,
it’s just that I stay with problems longer.”
Albert Einstein
* * * * *
Chapter 5
Defining a Great Exploration
Can a few, simple words really define a great exploration? I believe they can. For NASA’s Apollo the mission was to land on the moon. For Charles Darwin and the crew of HMS Beagle it was to survey the Pacific. For Amelia Earhart it was to be the first female-aviator to cross the Atlantic. A few short, well-chosen words can indeed clarify even the most complicated set of tasks and allow a journey of discovery to begin. A simple, well-chosen mission statement can do exactly the same for your career exploration.
Simple mission statements get people exploring so it’s time to focus our attention on the mission statement that will do this for you. A new list of questions below will help you come up with the handful of words that best describe your career explorer’s mission. Thinking about these questions will get you moving in the right direction, particularly if you make a point of recording what you’re thinking as you go.
• What’s your favourite work/career memory?
• What achievement are you most proud of? Did anyone praise you for it?
• What do you want to achieve in the future?
• What feeling would you most like to get from work and your career?
• What achievements do you want to look back on at the end of your career?
• If your career exploration could achieve anything, what would it be?
These questions should get you a few steps closer to a mission statement that feels right for your career exploration. At the very least your answers will give you new evidence to learn from as you go. As you piece the right words together, it’s worth remembering that simplest statements often work best, especially when they describe exactly what we’re doing. For example, right now you’re exploring your career. It’s quite possible the most powerful, simple mission statement to explain your mission is, ‘To explore my career’. Go with this simple statement for now if it feels right, it’s one you’ll definitely learn from as you go forward. Newer, better words can come along too, especially as you pay attention to the details and record what you find.
* * * * *
Chapter 6
Essential Tools for Career Exploring
Over the years, countless explorers have trusted simple tools to give their missions every chance of success. These essential tools have often included a map, compass and notebook. With these three essential items in their possession, explorers can chart their progress, find their way out of sticky situations and record their discoveries too. Lessons learned from years of exploring are worth paying attention to, that’s why career exploring uses three simple yet essential tools, carefully chosen to perform the same way as a map, compass and notebook in every career. The three essential tools of career exploring are an individual career explorer’s unique values, talents and goals (VTGs for short) and they support your mission and your career journey like nothing else can.
Our VTGs are the best, simplest and most effective tools to turn a career explorer’s mission into success. After this brief introduction, we’ll head straight for the evidence to cement VTGs into their essential place in your career and your chosen mission. We’ll then go on to look more closely at the individual values, talents and goals that belong only to you. Stories and experiences from other explorers will help your evidence grow as we do this, allowing important career discoveries to follow in their path.
The exploration into the vital role of our values, talents and goals can begin when we think of them in the following way. Our values are evidence of what’s important to us, our talents demonstrate what we’re good at and our goals teach us more about what keeps us going. Understanding and appreciating a career in these three important, complimentary ways brings every aspect of our experience into view and it reveals our careers in a completely new light. So let’s start by looking more closely at the first of these three essential tools, our values. What better place to start than the things that are and always will be important to us.
* * * * *