Author Archive: Craig

Vancouver Millenials: Make the most of living with parents

May 17, 2016 0 Comments

living with parents

It doesn’t seem like news at all especially if you are living it. But the trend for Vancouver millennials to live with their parents is a shift from the lifestyle expectations of many people in generations before us. For some cultures and families, “living with the parents” until you get married, has always been the expectation. However significant pressure is building around the high cost of housing in Vancouver. Combined with the erosion of earned income spending power, Milllenials are responding to the pressure by choosing to live with their parents… longer.

Here are ten ways to make the most of the opportunity to live with a parent during your twenties.  Without some intentionality its too easy to coast while living at home and neglect the development of important life skills.

Ten ways to make the most of living with your parents.

1. Pay yourself rent even if you are not paying rent to your parents. Make “rent” a regular savings. Someday you likely will pay monthly rent or you will have a mortgage.

2. Start a business – even if you are going to school. Both the extra income and the entrepreneurial skills will serve you well. It might even turn into a career.

3. Develop your budgeting and saving skills. Make and remake a budget monthly by telling your every dollar where to go. Consider reinvesting money earned in your new business, back into the business since your “overhead” costs are low.

4. Discover an interest and start blogging about it.

5. Accept household chores and make a significant contribution to home-life by conscientiously choosing to do things you might not be great at but are necessary life skills. You’ll become a better roommate or spouse someday.

6. Build a few significant relationships and a social network that promotes values that fit your vision for life.

7. Learn how to build trust in relationships by “letting your folks know what you are doing and where you are going.” It’s actually good manners and a great practice for building trust in relationships.

8. Get involved in your community and serve others to make it a better place. Community leadership with volunteers is one of the most challenging spaces for leading.

9. Do something new or novel each month so you nurture a growth-mindset responsive to change.

10.  Have some conflicts. Learn the skills of crucial conversations. Learn how to disagree as an adult without blowing up or creating a cold war.

Change

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What am I going to do with my life?

May 13, 2016 0 Comments

No doubt there are lots of ways to tackle this question. If you are twenty you are probably asking it a lot. But you don’t have to know everything you are going to do. You just need something reasonable and purposeful to move towards. The joy, money, flow mix used by Chris Buillebeau may be useful to you as described in his new book, Born for This. Here’s an animated core message capturing Chris’ message.

And here’s the audio of a good interview of Chris with Brian Johnson.

I keep finding that you don’t have to be twenty to explore these issues again. I’ll never be twenty again but the intersection of “again” shows up for lots of reasons and if you pause there to thoughtfully explore and experiment, a new and fruitful enterprise may be just around the corner. I love the idea here that we all need to treat ourselves as “self-employed.” We each of the personal responsibility for developing our work (or some side-work) and keeping it meaningful. Its too easy to turn work or career into a life-sucking venture in greed. The benefit of this mix developed by Chris is that it acknowledges money in the mix but keeps joy — which relates to purpose large in our considerations.

Give it a try and connect with me to talk about it some more.

 

 

 

Career, Change

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How to ruin your network before you really get started.

May 13, 2016 0 Comments

doors

Here’s the scenario: you are looking for a job or looking for good advice on how to move forward on a problem or in an industry. Someone you trust, let’s call them your “connector,” has been listening and is willing to make a contact for you. A few days later or even the same day they send you an email with the contact information of a person in their network.

You see the email. What could you do next?

Well you could do nothing. Don’t do that.

Why? Because your connector has been working for you. More than likely something happened behind the scenes before your helpful friend sent you the email. Your connector reached out to their connection, asked about their availability and let them know that you would be contacting them. Now two people have put themselves out there for you.

When you do nothing. You leave them hanging and you leave them making up stories in their mind about you.

So what to do when you receive a contact. Here’s a suggested course of action.

  • Say thank you. Reply to the email and say, “Thank you.”
  • Reach out to the contact either by phone or email and introduce yourself. Be sure to mention the connector who helped you. Then make plans to correspond or meet up.
  • After you have met with the new contact say, “Thank you” to the contact. When you have applied their good advice do it again.
  • Be sure and thank the connector and let him or her know what the outcome or learnings where for you.

 

When you are starting out, cultivating and maintaining your network is essential. Neglecting this skill will hold you back. Most movement in career occurs because of a “friend of a friend” opens a door for you. Unfortunately doors get sticky on the shut side of life when good manners are neglected. Chart out your own course of action to express appreciation and acknowledge the “volunteered” effort of the connectors in your life.

 

 

Career

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In need of smarts? Keep reading books!

May 11, 2016 0 Comments

books

Getting smarter requires reading — reading books. Here’s why: blogs and online articles are quick reads but they don’t force you to do mind stretching work. The extended thought and working of the ins and outs of ideas requires more digging and exploration than most blog articles provide. Blog articles typically only scratch the surface of an idea. The creator of WordPress and a leader in the blogging realm, Matt Mullenweg, advocates for reading books. I like what he said to Michael Ellsberg, author of The Education of Millionaires:

“A common quality I see of people who are successful is that they are voracious readers. The book as a format is underrated in the digital age. I’m the first one to say blogs are fantastic, obviously. But they tend to be shorter form. Longer-form works stretch my mind more. When you write a book, it consumes you. What you get when you read that book, then, is someone’s entire life for several years or more, distilled into one work. That’s really powerful.

 

“I feel like these things have super-cycles, and I think we’re at the nadir of long-form writing. I think we might have just passed it, and it will rise again. The e-book revolution put an entire library into something as small as a paperback. For me, as I stopped reading books in favour of Internet content, I felt myself getting dumber. Several years ago, I thought, ‘Man, I don’t think I’m as smart as I used to be.’ I just felt a little duller. So I realized I had to start reading again. When I was starting [my company] Automatic, I realized, ‘I have no idea what I’m doing, so I need to read as much as possible.’ An e-book is ten dollars these days. Anyone can afford a book. Take some of the best books on entrepreneurship. Maybe Innovation and Entrepreneurship by Peter Drucker. Or The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki, which I was really inspired by when I was first starting out. What’s holding you back? Its your time and a few dollars. Or to go the library if you don’t have a few dollars. And you can have access to the world’s greatest wisdom on any topic.”

 

Michael Ellsberg, The Education of Millionaires: It’s not what you think and it’s not too late. 2011. p. 174

Change, Education, Leadership

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5 Reasons Your First Job Doesn’t Have to Be Awesome

May 25, 2015

Sometimes recent graduates from high school or from college can get stuck on the thought that their first job has to be awesome. Awesome pay. Awesome hours. Awesome people.

If you find yourself caught up in this kind of thinking its not going to help you move forward. Holding onto these expectations of awesomeness may cause you to miss out on great opportunities.

A first job doesn’t have to be awesome. A first job, even one that doesn’t pay a lot, gives you more than a paycheque; it gives you  opportunities to:

 

1.  Build up your work ethic. Show up, ready, on time. Learn how to bring a good attitude, even when you don’t have it. In other words you learn to be professional.

 

2. Figure out how to relate to a boss. You are going to have to figure out what your employer wants and how to deliver good service without losing your soul and identity to their good days and bad days.

 

3. Develop your people skills. Learn how to relate to customers or clients, fellows employees or work group members. Get to know what happens inside of you in a variety of situations.

 

4. Learn how to add value to an organization or company by aligning yourself with its mission and values.

 

5. Earn some money and learn how to pay the bills.

 

Finally, its a plus, when your first job gives you the opportunity to develop new skills and knowledge sets that can add to your career development. It’s possible to be more than a “cog in the machine.” As you settle in and show yourself to be responsible, ask for and accept responsibilities. That’s when a first job becomes awesome.

 

 

Career, Work

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