Author Archive: Craig

Post Graduation Script Deprivation

May 27, 2016 0 Comments

Thinking in nature

When the joy of graduation wears off some graduates enter a period of confusion and malaise, unsure of themselves and unsure of what to do besides making sure they eat tomorrow. I believe one of the shocks these university graduates are experiencing is generated by the absence of a script. They’ve been living off of someone else’s script for years. And it may have served them well. They read the lines and made the grades. But now on this side of graduation there is no script for the drama called life!

 

Did you graduate recently? Perhaps you are experiencing script deprivation.

 

A script gives you a straight-line process or pathway for getting from “A” to “B.” Let’s say you figured out a few years ago, “I want to graduate with a degree in finance.” Then, you paid the school to take care of you by charting out the courses you needed to “get a degree in finance.” You succeeded! But now your point “B” looms “out there” and no one is going to chart the path for you. You are going to have to blaze your own path.

Look, you are not alone. By the time we finish 18 years of school most of us are conditioned to living on someone else’s script. We have had it all scripted for us. It went like this:

Go to school.
Take the classes.
Learn the material.
Pass the tests.
Graduate.


But now… 

There’s not a script for shaping a career.
There’s not a script for starting a business.
There’s not a script for being your own brand.
There’s not a script for creating a social life.
There’s not a script for building significant relationships.

 

Your friends have probably been living the same school script you were on, so they are not much help for living without a script.

 

But you do have some options:

  • Gather some mentors who have been living in uncharted waters for a while.
  • Plan a trip without tour guides and head out on an adventure.
  • Take some personal assessments to discover your genuine desires and strengths.
  • Make your grand life vision of success smaller by aiming at something contained in it (that’s usually called a goal) and then remind yourself, “Everything doesn’t have to be perfect!”
  • Attempt something related to your goal and as you do it, make a personal agreement with yourself that with the completion of each small step you will ask yourself again, “How did this go?” And, “What do I want to do next?”

Soon you will be living your own script and enjoying the rewards of living with purpose through your challenges.

Career, Change, Graduation

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Six Confessions of Successful University Graduates

May 19, 2016 0 Comments

beach

With all the ongoing talk about whether or not a college degree is worth the expense, it seems like good sense to ask college graduates how they are doing. Gallup has done that and more. Gallup now has collected loads of data on what healthy thriving people look like. And then, in a project called the Gallop-Purdue Index, Gallop asked  30,000 graduates how they were doing, what they did during college, and then referenced their answers to a health or well-being index.

It turns out, that what you do in the extra-curricular realm during college, is what may make the difference once you are graduated and living real life. The thriving graduates had six confessions in common. The more of these confessions in their assessment, the better they were likely doing in their career, finances, physical health, community engagement, and friendships. So what were these thriving graduates up to during college or university?

Here are the six confessions of graduates thriving after graduation:

  1. I had a professor who made me excited about learning.
  2. I had professors who cared about me as a person.
  3. I had a mentor who encouraged me to pursue my goals and dreams.
  4. I worked on a long-term project.
  5. I had a job or internship where I learned to apply what I was learning at school.
  6. I was extremely involved in extra-curricular activities.

Are you enrolled as a college student or hoping to be one? Going to college is expensive. Not making the most of the time may be more costly in the long-run. The issue here goes way beyond your grades. So what’s in your control as a student? You can research your professors and choose accordingly. You can look for mentors. You can volunteer for long-term projects in clubs and community organizations. You can participate in paid internships and co-ops. You can get involved in organizations where you have interests in order to grow and develop relationships.

Want to learn more about the study?

Follow these two links for articles on the Gallop-Purdue index:
http://qz.com/384713/college-is-worth-it-if-you-have-these-six-experiences/

http://www.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/182312/college-worth-depends.aspx

Are you a college graduate? How did you do more than follow the “academic” path laid out for you? Do any of these six confessions apply to you?

Career, Education, Graduation

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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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