The Softer Side of Tech Revisited

Now that Labor Day is long gone, summer has faded, and the kids are well into school, there's one thing that is sure to happen...in fact, it already has...  

IT and tech candidates are going to decide they are now ready to get going with their job search, you know, the one they have been meaning to do but have been putting off all summer?  

As a result, the other thing that's sure to happen is a surge in the market of tech-related job seekers all vying for open positions from now until Thanksgiving when they put the brakes on searching again. Yes, the job search market has a predictable cycle too, and if you find yourself coming up against it during the "peak" seasons (specifically, spring and fall), it's wise to bring your A game. Therefore, I want to revisit a post I published back in February 2014 in anticipation of the upcoming spring season. Now that fall is coming, I think it is a good time to look at it again. -----------

So, for a little bit now, I've been discussing the importance of "soft skills" in the 2014 IT job market. The following posts all touch on how the market is favoring those IT professionals who are, well, softer:

• "A Career in IT: 'It's All Ball Bearings Nowadays'"
• "IT: Your Friendly Neighborhood Strategic Business Partner"
• "The Road to Promotion: Culture, Culture, Culture"

Today, I'd like to highlight perhaps the top 10 soft skills in demand, things that you need to show, not tell, in your next career move.

 1. Strong Work Ethic

When I first started writing resumes, it was considered bad form to put "hard worker" or "hard working" on a resume because it was one of those... no duh....things. Who doesn't think they are a hard worker and have a strong work ethic? But increasingly, in today's market, employers are demanding professionals to demonstrate a strong work ethic. One way to do that would be to prepare a Problems-Solutions-Results (PSR) page as an addendum to your resume. It can showcase problems you have faced and how you have worked to resolve them.

 2. Positive Attitude

Here's one that can be tough for some personality types. Let's be real. It isn't that you are negative necessarily (although others might perceive it that way); it's more likely you are direct, to the point, and in your mind a realist. Unfortunately, though, these traits aren't always well received in today's corporate market (neither is a healthy dose of sarcasm) even if sometimes they are what's needed. So finding a way to be direct while being sure to end on a positive note will go far.

 3. Good Communication Skills

Many times people only focus on the verbal and listening part of communication skills, but in today's world, writing skills are at a premium. So showcasing your background in this area is important too.  

4. Time Management Abilities  

5. Problem-Solving Skills

Again, here is where the PSR mentioned earlier would come into play.  

6. Acting as a Team Player

The PSR could also provide you with an opportunity to showcase the work you've done in a team environment. A Testimonials page could do the same thing by letting your colleagues "refer" you through their kudos of you.

 7. Self-Confidence 8. Ability to Accept and Learn From Criticism

Inevitably, you will be asked a question during interviews about a time when you had to take criticism and what you did with it. So be prepared to provide an example.  

9. Flexibility/Adaptability

Here is where an Innovation page could come in handy. Outlining ideas for changes in business operations or procedures that you see that could enhance business activities and show adaptability is highly sought after.

 10. Working Well Under Pressure

 Once again, the PSR page is a great place to demonstrate a scenario where you handled pressure and came out strong.

Chasing After the Low-hanging Professional Fruit: Part III

In Part I of this series, I started out by talking about what makes us move from the ordinary into the extraordinary, questioning the clichés we often hear when it comes to the use of "excellence." In Part II, I started discussing some things that my 10-year-old daughter and I have been looking at it when it comes to facing different situations in life (specifically for her at the moment competitive swimming is playing a large part). I brought up the need to shift our mindset and remove some "stinking thinking." In relation to that, I brought up two issues:

 A. Focus more on legacy than on long term or short term.

B. Cut out the noise and seek wisdom.

 Now here in Part III, I want to end by looking at two more issues that might not be normal things people talk about in relation to "excellence," but I think have merit because they allow us to look at life in a more mature way.

C. Recognize that life is not fair...to all of us in some way or another...it's what makes it so, well, fair...And this is nothing new. It's always been that way, and it will always be that way. Extraordinary people are aware of their place in the human struggle, and they fight against the tendency to let unfairness cloud their judgment.

My daughter has about the world's worst birthday for swimming competitively at least in the under 15 world. Swimming, in an effort to be fair, has created a very unfair system for young swimmers when it comes to their birthdays. As a result, some get to dominate an age group during championships while others are forced to age up simply based on whether your birthday falls the day before or the day after the meet. For my daughter, whose birthday falls the day before, it actually keeps her from going to championships. Even though she more than qualifies and has spent the entire season one age, because of her birthday, she can't go unless she happens to swim a qualifier time for the next age group before her actual birthday. Yet if her birthday were a couple of days later, like it is for some other kids, she could go and most likely win medals and ribbons and all the prizes they do. (I won't even mention how this affects coaching.)

So it's an unfairness, for sure. Yet it's not likely to change during her "career" as a young swimmer. It's a struggle she must deal with if she wants to be a part of the sport, but more importantly, it is one she can't dwell on. If she gives it too much weight, then it will affect her decision making, her confidence, etc.

What unfairness do you have to face in your career? Age, gender, disability, lack of education? How often do you let it affect your choices and outlook?

Facing life's unfairness is something we can all nod our heads to, but I've met very few people who really come to terms with it. Most people either give up, shrug it off and try to ignore it, or rage against it. Very few find a "healthy" way of approaching it (myself included). Extraordinary people find a way to acknowledge, recognize, advocate but still progress. They may be talented and hard working, but they understand disappointment too.

 D. Recognize that time and chance happen to us all. OK, this one might be splitting hairs a bit as it is related to the general unfairness (or, uh, fairness, if you will) of life, but I think there is an important distinction here. For those of you familiar with Scripture, you might recognize this as a snippet from Ecclesiastes 9:11:

"The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all."

More often than not, people like to use this verse to talk about the negative things that happen to us, but I think the verse is more inclusive than that. It is talking about all the things that happen to us: good and bad. Sometimes we get what we don't deserve (good and bad!), and sometimes we don't get what we do deserve (good and bad!).

It is a reminder that we are not, contrary to popular clichés, in control of everything that happens to us. Hard work and dedication mixed with talent is noble, for sure, and often does lead to good outcomes, but it's not a guarantee.

In my mind, both C and D here point back to the necessity of A. If life is unfair and our destiny is not completely in our control, then our legacy becomes even more important. And legacy is not earning a specific award necessarily. Sure, that's a great goal, but it's bit like making money a goal. Instead a legacy is a gift you leave behind and that gift paves the way for someone else. It makes their life easier or enriched in some way, not yours necessarily.

Can you imagine what it would be like if we spent more time focusing on that gift instead of on chasing the low-hanging fruit that rarely satisfies? Now that would be something truly extraordinary.

Talent Shortage vs. Candidate Pool [Infographic]

If there's one thing that we hear over and over again in the tech market, it is that the talent pool is lacking. Yet, when job postings come out, I come across candidates who at least on the surface check off all the boxes on the posting.

So what gives?

The following infographic from the Career Advisory Board of DeVry University is interesting. Personally, I think the first item "Not Positioned Right" is a high-priority issue as it speaks to a bigger problem, which is that candidates often think they understand their audience and what matters to them when, in reality, that audience has a different set of priorities.

As we have discussed several times in this blog, understanding the needs of your target market is really at the core of both a successful job search as well as long-term career management.

Why Our Writing Skills Need an Upgrade Revisited

by Sheree Van Vreede (@rezlady)  

Since I first published the following post almost 2 years ago now, I've received lots of feedback, mostly from people who are seeing a serious lack of written communication skills on their jobs and a general lack of concern company-wide about it. So I thought I would revisit this issue again.

-------------

 It's funny. I hear a lot of people talking about the importance of strong verbal communication skills these days, but I rarely hear much about written communication skills. I find that odd considering how much written communication the average person now does, from remote work, to documentation, to social media.

Not surprisingly, this same issue translates into our education system. When most people talk about curriculum reform, they talk about the need for more math, science, and technology in the classroom (and for good reason). Usually, though, the last thing they are thinking about is grammar and the importance of written communication. In fact, by and large, many efforts have been made to downgrade these skills as a side issue to something "larger" (big picture thinking). Sure, our kids still practice writing in their daybooks and journals, producing responses to endless essay questions, and so on. But often they are graded more on their critical thought process than they are on their actual writing ability.

In the age of social media, this is a concern.

I've been a remote worker since 1999, and my foundation is in freelance editing for scientific/technical/academic publishing houses. Because I am remote and because I work with documentation written by mostly technical folks, I can tell you that there are three main skill sets that are desperately missing when it comes to written communication these days:

• Engaging personality.

Sometimes I think there is nothing more self-absorbing than e-mail. People rush them off with barely a consideration for how they might be perceived by the person at the other end of the communication. You are expected to understand them. Period.

My business partner and I have an inside joke. Every time we get some terse e-mail, when we follow it up with a phone call, our "lion" quickly turns into a "lamb." Every time. Why? Because verbal communication tends to make us more engaging and less confrontational. We have a person right there we have to interact with, and unless we are really, really mad, we tend to want to make a connection with that person.

Writing, which should actually heighten this effect, more often than not misses that mark for most people. The reason? Because they are thinking more about themselves than they are about their audience. They forget about the other person who will be reading their diatribe.

Let's face it. Selfish people are just not that engaging.

• Grammar skills.

Now, I know that learning grammar was probably one of the least favorite subjects by most people in school, but do you know that today very few kids are even learning it? Sure, they get the basics (parts of a sentence), but they learn very little about the true meaning behind most words and how to craft more meaningful texts. Now, I understand not everyone wants to be Shakespeare, but I didn't want to be Einstein either, and even I still had to learn basic physics. So despite whether it is fun, it is still your language. It would be nice to know more about it!

 Let me be clear here. My point is not that people sometimes have typos (as far as I know, none of us is perfect). It's not even that someone might have difficulty spelling (although it would be nice if they at least tried to use spellchecker from time to time). It's the general lack of concern for how they present themselves and the embodiment of their work. You don't have to be stuffy because you choose your words carefully and consider how they are arranged and what they mean. Some of the best wordsmiths are the most entertaining precisely because they have such a strong command of language.

• Cohesiveness.

We seem to think that by teaching math and science, we are teaching logic, but that is not the whole picture. Crafting a well-written, cohesive document requires some of the strongest logic skills there are (after all, you are building something out of nothing). And I can tell, whether it is my engineers at Boeing or my PhDs at Harvard, the ability to write something that is logically cohesive is lacking. The reason is because the act of writing has become such a hurried, secondary, unimportant event in our lives; we no longer sit and really think through what it is we want to say and how we want to structure it (in fact, I have had many an author act as though it is beneath them...all this fuss over writing).

But it is not enough just to "know" something; you must be able to connect with your audience.

You know, there once was a time when people actually rated each other on their letter writing abilities, how well they engaged the reader, how proper the grammar, and how cohesive the letter. They didn't want a list of bullet points, vomiting out what the other person knew. They wanted something that was on point and interesting to read. It meant the person was "educated!"

This all might sound "stuffy" to a "hear-and-now" (as well as a "here-and-now") generation, but if the popularity of social media is any indication, now more than ever, people want to be heard. They have something to say.

Yet, unless you can communicate it well in writing, I promise you, no one will be listening.

Chasing After the Low-hanging Professional Fruit: Part II

I ended Part I of this series talking about what excellence really is. Often we think of it as hard work and commitment, both of which are noble things. Or we think it comes out of a competitive spirit or extreme natural talent, again not bad things necessarily. They all certainly can put you on the road to "excellence."  

But I would propose that excellence is more than that: It is an ability to go beyond the ordinary.
And to do that requires a shift in our typical mindset to fight against natural tendencies (what my grandmother would call "stinking thinking"). I listed these tendencies in Part I, but I will give a short recap here:

1.  We talk long term, but we think (and act) short term. 
2. We crave a team, but we like individual prizes too much. 
3. We need constant positive reinforcement. 
4. We focus on the wrong things because they look and sound like (or seem like) they are more satisfying than the right things. 
5. We don't really know what our goals are.  

To achieve more or something outside of the norm, you have to do something different, and that starts by thinking differently, battling against these tendencies, which have a way of making us ordinary, not extraordinary.

In Part I, I started out by talking about the world of competitive swimming that my young daughter is in. After a couple of years in it, frankly, I still don't understand much about it. It's a confusing environment, and it is a world where you are actually coached to "sweat the small stuff" because technique matters so much.

But from what I've observed, another aspect matters just as much, and that is mindset. So although I can't coach my daughter on her technique, I can coach her on her mindset, a mindset that if she can learn to shift now, she can use when she enters the rat race, an even more confusing environment.

Here are some things we've been discussing (to be continued in Part III):

A. Focus more on legacy than on long term or short term.

When you're 10, like my daughter, long term is 6 months from now or maybe next year. And although I hear a lot of talk (both in swimming and in the professional realm) about setting short- and long-term goals, I've encouraged her first to think more in terms of "legacy" when it comes to her involvement in swimming (or other things). Why do you do what you do in the first place? What mark, however small and however brief, do you hope to make on it?

By using examples from history, she and I have looked at this concept of "legacy building" and what that might mean. Have you ever thought of your career in those terms? What legacy will you be leaving behind?

I find the distinction important because so often we rush to set goals, such as a new title or new pay rate or new venture, both long- and short-term ones, but we often set them merely as wish lists, not from a foundation of what we think our legacy should be. Doing so first helps then drive the goals with a purpose. It also helps when we don't reach one of the goals or it takes longer than expected. We still have our purpose behind it.

Legacies are also what make us unique, by the way. Lots of us can have the same job or same lot in life, but we are still each uniquely made and we bring that "gift" to our careers.

B. Cut out the noise and seek wisdom.

Here's a tough one, especially in today's world. We have a lot of different voices coming at us, telling us that we better do this and that or we'll miss the boat and be left behind! So we tend to find ourselves chasing after this thing or that thing. As parents, we do this with our children all the time. We just want to make sure they have the best, so we spend a lot of time getting them "positioned" well with the "right" classes and the "right" activities at the "right" places.

In our careers, we do the same things even though we might not be as aware of it. We get nervous about missing out, or about becoming a victim of the market, so we keep trying to maneuver into the "right" position. And although strategic positioning makes sense, we need some real wisdom behind it first; otherwise, we are really just following the masses.

Extraordinary thinking reminds us that we can't always trust our senses, especially what we see and hear. It tells us we can't give in to scare tactics.  

Ordinary thinking says that perception is reality. Extraordinary thinking is thankful that's not true.

(Stay tuned for Part III, where we look at dealing with unfairness and time and chance

On the Road to Promotion, Don't Get Stuck in Traffic

 

Let's face it. Most professionals would like to get promoted at their current companies.

It's much easier than facing another external search and less disruptive to work-life balance. You know the culture, and good or bad, you know what to expect.  

But despite the desire to get promoted, most professionals get lost in the promotion process and fail to get the results they were hoping for.

Why? Well, usually, there are two different factors at play:

1. Internal company chaos in the form of politics and poor processes
2. Lack of preparedness on the part of the professional up for promotion

In this post, I specifically want to look at #2 because often when candidates don't get the promotion, they blame #1 (internal processes), but although internal practices are certainly convoluted at best, candidates usually make the "mistake" of expecting their work histories to speak for themselves, which results in hurting their chances for promotion.

Don't get me wrong. This expectation is an understandable one.  

You've put in the time, made the effort, and have the results to show for it. Your clients or end users love you, and you've always received solid performance reviews. So why wouldn't all that speak for itself?

Right or wrong, however, it often just doesn't. It doesn't make the case the way you think it should, and because of that, two things happen:  

a. You go in unprepared, poorly prepared, or mediocre at best: As I've written about in previous posts, going for a promotion is still a form of a job search. In fact, it is really an even higher stakes one because although you think you should be a no-brainer for the position based on XYZ (major wins for the company you helped score, your hard work and commitment, etc.), upper management is also usually aware of other things that may or may not have been in your control (what I call ABC, some slights you thought were nothing, personality conflicts, poor performing projects, corporate politics, etc.). And even though you think ABC should not carry as much weight as XYZ, it often does.

Therefore, you need to be approaching the promotion process with even more diligence than you would an external opportunity because this is not a clean slate. In other words, there's lots of corporate "goo" going on here.  

b. You lack leverage: It is my opinion that in today's market, professionals should always be in some sort of job search or business development mode. We should be creating what I call "pipelines" that bring us opportunities that we can choose to consider or ignore. It leads to what I call a "corporate entrepreneur" mindset. Much like a contractor or consultant must be on top of lining up the next contract while working on the current one, even full-time employees should be paying attention to building relationships that will help create options for them. By doing so, it allows for more flexibility/agility in your career, for you to avoid (hopefully) a full-time job search, and build leverage in your current role (especially during promotion time).

Now, I am not talking about building leverage so you can beat your current employer over the head with it. I'm merely talking about understanding your marketability and what else is out there for you (not what you think is out there or what you think you're worth). Understanding this allows you to have some kind of leverage in the promotion process because as in any type of negotiation, you should have some! Otherwise, you are just hoping the company sees your "market" value and bestows it on you....a value you aren't all that sure of.

You have to remember that there are two factors at play here in the promotion process. It's not just getting the promotion; it's getting the proper pay to go with it! When internal moves are made, the proper pay does not always go with it. (I just spent a good portion of a day on the phone with one of my clients who recently accepted a "promotion" with a small bump in pay only to find out later that the company was advertising the position for a much higher rate on external job postings...yikes.)

Nevertheless, I continue to speak with candidates on a regular basis who insist that they don't need to invest much in the promotion process and that they are just going to "wait and see" how it all turns out. I would say with this mindset it is a 40/60 turnout: 40% get the promotion but not always the proper pay; 60% don't get anything and usually end up pretty bitter about it.

With candidates who shift their mindset and take a more proactive preparedness approach, I would say it is a 60/40 turnout: 60% get the promotion and generally the proper pay (due to preparation).  

With candidates who get prepared and have leverage already built, I would say it is a 75/25 turnout: 75% get the promotion AND get the proper pay to go with it; 25% don't but have stored up leverage to look more actively and more quickly at external opportunities.

Overall, it's a much better increase in odds, but first, you have to stop thinking sensibly and start understanding that when it comes to careers, sensible and rational don't always apply:  

Right, wrong, good, or bad: Your work history does not always do the selling you think it should.

Overcoming Job Board Addiction: Part II

 
OK, so in Part I of this series I might have ruffled a few feathers by referring to what I see as a "job board addiction."

Listen. If job boards are working for you, you have so many hot opportunities lined up and your pick of good positions with great salaries, then that's awesome! You are one of the lucky ones then.  

But that's my point: With an effectiveness rate of only 1-7%, more people lose than win.

In the whole job search picture, job boards and online postings are not all that effective; yet candidates put the bulk of their efforts into them.

The reason for their ineffectiveness is there is a lot going on behind these postings that you can't anticipate. For one thing, some jobs are posted but really are already filled, but for various reasons, the company still posts for the position and goes through the motion of interviewing candidates. A large percentage of organizations now dump all entries into an automated Applicant Tracking System (ATS) that tries to weed through applicant resumes to sift out the best qualified ones. Of course, if applicants don't guess the parameters used by the company's specific ATS, their resume could be tossed out without any human every laying eyes on it. Furthermore, if all of that isn't enough to discourage the average job seeker, the average number of submissions to these online postings is running in the hundreds these days, which means you are effectively being dumped in with the masses.

So even if you are the perfect candidate, first you have to differentiate from the masses, then you have to make it through a complex and mysterious human-less process called the ATS, and finally even if you succeed through all of that and get called in for an interview, you still have to hope the job really is "open" and you aren't just fulfilling some internal company regulation that says every position must be posted and external candidates must be interviewed before the internal candidate can be promoted. (But, hey, miracles do happen....1-7% of the time!).

Shifting our mindset is not easy to do.

My overall philosophy when it comes to a job search is that in today's market where you are likely to switch jobs every 3 to 4 years, candidates should create career-long pipelines that put them in a position for opportunities to be brought to them instead of trying your luck with the masses. I call it networking with positioning, and it is more along the lines of what an entrepreneur or small business owner has to do to create business development and stay solvent. Although it takes a shift in mindset and it requires some preparation, it is much more effective and logical than trying to unlock some secret job posting code that really has very little logic behind it.

But, hey, since when has a job search ever been a logical proposition?

Underestimating and Overestimating Today's Job Market

If there's one thing I see a lot of when it comes to today's professional it is a tendency either to overestimate or to underestimate the job market. Either someone is telling me (in so many words) that they don't need to try very hard to find that next gig or that the world is against them. In both cases, though, the candidate often ends up demotivated and disillusioned.

For those who think finding the next position will be easy, the demotivation and disillusionment usually come from a sense that they (a) have always had an easy time of it before, (b) they are "marketable" because they have certain credentials, and (c) a couple of people they respect have told them they should have an easy time of it. As a result, these candidates don't think they need to do much to prepare for their job search. Personal branding sounds kind of silly to them; after all, they have the "right" credentials. And they don't put much stock in planning for an aggressive job search. They tend to take the "I'll toss something together and then sit back and sift through all the opportunities" approach. They don't say it that way, of course, but their actions betray their attitude of overconfidence.

For those who think the world is against them, the demotivation and disillusionment usually come from a sense that they (a) have an obstacle such as age, gender, or work history issue that the "experts" are telling them is nearly impossible to overcome; (b) lack the "right" credentials; and (c) those around them are negative about their chances. As a result, these candidates don't put much value in their job search. They're going to go through whatever motions they need to, but they don't really believe that any preparation they do will make much difference given the insurmountable odds that are against them. They tend to take the "I'm going to prove the negativity right" approach. They don't say it that way, of course, but their actions betray their attitude of disbelief.

As you can see, both approaches have their issues. And neither corresponds with the actual tech job market we are seeing here at ITtechExec and NoddlePlace.  

The market is neither a walk in the park nor a field full of land mines.

As we like to say, it is a little more of a "zoo" than that. It is both true that good opportunities are out there and that certain factors like age or credentials create obstacles. But it is equally true that despite companies saying they want top talent with all the right credentials, they often have poor hiring practices and an inability to spot this talent even when it is staring them in the face. It is also true that age and lack of credentials are two factors I see overcome everyday in the tech job market.

Although those who work in the more technical fields don't like to admit it, the job search process is more emotional than logical. And it can be a difficult thing to separate your emotions from your approach to preparing for the market. But to make more rational decisions, you have to be careful not to overestimate or underestimate your place in that market.

Instead, it's wiser to get sound counsel and proper preparation. Because that can make all the difference...

Chasing After the Low-hanging Professional Fruit: Part I

If you've been following my blog, you probably know that my daughter swims competitively for a year-round club team, and like most sports these days, it's a confusing world, probably made even more so by a sport that is more individual than team oriented and leads you on a continual race down the proverbial rabbit hole. In swimming, you compete against your "teammates" while still trying to be "teammates" and you reach one qualifier time only to immediately feel pressured to make another one. Time is never on your side, so to speak , as you are always chasing it. In other words, satisfaction is pretty fleeting and inconsistent as you aren't always faster in every race; in fact, sometimes you slow down before you speed up.  

In other words, in many ways, it is an early introduction to the rat race.

As a parent trying to guide a young child, who enjoys swimming but can get overwhelmed by the competition side of it at times, you get to see lots of different approaches to achieving "success" (often called "excellence" in the world of sports), and after devoting countless hours to sitting in a hot, humid pool area on hard bleachers, I've noticed a lot of things about human nature (including sadly my own) that I also see when it comes to our professional lives.  

And all of them result in this tendency for us to chase after the "low-hanging fruit" that makes the rat race, well, the rat race.

Here are some observations:

1. We talk long term, but we think (and act) short term. In other words, we often say one thing (what we long for) and do another (often what we think is expected of us). For instance, we say we don't care about fame and fortune, but then we exhaust a lot of effort reaching for it. Or vice versa. We say we deserve a better work-life balance, but then we're not willing to make the sacrifices it takes to get that. So although we say we want one thing, for a variety of reasons (fear, expectations, an addiction to the rat race, etc.), we keep going for the low-hanging fruit either the path of least resistance or those things that will never satisfy. And then we say things like, "what else can you do?" (In competitive swimming, I see this a lot: We tell the kids that excellence comes from hard work and persistence, but what we really mean by our actions is that if they aren't in the pool every day, devoting every spare minute to chasing one qualifier time after another [work, work, work], they aren't committed to 'excellence.' My daughter is 10, by the way!)

2. We crave a team, but we like individual prizes too much. Much like in the world of sports, organizations love to talk about "teamwork" and building "excellence" within their "teams." And lately all this talk about cultural fit at our jobs really comes down to that sentiment. Now more than ever it seems we just want to "fit in" and be a part of something bigger (or in today's market, that's code for "innovative")...at least that's what we say. But in reality, when you really delve into what's ailing people in their current environments, it's lack of proper recognition (but it's a bit embarrassing to admit, so we use other language). We all want to feel more valued as individuals, and yes, we'd even like to win a prize sometimes...a cash prize, preferably (aka a raise, promotion, bonus).

3. We need constant positive reinforcement. Workplace studies are showing that this is especially true with younger professionals, but let's face it, we all like to hear it...a lot. And if we don't, we have this tendency to give up and run the other way, to settle for something else. Also, it's not just something we want to hear; we want to see it in action as well. If we don't see it in action (as well as hear it), admit it or not, it causes us to make more emotional choices when it comes to our careers.

4. We focus on the wrong things because they look and sound like (or seem like) they are more satisfying than the right things. The rat race is the rat race because it is, well, so alluring. If it weren't, we wouldn't get so caught up in it. And a big part of that allure is making us chase after things that seem satisfying but rarely are, at least for any lasting amount of time.

5. We don't really know what our goals are. For most of us, if we are honest, our "goals" are not deeply rooted. A slight shift in the atmosphere can send us off in another direction. An insensitive boss can erode our confidence, one bad experience can make us doubt, a negative market news report can get us re-assessing. Having flexibility with our goals is a good thing, but having goals that move with the wind is not. So if these observations have merit and they affect us all to different degrees, what do we do about them?  

We fight against them.  

That's what makes someone "excellent." 

 It's not long hours at work (or in my daughter's case, the pool) or a competitive desire to be better than the rest. Combined with talent, these things might make you improve, but they rarely make you unique, much less excellent. Excellence, whether it is in our careers, sports, or other rat race rabbit holes, comes out of being extraordinary, not ordinary, and that requires doing battle with probably the hardest opponent of all: our nature.

(Stay tuned...in Part II, we will go into more detail about this.)