a little personality goes a long way

When I was searching for entry-level opportunities straight out of college, every email I sent began the same way: 

“Hello [insert name],

I’m writing to you today to ask about the job opportunity blah blah blah snoooooore…”

At portfolio school they rewire your brain. You’re looking for a creative job. Do NOT send a boring cover letter. If the creative director can’t stand to finish your email, you think they want to stay at the office until 10pm coming up with hilarious TV spots with you?

I cringed every time I sent a prospective employer another email about vats of popcorn and unicycle-riding monkeys. (That for real happened a lot.) It seemed so.. unprofessional.

But now sitting on the other side of the desk, I totally get it. I’m still pretty low on the totem pole myself, but having a job of ANY kind apparently qualifies you to dish out advice by the truckload. I get polite requests on LinkedIn asking me the best way to break into advertising. After I finish reading these requests I think, “I’d love for this person to teach me the proper way to hold a soup spoon, but I hardly want to work with him/her.”

I get that advertising is a pretty liberal environment. You probably can’t talk about talented monkeys if you’re looking for a bank job. But that doesn’t mean you can’t inject some personality when you’re trying to make a connection. Because even though you’re reaching out to someone with far more power and prestige than you, you’re still talking to a human being. And he/she likes a good monkey joke just as much as you do.

the start-up of you: a book review

I’m going to make a bold statement: I think The Start-Up of You is the most important book for your career in 2012.

This should come as no surprise to regular readers as I quote the book all the time. It doesn’t matter if you’re an entrepreneur or working an entry-level job at a huge corporation. This book is essential.

The Start-Up of You is a mindset shift. It posits that in today’s unstable economy and workplace, nothing is a sure thing. If you were to be let go from your position or if your company failed tomorrow, would you know what your next step is? Or would you be paralyzed in a state of indecision or lack of options?

The Start-Up of You is just the right blend of strategy, execution, and rah-rah. It makes you take a holistic look at your career but also gives you actionable tips to improve your spot right now. It says it’s okay not to pick one career and stick with it for 60 years. It offers several examples of successful people who haven’t (looking at you, Sheryl Sandberg, who went from management consultant to Chief of Staff to Google to Facebook). 

The Start-Up of You reminds us that even if we’re perfectly content with our current jobs, we should always have a Plan B (and Plan Z) in place. We take our bodies in for regular check-ups and we should be doing the same for our careers. 

Whether you’re looking to make a dramatic change, a slight shift, or no move at all, this book talks about your career in a thoroughly modern, very 2012 way. I bought it on my Kindle and I plan to re-read it again soon. Few books have had as big of an impact on the way I look at my career.

the limits of believing in yourself

In general, I am one of those (annoying) people who believe I can do anything I put my mind to. Maybe not immediately or with ease, but if given the proper resources I know I can do it. Call it an uber-supportive upbringing or early success with school. Whatever you attribute it to, it exists with only one exception:

Writing.

You read that correctly. The one thing I am currently paid to do, the one word that makes up half my job title, is the one skill set where I have little to no faith in myself.

I wrote for school papers and magazines throughout my academic career. But I never believed I could become a paid writer. When I got into portfolio school, I thought it must’ve been a fluke. When I was hired as a copywriter, I thought they must’ve just liked my art director partner. Even now, being in the industry for a year and a half I think, “Well yeah, but I could never write a book or for a magazine.”

It’s always a new level of “you can’ts” for me when it comes to writing. I read somewhere that the skills we fear the most are also the biggest parts of our identity. We’re afraid of not being good enough at them because we wouldn’t know who we are without those things in our lives.

Where do you stop believing in yourself? And how do you work around it?

doing your career your way

Don’t apologize for not taking a conventional career route. I won’t feel bad for not being satisfied enough to stick with a job or career for 5, 10, even 2 years.

People will tell you, “You have 60 years to work. What’s one more year of your life to stick it out?”

One year of my life? Let’s go through 24. I found my work partner. I graduated portfolio school. I got my first job freelancing. I met my significant other. I moved out of my apartment with a roommate and into my first solo apartment. I furnished the entire apartment with the money I made freelancing. I turned the freelance gig into a full-time, salaried position. I got to work on Super Bowl ads. I made my first two commercials and a handful of radio spots, print ads, and billboards.

That’s one year of my life. I loved every minute of it. That same job I was so passionate about at 24, I found myself losing interest in the following year. You don’t jump at the first sign of apathy, but if you’ve had it for months, plan your next move. Life is too short to stick with a job you can’t stand for a year or six months just so you can get a paycheck. There are millions of ways to get paid and in today’s world, there is no one trajectory that can tell you what’s right or wrong.

the difficulty of taking credit

While in portfolio school, I had a whip smart, biting teacher I looked up to a lot. 

During one class, he looked me straight in the eye and said in front of the entire class:

“Wrobel, you’re the hardest worker in this class, don’t you think?”

My immediate reaction was to flush three shades of red. I began to prepare my usual response of, “Oh, I don’t know. We all work really hard, etc.”

Then I looked around the room at the eight guys waiting for my response.

I knew every single one of them wouldn’t hesitate to say yes were they asked the same question.

And just because I was raised to work hard and check my ego at the door didn’t mean I couldn’t do the same.

I met my teacher’s gaze and with all the resolution I could muster:

“YES.”

That was a life changing day for me. When was your last life changing day?

overthinking your career

No one is guiltier of this than I am. I began visiting potential colleges when I was fifteen.

I’ve always been this way. I worry and overanalyze Step D while I’m living Step A. It’s a constant, vicious cycle.

A new realization dawned on me last week: things tend to sort of fall into place.

I say that not as an optimist, but as a realist. 

New opportunities present themselves when you’ve gotten good at your current opportunity. People notice.

You can stress about what’s to come in two years. Or you can trust that the path you’re on will keep leading to even better paths as you become a smarter human being.

We’re a work in progress.

setting new goals

At the beginning of 2012 I decided I want to do a Half Ironman (aka an Ironman 70.3). I’ve done half marathons and a triathlon, so I figured this was my next big step in athletic endeavors.

I started putting my plan into action. Well first, I reasoned, I better do another half marathon and another triathlon as warm-ups to the Ironman 70.3. After all, I haven’t run a (long) race in 3 years!

I finished the half marathon with little preparation because I just couldn’t motivate myself. I quit the triathlon before I even started training for it. Why? I completed these races years ago and they were no longer challenging to me. Running 13.1 miles is a feat (pun intended) no matter how many times you’ve done it, but for me the training became monotonous and even redundant because I already knew I could do it. What new limit was I pushing myself toward?

Nobody knows you better than you. You’re inside your head 24 hours a day, listening to all the little voices at work. When it comes to athletic goals, I should’ve known better and simply signed up for the Half Ironman so I’d have something new to work toward that excited me, rather than forced myself to train again for races I already knew I could beat.

Now that’s the next (athletic) goal. The next long race I sign up for will be a Half Ironman. I don’t know when or where yet, but this is my official commitment.

1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, 13.1 mile run. 

It will be done.

excerpt from drive: a great man, congresswoman clare boothe luce told JFK, is a sentence.

Abraham Lincoln’s sentence was: “He preserved the union and freed the slaves.”

Franklin Roosevelt’s was: “He lifted us out of a Great Depression and helped us win a world war.”

What’s your sentence?

on not walking the walk

I’ve been struggling with this blog. I believe in the quotes I post. I’ve found use in the articles I share. But I’ve been struggling when it comes to original posts.

It’s hard to talk the talk when you’re not walking the walk.

It’s hard to tell other people they should move on from their unfulfilling jobs when I haven’t done the same with my own. It’s hard to tell people they should move to another country without looking back when I’ve stalled my own plan to do so for three years. 

It’s much easier to give advice when you’re not the one taking it.

I have the same excuses as everyone else. “Well, I can’t just quit when I have no backup plan.” “I have rent and bills to pay. It wouldn’t make sense.” “I just signed a new 12-month lease.” “My significant other is here and I don’t want to move without him.”

These excuses are just that - excuses. Mine feel so valid but they’re the same as everyone else’s. 

I don’t know if there’s a real takeaway from this post other than I’m struggling too. Maybe we can all walk down this road together.

write, write, write.