Sital Ruparelia

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

-  Confucius

If you’re looking to achieve something big in 2010 or to make a change this year, don’t do too much planning and thinking.

When it comes to career management, planning is over rated. So is thinking. Over-planning and over-thinking usually overwhealms you and creates a disease called ‘Perfection Paralysis.’ Your desire to have things perfectly planned out paralyses you into taking no action and so effectively ensures you make no changes whatsoever.

A better strategy is to be clear about where you are heading and then simply taking the first step as below:

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The UK, Europe, parts of Asia and the US are this week in the grip of arctic conditions.

Which means that some of you will struggle to get into work this week, whilst many job seekers will find it difficult to make contact with recruiters and contacts who themselves have struggled to make it into the office.

So you have 2 choices:

a) You can sit around complaining about the weather and travel problems,

or

b) You can create your own weather by turning the big freeze into an opportunity by investing any additional time you have on doing those activities which you never have time for and so give your career a kick start at the beginning of the year.

Here are 6 suggestions on how to turn the freezing lemons into ice cold lemonade this week:

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When I’m working with clients who want to make a career move, I usually ask what they want to do in terms of a Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.

What’s Plan A?

- The answer is often similar to what they were doing before – give or take 10%.

What’s Plan B?

- Is often something slightly different. Maybe a similar role in another sector. Maybe a slight variation of a role they’ve done in the past.

What’s Plan C?

- Is *that thing* you really want to do.

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In 2001 when Dan Pink published “Free Agent Nation,” it was seen as a trailblazing book on the modern workplace. A future workplace characterized by less job security, no more “jobs for life”‘ along with a distinct lack of long-term loyalty from employees towards organisations.

As Pink contended, in a globalised, interconnected world economy characterised with ever-increasing competition and technological advances, the workplace will never be the same again.

These forces have  conspired to make those of us in the industrialised world “free agents.” That is, independent, freelance consultants – regardless of whether we’re in full-time employment or not.

I’ve been talking about this with clients for several years, but for many people this has been a difficult concept to comprehend. Especially for those in permanent roles with no intention of becoming self-employed.

But interestingly, as the events in the financial markets and job market over the last 18 months have shown, a permanent contract doesn’t mean much. And those individuals who will thrive in the modern workplace will be the ones who think and act like a professional, forward-thinking freelancer.

Here are 10 ways you can thrive by acting and thinking like a freelancer:

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“Hi, what is it you do?”

It’s the dreaded question.

One of the biggest challenges faced by people in the middle of a career transition is knowing how to introduce themselves whilst socialising or networking.

It’s even more challenging for people who are in the process of starting a business or becoming independent consultants. They don’t quite know what it is they plan to do and so they frequently withdraw from conversations, go shy and often avoid going to social events until they’ve figured out exactly what it is they are doing. Completely irrational, but it’s amazing how many people do it.

I speak from experience as I played this avoidance and perfection game a lot in the past. It’s all one big mistake because avoiding these interactions until things are ‘just right’, means you:

- Miss out on potential work and business opportunities
- Miss out on a helping hand in clarifying what it is you do
- Miss out on the opportunity to screw up and become better at introducing yourself

Yes, getting your ‘message’ right is a key part of any change process – finding work, changing careers or becoming self employed. People cannot connect you with future employers and prospects if they don’t know what you do and what it is you’re looking for. And there are many resources and help for people on how to get their message right (articles, books, videos, coaches etc)

But fundamentally the work should be done in the field, not in your lounge or your home office.

The best way to learn to cook, is to just cook. Classes and recipe books are good, but ultimately, you learn to cook by burning a few things and getting it wrong before you get it right

The best way to learn to interview, is to go out and be interviewed. Screw up the occasional interview, make a few mistakes – and then you become proficient at interviews

The best way to articulate what you do to others, is to put yourself out and introduce yourself to people. 

So don’t wait around too long trying to figure out what you’d say before getting out there. Don’t play the ‘when-then’ game and wait until you feel good about yourself. Please just get out and start introducing yourself.

The clarity, proficiency, opportunities and ‘feeling good’ come once you step out there and introduce yourself. So what is it you do again..?

As the rate and speed of lay offs continues, I’m meeting more and more people who are looking to leave the corporate world to become freelance consultants or start up their own businesses in another area completely.  

Whilst there are fewer jobs within the banking sector – and indeed the wider economy, there are far more problems to be solved. Problems which create opportunities for new businesses.

How do you get started? 

Suppose you have a desire to become a freelance consultant or have a great business idea, how do you actually get started – and what are the key steps you need to take? 

Here’s a simple 20 step slide show published by BusinessWeek on how to move from the corporate world into self employment.  

What’s missing?

Having made the leap into self employment after the last financial services downturn in 2003, I can see some of these points are very relevant. But I do think there are some key steps missing from this list. For one, there’s the importance of finding a new peer group. 

Step 21. Find a new peer group

Finding a new peer group and community of self employed people (ideally within the same industry) is, in my experience, one of the biggest success factors for a start up. Being self employed can be a very lonely place to be. You need a peer group to share your highs and lows with, people to exchange ideas, resources and best practices with. Without it, you’ll struggle.

There are plenty of self employed people following this blog, so tell me – what do you think is missing from this slide show?

During the last financial services downturn in 2002, I made the decision to leave my job as a recruiter and start up my own consulting business.

At the time, some people thought I was crazy: “the markets are so bad – isn’t it a bad time?” I actually thought it was the perfect time.

You see, I had always wanted to start my own business – and felt the banking downturn after the bursting of the dot.com boom and 9/11, was the best time to do it.   After all, I was often working 60-70 hour weeks for someone else and not getting the financial return due to the state of the market. So I figured I’d be better off putting that effort towards my own business which was geared towards segments of the market that were more lucrative and better played to my strengths. I knew that if I applied myself to something I was passionate about I’d succeed regardless of what happened in the economy. So I made the jump and have never regretted it.

Which is why I really enjoyed reading an article by Paul Graham titled ‘Why to Start a Start up in Bad an Economy.’

As he points out, start ups: “succeed or fail based on the qualities of the founders. The economy has some effect, certainly, but as a predictor of success it’s rounding error compared to the founders.

Which means that what matters is who you are, not when you do it. If you’re the right sort of person, you’ll win even in a bad economy. And if you’re not, a good economy won’t save you.”

The next 18 months are going to be a tough time within financial services. Earnings and bonus potential will fall drastically, there will me more regulation, more cost cutting and you’ll be expected to do much more with fewer resources. So if you there is an entrepreneur hidden inside of you then don’t let the state of the economy put you off. It may be good time to start thinking more seriously about it. As Graham points out – your success is likely to have more to do with you than the state of the economy.

To read the full article, click here.

(By the way, thanks to Tim Ferriss for pointing out the article on Twitter)
 

“At the end of our lives, we do not regret the things at which we failed,
we regret the things we wished for but never attempted.”
- Unknown Source

Whilst many of the people reading this article will really enjoy their careers and love working within financial services, some of you will have dreams about a career or job which is far away from the world of finance.

Whether it involves starting up your own business, a part-time home based career, working for a charitable cause or pursuing a career that taps into your creative talents – most people have a dream career buried deep inside them, and very often, it never sees the light of day.

But in my experience, it’s during challenging times that people actually start to get serious about these dreams. Tough markets get people thinking….

“Well, if I’ve got to handle more uncertainty, more BS and less reward whilst still working long hours – then I may as well go off and do what I really want to do!”

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