Hey everyone, it's Andy with this week's Tips for Work and Life.
We're going to talk about changing careers today, career changing success, the first
seven steps that I would take if I was going to make a career change.
Now for all of you out there who are watching this, I want to offer some words of encouragement.
I know you can do this.
I've done it three times, and if I could do it three times, you can do it.
The greatest news is you have the ability and it's never, ever in the history of the
world be easier to make a career change with all the resources that we have in this world
to help educate you and get you going in the right direction.
The problem is most people don't have a plan, which I'm going to give you today, the first
seven steps of that plan.
But before we do that, I want to just give you a moment of perspective and I want you
to tuck this away in the back of your mind as you watch this video, or any of my videos
for that matter.
If I wasn't brave enough 13 or so years ago to make a career change, and again two years
ago to make another change, you'd never be benefiting from this video or any video I've
ever created, or any training course, or anything I've ever done to help facilitate your career
and your life.
I want you think about as you're hesitating to make that change, all the people in this
world who would benefit from you doing so.
So whether you are an old pro like me, just wanting to make a drastic career change, or
whether you're a college student just looking for that first job, or anybody who wants a
job where they don't feel like they have the requisite experience, this video is for you.
I'm going to give you the first seven steps that I would take.
Let's roll.
Number one, you got to make sure that you want it.
It sounds silly, but there's a huge difference between a passing fancy and a burning desire.
Most people fail not because of their ability, but because they don't have a good plan in
place and they haven't really thought it through about whether or not that career or that change
is going to align to the things that make them happy.
So the first step that I would take is I would list out all of my requirements of the things
that I would need in place to be happy, everything, down to the lowest level.
Make a list.
It sounds simple, but very few people do it.
So number one, make a list, and if you are really ambitious and you really want to learn
how to do that effectively I have a three-part video series that you can watch.
It's called Five Steps to Career Success.
It's the first five steps that I would take in order to make sure that my list was in
order, my why was in order, and I was directed, so I'll put that in the description.
You can watch that later, but that's number one.
Number two, the step everybody forgets, virtually everybody forgets this.
This might even be step number one or zero.
What are you willing to sacrifice?
You have the ability to achieve your goals.
You have the ability to make this career change or get that job or whatever it might be.
The reason a lot of people fail is not only because they don't have a plan, but that they're
unwilling to give up certain things in their life, to put in the extra effort to compensate
for the areas they're deficient in or how they need to catch up, whatever it might be.
Think nights, think weekends, maybe compensation.
You might have to take a little pay cut if you want to make a change.
What are the things that you're willing to give up and what are the things that you're
not willing to give up, and get clear on that and be committed to sacrificing those things
that are going to prevent you from being successful in making this change.
That's number two.
Number three, you have to discover the capabilities that are important for success for that particular
position.
What do I mean by capabilities?
Think about ... An example I use a lot is for sales people.
When a sales person is about to sell a product, a thing, a service or whatever, knowing exactly
how to sell that particular product, that's a trade skill.
That's something that you learn with experience selling that particular product.
That's something that can usually be easily taught, but great sales people that can transcend
whatever product they're selling, whatever service they're selling, they have foundational
abilities like good leadership skills, good organizational skills, good communication
skills.
They're good listeners.
They know how to connect the dots for their customers or prospects to show them how their
products and services will benefit them.
They're good at psychology.
Those are foundational abilities that can be developed that make a great sales person
a great sales person.
If you want to be a chef, then you need to figure out what the great capabilities are
that make awesome chefs.
There's two ways to do that.
Well, there's many ways to do that, but there is two easy ways.
You could literally Google what qualities make a great chef and a whole bunch of blog
posts will come up and a whole bunch of books will come up.
Go ahead and do that.
Read them.
Learn.
See if those are things and qualities you think you already have.
The other thing is you can do a little research with individuals who are currently doing that
role or have done that role.
There's lots of ways, but you want to get these capabilities.
It's really important to get these capabilities, and we're going to use these in a later step
in the process.
That is a really, really big deal, that you understand what those qualities are.
Speaking of people, step number four is you've got to do a little bit of reconnaissance.
Talk to people who are currently doing that job, and I want to stress here for a second
those people that are actually currently doing that profession.
Why do I make such a big deal about that?
It's okay to talk to somebody who was a chef or who was a sales person, but human nature
is we tend to forget what it was like, what some of the struggles were, what it was like
not to know what we know, and the other thing their techniques or their interaction with
the world might be a little outdated.
You want to talk to people who are currently going through it.
It's fresh in their mind.
They know what they're dealing with.
It's front, it's center, they can share it with you.
You can start making a bigger list of things that you're going to have to evaluate and
consider to know whether you're going to want to make that change.
Very, very big deal.
It might sound exciting when you're thinking about making that change, but if you don't
have some realistic real time data you're not going to be successful.
Number five, still on the theme of people.
It's never been easier to get help out in the world and get educated on a career that
you want.
I call this one, number five, building a Franken-mentor.
Using myself as an example, when I became a trainer a few years ago I didn't know how
to work a camera.
I didn't really have a great platform.
I didn't know what it was like to build a membership site or a training course or a
number of other things that I had to learn.
I have seven different people that it takes to help me shoot this video.
I had to learn from many different people, who were fantastic experts at what it was
that they do that contributed to my ability to deliver this to you.
So Google them.
Find the books.
Find the blogs.
Follow people.
Figure out and align those capabilities with individuals who speak on that, write on that,
talk on those capabilities, and start to learn.
Over time you'll find that some of those experts are a little bit more effective at giving
advice than others.
Continue to follow them.
That's a way where you can start educating yourself.
Very big deal.
You can catch up on your free time outside of your current work hours.
Following your Franken-mentor.
Number six, you've got to anticipate the struggle and plan for it.
It's amazing, people want to envision success ... You hear a lot of people talk about, "Well,
just imagine yourself successful."
That's bunk.
You can't just imagine yourself into success.
The better way to imagine yourself towards success is envision the struggles you are
about to encounter, anticipate them by talking to the people, research the change you want
to make, and then put a plan together as to how you're going to overcome them and envision
yourself through the struggle.
How are you going to react when you encounter that obstacle?
If you are more prepared for that encounter when you hit it because you envisioned yourself
hitting it and you knew you were going to hit it, you're going to be more successful
in getting through that.
If you just envision yourself on the beach having your cocktails, it isn't going to work.
Now you probably have a dozen problems that you have to overcome.
All of us do.
There's a bunch we can think of.
There's some that will be unanticipated, but everybody has three problems.
You have a learning problem, you have a marketing problem, and you have a job interviewing problem
if your change is going to be to stay in the corporate world or go into a different profession
where you're going to have to interview for it, learning, marketing and interviewing.
The learning part ... Step number seven, you've got to execute your plan against this.
The learning part is something that I've already spoken about.
Build your Franken-mentor, get the books, follow the blogs, do the research, do your
reconnaissance, talk to the people, start getting educated, start becoming more and
more familiar.
That one is pretty straightforward, it just takes a little elbow grease.
The marketing aspect ... People always want to know, "What do I put on my resume, because
I don't have the requisite experience?"
Well, if you did step number three correctly where you identified those capabilities ... Remember
that example that I used about the sales person?
Psychology skills, leadership skills, organization skills, influential skills, communications
skills, and so on.
Those foundational traits ... The greatest employers in the world, they know that that's
what they need to be evaluating when they're going to hire a sales person.
So what you need to do is take whatever experience that you have ... If you're a college student,
we're talking internships, part time jobs, school projects, school classes, whatever
you have at your disposal.
If you're professional, take whatever experience you have in your life, make the list of capabilities,
and then go through your work history and start identifying the projects, the efforts,
the work that you did that helped you build skills that align to those capabilities, and
we want to put those in your career profile, in your highlights, in the bullets in your
professional experience on your resume.
If you really want to see how to lay that resume out, I have a video called Build Your
Ultimate Professional Resume.
It's got a resume template.
It's extremely popular.
I've got that in the description.
You can grab that as well, but that is the way to market yourself.
You can put it on the resume, you can put it in the cover letter, and you can put it
on your Linkedin profile, and you can talk about it in the responses that you give to
questions in the job interview.
Focus on the capabilities.
That is your key, because when you don't have the requisite work experience you've got to
focus on the capabilities.
Lets run over the seven again.
Number one, make your list.
You've got to make sure that you want it.
Number two, make sure you think about the sacrifices you're going to make.
Number three, make your list of capabilities.
Number four, do the reconnaissance and talk to people.
Number five, build your Franken-mentor.
Number six, anticipate the struggles.
List out the struggles you're going to have and put a plan together.
Step number seven, execute the plan, primarily going against your learning deficit, so you
want to collapse that, your marketing and your interviewing issues.
You want to focus on the capabilities, grab the experience you have.
I hope you enjoyed this.
If you liked this video give me a like comment in the share.
If you're watching it anywhere other than my YouTube or the Tips for Work and Life blog,
hop over to the blog.
I've got loads of information on how to go deeper in each one of these steps.
Until next week, have a great one.