Five Ways to Prototype Your Career
Our regular Friday movie night at our house will be disrupted next week as my daughters will be involved in a fifth grade fundraiser at school. Their school has an outdoor education program that gets rave reviews but is also a bit pricey, so one of the moms came up with a creative approach: run a 100% student-run fundraiser by hosting a movie night at school. The kids learn all the skills involved in hosting a fundraiser, while raising the money to pay for the field trip. Some kids are in charge of event marketing, some pricing the tickets and concessions, and my personal favorite: some are ‘bodyguards’ to make sure none of the kids who have been dropped off by their parents escape.
It struck me that our daughters and their classmates are lucky because they get early exposure to what we like to call “Career Prototyping”- an activity very near and dear to us at Journeous. Continue reading
How to Prototype Your Career
“Experience is the teacher of all things.”
Julias Ceasar was definitely on to something with this famous phrase. There’s no substitute for getting your hands dirty — the best way to learn something is to try it for yourself. Sure, you can read everything on the internet, ask for advice from friends, or even consult an expert, but you won’t know for sure how you feel about an experience – a new restaurant, a tourist attraction, or even as we’re going to discuss here, a new job – until we actually try it. Continue reading
When Anything is Possible
Can you remember a time when you believed you could choose any career you wanted? Most of us have had ‘reality’ get in the way of that belief. But at ten, it’s a lot less complicated.
My daughter asked me to edit her class assignment this morning. She was tasked with a creative assignment and had to write her own “legend.” When I read it, it reminded me how simple it could be to create our own paths, to choose the things we believe fit us. And perhaps we’re our own worst enemies in letting those beliefs come true. Continue reading
Passport to Meaning (plus a FREE giveaway)
Last week I reconnected with a former colleague who I always liked working with. She could take on almost anything sent her way. But she said it was getting to be a grind – with each project she was becoming more and more miserable. She COULD do the work but she didn’t WANT to. What’s more, she has a degree in biology, but couldn’t figure out what she would be “qualified” to do with it. Continue reading
The Masks We Wear
Something strange happened this Halloween at our house. Trick or treaters were more interested in gummies, Nerds and mini Gobstoppers than chocolate candy. I know this because unlike last year when our daughters passed on trick or treating so they could hand out candy, this year they decided to get back out there. Having created some group costumes with friends, this year was more about the social part of the holiday than the sugar part.
At the end of the night, our house was where they and their friends returned to to count their candy and engage in the inevitable trading.