By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


The Career OverDrive!™ Audio Guides are designed so you can quickly listen to the major sections of the website while at home, in your car or when taking your nightly walk. 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


A life lived in fear is a life half lived.
(Un vida con miedo es como la vida medias)

 - Spanish proverb

So what are you afraid of?
What are your sticking points?
What's holding you back?

Isn't it time you took control of your life and started living?
Isn't it time that you started on the road to your dream?

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Why do some many good, smart and experienced people seem to have such a rough time in their careers, personal relationships and lives?

Is it because they didn't study hard enough or learn their lessons well enough?

Or is it because the lessons they did learn were the wrong ones?

It's my contention that if you run with the herd you can expect no more than average results and more often than not you'll find that you are trampled underfoot in the stampede of life as the herd rumbles from one shiny thing to the next - the new cool gadget, the next career move, the next life stage and so on.

Far better, in my opinion, is to be unconventional and contrarian, although we must be extremely careful NOT to be different simply for the sake of being different. Rather we must focus on results-driven and tally our actual results. Our wins versus losses.

And that is one of the most powerful aspects about the Career OverDrive! systems. All of the systems are results-driven, battle-tested and battle-proven but to the outside eye these systems often seem "bizarre" or "quacky". 

Yet, when the results consistently prove the systems work, naysayers are then quick to suggest there must be a easier way, a less risky way, a more comfortable way. 

But they miss the point - these systems ARE EASY too learn. Once you understand the universal framework and principles you'll see the essence replicated again and again not only in all of these programs but in the behaviors of the most successful people in your life.

The point is, the Career OverDrive! systems work which is exactly why they are so easy to learn and apply. They are NATURAL and there is no contrived complexity injected into the systems.

In fact, the only reason they may APPEAR difficult is when an individual has been taught and has subsequently internalized and integrated defective scripts and systems.

For this reason, some will find that this journey isn'te easy although it’s probably not for the reasons you may think. That is, the conceptual framework, techniques, strategies and their application are not difficult to understand or master if you take the time to practice and apply them. 

Therefore, the vast majority of difficulties people encounter will occur whenever they are asked to step outside their comfort zone and reframe the world around them or when they are asked to re-interpret their understanding of the world.

Further in some cases, we’ll ultimately be questioning reality itself. 

Many readers will quickly discover that what I’m sharing with you is not only unconventional and inherently different in nature but often the flat-out opposite of what other “experts” and “authority figures” in your life have been teaching and preaching to you as being “necessary for success”.

What I'm teaching you may also be far different and most likely will be far different than what you have so far come to accept as “life’s reality”, “your lot in life” or what you have come to rationalize as “just the way things are”.

For example, in certain circumstances we’ve all been programmed (by our well-meaning parents, schools, peers, media, religious institutions, government institutions or society at large) to zig.

However, given those same circumstances you'll soon find that I will often direct you to zag. And I'll explain why.

Other times, you’ll feel the overwhelming urge to run, while I will suggest that the most appropriate response is to shelter in place. Again I'll explain why.

At still other times, you may find yourself frozen with fear and want to stay put while you’ll find me screaming at the top of my lungs for you to make like Pink Floyd and run like hell!

These behaviors and responses are all valid and have their properly application at certain times. The trick is, we will explore at what times which behavior and response is not only the most appropriate but the most advantageous.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Many people have asked, "What exactly is the meaning of Career OverDrive?"

Well, that's a great question.

So allow me to delve a little deeper into this meaning and also explain the essence and philosophy of Career OverDrive!

To some, Career OverDrive! evokes a feeling of speed or acceleration and, yes, one of the purposes of Career OverDrive! is to accelerate your career and more importantly to get you to a terminal or cruising speed as quickly and uneventfully as possible.

That is just the beginning, though, because beyond that we want to keep you there, at that cruising speed, and just like the overdrive gear in a car, this means allowing you to maintain this cruising speed using far less energy than would normally be required.

In terms of your career this means rapidly accelerating your career and then holding your performance and productivity at this high-speed while at the same time throttling back (without degrading your performance and productivity) and  then consuming only a fraction of the fuel (your energy, time and resources) previously used or required. 

The beauty of this is that it allows you to avoid burning out while at the same time maintaining your work performance and enjoying a fantastic work-life balance.

Beyond that, we want you punching above your weight. That is, by taking the skills and abilities you have now and working to help you properly package and present yourself, you should be able to land positions, new jobs, projects and promotions that you are just not "qualified" for on paper or according to the consensus of the powers that be you are "unqualified" and should be rejected with extreme prejudice.

And all of this leads to just one thing.

Our mission is to help you enjoy your work to the fullest while attaining your career objectives with the least amount of stress, effort and uncertainty and all while maintaining an actual life outside of work. 

Yes, the ever elusive work-life balance.

Impossible? 

Far from it. It is very possible. But you must understand that there is always someone who will be looking to ride your coattails, to hitch their wagon to you and have you do all of the pulling, to take your promotion or to steal your time and energy away by covertly or overtly shifting their work load to you, all the while of course, they retain and take all the credit.

Our goal is to make that a thing of the past. To help you do this effortlessly, so that it become second nature.

A new "good" habit. The habit of success.

And the habit of not only productive work, but the habit of monetizing and capitalizing on that productive work.

You may well ask, "How exactly is this done?". Well, here are two posts that go a bit deeper into that:

1)  What's The Framework Underlying Career OverDrive's Training Systems?

2. Learn What We Do & Why We're Different

You can also read up on our Career Solutions as well as individual training programs.

Asia Biz Blog's Howard Lim interviews James Santagata (Career OverDrive! / Silicon Edge / The High Impact Coaching Alliance) regarding Coaching, Communication and Talent Acquisition for Japan and Asia.

Full article:
http://asianbizblog.com/video-interview-3-tokyo-career-success-coach-james-santagata/

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


What's the best part of my job?

That's pretty simple to answer.

It's helping people reach their true potential, as effectively, efficiently and quickly as possible. Helping to create a better life for my client, their loved ones, the broader community and society at large.

Many times, it's guiding clients to leap over or crush a fatal flaw or a major skills gap (without necessarily closing the actual gap) and land that new job that they previously found was impossible to consider let alone close.  It's especially gratifying to see them beat out the dozens upon dozens of "more qualified" and "better" candidates who also applied for the same position and who are then left wondering, "How could he / she get in, but I didn't ?!".  And best of all, it's seeing them land that job for which they were "unqualified for" with a very strong offer and excitement on the part of the hiring company or hiring authority to get them onboard and started as soon as possible, lest there be any chance to lose them to the competition.

Other times, it's coaching a strongly performing client (or a client with strong potential) who has had their life turned upside down or their career derailed by an incompetent , micromanaging or insecure manager or worse of all, the proverbial office bully.

Seeing these folks quickly pick up and deftly apply powerful, battle-tested and battle-proven strategies and techniques to cleanly expose or better yet take down such characters in a socially acceptable (and welcomed) manner makes my day! It's just one more "win" for the "good guys".

And perhaps most gratifying of all is training people who thought they needed to spend several years of their life  while taking on mountains of debt to earn a costly graduate degree simply in the hopes to land a marginally better job or just to switch industries, do so right now,  in a fraction of the time, for a fraction of the cost, just by properly organizing, mapping, aligning and communicating to the prospective employer or hiring authority, the skills,  competencies and value they already possess.

Now that's ROI for the client. And that's happiness and a sense of psychic pleasure and well-being for me! How can you get any more satisfaction than that?

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Our new logo is finally up! You can see a comparison of the new logo and previous logo below.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Very hard to believe it's already September

                        ...but at the same time...

Very hard to believe that it's only September.

So what do you have planned for the rest of the year?

• Do you have your career goals in order?
  
• Are you on the right career path and proceeding smoothly?
  
• Have you landed that new job?
  
• Are you prepared to crush your next interview?
  
• Is your job search progressing rapidly and is it under control?
  
• Are you effectively controlling your brand, message and image?
  

Now is the time to blast forward and enjoy a strong finish before the year ends.

Hi James,

I have to thank you again. I got promoted to manager. As far as I know, it was the fastest promotion in recent years in the history of [top tier luxury brand] and I'm now the second youngest manager in the company. Can you believe that I'm now going to  handle a 4x  bigger business which will come in around $100 million USD!? I now have the social proof you talked about me getting and needing.

Cheers,
M.T.