Not having or not properly displaying confidence, being non-assertive or downright timid -- these are a major sticking point for far too many highly qualified and talented people.

Worse, it's what stifles and even kills many hopes, dreams and careers.

The new CareerOverDrive! Trigger Warning intro, in a somewhat tongue-in-check manner, also recognizes and serves a the purpose of highlighting instances and scenarios where confidence if not temerity is warranted if not required.

Those who are too timid or non-assertive will be challenged to re-evaluate, re-calibrate and improve their assertiveness skills when the situation or issue at hand requires it.

James will speaking on the very timely and important career-related topic of "I'm 40 Now! Is It Really Game Over For Me In Japan's Job Market?" at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Japan on November 20th.

Arguably no group of job seekers has been more negatively affected by this brutal reality than 40+ year old job seekers.

Many job seekers are shocked to find this is the reality not only in the broader US economy but even in vaunted Silicon Valley which is the supposed Mecca of open-mindedness and where, we are told, a meritocracy has reigned for decades.

And yet, for how bad it is in the US and even Silicon Valley, 40+ year old job seekers soon come to find that it's often much, much worse in Japan. Terrible. Impossibly frustrating. Depressing. These are words that come to mind when seeking employment in Japan as a 40+ year old candidate.

But how can this be the case in Japan, when Japan still has an economy which is the 3rd largest economy in the world and which is moving to further internationalize its businesses as rapidly as possible in the face of both falling domestic demand and a severe shortage of experienced workers.

The bottom line is this: 

Older, deeply experienced job seekers quickly run into five (5) seemingly insurmountable brick walls.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


What's the best startup approach to take? 

Well, why not go into your (next) startup as you go into life -- completely naked and alone with nothing to lose, expecting no applause.

This will allow you to start immediately and most importantly to start with a "the buck starts and stops here" mentality.

And as a bonus, anything above that which you experience will be a very pleasant surprise.

By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive!

Don't waste your life waiting for the bus to come pick you up. 

Newsflash: It ain't coming!

Well, at least it ain't coming anytime soon or it would have been here by now...

Sometimes, the smart move, sometimes the only move is to make a conscious decision to lace-up your boots and start the long, back breaking journey on foot.

You'll be told by others, perhaps even through your own internal talk, that you aren't ready, that you aren't prepared, that the timing isn't right.

But you need to realize one thing while you ask yourself another.

Life isn't a dress rehearsal and if you aren't ready now, without getting in the arena of life, bench marking your skills, tempering and honing the skills you already have now while developing new ones, when, pray tell, when will you ever be ready?

The answer is NEVER.

And in that case your future is as clear as day and ends with a Death Bed Regret.

Remember, we almost never regret what we do, we regret what we didn't do.

By James Santagata
Managing Director, Career OverDrive!

Be spicy, be like Thai food.

Understand that life is simply a sales, marketing and, most of all, perception game so
learn to stand for something and don't worry about being the "nice guy" or "nice girl".

Stand for something. Mean something.

Be like Thai food.

Spicy.

It's not cafeteria food.

And it's not for everyone.

But then again, how many people will stand in line for "cafeteria" food vs ethnic food? Thai food may have a smaller audience but it's an audience of dedicated foodies.

So Spice up! 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

Over the years I've seen a few patterns emerge from otherwise talented people:

1. They give up too soon. As soon as the going gets tough, they fold. Often this is due to the obedience / approval seeking behavior taught within the school system. That may be fine for a student who just needs to graduate, but in the "real world", that is, post-school life, well it will harm you and your career often greatly.

2. Many folks label and then internalize valuable market feedback as "failure". Let me be clear here: It's only failure if you:

(a) label it as failure
(b) don't learn from it
(c) refuse to get back up

Stop labeling your experiences as a "failure" and start extracting value from these experiences by conducting post-mortem review. These reviews can be as simple as spending 10 minutes thinking what you learned, good and bad, from this experience, making some notes and seeing what could be tweaked or improved next time. Beyond that, see your "failure" for what it is -- a learning experience. And when we are learning, we make "mistakes" - they different between failure and mistakes couldn't be clearer.

(a) a failure is an outcome, not one event. It means you most likely haven't learned and the process is over because you didn't get back up.

(b) mistakes happen when we learn. It is an ongoing process and the most valuable part of the mistake is the lesson or lessons that we learn. 

Start to reframe your view of the world that way and see how fast you will improve.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

So many of us, myself included, have been in situations where we either don't attempt something or spend too much time worrying about some future event that may very well never come to pass.

If you've seen the heart-wrenching clip Christopher Maloney prior to his taking the stage to sing and then singing you know what I mean (give it a look below).

Two lessons (and a bonus) From Christopher Maloney's Experience:

1. Put yourself out there. Until you put yourself out there, you can't benchmark yourself or find out if you're good at something, need improvement, love it or hate it. This takes some risk, but it's mostly psychological risk. This is often compounded as people tend to label learning experiences as "failure" and then give up or avoid future opportunities to improve themselves. Don't be like that.


2. The difference of worrying about the future and being "in the moment". When Christopher stepped onto the stage he was overtaken with stage fright, shaking and becoming teary-eyed -- and who can blame him? But once his song came on and he opened up his pipes, he immediately went into a trance as he was overtaken by the music and his passion as he was transformed into another person -- with an amazing voice!


3. Bonus Lesson: When Christopher was asked by the judges why he had kept his beautiful, rocking voice hidden for all these years he said that people told him he wasn't good enough and that he would embarrass himself or fail. 

They said, "Don't come on here, you're gonna embarrass yourself, make a show of yourself."

Fortunately for him and for us, he finally went ahead and put himself out there. It was also beautiful to see the love and support he had given to his grandma and that she returned in supporting him. The bonus lesson: dump or disassociate with those who bring you down, and double-down on those who support and love you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k1T9-I3wx8I#t=23

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


There are two primary, legal and simple ways to win almost any competition and which involves no cheating.

(1) Prepare and then perform better than your competition. This is often very hard which is why so many are reluctant to rely on this.

(2) Brainwash the other competitors, saddling them with emotional and mental blocks.

If you follow the way societies works, including American society, you'll soon see that (2) is most often how those in power, seeking to gain or consolidate power operate.

If you simply disconnect and deprogram yourself from these myths and memes you'll find that success will come faster and easier than ever.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Myths and memes. 
 
Love it when people soak them up.

Less competition for you and those that understand the way the world truly works rather than how the social engineers would like it to be.