By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!

Over the last 8 years or so, as the coaching and personal development field has continued to bloom and then explode, I've noticed the rise to prominence of two types of coaches.

1. The Peddlers of Hope and Passion (Hope Peddlers & Passion Peddlers).
2. The Peddlers of Fortune Cookie Inspiration.

Now, don't get me wrong, both coaching categories have their value and their place. It all depends on the needs of their particular clients.

In fact, helping to instill or to activate hope or passion in a client is surely a noble act and it can have much value as can short, pithy inspirational talks or interactions.

The danger, though, is when Passion, Hope and Fortune Cookies (PHFC) are the extent of the coach's toolkit or when the client isn't self-aware that they may well need to "graduate" to a more Nuts and Bolts focused coach.

For instance, if you are a carpenter or design commercial structures, initially PHFC can be very motivating and valuable.

"You can do it!" (Peddler of Hope)
"You're Howard Roarke! and don't even know it!" (Peddler of Passion)
"Rome wasn't built in a day!" (Fortune Cookie Inspiration)

At some point, Nuts and Bolts matter - the types and variations of nuts and bolts, the dimensions, the specifications like material and tensile strength.

We'll talk more about Nuts and Bolts coaches and coaching as well since even that has some shortcomings which are not readily apparent.

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.

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!


We are pleased to announce that Career OverDrive's website content and content archives are now fully indexed & searchable!

This will enable easier and more complete access to all of our content.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


Here's our basic philosophy:

I. We Focus On What's Fun & Effective:

• Winning is fun.
  
• Being in control is fun.
  
• Efficiently learning battle-tested and battle-proven techniques is fun.
  
• Being emotionally dissociated from a situation or the outcome of the situation is fun.

II. We Minimize Or Eliminate What Isn't Fun Or Effective:

• Re-inventing the wheel isn't fun.
  
• Spending inordinate amounts of time to learn something, especially of dubious value, isn't fun.
  
• Forgetting what you learned isn't fun.
  
• Not knowing how to apply what you learned isn't fun.
  

In a nutshell, what we've done is to identify the most important skills, the heavy-hitters, that you'll need to maximize the  enjoyment of your current work, career and life.

We've then boiled this down, tempered and honed it, until its been battle-tested and battle-proven.

After that we've created an entire system around it so that all of our training offers something like this:

• A universal framework.
  
• Specific and easy to understand principles.
  
• A series of powerful strategies.
  
• Easy to learn and immediately usable techniques.
  

On top of this we teach not just the "how" but also the “why” so that you can quickly understand not only when and when not to apply this material but also how to deftly apply and calibrate it to an infinite number of real-world situations. 

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Career OverDrive!


What Is Career OverDrive!
When people initially hear of Career OverDrive! one of the first questions they ask is this:

"What  exactly does Career OverDrive! do and what does the motiff of Career OverDrive! represent?"

"Is it speed or aggressiveness?"

The answer is neither. 

Think of Career OverDrive! as analogous to the overdrive system in a car. It's about efficiency and sustainability of a given speed, that is, the ability to maintain a certain speed with minimal engine rotation and a more efficient usage of energy (gas).

And so it is with Career OverDrive!.

Specifically we want you to help you accelerate your career and to reach a cruising speed as quickly as possible but to do so in a way whereby you are not burning yourself out but enjoying yourself - for the long haul!

Sure, we won't lie to you. They'll be plenty of hard work and some sleepless nights ahead, but that will be the exception rather than the rule. And all of that effort you put in now will pay off many times over, far into the future.

What To Expect?
On our journey together, expect to be challenged, to grow, to reconsider and to be taken through the entire lifecycle of both your current job, your next job and your career. 

Starting from career planning and development, through career paths, transitions and change, onward to high-impact resume development and high-performance job searches (either working with a recruiter, doing it yourself or using a blended approach). 

Continuing with high-impact interview preparations, salary negotiations to your onboarding. And once you’ve landed your dream job, we’ll work to ensure you keep it with our Psychological Jujutsu ™ communications training featuring influencing, persuasion, negotiation, assertiveness and leadership. 

Lastly, given today’s “rough and tumble” if not cut throat corporate environment, together we’ll  work our way through office politics and organizational power dynamics ensuring that you not only survive and thrive but triumph.