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
Principal Consultant, SiliconEdge

"So, what, you think you're a minder read and can read minds, right?! Ha!"

I often find myself fielding this question although sometimes it's delivered in a tone of voice that conjures up images of an accusation such as "charlatan!" rather than a genuine question.

But that's okay, as it shows interest and engagement on the person asking it and once they allow me to explore a little more with them, they are usually hooked and have an "aha!" moment.

....

So the simple and honest answer to this question or perhaps the rejoinder to this accusation is, of course, I'm not a mind reader nor do I purport to be. And yet my results are there and they are what they are with them being more often than not extremely uncanny in their accuracy. 

The most important insight from my work and research that I try to impart to my students, clients and skeptics is that you don't need to be a mind reader to be accurate in your reading of a situation because in most cases the party in question through their actions, reactions and inactions almost to a tee loudly and graphically telegraphs exactly what they are thinking and how they are thinking as well as their intentions.

....

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!


There's been a lot of talk and debate over the last few years as to the value of the "'lowly" Liberal Arts degree. 

A variety of pundits and talking heads have even gone so far as to argue that there's no value to be had in such a degree, especially when one factors in the direct costs incurred during the course of earning the degree as well as the opportunity costs associated with the four years unemployment typically experienced while the student studies for the degree.

To all of these pundits and all of this punditry I have but one word: 

Hogwash!

I'm here to tell you that Liberal Arts degree, in and of itself, is most likely fine. 

Just fine.

"What? James, are you serious or just totally delusional?! "

Yes, I'm serious and no, I'm not delusional. 

There are many reasons why I am certain that the Liberal Arts degree is not a "Death Wish For Careers" which I won't go into at this time, however, it is readily apparent ot me that plenty of value can be extracted from both the pursuit and earning of a Liberal Arts degree. In turn, this acquired and derive value can be used to great positive effect during a Liberal Arts degree-holder's pursuit of  professional employment.

And as an aside, plenty of value can also be extracted and shown to a prospective employer by even non-degree holding job seekers/job applicants as well.

Here's The Real Deal In A Nutshell:
 The Liberal Arts degree itself is fine, provided that you have studied and learned your subject matter to some basic level of competency but more importantly learned HOW to study when acquiring new information in the future and without direction or prodding from your professor or other authority figure.

Now, reports have come back from many if not most Liberal Arts grads saying how tough a time they face looking for meaningful (versus underemployment or unemployment) employment after having graduated.

There is no doubt that with few exceptions Liberal Arts grads have it harder, but what they face is by no means insurmountable, it's more about filling in a few gaps, buffing out a few dings and learning how to use the value they already have created and possess to their advantage.

For instance, most Liberal Arts majors or grads could greatly enhance their job market value and the buying temperature of prospective employers by simply and quickly adding a few skills which may range from basic tech or analytical skills to work facilitation and work environment skills  as well as the job search strategies, tactics and techniques that are needed to wrap around these core or foundational skill sets to land that coveted or desired job.

We've discussed this before but we can never do it enough:
1. Being good at doing the job is not the same as being good at getting a job.
2. It's not the degree you earned that's killing your job search.

What this means is that not all degrees are created equal in terms of the way they are perceived by prospective employers in particular and the job market in general.

This is not good or bad, it is just the way it is. And that's okay. Once we have tuned into reality, we can own it.

Specifically, the less value your degree is perceived to have in the job market or the lower the value that your degree signals or imputes to the job market (and/or the greater the supply of similar candidates in the job market holding the same credential) the greater your skill in understanding and applying the Job Search 4P's* must be.

Specifically, the Job Search 4P's are positioning, packaging, presenting and promoting skills as well as a candidate's ability to communicate and convey value (C&C) to a prospective employer.

Conversely, if you have a "stronger" degree (that is the perceived value of said degree is that stronger or more greatly valued in the job market) or employers clearly understand how to monetize (or have monetized) or they feel they can more readily monetize a particular degree (such as a  computer science or business degrees), all things being equal, you'll need far less proficiency in the application of the Job Search 4P's during your job search. 

Once you know what you're doing it becomes like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you have one of these higher in-demand, easier to map or more readily communicable  degrees and you know how to use the Job Search 4P's like a boss, well, in such a case, you'll quickly find yourself in such high demand that you'll basically lord over and rule the job market.

And that's a very enviable position to be in!

*Just to note, in this case, I use the term Job Search 4P's to describe a set of specialized job search skills as well as one overall job search process. If you are familiar with classical marketing literature there is also the Marketing 4P's which are Product, Place (distribution), Promotion and Price.

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!


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.

By James Santagata
Principal Consultant, Silicon Edge

Recently Andy Serwer, managing editor of Fortune, sat down with Marc Andreesen to discuss The Future of Work, Cars and the Wisdom in Saying 'No' (full, unabridged version on Forbes Magazine here: Inside the mind of Marc Andreessen).

In this interview, I was particularly struck with Marc's views on the impact of the ever-accelerating and widening technological adoption on the job market, and the elimination of entire categories of jobs as well as his comments on education and the need for re-training.

Andy Serwer: We all understand that the Internet revolution is inevitable at this point, but it’s also kind of controversial. There are scads of new jobs at Facebook and Twitter and other places, but what about the ones that are destroyed by the inroads of technology into every industry? Are you actually creating more than you’re destroying?

Marc Andreessen: Jobs are critically important, but looking at economic change through the impact on jobs has always been a difficult way to think about economic progress. Let’s take a historical example. Once upon a time, 100 percent of the United States effectively was in agriculture, right? Now it’s down to 3 percent. Productivity in agriculture has exploded. Output has never been higher. The same thing happened in manufacturing 150 years ago or so. It would have been very easy to say, “Stop economic progress because what are all the farmers going to do if they can’t farm?” And of course, we didn’t stop the progress of mechanization and manufacturing, and our answer instead was the creation of new industries.

From my vantage point, this is completely off track for one main reason -- in the earlier stages of mechanization and automation we had far, far, far fewer people on this planet so that these productivity increases could support and sustain larger and larger populations. In addition, the rate of change was far lower and more localized. It was the difference of seeing single family home burn, to the firebombing off an entire city with no where to run to the simultaneous firebombing of an entire country if not world. 

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?