Your Career: The Art of the Comeback

Symptoms + Cures

Outstanding talent from Hillary Clinton to Mao Tse Tung to Robert Downey, Jr. has been humbled and managed a career rebound.

Here’s one more comeback-in-progress to add to the list: Jonah Lehrer.

Lehrer’s attempt has lessons for anyone who has stumbled, made stupid mistakes, or taken a fall for someone else.

Maybe you.

Lehrer has been publicly psychoanalyzed, editorially flogged, and digitally despised.Read the rest

One (More) Headhunter “Secret”: “See Me”

An Ifugao warrior with some of his trophies; I...

There are “secrets” in the executive search trade that anyone who hopes to be headhunted (or hire a headhunter to fill an opening) should know.

A set of 10 tips are here; another 7 more are here.

Here’s an 18th tip: what you do in the search process can stick with you for a lifetime.

While the world is incredibly small – Wendy Yanowitch’s saying that “The world is made up of (just) six people and lots of mirrors” is pretty true- what you do in the search process or even what you do outside of the search process can find a home in any record a search firm keeps.… Read the rest

Your Career: The Too-Brief Goodbye

There are a number of ways to say goodbye to a job – some helpful and effective, some not-so-great.

Here’s a goodbye email that I received this week (names and contact info fictitious) sent blind copy from their work email account:

“I’m leaving Salesforce.com. Please use “george.richards@gmail.com.

My cell phone number will remain the same: 1-650-299-4242. 

George”

What works about this blast email?Read the rest

[Life Back West] March 2014 – The Six O’Clock Club

Ask any priest, competitive athlete like Michael Jordan, or experienced traveler.iStock_000019334536Medium

Rituals done with intent bring meaning to life.

They also work, doing things like boosting performance and making things go better.

Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton noted in Scientific American that “investigations by psychologists have revealed intriguing new results demonstrating that rituals can have a causal impact on people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.Read the rest