As many of you know by now, my new novel has just been published. Called A Multitude of Hope, it recounts the experiences of three out-of-work Baby Boomers and a secret online group of workplace activists who are practicing “economic disobedience” against the vulture capitalists who have stolen the American Dream from the rest of us.

One of the key questions the book explores is what, if anything, each of us can do about this situation. I don’t want to give away the book’s plot, but the short answer is to not give up. Here’s what I mean.

We each face three distinct challenges during the one-third of our adult life we will spend at work. I call them the Give-Up Points because sadly that’s what a lot of us are doing. We’re giving up on ourselves. And, when we do, we make it easy for the vulture capitalists to shut down our hope for the future.

Happily, however, we also have the innate ability to overcome those obstacles. How? The first step, of course, is to recognize the challenges. Here’s how one of the characters in the novel puts it in an email exchange with the book’s narrator:

“Give Up Point number 1,” he began, “is the search for your talent. Hardly anyone intuitively knows what their talent is. The few who do typically use the very same word to describe it. They say they have a ‘calling.’ The rest of us, unfortunately, can’t hear that voice. We have to discover what our talent is. We have to rummage around inside ourselves until we find our endowed capacity for excellence. And, that’s obviously not easy to do. It takes more self-analysis and more self-honesty than most of us are comfortable with. So, we give up. We take a job doing whatever some employer will pay us to do. We turn our backs on one of the most awesome gifts we’ll ever receive. We abdicate who we were meant to be.”

The message ended there, but was quickly followed by another, giving our conversation a kinetoscopic feel.

“Give Up Point number 2 occurs after a person’s self-discovery. The key to genuine happiness is not just knowing your talent, but working at it too. So, we have to find an occupation that is suitable for our talent, and then we have to educate it with the skills and knowledge required to work in that field. Our talent may be the capacity for excellence, but that excellence is only expressed and experienced if it can be effectively applied to the tasks involved in doing a certain kind of work. That search for a meaningful role in the workplace takes initiative and determination and, unfortunately, a lot of us would rather just coast along even if it’s in a boring job. So, we give up there, as well.”

His next message arrived several minutes later.

“And finally, Give Up Point number 3 is the culmination of self-discovery and self-preparation. It encompasses the long arc of our entire career. We are individually responsible for the health of our career – for centering it on our talent – and we have to work at keeping it fit and well every single day. That means we must become as adept at managing our career as we are at doing our work. We have to be an expert engineer or salesperson or whatever AND an expert career captain. In other words, in today‘s world, we have to hold down not one, but two full-time jobs and, for many of us, that takes more effort than we’re willing to exert. So, once again, we give up.”

This time, the message didn’t end. A final paragraph served as its epilogue.

“Those three passages aren’t imaginary. They’re as real as it gets. They’re the choices each of us have to make for the one-third of our lives we’ll spend at work. So, what Wally [the nickname the online rabble rousers have given their group] is all about – it’s single and defining vision – is to model the behaviors of career activism. It is to act in the defense of our members by showing them how to act in their own defense. Because when they do that – when they set their career on a path which serves their best interests – they take power away from the foul cats and give it to themselves. Their economic disobedience becomes the pursuit of Happiness.”

So, in today’s world of work, career success is a function of some old fashioned, All American grit. It is our individual determination NOT to give up. It’s the one step nobody can deny us.

Editor’s Note: A Multitude of Hope is available at Amazon.com, many bookstores around the country and at Weddles.com. Get your copy today.

Work Strong,
Peter

The 2001 recession was the first economic downturn in history during which the sale of job search and career books went down. They’ve stayed down ever since.

Why?

Because there’s no lack of career and job search advice available online. Why bother to wade through something that has the look and feel of a school textbook when you can get everything you need in a couple of paragraphs on some blog or website?

Whether we’re employed and looking to get ahead or in transition and looking for work, that’s been the view of a lot of us for over a decade now. So, let’s ask ourselves how it’s working out. Just how much success has anyone had using this get-it-quick-and-on-the-Web approach?

The facts, sadly, are obvious to everyone. The number of long term unemployed in this country is now at historic levels. The percentage of those who are employed but worried about the security of their jobs has also never been higher. And, the vast majority of all Americans now say that they are dissatisfied, bored or unhappy with their work.

It’s a miserable condition, but it doesn’t mean that the approach we’ve been using is bad. It does mean, however, that what we’ve been doing falls far short of what we need. You see, the world of work in America today is profoundly and permanently different from what it was just five years ago.

It may not yet be fully apparent, but we have entered a new era. And, that reality requires that we adopt an entirely new outlook and approach if we want to achieve and hold onto meaningful success.

So, the issue for most of us is this: how do we acquire an understanding of this radically different workplace of ours without subjecting ourselves to some job search or career textbook that offers all of the excitement of a brick?

My answer is a novel. Called A Multitude of Hope, it uses fiction to depict the very real dangers and equally as real opportunities of our time.

The book tells a tale ripped right from today’s headlines – it involves three out-of-work Baby Boomers and a secret online group of workplace activists practicing “economic disobedience” against the vulture capitalists of Wall Street – to explore what we can do – what we must do – to reaffirm the power and promise of the American Dream.

I hope you’ll get it, enjoy it and, just as important, find it helpful. (The book is available at Amazon.com and in bookstores nationwide.)

Work Strong,
Peter

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet, The Career Activist Republic, Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System and Recognizing Richard Rabbit. Get them at Amazon.com and www.Weddles.com today.

The surveys start to appear shortly after a recovery takes hold. As many as sixty or seventy percent of working men and women say they intend to leave their current employer as soon as they can. Historically, however, few actually do. Is that a mistake?

Typically, there are three circumstances that cause people to leave an employer.
• They think it took advantage of or abused them during the recession.
• They feel uncomfortable with the culture and values of the organization.
• They find or receive an offer that seems better than their present situation.

These circumstances are all perfectly rational reasons for making a change. So why, in the end, do so many people stay right where they are? Basically, it boils down to this: The devils they don’t know seem more ominous than the devil they do know.

Now, I’m very respectful of the anxiety and even trepidation people feel when making a change. We’re all more comfortable with what’s familiar and understood, even it’s less than perfect. But, is the emotional security of the devil we know enough of a justification for standing pat? I don’t think so.

I’m not advocating that you run right out and switch employers, but I am saying that you should determine whether or not it’s beneficial to do so. Changing jobs is a cognitive exercise, not an emotional one. Analysis is the key to making the best decision for you and your career.

I recognize that performing such an evaluation is not easy. First, you have to damp down the fear of making a change. Then, you have to steel yourself to be dispassionate and rigorous, careful yet bold. You have to invest the time and make the effort to uncover all of your options, gather the facts about each of them, confirm the validity of those facts, and then assess their importance to your career by rank ordering their potential upside for you.

Understanding what constitutes your upside – what you’re striving for – is the essence of making a smart choice. Your goal should always be to optimize both your satisfaction – the sense of fulfillment you get from performing at your peak in the face of a challenge you find meaningful – and rewards at work – whether they’re measured in financial terms or in your prospects for growth and advancement. Never settle for something less if you have the chance to give yourself something more.

That “more” may, of course, be the opportunity you have right now. Your current employer may offer the best option you have. However, you’ll never know whether that’s true or not unless you do your homework on each of your options. Or, to put it another way, success is achieved by getting to know all of the devils in your career and then selecting the one that is most likely to become your better angel.

Work Strong,
Peter

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, A Multitude of Hope: A Novel About Rediscovering the American Dream, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System, and The Career Activist Republic. All are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

Most of the world has, by now, heard of the basketball phenomenon known as Linsanity – the improbable rise to fame of Knicks point guard Jeremy Lin. While his story provides a number of lessons for those aspiring to a career in professional sports, it can also be an important primer for those of us in every other field of work.

If you’ve somehow missed out on the story, Jeremy Lin is an Asian-American, Harvard graduate who was overlooked by all the experts in professional basketball. He wasn’t drafted to play for a team, and spent much of the last several years either in a developmental league or sitting on the bench in the NBA.

After he was released by his last team, the New York Knicks picked him up. They quickly reverted to conventional wisdom, however, and sat him on the bench … until injuries forced the coach to put him into the starting lineup several weeks ago. Since then, he has scored more points and dished out more assists (in a 5, 6, or 7 game stretch) than any other player in pro basketball history – including the biggest starts of the game.

For the fans, he’s become the little engine who could. He’s not the tallest or most talented player in the lineup, but he excels just about every time he steps on the floor. His accomplishment is so extraordinary, he’s been on the cover of Sports Illustrated not once, but twice over the past couple of weeks.

While that kind of performance makes the fans go “Linsane,” however, it’s what he does for his team that holds the greatest lesson for us. When the team lost its shooting stars to injuries and family matters, Lin stepped up and scored points. Now that the stars have returned, he has scored fewer points but increased his assists – his passes to others so they could score.

As his example shows, excellence is achieved in many ways. The key to a successful career, therefore, is knowing how to shape your peak performance so that it optimizes success, not just your own, but that of your team, as well. Do that, and you’ll earn your own version of Linsanity.

Work Strong,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com

Peter Weddle is the author of over two dozen employment-related books, including WEDDLE’s 2011/12 Guide to Employment Sites on the Internet, The Career Activist Republic, Work Strong, Your Personal Career Fitness System and Recognizing Richard Rabbit. Get them at Amazon.com and www.Weddles.com today.

We talk a lot about talent in this country. Recruiters say they’re in a War for Talent. The television tells us America’s Got Talent. But, what the devil is it?

Our popular culture seems to imply that talent is either an exceedingly rare or indisputably exceptional skill. A pediatric nurse or a Super Bowl quarterback has talent, but a customer service rep or accountant doesn’t.

Happily, that’s not true. You see, talent is not a skill or an occupation. It is the capacity for excellence. And, that capacity is an attribute of our species. All of us have been endowed with an innate ability to excel.

The tragedy is that most of us don’t know what our talent is. We’ve never taken the time or made the effort to discover it, so we aren’t able to express and experience it in our career. At least not consistently or reliably or with any degree of confidence.

We labor away in some occupation – we spend one-third of our life on-the-job – but we never fully tap into our capacity for excellence. And, that disconnect precludes us from feeling fully engaged in our work or fulfilled by accomplishing it.

How do you pinpoint your talent? As the exercises in my book Work Strong reveal, talent is located at the intersection of passion and practicality. It is where what you love to do meets up with what you do best.

So, re-imagine yourself as a “person of talent.” Find your special gift, give it the attention and care it deserves and then bring it to work with you every single day. You’ll increase both the paycheck and the satisfaction you bring home from work.

Work Strong,
Peter
Visit me at Weddles.com

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

Apple has one of the best company brands in America. The company is widely admired for its technological innovation, quality and style. So, why is it sending almost all of its manufacturing and a growing number of its professional jobs overseas?

The company’s late CEO, Steve Jobs, used to brag that Apple products were designed and manufactured here at home. The bragging stopped in the 1990s. Why?

According to a recent article in The New York Times, “…Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that ‘Made in the U.S.A.’ is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.”

The emphasis in that quote is mine. The point of view is Apple’s … and that of a growing segment of the American business community. From their perspective, America’s workers are 3G; workers in China, India, Japan, Korea, Germany and Brazil are 4G and moving quickly toward 5G.

To put it bluntly, too many of us are out-of-date and out-of-step with the competitive forces we face in the global marketplace. We’ve been #1 so long, we’ve forgotten that there is a #2, a #3, a #4 and a host of others who want our spot.

But, that’s a national problem, not an individual one, right? I mean, what can any single person do about such a swing in economic momentum? What role could any one of us play in this battle for market supremacy?

I would respectfully suggest that there are two steps each of us can take.

First, we must recognize the danger. The scope of the threat.

This is not some theoretical issue that will matter only to economists and (maybe) politicians. It’s not an academic debate or a discussion of differing philosophies.

This is a fight that’s every bit as real and important as World War II or the Cold War. That‘s not hyperbole. It’s fact. The outcome of this battle for supremacy in the global marketplace will determine the American standard of living. The caliber of the American experience. And, the kind of America we leave to our kids.

Second, we must deal with the danger. Be equal to the threat.

Unlike in World War II or even the Cold War, this conflict has no distinction between the home front and the front lines. The battlefield is in every workplace, industry and profession, craft and trade right here at home.

The key to victory, therefore, is personal commitment. We have to stop going to work to do our job and start going to work to win the war. Each and every one of us must contribute our talent, our drive, our dedication, our insight and creativity to the war effort. We must take individual responsibility for helping the country to achieve victory.

Our call to arms is the same as that of our parents and grandparents. In World War II, it was the iconic poster of Uncle Sam pointing at each American and saying “I want you.” In the Cold War, it was President Kennedy saying, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Today, the battle has been joined again, and this time, we must heed the call and measure up.

Work Strong,
Peter

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

There was an article in this past Sunday’s New York Times that proclaimed we have entered the “Age of Sensors.” The ability of machines to tell exactly where we are, what we’re doing and what (the machines think) we need is – at least according to the author – ushering us into a world of “digital smarts.”

For example, there’s company in California that’s now developing a sensor-based system which will tell when you are in a certain room of your home and adjust the temperature there to your preference, but leave the rest of the house hotter or colder, as appropriate, to save energy.

It got me to thinking about how useful it would be to have such sensors in our careers. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to tell when your boos or mentor was going to be fired or your employer was going to be sold or liquidated or your career field was about to become obsolete? Having that kind of heads-up would certainly qualify for “digital smarts” in my book.

But, of course, that’s also a pipe dream. A machine may be able to determine our presence in a room, but it can’t make judgments about the course of human events. Only “human smarts” can do that. And, in today’s uncertain world, we need to use that ability.

Conducting regular environmental scans – assessing the health and prospects of our boss, our employer, our industry and our profession – is now a core activity of career activism. No one’s crystal ball is infallible, of course, but we can tell a lot from the trends that are visible and the questions that others are asking.

In a sense, we have to become the sensor in our career. And then, we have to act on what we sense is going to happen. Because when we do, we take control of the change in our career rather than being taken for a ride by it. We create the only real and lasting form of security you can have in today’s world of work – “common sensors.”

Work Strong,
Peter

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

Stephen King has a new book out called 11/22/63. It’s a time travel story about the Kennedy assassination, but the underlying premise is much more interesting. In exploring the potentially redemptive effects of being able to prevent that awful event, King affirms the value of change.

We humans seem genetically predisposed to dislike change. There is, of course, a logical if not evolutionary reason for that. Change disrupts the familiar patterns in our life and forces us to confront risk. It’s just easier and more comfortable to coast along with what we know.

Unfortunately, however, coasting would be a dangerous mistake in the post-recession world of work. In this hyper-competitive global marketplace, there is no status quo. Employers need their employees to deliver a constant stream of fresh ideas and innovative strategies just to survive.

Hanging onto the job we have now, therefore, may provide the security of familiarity, but it also exposes us to the insecurity of stale habits and rigid thinking. That’s not to say, we can’t be creative and original in that position, but let’s be honest. The longer we’re there, the harder it is to stay out of a rut.

So, change has an upside. There’s a benefit to accepting a King-like revision of our personal history, whether it’s in a new assignment in the job we already have or in a new job with the employer we already work for or in a new employer with an entirely different set of challenges. In fact, there are several.

First, change frees us to tap new aspects of our talent and knowledge as we confront unfamiliar work issues and demands. Second, it enables us to start over with a blank slate by shedding our own and others’ assumptions about our limits and capabilities. And third, change prepares us for more change which is the new norm in the American world of work.

So, here’s a new guideline for career success. Manage your career the way you ride a bicycle. Never coast for long. And, keep peddling around those turns in the road, for they’ll change you into the person you have the capacity to be and the person you deserve to be.

Work Strong,
Peter

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

The technology folks just don’t get it. They’re crowing today because Facebook has changed the distance between people. The traditional metric, of course, has been that we are each separated from any other person on the planet by “six degrees.” (Only academics would use such terminology. Why not just say we are each six people apart … but hey, that’s another issue.)

Anyway, the scientists at Facebook and the University of Milan have now calculated that – thanks to social media and Facebook, in particular – we are now separated by just 4.74 degrees.

But wait, it gets even better. In the U.S., where Facebook penetration has reached epidemic proportions, we are just 4.37 degrees apart. We are, as they say, truly plugged into one another.

But, here’s the rub. Distance means absolutely nothing in the course of human events (to borrow a phrase). If you’re constructing a network to, say, find a lead for a new job or solve a problem at work, degrees of separation are irrelevant. What matters most is the quality of the connection.

For example, you can be separated from a person by a single degree, but if you think they’re mean spirited or unpleasant there’s probably little chance that you will assist them with a problem they’ve encountered on-the-job. Conversely, if they hold the same low opinion of you, it’s unlikely that they will recommend you to their employer as a prospective new hire no matter how strong your credentials.

What the technology guys don’t understand is that networks may be composed of bits and bytes, but their power is created by relationships. They are human connections, not machine contacts. Their value is not the proximity they afford us, but the potential for personal interaction that proximity creates.

So, here’s my modest suggestion to the deep thinkers at Facebook. Instead of calculating how far apart we are, why not try to figure out how to close the gap (in familiarity and trust) that exists between so many of us these days? That would be an accomplishment that we in the human species could really get excited about.

Work Strong,
Peter

P.S. To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.

There’s a new book out called Good Enough Is the New Perfect. It’s a catchy title, but a terrible idea.

Yes, of course, we can overdo our quest for ever-better performance on-the-job. And certainly, many of us do forget to stop and enjoy what we have already achieved with our work. But those two misinterpretations of a commitment to self-improvement don’t negate the importance of searching for our best self. In fact, Realizing Our Own Greatness Is the Best Perfect in the modern American workplace.

Why is that?

Because there’s a new kind of energy driving global economic competition. The old source – labor – has been replaced by something far more powerful – genius. Our competitors in China, Japan, Korea, Brazil, Germany and elsewhere are no longer trying to beat us with cheaper workers. They’re taking it to us with smarter ones.

Now, before you rise up in righteous indignation, let’s get a couple of things straight. First, I’m not saying American workers have been practicing “labor for dummies.” I am saying, however, that our competitors have upped their game. They are performing at a higher level of quality and productivity … and so must we.

And second, I’m not saying you have to be “book smart” to be competitive in today’s workplace. I am saying, however, that you have to work with your talent. To compete and win in today’s global marketplace, you must be more creative, imaginative, innovative and original than the other guys in your profession, craft or trade.

How do you accomplish that? First you have to know what your talent is. Those who’ve read my book The Career Activist Republic know that talent is an attribute of our species. It is a “capacity for excellence” which exists in every single one of us.

Unlike your personality, however, talent doesn’t appear on its own. You have to bring it into existence. And to do that, you must probe your heart and mind to pinpoint the intersection of what you love to do and what you do best. That’s your unique combination of passion and practicality.

Then, you have to make your talent work-ready. You must acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to apply it effectively on-the-job. And, here’s what’s new about our post-recession, 21st century workplace: that task is never done.

The competition is too good for us to coast. Just as a professional ball player or musician can never stop practicing – never stop honing their talent – we must continuously improve our ability to work with our talent. That’s why realizing our own greatness is the best perfect. It makes us the champions we were meant to be.

Work Strong,
Peter

Note: To read more about Career Fitness and Career Activism, get my books, Work Strong: Your Personal Career Fitness System and The Career Activist Republic. Both are available at Amazon.com, in many bookstores and on Weddles.com.