I don’t know about you, but I hate getting my picture taken. It is sheer agony trying to decide which one I detest the least for my profile picture. I don’t like any picture of myself. Yeah, I’m that person that can find something wrong with every single one. Seriously. It’s a nightmare.

What I find is I normally sorta-kinda like a picture of me that has someone else in it. Especially a pup. But I can’t exactly use Mr. B in my profile picture. I think a lot of people are with me on this. They find a picture they are okay with, they just happened to be snuggled up next to another person. That’s why I see a lot, lot, of profile pictures that are super zoomed in (we could count nose hair) and yet, we can still see the scalp of that other person.

There’s a better way.

If you have Paint 3D in Word, there’s a much better way. You erase them. If you don’t have Paint 3D – I’m all ears to hear of another solution. I’m checking into it myself.

Here’s a visual step by step to help you with this so you can have that great picture you want without having to have a profile picture that is your floating head with a partial scalp of a friend.

If you think I’m going to use my own photo so it appears multiple times in this article, you’re nuts!  Let’s use my old gang. This was my last pack. Meet Luke, Lexi, Brutus, and Mr. B:

That lawnmower in the back just takes away from the ambiance, let’s take it out. First, copy and paste that picture in Paint 3D.

Great, now click on the three dots on the upper right corner (view more options):

Click on “Canvas Options”

And turn “Transparent canvas” ON:

Now on the top left menu, click on “Brushes” then the eraser:

And erase!  I start with a larger thickness to get the bigger pieces:

Then zoom in and a finer thickness for the small, close spaces – like around Brutus’ ears:

When you’ve erased all you want, save that sucker! If you copy and paste, it will look like this:

Cool, right? But I think that’s pretty bland for my pups, so I think I’ll add another picture behind them to create a new vibe, look, underwater dogs!

Oh wait, that bench just isn’t cutting it. Let’s erase a bit more, maybe a different background, bring Luke in a bit more with the bunch….

Oh yeah, that’s it.

Again, if you have found a way outside of Paint 3D or any easier way – do share!

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I help amazing people get career happy and client-centric companies stay true to brand.

Coaching: Career, Business, Life

Click here – CareerPolish.com – to find out more.

All opinions and views expressed in this article are my own, unless attributed. They’re normally pretty spot-on (because I’m obsessive about career topics and communications). The humor sprinkled in is Mr. B approved, my dog who thinks I’m hilarious (and not because I’m his meal ticket).

I was taken to school at Macy’s last weekend. My teacher was a petite, mature woman with a slow gait, quick smile and soft, gentle voice.

Our classroom was the Men’s Shoe Department. Ms. Sondra alone tended to each person in the very long line.

Someone asked her about being busy, noting the number of customers. She said she was even busier yesterday.

That set up the lesson.

She was given the opportunity to complain. They tossed her the softball: “I bet it was a madhouse, people are just crazy around this time.” 

She didn’t even step up to the plate. She didn’t even bat an eye. Not the slightest hesitation when she responded:

“It’s wonderful, I met so many beautiful people yesterday and today.”

That is perspective. That is joy. That is goodwill toward men. That was beautiful.

If the rest of Macy’s could have heard that, I imagine the entire store would have fallen silent.

Most would see crowds, rude or impolite people and complain.

Ms. Sondra saw beauty, and expressed gratitude.

Thank you, Ms. Sondra, for that lesson and sharing your beautiful soul with me. With us.

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As a leader or team lead, have you ever been in the position to facilitate a change? An improved process, a new system, a change in procedure. Did you get resistance from your team or a person about this change?

Have you heard, “I don’t want to”? Or “I’m not going to”?

You just might be able to turn that around if you don’t listen to what they say.

The words they use more often than not don’t represent the real issue. The words sound like they are being obstinate, willfully defying your request out of malice, stubbornness, or something stuck in their crawl.

But what if that wasn’t the case?

What if the true statement were: “I don’t want to …. because I don’t think I can.” What if they don’t know this is the reason behind their resistance?

Stay with me for a minute:

• We have millions of bits of information assaulting us all day, every day

• To filter all that data down into understandable pieces, we delete, distort, or generalize. We take a boulder and make a recognized pebble.
• Think of a boulder as a bit of external data. Internally, we go at it with several chisels. These are thoughts, beliefs, values, identity, behaviors, skills, experiences, reactions, attitudes, memories, language, and more. We whack the heck out of that boulder using all these chisels to break it down to a pebble we recognize.
• We’re made up of a big ol’ pile of pebbles – our foundation for how we act and see ourselves/the world.
• Our chisels are not the same size.

Your person may have a massive “I’m not smart enough” belief chisel. It overshadows all the other chisels. This means that every boulder you throw at them will be shaped primarily by that chisel.

Any change is going to be met with resistance. Because behind the defiance is fear. Fear of looking stupid, fear of failure, fear of the unknown. But the first and strongest reaction is simply no.

They may not know their own real driver because that pebble is buried at the very bottom of their pebble pile.

So how do you help them help you?

With a beautiful dance of communication. The steps are: go general, go detailed, and back and forth we go.

Don’t challenge, it will raise their defenses and shut down communication. Start by asking their thoughts. Start with the problem this new process is going to fix. What do they think of that problem?

• Go detailed. How has it been detrimental to their work, performance, customers, team, etc.? How has it affected them personally?
• Go general. Can they remember another time when there was another hindrance in the process? How did it impact the work?
• Go detailed. With that other issue, how was it resolved? What was put in place? What kind of changes were made? How did they integrate those changes into what they did?
• Go general. How did it make their job easier? How did it improve performance, service, quality, etc.?
• Stay general. If we could make that same type of transition, wouldn’t that be helpful? Do you see any connection between this process and the last successful one?

The issue could be they don’t think the solution will work because of their expertise. Listen. You might get valuable insight to improve the process.

When you can guide them to see another time when they did, it will help get that pebble out of their shoe and step forward.

This is a free-flowing conversation. Be engaged. Be interested. listen and watch for verbal/nonverbal. Follow your intuition to pick up the revealed threads. You’re not going to get it right every time. You’re not going to make a 180 change every time.

You may have to respectfully say, this is how we’re going to do it.

Even so, with these conversations, you’ll prove you’re listening, they’re important, they’re heard, and they matter. You will also learn something.

That’s the real win-win.

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I help amazing people get career happy and client-centric companies stay true to brand.

Coaching: Career, Business, Life

Click here – CareerPolish.com – to find out more.

All opinions and views expressed in this article are my own unless attributed. They’re pretty spot-on (because I’m obsessive about career topics and communications). The humor sprinkled in is Mr. B approved, my dog who thinks I’m hilarious (and not because I’m his meal ticket).

Do you ever feel like you’re in the movie Groundhog Day? But only with certain situations? Like there is a lesson you need to learn and it’s not sinking in so a certain type of events keeps reoccurring?

I can’t be the only one.

My repeated events center around patience. So many opportunities to learn patience. My biggest problem is my incessant need to know why.

Why did this happen? Why didn’t that happen? Why? Why? Why?

But here’s the thing I’m finally getting through my thick skull – the why doesn’t matter much. It doesn’t change the what. Focus on the why and you miss the opportunity.

If you start asking why, let it be your trigger to think, “Uh oh, I’m going down the dead-end of why – let me change that to what.” One big what:

What are my opportunities to:

– Learn

– Grow

– Prosper

– Pivot

– Share

– Inspire

– Appreciate

This is how you take a bad break up with a job and turn it into something life-giving. It’s going to help you in those interviews, too. Even in a fired situation. Being able to turn around a negative to get them to see the positive is huge

Let’s be honest, sometimes getting fired is a blessing in disguise. It doesn’t mean you are a failure. It means it was time for you to move on – there is something better for you out there! I learned this both professionally and personally.

Years ago, I launched my business and got engaged to my childhood sweetheart. Life was all hopes, dreams, rainbows, and lollipops. I was a business owner and a fiancé; he was a cheating bastard. So that ended that.

By finally getting over the why and looking at my what, I let go of all that baggage and be grateful for the experience. Without it, I would not have started this business and be living my passion and purpose. Without it, I would not have met Chief, my better half.

The quicker you can thank the bad situation, the sooner you move on to better opportunities.

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As an award-winning, published, Resume Writer & Career Coach I help you get career happy.

Click here – CareerPolish.com – to find out more.

All opinions and views are my own (unless attributed). They’re usually spot-on and a little funny. Because I’m obsessive about career topics and my dog thinks I’m hilarious, not a biscuit dispensing machine.

I’m going to give you a glimpse into my world. Chief is going to be retiring soon, which he deserves for decades of dedicated service. We have discovered through the COVID-19 experience, that he will be embarking on something new.

Truth be told, it’s more of me telling him “you’re going to have to find something to do that is not in this house full time.”   I’m cool if he decides to be a professional bass tournament guy.  Can’t fish in the house….

To get back on track, my point is he’s trying to figure out what to do next (besides the fishing thing).

I’m sharing this, not to find commiserating pals of the pains of shared work space all…the…time….   I’m sharing because I have a feeling many people get stuck where he is – figuring out what’s next.

We get stuck before we get started. The culprit is the question he, and most people, ask first:

what am I qualified for?

I’m not a fan of starting with this question. It has an undercurrent of negativity and can go downhill. Fast. Here’s an inside your head conversation – you know, with that little voice…

What am I qualified for?
Lots of things, I can pretty much do anything!
Great, like what?
I donno, how about talking to people – I’m really good at that!
Yeah, and what job has the title “Talking to People”? None!
Okay, but I can use that skill…
Uh huh, that’s not a real thing, prove that you’re good at it, you can’t measure it, you don’t fit any of these jobs’ criteria….

 

And so on. That little voice can get pretty nasty, judgy, and snarky. We don’t like that mean little voice.

Why did it get so mean? Because in your head “what am I qualified for” gets turned around into “what am I good at?”

And that friends, is why I am in business.

Because we are all terrible at talking nice about ourselves. We don’t want to sound like we’re bragging. It’s uncomfortable. We don’t know how to explain what we do without feeling like we’re saying we are all that and the bag of chips.

We allow our little voice in our head to sabotage any positive thoughts.

Let’s shut that little voice up, shall we?

 

It begins with taking a new perspective, one that the little voice can’t turn around into a negative. Here’s the question I want you to start with:

What do I like to do?

 

There is no judgement here! The voice can’t say you’re not good at it because we’re not asking that. We’re asking what you like. Not a prove you’re good at it. You like to do something or you don’t to varying degrees.

Alrighty then – what do you like? Make a list. Tasks, projects, responsibilities, learning, tools, systems, teams – think of anything and everything.

Next question: why? Why do you like these things? Why do you like working on those kinds of projects, doing those tasks, working with those tools?

Again, no judgement, just why you like it.

Next question: when you do those things, does it make someone’s life easier? If you’re a whiz at reports, does that make your Manager’s life easier being able to find exactly numbers at a moment’s notice?

Again, this isn’t about you – it’s about everything outside of you that what you do touches. Maybe it improves a process, cuts time, increases revenues, clarifies instructions, avoids a risk…

If you go back and look at your answers, you are going to find a pattern. You can then summarize your thoughts into key words. Project management, reporting, process improvement, change management, operations, finance, budgeting….

What’s emerging is a list to compare against the market. A list that highlights what you’re good at, where your value lies. This is your starting point. Find positions that line up under your criteria instead of trying to figure out how you fit under theirs.

The extra bonus of this approach is it takes the stress off of not wanting to do something you are good at doing. Let’s say you are amazing at something – let’s use forecasting as a random example. Absolutely spot-on with your forecasts. No one does it better, faster than you. You’re a forecasting beast. The only problem is – you hate it.

If you started with “what am I qualified for?” the voice jumps to forecasting. Then you get discouraged because you don’t want to do forecasting. The voice in your head will then tell you to stick with what you’re good at because you don’t qualify for anything else.

We really hate that little voice, don’t we?

Don’t give it the power by asking it to monitor you. Start with a simple question – what do you like to do – and see where it leads you. You might be pleasantly surprised at all the avenues available to you.

 

 

P.S. I love putting that little voice in your head in its place – if you need some help, get in touch!

 

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As an award winning, published, triple certified Professional Resume Writer, Career Coach & Digital Brand Analyst I do what I love – help amazing professionals get career happy.
Click here – CareerPolish.com – to find out more.

 

#careerchange #personalbranding #careeradvice #resume

As if writing your resume, LinkedIn or interviewing isn’t hard enough. Let’s not make it harder by taking ownership of things that aren’t ours.

I’m going to touch on the talking about yourself aspect. It’s hard. I get it. It feels like you’re bragging. To avoid this, most people go the opposite way. They get generic, like using job duties as bullet points. Don’t do that.

Instead, talk about what you did, with whom, to make something better. Tell your story. For a crash course in storytelling, check out this article: Do You Know Why No One Calls You For an Interview Youre Telling Them Not To

Now, let’s address something that happens without our awareness. Taking on someone else’s failure.

Here is your mantra for the day: their failure doesn’t negate my success.

• I spoke to three clients the other day and this theme came up with each one of them.
• One was hired to complete a project and she knocked it out of the park.
• Another put together a future-forward, take it to the next level tech/marketing plan.
  The third put together an amazing team who (honestly) is too good for the company.

After all they have done…

• The company wasn’t ready, and planned poorly, their bottom fell out.
• The company got scared and is stuck in a outdated comfort zone so the project was shelved.
• The company isn’t interested in investing in any more training or promoting.

 

Each client killed it. Each company failed.

They no longer saw what they did. They took ownership of the company’s failure. They couldn’t see their own success, value, or contribution. It is as if they were saying, “Yeah, I did do some amazing things but since they didn’t come to fruition, they don’t count.”

Yes, they do.

When you tell your story in your resume, LinkedIn, or any other branding – you control the narrative. You tell the story you want them to know. Don’t let the failure overshadow your victory.

Showcase what you did, learned, achieved, prevented –the value you contributed or gained.

Take ownership – good or bad – of what is yours. Tell your story. Show how you can bring the value others need. That way you get the attention of the company that’s right for you and won’t fail you.

 

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As an award winning, published, triple certified Professional Resume Writer, Career Coach & Social Media Brand Analyst I do what I love – help amazing professionals get career happy.
Click here – CareerPolish.com – to find out more.