Welcome to the fourth edition of 2 Dudes I Met This week. Remember dudes can be female. This weeks dudes helped me see the sunshine in the clouds.
It has been an extremely difficult week. Monday we found out my father-in-law has very serious health issues and that evening my dog ate a bottle of Advil. Fortunately my father-in-law is a fighter and the dog pulled through with the help of the help of hydrogen peroxide, the emergency vet and some serious stomach lining meds. So it is really nice this week to talk about 2 people who had very positive messages.
Kris Maegli presented at this weeks PONG meeting. Kris gave an extremely entertaining and insightful discussion called “Calming the Storm: Quieting Your Negative Self-Talk During your Job Search.” In my case there was not much self talk, I was kind of internally screaming at myself. Kris however gave some great strategies to address that. The one I like best was turn the negative talk into a question. For instance; “My pitches have no substance.” Change that into “My pitches have no substance?” From there you answer all the reasons why your pitches do have substance. It is a great internal exercise and I was extremely grateful to hear it this week. I also added one thing I changed the screamed statement into a whispered question. It gives it a Vito Corleone kind of weight. If you need a career coach I truly recommend Kris as a dude.
I did not realize how much I needed a branding upgrade until Tuesday. After my email program messed up 2 meetings, Mark Boeder was still kind enough to meet with me. I first worked with Mark a long time ago at a hedge fund company far far away. Now Mark has a couple of different things he does. He is a recruiter and he is a interview coach and branding strategist. In about 30 minutes he looked at my LinkedIn profile and gave me 4 quick items to change that have given me a much more polished brand. I think the best piece of advice he gave me was to make sure I keep talking in present terms. I was falling into the trap of saying what I did because I don’t work at the places I am referring to anymore. However I still need to talk in terms of what I do not what I did. A great piece of advice for all of us. Once again, Mark is an awesome dude and I would recommend you connect with him.
As always if you don’t have time to meet either of of this weeks dudes feel free to sign up for a coffee or lunch with me here. I would be happy to talk more with you about why you should talk with them.