Category: Personal Choice

Who We Surround Ourselves With is More Important Than What We Do

“It’s often the case that the people we surround ourselves with (and the tasks we do) have far more to do with job satisfaction and performance than the subject of our work.” – Seth Godin in a blog post on Staples.

Group_working_together
What can give more satisfaction on the long time than the people we surround ourselves with?

Being a consultant I change probably much more often than most people who I am working with. The more it goes, the more I find that: a particular topic can be exciting to discover and develop, but that is a short-lived satisfaction. Long-lived satisfaction comes from working together as a team with people you have in high esteem and with which we feel we work together to produce worthwhile outcomes.

The same goes in personal life of course, where truly the people we surround ourselves with for that major project of our lives are the key to personal satisfaction.

When you look for your new job or assignment, how exciting it looks, consider first the team you will be part of. It is much more important than the topic or the role.

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Why the Job Market Transformation Requires You to Develop Your Online Reputation

The value of inter-mediation for job search is moving towards reputation management. While before it was mainly making the job or the applicant visible and creating the connection, today’s platforms allow the potential employer to check the applicant’s reputation. This explains why once-major site posting players such as Monster.com etc are now being overtaken by sites that add reputation measurement.

Job postings board
Old-fashioned inter-mediation: a job posting board

That is one of the most interesting conclusions from Valeria Maltoni’s excellent post where she summarizes what is happening now on the front of job posting and job search, with different types of web-based sites and engines.

This reputation check happens in several ways:

  • on social-network based sites like LinkedIn, through the person’s network and reputation; and possibly on what the person published or linked as well.
  • On freelance hiring sites, reputation is acquired through the successive feedback from clients at the end of the jobs, which in effect rates the reputation of the person.

While providing the reputation data was once a service provided only by a few head-hunters for executives, this value of inter-mediation is now expected by most future employers and for most types of jobs.

Enhancing once’s reputation on the web is thus not any more an option, it is mandatory if you want to be successful in tomorrow’s marketplace – and even for conventional jobs!

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How Success Can’t Happen Without Both Will And Luck

As the saying says, success is due to talent in some part, and also to luck. And great success is just a bit more of talent, and a great chunk of additional luck. We need to recognize that luck is a key ingredient to what we become.

SuccessTalentLuckIt is tough to accept that our destiny is shaped in a large part by luck. We would like to think that it is just our talent and our efforts – our will. The role of luck stems directly from the complexity of the world around us – and its unpredictability.

And indeed there is a large part of modern auto-determination thinking that suggests that you can shape your destiny the way you want. In a certain way, Coaching relies on this assumption by enabling people to act in the direction they choose. Thus, will can shape your destiny, to a certain point.

And will and luck are not independent. On the luck side, there also ways to attract more of it, like for example maintaining a healthy and diverse network that will expose you to more opportunities – something that you do consciously.

The balance between will and luck, how they fight and synergize, is not easy to define. If either ingredient is missing, we won’t reach our expectations. The balance is difficult to find and might depend on the circumstances. In any case, make sure part of your will is devoted to increase your luck!

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Watch the video and slides of my May 2014 talk at Lycee Hoche (in French)

Did you miss it? The video and the slides of my speech at the Lycee Hoche in Versailles (France) are now available (in French).

Conference Jeremie AverousThe topic of this speech at my former high school was about my career – and I couldn’t help add something about the Fourth Revolution as well. It is a good introduction to the Fourth Revolution in French.

When is comes to presenting my career, it is an exercise that I don’t do too often and it was kind of funny to see how in hindsight a lot of what I have done and the choices I made, make an awful sense. In particular, my leaning towards project-based environments, and my international career. While these choices were at the time probably mostly driven by curiosity, luck and serendipity, they seem now to wave into a coherent framework. It is also probably because in the process I forgot quite a lot about other stuff that did not work out!

Watch the talk on Youtube here (if you can’t see the video, here is the link)

The segment on the Fourth Revolution starts here.

Happy viewing!

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How to Detect Passion

The other day I was challenged on LinkedIn to give a definition to Passion. I gave the following: “a passion is something that keeps your mind busy even if you’re not at it“.

human-excellence-passionWe all need passion in our life and it is the root of our achievements – in any area where that is applicable. Passion is needed for us to have the courage, do the effort and the work that these achievements do require.

How do we know we have uncovered a passion? Just because we can’t stop thinking about it – at all times and even when we would be supposed to be focused on something else.

Do you recognize yourself in this definition of passion?

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Why You Should be Unreasonable (Sometimes)

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man” – George Bernard Shaw.

man in front of icebreakerI stumbled upon that video of an pretty unreasonable man seen tracing the way in front of an icebreaker. (It turns out it is a piece of art by Guido van der Werve.). I find that it is an excellent image of what an unreasonable man can do. He traces the way and behind comes the rest of the world.

And it comes also to link the quote from George Bernard Shaw with the concept of Art. Art is being unreasonable and creating progress. It is possible to create Art in most instances and most areas. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man – the artist?

Link to the making of the film by Guido van der Werve, and an extract of the film (with the sound of the ice broken by the icebreaker!) on Youtube.

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How Commitment Creates Magic

Commitment creates magic. I love this quote from Goethe which is worthwhile reading in its entirety.

commitment-goethe“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor
all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance, which no man could have dreamed would have come his way. Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Begin it now.” – Goethe

Be bold. Commit and start now! Things will happen which you will not have anticipated!

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Why Feeling Burnt Out is Natural Part of the Creative Process

Sometimes I do feel kind of burnt out. Especially when I tried hard to push the confines of my comfort zone and it did not succeed as well as I would have expected (or dreamed). Or when I overextended myself believing I could do something but that is for the moment out-of-reach.

alone and burnt out Hugh MacLeod reminds us that “this stuff is NORMAL. No, it’s not easy, but hey, no truly interesting and meaningful life ever happened without a lot of this kind of ordeal. Trust me, we are the lucky ones. The unlucky ones are the ones who go their entire lives without ever feeling it.”

Yeah, great. So let’s admit that is the natural outcome of stretching ourselves and that we should be grateful to be sometimes in this condition. The natural reflex is to hurry back to our comfort zone and seek all sorts of risk-minimizing strategies. That’s where the danger looms because it is when we might drop the ball for good.

It is where it is so important to benefit from the support of one’s family (so as to realize we are not alone) and to have as well some areas of life where we can dwell in a comfort zone to recharge our batteries. It is important to make sure that part of our life remains in our comfort zone because stretching it and being creative is well- tiring. And you just can’t do it all the time.

Image and quote by Hugh MacLeod (Gapingvoid.com)

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Why You Should Try to Belong (and Not so much to Fit-In)

There is a distinct difference between fitting-in and belonging, and this changes completely how we deal with situations where we try to enter a group.

fitting-in or belonging?“Fitting in and belonging are not the same thing, and, in fact, fitting in gets in the way of belonging. Fitting in is about assessing a situation and becoming who you need to be to be accepted. Belonging, on the other hand, doesn’t require us to change who we are; it requires us to be who we are.” – Brene Brown in ‘The Gifts of Imperfection‘.

According to Brene, belonging requires authenticity (and including acceptance of our imperfections) while fitting-in is an attempt to disguise ourselves to enter a group. The latter is obviously, on the long run, due to fail or at least put us in a quite uncomfortable position, which can sometimes lead to psychological consequences.

It is great to belong – although possibly difficult and rare. Do not try to fit-in at all costs believing that it is the same. It is not, and it is very uncomfortable. So right now, do you belong or do you fit-in?

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Why Excellence should be a Consistent Attitude

“If you are going to achieve excellence in big things, you develop the habit in little matters. Excellence is not an exception, it is a prevailing attitude” – so says Colin Powell. Like other things, excellence seems to be what you should do when others are not looking!

quote-Colin-Powell-if-you-are-going-to-achieve-excellenceWhat I find interesting in this quote is how is could be misinterpreted as for some people, the line is extremely fine between excellence and perfectionism. And if perfectionism is applied to everything including the things, it can obviously be a quite counter-productive behavior.

According to Wikipedia, “excellence is a talent or quality which is unusually good and so surpasses ordinary standards”. Colin Powell thus suggests that we should develop an attitude that seeks to always surpass normal standards, even by a little – and not be satisfied by the ordinary in all circumstances.

That is a tough standard, still Colin Powell is probably right to suggest that it is only by being relentless seeking excellence in all aspects that one will also become excellent in large endeavors. In my experience, excellence in executing large projects is a close attention to detail and excellence in all aspects of execution.

Be relentless seeking excellence. And you’ll achieve great things.

Credits: I found this great quote on Lifehack from where the image is also imported from.

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How to Get Good at Life

“Getting good at change (big, small, tiny – every day) means getting good at life” – James Altucher.

Pessimist and Optimist vs Change
Churchill’s view of Change

Life is all about managing change. We change every day since we are born, and the world changes every day around us.

Let’s try to get good at change instead of trying to stick to illusory stability.

It can be scary at times, but so much more rewarding.

Change is pure opportunity.

 

 

“Do it without expectation. Wish for nothing. Care for everything. Happiness will be in between.”

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In Truth, are You a Freelancer or an Entrepreneur?

Am I a freelancer or an entrepreneur? Contrary to what I thought I am probably in the first category. And before that realization I had some difficult moments – I should not believe I am an entrepreneur while I am just an elaborate freelancer. And that might just be good news that I just get this realization now.

Seth Godin quote on freelancer vs entrepreneurI had this realization listening to Seth Godin in a Skillshare class on entrepreneurship. This issue is actually explained at length in Seth’s post “The Difference Between a Freelancer and an Entrepreneur”.

Seth Godin goes on to explain:

  • If you’re a freelancer:
    • Ensure a steady stream of work
    • Create an environment where you don’t go crazy and melt because of overwork
    • Consistently increase the quality of your work and generate a waiting list for your time (and increase your prices) (at the same time).
    • Scaling will be limited, linear and occur through the hiring of a limited number of additional partners
  • If you’re an entrepreneur:
    • you look for an exponential scaling of your business, so:
    • Relentlessly hire people to delegate work to
    • Give yourself a promotion so you are constantly doing work you’re unable to hire anyone else to do
    • Build an organization that has the cash flow to permit you to do those two things…

The business I am building in consulting, focusing on high-end specialized consulting, without an army of junior consultants, will not scale exponentially. It does not mean that it cannot influence deeply and leave an imprint in the world. It means I should not be frustrated for lack of (exponential) growth but focus on developing the contents and depth of intellectual property, and grow linearly by recruiting a number of partners.

This difference between (elaborate) freelancer and entrepreneur is fundamental. When I look around I realize how many people call themselves entrepreneurs when they are freelancers. It’s trendy to be an entrepreneur but in truth there are not so many around.

Maybe someday I will venture into real entrepreneurship, building a product that has the capability to scale. Now, I focus on developing my business brand with a better understanding of what it entails in terms of business model. And with more excitement than ever.

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