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Seven Summits

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By Dick Bass & Frank Wells with Rick Ridgeway

These two gentlemen decided while they were in their 50’s to summit the tallest mountain on all seven continents. Neither one of them had mountaineering experience but they certainly had the money to do it.

It is a good read for those of us who are interested the outdoors and big mountains. Personally my tallest mountain I have ever climbed is Mt. Whitney, the highest mountain in continental US at 14, 505 feet which I did in 2012 while backpacking the Pacific Crest Trail. But what these guys did is technically way above my hike up Whitney.

These guys goal was to climb all seven mountains in a year; Mt. Denali in Alaska, Aconcagua in South America, Kilimanjaro in Africa, Elbrus in Europe, Vinson Massif in Antartica, and Mount Kosciusko in Australia, and Everest in Asia. They had to take time off of work, which ended up being two years for Frank.

The money is takes to do these climbs is ‘above my pay scale’ for sure. The Antartica climb was over $200,000 each to orchestrate. Anyway, if you are a hiker or a climber, you should read this book, it was interesting to learn about the logistics and the mental and physical requirements to climb one mountain, let alone seven.

Note: Spoiler alert: One of them technically did not reach the goal. You’ll have to read the book to find out who.

Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience

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By Brene Brown

Who would have thought that you could describe 87 emotions and experiences so clearly? Not only does she describe them, she differentiates them and lets us know which ones are closely related and why.

Brene’s ability to help us understand the “near enemies” and “far enemies” to certain emotions is fascinating. A ‘near enemy’ emotion is sometimes more dangerous than that ‘far enemy’ because you know the ‘far enemy’ is coming but often don’t see or understand the ‘near enemy’ is there.

A ‘near enemy’ to compassion is pity. Compassion is about understanding and accepting and pity really looks at the other person as different than ourselves. It separates people rather than brings them together. Hmmmmm….good stuff.

All too often people describe emotions in very simplistic terms like happy, sad, and angry. But what is the difference between happy and joy? Well, she describes that there is a difference. Joy tends to be shorter lived. Hmmmm…didn’t really think about that too much before.

Anger. This is an interesting one because anger is often happening because of another emotion behind it. You could be angry because you are jealous, or have been wronged in some way, you are scared, frustrated, confused, overwhelmed, or many other emotions. Hmmmmm….

As a career coach or career service provider, we want to remember we can not know what a person is feeling unless we ask. They way people show emotions can be quite different and we can’t assume we know what they feel because of how we might feel in the same situation.

But you don’t have to be a career coach to benefit from reading this book. All human beings should read this book and pay attention to their own emotions better. Thank you Brene.

The Pacific Crest Trail: A Visual Compendium

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By Joshua M. Powell

If you’ve hiked the PCT or other long-distance trails, you’ll enjoy this take on the experience of hiking for days. Its hard to do a book on the PCT these days because so many have been done, but this is a fresh look at the trail in many ways.

He is a list maker. He has lists for songs that were going thru his head in a section, to daily notes with weather (and more), struggles he was going thru, toponyms (how the names of rivers, peaks, etc… came about), and more. So many of these made me smile because they reminded me of that section. i.e. the mosquitoes in Oregon…wow! I’d forgotten about them until I read his section on OR.

Cover a book

He is an amazing artist as well and includes all images he’s drawn of sign posts, building, mountain peaks, flowers, animals, people, and more.

I really liked his little “Ask a thru-hiker” stories he scattered throughout. I had this book for a long time and was not motivated to read another book on the PCT but once I started, I could not put it down. It was so enjoyable and brought back so many memories of what I was thinking and experiencing at the time.

The Earned Life. Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment

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By Marshall Goldsmith

I am impressed with this guy. He has some inspiring thoughts here for all of us. This book helps us look at what is an “earned life.” One that we can feel good about and fulfilling. He defines it as:

“We are living an earned life when the choices, risks, and effort we make in each moment aligns with an over arching purpose in our lives, regardless of the outcome.” (I’ve added the underlines to emphasize points).

That last part removes all regrets. If we are doing things in our life that align with our purpose, sometimes we will find success and sometimes not. But it doesn’t matter because the decision you took was based upon your purpose. Yeah baby, I like that!

The Buddhist view of life supports this thinking. Every breath we take, we change. We are a different person. So if you made a mistake last week, that was the “old you” because every breath we take is a “new you” who has learned things since that old you made the mistake. Hmmm…. I like this too.

Another concept I like is how we get closer to our purpose in life by paying attention the his three A’s.

Action: This is what we are doing now (look at your “to do” list)

Ambition: What we want to happen (often your goals)

Aspirations: What we want to become.

If you make your decisions based upon your aspirations, i.e. what you want to become, it will clean up your “to do” list because some things on that “to do” list have nothing to do with what you want to become.

At the end of many of his chapters he has an activity that helps you make sense of his thoughts in your own life. I found it incredibly helpful to do these and really enjoyed the process.

I need to do more thinking about one of his final chapters because it really hit home with me. He states, “to make a difference in the world we need credibility and empathy.” This really hit home as I am teaching my Building Your Coaching Business seminar and a couple of the people were having trouble with “selling themselves” as part of their coaching business. They need to embrace his concept of making a difference here.

You build credibility, twice. Once over time as you hone your skills. Then it has to be noticed by people. You don’t need to brag about yourself, but people need to see you in order to build your credibility. If you have something to offer people, it’s ok to let others know. Not everyone will “buy” but what you hope is more people will “see.”

Secondly, you make a difference in the world through empathy. Making sure that you put the people you serve utmost in your mind and that you will build your relationships with others by empathizing with them…what are their problems? What are their pain points? What are their needs?

I have many more notes but will stop there. Great book for career coaches and others who are struggling to figure out their purpose in life.

Three Weeks With My Brother.

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By Nicholas Sparks and Micah Sparks

Of course Nicholas Sparks has written many great novels, from the Notebook, Message in a Bottle, The Guardian, and many more, but this touching book is about him growing up with his brother Micah and sister Dana and their strange parents. I still shake my head about some of the things they did or didn’t do with those kids.

But they turned out fine, mostly. One of the strangest things they did was that Dana and Nicholas shared a birthday and they would only celebrate Dana’s birthday “because she was a girl and the younger one.” They were poor, but this still boggles my mind.

The three weeks with his brother happened while Nicholas was extremely busy writing books and doing book tours and Micah was busy with his own business, both had families, and they took a 3-week trip around the world together. Enjoying the moments and reflecting back on their childhood.

I thought I had read this book many years ago and wanted to send it to my brother Mark who is one of my closest friends (Just like the Sparks brothers) and thought I’d just flip through it again. Turns out it had been on my shelf all these years and I had never read it :-O

So I did. I can’t wait to mail it Mark so he can read it. A wonderful book filled with times when you laugh and times to cry.

INTERVIEW: What’s New on LinkedIn?

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Join me for another Peak-Careers Interview. We explore some of the more recent updates on LinkedIn.

My guests today are, Bob McIntosh, Hannah Morgan (Career Sherpa), and, Kevin D. Turner. Today we explore the latest greatest and maybe not so great elements of LinkedIn from three LinkedIn experts who have many years experience on this platform.

Here are my two questions:

(1) What are the latest updates to LinkedIn that you like?

(2) Are there any features on LinkedIn you’d like to get rid of?

LinkedIn Experts Interview

Here are a couple of the resources mentioned in the interview that you may want to bookmark.

1. Identify Your Market Value Titles & Associated Skills 🔘 Go to LinkedIn’s Career Explorer https://lnkd.in/dfTi9sn 🔘 Scroll down the page of visual directions until you get to a box in the middle of the page that asks you to [SELECT YOUR CITY] 🔘 Enter details and select from the provided dropdown boxes for [SELECT YOUR CITY] and [ENTER A JOB] (the Dropdown options for [ENTER A JOB] will be your Market Value Title(s), you may do this for current, next goal, and previous Job Titles) 🔘 When the new set of skills populate the [Skills for ____] box that appears below [ENTER A JOB], copy those skills down with the Market Value Title. The Dropdown options will be your Market Value Title BEST RESOURCE: Check out this article for more details on how to use Career Explorer, including a 3 Page downloadable PDF on this feature: https://lnkd.in/e_vaYtG5

2. [#Social hiring], [Hiring in network], & [Meet the team] Filter continues to slowly roll out, now 60 days in, what’s the easiest way for a Jobseeker to find out who in their network is hiring? https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:6973965093155840001 If you don’t have the feature yet try this work around link: Hidden Link: https://lnkd.in/eghegARt

Check out this blog that Hannah recommended. Donna Svei’s blog on using Career Explorer

BIO’s

Bob McIntosh, CPRW is a career trainer and coach who leads more than 15 job-search workshops at an urban career center, as well as counsels job seekers on every aspect of the job search.  His colleagues rely on Bob to critique their clients’ LinkedIn profiles and conduct mock interviews. In addition, Bob has gained a reputation as a LinkedIn authority in the community where he leads workshops for non-profit and for-profit organizations.  Job seekers from across the state attend Bob’s  LinkedIn workshops.  His greatest pleasure is helping people find rewarding careers in a competitive job market.  For enjoyment, he blogs at Things Career Related and contributes to Recruiter.com.  Follow Bob on Twitter and connect with him on LinkedIn.

Hannah Morgan is a trainer and job search strategist. She has worked in outplacement services, a graduate school career center, a department of labor one-stop and as a recruiter/HR generalist. Hannah is a nationally recognized author and speaker on job search trends and was previously a LinkedIn Top Voice in Job Search and Careers and.

She founded CareerSherpa.net to combine her career expertise with her love of writing, speaking and social media. Hannah is a regular contributor to US News & World Report. She has been quoted by media outlets, including Kiplinger, Forbes and Money Magazine. She is also author of The Infographic Resume and co-author of Social Networking for Business Success.

Hannah is active across social media including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn.

Kevin D. Turner is Managing Partner at TNT Brand Strategist with over 30 years of experience in all significant business aspects. Starting his career at Sony and progressing to National Sales Manager, he then served as a VP of Venture Capital at Stone Holdings, CEO of American Teachers Inc, VP of Sales & Marketing at Thomas Nelson, and TurneRRounD. Even led the global expansion of the Nonprofit 50, American Heart Association, into 140 countries, as their Director of International Development and Strategy. 

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly email for career practitioners. Peak-Careers offers discussion-based online seminars for career practitioners focused on meeting continuing education needs for CCSP, GCDF and BCC certified professionals as well as workshops for career practitioners and individual career coaching.

He is the author of A Field Guide for Career Practitioners: Helping Your Clients Create Their Next Move and The Adventure of Finding Me in New Zealand. He is also the recipient of the 2020 Kenneth C. Hoyt Award from the National Career Development Association and the Mid-Atlantic Career Counseling Association’s Professional Contribution’s Award in 2020.

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