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Survey Says…Engagement!

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Survey Monkey

On my 8th anniversary of being full-time with Peak-Careers, February 3rd, I sent out a request to complete a short survey seeking insights to where people engage with Peak-Careers.

One of my 3 words to guide me in 2020 is “Strategic”, and I wanted to gather some information to help me be more strategic in my efforts.

Survey says “engagement”

A special “shout out” to the nearly 70 people who took the time to fill it out. Thank you so much.

The survey says I have strong engagement in these top 4 areas…and lessons learned in a few others.

  1. Many people do indeed read my weekly career emails that come out Tuesday mornings
    RESULTS: I will continue to send you career content each week.  (see below if you want to be added to the list).
  2. 55+% of the respondents follow me on LinkedIn and read my posts.
    RESULTS: I will make sure that I continue to share quality content to help you do your job and serve your students / clients / customers.
  3. 55% have watched at least one of my monthly career interviews! I am thrilled at this outcome.
    RESULTS: I love doing these interviews with other career practitioners and will definitely keep identifying experts and topics to interest you.
    REQUEST: Do you have topics or people you’d like to hear from in future interviews? Let me know and I’ll work at setting it up.
  4. 40% of the respondents have taken an online seminar
    RESULTS: I know that not everyone is interested in online learning, so I am actually very happy with this number and will continue to offer and develop more subject areas.

LESSONS LEARNED

Facebook Live has not been as popular. I will do one more FB Live and then reevaluate if I will continue them.

  • Tuesday March 3rd at 8:00 pm (Eastern)
  • I will talk about private practice
  • Tips on what has worked for me
  • Recommendations I have for anyone who wants to go into private practice.

Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram are also not where many of you are hanging out. I need to put more thought into whether I want to invest more into each of these to grow them or to “let some of them go”.

If you are interested in the graphic / chart results you can see them here.

Gratitude journal

Regardless, I am grateful for the many people who took time out of their day to give me feedback.

Knowing that so many people support me and find value in following me is wonderful to know.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly career news 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

Sign up here to receive my  TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON.  You can also receive the career practitioners newsletter which includes a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. 

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INTERVIEW: Choosing 3 Words to Guide You

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Another Peak-Careers Interview

Choosing Three Words to Guide You

Watch this Peak-Careers interview and learn how three people go about choosing three words to guide you throughout the year, what we choose for words, and what they mean to us.

My guests today are:

Belinda J. Wilkerson, Founder and Principal Counselor at Steps To The Future
and
Claire Peters, Owner of Aha! CareerCoaching

In this Peak-Careers Interview we will explore / talk about:

(1) What our words or phrases are to guide us in 2020 and what they mean to us

(2) How we go about choosing them

Read my blog on this same topic here

WATCH NOW

BIOS

DR. BELINDA J. WILKERSON, the founder of and principal counselor at Steps To the Future, LLC, helps families eliminate random acts of college planning. A lifelong educator, she held teaching, school counseling and counselor educator positions in Rhode Island before relocating to North Carolina. Active in her community, she currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Cumberland County Public Library and information Center. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Learn more at Steps to the Future.

CLAIRE PETERS, Owner of Aha! CareerCoaching. With a master’s degree in counseling and an emphasis in career counseling, Claire has worked with thousands of college students and adults to help them clarify their career dreams. In addition to one-on-one career advising, she has led dozens of workshops on major and career exploration and decision-making. Using a combination of empathy, powerful questions, and gentle confrontation, Claire helps students and clients explore their beliefs, attitudes, passions, and purpose, and motivates them to take action and find their direction. Learn more at Aha! CareerCoaching. 

JIM PEACOCK is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly career news 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 Sign up to receive my TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON. You can also receive the career practitioners weekly career email which includes a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more.

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The Invention of Nature by Andrea Wulf

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I am a forestry major (never worked in it but always loved it) who has been influenced by many people regarding the environment. I had no idea that Alexander Von Humboldt was the person who helped people like Henry David Thoreau, John Muir, and Charles Darwin do the work that made them famous.

Alexander Von Humboldt was one of the last people on earth who was capable of knowing all the sciences available to him at the time and could see the interconnectedness of them rather than the seeing just that science. He believed you had to be IN nature to understand nature as well. So he took his knowledge of botany, chemistry, astronomy, and more to South America where he began to SEE the connection between all these areas.

The reason we can talk about ecology, the environmentalists, and more is because of Von Humboldt who could see the interconnections between the world. He not only saw the sciences he could see the importance of poetry and the beauty of words to describe nature.

This is when I wish my book club had started already. I have 100’s of things to discuss about this person from his views on nature, to ecology, to his impact on the WORLD…yes the world, and much more.

This is the best book I’ve read in awhile. If you love nature, you MUST read this book.

Transitions Online Seminar

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Delaying the start date until March 7

$20 Early Bird savings if you register and pay by February 22

– Are you looking for more than a 1 hour professional development?
– Do you want to ‘discuss’ a career topic with other like-minded career practitioners?
– Would you like the flexibility of online with no set times to be on?

Check out our Transition online seminar.

15 hours approved by CCE for GCDF and BCC

Intention Setting Time for 2020

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It is my intention setting time where I choose
“3 Words to Guide Me in 2020”.

Intention setting
——–Sunrise picture I took in Hawaii in 2012——-

This intention setting process of choosing 3 words takes a few months of processing and pondering. I spent some time at my last retreat reviewing my journals to see what types of things I was writing about and thinking about. As I listened to the news, podcasts, YouTube videos, TedTalks, read the paper and books, I paid attention to which words or themes were jumping out to me.

It’s interesting that most of my words seem to simmer to the surface rather than jump out at me. The power of simply thinking about things to create an intention setting framework in my day is important. 

Recently, I met with a new business coach for a complimentary session as I am thinking about starting that up again, and she required that I answer some thought-provoking questions before we met. That helped simmer more thoughts.

I am also looking to update my website as I have outgrown mine over the past 10 years and that person also asked many questions about where I want to be in 3-5 years, which also helped me “simmer more thoughts” leading to my intention setting for 2020.

Here are my 3 words for the past four years which helped me set my intentions daily throughout the year.

2016 – Health ★ Mindfulness ★ Focus

2017 – Intentional ★ Authentic ★ Wellness

2018 – Reach ★ Capacity ★ Consistency

2019 – Gratitude ★ Purposeful ★ Reflection

My Three Intention Setting Words for 2020

intention setting 3 words to guide me

Philanthropy

I ended 2019 with giving a young man 3 complimentary sessions which carry over into 2020. I had been thinking about the word “giving” and he came along and needed some help making his next career move. I love the feeling of being able to give back to my community in some way. This is a great start for my word ‘philanthropy’.

Definition: Goodwill to fellow members of the human race. An act or gift done, or made, for humanitarian purposes. Altruistic concern for human welfare and advancement.

When I looked up the definition of philanthropy I found it meant more than giving money. As I look to 2020, I want to give more of my time, energy, and resources this year. If just feels right…which is how I choose my words. It has to “feel right”.

Rebalance

I love what I do and I love to share lots of free career content across a variety of platforms and mediums. One thing I want to do is to identify the areas that are having the biggest impact and keep doing them. For those things I do that have limited impact, I will reduce or remove. I am also trying to rebalance my work week to be closer to a 32 hour week compared to the 40+ I have worked over the past 10 years. I want to consider how and where I spend my time daily.

Strategic

I knew last year my effort and energy (and resources) were going to my book. This year I want to be more strategic with my efforts. Not the least of which is to update my website. It was done 10 years ago and tweaked 3 years ago, but I’ve really outgrown it. This is just one example of me being more strategic. I also want to identify new markets to make a presence in, like New Brunswick and Ottawa, National College Transition Network (which I attended in November), and more. 

Have you chosen 3 words to guide you?

Have you created goals for 2020?

If so, please share them here.

Jim Peacock is the Principal at Peak-Careers Consulting and writes a weekly career news 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

Sign up here to receive my  TOP 10 TIPS WHEN WORKING WITH AN UNDECIDED PERSON.  You can also receive the career practitioners newsletter which includes a variety of career topics, industry news, interesting events, and more. 

Peak Careers - Professional Development for Careers

The Introvert’s Complete Career Guide. By Jane Finkle

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The Introvert’s Complete Career Guide: From Landing a Job to Surviving, Thriving, and Moving Up.

By Jane Finkle

I am a huge Extrovert who is always curious about my counterparts as a way to better understand me (as their opposites) and my introverted clients better. Jane does a great job at walking introverts through the entire career process with many of the same pieces of advice that I give my clients with her added insights as to how introverts might navigate each of the processes.

She begins with recognizing that introverts have many strengths like the power of observation, thinking before they speak, and their often inquisitive minds. These strengths play well in one on one or small groups but how do you navigate this ‘extroverted world’ that we live in?

Well, Jane starts from the beginning and takes you right through tips on how to grow in your position and to move up to leadership positions if that is what you want. Her practical advice for each step of the way is good for everyone, but then she adds in tips for introverts, like how to politely break into conversations, how to use their strength of observation and curiosity to add to networking conversations and office meetings.

Networking can be difficult for introverts (and many extroverts too!) and her advice is to prepare for those networking events and do your homework on who might be there and have 4 or 5 questions to ask people ahead of time. i.e. Have you been to this event before? How long have you worked in the field?

And then to follow up with 1 on 1 meetings whenever possible.

This book is filled with great tips for ALL people but her insights for introverts is so helpful. Great reminders for extroverts like me to make sure I give ‘space’ for these thoughtful curious quiet types.

Well done Jane.