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By Bill Burnett and Dave Evans

I had read Designing Your Work Life by the same authors, but have been wanting to update my Finding Purpose online seminar using some of Burnett and Evans work, so read this one too.

Very similar books. I really resonated with the “reframing of situations” they do at the end of each chapter. So much of our work as career coaches is to help our clients / students look at their situation differently.

I also appreciate how they rely on these 5 principles: (1) be curious (curiosity), (2) try stuff (bias to action), (3) reframe problems (reframing), (4) know it’s a process (awareness), and (5) ask for help (radical collaboration).

All of these five principles have been a huge part of my own philosophy, but they’ve done a great job of articulating them. They must be smarter than me 🙂

The concept that you can prototype your future career options is also embedded in my thinking as well. And again, they articulate well here. Find some things you’d like to do, create some options (they say 3 futures of yourself) and then gather information and/or try them out without investing too much (like getting another Masters degree in something) so that you make the “best decision possible with the information you have today.” Note: that last quote is actually what I have been saying for years.

Great book for career coaches and for individuals who want to approach career decision making in a different way.

This book was recommended to me because I love to take tech-free retreats and write, read, think, meditate, and just “be” in the moment. (Read bout my tech-free retreats).

This is a fairly religious book written by a Jewish man in the 1950’s but what really resonated with me is his concept of time vs space. And how so many of us have filled our lives with things that take space, like material goods, work, and doing things.

He talks about the importance of respecting time as a thing to enjoy…just the time we are in, like mindfulness. Here are a couple of my favorite quotes to think about.

“We must not forget – that it is not a thing that lends significance to a moment; it is the moment that lends significance to things.”

“We usually think that the earth is our mother, that time is money and profit our mate. The seventh day is a reminder that God is our father, that time is life and spirit our mate.”

“Time is the process of creation, and things of space are results of creation. When looking at space we see products of creation; when intuiting time we hear the process of creation.”

Amazingly I watched a Simon Sinek podcast today when I finished this book, with Brene Brown and Adam Grant talking about creativity and the importance of giving our brains space to think. To take the time to NOT think about being creative and to take the time to do nothing (Abraham’s “time”) to let our minds go free.

Taking my retreat and turning off the technology is the day I slow down. It is by far the most productive day of the month whenever I take it.

This book is a real thinker book and has references to lots of rabbi’s and readings from the Bible and the Torah. But the most important thing about it is that it reinforced my need to retreats and take the time weekly to NOT do things and “just be” in the moment.

By Kathleen Meyer

I received this in my Christmas stocking. Seriously. My wife found it for $1 and thought it would be a good gift for her backpacking husband.

I figured (and she probably did too) that it was a funny book that would be filled with chuckles. And it is. But it is also an environmental book with tips and explanations on why we need to be more aware of the fecal problem we are having in the wild. Amazingly this was written in 1989…Kathleen was WAY ahead of her time.

She talks about what happens when 1000’s of people go down the Grand Canyon raft trips and only have a few places to poop. It is disgusting unless people carry out their deposits.

I know that when I was backpacking the John Muir Trail in 2012 that when we were above treeline and I had to go in the morning, I had few choices but to turn over a rock, only to discover I wasn’t the first person who turned that rock over.

Its great that more and more people are getting into the wilderness but without a proper way of digging a hole in the ground or having latrines, then our option is to carry out.

I love so many of her descriptions of the use of word as well as stories from people who have had problematic poops on the trail. Some of truly hilarious.

Here is one descriptor of many. Can eat sawdust and shit 2 x 4’s (means the person is overworked)

If you are an outdoor person and want to know WHY it is important we have this discussion, read this book (if you can find it). And it also has tips on WHAT we can do too. Even one chapter just for women.

As I think about what companies need from employees today, I think they need people who can adapt to the ever-changing landscape of work—and life—that we all face. I could give you the example of a 100-year pandemic but that one is too obvious. Just think about what you were doing five years ago in your work and what you are doing now. For most of us, things have changed a lot. For me, the explosion of cloud-based options for documents, photos, and more is one big change.

When I am working with a client, I start by trying to get a sense of their skills and the value they add to the workplace. I am not as concerned about their formal education as I am about the skills they have developed over the years and their ability to grow in a job.

Employers tell me to give them a person who shows up every day, works hard, and asks questions when they don’t know how to do something. They will train them to do nearly any job. I would add that the ideal employee would also have a high Adaptability Quotient (AQ). Bosses hire people to solve problems, but the problems change and the person needs to adapt to new problems—otherwise bosses will find someone else to solve the problem.

What is Adaptability Quotient?

What is AQ? Natalie Fratto has a great TedTalk (see below) where she describes how she determines which startups she wants to invest in by measuring their ability to adapt. I think her lessons are valuable for any person looking for work and wants to stand out in their next job. She looks at three things:

How well does a person react, or adapt, to obstacles? We all face obstacles every day. Sometimes it is as simple (or difficult) as not being able to log into Zoom. It might require updating Zoom,  restarting the browser, restarting the computer, or something more advanced like figuring out how to change the settings for your laptop camera. Are you able to figure it out or do you just quit and say you can’t do it?

A person with a high AQ will figure it out. But how do you find out if a person can deal with obstacles? Natalie suggests asking “what if…?” questions.

• What if you come to work and find out the supplies did not arrive yesterday?

• What if the person you are working with calls in sick and you have a major project you are working on together?

These questions give insight, not into what you did before (behavioral questions) but into what you might do in the future.

What can you UNlearn in order to be more adaptable?

Her second way of determining a person’s AQ is to see if they are “unlearners.” An unlearner is a person who challenges the accepted norm of how we do things. I think this trait has been one of my strengths over the years working with students in high school or college. There were often policies and procedures everyone was supposed to follow. But every once in a while I would have a student I wanted to try something different with. For example, fitting a student into a slightly different class schedule so they could attend two periods of a vocational-technical program that was three periods long.

I wanted to find creative solutions, outside the box, in order to better serve those students.

So the question is, what can you UNlearn in order to be more adaptable? Hmmm….

Exploration determine adaptability quotient

Her third way to determine a person’s ability to adapt is to look for people who are always seeking new information—exploring new ways of looking at a situation. I think about all the cloud-based options for storing data and sharing information and how they have evolved. I am always asking myself, how can I free up more space on my computer and adapt what I do so that I can access documents from any device? Where else might I adapt in my work with this knowledge? Another hmmmm….

So when we are working with our clients, I believe we should be exploring their ability to adapt. Then to encourage them to take an employer’s mindset to adapt to the situation and be an asset to the company using their AQ as one of their “intelligences.”

If you would like to watch Natalie’s Ted Talk, check it out here.

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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By Chris Voss with Tahl Raz

Negotiating is often an emotional process that feels like it is “me against them.” Chris Voss makes the argument that it is more about understanding the other person first and to leave emotions out of it. It’s not that the other person is bad, it is the “situation” that is the conflict in negotiation.

I was surprised at how many coaching / counseling principles fit into his thinking. Listening first and listening really hard to understand. Using silence to get the other person talking more. (Brain-based research says we need to be talking less than 20% of the time with our clients). Mirroring (or reflecting) what a person says is a great tool for getting the person to continue talking. And the “magic” of open-ended questions which help keep you from saying “no” or having them say “no” first.

I also could not help but think about the importance of Emotional Intelligence as well throughout this book. Although written from an FBI Hostage team negotiator when the stakes were VERY high, there were lots of tidbits that could help career service providers when working with clients to negotiate contracts. He describes how you want to be looking for the “Black Swan” in the person’s story… i.e. what is different about this situation? What are the reasons / arguments for the other side?

Once you understand where the other side is coming from, then you can use labels and calibrated questions to get them to understand your side with the intent that they will move to your side…and you won’t have to “split the difference” and hopefully you will get what you want in the process as they talk themselves into understanding you.

His stories of dealing with some real bad people made this at times feel pretty “hard ball” which is not my style, but the lessons are still there.