It’s been a busy week in my life and with my business, and I wanted to take some time to share that have helped me move forward, and feel a “sense of joy and ease” (as my friend Monica Moody puts it). I also want to share some of the things, people, and conversations I’ve been following out there lately.
First, I am very happy that I’ve had a few chances to put on my BlogTalkRadio shows this week.
- Earlier this week, Eric Stoller (@ericstoller) and I had a great discussion about how to use RSS (Really Simple Syndication) and RSS feeds in your job search. I learned a lot.
- Today, I was lucky to have an episode on developing your own “elevator pitch” to highlight your unique strengths during a job search. I had two guest hosts, Mickey Fitch (@mickeyfitch), a regular guest writer for both my sites (Higher Ed Life Coach and Higher Ed Career Coach) and Dennis Charles (@fourth_wave) who is a career coach up in Massachusetts. See his site at http://fourthwaveinstitute.com/ We also had two great call-in guests, Jason Cassidy (@bowenkge), one of my former colleagues at Penn State, and Melissa Brown (@Brown_Melissa), a candidate seeking mid-level positions in Residence Life. They gave their elevator pitches and the guests helped critique them and offered suggestions. It went pretty well, but at the hour mark, the switchboard hung up on me and the show went on without me for a few minutes. We’re going to revisit the same topic next Friday at 11 am EST: elevator speeches and interview skills. Go to the episode page titled “Honing Your Message: More on Elevator Pitches and Interview Skills” to listen.
Also, last week, I rolled out a new coaching program on my HigherEdCareerCoach site. The program is a hybrid of 1-on-1 coaching, online groups and some one-shot teleconferences and activities. Today, I added some new features to the program, lowered the price and extended the deadline. For more details, go to http://higheredcareercoach.com/2010/06/03/beefed-up-and-slimmed-down-for-the-summer-8-weeks-to-august-coaching-program/
This week, I had some great client meetings, did some resume and cover letter revisions for people, and met a milestone goal for paid clients. (A small one, but it was great to break this barrier, and gave me a lot of confidence in how I am moving forward.) I also had my first paid, in-person client here in Athens. The meeting went great and I am really looking forward to helping this client with her goals, which include getting into a graduate program in Psychology and starting her own business.
I also joined a great community called Third Tribe. This site is a members-only forum to help people learn more about how to market themselves, network and build their businesses authentically, without overly-schmoozy marketing approaches. I’ve made some great connections already and gotten advice well worth the membership fee. I get to pick the brains of some of the smartest social media experts like Chris Brogan (@chrisbrogan), Brian Clark (@copyblogger), and Darren Rowse (@problogger) Check it out.
I also want to give Follow Friday mentions for a few other people and things out there:
- I watched the movie Searching for Angela Shelton on Netflix. If you are not familiar with the actress Angela Shelton from this movie, your kids might know her as SafeSide SuperChick from the DVD of the same name on child safety. I did not know much about Shelton’s story until my wife (@paxsarah) told me about this movie. Shelton made the film to raise awareness about sexual abuse. She suffered abuse from her father and other family members as a child and as a filmmaker, she illustrated very powerfully the impact of this kind of violence on has on people and its wide range of occurrence, by traveling the country to meet other Angela Sheltons who had also suffered from sexual abuse. Shelton is can be followed on Twitter at (@angelashelton) and you can visit her website at AngelaShelton.Com
- Jeff Jackson over at BreakDrink made some announcements the other day on his BlogTalkRadio podcast about his efforts to re-brand his site as a podcasting site for podcasts on issues related to higher education. I am all for this and actually recently discussed this kind of thing on Twitter with several others. Jeff wants to make it happen and has set up an IndieGoGo fundraising site for his efforts. Please follow him at (@jacksonj or @BreakDrink), visit BreakDrink for more details about this and his next BreakDrink Online Conference.
There were probably some other things I meant to mention, but I’ll save them for later. It has definitely been a productive week for me, full of discovery, goals (set and met!) , new experiences, and a feeling of moving forward. I hope the same goes for you.
Thanks for reading!
Go out there and put your purpose to work! Have a good weekend.
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Sean Cook has 15 years of experience working in Higher Education, as a Student Affairs Professional. He is a Certified Life and Career Coach through the Life Purpose Institute, a program accredited by the International Coach Federation. Sean also writes about career issues in higher education for our companion site, HigherEdCareerCoach.com and is a periodic contributor to the Student Affairs Collaborative Blog.
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