Depending on who you talk to there is a vast difference of opinions on cover letters. Do you need them? Are they worth your time? Some jobs require them, and some don’t. As someone who has served on many hiring panels in the federal government, I can tell you that the cover letter still holds tremendous value.
Successful and ambitious people have a huge future problem. They are always living in it. Striving fro the next big goal, promotion, or life achievement can cause us to always be looking ahead.
Hustle culture is killing us, both literally and figuratively. This is a product of societal norms imposed on us by a system that values numbers over people. If we aren’t constantly raising the bar at all times then we are expendable. Companies and organizations use people until they burn out. Then they replace them with someone who has yet to burn out. Good for the numbers, terrible for the culture.
Why are we so afraid of asking for something and being told no? We worry and obsess about the possibility of rejection so much that it often freezes us from asking for something in the first place. The reality is that the consequences of asking for something and not getting it are virtually zero in most cases. Still, we worry about how people will perceive us, or maybe more importantly, how we will perceive ourselves.
Developing exercises for training sessions can be a big challenge. If we get complacent we can fall into the rut of the same old style of training. We go into a conference room, sit down around a table and stare blankly at a power point until the trainer releases us mercifully, not knowing what happened over the past couple of hours.
For training to be most effective, it needs to be interactive and memorable. One of the most memorable trainings I can remember vividly happens to be one I took online several years ago. Now what could be so vivid about an online training course you ask? This wasn’t any online class, this was Harvard University Computer Science Professor David Malan’s CS50: Introduction to Computer Science course which is open to anyone who wants to take it.
Last week, the agency that I work for, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) lost over 27,000 years of experience when about 1,000 people voluntarily retired early. Among those were several of my mentors that helped me to get where I am today. Each one brought a different perspective and gave me new tools to put in my toolbox.
This moment represents the most time you will ever have left on this Earth.
If that cold hard fact doesn’t freak you out, then you might want to check your pulse. The honest truth is that time is always running out on us. We don’t know whether or not we are going to walk out on the street and get hit by a bus tomorrow. Very comforting.
That is also very inconvenient for us as we need time to become successful, develop relationships, and ultimately end up where we want to be on this Earth. So why then is so much of our focus when it comes to success focused on money instead of time?
I recently heard a clergy member describing how we think about things that are 100 years old. In the context of people, he said, we think of someone who is 100 years old as frail and brittle and perhaps of little relevance. When we think of organizations and buildings that achieve 100 year status, we celebrate them as being strong and standing the test of time and valuable.
There is nothing that can be more unsettling in the workplace than looming changes. Especially if it is rumored to be big. It’s understandable. We have gotten to see this up close and personal in the Federal Government recently. Big changes can have big ramifications and in today’s world that could mean being laid off, forced to relocate, or ending up doing something that may not be as fulfilling as what you are doing now.
Nothing has taught me more about life than my time spent traveling and living in different places. By staying in our routines and continually seeing the same things over and over we become less open to the possibilities that are out there in the world.