5 TED Talks to Inspire You in Your Career

Staying motivated in your career and developing your knowledge require you to apply some specific practices and habits. One of those habits should be regularly viewing inspiring and educational videos and listening to books and podcasts that can expand your knowledge.

There are many inspiring TED talks to view but check out the five career-related TED talks below to get you started.

It's never too late to reinvent yourself. Take it from Paul Tasner -- after working continuously for other people for 40 years, he founded his own start-up at age 66, pairing his idea for a business with his experience and passion.

What do you want to be when you grow up? Well, if you're not sure you want to do just one thing for the rest of your life, you're not alone.

Simon Sinek has a simple but powerful model for inspirational leadership -- starting with a golden circle and the question "Why?"

What makes work satisfying? Apart from a paycheck, there are intangible values that, Barry Schwartz suggests, our current way of thinking about work simply ignores.

TED Fellow and Brazilian entrepreneur Bel Pesce breaks down five easy-to-believe myths that ensure your dream projects will never come to fruition.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 7 Steps to Stay Motivated for the Long Haul

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 7 Steps to Stay Motivated for the Long Haul: "For a resolution to stick, it must be aligned with your core values and hold deep personal meaning that you connect with on a deep emotional level."

• 5 Ways to Pursue the Job You Want: "Mentoring has many personal benefits, too. Learning to listen, to creatively approach problems or explanations, or to work with people who are different from you are all important leadership skills you’ll need in order to advance."

• 8 Steps to Stay Focused and Reach Your Goals: "Instead of trying to do a million things at once, take a step back and tackle one task at a time. And while your inclination might be to start your day with busy work ... get your brain moving by challenging yourself with with a bigger, more creative endeavor first thing."

• 7 Ways to Overcome Toxic Self-Criticism: "The best way to change the channel is by getting active. Find an activity that will temporarily distract you from the negative tapes playing in your head. Go for a walk, call a friend to talk about a different subject, or tackle a project you've been putting off. But refuse to listen to your brain beat you up."
• 15 Habits That Could Be Hurting Your Business Relationships: " It’s hard to convey your investment in a conversation if you’re glancing at your phone every 30 seconds. Always be sure to give people your undivided attention."

How to Measure Success in Your Career

It can be discouraging to look around and compare your career standing with that of successful entrepreneurs and career experts touting their accolades and wisdom on social media. You might even be tempted to compare your situation to that of some of your colleagues.

Resist the temptation!

When it comes to your career success you should only look to yourself and measure your success based on the following factors.

Your opportunities to advance or develop in your career. You’ll experience your career as successful if you have opportunities to move up in the company, earn a job promotion, and continue to expand your range of influence. 

 

Your opportunities to develop new skills. A successful career is one that changes and avoids stagnation. It is one where you are able to learn new skills, develop in new areas, and be part of the innovations in your chosen field.

Your opportunities to live a healthy and well-balanced life. A successful career is one in which your career does not prevent you from making healthy choices, getting enough sleep, eating well, spending meaningful time with your family, being physically fit, and enjoying some recreation and leisure time.

Your opportunities to earn a liveable wage. You don’t need to be rich and famous. Resist the desire to base your career success on your paycheck and to compare your things with the things your neighbor owns. Instead focus on ensuring that you can meet your financial obligations and purchase items of value that you need and enjoy.

Your opportunities to live your values. If you are doing meaningful work that is consistent with your values and provides a sense of purpose you will likely feel a sense of deep satisfaction in your work. Strive to find work that brings value to your community and to the world and you will be a success in your career.

When you evaluate your career success don’t focus on status, titles, and salary. Instead, take a look at whether you have opportunities to advance, develop new skills, experience work-life balance, earn enough to live on, and are fulfilling your purpose.

5 Things to Consider Before You Take a New Job

Each person has some specific criteria they consider when looking for a new job, and sometimes we feel like we can't afford to be picky so we take the first thing that comes along. Bills are mounting or we've been turned down for other opportunities.

However, when possible, consider the following five things before taking a new job:

1. Advancement: Do you have opportunities to advance in this new position or will you quickly feel stuck? You might not want to take a job that will soon have you needing to look elsewhere.

2. Training. Does the new job provide opportunities for additional training or education? The world of work is changing rapidly and you'll want to be in a position that affords you the opportunities to keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and ideas.

3. Commute. Are you taking a job that will require you to drive for an hour or two, or can you take public transit to get there? You might reconsider taking a job that will require you to spend long hours in your car, not to mention spending large sums in gas.

4. Culture and values. What is the company culture like, and what does the company truly value? Are they committed to their employees and provide them with the tools and the culture to do the job well?

5. Leadership. Does the company have effective and approachable leadership? And does that leadership value input from its employees?

These are some of the questions you might want answered to your satisfaction before taking that next job.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 22 Qualities That Make a Great Leader: "If you focus on becoming authentic in all your interactions, that will rub off on your business and your culture, and the rest takes care of itself."
• The Office of the Future Will Be Natural, Chair-less, and Designed for Collaboration: "The trend will be to prevent workers from sitting all the time, in favor of walking, standing, or doing literally anything else besides sitting to maintain blood flow."
• 9 Fundamentals of Leadership Success: "Successful leaders must constantly communicate the core values which underlie their organization’s vision. In turn, the leader’s vision and actions must also be congruent with these values."
• 4 Simple Ways to Be More Creative at Work: "A rested brain, and one that is not so tightly wound around or attached to the task at hand, is more likely to think of a new idea or the solution to your idea than an overworked one. Don't force the creative process."
• 5 Ways to Be Influential: "You can influence more if you collaborate openly and willingly, with complete, honest and full disclosure."

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Networking and Getting the Most Out of a Conference

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

© Bellemedia | Stock Free Images & Dreamstime Stock Photos

• How to Get the Most Out of a Conference: "Perhaps one-on-one meetings are better for you or small group settings. If so ... mak(e) a reservation at a local restaurant for about eight people before the conference. Then invite people from your wish list."


• Become a Networking Beast: "Avoid rambling off the reasons why your product or service is the best. Instead, ask everyone whom you speak with if there is anything you can do to help their business."


• Mika Brzezinski on Leadership and Knowing Your Worth: "Don't ever say that you will walk if you won't, but if you get to the point where you can no longer do your job knowing that you are not getting what you are worth, it might be time to take that drastic step. Plan ahead for future employment if you find yourself in a place where you have to make demands."


• 6 Interviewing Mistakes: "As with the elevator pitch, it’s best to have a smart, genuine question prepared before the interview. All too often, people to go into the interview with the expectation that a brilliant question will materialize somewhere between the hellos and the wind-down, but it just doesn’t work that way."


• 3 Steps to Mapping Your Career Path: "Your values, strengths, interests and compensation are building blocks that make up the cornerstone of fulfillment in your career."

Why is it So Hard to Practice What We Preach?

I have been teaching job search methods and techniques for more than 10 years. I extol the virtues of preparation before a job interview, I educate job seekers to market their value proposition in their resumes, and I teach them how to negotiate salary. Wouldn't you think it would be easy for me to do these things for myself?

I have been self-employed full-time since 2005. However, I recently decided to apply for a very part-time contract teaching position in my field of specialty - military transition job search methods. Once I saw the job posting, it took me almost a month to update and polish my resume. I sympathized with my customers as I sat down to this arduous task!

Obviously, I did a decent job because they called me within an hour and I have a job interview tomorrow. Don't even ask me if I have started to prepare my answers and define my message for the interview tomorrow. I think from the title of this article, you probably know the answer!

This got me thinking - so often we make claims or offer advice in areas that we fail to follow or live up to ourselves. We see evidence of this "do what I say, not what I do" philosophy almost every day in the news and in our lives. With this blog post, I would like to challenge you to think about your core values, consider the advice you offer those around you, and evaluate the values and beliefs you claim to live by and ask yourself these questions:

* Do you serve as a model of your core values in your every day life - not only when people are watching?

* Are you offering advice, guidance, or instruction that you are failing or refusing to adopt yourself?

* Do you evaluate your bad decisions, lapses in good judgment, and mistakes with an honest evaluation of why things went wrong?

Asking yourself these few questions may help you get back on the right path. I know I have been forced to ask myself these very questions this week. That is all for today, I have to go prepare for an interview!

Making a Graceful Career Exit

It was 9:30pm and the party-which began 12 hours previous-was heating up. Their kids under the watchful eye of babysitters, the crowd I was hanging out with were free to cut loose and enjoy themselves. As I looked at my watch and surveyed the scene, one thing became clear to me:

It was time to leave.

I have no kids, I had a place to sleep that night, and I had nothing to do the next day. So what was my problem? I intently thought about this on my drive home, and it surprised me how closely the answers I came up with correlated with one's career. Sometimes-despite what logic may dictate-it's time to make a graceful career exit.

Values: Values are at the core of who you are, guiding your thoughts and actions. When I thought about staying longer at the party, I literally did a value check: how would staying later resonate with my values? While I had a blast up until that point, I noticed my values of peace and rest were winning over my value of socializing. They won, so I left. When it comes to your career, your values are an essential barometer of your feelings. You could be very successful in a career field but feel it conflict with other values: family, recreation. money, responsibility. Action To Do: Assess your current job with your values and see where it is meeting and not meeting them.

Time: Coinciding with values, time was another factor I considered. When I was at the party, I had a lot of fun! I was eating, singing karaoke, and socializing with old friends. As the night went on, though, the return that I was getting on my time was lessening. I had caught up with my friends. I was full. I didn't need to sing any more songs. If I had stayed longer than I had, the good time I had would have been colored by how much I didn't want to be there anymore. In your job, what could have been an enriching opportunity in the beginning may have run its course. Action To Do: Assess the time you have put in to your current position: have you received the benefit from it that you feel you need to receive?

Social Pressure: This is the factor that I struggled with the most, as I'm sensitive to-for better or for worse-what others think about me. When deciding whether to leave I had an internal dialogue, debating how my departure my be perceived? "Is he mad at us?" "Why is he being a jerk?" Social forces are powerful and need to be overcome to make a decision that resonates with you and your career? Action To Do: Assess the social forces that are keeping you in your career. Are they playing a bigger role than they should be?

Your career is the party, but there are other parties out there. Connect with yourself to make the best choices for you.

Reprioritizing Cost vs. Worth

When you go shopping you are in a constant battle between what something costs (the amount of money that you will have to give to purchase the item) and what something is worth (the value that you place upon the item).

Let's consider an easy example: aluminum foil. To one person, the regular store brand will sufficiently meet her aluminum foil needs. The name brand-and the higher price-isn't worth it. But another person will pay the higher price for the name brand because of the increased value-worth-that he perceives. Perhaps he considers the quality better or places a lot of faith in the company that produced it.

Neither view is wrong...but how you view cost and worth can have an impact on your career.

Let's take one aspect of how this plays out in your career: dress and grooming. When I worked in a career services department I had a student frantically contact me because he had a job interview that day and wanted some advice. I agreed to meet with him, and when I entered our conference room for our appointment I was struck by how unappealing his appearance was: ill-fitting, mismatched clothes and wild, uncombed hair. When I (gently) brought the matter of his appearance up to him, his immediate response was that he couldn't afford to buy better clothes or get a haircut at the time. Mind you, this is the same student who I often saw purchasing soda out of school vending machines, where the markup is typically much more than buying it at the store.

Do you see how cost and worth are at play here? A soda-in fact, frequent sodas during the week-had a higher worth to this student than buying clothes and getting a haircut that would display him as someone who takes his professional life seriously.

But here's the catch: we are all this student. In our professional lives there are lines that we don't cross because we don't see the value proposition. We balk at paying a professional to write our resume for us or for to hire a career coach to help us pursue our career dreams because, in our minds, we can do it ourselves. It's just not worth it. But what is the cost of being another week out of work? Or spending another day in a miserable, soul-sucking job?

If you are feeling stuck or trapped in your current situation, examine your cost vs. worth viewpoint. Use the questions below as guides:

What is my career worth to me, and how is where my money goes reflective of that?

How does my perception of cost vs. worth play out in career roadblocks I encounter?

What am I willing to sacrifice/not sacrifice monetarily for career satisfaction?