Mentors

For a long time, I had difficulty asking for help. I felt more comfortable on the giving side of things and feared that if I regularly asked others for help I’d take advantage of their kindness. Then I realized that most successful people know how and when to ask for help. And that most people are inclined to offer help when asked (research backs this up.)

So I started asking, and good things happened as a result of it. I got smart advice. I got support from others. And I probably made a lot of people feel good that I respected them enough to seek their counsel. 

Every day I get at least one email or call asking for help with something -- a request for an introduction, a recommendation, advice on how to find a job. Some of these requests are easy to answer, and in those cases, I respond quickly, either by doing the thing requested of me or explaining why I can’t. Others leave me frustrated with the questioner. And when I’m frustrated it’s usually for a variation of the same few reasons. The person didn’t ask a proper question; the person didn’t appear to have done any work to solve the problem on her own; or she was coming to me for something that I wasn't really in a position to help with.

Based on these experiences, I’ve developed some guidelines for how I ask for help:

Read More »

Ever wish you had a trusted team of career advisors -- a group that would help you analyze whether to push for a higher salary, how to keep up morale during a job search, whether to go back to school for more training, or even how to handle little things like how to respond to an email that raises your blood pressure?

For almost a decade, I’ve had such a team. It started with a small writing group that formed when I was transitioning from law to journalism. Before long, that group morphed into something even bigger. We edited each other’s work and helped one another find the perfect publication for a particular pitch. We made sure that each of us had goals and stuck to them (e.g. get that book proposal finished by January). We shared our contacts so that we each had a deeper network than any one of us could have had alone. And we were always available for an emergency session on how to tackle any problem one of us faced.

I often recommend this idea to anyone committed to career development and thought about writing a book about how to create groups like this, but I don’t need to because Keith Ferrazzi’s new book, “Who’s Got Your Back,” is a blueprint for how to find the collection of key people who will help you succeed and keep you accountable to your goals.  The book is worth reading, but as a teaser, here are a few takeaways: Read More »