Miller Mondays: Nontraditional Work

Welcome back to Miller Mondays!  In this, the last section of 48 Days to the Work You Love, Dan talks about going into “nontraditional work” – not being a “regular” employee, but rather finding something creative to do with your time and your life, while still making an income!!

Our take home points today are:

1.  There are mountains of choices in the work environment today.  Sometimes the best options are just a small shift from what you are already doing.

2.  Focus on results, not time – this will open up new opportunities!

3.  You don’t have to change who you are to start your own business.  Incorporate your skills and abilities, personality traits, and values, dreams and passions into your new creative endeavor!

There are some basic questions to ask yourself to see if you have “what it takes” to do something on your own.  Dan goes into more details on all these in the book, but here’s the quick-and-dirty questions.  The more questions you can answer “yes” to, the better suited you are to running your own enterprise. 

1. Are you a self-starter?
2. Do you get along with different kinds of people?
3. Do you have a positive outlook?
4. Are you able to make decisions?
5. Are you able to accept responsibility?
6. Do you enjoy competition?
7. Do you have willpower and self-discipline?
8. Do you plan ahead?
9. Can you take advice from others?
10. Are you adaptable to changing conditions?
11. Can you stick with it?
12. Do you have a high level of confidence and belief in what you are doing?
13. Do you enjoy what you are going to do?
14. Can you sell yourself and your ideas?
15. Are you prepared to work long hours?
16. Do you have the physical and emotional energy to run a business?
17. Do you have the support of your family and/or spouse?
18. Are you willing to risk your money in this venture?

Dan tells us that about 60% of American homes are operating a home-based business.  On average, in 2003, home-based businesses generated around $52,000 in income!

Do you have to be so creative that you develop the newer, bigger, better mouse trap?  Absolutely not!
The trick here is to find something you are passionate about, and start running with it.  You don’t have to be completely original – often all you need to do is be 10% better than everyone else who is already doing the same thing!

Take Domino’s pizza for example.  They didn’t come into the pizza market with a better tasting pizza, a better sauce, a cheaper pizza.  All they did was add delivery to an already popular food choice.  Ta da!  How successful have they been?

Do you have an idea for an improvement on an already popular product or service?  Do you have an idea you have been thinking about “maybe doing something with sometime in the future?”  Make your future now! 

Ready, set, go!

Having said that, Dan does recommend what he calls “soft transitions.”  Don’t quit your job today with the thought that tomorrow you will start a webpage and on Wednesday you will be replicating your previous income with your new venture.  Recognize that it may take some time to get the ball rolling here.  Work on your new business idea in your spare time, in the evenings, or on weekends, while still in your “regular” job. 

Set some goals for yourself, and project a timeline.  Set a deadline for yourself – for example, “When my home-based business is creating 50% of my regular income, I will quit my day job and focus full time on my home-based job.”  Then go for it!

Be creative, be insightful.  Good luck, and most importantly, enjoy yourself!

Miller Mondays: Nuts and Bolts, part 2

After my brief hiatus, I am back with Part 2 of "Nuts and Bolts" from Dan Miller's 48 Days to the Work You Love Career Kit.



We left off last time after discussing resume writing and developing a creative job search strategy.  This time, we'll talk about the interview and salary negotiating process.

The main points for this week are:

1.  The interview is a selling process.  You are in sales now - you are selling yourself!

2.  Interviewing means "to see about each other."  This is also a time for you to learn more about the company

3.  Most hiring decisions are made very early in the interview.  First impressions are essential!

4.  The first salary/benefit package offered is often open for negotiation.  By all means, negotiate!

First and foremost, it is important to understand that a person who does not interview well will not receive a job offer.  The interview is so essential - you must present yourself with confidence (but not too much).  You are there to tell the interviewer why you are the absolute best candidate for the job (without coming off as a snobby know-it-all).  It's hard to convince them that you are the best candidate when you are dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, or when most sentences start with "um, well..."

First impressions are so important.  Watch your clothing choices, hygiene, breath, you name it.  Watch your etiquette and (obviously) your language.  Watch your body language.  No slouching in your chair, no crossing your arms across your chest, things like this that may make you appear to be disinterested or closed off.  It's the little things that say the most.

Make sure you are prepared for the interview.  It is important to know yourself well.  The early parts of this process were focused on introspection - identifying the skills and abilities that you have that make you an attractive candidate for any job that you want.  Use this information now!  What can you do well, better than anyone else?  What are your values, and how are they reflected in your activities, both inside and outside your work life?  What are your dreams and passions?  Can you communicate these well to a potential employer?

There are a few common interview questions, and you should have answers prepared for them.  When you are asked to "Tell me a little about yourself," the interviewer does not want to hear, "What do you want to know?" in response.  You should have an answer ready that includes a brief personal background, education/work history, career highlights and professional achievements, and why you are looking for new opportunities.

When you are asked to talk about your weaknesses, please don't say that you don't have any.  We all do.  My biggest weakness is patience.  I have had a chance to work on that during my residency training, but it is still a problem for me.  (Something about the slower Midwest pace of life compared to the go-go-go pace I was used to in New England.)  Recognize that you have weaknesses, and tell them what you have done/are doing to improve here.

What are your strengths?  You should be as familiar, if not more, with your strengths as you are with your weaknesses.  If you can't communicate your strengths to a potential employer, how are they supposed to see what your strengths are?

You should also know the basic information about the company you are interviewing with.  Review the company's website at a bare minimum to familiarize yourself with the basics.  The more information you have, the more questions you can ask.  Asking questions (at the appropriate time in the interview), and the questions you ask, often can create a stronger impression than how you answer questions earlier in the interview.

Make sure you know where you are going, and who you are meeting.  Show up a few minutes early, but not too early (5-15 minutes is sufficient).  Do not be late.  If you have the option, schedule your interview for Tuesday-Thursday mornings.  Surveys have shown that most hiring decisions are made before 11:00 am.

Basic rules to remember?  Smile.  Be pleasant and outgoing.  Be self-confident.  Do not speak poorly of previous employers or coworkers.  Show interest in the company and the interviewer.  Know your resume thoroughly and be prepared to elaborate.  This all sounds basic, but as I said earlier, it's the little things that count!

After the interview, send a thank-you note the next day.  This creates another contact point, and helps with top-of-mind positioning.  In the note, say that you will follow up by phone on a specific date and time.  Do follow up when you say you will.  Continue to make follow up phone calls once a week or so until a decision has been made.  Don't pester, but be persistent.

Okay, now you've had the interview and been offered the job.  What's next?  Negotiate!

Most companies will offer a salary/benefit package that is less than what they have budgeted for the position.  Keep in mind that the salary is determined by the job responsibilities, not by your education, experience, or your previous salary.  The salary package should not come up in the interview process until the company has decided that it wants to hire you, and you have decided that you want the job.  If the interviewer brings this up too soon, simply say something like, "Let's talk about the position a little more to see if there is a match."  Once you have decided that you do want this job, you can bring it up again.

Dan has a long list of things that can fall under "compensation," including a company car, country club membership, life insurance, medical/dental/vision insurance, profit sharing, etc etc etc, all the way to a free parking spot and unlimited M&Ms.  (I'm a fan of the M&M compensation.)  What is reasonable for benefits depends on the company you will be working for, and on your needs/wants.

When you enter into negotiations, it is important to know what comparable salaries are for this type of position.  Use this as your bargaining position, not the salary you made at your previous job.  While you should have some fun with this process, there are a few important things to keep in mind.  First, you must make the company money.  If your salary request is more than they can expect to make from your work, they will not hire you.  Second, your compensation package relates directly to your level of responsibility within the company.  Third, the company is trying to negotiate, too.  Their first offer is typically not their final.  Fourth, get your package agreement in writing, with all the details.

Great!  Got the job?  Got the compensation package?  Now get to it!

But, wait...  What if I don't want a "traditional" job?

Come back next week for the section I have been looking forward to "Maybe I don't want a traditional job!"

Miller Mondays, Hiatus

This week I am taking a break from Miller Mondays and 48 Days to the Work you Love.

No offense to Dan Miller, he's still one of my favorites.

I spent all weekend being all sinus-y and drippy.  I have a wastebasket full of tissues to prove it.  Most of the weekend I was sitting on the couch trying not to suffocate in my own slop.  (Isn't that a wonderful image?)

Needless to say, I am pretty worthless at the moment. 

We will return to our normal programming schedule next week.  Same bat-time, same bat-channel.

Miller Mondays: Nuts and Bolts, Part 1

Welcome back to Miller Mondays!  We have been discussing material from the book 48 Days to the Work You Love, byDan Miller.

The next section, Nuts and Bolts, deals with writing your resume, identifying the companies you would like to work for, getting and performing on the interview, and negotiating salary.  This section gets into lots of details, so I thought I would break it up into two parts.  This week we'll go over resume writing and a company search.

The main points for this week are:

1.  Having a clear personal understanding and focus is 85% of the process.

2.  The resume is a sales tool for where you are going.

3.  The creative job search strategy is your most powerful tool to get the job you want.

A resume should not be the tool that gets you the job.  Your resume should be the tool that makes the company want to interview you.  The resume is selling you, but is only giving enough information that people want to learn more about you.  The way you structure your resume and the information you choose to include will position you for landing the interviews you want.

This 85% number keeps coming up.  Remember when we said that 85% of the reasons for success were due to personal characteristics and skills?  Remember last week when we worked on identifying these skills?  Now is one of the times when they come into play.

Most resumes only get 30-40 seconds of time.  You need to use yours to make an impression.  A generic objective statement at the top of the page is not the way to do this.  Consider starting your resume with a skills summary.  Transferable skills are the basic units of whatever career you choose.  Transferable skills are learned in one job/career, in one context, but can easily be transferred to another context and even career.  Good with organization?  Have some computer skills?  Learn how to do accounting?  Have you been a teacher or a trainer?  Use these skills to market yourself into the position you want next.
Don't particularly like the careers you have had in the past?  Looking for a change?  What transferable skills have you developed in your previous jobs that can carry over to other career paths?  Be creative here - there is lots of room for change!

Many jobs are never advertised at all.  Any job that is advertised is seen by hundreds of people (possibly tens of thousands if it's posted on the internet).  How can you compete with these numbers?  Did you know that the best jobs often aren't advertised at all?  So how can you go about finding the 87% of jobs that are never advertised?

First, identify 30-40 target companies that you would like to work with.  Use your own criteria.  Close to home, size of company, lots of travel, type of business, etc.

Once you have these companies identified, send a letter of introduction.  This letter should be addressed to a specific person, not just to the Human Resources Department.  Most receptionists will give out the names of the people who do hiring; many times this information can be found on the internet.  Use this letter to introduce yourself and start name recognition.  Tell them that you will be sending a resume in the next few days.

Send a cover letter and resume, addressed to the same person.  Do not end your letter with a generic phrase like, "I am looking forward to hearing from you regarding an opportunity with your company."  Instead, give them a specific date when you will call for a follow-up discussion (4-5 days after sending the resume).  This takes the need for initiative off the company, and places it on you.

Then, don't forget to call!  Call on the day you said you would call.  Remind them that you sent a resume a few days ago.  Tell them that you are very interested in what their company does, and you feel your skills would be an asset.  Ask when you can come in to speak to them.  This step builds on the name recognition we started with the introductory letter, and gives you top-of-mind positioning, compared to the people who simply sent resumes with no follow-up phone call.

According to Dan, if you only send cover letters and resumes, you will need to send out 254 resumes to gave a statistical chance of getting any job offer.  If you add a follow-up phone call to the cover letter and resume, you only need to send 15 resumes to get a job offer.  Remember, your resume is a tool to sell you; the goal of the resume is to get you the interview, not to land you the job.

Next week - preparing for the interview and negotiating salary.

Miller Mondays: Planning my work around the life I want!

Today, our main points are:

1.  The more we know about ourselves, the more confidence we can have about proper direction.

2.  The only way we can handle change is to know what is changeless about ourselves.

3.  A personality profile is important.  Personality profiles look at your behavior, not at your abilities.

Remember when we said in the first Miller Monday section that 85% of the reasons people are considered for advancements and opportunities is because of their personal skills?  85% of the process of having the confidence to find proper direction in your life and work is also because of these personal skills.  Well, now it's time to figure out what those skills are.

Dan begins this section with a series of questions such as:

In what kind of settings are you most comfortable?

How do you respond to management?  How would you manage other people?

Are you better working with people, things, or ideas?

Your answers to these, and other similar questions will help you define the kinds of work that you are best suited for.  Remember, you need to incorporate your skills and abilities, personality tendencies, and values, dreams and passions into the work that fits your life.

While skills and abilities are necessary components to work you love, just because you have the skills to do a particular job, that does not mean that job is the best fit for you.  Skills and abilities can be developed in new areas!

Your personality tendencies should speak louder than your skills and abilities.  Recognizing how you work best (regardless of the task), the environments you are most comfortable in, and how you relate to other people will help you to narrow down your search for the best working situation.  Dan includes a short version of the DISC personality profile to work through.  You choose from lists of personality characteristics that best describe you.  Based on the number of characteristics you choose from each category, you can be fit into one of four primary categories:  Dominance, Influencing, Steadiness, and Compliance.  (I have 13 Dominance characteristics, and 10 Compliance characteristics - these are seemingly opposite styles, so I am not sure what to make of this just yet.)

Finally, review your values, dreams, and passions.  What is enjoyable to you?  If money was not an issue, what would you do for "work?"  When do you find time flying by?  What do you enjoy doing, but have been told that it is impractical for a career?  We are often under the impression that "growing up" means taking a job that pays the bills, but that we don't enjoy.  Dan challenges this paradigm.  What if your dreams and passions could be turned into income?  What do you want people to remember about you when you are gone?

Make lists of your skills and abilities, personality tendencies, and your values, dreams, and passions.  How do they fit together?  Can you see a pattern?  Is there work that comes to mind that would fit all these lists?  Think outside of the box!

Next week, Section 4:  Nuts & Bolts.

Miller Mondays: What do I want to be when I grow up?

Welcome back for Section 2 of 48 Days to the Work You Love!

The three main points from this section are:

1.  The focus of this program is to learn how to plan your work around the life you want.

2.  You must strive for balance in your life.  Extreme success in one area often is at the detriment to another area of your life.  You want to build toward success in seven areas of your life (I'll tell you what they all are in a bit).

3.  Goals are essential - written correctly they are not restrictions, rather they are road maps and guides so we can achieve freedom and accomplishment.

Dan begins this section by discussing the difference between vocation, career, and job.  A vocation incorporates calling, purpose, mission, and destiny.  I am used to hearing this word in relation to ministry, but Dan takes it out of that context.  Everyone has a vocation - it is up to you to learn a bit more about yourself, listen, and figure out what that is.

A career is a line of work, and it may (or may not) contribute to fulfilling your calling.  Many different careers can support the same vocation.  For example, the vocation to "help reduce pain and suffering in the world" may be fulfilled by many different careers:  doctor, nurse, counselor, pastor, teacher, scientist, politician, writer, and the list can go on from here.  Which career you choose should depend on your unique skills and abilities, personal tendencies, and values, dreams and passions.

Finally, a job consists of the daily activities you perform in order to produce income.  This may be part of your vocation, or it may be simply something to pull in a paycheck.  Obviously, the goal here is to get your job to be yourcareer which furthers your vocation in life.

Most people are used to looking at life within this framework



where work is the center of our lives, and the rest fits in around it, when and where there is space.  (Replace "church" with "spiritual growth," or whatever word/phrase best suits your beliefs.)  Dan challenges us to a paradigm shift, where we look at life like this:



Now work has an equal emphasis as the other aspects of our lives.  This is balance, when all aspects of your life get (approximately) equal attention, and none is significantly overpowering the others.

Granted, not every day is going to have equal effort into each of these areas.  Got a big deadline coming up?  Chances are "work" is going to get a lot bigger for a couple of weeks, while perhaps "recreation" and "family" shrink a bit.  The trick is, this should only be temporary.  Once that deadline is past, make an effort to invest some time and energy into those areas that slipped a little during the mad dash to the finish.  You won't be balanced every day, probably not every week, maybe not even every month.  What you're really going for is an overall sense of balance in your life.

Finally, goal setting.  Dan tells us that only about 8% of the population has clear goals.  Only about 3% of the population actually write their goals down.  Supposedly, the 3% of the population with written goals accomplish more than all of the other 97%, although I'm not sure how you can assess this.  We are setting goals in seven main areas of life:  Financial, Physical, Personal Development, Family, Spiritual, Social, Career.  It is no accident that Career is listed last.  Remember what we are learning how to do?  Find the LIFE you want, and plan your work around that.

Dan encourages you to start with five-year goals, work back from there to one-year goals, and finally to something you can do today to kick-start your progress.  Where do you want to be in five years?  What salary do you want to make?  What car do you want to drive?  Where do you want to live?  What kind of house do you want?  How big is your family?  What is your involvement in church and other community organizations?  How often do you exercise, and what do you do?  What books have you read?  Who are you mentoring?

To borrow from another of my favorite authors, Dave Ramsey also has some ideas on goal setting.  Goals need to be specific ("I want to lose 20 pounds," not "I want to lose some weight"), measurable, yours ("I want to be a lawyer," not "my parents want me to go to law school"), time-sensitive (give yourself a deadline), and written.

Keeping these guidelines in mind, set yourself some goals in the seven main areas of life!  Remember, these are not set in stone.  They can, and should, change and evolve as you do.  You should revisit your goals at least once a year (preferably more often) to check in, see how you are doing, and re-evaluate what your goals are and where you are heading.

Feel overwhelmed?  Think of it this way, "A goal is a dream with a timeframe on it."

Happy goal setting!  Come back next week for Section 3:  Planning my work around the life I want!

Miller Mondays: Is All Change Good?

This has been another frustrating week for me.  I am making progress on my research, but the stuff I'm working on right now is slow, and not a little tedious.  It's difficult to keep in mind that I am actually going forward, just at what feels like a snail's pace.  I sort of feel like I should enjoy this, because I suspect June is going to fly by in no time at all.

Anyway...  Miller Mondays are just what I need to get keep me focused on what I am doing, and to find what I am moving towards.  So, with no further ado...

First and foremost, Dan Miller wrote 48 Days to the Work You Love for people who are not satisfied with their current work situation, whether they do not love what they are currently doing, or recently lost their job and are trying to figure out what they really want to do.  This book is written with the underlying assumption that you already have, or are getting ready to, go through some major changes.

The first section of 48 Days to the Work You Love is focused on helping you identify your strengths, and how you react to change.  The three main points are:

1.  We will all face changes, we have no choice about that.  We do have a choice in how we respond to these changes.

2.  Change will be challenging, whether you expect it to happen or not.  Instead of focusing on what is not the same, look for the new opportunities that have been presented in the change.

3.  We all have obstacles in our lives.  Instead of focusing on your liabilities, focus on your assets, and use these to respond positively to change.

Dan highlights the changing work environment around us.  Up until around the 1980s, the goal of most people was to get a "real" job with a large company, one that included company cars, insurance packages, and 401(k)s.  Now, this is not the case.  In 2005, only 2.6% of the companies in Nashville, Tennessee had more than 99 employees.  Over all, this country is seeing a huge shift from the large company to the small business.  This should also change the way we look to find, and love, our employment.

For many people, the thought of "work" means growing up after playing in college, and entering the "real world."  Dan challenges this view, and wants you to try to find something you truly enjoy doing in life - then structure your work around that.  This thing you enjoy can often be turned into your career - and then aren't we all having fun all the time!

Dan stresses that you need to do some introspection to decide what kind of life you want, and then plan your work around this life.  More time invested in a job does not necessarily equate to more money or more success on that career path.  Rather, if you are doing something you love, you are much more likely to be successful in all areas of your life, including money and career.  Imagine waking up every day and getting to go do something you love, while making money at it!  How many of us have that thought?

Why did you choose your current career/job?  Is it something you really wanted to do, or were you pressured by family, friends, or other circumstances?  At the end of the day, if your career/job does not align with your personal characteristics and beliefs, it is not a good fit for you or for your life.

Dan says (this is one of my favorite things from this section) that "not all change is positive growth, but all positive growth does require change."  He talks about setting "positive goals," and how this often requires that you stop doing something you are already doing, rather than just starting a new behavior.  This was a big one for me.

In general, the reason people are considered for advancements and promotions is 85% attributable to their personal skills (attitude, enthusiasm, communication, etc).  Technical skills and credentials only account for 15%!  What are your characteristics that fall into that 85%, and what can you do to develop them?  Any change should force you to reevaluate what your best options are.  What about your 85% characteristics can you leverage into something favorable from change (positive growth)?

Thinking about what you love, your positive goals, and your 85% characteristics, what can you do today to start on your new beginning?

Next week, Section 2:  What do I want to be when I grow up?

Miller Mondays, part 1

I've been feeling a bit stuck in my research for a while now.  Part of that is because I've had some setbacks and have had to almost start over on some of what I was working on.  I had originally planned to defend my thesis in July, but now I am pushing (and pushing hard) for late September instead.

Another part of my problem is that I have lots of projects started (work, home, and community involvement), but most of them don't feel like they are headed towards a finish any time soon.

Recently, I finally pin-pointed the biggest reason I feel so stuck.  I don't feel like I have anything I am working toward, past the actual degree.  During vet school, the goal was to finish school training so I could move on to my one-year internship.  During the internship, the goal was to finish the internship and move on to my residency.  Likewise, finish the residency, and start the PhD program.  Now I'm getting close to finishing my PhD, but don't know what I am going to do (or what I really want to do) after this.

Enter Dan Miller.  He is a career coach, and a prolific writer.  He advocates finding the work you love to do, and then building it in around your life, rather than settling for work you have to do to make ends meet and filling your life in around work.  He is an entrepreneur at heart, and of course would love for everyone to work for themselves, but realizes that is not the best fit for everyone.  His main books are 48 Days to the Work You Love, and No More Mondays.  You can hear the overview of 48 Days here, why he chose this timeline, and the things you should aim to accomplish in that period.




Dan also does a weekly podcast (available on iTunes or through his website) and a weekly newsletter (also available on his website).  I've been reading the newsletter and listening to the podcasts for a while, all along thinking "I should be doing that!" but not taking the initiative I should be.

For Christmas this past year, John got me the 48 Days to the Work You Love Career Kit.  It included a copy of the book, an Interactive Study workbook, and audio CDs by Dan Miller that complement the information in the books.  There is also a "schedule" of how best to use the three pieces together.  I started working through this material earlier this year, but it has fallen off my priority list.  Which is unfortunate, because I could really use this, especially now!

While Dan recommends that you take inventory of yourself, what you have been doing, what you want to do, set some goals, and start making progress on these goals in 48 days, he realizes this timeline is not for everyone.  Having said that, without a timeline at all, most people (myself included) tend to procrastinate and procrastinate and never get anything moved forward or accomplished.  One of the ways he recommends working through the Career Kit is on a five-day plan, whether it's all done in one week, or one night a week for five weeks.

Over the next five weeks, I'll be working through the material in the 48 Days Career Kit and share it with you - what I've learned from the material, what I've learned about myself, and what I am going to do about it.  Then I'll move on to No More Mondays.  All with the goal of identifying what I want to be moving towards, and taking some steps to get there.

Stay tuned for next week's Miller Monday topic:  Is all change good?