Bitterness is a Pill You Take Yourself Expecting Someone Else to Die.

It’s easy to be bitter, especially when talking about your career. Sally got the job you wanted, or Bob made you look bad. Pat makes more than you and does so much less. I’m sure you can come up with more and certainly worse.

But what does being bitter — a natural human reaction, by the way — do for you? Yes, it gratifies your ego. That’s not entirely bad in the short term, but in the long run, not at all productive.

What can I say? Get over it. Bitterness is a quick path to career destruction.

Don’t get me wrong. It’s not at all easy to do. Some people carry career bitterness over minor issues for years. The result? It shows in how they work in their current job. Worse yet, it carries into how they interview for their next job. Whether they say it or not, it surfaces in their attitude and approach.

How is this a career move? Forget? Maybe. Forgive? Definitely … if not for the sake of the forgiven, for you. Taking the bitterness pill doesn’t kill them, but it could kill your career.

Is Now the Time to Run Your Campaign?

It’s happening again. Clients are saying, “We can’t run a campaign now!” The economy is too poor.

Yup, it is.

Funny thing, though. When life gets better and the economy buoys up, I can hear them say, “Wait, we can’t do a campaign now, EVERYONE is asking for money!”

It’s true. There’s never an ideal time to launch a campaign, and there’s never an ideal time to find a job.

You need to launch a campaign, or find a job, when you need to. It just may not be when you want to.

That’s okay.

In a nation of more than 300 million people and a gross domestic product (GDP) of more than $14 trillion, there’s always a job out there. We only hurt ourselves when we say that there are “no jobs out there.” The external conditions will never be ideal, but your internal conditions may make it necessary.

How is this a career move? Don’t be “psyched out” by the economy or what you hear “on the street.” Your reality — whether launching a campaign or finding a job — is your necessity. Will it be hard? Sure. When did success stop being hard — in good times or bad?

How Young Are You?

Of course you know that in the United States it’s illegal to deny someone employment based on their age. But it’s not for maturity.

Maturity and age are very different things.

Typically, maturity comes with age. Why? Because by the time you’ve lived a few years, you’ve learned so many life lessons that you’ve become much more settled in how you view life and react to life’s ups and downs — at least that’s the idea. I’ve seen my share of older people act, and react, like 15 year olds.

But you can be young and mature, too. It could be that you simply absorb life lessons easily, or you had experiences at a young age that most don’t have until much later — or at all.

How is this a career move? Maturity is an extremely valuable commodity for young or old. From an employer’s point of view, it’s easy to get caught in a trap of connecting age and maturity. From your perspective, it’s important to project a maturity that goes well beyond the expectations that others have just by looking at you.

Leadership Is A Skill.

We can debate all day whether there are born leaders or if someone can learn to lead. But I would say, even if you are born to lead, anyone who wants to lead needs to learn to lead. After all, you might have the natural ability to throw a 100 mile an hour fast ball, but if you don’t spend time learning to deliver that ball over a small box that’s 90 feet away, you’ll never have a career in the Majors.

Just like learning how to back flip a Q-TIP trust, or write a direct mail piece that causes money to rain from your mailbox, if you want to lead, you need to put yourself in situations where you can study and practice leadership.

So your career move this week? If you want to lead, then learn how. Sign up for a class, ask your boss about some “on the job” training or find a coach or a mentor. Regardless of how you decide, remember that leadership takes learning, and before long, you could be leading in the Major Leagues.

Is It Good To Be King?

I know you’ve heard the expression, “It’s good to be King.” There’s a lot to be said for being in charge. There’s a sense of control. You may get to set your own schedule. There’s the respect that comes with the job. And, of course, there’s the money.

But are you suited to be King? Is your personality right for leadership?

That’s not a slam against you or your abilities, it’s just a fact. Some are better able to deal with the issues that come with being in charge.

I think we’ve all met them. You know the type … s/he is a great person and really good at what was valued in the organization: major gifts, direct mail, planned giving, whatever. It was clear that this was a leader among those who did that important task. So when an opening came up, naturally, s/he filled the job.

And it was a disaster.

Personnel issues, organization problems, difficulty dealing with new peers and superiors. And what’s more, s/he was never again as effective at doing what got he or she there in the first place!

So much for it being great to be King!

So our career take-away today? Yeah, it’s great to be King. But you have to prepare to be King. That means a candid assessment of your own personality and skills. Is being in charge right for you, or are you more successful focusing your natural talents and skills on what makes you happy and effective?