How can you reignite your career with energy you've never before experienced?
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Find your strengths and passions. To assess your Primary Color go to www.primarycolor |
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Once you’ve found your Primary Color, move in the direction it points you. Think of one thing you loved at work last year. Can you integrate more of that into your current situation? |
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Take an idea at work and run it through the big, selfless and simple filter. Take an idea for your future and run it through the same filter. |
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Start to spark. What great dream do you have? Does it engage your strengths and passions? What are five risk-free actions you could take to explore the idea? How can you gather information and experience? |
Gaining ground
Propelling your career from good to great
This article is based on The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great by Rick Smith. Information is excerpted with the author’s permission.
Having transformed his own career, Rick Smith interviewed people who had transformed their work lives from mundane to magnificent. Based on his research results, Smith contends there is a path that almost everyone can follow to re-imagine work, reignite potential and make the leap to a more successful and fulfilling career.
Whether you feel trapped in a dead-end job that you’re afraid to leave or have a good job in which you’re not doing your best work, Smith’s ideas can help you unlock a new level of performance. Action is where it begins.
You begin the journey by identifying your strengths and passions. Smith calls this finding your Primary Color (see sidebar). Finding your Primary Color releases energy within you. The next step is to evaluate your passion against your current job and future career path.
Big, selfless, simple ideas
Tying your Primary Color to an idea that’s big, selfless and simple gives your energy form and direction, so you can translate it into an actionable plan. All ideas are not created equal, Smith explains:
- Big ideas break through the brain’s noise and clutter and cause us to notice them
- Selfless ideas appeal to our deeply seated sense of empathy and create a physiological urge to act
- Simple ideas spread quickly because they are easy to grasp and invite response
Live Aid, for example, was Bob Geldof’s big, selfless and simple idea. Live Aid brought some of the most recognizable people in the world together to confront potential mass starvation. Geldof urged, “Everyone can do something, no matter how big or small. Just do something.” Some people donated millions. Others contributed $5 or $10. The global response helped to address an intractable set of problems.
Look before you leap
Smith notes you don’t have to be fearless to make dramatic changes. Transformative change is ignited by a Spark Sequence, which allows you to build exposure and experience. The Spark Sequence lays the groundwork, allowing you to confirm opportunity and mitigate risks.
How can you look before you leap? Smith advises thinking of risks as four distinct types:
- Passion risk: Will I love it?
- Competency risk: Will I be good at it?
- Opportunity risk: Is there a real chance of success (i.e., marketing/selling)?
- Life-change risk: Once I pass the point of no return, will I be better off?
Smith further advises breaking each risk into its component parts so you can test drive your idea. Sparking entails educating yourself, experimenting with change and experiencing the future. Volunteering and mentoring or a part-time job can help you test your passion against the real world. Doing so gives you time and space to gather data, information and experience, helping ensure that you are leaping in the direction that’s right for you.
No matter what your current situation, Smith notes, happiness and fulfillment come only if you change and grow in a direction that’s yours alone. Your Primary Color points to the door that’s right for you to enter; big selfless and simple ideas open the door to your imagined future, and the Spark Sequence builds experience so you can choose a safe, accurate and quick way to reach your goals.
Smith encourages people to ask: What are you doing now? What should you be doing? What could you be doing? Focus on life-changing opportunities, he urges, that will increase your happiness and have a high probability of success. But also remember that the journey is what matters.
Rick Smith is the coauthor of The 5 Patterns of Extraordinary Careers and The Leap: How 3 Simple Changes Can Propel Your Career from Good to Great. He left an executive search firm to launch World 50, Inc., an elite and influential senior executive networking company. A serial entrepreneur, he is currently working on the launch of several new ventures. Find out more at www.leapbuilder.com.
