Finding courage to steer your career

Finding courage to steer your career Its a lot easier to give advice than to implement it. You can imagine how acutely aware of this I must be. After Ive given out the same piece of advice twenty times (for example, get a mentor), there comes a point when I cant face myself if I dont follow it. Sometimes I try to scare myself. I tell myself that my career will go nowhere and I am wasting my time and I will never get what I want without self-discipline. What I really want from that lecture-to-self, though, is courage to do what is difficult. Part of having career success is finding the courage to implement what you know you should do. Here are three things Ive come across recently that inspire courage: 1. Courage to start a new business I have a friend who is studying artificial intelligence at a big university. He tells me that most of the graduate students are ostensibly working on the PhDs, but theyre really waiting to find some cool company to go work for. I dont think this is unique to the artificial intelligence geniuses. I think many, many people are waiting for a good idea. But you cant always tell its a great idea until you try it. When I asked Guy Kawasaki how you know to move forward with a business, he said, Launch it. Then he paused and said, Dont worry, be crappy. So really, you need to just get out and try the business. Thats hard, though. Instigator Blog inspires courage to start by listing five reasons why you should go ahead and say yes to a new business even if you fear it might fail: Youll learn something. Even if the idea doesnt fly, youll learn something valuable. Youll get a rush of adrenaline when you jump in. Youll realize the value of an idea. Youll get a chance to connect with people. Youll be inspired. (Thanks, Emily) 2. Courage to make networking strategic and deliberate Of course, networking is good, and you should do it. But its hard. And probably the hardest part is fearing that the person will not be receptive to your networking efforts. But you still need to be strategic, even in the face of rejection. Ben Casnocha, who surely must be the recipient of hundreds of networking overtures, writes that someone recently tried a nifty networking move on him that he liked: After we met he studied my blog and reached out to a couple of my friends. After they heard I met with him, they too took a meeting. After they met with the guy they emailed me and we shared our mutual impressions (positive!). Great strategy. The more entry points you have in a relationship with someone the stronger it is. This is good advice from Ben, but what really stands out to me is that Ben seems to truly appreciate having the chance to meet this guy. This should give you courage to make overtures of your own. 3. Courage to take control of your own time All sorts of polls show that time away from the office is a top priority for Generations X and Y. But not everyone does a great job at drawing the boundaries that preserve a home life. In general, its hard to draw boundaries because it always seems that what we are involved in is so much more important that violating the boundaries this time is okay. But Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook shows us that courage to protect his personal life knows no limits. The Wall St. Journal reports: During one series of talks with Microsoft, Facebook executives told their Microsoft peers they couldnt do an 8 a.m. conference call because the companys 22-year-old founder and chief executive, Harvard dropout Mark Zuckerberg, wouldnt be awake, says a person familiar with the talks. Microsoft executives were incredulous.