Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: careers

  • Favorite Authors: Parker Palmer

    I first came across Parker Palmer during my graduate work at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena. To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey was one of the required texts.

    He turned my assumptions about teaching and learning upside down!

    Some years later while developing my consulting practice, Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation became a key point of reference for how I chose to help people think differently about themselves and their career development.

    Palmer offers a refreshing if challenging perspective on human learning, maturity and wholeness that comfortably integrates spirituality, education, vocational aspirations and community engagement.

    Below are links to the Amazon.com pages for each of his books. Head over there now and nourish your own journey toward a more meaningful future.

    Must Read Books

    Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation

    A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life

    The Courage to Teach: Exploring the Inner Landscape of a Teacher’s Life

    Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit

    To Know as We Are Known: Education as a Spiritual Journey

    The Active Life: A Spirituality of Work, Creativity, and Caring

    The Promise of Paradox: A Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life

    The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Renewal

    You are a gift, and we all need you to show up fully and boldly in your life. While no one else can live your life for you, Parker Palmer will be an invaluable resource along the way.

    Favorite Authors are those unique writers whom I believe are worth reading everything they have written. Explore all my favorites here.

  • Listen In -> Lies and Myths We Believe About Work #3: You Have to Prove Yourself First

    This week’s lie would have us believe that we should prove our ability even though no opportunity has been afforded us to do so.

    How’s that for being caught between a rock and a hard place?!

    They’ll consider us for a supervisor role once we’ve proved that we can supervise. We can manage the budget once we can show a budget we’ve successfully managed.

    Join Claudia and I as we look into yet another career-wasting trap: “You have to prove yourself first.”

    Earning someone’s trust or building someone else’s confidence in your capabilities can be a no-win predicament. While you can work hard, learn quickly, and offer excellence, you can never control what makes another person willing to trust.

    Some people simply do not trust easily. Some people never trust anyone other than themselves. If you have one of these people as your boss, you could be spinning your wheels trying to prove yourself.

    They benefit from the extra efforts you invest, while you continue to wonder how high you need to jump.

    Stop wondering and join the conversation here on Working Matters.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Lies and Myths We Believe About Work #2: You Don’t Have What It Takes

    Are you giving away your best professional years trying to meet a standard that doesn’t exist?

    One of the both cruelest and emptiest barbs insecure people in power like to ambush people they do not understand with is, “You don’t have what it takes.”

    In this week’s podcast discussion, Claudia look at this unhelpful, diminishing, spirit-crushing accusation.

    What’s most interesting about this vague accusation is that it has no criteria by which we can demonstrate otherwise. There is no way to measure up. There is no “what it takes” being discussed.

    Whatever it is, though, you don’t seem to have it. This would be laughable if it were so hurtful.

    Do you find yourself giving vague accusations such as this one more power over you than they deserve?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Quote to Consider: To What End?

    quote-to-consider“Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after.”

    Henry David Thoreau

  • Listen In -> The Career Journey #4: Engaging Fully With Your Own Career Journey

    No one can make your career journey move forward but you.

    Yes, others are involved. Yes, circumstances intervene unexpectedly for good and ill.

    But we cannot wait for circumstances to change or others to act when it comes to our own next decision.

    We need to engage ourselves. Assume ownership of the stewardship of our lives. Get involved. Stay involved. Make our next decision, even if a small one.

    Join Claudia and I as we discuss this final—and most rewarding—aspect of The Career Journey.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> The Career Journey #3: What If You Were the Most Important Clue?

    We look for vocational validation from so many sources. Evidence, support, credentials, positions, titles, ranks, and on the list goes.

    Who or what will tell us what role, position, and/or field we should be investing ourselves in?

    But what if the most important clue were you? What if it were your own journey of learning and growing, developing interests, expanding skills, and need for ever increasing challenge that could give you the most meaningful information about the next steps in your career journey?

    This week Claudia and I discuss the value of using your own professional development as a crucial, if not central, source of clues for charting your path forward.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> The Career Journey #2: Thinking in Terms of a Journey Instead of a Destination

    When one stands at the beginning of a trail, one does not expect to be able to see the end.

    In fact, on a trail new to us, we don’t even know what to expect along the way.

    Such is the nature of our career journeys as well.

    This week Claudia and I discuss the value of the journey metaphor as a tool for better career planning.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #4: Structure

    Ah life.

    Yes, it does come down to making real choices in real time.

    In this week’s show, Claudia look at how setting goals can help us structure our choices.

    Instead of slowly and painfully suffocating in your current position, try setting one goal for yourself in three simple areas.

    1. Professional goal. A challenging contribution to the mission of the organization.
    2. Personal development goal. Tend to your own learning, growing, and maturing as a person.
    3. Relational goal. Make and deepen connections via networking, mentoring or collaboration opportunities.

    Working toward these three goals will give you a meaningful and rewarding reason for staying in your current position.

    When it is no longer possible to set a goal in any of these three areas, you then have a basis for making a move to another company or another field.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #3: Criteria

    After opening up so many possibilities by exploring clues last week, we now need a way to make choices. We need to go somewhere in particular instead of everywhere in general.

    What makes work meaningful and rewarding to you?

    The answer to that question is different for each of us.

    You may be looking for a particular role. You may want to fund a certain lifestyle. You may want to continually expand your responsibilities. You may want to leave work at the office at 5:00 p.m. You may be drawn to a certain industry.

    The key is to be able to articulate (to yourself) your criteria for making your next decision.

    Join Claudia and I as we discuss the value of knowing your criteria for making career decisions and the risks of not doing so.

    Listen in.

  • Listen In -> Planning Yourself Out of Career Suicide #2: Clues

    Clues instead of conclusions.

    When looking for a way out of a room with no light, is it more effective to grope around blindly until we find the exit or to pull out the key-chain flashlight in our pocket?

    A key-chain flashlight is not a very significant source of light. But bringing a small amount of light into a situation is actually far more helpful than continuing to grope blindly.

    In our second conversation about avoiding career suicide Claudia and I explore how to shed additional light on our job situation by looking for clues. Looking for clues opens up options. Drawing conclusions closes options off.

    While we eventually need to make a single choice, thinking that way at the beginning of the process in actually counter-productive. Watch the world open up when you begin by looking for clues.

    Listen in.