Tag Archives: Career Change

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

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Here’s the first YouTube video in the ’15 and forgiveness’ series mentioned in the ‘15af for career changers‘ post.

‘Just5Rules‘ is my YouTube channel for personal growth and career change material.
By clicking the YouTube ‘Like’ button you increase the chances that the video content will be seen by others.

Part One: 15 And Forgiveness – Introduction

Below is the embedded video, and underneath is the transcript.
Enjoy! (And please remember to tweet this post to help get the message out.)

15af – Introduction – Edited Transcript

Hello and welcome to markmccluretoday.com.

This is Mark McClure and I’ve got a special treat for you.

It’s an interview I did with Al Secunda, the author of ‘The 15-Second Principle‘.

I’ve called it ‘15 and forgiveness.’ (15af)

And when you download and listen to it, I think you’ll find out why.

But just before we start the interview, I’d like to introduce you to Al and his work,
and why it had such a big effect on me.

And how I think it can help career changers and people with major life changes, in
fact, make progress towards their dream goal or vision.

Some people dream of making big changes for the better in their life or career, yet create only ‘castles in the
air‘. Others set specific goals but avoid ever taking action.

One man who has faced all the above in his own life and finally decided to do something
about it, is motivational speaker, workshop leader coach, and author of ‘The 15-Second Principle’, Al Secunda.
(Al’s wonderful book is available on Amazon.com and really helped me keep going when I began my mid-life career change journey some years ago (2005).)

In fact, I found his approach so helpful in moving forward that I finally plucked up the courage
and asked him to do a telephone interview, my first; so you can imagine I was a little nervous.

(The interview’s) all about using the 15-second principle.

In just under two hours, Al Secunda shared freely from his experiences and knowledge, and we covered a lot of topics, and had a bit of fun too. I’m going to read out just five highlights from the first thirty minutes:

    • 1) Connecting fifteen and forgiveness with your dream goals.
      (This is probably the crux of the whole interview really.)
    • 2) The Zen-like answer to, “what can you do in fifteen seconds?”
    • 3) Why pleasure before precision helps learn a new skill.
    • 4) Discover how ‘faithing’ and ‘taking action’ go hand-in-hand.
    • (5), Getting comfortable with discomfort; what he calls the ‘inclusion factor’.

Now, there’s a whole lot more in the remaining hour or so, so you should (probably) get a pencil and a note pad out, if you’re wise, and take some notes.

(Because) It’s really valuable information.

As far as downloading the interview is concerned, I recommend if you have a cable broadband or faster internet connection, you should be able to download it no problem.

It’s a twenty five (25) megabyte file and it took me about five minutes to download the same (file) sitting here in Japan, with the file on a server in the US. So, if I can do it over (under?!) the Pacific, I think you should be able to do it with a cable broadband connection, if it’s reasonably reliable.

Now, before you start listening, I recommend that to get the very best from the interview, you first think of a big goal or dream you’ve been putting off starting for ages.

So, typically for career changers, it is in fact making progress on figuring out what they can change their career to, or moving on to something different.

Apply Al’s 15 and Forgiveness Approach Today

Have that in mind – what’s holding you up, what that dream is, then listen to the interview, and then right after it, as soon as the interview is finished, NOT the next day, not two hours later, but right away, apply Al’s 15 and forgiveness approach, and see what happens.

And if you want some support, or you want to let others know how you are getting on, just drop by my blog, at markmccluretoday dot com, and let me know. Leave a comment in one of the posts, the latest post, and i’ll see it. And if you’ve got something useful to share, I’ll make sure everybody else knows about it too.

Okay, let’s start the interview now. Enjoy.

- Mark McClure

PS: The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:
http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

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15af for Career Changers

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This is the opening post in a series designed to highlight the wisdom and experience of motivational author, Al Secunda. I first wrote about Al over four years ago in this post titled, “15 and Forgiveness in Action“. His book, ‘The 15-Second Principle“, is one of my favorite personal growth books, partly because he’s been up close and personal with very successful A-list Hollywood stars, as their some time tennis coach.

Al’s counterintuitive approach to goal setting has as its premise a seeming contradiction.
I’m roughly paraphrasing here but “either you don’t really want this goal OR you’re scared to death of it.”

Career Change Faint Heart

There’s a lot of nonsense talked by so-called gurus and coaches who trumpet the “do what you love” mantra to often unhappy people looking for direction in their choice of vocation.

It’s nonsense because it appeals to people who dream of career change but would run a mile if they actually had to engage critical thinking skills, and then do it. Alas, some of them get caught in subtle co-dependency marketing webs spun by ‘teachers’ whose primary aim is to build their own streams of income, usually at their clients’ expense.

Far, far better for these “castles in the air” dreamers to discover by themselves, and mostly for free, that career change is probably NOT for them.

Al’s book is a guide to helping you ditch goals you thought you (or often, someone else in your life) wanted to achieve before much harm is done, or time and money ‘wasted’…

… leaving you freer and happier to pursue those goals that really DO scare you to death!

15 and Forgiveness now on YouTube

Although the original two-hour mp3 audio interview still gets downloaded, I want to present the content to a much bigger audience than this blog. I also want to add a transcript for people to skim through.

I will therefore be adding the interview to YouTube as a multi-media series with a link to each transcript on this site.

I encourage you to share these YouTube videos with your friends and followers using social media tools such as FaceBook, Twitter, Google Plus and others.

15af – Video 01 – Introduction

This video introduces Al Secunda and his book, The 15-Second Principle, setting the scene for the interview itself.
The video is 4m 47s and the transcript is around 700 words.
Click ‘15af – Video 01 – Introduction‘ to watch this video and read the transcript.

The Original 2 Hour MP3 Interview with Al Secunda

The original ‘15 and forgiveness‘ audio interview is available here:

http://www.markmccluretoday.com/fifteen-and-forgiveness.html

- Mark ‘scared-to-death goal setter‘ McClure

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“They’re out of touch, they’re out of time”

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Time for another visit to God’s wee country where, despite the media’s obsession with localized rioting and anarchy, most people are just trying to get on with life.

The view from the “Far East” is somewhat different, as fallout from political and financial nukes exploding in Euroland, seemingly on an almost weekly basis now, drifts this way.

Quite simply, the economic fates of both Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are in the hands of others. One’s locked into externally-imposed austerity and the Euro-project. The other’s dependent mainly on state largese and how deep go the government’s public sector cuts.

There are, however, some chinks of light in the financial gloom; the entrepreneurial technology sector being one.

When a good idea meets well-educated people and the necessary seed capital, great things can happen. A superb example is Andor Technology’s prowess in the scientific digital camera market. (Andor was started in Belfast and maintains its head office there.)

Of course, these successes are relatively minor in the greater scheme of things and the reality is that smart, ambitious and (often) young Irish people are again emigrating in increasing numbers.

And who can blame them?

I did something similar in 1987 and, while I miss my family and the green, green grass of home, the gains have outweighed the losses.

And yet, mortality will have its say one day. In more practical terms, the vitality of youth knows no bounds till tempered by experience. Not sure who may have said that but the message is usually clear enough by mid-life.

And it goes something like this:

Is it true that your career is your own and you form it?

- Mark ‘mid-career changer’ McClure

PS – The post title’s a play on lyrics from that wonderful Hall and Oates song, “Out of Touch”. Are ‘youse’ listening? :-)

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Your Goals and a Mongoose

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Jason Ball, of GoodPeopleJapan, retweeted an interesting post today from the self-styled “World’s Strongest Librarian“, Josh Hanagarne. (And after seeing what Josh can do with kettle balls, I’ve no reason to doubt his claim. Would make an unusual Reality TV show, on location in gym and library…)

Josh’s post was very sure of itself.

Strong, even.

In fact, from looking around his site, I’d say Josh has a good grip (pun intended) on what “personal transformation” is all about.

I interpreted Josh’s post as follows:

1- Take a big goal you want to achieve e.g. career change, weight loss, learn a language.

2- Set three boundary conditions.
(Josh states these as questions.)

Er, that’s it.

You can read his post here:

“Three Questions and The Best Advice I ever Heard.”

The only thing I’d add is a chat about “how to unleash your inner mongoose…”.

And you can find how out to do that, for free, right here: “Fifteen and Forgiveness”

- Mark ‘mongoose’ McClure

PS – Apply Josh’s 3 questions to a goal of your own and see what starts to happen.

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Your Online Resume is Everywhere

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Back in the day (we’re talking 1990s) I used to spend a couple of hours every year keeping my paper resume up-to-date.

‘The Internet’ was still a phrase used mainly by geeks and required connecting a modem to a phone line, and then dialing into your email. Lord knows if anyone ever got hired online lol!

Anyway, step forward nearly 20 years, and while paper resumes are still handled and looked at, for many hiring managers the first touch will be a digital one.

Oh, I know what you’re thinking:

I’ll just update my paper resume to an online format.

That approach can still work, especially if you have contacts within the corporate world.

But it won’t be too long before the resume as a standalone document will be only one of several online scores that determine whether you even get to first base i.e. an ‘interview’.

And I’m not referring to the daily digital footprint you leave online.  That’s a mainly passive and reactive view of the persona you appear to be. I say, ‘appear’, because at the moment, “on the Internet no one knows you’re a dog”.

(Check out that famous cartoon from the New Yorker magazine a while back.)

No, if you want to become top of mind for many of those looking for talent via the web, you’ll have to start creating an active and responsive trail leading to the real you.

And how is that done?

Well, here’s someone who’s done all of that and more. And who now looks for the same, or better, in the talent he hires.

The article’s titled “Seven Ways to Position Yourself for Unlimited Work, by Joe Pulizzi.

True, the article’s thrust is toward creative types in the media e.g. journalists, freelance writers and marketers.

However, in a vast digital world where talent for almost any career path’s now located far and wide, you will need to be very clear in your online message and presence. Of course, the ‘offline’ you is still very important but there’s a merging of digital with physical coming, courtesy of awesome networked computing power and bandwidth.

Be prepared!

- Mark McClure

PS – This is the final post on this blog for 2010.

I’ll have a short break for Japanese New Year celebrations and then it’s full steam ahead in the “Year of the rabbit”. Happy New Year!

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