Successful? or More Successful?

Recently, someone asked me the question "What industry are you successful in?" Initially, I was at a loss. I have been invited to speak at the IIBA (International institute of business analysis), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. I have published an article in Mortgage Banking Magazine, and am currently co-authoring another article with the CEO of my firm. The projects I've been are are hugely varied. Am I a technology guy? A mortgage guy? A speaker on Gen Y?

I had never really thought about success as being limited to an industry before, but it did beg the question -- What exactly is "success"? I've always wanted to be successful, but I never considered myself a "Top 25 under 25 entrepreneurs" kind of guy.

Success means that you are making progress in your life goals. You cannot ever be "Successful" if you are not moving towards something, but can be more successful as you continually create new goals for yourself. Conversely, you can never be a 'failure'. It doesn't really matter where you start, as long as your making forward progress.

If you want to be a writer and you publish an article, you are more successful than before. If you want to move up in the company and the director wants you to work on a special project, you are more successful than before. If you are unemployed and need a job, getting an interview means you are more successful than before.

There is no line between 'successful' and 'unsuccessful'. Success is not reaching a six figure salary. It is not the title of 'VP'. As long as you are progressing to what you want to accomplish, I would say you are successful. This blog is dedicated to helping you progress, no matter where your start point is.

Asking for an honorarium - failed attempt.

I was recently invited to speak at Freddie Mac's Analyst Community Exchange:

A group of people interested in learning about trends, standards, techniques, best practices, publications, and training related to requirements elicitation, specification, classification, attribution, validation, and management in Freddie Mac development projects. We also seek to present Freddie Mac business-related topics to increase our member's business acumen. 

I responded to the email asking the following:

1.  Will there be a projector set-up?
2.  Is this open to all people including non-Freddie employees? - And can I invite people?
3.  Is there an honorarium?
4.  Approximately what is the size of the group? (5? 20? 100?)

I asked the first question as an opener, an easy question so I don't seem so harsh.  Question 2 was figuring out if it was a private organization.  I am guessing that, public/nonprofit organizations do not give honorariums, and for profit/private organizations should.

That brings me to the third question -- will I get paid?  And the last one plays two roles.  One is to sandwich in the ugly question #3 so they do not dwell on that (people usually remember the first and last thing the most).  And secondly, it lets me know if the honorarium is reasonable (based on audience size).

I got the response back, and basically this is only open to Freddie Mac employees and there is no honorarium.  Bummer.  A couple of thoughts:

• I definitely did the right thing by asking.  You always want to ask for some benefit to yourself, whether it's monetary or not.  He didn't get mad at me for wanting money, in fact, he apologized that there would be no honorarium -- nothing lost by asking.
• My main question is, should I have asked for an honorarium in a more direct manner?  Perhaps a statement such as, "My typical honorarium is $1000." And then see what the response is?
• Another question is now that I've been "shot down"  Is it appropriate to ask for smaller things like travel expenses?

Happiness 101 - Positive Psychology

Two weeks ago, I started taking an online "class", Harvard University's most popular class, Psychology 1504 Positive Psychology.  Harvard has made videos of the lectures available online.  A loose collective of individuals came together via a google group called Happiness 101.  We follow the class 'in real-time' which means that the class took 12 weeks to finish, so we will take 12 weeks to finish as well.  Every Sunday, we meet online and discuss the lectures. I think this is pretty amazing, and here is why:

The vast majority of participants are Gen Y.  Yes, this is ancedotal evidence, but I have a hard time picturing Gen Xers or Boomers self selecting to participate in this class.  We learn everything on the internet, from the benefits of a double mascectomy to what goatse is.  Why not take it one step further?

This is a loose collective of people coming together and doing something, not because they can make money, but because of passion to improve oneself.

Of course, people have been self organizing for a very long time (book clubs, knitting clubs, biking clubs), but technology allows us to now easily access the best minds in the world (Harvard, MIT etc, TED, etc)


20SomethingTakeaway:
If you are doing something 'on the side' just because you are interested in it, how can you relate that to work?  You really get no benefit from keeping it to yourself.  Figure out a way to get some benefit out of learning stuff you don't have to.  If you can write a freelance article, do it!  If you can come up with an 1 hour brown bag presentation for your company, do it! You don't need a "good reason" to do this.  Just send out an email saying, I want to teach you about XYZ.  At the minimum, you are building political capital within the organization.  You can even go to your Director of VP and say, "Hey, I've been taking a class in positive psychology and would like to share what I've learned by giving a presentation during lunch.  Would you be interested in coming?" I bet they would be.  And I bet they would be impressed as well!

Once you have a big boss coming, getting the rest of his or her downline to come is going to be no problem. (Tell them, I'm doing this presentation and the Director was interested in attending, so I figured I would invite all of you too!)

The bottom line is looking for a Win/Win situation where you can pursue your passion projects AND leverage the 'thing you would be doing anyway' in order to build political capital in your organization.

10 Reason why I should be sent to TechCrunch

10.  The tech community has a closed social network, meaning they only really interact with themselves -- They need more 'outsiders' like me to attend.
9.  One way to get an outsider to attend who normally would not attend is to give away free tickets!
8.  Brilliant ideas that are at TechCrunch can inspire not just other techies, but regular folk in  'traditional' business.
7.  Nobody has really taken the time to see how TechCruch relates to mortgage giant Fannie Mae - I can do this and talk about it (they are one of my clients)
6.  Great ideas spread like viruses, what better way than to infect a speaker? I give presentations about Business Analysis as well as Generation Y.
5.  I've published articles, TechCrunch can find a whole new audiance in them.
4.  TechCrunch will have a chance to influence me in the formulative years of my career.
3.  I still have a lot to learn about what innovative ways there are to use technology
2.  I am easily inspired by great ideas
1.  It will be a LOT of fun! =)

Searching for Job Satisfaction

Earlier, I wrote about how the Chief of Staff wanted to meet with me and discuss our companies people strategy. First, it's an amazing feeling when it's not you who is going to the senior management team and begging for an audience, but the other way around. Kudos to her for realizing that 20Somethings have a unique perspective and can make a big contribution.

Second, I spent the night before preparing for the meeting. This is an important step, and you should never skip it. Remember, in order to succeed, we need to use our natural strengths to our advantage. I came up with lots of stuff, and the discussion went really well. A portion of our discussion was about what people are looking for in a job. I found a really helpful and interesting post on the HBS Editor's Blog entitled Make Sure You're Engaging Your Top Talent. The most interesting thing I took away was this part:

Intellectual stimulation

Inspiration, or strong belief in the mission of the enterprise

Camaraderie/social interaction

Time/flexibility/convenience

Advancement up the ranks

Financial rewards

Various extra freebies and boondoggles

Basically, this is what people look for. And when they do not get enough of the top ones, they are unhappy. However, when you ask why they are unhappy, they only mention the bottom ones. People either do not really understand why they are unhappy or are afraid to say it, and use the bottom ones as a cop out.

20Something TakeAway:
When you complain about the low items on the list, think if that is really at the cause of your dissatisfaction. If you chase the bottom ones, perhaps you will never be truly satisfied with your job. On job searches, try to come up with some questions that will help you understand how well the organization scores on the top few bullets.

I'm Published in Mortgage Banking Magazine!

Several months ago, I spent about a month on and off co-authoring an article for the Mortgage Bankers Association's Mortgage Banking Magazine. This magazine is the premier trade magazine for Mortgage Banking! You can check out a PDF version of my article here:

The Promise and Perils of Reverse Mortgages

As a 20Something, credibility is something that we need to work very hard to develop. It will open all sorts of doors for you if you can be seen as credible. So what does it take to build credibility? It's made up of two parts, Trustworthiness and Expertise. Being published by a trade magazine is relatively easy because they have so few contributors, but it increases your Trustworthiness factor by a LOT. The thinking goes, 'If Mortgage Banking Magazine trusts him, who am I to qualm?'. Furthermore, you are seen as 'vetted' by the community and are accorded the due respect.

Another benefit of today's internet driven world is that you can write an article and shop it around without ever telling anyone your age. This helps you avoid the bias against 20Somethings, which makes it more likely you will get published.

The Towel-Monkey and Pivot Points

A pivot point is where a small difference in performance can make a big difference to a customer.

The first night after checking into a cruise, I came back to my room to see a elephant folded from towels on my bed. Each night it was something else, a monkey, a sting ray, a swan. This is a perfect example of a pivot point. On a cruise, you expect great food, you expect room service, but folded towel-monkeys? Not so much. Everyone on the boat is absolutely delighted with them. One day, when I came back from a day long tour only to find that I didn't have a towel-animal, I found myself to be very sad -- much sadder than I expected.

These little towel-animals make such a big impact that I even saw one person, on their last night on the cruise, seek out the room steward and tip him, exclaiming, "We LOVED the animals!"

Someone else commented that they pictures of each animal every night before the go to bed. Another said they adopt each one and form a "mini-zoo" in the stateroom.

I'm pretty sure that no other thing on the entire ship can meet this in terms of value. Folding an animal must be incredibly cheap, but the payoff is unbelievable.

This goes to show that pivot points don't have to be expensive endeavors, and are really impressive. Remember, the value of a pivot point is inversely related to how much it is expected.

20Something TakeAway:
Think of your personal pivot point -- What can you do as an employee that people would be delighted with?