A few months ago I interviewed Jeff Yalden a prominent professional speaker in the youth market. Jeff and I talked extensively about his start in professional speaking, how he markets his business, his recent MTV gig, and much more. If you are interested in public speaking or motivational speaking you will be interested in this podcast.

This podcast can also be found on a site I don’t really maintain anymore Successful Motivational Speakers.com. I plan reposting some of those podcasts on this site for more exposure. As well as interviewing more successful people in different industries.

There are several different ways you can listen:

Download mp3 version

This post is for my fellow bloggers. Steve Dembo from Teach42.com posted a very thought provoking post on how to determine if you are a successful blogger or not. If you blog at all you must read Steve’s post.

Mary Ann Bailey has recently written a good article on Five Bad Habits to avoid being stuck in work and in life.

1. Believing What You Think – Bailey says the average mind thinks about 60,000 thoughts a day and most of us believe 99 percent of what we think.  Are your thoughts holding you back from getting ahead?  Have people been speaking negatively about you for so many years that you can not shake off those negative comments?
2. Blaming Others For Our Circumstances – the blame game doesn’t cut it in life.  I have found that every time I want to blame someone else for my failure or problem the real problem lies with me, not with them.  No matter what your circumstances are, you are the only one who can truly change your situation.
3. Taking Life(Yourself) Too Seriously – Bailey says we need to balance ourselves with fun and humor in our lives to get the most out of it.
4. Living Life in the Middle – Bailey encourages readers to break out of your comfort zone and come close to the edge of uncomfortable.  Life in the middle is boring and does not produce much excitement.  As the great philosopher and real estate mogul Richard Davis says, “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.”
5. Falling Prey to the Fear of the Unknown – She makes some very good points on how fear can really hold us back from reaching our potential in life.  Bailey uses the acronym False, Evidence, Appearing, Real, as a way to describe what fear really is.

I liked the points she made in the article.  It is a good personal development and career development article.

If you are looking for an internship this summer About.com has a great articles on the top 10 internship sites to search on the web.  They recommend places like MonsterTrak, WetFeet, Idealist.org and other popular sites.

I would also recommend you talk to your career center at school, look at regional organizations who may help local companies find qualified talent, talk with professors, and of course network at job fairs.  The internet is a great place to find information about companies and learn about job openings but don’t forget the best way to find a job is through professional networking.

Can you ever network enough?

In June of 2006 I was at a conference in Philadelphia. While attending a session on Science, Technology, Engineering, and math careers I met a man fromThis casual contact I made a completely unrelated conference has given me the opportunity to have my book stocked in the Delaware County Community College and is being assessed for sale at West Chester University and the entire state system of higher education in Pennsylvania.

Do casual contacts matter? ABSOLUTLEY!

Some quick networking tips:

1. Don’t throw away business cards

2. Follow up with a quick email after you meet people

3. Start your own database of contacts; you never know why you will need it.

4. Will every contact you make result in unbelievable business advantages or career advantages for you? No, but if you didn’t network at all you would never have a chance to get ahead through your network.

5. Don’t network simply for personal gain. I get much more satisfaction for helping people in my network than I do benefiting from people in my network.

Happy networking!

There were a couple of articles on USAToday.com that I thought I would share with you on MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube.

I found it interesting that a recent research study says that half of users on MySpace are over 35 and only 30% are under 25.

Myspace had 56 million unique visitors in August
Facebook 15 million
Friendster one millon

MySpace Article

The other articles is on YouTube. According to the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and other leading publications, YouTube has been recieving offers galora this past couple of weeks. Most recently Google has apparently offered 1.6 Billion for the video site. Do you use YouTube? Do you even know what it is? If you are at all interested in the new media I am sure you have an understanding of how amazing this service is. If not, you will soon. If Google doesn’t buy them Yahoo or Microsoft will. They all have video services that need YouTube.

Check out this great blog post from the tech writer at USAToday on the speculation around You Tube.

I had an interesting experience that I thought I would share with you today.

My colleague and I were asked to present at a school district today on technology industry in the Pittsburgh region with the intent of helping this district shape their curriculum to industry needs.

It was announced to us that we would “brainstorm” with a few teachers from the district on what they might be able to do to better prepare their students for the real world. However, as we arrived to the school we soon found out that our understanding of “brainstorming” and their understanding of “brainstorming” was quite different. As we walked into the classroom where 25 teachers were waiting, the first question our host asked us was weather or not we needed a projector for our presentation. I will have to say that I don’t get all that nervous about presenting to groups any more, but when you are asked to begin presenting in five minutes with nothing to say, that makes me a little nervous.

My colleague began the presentation talking about some of our initiatives and our organizations but soon ran out of things to say. We simply were not ready for something like this. As he began to lose his train of thought he turned to me for help. Thankfully just as he was losing is place I remembered that I had a presentation that was perfect for what we were talking about. He turned it over to me hoping that I could come up with something to say. Thankfully I did. I was able to locate the presentation quickly and then dive into a discussion that lasted nearly two hours. We were able to tag team our presentation and turn it into something very beneficial to this district. In fact we received an email later in the day thanking us for what a great job we did.

Here is my point. Are you ready for the unexpected in your job? Are you ready for the unexpected in your next job interview? You never know what someone might through your way. Or in our case you never know when you will have to present on a topic at a moments notice. Thankfully my colleague and I talk about this information all the time, we just didn’t have it readily available at the beginning of our presentation. It all worked out in the end because we were able to think on our feet and was ready in season and out.

What is the future of the resume, as we know it?

Maybe I am feeling like an anti-establishment today but how can you tell what a person is really like by a piece of paper? If you are ain HR can you really tell who a person is by looking at their resume? Companies spend thousands of dollars to hire the right workforce for their company. Why do they rely on these pieces of paper to tell them who is qualified and who is not qualified to work at their company.

Your resume is sometimes the only message you get to send a perspective employer. Does your resume really convey who you are? How can it? I believe there is far more to you as a person than a one page 8.5 x 11 piece of white resume paper could ever capture.

As I grow in this profession I am becoming more and more convinced that a resume just doesn’t cut it any more. So what can you do? How can you prove to a company that you are valuable and have the skills they are seeking?

• If you are unemployed try and find short term consulting projects with companies you would like to work for in a full time capacity. If you act as a consultant you may be unemployed without healthcare benefits but at least you will be earning some money. This is a great source of networking. Consulting will keep your skills sharp as well.
• If you are a student try to land an internship at a company. Some companies are hiring up to 50 percent of their interns full time. Students may also be able to work with a professor or teacher to land a short term project like a consultant as well.
• Write professional articles about your profession and post them on your web site and submit them to free article sites like Search Warp or Article Marketer. There are hundreds of these sites available for you to submit content. Again, this props you up as an expert.
• Create a podcast about your profession. Interview professionals in your field. This can be a great source of networking. It will also make you look like an expert in your field if you can produce a high quality podcast.

The point to all of this musing is to make the point that a simple resume is not enough in the 21st century. No matter how much resume help you receive you may need to do more than submit an 8.5 x 11 piece of paper to a company to get your foot in the door. Your resume may have been written by one of the leading resume writers on the planet but it still may not be enough.

I predict that in 10 years resumes will not be as important as they once were. What will be important is personal contacts and communication vehicles that better portray who you really are rather relying on a piece of paper.

I don’t know about you but when I fly I typically don’t like to talk to the person or persons next to me. I usually put on my iPod or mp3 player and zone out. However, on a recent trip back from Washington D.C. I sat beside someone I could not talk to enough.

As I sat down in my seat I noticed a women who looked quite tired from a long day of doing business in Washington. She was on her cell phone so I squeezed into the seat next to her trying not to disturb her. As she ended her phone call she looked out the small plane window and seemed anxious to get home like I was.

As I said, normally I don’t play Mr. Congeniality on the airplane but I felt compelled to say hello to her and make small talk while we waited to take off. I introduced myself and asked her if she lived in Pittsburgh and why she was in Washington. She did live in Pittsburgh but what was more interesting was why she was in Washington.

I came to find out that she was in our nation’s capital lobbying congress on behalf of injured military soldiers. Her son Sgt. Jeremy W. Feldbusch was an Army Ranger in Iraq. He was severely injured back in 2003 by shrapnel that hit him in the head during a firefight with terrorists.

Jeremy and his team were securing a dam that was set to explode. As they were securing this area they were ambushed. As the fight raged on Jeremy and his team fought off the enemy for hours and hours. In fact Jeremy stayed on his machine gun for over 36 hours straight. Unfortunately at one point a piece of metal flew through the air and struck Jeremy in the forehead ripping out his right eye, sliding across his forehead and severely damaging his left eye. The laceration was so deep his brain was hit in such a way that it collapsed. He lost sight and had severe brain damage.

Charlene, his mother, told me this story on our short plane ride from DC like it had happened yesterday. She spoke so highly of Jeremy because of the person he has become through this seemingly insurmountable tragedy.

After three years and countless surgeries Jeremy Feldbusch is now a champion for other injured soldiers around the country. He and his mother lobby on behalf of those soldiers in congress to make sure they get what they deserve from Uncle Sam. Jeremy is a spokesperson for Wounded Warriors Project in Roanoke, VA. He travels the country speaking about his story and the stories of those he is determined to help.

Jeremy went to Iraq to defend out freedom, suffered huge injuries, and how is living his passion by helping other soldiers just like himself realize that they to can make a difference in this world. Jeremy could have reacted quite differently to this major incident in his life. And who would have blamed him? He did lose his sight, suffer brain damage, and have to have a titanium plate installed in his forehead to hold up his brain. But he didn’t. He is making the best of his life with or without his site.

This story was very motivating to me. It made me realize how pitiful our complaints can become when we feel everything isn’t going our way. Jeremy is a very inspirational person because of how he has reacted to a very bad incident in his life. A true test of our character is seeing how we react during tough times and not good times. Jeremy also found his passion in life. He travels the country for other soldiers like himself. He realized that he could make a difference through his work even though he has suffered so greatly.

In fact Jeremy’s story has even caught the attention of some filmmakers who followed the Feldbusch’s around for a year making a movie about Jeremy and his life after injury. The move is set for release in the near future. His mother tells me it will air on Showtime.

I want to say thank you to Jeremy Feldbusch and his mother Charlene for doing such a great job with the Wounded Warrior Project and helping so many of our injured men and women of the military.

I had the privilege of meeting Jeremy after I picked up my bags at the airport. His mother saw me get my bags and then called me over to meet this now infamous man. I was very glad I had the honor of shaking the hand of a man who gave up so much for his country but learned his passion in life by doing it.

Thanks again Jeremy and God bless you!

I want to thank Carrie at Penn State Shenango for bringing me into speak the other night to one of their Information Sciences Classes.

Penn State Shenango in Sharon, PA; about an hour and a half north of Pittsburgh or about an hour from where I grew up in Oil City, Pennsylvania.

I was there to speak on behalf of the Pittsburgh Technology Council, where I work full time. The focus of my talk was on the technology industry around Pittsburgh and general career advice for students looking to enter the technology field.
Here are a couple of highlights.

If you are looking to get into information technology, advanced manufacturing, life sciences, or any technical field in general make sure you have your technical skills mastered. However, make sure you don’t forget the soft skills. When I say soft skills I mean skills that are just as important as technical skills: public speaking, communication, writing, speaking, phone etiquette, listening, and many more.

Many technology workers, especially programmers think they won’t have to interact with very many of their co-workers since they are the technology people. Therefore they don’t concentrate much on their social skills. Every technology recruiter I have spoken with who is looking to hire someone has emphasized how important communication skills and soft skills are. In fact some have even gone as far to say they are more important. The fact of the matter is you can be trained how to be a better engineer, programmer or scientist, but it is hard to teach someone how to communicate better and how to write more effectively. This type of training will take years.

The one example from my own life I can think of is when I first started working at the Tech Council my writing skills were awful. Even with a book out some still might say that. My boss at the time politely laid a brochure on my desk for a business writing class. I had had business writing classes before but in her polite opinon not much of the information had stayed with me. She said the company would pay for me to attend this class, so I went. After I thought about it I realized that she was trying to help me improve my communication skills but in a discrete and polite fashion. I am really glad she did not come out and say,

“Justin your writing skills are horrible. Why don’t you take this class to see if they can help do anything to help you?”

Over time any many, many classes, I feel I have improved my writing skills a little bit. However, I will say that I needed a ton of editing on the manuscript for my book. It would have been awful without it.

A couple of suggestions on how to improve your soft skills:

1. Take a speech class (I recommend Toastmaster or Dale Carnegie)
2. Write more; specifically write about how you feel – work, personal life, etc…
3. Ask your friends or family members how you are when it comes to communication. Take their criticism seriously and don’t fluff it off. If you do, that should tell you a lot about how your are when it comes to communication.
4. Read or listen to books about personal communication and listening
5. Make a conscious effort to improve your communication skills by a certain date and then put together a plan to do so. If you don’t know how to do this, seek out some help from someone who you know is a great communicator.

In closing, I am really glad Jane had enough courage to kindly tell me to improve my communication skills because they really needed it. I am a better writer and speaker because of it.