December 2005

Today we’re looking at two resources for people thinking of embarking on a new career, or people about to start their journey into the job world.

Dick Richards is the author of a major new book called IS YOUR GENIUS AT WORK? 4 Key Questions To Ask Before Your Next Career Move. The core of his approach is that every individual has a particular, specific, unique purpose here on earth, and that once we’ve understood what this purpose is, we’re free to flow through life more easily, and more productively. He calls this unique purpose our ‘genius’.

This book takes you through a series of friendly exercises to help reveal your genius to you.

The name of my genius is ‘Guiding the Flow’. It’s something that accurately describes me. It encircles my good points AND my bad. For instance, when I find my own flow being blocked by someone, I get frustrated. On the plus side, when I enter a room, I immediately start working out ways to nudge things into a better flow.

Dick has two websites for you to visit to help you uncover the name of your own genius. His blog is called Come Gather Round, and it’s a space where he updates his thinking on genius. He also runs a discussion forum aimed specifically at getting people to chat freely about their genius-discovery process. It’s called the Genius Workshop Google Group, and it’s well worth spending time there.

I recommend that you try an exercise to bring you some enlightenment.

The book is a must-have. It’s not yet available on South African shelves, so you’ll need to grab a copy from Amazon. I’m fortunate to know Dick via email, and he sent me an advance copy. (I created a weekend workshop based on an earlier book of his called Setting Your Genius Free.)

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Richard Nelson Bolles changed my life. Twice. Each time, the change came about because of my working through his book, WHAT COLOR IS YOUR PARACHUTE? The book changed my life the first time while I was languishing away in an engineering degree at Wits, hating every second of engineering (while loving varsity life), and not knowing what to do about the situation. I came across the book, and worked out that I was a creative being, and that I needed to honour that. So I followed my love, and have been a fulltime creator ever since.

The book has two major sections. The first is a set of guided exercises that help you find out what kind of job you’d LIKE to do. You complete a ‘flower diagram’, which gives you an overview of your job skills, wants, likes, needs. Once you have a flower diagram, you pretty much know yourself better.

The second section is how to find an ACTUAL JOB that fulfills your requirements. His idea is that you CAN find a job tailor-made for you.

Visit his website — The Job Hunter’s Bible — to find a wealth of resources on job hunting, as well as a few exercises to get you started.

Both of these books are must-haves. And both authors sites are must-visits.

Good luck with your search for a new you!

For a full podcast of this item, please visit http://schmucknews.libsyn.com.

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So you’ve been on holiday, and you want to come home safely. Or you haven’t been on holiday and you want to find a different route to work.

In comes a journey planning tool courtesy of Shell that’ll help keep peace in the car: ShellGeostar.co.za.

There are several sections to the tool, but the three most important ones are:

• The route planner
• Where to stay
• Where to eat

I’m particularly interested in the route planner. So I typed in two suburbs I know, one in Cape Town, one in Auckland Park. And the system spat out wonderfully detailed directions, which are explicit and easy to follow.

Better still is the mapping system. It breaks each section of the route into bite-sized pieces, leaving nothing up to chance. I’m pretty certain that only the MOST geographically challenged people MIGHT get confused. Here’s a tip: on a map, the top of the picture is north.

It’s as simple as that.

The ‘Where to Eat’ and ‘Where to Stay’ sections are almost as useful as the route planner. I know Rosebank quite well, and found several good recommendations. But I also found an Indian restaurant I didn’t even know existed.

Drive home safely, and print out your maps, and eliminate end-of-holiday-in-the-car-rage.

Listen to a full podcast of this item at http://schmucknews.libsyn.com.

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