How do you develop yourself as a leader?

Planting the seeds of success consistently in ones life eventually leads to a discussion of leadership development. Ron Hurst, a fellow engineer and networking acquaintance of mine, posed this question recently, "How do you develop yourself as a leader?". I provided Ron my point of view on it, and he decided to publish part of my answer on his blog.

Several other professionals joined in the conversation and there seemed to emerge a common theme that leadership development requires real life leadership experiences and learning to use the faculties of the heart in everthing we do. Success begets success. Please read more...

Planting the "Seeds of Success"

Some of the best metaphors/analogies/lessons for life can be learned while working in the garden. I remember as a boy having to pick rocks out of the family garden, racking and weeding and finally planting seeds. I say "finally planting seeds" because that is where my work usually ended.

As an adult, I've come to learn there is a lot more work involved than just planting seeds if you want to enjoy the fruits of success. Just like a garden, you have to nurture and protect those seeds from intruders. Like the weeds in a garden, we need to be able to identifty early threats that would try to thwart our success.

Spring cleaning -and another job hunt.

As a father for four growing kids I am finding that the monthly outflow of money seems to be growing faster than normal pay raises can keep up with. So now I'm in the process of "upgrading" my employment.

For me this usually means searching for jobs or getting promoted in my current function. Searching for jobs can be tough work all by itself, especially when there's a layoff involved. Fortunately, there's no layoff this time and this is about the fourth time I've been through the process so I've learned to use some good principles like networking, resume building, and marketing myself.

EMPLOYMENT RECIPE

My complete employment recipe explains the job hunt process I go through in detail. It comes from my own experience, which has resulted in at least two substantial raises during my career including one that was 27% one year.

STANDOUT RESUME
In addition to following the recipe mentioned above, having good resume. I found an excellent online tutorial for writing a standout resume.

In addition to the tutorial above, there are three things to make sure is communicated through your resume.

1. I am the perfect candidate for THIS particular job


2. I possess the right mix of skills/attributes to be successful in THIS particular job


3. And most overlooked....the resume should demonstrate that you have invested a tremendous amount of resources into my preparation for this job...which will also prove that you are a good investment.

JOB WEBSITES & RESOURCES:

I've compiled my own personal database of sites on the web where I can find good engineering jobs. I hope this list can help some of my friends in the Northwest area.

Do you have a well defined "Take it easy policy"

Do you have a 'Take it easy Policy'? Being a Father of four, I find that I must continually review my "Take it easy Policy". When the storms of life are gathering, it's important to remember that you're not defined by what happens TO you but by how you handle it. At times like this, it becomes very important how we excercising our freewill.

Part of success in reaching goals is understanding how to deal with storms and discouragements that inevitably come along the way toward success. We must "See the light" behind the mountain in front of us.

"Free will" a hard obligation or inspiring challenge?

In Feb, I wrote about how to preserve our Freedom by understanding and upholding our US constitution.

Approximately one month after I posted that story, I was asked a very stirring question by a friend, whether "Free will" is a difficult obligation or inspiring challenge. I pondered on this one for a while and realized some things about free will that I never thought of before. Please read further...

Book Report: Genius of America

Look at the titles of some of the book reviews of Genius of America.

1. Required reading (the quiz? look around you)
2. An Excellent Introduction to American Constitutionalism
3. Should be required reading for all
4. Urgent and Enjoyable
5. A timely and fascinating reminder
6. Required Reading (this book is so important, there should be a quiz)
7. A guidepost and a wakeup call - that needs just one more chapter!

This last title is my book review. In short it was excellent and I encourage my friends and fellow citizens to seriously study this book. I have already begun re-reading this with my wife.

Eureka! -Archimedes would have liked LinkedIn.com

On Jan 25th as part of the Mastermind topic, I discussed networking on http://www.linkedin.com/. Linkedin has a great discussion forum where you can ask and answer other professional's questions. I know I've been talking about it a lot lately but I really like this site. It's a great way to expand and share your knowlege base with others in a given skill area and it's also a great place to brainstorm and get those "Eureaka" ideas from others.