Greetings young professional and rising leader!

When you were in the 7th or 8th grade you may have had the opportunity to participate in “Shadow Day” at the high school you were interested in. Shadow Day was a great way for you to get a feel for a day in the life of a high school student. More importantly, it was an opportunity to shadow someone with more experience than you.

Think ahead to the next position you want to hold in your organization. Whether it is in your current function (i.e. Marketing, Finance, Accounting, etc.) or in a different part of the business, who can you connect with to shadow for a day or even just a half day?

When choosing someone to shadow, select someone you respect  and who is well respected in that area of the business. If you have trouble finding someone to shadow, leverage your existing connections to help you find someone.

If you are looking to connect with someone outside of your company, leverage your connections on social media sites like Facebook or LinkedIn. You may even want to leverage your high school and/or college alumni directory.

Just like you had the opportunity to do some homework on the high school you were interested in before your first day of Freshmen year, you have the same opportunity in front of you for that next position you want – whether it represents a vertical or horizontal move.

It may not be called Shadow Day, but the underlying principle is the same and it’s up to you to take advantage of someone else’s expertise and experience to make a more informed decision about your career.

Who will you reach out to in the month of March to set up a shadow day with?

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,
Coach Al Johnson

Connect with me and join the Inspiratude Network!

Greetings young professional and rising leader!

I wanted to call out the most popular posts for the month of February. Listed in order of popularity, the three posts below received the most views of all posts. If you haven’t already read them, take some time and enjoy the three posts that readers like you have indirectly voted as their favorite!

1. Platinum Post: Leaders Challenge The Status Quo
2. Gold Post: The Truth About What It Takes To Be Successful
3. Silver Post: 5 Coaching Tips For Becoming A Decisive Young Professional

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,
Coach Al Johnson

Are you looking for your first or next promotion?

Today I’d like to share one way to find it faster: ask for more responsibility.

Everyone wants to get promoted, yet few people actually ask for more responsibility. As the saying goes, always provide more service than you are paid for. It is the best way to differentiate yourself, wow your boss and internal/external customers, and demonstrate you are promotion worthy.

If you current job or manager is not challenging you enough, take charge of your career and desire to be promoted and ask for additional work or stimulating assignments. Showing you can handle more – and are willing to do so – is a great way to demonstrate your value and leadership impact.

Don’t wait to be singled out for a promotion, go the extra mile consistently and promote yourself!

Such behavior will result in increased recognition of your performance. It may not happen over night, but it will happen much sooner than if you just sit and wait for your number to be called – no guarantees that will happen!

If, and only if, you are ready for more responsibility, will you accept the challenge and ask your manager for it?

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,

Coach Al Johnson

Connect with me and join the Inspiratude Network!

Greetings young professional and rising leader!

Today I want to share a powerful story with you about what it takes to be successful.

I was listening to a motivational speech the other day when I learned the story of the old successful man and the ambitious young professional.

See the ambitious young professional was ambitious in thought, but not so much in action. As a result the young professional never really truly accomplished much.

On the other hand, the old successful man had not just a proven track record of having great vision for years, he also had many accomplishments.

So the young professional decided to ask the old successful man the secret to his success and the old man replied, “Meet me at the beach tomorrow at 5 AM.”

“But why? I’m not trying to learn how to swim, I just want to learn how to be successful,” replied the young professional.

“Like I said, if you want to learn to be successful, meet me at the beach tomorrow at 5 AM,” said the old successful man before he walked away.

So the next day the young professional shows up to the beach at 5 AM. Dressed for success he shows up in a full suit and tie. The old successful man shows up in beach shorts and flip flops. He then walks out into the ocean until the water is waist deep and says to the young professional, “If you want to be successful follow me.”

Hesitant to ruin his clothes, the young professional screams out, “Man you’re crazy!”

The old successful man replies, “I guess you really don’t want to be successful.”

Because he does, the young professional walks into the ocean only to realize that by now the old successful man had gone to a point where the water was up to his chin. Fearing the old man may drown he rushed out to the old man but by the time he made it to him, the water was to the old man’s nose.

As he reached the old man the old man grabbed him and held his head under water for several seconds. For the length of time he was under water, the young professional struggled to break free.

Finally, the old successful man pulled him up and said, “While your head was under water, what is the one thing you wanted most?”

The young professional looked square into the eyes of the old successful man and answered, “I just wanted to breathe.”

The old successful man guided the young professional back to shore and when they made it back he said, “When you want success, at anything, as bad as you wanted to breathe when I held you under water, then, and only then, will you achieve it.”

As you reflect on this story, ask yourself: How bad do you really want success as a young professional, and how bad and for how long, are you willing to fight for success?

Many of people are deep in thought, but shallow in action.

Fight for your success daily, as you would fight for a breath of air if trapped under water!

How will you fight for your own career success this week?

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,
Coach Al Johnson

Connect with me and join the Inspiratude Network!

Greetings young professional and rising leader!

“Nothing is more difficult and more precious than being able to decide.”

– Napoleon

Cereal or oatmeal?

Red shirt or blue shirt?

Radio station or CD?

Every day, whether you realize it or not, you progress through the day by making decisions.

You career is no different than your day before or after work.

To move ahead in your career you must be decisive. Decisive about where you want to take your career. Decisive about the best move for a project or the team you are leading. Decisive about the best way to manage the brewing conflict with co-workers or external business partners.

The list goes on and on. Not a day goes by that you don’t have a chance to display leadership by being decisive. As a young professional, even if you are not the leader in charge, you can be a contributing leader that enables a final decision to be made.

Being decisive is important because it allows you to drive change and lead those around you.

High-impact leaders take the ball and run with it. They have a vision and require little guidance to make things happen. Being decisive is what allows this forward movement.

Each day on the job brings forth new challenges and problems that require a decisive leader. With so many options and choices on how to address critical business issues, the question at hand is, “Will you decide to be a problem solver who is decisive enough to provide solutions of value…?

Here are five coaching tips to help you become a more decisive young professional leader:

1. Have Faith: Many people are not decisive out of fear. Do your due diligence, trust your gut, and believe that you are making the best decision possible with the information that you have.
2. Take Risks: Realize that decisions carry risk, yet there are often times much more risk in deciding to do nothing. If decisions were easy and involved no risk, there would be less of a need for leaders like you.
3. Set Timelines: Make a list of five decisions you need to make this week (one per day). Assign a timeline by which you will make a decision. Commit to making a decision by your timelines, do so with the right amount of thought, and then move forward.
4. Be Accountable: Some decisions are one and done. Chances are after you decide what to eat for breakfast you won’t have to reflect on that decision. But when you make bigger decisions such as delegating work on a project, you may want to reflect to see how that decision turned out. Whether good or bad, be accountable for the decision and its results, and use the learnings to guide your next decision.
5. 2 x 80: Don’t get caught up in analysis paralysis. Gather 80% of the data and move twice as fast if possible. If you can go with less, go with less. Use sound judgment on the right amount of data to move forward. Unless you are building a nuclear reactor, chances are you don’t need to be 100% precise before you decide. You can always course correct later. In a fast paced world, leaders need to be able to make quick decisions.

Chances are you made a choice on breakfast, apparel, and music choice before work this morning. At some point you made a choice to read or not read this blog post. You will make choices on what to do after work to unwind after a long day.

As a young professional, what choices will you need to confront on the job that will require you to commit to being more decisive moving forward?

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,
Coach Al Johnson

Connect with me and join the Inspiratude Network!

Greetings young professional and rising leader!

Are you challenging the status quo?

Today I want to share a story with you about a recent experience I had while shopping. By now those of you who read the blog routinely know that I look for leadership everywhere I go – especially when I shop (always looking to be wowed with great leadership and customer service).

This past weekend I was shopping at Express with my best friend. After selecting a sweater to purchase I made my way to the counter to checkout. The cashier asked if I wanted to use my Express charge card to save 10%. I did, but I didn’t have the card with me.

She was very polite about me not having the card and offered to look up my information if I just wrote down my social security number. Just as she asked me to do so, a peer of hers turned and said, “Never have a customer write their social down. Just call the account lookup number and have him type it in when prompted.”

I instantly felt relieved I wouldn’t have to write down my social security number and thought that was a very helpful tip offered by the peer. She also offered it in a very polite manner.

How would you have responded to your peer in this case?

Hopefully not like the cashier who replied with an attitude, “But that’s the way I have always done it.”

Just because you have always done something a certain way does not make it the right way.

In this case her peer offered a better way of handling the situation – one that protected my identity. Unfortunately the cashier zoomed in on being challenged to change vs. the benefit of change.

As a young professional, strive to be receptive to feedback when given. More importantly, strive to challenge yourself to find ways to provide better leadership and service by being more effective and efficient in all that you do.

What have you been “doing as you always do” that you can strive to improve upon this week?

Until next time, remember NOW is the time, to Take Ownership, Take Charge, and Take YOUR CAREER to the next level!

See YOU at the top,
Coach Al Johnson

Connect with me and join the Inspiratude Network!