Identifying Your Professional Niche

Its 2024! Here are 5 practical steps (and a whole lot of questions) for translating your passion into a career of purpose, meaning (and social impact) in the new year… 1. Establish your WHAT: What are the things you want to change or improve in the world? What issues matter to you? Be specific. Have a point of view. It will make the latter steps easier. 2. Be clear on your WHY: Why do you want to change or improve this thing? What personal motivations connect you to this issue or career path? Be clear and intentional on your “why”. 3. Think through your HOW: You may be passionate about a particular issue and clear on your WHY, but what approach(es) to address that issue are you most excited about? How do organizations in your desired field present and operationalize their theory of change?  How do the values and culture of the org get reflected in pursuit of the vision? Have you considered different sectors: government vs private sector vs nonprofit vs academia and all the shades in between?  Do your research, talk to current staff, and build relationships (esp on LinkedIn).  Most people shortchange these steps!  The more you know going into an organization/role about the vision, values, and the theory of change, the more likely you are to thrive.   4. Know your SKILLS: What skills/experience do you bring that will help advance the organization’s mission, and how can they be additive to the existing team? Reflect, write them down, be clear on how they transfer from a previous org or job. Struggling with this? Great exercise to do with a coach! 5. Set your BOUNDARIES: A career of meaning and purpose *sometimes* means giving up some things.  What tradeoffs are you willing to accept to work on a particular issue or at a  particular organization? What kind of timeline are you working with? Does geography or remote work matter? Be upfront and explicit with yourself and those around you. Finally *Deep Breath* it’s 100% OK to NOT be passionate about your job and to prioritize other aspects of your life that give you meaning. Coming to this realization (and honoring it) is also powerful and clarifying. What do you think? What am I missing? Have experience on this topic? SHARE some wisdom with us in the comments below. Looking for inspiration on this topic?  READ the comments. People with great insights and experience will share their comments below. Want to see more posts on this topic? ✅ Follow me (Nick Martin) ✅ Hit the 🔔 on my profile to be notified when I post ✅ Check out all my links in my pinned comment 

A couple of years ago, I found myself in a rut. I wasn't lit up by my business anymore, I was feeling burnout, and I thought I wasted a bunch of my time (and others) going down a path it turns out I was not so enthusiastic about. I was having a bit of an "entrepreneurial identity crisis," if you will. So, I started to ask myself big questions: • What's my purpose? • What do I want to achieve in ten years? • What are my special gifts? It really felt like going back to square one. Except, here's the thing... Those questions just felt overwhelming and weighty. Don't get me wrong; they are fantastic questions -- questions I've answered many times and will continue to come back to-- but at that point, they just weren't serving me. So I tried a different approach. Instead of looking 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 the future at lofty life questions, I tried standing in the future looking 𝘣𝘢𝘤𝘬 with a more digestible question: "What does my dream day look like?" What does my week look like? What kind of work am I doing? What am I NOT doing? My pen took on a mind of its own as ink flowed onto the paper. I knew 𝘌𝘟𝘈𝘊𝘛𝘓𝘠 how I wanted to spend my time. When I looked at that "dream day design," I found the answers to my lofty questions sitting right there in front of me. It was easy to see what my purpose was by virtue of the types of activities I was doing. It was clear to see what and who I needed to be to have that kind of day. It was evident that the activities I chose were a reflection of my "special gifts." So my advice to you is this... If you're feeling "purpose stuck" or burnt out, try on this simple exercise. The big questions are usually reflected in the small expressions of how you ideally want to spend your time. I'm proud to say that two years after doing this, my days resemble more of the ones on those pages and less like the manic, rudderless sprint they used to feel like. #personalbrand #personalbranding #socialmedia #creatoreconomy

1+1+1 = 1. FOCUS AND SYNERGY AS FORCE MULTIPLIERS FOR YOUR CAREER. Focus and synergy are common prescriptions for companies. Strategy experts advise companies to focus on their core competencies, and to exploit synergy across their products and business units. In my experience, these ideas are equally applicable to your professional life. I have used a simple yet effective formula in my career. I call it “1+1+1=1”. The insight is simple. Harness the power of focus and synergy to enhance effectiveness and efficiency of your professional work. Focus is about maintaining consistency in your core expertise over time, which increases the depth of your expertise and your effectiveness in your job. In my career, I have focused on one and only one industry – technology. By focusing on a narrow domain, I have been able to develop deep industry expertise, honed over thirty-five years. I have also gotten to know a large number of people in the technology industry. People tend to move across companies within the industry, which augments the breadth and depth of my network. In one case, a senior technology marketing executive has called on me to advise five companies over fifteen years as she has moved from tech company to tech company. Focus has also allowed me to build a reputation for expertise in the tech industry. Synergy, on the other hand, is about the connectedness of your professional activities at any given time. Synergy promotes efficiency in your job, as you can get more bang for the buck from your time. In my professional work, I have three domains of activities - Research/Writing (Knowledge Creation), Teaching/Speaking (Knowledge Dissemination), and Consulting/Advising (Knowledge Application). By making sure that I write about what I teach, and I teach what I consult about, I can benefit from "intellectual arbitrage". For example, I built the DigiStrat simulation game using industry knowledge I gained on the telecom business based on serving on the Board of Directors at Reliance Jio. I use this simulation in teaching and in consulting for other companies. This is what I call "Triple Dipping.” This triple dipping is the explanation for the formula “1+1+1=1” = three units of output resulting from only one unit of input. What can you learn from my experience? Focus on a domain where you aim to achieve recognition and depth. This laser-like focus allows you to build significant expertise and brand equity. Ask yourself – “what do I want to be famous for?” Next, define your "cumulative story" to ensure your efforts are more than their individual parts. Whether transitioning to a new role or broadening your expertise, align all related activities—courses, projects, consulting—towards a unified goal, maximizing the impact of your efforts through double or triple dipping. By using focus and synergy as “force multipliers,” you can become more efficient and more effective in your professional life. #careeradvice #lifelessons #strategy #focus

Having a clear life mission to help others, along with the financial freedom to pursue it, has made me very happy. If you would like to have these things, here is how you can. I post here every day as a part of my mission to "pay forward my good fortune by helping others find career success and satisfaction." My mission is going well, which brings me great joy. I DEEPLY appreciate all the notes you write me about how my advice resonates with you and has helped you. That said, for two solid years I have posted about 90% on career success, 9% on career satisfaction, and 1% on finding your own mission. This was intentional, because until you feel like you are safe in your career and on track to provide for yourself and your loved ones, it is hard to worry about either your own happiness or something as abstract as your life mission. Many of you are now doing better with your careers. For new readers, my Newsletter archives provide a growing body of articles and videos that can help you get your career in shape more quickly. Thus, I want to shift more of my attention to the later parts of my mission, which is to help you enjoy your career and then to find your ultimate purpose in life. 1) I will absolutely continue to post mostly tactical career advice here. Just less than 90% 2) I will post a bit more on career satisfaction 3) I'm going to post more on finding your life mission The reasons for this are simple: 1) Career success takes away pain and fear. It helps you feel secure that you can pay your bills and take care of your loved ones. Removing fear is awesome, but is not enough. 2) Career satisfaction helps you better balance your life and enjoy your work. Once the pain and fear are gone, it is great to actually like or even love your job. 3) As good as liking your career can be, for most of us our ultimate value is not in building software, designing products, or selling things. At least not the things we build and sell for the companies we work for. I see this a four step process I can help you with: 1) Career success 2) Career satisfaction 3) Identifying your life mission 4) Transitioning more fully to achieve your life mission I want to do this because I am crazy happy nearly every day with my life and I want to help you get to the same place. What to expect: 1) More posts from me on satisfaction and life mission 2) Within my Newsletter community, on our Slack server, I have created a "life mission" channel where people can: a) Share their life missions b) Find others with similar missions c) Get help launching into their missions I'll say more about my own mission there in hopes of finding some people who have the same mission. But, you need not share my mission to work on your own! To see the posts, simply follow me here on LinkedIn. To join the life mission launchpad in Slack, join our community: https://buff.ly/3Q9UHPd Readers - please share your "missions" in comments, I would love to read them!

One problem with being a LinkedIn ‘influencer’ is that followers expect all the answers. How can you define boundaries for your personal brand? Hi, I’m Shreya, and I’ve been writing on LinkedIn for a year now, and as part of my series of posts on Personal branding, today I want to talk about defining your boundaries and defining your personal brand on the most important social platform for professionals. Defining your brand comes with defining your boundaries & defining what you stand for. Here’s a list of questions for you to answer for your own self, for your brand on LinkedIn: 1. Define who you are in terms of professional capabilities, academic qualifications, industry experience, your personality, in short your hard skills & soft skills. Briefly, I’m Shreya, a TPM with Visa, double Masters’, a current candidate of Harvard executive program, a writer, and an introvert. 2. Who do you want to be perceived as? This encapsulates your virtual personality, characteristics that make you ‘you’! On LinkedIn, I want to be perceived as someone who’s encouraging, supportive, who shares stories from her life as an international student and also my corporate life stories. 3. Who’s your audience? This point should highlight who you want to write for, who your target readers are and who will benefit from your posts. My target audience is early career professionals, international students & prospective international students, especially the ones targeting U.S. 4. How do you want to portray your authenticity? I want to portray mine by openly sharing about my wins but most importantly about my struggles as a first gen immigrant in the U.S. , what it takes to make it single handedly in a new country as an introvert & how do you navigate life as a young corporate woman. 5. What keywords are relevant to you and for your audience? Identifying keywords and using them in your hashtags will help more of your audience find you easily. Mine are #internationalstudents , #gradschool #personaldevelopment , #jobhunting. 6. What’s your USP? Why should people follow you? For me, it’s because I don’t gatekeep information, helpful advice, stories that will help you in your journey , and my own mistakes which you can learn from. My objective is simple : To make your journey as an international student & a corporate woman in the U.S. a little bit easier. That’s it! These are the questions that will help you define your personal brand, establish your boundaries, context for your followers so your posts can be beneficial for them just as you intended them to be! Hope this was helpful! P.S. I’m Shreya Mishra and I write about everything mentioned in the post above! If you found this insightful, follow along as I share more such posts. #PersonalBranding

𝗔 𝗦𝗶𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝗶𝗹𝘆 𝗣𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗙𝗶𝗻𝗱𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽 𝗙𝘂𝗹𝗳𝗶𝗹𝗹𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 ☀ Ever felt like your professional successes don't quite fill the void within? It's a challenge many in leadership positions encounter: the quest for genuine fulfillment and purpose that goes beyond just achieving goals. Ignoring this sense of emptiness can lead to a disconnection from your work, affecting productivity and potentially prompting thoughts of leaving your organization. A daily reflection exercise on your purpose can be key in addressing this. Here’s a streamlined approach: 💥 Identify Moments of Identity: Recall six times in your career where you felt most fully yourself. What is most meaningful to you, and why? 💥 Find the Underlying Pattern: Examine these situations closely. What connects them? Capture the common thread that made these moments feel you were most fully being yourself. The clue is in what is meaningful and why. 💥 Craft Your Purpose Statement: Turn this pattern into a deep self-concept statement. It could be something as inspiring as "To be the best in every interaction" or "To bring out the best in my people." 💥 Winning matters, but without meaningfulness it results in emptiness. So winning matters, meaning matters, it’s Both/And, not either/or. Combine going for a Big Win and your Big Purpose. 💥 Mobilize Your Purpose: Make this statement a guiding principle in your everyday decisions and regularly review its relevance to your evolving leadership journey. Carefully not on track, off track and course correct. By incorporating this reflection into your daily routine, you can start to bridge the gap between external achievements (winning) and internal fulfillment (meaning). When done well, this alignment can reignite your passion for your work, enhance your productivity, and deepen your connection to your role and team.🌀 Share your thoughts in the COMMENTS below. 🔽 #LeadershipFulfillment #PurposeBeyondSuccess #ReflectAndRedefine #AuthenticLeadership #MissionDrivenLeaders

I wasted so much of the beginning of my career trying to look and sound like everyone else in PR and communications. The problem with that was I'm a big Black guy in a largely white and female industry. Even if assimilation wasn't exhausting and soul-killing, it just wasn't going to work. I came up when I came out--out as unapologetically, Black, southern, a hip-hop head, a technophile... It was those very qualities that labeled me as “different” that actually made me the best candidate for the job—and the experiences I learned from my background and identity are what helped solve my top professional “pain points.” I recently shared my top tips with Her Campus Media on how to be more strategic with your job search as you navigate all-too-common pain points: 1. You are the main character of your job search: Focus on the diverse set of skills and match them to the jobs that you are pursuing. 2. Your network is the supporting character of your career journey: Tap your community to build a strong network. Think of it less as a transactional method of connecting, and more as a way to expand your perspective while connecting with folk who you can relate to.  3. Your authenticity is the plot of your story…let it stand out: Before you can effectively search for a job, you need to figure out what that “why” is for you—and that’ll make the process all the easier. If you’re looking for more insider tips, check out LinkedIn’s Collaborative Articles — which have now surpassed 10 million contributions of knowledge shared by experts across industries and demographics. They can give you the insights and confidence you need to 1) know what will set you apart in the job search, and 2) know how to best communicate that throughout the entire application process. Remember: The best way to stand out in the interview process is to determine what makes you YOU, and to always lead with that. Read the rest of my tips here: https://lnkd.in/e6XsUaqm And don’t forget to follow me and subscribe to my newsletter “Black Guy in Marketing”: https://lnkd.in/ecUTAxjn #career #genz #interviewtips #linkedinexpert #interviewskills #BlackGuyInMarketingNewsletter

Succeeding can create harder problems than failure. The success trap: “The problems of failure are hard. The problems of success can be harder.” In a speech at the University of the Arts in 2012, famous writer Neil Gaiman, author of Coraline and The Sandman, describes the troubles of success. After some of his books became hits, he suddenly reached a point where he was writing more emails than writing stories. He hated it. Success had created opportunities and demands on his time where he was no longer spending time on the thing that made him successful - writing. I see it all the time. A year and a half ago, a founder reached out to me. He had a successful real estate fund but was ready to shut it down. At that time, he was on the verge of burnout. As his business had grown, he was managing all these people and tasks he hated. He had been pulled away from the things he loved AND he was great at which led to the businesses success early. I told him about the Zone of Genius framework and how to use it to change your day-to-day. Since we last 18 months ago, he… 1. Had identified his Zone of Genius 2. Did a calendar audit that identified which tasks were outside his Zone of Genius 3. Then, hired people to do those tasks. The results? He is 100x happier. He not only kept the business running but went on to raise a $500M fund. Understanding his Zone of Genius and offloading the tasks that weren’t suited to him completely changed the game for him. If this sounds like painfully boring common sense advice, that’s because it is. What’s more painful is watching incredibly successful people not implement it and struggle, especially when there is another path. If this post resonates with you, share ♻️ this post and follow Matt Schnuck for insights on entrepreneurship, EQ and from 25 years in business.

I'll be honest - I've always struggled with preparing for "career conversations".   I'm fortunate to work for a company and for leaders that truly prioritize career development. We carve out time each quarter to talk about goals, skills to develop, and potential roles to explore a few years down the line.   I've had a few very smart leaders ask me in these conversations, "what are you solving for during this phase of your career?". This would make me pause and think about what my "north star" was that would guide my thinking. I still wasn't really sure, so I'd often stumble trying to explain my answer.   I recently tried a new approach after watching "Blue Zones" on Netflix. In Japan, there is a popular concept called "Ikigai" which means "a reason for being". Finding "Ikigai", or a sense of purpose, is believed to be a factor that contributes to people living much longer.   I drew out a table with 3 boxes: 1️⃣  What I Love 2️⃣  What I'm Good at 3️⃣  What the Business Needs   From there, I listed out ideas across each bucket, to try and get a better sense of some common themes that overlapped.   It was an illuminating (and fun!) exercise that helped me have a more in-depth conversation with my manager about what I wanted to focus on to get more alignment to my "Ikigai". This could be in the projects I take on, roles I want to explore, and skills I intend to develop.   I've found that when I can align myself to work that feels in line with these three things, it boosts my motivation, productivity, and overall sense of fulfillment. I'm excited to continue using this lens to help me think through my career choices.   ⭐️ If you want to read more about how to leverage Ikigai, you can read this article: https://lnkd.in/g2awjAUe ⭐ If you have any frameworks that you use for career conversations, I'd love to hear them! 

Hey there, it’s me, your coach Nina, how are you today? Are you feeling overwhelmed by the exciting but vast possibilities in your career? Society, your parents, friends, strangers on social media, and even your own expectations have all been suggesting paths you “should” take professionally. If you're intellectually curious and enjoy learning, you likely have a strong drive to grow already. You might already have some ideas about where you want to go and how to get there. However, with endless possibilities and only 24 hours in a day, it's important to have a focused and sustainable approach to your career development, one that prevents overwhelm and burnout. Here are some strategies to consider: 1️⃣ List out your career goals: What do you really want in your career? Is it money, title, creative freedom, influence, fame, or making an impact? In my early career I wanted to get promoted because the society says so, but after a few years I started to optimize for learning new experiences (hence jumping from corporate to startup to stand up a new team.) 2️⃣ Figure out your why: understand why you want to achieve something adds meaning and boosts motivation. Are you aiming for FIRE (financial independence to retire early), seeking respect as a manager, or craving intellectual exploration? 3️⃣ Define success: know your destination helps you figure out what resources or skills you need to get there. For instance, aspiring to be a people manager might require learning how to inspire others. 4️⃣ Identify the resources you need: Just like planning a trip, you need to know what to pack for your career journey. Determine the skills or knowledge necessary for your dream role. 5️⃣ Choose how to learn: Different people prefer different learning methods—reading, visual cues, podcasts, or hands-on experience. Find what works best for you and experiment if you're unsure. 6️⃣ Practice: Apply your new skills whenever possible. Shadow others, volunteer for projects, and actively develop the competencies you need. 7️⃣ Reflect regularly: Set a monthly reminder to assess your progress and adjust your strategies if needed. 8️⃣ Seek accountability: Remember the saying, "If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go together." Find a mentor, friend, or a coach friend to support and hold you accountable. What strategies have you used or would you recommend to feel less overwhelmed and more empowered in your career growth? #careerdevelopment #professionaldevelopment #midcareer