Are You Willing to Move Carts?

The real reasons why some people progress and others don't

I have been looking for years to separate out the reasons why some people progress in their careers and others don't. Trying to understand what causes some people to be successful by most definitions and others to stay stagnant in their lives. On this quest of over ten years, I of course had my break through revelation in the most logical and classiest of places; the WalMart Parking lot.

As much as I live for wally world shopping trips, I declined to go in and volunteered to stay with two of our three children in the car. My wife, Alyssa,  took our youngest son, Grayson into the store on a life or death mission for M & Ms, which all parents know are a necessity for potting training at least one of your children (whether you want to admit it or not.) While she spent a solid five minutes in our shopping destination of choice (or lack there of), I got down to serious high quality observation and research on success that would make Malcolm Gladwell jealous.

Naturally the one parking spot that was open had carts near the front of it. Two carts in fact, pushed haphazardly up against the gold Mitsubishi in front of me as I pulled into the space. My first thought was to get out and put the carts back in the cart return that was only two stalls over but just then the people who belonged to the vehicle next to the carts came out of the store and delicately tried to get into their car without touching nor moving the carts. This was challenging because one of the two was right in front of the passenger car door. They successfully found their way into the vehicle and eventually pulled away. At this point, I thought, I am going to sit here and just watch what happens.

A Marketing Plan for You, Part I: Job Search

I used to have a small contracting business. Small (about 20 seasonal employees) but successful in it's own right. We did mostly exterior painting and I divided my time between operating the business and marketing to generate new business.  My team and I didn't use complicated tactics, at the time we didn't have to worry about the seeming complexities of SEO or buying ads on facebook. We did however run a successful marketing campaign. It dawned on me as I was listening to an interview with Lisa Earle McCloud, marketing expert, I utilized the very principles that she suggests. She cites the analogy of marketers being similar to deer hunters. Avid hunters will learn everything they can about the deer they intend to hunt. They will go to the place where the deer will most likely be, wearing gear that will be most likely to bag a buck.

In her example great marketers will do the exact same thing.  They will  very specifically determine the target customer and then go where they are, do what they do, see how they live, and serve them completely by speaking their language. In the business that I was in, this was pretty easy. I looked at certain zip codes, determined where there were groupings of residential neighborhoods with average incomes over certain levels, and focused on making those people aware of my services and my business.

This same concept can be applied to marketing yourself during a job search or job transition. Think about it as creating a marketing plan and strategy for yourself. For today's post let’s look at 2 of these concepts:

1. Defining your target market
2. Go to where they are

Defining your target market:

What areas are you interested in living or commuting to? If you are only interested in San Francisco there is no use at looking companies that require you to live in West Palm Beach, Florida

What types of roles are you interested in? If your answer is anything then you probably won't like this blog. It's all about how to use

What companies are likely to have these jobs? Google probably doesn't hire that many welders

Go to where they are at:

Are there professional associations, groups, or meetings that take place in the area for the industry, job or career you are interested in? It's likely there are, whether you know about them or not.

Are there local LinkedIn groups, online groups or other digital local avenues where you can get introduced to people in these roles or people who can make or influence hiring decisions? If your answer is no, then you haven't looked hard enough. Get creative. Between all of the avenues available on the internet you can easily gather enough information to understand what these people are involved in and what they participate in.

Call them at their work. When will they be available? This one seems obvious, but I guarantee you will be unlikely to get most professionals in traditional  jobs on the phone at 10am. This is prime time for meetings, activities, and general work flow time. You would have a much better shot closer to 8am or between 4pm and 5:30pm.

Have an offer at the ready:

Who are you? Why are you calling? What do you want? These questions need to be answered in a 2 minute phone call time period. It's great if you talk with.

4 years ago when I decided I was going to make job transition I knew that I wanted to be in the Human Resources field. Got involved with the local Society for Human Resources Management chapter, where I began to meet HR folks from all around the area. I began volunteering for events and in short order ended up on the board of directors for that chapter. At the same time I was contacting several HR VPs and Directors at local area companies each week. I had previously done research on all of the organizations that I was interested in and had limited it down to a list of 20. I asked to meet with many of the people that I contacted and was able to arrange phone calls, interviews or other in person meetings with well over half of them.

This targeted set of activities led to over 20 interviews and  5 job offers over a 6 month period of time. More than that it led to some fantastic long term relationships. I still have people calling me regularly and saying, I know of a job or an opportunity that you  might be interested in.

Remember most people get jobs through relationships. I hear many people say take an inventory of who you know. I simply reversed this and said how I build relationships with those people who can expose me to opportunities.

One important note on all of this, you should never set out to join a group or build relationships just because it will benefit you. The groups that I participated in often required time and energy from me to contribute to the cause. I got involved with numerous groups along the way and did not join any one of them because of the things it would get me.  Instead each of these groups lined up with my values and what I wanted to contribute to both personally and professionally. In the case of contacting employers and meeting with people each time it was something that was mutually beneficial. For them it was a potential addition to someone they  could add to their talent pipeline should they have a need later on down the road.

You can do this too. It doesn't take a scientist or even a marketing expert to use each of these concepts in your career.

Go and Happen to Your Career!

How to REALLY prep for an interview!

What do you do leading up to the interview? prep for a few questions, practice in the mirror, work on your smiling. All great but as they say this can potentially be "putting lipstick on a pig" if you don't have great experiences to draw from.

So what really preps you for an interview?

Good quality experiences are the basis for really good stories. Stories that of course have a great situation leading up to it, show what stellar behavior you chose to exhibit, and display how you achieved an award winning outcome. How you took on an extra project that changed not only the way your department does business but other departments throughout the company. How you had an idea for cost savings, that really didn't take any extra time but simply required you and your coworkers to start to work in a different way, and oh yes… this one saved your organization $27,000 in short order and lead to you getting a raise. People with experiences like these are the ones employers want to hire. These are even the type of people that are likely to get several job offers and have the ability to negotiate both salary and other terms of the position.

"But Scott" you say "I don't have any of these fancy schmancy experiences but I still want that Finance Manager job in that sweet office building down the road with a view." Maybe so but guess what? someone else who has great experiences actively improving her organization and getting results also wants that job. You will be competing against this person. Going up against someone who has great experiences in an interview is a little like the person who swims a couple of times a week in the pool at the YMCA, competing for a single spot in the olympics. Even if you get through the "elimination rounds" you will be able to tell very quickly by the rapidly expanding gap of water, who the star performers are.

Having great experiences can help you change career fields. One common language in many job interviews is leadership and influence around focused improvement. That is something all organizations are looking for and those are always transferrable skills and experiences. In fact what often stands out

Let's dig a little deeper to determine how we get there. How do you start noticing opportunities or problems for improvement in your organization?

Caring about what happens where you work is a start. Now before you launch into your martyr story about how much you care about this or that, I would challenge you to think about this: Does everyone else that you work with feel the same way about you; That you put yourself behind the needs of the organization and the people in it? That's where you start to notice opportunities to get an interview story. You get miffed a little bit when paper gets wasted or we are giving the customer a less than stellar experience. You start to cringe when you see that that since "we have always done it that way" it has lead to no shortage of missed opportunities and  extra expenses.

Another place you can start is by volunteering for projects, more responsibility, additional workload, to work with other departments, channels, or vendors. We have one person on our team right now that was promoted into position a year ago. Since then he has taken on the most challenging projects that nobody else wanted. He has since been very successful with each project. Through these he has achieved some amazing exposure working closely with other teams and at the same time stretched himself outside his comfort zone. Because of this he now has other experiences working with some of our senior leaders and at the same time has given himself a competitive advantage compared to other people in similar level positions. He will likely be very successful when a position comes open for promotion or if he wanted to go someplace else could probably get numerous job offers.

Think about it this way: If you were your own marketing or sales department for the company of You Inc, wouldn't you want to sell products or services that have significant differentiation from your competitors? That is exactly what you are doing here. Creating competitive advantage in the labor marketplace through the accumulation of the best stories is the best way to ensure that you can have the career you want. 

So remember before you get anywhere close to the actual interview the best way to prep is to say yes to experience.

The rest is as simple as just telling stories!

The Happiness Avoidance Problem

We all want happiness, right? So why is it that so many people are unable to get it?

It is remarkably sad that so many people end up devoting their life to things that don't make them happy. They don't intend to of course. It just ends up happening that way through decision after small decision.   I have worked with hundreds of people who have changed jobs because they felt like they weren't happy there. They have even gone so far as to identify what made them unhappy (the hours, the flexibility, the boss, the strange policy about beards and shaving). They then having felt good about saying "yes these things are what I don't want" make a jump to a new job and over the next 6 to 18 months, slowly feel the same way again. Only this time it might be new things, maybe this time you didn't anticipate there would be annoying coworkers or you got the inner cubicle where you had a sweet office all to yourself at your previous job. You think to yourself "unghh! If this  job just didn't have ____________________"

Many years later people have woken up and at that point devoted a lifetime to running away from something instead of defining what they want and going after it.

To understand how and why this happens, think about it this way. Each choice you make regarding your career can be for one of two purposes, It can be made with the intention of trying to do something that will remove something making you unhappy (like all of the reasons someone might leave a job after identifying what has made them unsatisfied). The other purpose for the choice can be to make a move to the things you have identified that will make you happy (this might be by clearly understanding what does make you happy and cause you joy)

When you read those last you sentences you might at first think "isn't that the same thing?" I thought this too for years. Here is why they are different:

• There are infinite possibilities to do things that avoid making you unhappy. If you successfully avoid a few of these that you have identified it does not necessarily mean you will be working in a role, company, environment, or situation that will make you happy.
• In contrast, there are a smaller and finite number of conditions that will make you really happy. Once you have Identified these the rest becomes less important.

I discovered this when my wife, Alyssa, and I had been having little catfights over the course of a few weeks. This was odd for us and I kept thinking "why is she doing this" it seems like I am doing everything possible to avoid her getting mad at me. I have done the dishes, I have vacuumed the house so she didn't have to, I got home early… And the list went on of things that potentially could make her unhappy.

After several very loud and somewhat less than polite discussions, we finally came to what she really wanted: conversation after spending all day with little kids at home. Adult conversation and feeling a connection with her husband was what really made her happy day after day. Both she and I hadn't realized this at the time and I obviously had been focused on eliminating the things that she didn't want.

After we discovered this, I began calling her and having conversations with her on the way home from work, then getting home and taking over dinner and attempting to continue the conversation with the kids hanging around my legs. All of a sudden, even though the dishes and all of those other things were still getting done, they just didn’t matter as much. She was getting what made her happy after having identified it.

Don't get caught up in this trap in your career. Focus in on the things that truly make you happy and NOT on avoiding the things that make you unhappy. You can do this by determining the things in the past that you have enjoyed at work or at home and not on the things you haven't. Make a list keep it and continue to add to it as you discover more about yourself. In short order you will have a better perspective on what really makes you happy. Which is all we really want anyways, right?

63,000 Opportunities Waiting for You. Self Start Here...

Have you ever read a posting for a job that says "looking for a self starter" or talked to a sales manager about who was successful on his team and he says "well that guy is a real self starter" (then his next sentence is "wish the rest of them could be more like that"). Everyone wants this "self starter", why is that? You will hear them called go-getters, spark plugs, ambitious, workhorses and many other things, but I think the 63,000+ job postings on indeed.com that are looking for a self starter have it right! They are looking for someone with initiative and someone who starts things themselves and without waiting on others.

Everyone wants this from the people they hire, but after years and years of hiring people and working with managers who hire people, I bet that very few of these job posters will find their self starters. I also bet that those who are self starters will find that they really have their pick of companies, locations, professions, promotions or even the possibility to start their own company, grow it and post their own ad looking for self starters! This is because this trait, which requires the willingness to not wait on others for permission and the strong possibility of making mistakes, taking risks and experiencing failures, is somewhat rare in the marketplace.

Seth Godin devotes a whole book to this concept of initiative and the self starter (Poke the Box), Dave Ramsey references this type person suggesting traits of ownership and initiative in "Entreleadership". The reason this concept sells is because it is uncomfortable to take initiative, it can be embarrassing to fail, and it can feel scary to do something others aren't doing. In a country that creates societal incentives for mediocrity and avoiding taking the reigns to start things yourself, this is a hot commodity. Sadly everyone wants to know how to do this but more importantly, as Seth Godin points out, they have to be sold on the idea because it is against the societal norm.

When I consider this, it is both frustrating to me and exciting at the same time. Exciting because, as a serial self starter myself, I find that there is so little competition in the job market that is so desperately pining after self starters. Frustrating because I see countless societal incentives that cause good people to make limiting choices that do not lead them down the road of self starting.

The most recent example of this is at the organization where I work; we have a lot of people there that have potential. Potential but feel they are stuck in their situation. One woman in particular, we will call her Tiffany, was working in a job that earned around $16 per hour and performing well. Performing well but not performing great. Not performing great because she viewed herself as limited in what she could do.

Tiffany was limited because she had a special needs child and if she earned any more in income she would not receive the medical insurance from the state that she so desperately felt she must have. If she didn't have it she would be a bad mom. Tiffany had shown snippets of potential and snippets of self starting but this wasn't unleashed until a manager saw some of this and spent hours with her selling her on the idea of what she could accomplish. After two month of convincing she took a promotion and is now a stellar performer because she gets to start things herself everyday. She ended up getting a large raise to go along with it that paid for the insurance and all is well!

The reality is though that most of us will not experience Tiffany's situation. We will not have a manager there to sell us on the idea of what life could be like if we removed our objections to becoming a self starter. Most of us have to do this on our own. I would like to offer the reason that like Tiffany, it could change your life. So, practice, now! by starting something, regardless of the outcome, failure or success. You will learn along the way. It's the learning that causes you to grow. 

Please comment on any self starting you have done, big or small. How do you will yourself to take initiative?

Your Piggily Marmoset Moment in 2013

Most weekends my wife and I try to do some type of activity with our kids. This particular weekend we did not have anything planned so on a whim (and with no better more creative ideas), I took our son, Camden, and daughter, Mackenzie, outside to go "exploring" in our back yard. This consisted of a glorified game of follow the leader where we took turns looking at natures' debris which was our curiosity shop of treasures for the moment. We found several different types of bugs, leaves, moss that was odd colored and growing on one of our trees, but the highlight of the day came when I took them to a pine tree near our fence that I had recently trimmed quite a few dead branches.

Where many of the branches used to be, instead there were sawed off nubs with gold colored tree sap dripping out of it. I showed my two oldest children and you would have thought they were watching the first landing on the moon or at least experiencing their first ride on an elevator or some other significant milestone. Whatever it was their excitement level certainly outmatched the sticky substance that was pouring out of tree. After the ooh's and aahhs, mackenzie took another look and then said "dad that's what a piggily marmoset eats."

I was stunned for two reasons; the first of which was I had no idea what a piggily marmoset was and my 5 year old daughter clearly did. I knew this because she adamantly explained that they live in the rainforest and eat sap from the trees. It didn't stop here because she proceeded to provide a national geographic worthy narrative of the piggily marmoset. The second reason I was so surprised was that she connected all of this information and facts about the marmoset to tree sap. She knew theoretically that they ate this, but really had no idea what tree sap actually was. This connection in her mind all of a sudden made it real for her.  This marmoset (actually called a pygmy marmoset and is a very small monkey) now was something she could identify with and tell stories about all because she was able to experience something different and out of routine that caused her to grow and learn. More importantly than that though it caused her to connect ideas and knowledge in a new and different way.

If you are willing to try something different (or even just slightly different) you can experience a whole new frontier of connecting things you already know in a new and different way. Furthermore if you intentionally do this and even look for opportunities to take advantage of "learning opportunities" that you wouldn't normally take, it will open up doors for you. Best of all this often puts you in a position to be able to help others in ways that you wouldn't have been able to before.

As we have turned the corner into January and the possibilities for you, your career and your growth are endless, I hope you have many exciting "Piggily Marmoset Moments" in 2013!

Why Your Self Development is like My 3 Year Old

Photo: Scott Barlow

The other day my 3 year old boy, Camden, spent about 20 minutes putting together a floor sized puzzle of a bright green  snarling, tyrannosaurus rex. This in itself was amazing because he is similar to many other 3 year old boys and has the attention span of T minus 3,..2,..1,.. blastoff to the next experience. He is normally flitting from activity to activity attempting to leave a small trail of destruction and newly uninteresting toys in his wake. Today was unique for a different reason though; After he finished putting it together he showed off his puzzle  and then…. HE CLEANED IT UP (Loud dramatic movie sound effects follow).

Ok now this probably doesn't seem that amazing to most people reading this, but let me give you some backstory: We had been working with him since before he could put anything away on his own, trying to make sure that he picks up the  things he gets out or plays with. This is the very first time he did it by himself with no prompting from us. He just finished playing and cleaned it up and put the puzzle box back on the shelf by himself. You may still be asking what the big deal is. This probably means you have perfect kids that have been cleaning their rooms, knitting small hats with unnecessary gloves for your pets, and learning how to conjugate verbs in another language since they were 18 months old, but for myself and my wife, this was a big win.

As the novelty wore off I realized just how much there was buried in this very small life event. All of the preparation and discipline to build this routine and habit are the same as what goes into building great habits and routines in both your career and your personal growth. Whether it be networking, developing great meeting habits, personal organization, or any number of other behaviors that can help your career or self development, here are some ways to make them into routine.

Use an accountability partner

If you have ever spent any amount of time working out at a gym you have probably heard about the personal trainer that is available there. You have probably also heard a number of people who will tell you that working out with a personal trainer is more effective than working out alone. Is it their mass amount of knowledge and doctorate in "personal trainer science" that makes all the difference? Probably not. It is many times the accountability and different behaviors that you will exhibit if someone else is involved. (although for the benefit of any personal trainers that may have just stopped reading this blog one sentence ago, I will admit that having someone who knows what they are doing does help too!)

Maybe you are a new manager working on building relationships with a new team, or maybe you are someone who is trying to expose yourself to new companies by participating in networking events, either way, get someone else who you trust involved in the process. Ask them to hold you accountable on a regular basis (usually weekly is a great way to go for most habits) this can be as simple as having a recurring 10 minute phone meeting with that person to check in and update them on your progress for the week. This has to be someone that is willing to kick your behind (out of concern for you) if you don’t live up to your end of the bargain.

In Camden's case, he had a built in accountability partner whether he liked it or not, to make sure he was exhibiting the right behaviors. The concept and the end result are the same though. He eventually started to clean up after himself after continuously working to integrate it into regular behavior. As with many other things, it is often the simple principles that are most effective.

Make it a part of your day: Put it on the calendar

This one sounds obvious right? Many people still don't do it. With Camden, we would have weekly and nightly chores to make sure we did not miss opportunities to build his routine of cleaning up. We wrote up what was happening when and put it on the fridge and put pictures for each chore so it made sense to him. That way it was a part of his and our lives and we couldn't ignore it.

 If you want to integrate something into your routine put it on the calendar. I did this with pieces of David Allen's "Getting Things Done" system to integrate good habits into my world and create headspace for innovation and creativity. Another time this came in handy was transitioning careers and companies. Thinking about what you will do ahead of time allows for maximum focus when the time comes to actually do it. I use outlook for my work calendars and gmail for my personal calendars. On both of these I will often put an agenda or notes or a cheat sheet in the body area, that way when the time comes to do whatever it is, I do not have to spend any time rethinking about the activity. Instead I can review the calendar item and move right to action.

Surround yourself with encouragement

When we first started having Camden clean up his toys or anything else for that matter, here is how it went: He would put one tiny toy away and we would be jumping up and down clapping and shouting "Great job!" and "You are a rock star room cleaner" and then... we would end up putting every other toy in the room away. That is how it begins, then slowly over time he started really contributing to the success of his room cleaning endeavors, right up until the apex where apparently he just thought it was a part of the process.

You can do this too without having to get your parents on speaker phone for commentary on your rockstar status as an inbox "cleaner outer". Instead choose to share your wins with others who will provide encouragement when you are doing the right things. I used to go for a run during lunch with another guy who was a fairly positive person and he would often provide encouraging words when things that I was working on were going right. This was extremely helpful to reinforce any behaviors I was working on at the time.

You can also do this by providing encouragement for others, you will find that when you establish this as part of the relationship it will often come back to you. Camden, for the longest time would burst into applause when I would put my socks and shirts away in my closet. See!... Encouragement often reciprocates.

The real moral of this story is that no matter where you look you can find ways that fit into your own life to continue to develop yourself. This is an important part of your continuing career no matter what your role and more importantly, with a little help in the right places it can be so simple that a 3 year old can do it 

Starting with the Absence of Precision. Who Knows where will lead...

Road to Everywhere, Scott Barlow 2010

This blog is for those who want support and a positive influence while trying to find or pave your way in this world of abundant opportunity and excess naysayers. I hope to share experiences from my life, passion and career that adds value to yours.  There will likely be a mixture of stories, writings and even pictures. Who knows where this will lead to…

“I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.”

Bertrand Russell 

Here is what you won’t find in this blog:

• This won’t be about easy ways to achieve career success or a move toward what you are extremely passionate about overnight.

• There will be no theoretical advice. Everything comes from my experience or the personal stories of those who I have coached and collaborated with.

• Things that are guaranteed…I will focus on principles as opposed to strictly techniques, however I have found you cannot apply half a principle to anything

As we go along, let me know what is helpful and adds value to you… Thanks for reading! 


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