Don't Listen to the Career Services Department if They're Giving you Crappy Advice

Go straight to the source with an informational interview.

Who should you ask? (source)

Because even the most well-intentioned people can lead us astray, it is important to be thorough in your research – career-related and otherwise.

Take, for example, my friend Carl*.

In college, Carl decided he was interested in a career in computer forensics and investigating cyber crime.  So Carl followed conventional wisdom and visited his school’s Career Services Office. It turned out to be the wrong decision.

Being Brave Feels a Lot Like Being Scared

There are a lot of things to aspire to in this world. The words aspiration and ambition are everywhere.  Somehow, during the early years of our adult lives, we are most vulnerable to the sense that we should all be striving for something bigger, better, faster, brighter . .  more.  But what exactly is that?

Scary can be courageous.  (source)

 It’s no secret that, now more than ever, one of the keys to success is to have hustle. By now we've all discovered that we have to figure out what we want and pursue it aggressively.  But you barely have to type the words “how to choose a career” into a Google search (which turns up about 1.4 trillion results in less than half a second, by the way) to find scores of advisors who say the ticket to professional happiness is simply to discover what you’re passionate about and then do that.  

Yet the relentless pursuit of passion is about as useful as a butter knife in a sword fight if you don’t know what your passion is.  And not surprisingly, there are few employers willing to pay a living wage for someone to devote their professional energies to self-discovery – although if you know of one, please share.

So I think it's time to free ourselves from the concept of passion and embrace another concept: bravery.  

Think About Your Money Like a Millionaire

On MSN Money this morning I came across an interview with Steve Siebold, who has spent nearly 30 years interviewing the world’s wealthiest people, and is the author of “How Rich People Think.”  

What is your freedom?

One of the things Siebold talked about was what his research has identified as a shared characteristic among self-made millionaires: 

“A prevailing trait among the wealthy people . .. is that they have a '“really positive relationship with money. They think about money in terms of freedom, as opposed to the negative relationship a lot of people have with money.'"

Let’s look at that again: wealthy people think about money in terms of freedom.

Invest your money - just not in shoes

On a whim - and a break from looking at holiday cookie recipes - today I searched for the word “Invest” on Pinterest.  One of the pins that popped up was a picture of a pair of Chanel ballet flats with the caption “if you’re looking to invest in a classic.”   

I promise you that I love shoes as much as the next gal, and I can amortize each wear of a $200 pair of jeans in about 8 seconds.  Even so, the first thing that crossed my mind when I saw that pin was: Chanel ballet flats are so NOT an investment.

A sound investment?

More precisely, shoes are not an investment.  Everyone remembers our fictional soul mate Carrie Bradshaw.  She spent nearly $40,000 on shoes, and ended up having to ask Mr. Big for the down payment on her apartment when her building went co-op.  

Carrie may not have ended up using the money Big gave her, but still . . . That! Right there! That’s the thing we're trying to avoid.