Happiness And Success

Last week I listened to an intriguing interview with Dr. Emma Seppälä, the author of The Happiness Track. The interview covered data-driven insights into how our overextension is hindering our success, and how cultivating happiness can drive our achievement. Yes, you read that correctly.

Data suggests that happiness may drive success, not the other way around.

I’m guilty of thinking that success, whatever that word may mean, will lead to happiness. It is easy to believe that you must be successful to be happy, but the data suggesting that happiness leads to success is compelling. Naturally, I want both, happiness and success – so maybe I need to follow Dr. Seppälä’s research and focus on happiness first.

I’m going to give it a try. I’m a big fan of writing for self-reflection, so I’ll start with making a list of things that make me happy. Step two will be trying to determine what success means to me, and I have a feeling that will be difficult. In the meantime, I’m going to attempt to follow Dr. Emma Seppälä’s six steps to happiness and success.

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PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day – Building Momentum Part 2

If you’ve read my first post about PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day, you already know that I’ll be speaking on the young professional panel tomorrow. (Actually, I spoke earlier today because I’m going to schedule this post to publish just after the panel discussion, but I’m writing this the night before.)

Our moderator, Nicole Halpin, sent out a preview of some of the questions we will use to get the discussion started tomorrow. While preparing tonight, I decided I should summarize my answers to a few questions. Not only will writing my answers out help me think through them more thoroughly, but sharing them may help someone else out as well.

#PRSASTLCD

“I myself worked through my senior year and graduated without relevant internship experience. What would you suggest for those in this room that have never had an internship?”

Work on developing your portfolio. Find a way to create your internship, take on small freelance projects. The experience you gain from developing your leads, pitching your ideas and managing client projects will be valuable no matter what direction your career takes you. Make sure you track as much data as possible and create case studies to include with your resume as work samples.

“How did you personally stand out in the resume pool?”

I included as many numbers as I could. I talked about doubling the number of social media followers, increasing click-through rates by X percent or even better, revenue generated by my tactics.

“When applying for your first job, how do you pitch yourself when you lack the 3-5 years industry experience that we typically see in job postings?”

I completely ignored it and focused on the quantifiable results. In my opinion, real proven results mean more than the number of months or years spent sitting in an office, and I did my best to talk about results instead of how long I’ve worked where, etc.

“As a PRSSA graduate that quickly became involved in the St. Louis PRSA chapter, I understand networking is key in growing as a young professional. How can students utilize networking to its fullest extent without seeming desperate for a job?”

The best networking isn’t the typical networking. It isn’t chamber of commerce meetups or grabbing coffee with other industry professionals. The best networking is volunteering. Pick an organization you believe in and start donating your time and knowledge. You’ll meet a lot of people, prove you know what you’re doing and add some interesting projects to your portfolio. Always track the data and write up case study summaries. Those results will be the best additions you can add to future job applications.

“I heard at my first Career Development Day that HTML is a great asset to have in your portfolio so I took online introductory courses to make myself stand out when applying. Are there other skills you would suggest to our audience to learn and add to their personal portfolio?”

HTML for sure. I’d learn everything you can about Excel, not just the basics, everything. I’d also learn as much as you can about writing for search engine optimization. Once you know how to write for search engines, you’ll be able to start optimizing everything – especially your LinkedIn profile. Once I optimized my LinkedIn profile, the number of times my profile was viewed doubled and I began receiving messages from recruiters wanting to discuss potential career opportunities. It only took me a few hours to optimize my profile, and I ended up getting a job offer when I wasn’t even searching for one because of it.

I’d also look for as many free certification courses as you can; such as Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing Certification, Google Adwords Certification and Google Analytics certification.

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The Real Reason Watching The Clock Sucks

How often do you find yourself watching the clock at work? Every few days when the dull tasks come along? Once a day when your energy starts to dip? Every minute of every day? Hopefully not – it sucks. Watching the clock brings down my mood and makes the day move by so slow that I think my watch battery died.

When I’m watching the clock, I’m completely restless. I am constantly moving in my chair, bouncing my legs and thinking of how great it will feel to be grabbing my coat and heading out of the office door. The worst part is when that time comes – it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it usually sucks.

It sucks because I realize how much of my life I am wasting, or at least wishing away.

The thought that usually follows this realization is, “I wish I could spend more time doing things that I truly love.” After thinking this a few times, I did the math. How much time do I have to dedicate to what I love? Not much. At least not a whole lot during the work week.

I try to sleep 7 hours a night. I’ve struggled with insomnia in the past, so now that I’m sleeping fairly well I take advantage of it. I wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready for work, and I leave just before 7:30 AM. A 30-minute commute to the office, followed by work for 9 hours, and another 30-minute commute home. That leaves me with 6 hours to have dinner, do some laundry, mow the grass, etc. It’s not hard to see how quickly mandatory tasks like these take over those 6 hours.

Yeah, it can be depressing at times but with some scheduling and prioritizing, it’s not too bad. What I find truly worrisome is how to balance all of that in the future, when I’m starting a family. At most, I’ll have 6 or so hours a day to split between mandatory tasks and spending time with my family – that sucks.

Maybe the next steps in my career should involve a more flexible schedule, the ability to work from home or ideally some form of passive income. Or maybe I just need to suck it up and stop watching the clock.

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PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day – Building Momentum

In April of 2013, I attended my first social media conference, Social Fresh. Attending the conference was an incredible experience and at the end of the two-day event, I remember thinking about how fun it must be to speak at conferences. I decided to make it one of my personal goals.

Just under a year ago, I nervously spoke at my first digital marketing conference, WordCamp. Shortly after, I was asked to be the social media marketing speaker at a real estate conference. I was so excited to have the opportunity to speak again. Unfortunately, the date conflicted with another larger opportunity, starting a new full-time position. I was disappointed that I was unable to speak at the event and naively worried that the small momentum of speaking opportunities I had would quickly halt.

Starting my full-time position, without a doubt, slowed the momentum I had on a lot of projects and personal goals. My calendar started to fill and my schedule quickly became more strict. I adapted to my new schedule and started working on my personal goals again, starting with the small and easy to accomplish. It took me several months, but I feel as though I’m building momentum again.

Not only does professional development play a large role in all careers, it also is the foundation for many of my personal goals. This Friday, February 26, is Career Development Day for PRSA St. Louis. I wanted to attend, so I started planning to take the day off work and it’s a good thing I did because I’ve since been asked to be on the young professionals panel.

Lately, I’ve been all about momentum because it is easier to keep moving than to start again if you stop. I’m really looking forward to being a part of this panel, and to keep building momentum to achieve my goals.

It’s short notice, but I’d like to invite you to join me and many others at PRSA St. Louis Career Development Day. Unfortunately, there’s only one day left to register. If you can’t join us in person, be sure to follow along on Twitter, #PRSASTLCD.

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