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What You Should Never Compromise On While Building Your Career

This story first appeared at Forbes on 9/10/12

As a career coach to mid- and senior-level professionals, and in my former work as a therapist, I’ve come into contact with thousands of questions, concerns, mistakes and crossroads that emerge in people’s personal and professional lives.  Observing the long arc of many careers, I’ve noticed that the worst missteps – the ones that make us feel deep pain, regret, sorrow and remorse – are mistakes reflecting what people have chosen to compromise on or to give up in order to be “successful.”  These compromises don’t feel like “choices” at the time, but they are, and they lead to common crises and challenges that are disastrous for the individual.

Below are the top five things you should never compromise on while building your career (or you’ll regret it deeply):

Why You Remain Stuck in a Career You HateKathy CaprinoContributor

The 8 Stages of Career TransformationKathy CaprinoContributor

If You Want a Job, Start Doing ItGregg Fairbrothers and Catalina GorlaContributor

5 Core Steps to a More Satisfying Career in 2012Kathy CaprinoContributor

1.       Your Standards of Integrity

I view “standards of integrity” as core principles and values that guide our behavior.  Integrity is a choice, and while it is influenced by a myriad of factors (your culture, upbringing, peer influences, etc.), it can’t be forced.  (If it is, you have played a part in that.)  One who has strong and well-defined standards of integrity behaves with wholeness, integration, honesty, and does right by himself/herself and by others.  Standards of integrity involve values and virtues such as honesty, kindness, trust, wisdom, loyalty, transparency, objectivity, acceptance, openness, empathy, and graciousness.

I’ve seen so many people in midlife awaken as if from a long stupor to realize that they’ve compromised their most core values in order to get ahead in their work or keep jobs they hate.  It hurts them to find that they’ve walked away from who they are, and what they value and cherish most.

People mistakenly believe that in these tough recessionary times they have to give up on their values and integrity to stay employed, but that’s simply not true.  Those who are guided by a strong sense of integrity fare much better in professional life, and will be successful where others fail.

2.       Your Self-Respect

I’ve personally lived through the heartache of compromising my self-respect to stay in a job. Years ago when I was a corporate marketing professional, I knew that how I was behaving (because I felt pressured to), was beneath me.  I wasn’t the leader or manager I longed to be, because I couldn’t manage and navigate through the toxicity, stress and overwhelm I felt in my job or in the organization.  I tried to speak up about what I saw around me that wasn’t right, but I got crushed down.  In the end, I completely lost my self-respect, and felt that I was “prostituting” myself in order to keep my job and maintain my high salary.  I knew literally in the first week that the job and company were wrong for me.  What should I have done?  Find a new job fast.

3.       Your Soul for Money

Money – and our relationship with it — is a topic that’s spawned millions of books, articles and seminars.  Many of us struggle each day with maintaining a healthy balance and appropriate power dynamic with our money, and most of us fail.  I’ve seen countless professionals give up their souls for money – not because they are struggling to pay the bills, but because they’ve become enslaved by their lifestyle and their need to impress.  These folks have forgotten that they’ve come here at this time on this planet to do more than pay the bills, acquire things, and keep up with the Joneses.  I’m not saying that fulfilling your financial obligations isn’t important – it is.  I am saying that you are much more than your paycheck or bank account.

You know if you’ve sacrificed your soul for money – it’s a painful, debilitating state that you can’t pretend your way out of.

I know I’ll hear from many of you who will say, “Kathy, you’re nuts.  I have to stay in this job I hate because I’m financially responsible for my family and it’s the only job I can get.”  Not knowing your situation, I can’t say for sure, but my guess is that you absolutely do not have to work in ways you despise in order to do what’s necessary for yourself and your family.

4.       Your Health and Well-being

In my corporate training and seminars, I see hundreds of high-level professional women who are brilliant, achievement-oriented and accomplished, but at the same time exhausted, depleted, depressed and demoralized.  In the pursuit of a great career, they’ve compromised their health and well-being.  Much of this has to do with the ever- complicated issue of work-life balance and how to stay competitive and ahead of the curve.  But to me, it’s much more.  Sacrificing your health and well-being demonstrates your lack of prioritizing yourself as important, failing to understand that you must care for yourself – and yes, put yourself first — before you can be of true service to anyone else, your organization, your family or your employer.  If your body is shutting down, diseased or broken down from the way you work, rapid change is needed.

5.       Your Legacy

Finally, the saddest professionals I know have sacrificed their legacy in the process of building their careers.  What is your legacy? It’s what you will be able to say about yourself when you’re 90 looking back — what you’ve stood for, given, taught, imparted, and left behind. Not what you dreamed of being, but what you have been.  It’s the impact you’ve made on the world, your family, and your community.  This is not a dress rehearsal, but the real thing here, and so many professionals forget that they have this one chance to build a life that’s meaningful for them.   Instead, they compromise their legacy in a vain effort to grasp “success,” accolades, security, or power. (If you want to clarify your legacy, values, standards of integrity and more, take my Career Path Self-Assessment).

If you think you have to compromise on any of the above in order to be employed or build a successful career, I hope you’ll think again.  I’ve lived and witnessed the pain of giving yourself up in the processing of creating a professional life, and despite all your best efforts, it will never bring you the success, fulfillment and reward you long for.

What Successful Night Owls Get Done Before Bed

This article first appeared on Fast Company on August 27, 2012.

We all know morning people are said to have a business advantage, but what about those night owls? They've got a competitive edge, too. Here are their productivity tips for the wee hours.

Early birds get all the credit. Research indicates that morning people tend to be more active and goal oriented, and such larks as Steve Jobs, Craig Newmark of Craigslist, and 25-year old David Karp, founder of the Tumblr blogging platform suggest that climbing the ladder ofsuccess is easier before breakfast.

So does that mean night owls are at a disadvantage? Research by Satoshi Kanazawa and colleagues at the London School of Economics and Political Science suggests no. The group discovered significant differences in sleep preferences and found that people with higher IQs are more likely to be night owls. They found an evolutionary shift from being active in the day towards nightly pursuits and that those individuals who preferred to stay up late demonstrated "a higher level of cognitive complexity.” Researchers from Belgium and Switzerland studying sleep habits found that early risers needed more rest than their nocturnal counterparts and didn’t focus as well later in the day as those who slept in.

Armed with that knowledge, Fast Company found a group of dedicated night owls to discuss their strategies for making the wee hours work for them. Most responded to our queries via email well past midnight. Here’s what they told us.

Pick One Project

Keval Desai, a partner at InterWest Partners and a former Google product director, says he’s only seen the sun rise in the past decade when he pulls an all-nighter. He replied at 2:22 a.m., close to his typical turn-in time of 2 a.m.

His penchant for working late was born of necessity when he was still in high school in Bombay. “My parents and I lived in a small apartment and during the day there was no privacy of time or space to concentrate. So the only option to get my studies done would be to work on it at night after everyone was asleep and there were no friends, neighbors, or random visitors dropping by.”

Staying up late is now a habit, and Desai says it’s common for him to leave the thinking work for the wee hours. “During the day most of my time is spent in meetings with entrepreneurs, and the only time I can find alone to do work that requires some concentration is when the rest of the household is asleep.”

He’ll pick one project per night. Daytime is for doing the research on tasks that “require synthesizing several different pieces of information, then applying some thought on key decisions that need to be made and then articulating those decisions,” he says. “I don’t go to sleep until the task is done in one night session.”

You’ll find Desai working from home after hours, although he says he’s logged plenty of nights at the Google offices and then drives home to San Francisco, 45 miles away. He’s a big believer in drinking a cup or two of decaf green or chamomile tea while ensconced in a spare bed with his laptop.

Combat Clutter

Laurie Tucker is the senior vice president for corporate marketing at FedEx who sent her response to us at 1:45 a.m., also close to her bedtime of 2 am.

Tucker, who rises at 6 a.m. most mornings to work out, is one of those (rare) individuals who only needs about five hours of sleep each night. “My mother only slept a few hours a night, and I can still remember visits from my cousins who were put to bed by their parents at 8 p.m., while my brother and I sat up until midnight watching TV with the grownups,” she says. Though her husband “loves to sleep” and hits the hay at about 9:30 p.m., Tucker has to make herself go to bed.

“I adore late night. When my kids were young, I loved having hours of quiet after they went to bed. I had team all over the world back then so I would do conference calls, respond to email, and catch up on reading,” she says. Now that her kids are grown and she manages a U.S.-based team, she has more time to read and think.  “I love the quiet time to unclutter my mind.”

While she doesn't require as much sleep as most people, Tucker still believes late-night hours should be spent at rest. "Nighttime is for regeneration. Be at peace, feed your mind, and let your body rest.” 

She avoids anything with caffeine at night, says that she goes to sleep within minutes of her head hitting the pillow. Her energy level stays high all day, and she never naps. "My biggest challenge is to stay away from the kitchen--dinner to bedtime is a long stretch," says Tucker.

Hit The “Idea” Bar

Cosmopolitan editor-in-chief of and author of the new book I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This,Kate White was kind enough to spill some of her late-night strategies.

White goes to bed earlier than she used to (midnight or 1 a.m.) because she hits the ground running at 5:30 a.m. to work on her fiction. At night, you’ll find her hard at work on magazine editing, non-fiction book writing, and blogs.

“My craziest trick is that I regularly do my work standing up at a rolling butcher block counter in my kitchen. If I were to work sitting down, I’d fall asleep," White says. "I know it sounds awful, but I think of it as if I’m tending bar in the evening--a bar of ideas. And I always keep the kitchen TV on so it doesn’t seem too lonely. I drink several espressos at night, which really helps."

Late Night Rendezvous

CEO of the online meeting platform Groopt, Patrick Allen says his head doesn’t hit the pillow (or his desk) until about 3:30 a.m. That makes him the early bird among the site’s developer staff, who tend to stay up all night chatting on Campfire.

Located on the top floor or a quirky Victorian in San Francisco’s fabled Haight Ashbury neighborhood, Allen says the Groopt HQ is a haven for productivity, with feng shui that would make Confucius proud. “We firmly believe that to reach maximum productivity, you must work in the optimum environment, and this couldn't be more true for the night owl,” he says. Rather than revel in the quiet, Allen says it's not uncommon to find “three to five of our Troopers sitting around the coffee table at 3 a.m. hammering out user stories or crafting new experiments for cohort analysis,” which energizes him.

To be effective late, he says, you need to believe what you're doing is giving you an edge on the competition. "As Childish Gambino says, ‘While they be sleeping I'll be on to that new $hit.’"

To keep alert, they've stocked their pantry with fresh coffee, a Nespresso machine, and "mounds and mounds of Yerba Mate.”

Big Picture Thinking

Frank Aldorf, the chief brand officer of Specialized Bicycle Components sent us a reply at 1:49 a.m.--late for the guy who tries to turn in no later than half past midnight.

“It's actually fun working on this brand,” says Aldorf. But with a team in different time zones and a company that has offices in 28 countries, Aldorf’s day is mostly organized around meetings and connecting with people or travel.

“At night is the time when I get stuff done and can think about the bigger picture. It's focused. That’s the time when I can turn notes and ideas drafted on the fly into concepts and future projects. I read through saved articles and get inspired by my well-maintained RSS feed.”

Aldorf says he needs the right music on his headphones. “I can't live or travel anymore without my noise-canceling headphones and a station like KCRW.”

Aldorf doesn’t do caffeine at night and keeps the coffee consumption to 1 or 2 espressos a day. “Before I start my nightshift, I go for a short bike ride to sharpen my senses,” he adds, “But I know how important rest time is to be game the next day.” Which for him, starts back up at 6:30 a.m. 

Lydia Dishman used to stay up writing until 2 a.m. Now she's switched to waking up early, albeit with a LOT of coffee. You can read more of her work here.

What keeps you up at night? How do you stay productive? Tell us about it in the comments below.

The Power of Dreams Series

One of the best marketing campaigns that I have ever seen is Honda's "The Power of Dreams" series. My favorite is the "Failure: The Secret to Success" video. Do you think it's possible to be successful without going through failure first? Look at what the Honda team had to go through to get to where they are now.

Targeted List Spreadsheet

As you begin your job search you should plan your approach. Who will you be contacting? Why will you be contacting them? You should have questions like these answered before you submit your first resume. You also shouldn't be so narrow in your search  that you only reach out to a handful of companies.

Below is a document to help you in planning your search. There are 40 lines because you should reach out to at least 40 companies. Remember, 85% of all jobs are filled outside of the want ads. You're only going to find these positions if you're looking everywhere. Also make sure  that you plan when you will be contacting the company. It's too easy to let distractions interrupt your call plan. 

Fill this sheet out and then assess how your current job search looks. Should you expand your search criteria? Should you try reaching out to someone again?

Target List

Interview The Interviewer

When you're hoping to land that great job opportunity, you have to work hard to focus on the right steps. The one thing to keep in mind is that you should be conducting your own research on the company and position you're interviewing for.

Bouncing around from job to job can be a detriment, or in the very least, cause pain when you're having to clean up your resume. So before accepting a position shouldn't you make sure that it will be the right fit for you?

When you sit down with your interviewer, interview them! It sounds weird but this is a great opportunity to learn more about what you could potentially be doing for a long time. Before you have that first meeting you should have already researched the company and people that you would be reporting to. Knowledge is power and it's freely available on the Internet, so use it!

Look for how fast the company has grown, how much have they grown, and how do they make their money.  Then plug yourself into the equation. How can you help the company in these areas? If you're an accountant, you may point out a process that has helped a similar company reduce inefficiencies (be an expert in your field). Try to add value beyond proving that you can a "good employee."

When the time comes to have the interview, hopefully you will be prepared to have a high-level conversation with your interviewer. Answer their questions but don't let the opportunity slip by to ask them your questions. You're going to stand out when you say "company revenues were strongest last year, what role did this department play in that/"

This article first appeared at Fast Company on August 22, 2012.

How much does the first hour of every day matter? As it turns out, a lot. It can be the hour you see everything clearly, get one real thing done, and focus on the human side of work rather than your task list.

Remember when you used to have a period at the beginning of every day to think about your schedule, catch up with friends, maybe knock out a few tasks? It was called home room, and it went away after high school. But many successful people schedule themselves a kind of grown-up home room every day. You should too.

The first hour of the workday goes a bit differently for Craig Newmark of Craigslist, David Karp of Tumblr, motivational speaker Tony Robbins, career writer (and Fast Company blogger) Brian Tracy, and others, and they’ll tell you it makes a big difference. Here are the first items on their daily to-do list.

Don’t Check Your Email for the First Hour. Seriously. Stop That.

Tumblr founder David Karp will “try hard” not to check his email until 9:30 or 10 a.m., according to an Inc. profile of him. “Reading e-mails at home never feels good or productive,” Karp said. “If something urgently needs my attention, someone will call or text me.”

Not all of us can roll into the office whenever our Vespa happens to get us there, but most of us with jobs that don’t require constant on-call awareness can trade e-mail for organization and single-focus work. It’s an idea that serves as the title of Julie Morgenstern’s work management book Never Check Email In The Morning, and it’s a fine strategy for leaving the office with the feeling that, even on the most over-booked days, you got at least one real thing done.

If you need to make sure the most important messages from select people come through instantly, AwayFind can monitor your inbox and get your attention when something notable arrives. Otherwise, it’s a gradual but rewarding process of training interruptors and coworkers not to expect instantaneous morning response to anything they send in your off-hours.

Gain Awareness, Be Grateful

One smart, simple question on curated Q & A site Quora asked “How do the most successful people start their day?”. The most popular response came from a devotee of Tony Robbins, the self-help guru who pitched the power of mindful first-hour rituals long before we all had little computers next to our beds.

Robbins suggests setting up an “Hour of Power,” “30 Minutes to Thrive,” or at least “Fifteen Minutes to Fulfillment.” Part of it involves light exercise, part of it involves motivational incantations, but the most accessible piece involves 10 minutes of thinking of everything you’re grateful for: in yourself, among your family and friends, in your career, and the like. After that, visualize “everything you want in your life as if you had it today.”

Robbins offers the “Hour of Power” segment of his Ultimate Edge series as a free audio stream (here’s the direct MP3 download). Blogger Mike McGrath also wrote a concise summary of the Hour of Power). You can be sure that at least some of the more driven people you’ve met in your career are working on Robbins’ plan.

Do the Big, Shoulder-Sagging Stuff First

Brian Tracy’s classic time-management book Eat That Frog gets its title from a Mark Twain saying that, if you eat a live frog first thing in the morning, you’ve got it behind you for the rest of the day, and nothing else looks so bad. Gina Trapani explained it well in a video for her Work Smart series). Combine that with the concept of getting one thing done before you wade into email, and you’ve got a day-to-day system in place. Here’s how to force yourself to stick to it:

Choose Your Frog

"Choose your frog, and write it down on a piece of paper that you'll see when you arrive back at your desk in the morning, Tripani advises."If you can, gather together the material you'll need to get it done and have that out, too."

One benefit to tackling that terrible, weighty thing you don’t want to do first thing in the morning is that you get some space from the other people involved in that thing--the people who often make the thing more complicated and frustrating. Without their literal or figurative eyes over your shoulder, the terrible thing often feels less complex, and you can get more done.

Ask Yourself If You’re Doing What You Want to Do

Feeling unfulfilled at work shouldn’t be something you realize months too late, or even years. Consider making an earnest attempt every morning at what the late Apple CEO Steve Jobs told a graduating class at Stanford to do:

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Customer Service” (or Your Own Equivalent)

Craigslist founder Craig Newmark answered the first hour question succinctly: “Customer service.” He went on to explain (or expand) that he also worked on current projects, services for military families and veterans, and protecting voting rights. But customer service is what Newmark does every single day at Craigslist, responding to user complaints and smiting scammers and spammers. He almost certainly has bigger fish he could pitch in on every day, but Newmark says customers service “anchors me to reality.”

Your own version of customer service might be keeping in touch with contacts from year-ago projects, checking in with coworkers you don’t regularly interact with, asking questions of mentors, and just generally handling the human side of work that quickly gets lost between task list items. But do your customer service on the regular, and you’ll have a more reliable roster of helpers when the time comes.

[Image: Flickr user Thomas Hawk]