How to Build a Business by Playing Nice (+ Book Giveaway!)

Lisa Sugar is a pretty cool person. She has attended the Oscars, had a Hollywood-themed Bat Mitzvah, and her first concert was Michael Jackson. 

She's also the founder of POPSUGAR, a global lifestyle media and tech company inspiring and engaging over 100 million readers. Since its beginnings in 2005, POPSUGAR has embraced a vision to "modernize the newsstand" and connect readers to all the latest trends in lifestyle and pop culture. It is now the #1 independent media company for women. 

Of course, a successful business like POPSUGAR doesn't just appear. It takes a lot of hard work and passion, and Lisa Sugar's new book Power Your Happy details her steps to success in both life and career. 

One of Sugar's overarching philosophies is to "work hard, play nice." She believes that you don't have to cheat or be cutthroat to get to the top—working hard and playing by the rules is rewarded just as well. Sugar notes:

For me, nice doesn't mean saccharine or relentlessly positive. It can mean being fiercely competitive (which I'll be the first to admit I am) as long as you play by the rules. Nor does nice mean being sickly sweet or timid (I also curse like a sailor). My brand of nice comes from a place of honesty, supporting others, and being empathetic. Nice is the simple lesson you learn in preschool: do unto others as you would have them do unto you. 

3 Ways to Build a Business While Playing Nice

1. Make friends with your competition

It's easy to think of your competition as the enemy—a person or entity from which you want to distance yourself and keep secrets. But Sugar recognizes that a huge part of POPSUGAR's early success is due to the support of other writers and celebrity sites:

It felt as though these fellow bloggers were my coworkers. ... We gave one another advice—about coding, finding images, tools, and navigating legalities—and become friends in the process. We were fond of one another and knew how much hard work we all were putting into our sites. ... Rather than see one another as rivals, we figured out how to collaborate. As a result, all of us grew our sites' traffic much faster than we would have alone.

As you build your business and navigate your career, consider doing so with a mindset of collaboration and abundance. Going it alone and feeling as though you are in a stressful state of "survival of the fittest" is not healthy. 

2. Stay true to your values

When it comes to building a business or career, know that you have a unique understanding of your industry—the good and the bad—and have an opportunity to consciously choose how you want to participate. 

When Sugar started POPSUGAR, she knew she wanted to promote a positive voice that inspires women to build confidence, celebrate their diversity, and feel supported. While many other celebrity and media sites thrive on a negative voice, Sugar was sure to cultivate an online community where people were safe. For instance, a primary editorial guideline from the beginning was to never write anything about a person you would not say directly to their face. Comments and audience engagement are also well-monitored to encourage positive conversation and weed out the trolls. In the end, POPSUGAR's values-drive business practices were rewarded with a rapidly growing community. 

3. Focus on team culture

The success of your business depends on many people, which is why it's so important to thoughtfully grow your team and team culture. Sugar notes that by focusing on building a work atmosphere that is happy and supportive, her employees are better able to do good work, suggest new ideas, and appropriately resolve conflict. 

More specifically, Sugar encourages transparency and an all-hands-on-deck mentality in her team:

I want to create a safe, positive environment where I'd rather hear what the twenty-two-year-olds have to say than make them cower in fear. ... At POPSUGAR, we have the mentality that everyone should know how to do a little bit of everything. Sure, you need to start by learning the basics and train your way up to bigger tasks, but being at the top doesn't mean you are ever above doing a little dirty work. That's part of working hard and playing nice and being a team player. 

Book Giveaway

We're excited to announce that one awesome Life After College reader will receive a copy of Lisa Sugar's Power Your Happy!

To enter to win, please answer the following question in the comments by Friday, March 10. We will pick a winner via random.org and let you know! Good luck!

Comment to Be Entered to Win: 
What does "playing nice" in your business or career mean to you? 

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Marisol Dahl graduated Yale in 2015 as a Sociology and Education Studies major. She is currently a New York-based freelancer in communications and brand strategy, and loves exploring minimalist blogging and social media practices at her site Mindful & Minimal. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

How to Scale Your Impact and Make More Money

As mentioned in a recent LAC newsletter, my word for 2017 is impact. With everything going on in the world lately, these last few months have had me really evaluating how I am making a (positive) difference—with my clients, in my community, in the environment, and more. 

And as a full-time freelancer, you bet I've been taking a hard look at how I can connect this service-driven side to my business goals. Being quite honest here, ever since I graduated college my major focus has been on making money and figuring out how to financially support myself and my ambitions. 

But now it's time to reconcile two things that I've always internally thought were at odds with each other: making money and doing good in the world. 

What I'm realizing now is that how much revenue you earn is actually a pretty good indicator of your impact on the world. If we consider the basic principles of supply and demand, the more revenue you bring in reflects a certain level of demand—people who are seeking your skills, services, expertise, and specific impact on the world. 

And I know money is certainly not the only measure of impact. There are so many people out there who are making a huge difference in the lives of others without earning large amounts of revenue. 

But here's the thing: maybe they should be making more than what they earn currently. How might we all be playing the small game financially, and not openly valuing our impact for what it's truly worth? 

Making money does not have to conflict with your values. In fact, it's necessary in order to act on your values. If you can't sustainably grow your business or keep yourself afloat, how can you possibly expect to amplify your impact? 

Let's stop getting that "icky" feeling when we talk about revenue and profit. Let's celebrate it as an indicator of success and impact. 

And if you really want to talk numbers, check out this calculator that shows exactly how you can scale your impact and influence the lives of those around you. 

How to Scale Your Impact and Make More Money

What if your impact reached thousands of people? Maybe even millions?

Sounds a bit daunting, right? 

The good news is that the digital world makes it easy to share that knowledge with all those people. Online courses in particular are an increasingly effective way to reach more and more people and scale your impact in a sustainable way. 

If you've ever thought about creating an online course, I highly recommend Danny Iny's flagship program, the Course Builder’s Laboratory. 

The Course Builder’s Laboratory is the most comprehensive program out there. Inside, you will get eight modules that will teach you the entire system for creating predictably profitable online courses.

From zeroing in on a promising course idea, to validating it with real sales, all the way to building a course people will want, CBL will take you through a proven step-by-step process.

In addition to that, the Course Builder’s Laboratory comes with templates and scripts to help you eliminate guesswork and unnecessary effort – including email scripts, webinar templates, and sales call scripts for reaching out to people in your existing audience or personal network.

The really awesome thing is that you will be getting a lot more than just the core CBL material. As soon as you join the Course Builder’s Laboratory, you will be assigned a personal course-building coach. This is someone who’s been extensively trained in the CBL process, and has worked through it with dozens of entrepreneurs. Your coach will work with you for the entire duration of the program, giving you feedback and helping you if you ever get stuck.

If you’re serious about creating an online course this year, the Course Builder's Laboratory is the best way of making sure you follow through with it and succeed. Click here to learn more! 

We all have a skill to share or something to teach. What is yours? I'd love to hear in the comments below! 
 

Life After College: 2016 Year In Review + 9-Year Blogiversary!

Written by Marisol Dahl

So much to celebrate as we close up 2016! The Life After College blog turned nine (!!) this past weekend, and in true LAC fashion we are bringing out the cupcakes. 

It's been a crazy-wild year of business growth, new ventures, growing families, and book publishing! Let's jump in . . . 

Our Favorite 2016 Posts

It was a year full of wisdom from the LAC team—Jenny, Melissa, Paul, Davis and myself. So awesome taking a look back at these greatest hits. 

• Land the Gig Part 1: Preparation, Land the Gig (Part 2): Interviewing, and Land the Gig (Part 3): Expand the Pie (by Jenny)
• Standing Out From a Crowd of 30,000 (by Davis)
• Waiting for Perfect Alignment (by Melissa)
• 6 Ways You're Making Life Much Harder Than it Has to Be (by Paul)
• 6 Things to Consider Before You Quit Your New Job (by Melissa)
• Be Who You Want to Be—Faster (by Davis)
• Procrastination for the Win: 5 Ways to “Waste Time” (by Marisol)
• The Biggest Problem Millennials Face in Achieving Their Dreams (by Paul)
• How to Make the Most of the Last Three Months of the Year (by Marisol)
• Is Hybridpreneurship for you? Fluidity and Opportunity in the New World of Work (by Jenny)
• A Reminder: Have You Thanked Your Problems Yet? (by Melissa)

Updates from the LAC Team

Melissa: "MConnected Communications is continuing to grow and we’re about to complete our first long-term corporate consulting contract. I spoke at the Work Life Congress for Working Mother’s Magazine in October, and met some amazing people who are making strides in the work/life balance arena. We launched our course, Strategic Storytelling for HR this year – and it was a success! My biggest lesson for 2016: I was building a business and a growth path that didn’t fit the way I work best. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but it’s also been extremely freeing and satisfying since changing things up! 2017 will be filled with new things for MConnected – and some great insider things for Launch Your Job and Launch Yourself (so stay tuned). It’s going to be filled with a lot of new adventures for me and my peeps."

Paul: "My family made a cross country move! And our third child arrived in August, this time a boy, which I was slightly excited about. I had the privilege of working with companies like Aflac, Wells Fargo, and Stewart Title on reaching, engaging, retaining, and leading Millennials. I was highlighted in various publications on the topics on marketing to Millennials and pursuing your passion on Bloomberg, the Chicago Tribune, and even for AARP. I launched my new online course, Finding Your Signature Sauce, a program that helps people uncover the unique ingredients within them to create an attainable action plan where their passion, purpose, and career collide. I'm working on two new books: one similar in style to 101 Secrets For Your Twenties, and the other a fiction story. If you're looking for something fun to do this holiday break, check out this fun new quiz I recently created at All Groan Up. 

Davis: "One year since joining Bain, I've helped a biotech company develop a launch plan for a life saving drug, a tech company find more than $100M in savings, and a low-income school system build a teacher retention strategy. In 2017, I will be delivering my first TEDx talk and competing in the World Championship of Public Speaking. The Biggest lesson I've learned in 2017 is that you can't predict what you will do in one year, but you know what you can do today."

Marisol: 2016 was a huge growth year for my career, as I expanded my freelance communications business and explored new areas of work. While the first half of the year was all about career expansion, these last few months have been about contraction—releasing some work commitments and redefining my roles as I zero in on how I want my career to grow. It's been a marathon year and a half since graduating college, but I feel like I now have more room to breathe and can focus on other passions and areas of growth: rekindling those rusty guitar skills, continuing with my new hot yoga practice, and blogging again (!). After taking a 1.5-year break from personal blogging, I've reset the clock on my digital life and start approaching it in a more minimal, and intentional, way. Excited to see how this goes!

2016 Highlights From Jenny

Handing the mic over to Jenny for her round-up of all the great things happening and forthcoming!  

• PIVOT: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One was published in September by Portfolio/Penguin Random House! It's been a whirlwind launch season as I just wrapped up my book and speaking tour, connect with new readers and pivoters, and watch this book find its own place in the world. I am overcome with gratitude for all of you here reading, those who shared the book on social media, and everyone who has supported me along this publishing journey.
  
  800-CEO-Read, Refinery29, JP Morgan and Seth Godin all mentioned it among their end-of-year must read lists, and I'm blown away that PIVOT is close to reaching 100 reviews on Amazon!! If you haven't added yours yet, they are incredibly helpful for generating momentum in these early days of the launch. I read and cherish every single one! Check out the Pivot Toolkit here if you haven't already — tons of free resources and templates :) 
   
• In early 2016, I took the Pivot Podcast "pro" by getting it into iTunes, and was surprised to find that it quickly took the top spot for activities that bring me immense joy. I got to connect with many of my author heroes, including James Altucher, Kevin Kelly, Penney Peirce, and many more. Go down the archives rabbit hole here, and search for "Pivot Podcast Jenny Blake" to subscribe wherever you listen to 'casts. 
   
• In late summer, Marisol and I launched "Momentum 2.0"—a revamped version of my online community where I connect with my favorite pivot peeps, side-hustlers, and solopreneurs.

More on Momentum 

Momentum is where you can access all my courses and workshops, ask me anything in bi-weekly Q&A calls, and connect with other smart, generous, creative people. Would love for you to join us if it seems like just what you need to kick off 2017 with a bang! Here's a recent webinar on 10 Non-Sleazy Marketing Tips with Pivot Coach Melani Dizon, and here's a recent Q&A call where I talk about facing fears, surrender, and share a short meditation.  

If you're looking to kick off 2017 with an extra boost of accountability and support, thinking about a pivot, or looking to connect with ~65 other awesome, smart side-hustlers and solopreneurs, I'd love for you to join us in Momentum! In addition to twice monthly "Ask Me Anything" Q&A calls, workshops on deck include:

• Q&A with Jenny: Plan Your 2017 Pivot
• Q&A with Jenny: How to Lead a PIVOT Mastermind Group
• January Workshop: Scalable Streams of Solopreneur Income
• February Workshop: Crafting Your Career Vision with Lisa Lewis
• March Workshop: Soul Goals: How to Align with Your Inner Blueprint

A la carte, each of these workshops is $47. But if you join Momentum, you'll get access to all five as well as all my other courses, past workshop recordings, Q&A call archive, and private Facebook community. 

Personalized Pivot Planning

Be sure to also check out the 10-Week Career Pathfinder Course: an online career coaching program that guides you step-by-step to find your calling, and Pivot Jumpstart Coaching (two sessions with email in-between): One-on-one support to kickstart and accelerate your pivot-in-progress. 

See you in 2017! 

Above all we are most thankful for you, our incredible LAC Community! Thank you for reading, commenting, and sharing your own life after college adventures with us! 

If you have a quick minute, we’d love for you to fill out our super-short two-question survey so that we can make Life After College insanely helpful for you in 2017. We value your feedback immensely and want to make sure we're doing everything we can to make this next year rock. And if you aren't yet subscribed to the weekly #PivotList newsletter, make sure to do that here!

Happiest holidays and wishing you a smashing start to the New Year!! 

5 Tips for Mastering Post-College Finances

By Marisol Dahl

When you’re catapulted into the post-college world, it’s natural to feel a little ungrounded. You’re moving to new places, exploring new jobs, and facing The Future head-on.

On top of that, we live in an age where our career paths are constantly evolving, and 40% of us will be freelancers by 2020.

There’s a whole new level of uncertainty when it comes to “adulting.” And let’s be real here: financial uncertainty and pressures are at the top of the list.

As someone who has been fully self-employed since graduation, money management is particularly top of mind. I don’t have a paycheck with taxes automatically deducted, or an employer offering retirement benefits. Month to month, I never know exactly what my income will be.

There’s no doubt that there’s a whole bunch of practical benefits that come with really understanding your financial life. But I’ve also found that getting a handle on your finances is a great way to gain a sense of control when everything else seems crazy.

5 Tips for Mastering Post-College Finances

1. Assess your accounts

First thing’s first. Get a bird’s-eye view of your situation by identifying three things: where your money comes from (income), where your money goes (expenses), and where it’s stored.

Write everything down, including the credit cards and bank accounts you have open, any assets (like a car), any debts, and any stock. Mint.com is a great resource to quickly aggregate all of these aspects of your financial life and see changes in real time.

2. Make a budget

By creating and sticking to a budget you will be able to align your financial reality with your financial ideals. Think about your goals: are you saving for something big? Want to start putting money aside for grad school or a wedding? Want to get ahead on student loan payments? Setting a budget will help you put the systems in place to actually do these things.

To get started, check out Jenny’s Four-step Budget template and Financial Modeling template.

3. Start saving for retirement NOW

I get it. Thinking about retirement seems like the last of your worries when you have student loans breathing down your neck and next month’s rent check due next week. But here’s the thing, if you don’t start saving now—even just a little bit each year—you’re robbing your future self.

So when you land a job, make sure there are good retirement benefits and options. If you’re self-employed start saving on your own (I opened a Roth IRA, but you should investigate your options to find out what’s best for you!).  

4. Refinance your loans

The college debt crisis. Yeah, it’s pretty depressing.

That’s why refinancing my loans was my first order of business when I graduated college. I bundled all my college loans into one, with a lower fixed rate and more manageable monthly payment. It will still be a long time before I’m debt free, but I have peace of mind that I’m doing everything in my power to make the best of the situation. :)

5. Start building credit (if you haven’t started already)

The big (financial) things in life require having good credit, like renting an apartment, buying a car, and even getting your own cell phone line.

So the best thing to do is to start building your credit as early as possible, and understand what factors into credit score calculations. Credit Karma is a great resource to see your score for free and get a breakdown of what’s positively and negatively affecting your score.

Bonus Tip: Call in the professionals

Ok, a quick disclaimer: I am by no means a finance expert. The purpose of this post is to document what I did and learned after a year of diving deep into money management. And after implementing everything I mentioned above, I feel awesome. My relationship with money has never been better.

So while I highly recommend the above tips, it’s always a good idea to have a chat with an accountant or financial advisor to get more personalized and strategic advice.

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Marisol Dahl graduated Yale University in 2015 and is now a full-time freelancer in communications, brand strategy, digital marketing, and content development. She loves exploring minimalist blogging and social media practices.

How to Make the Most of the Last Three Months of the Year

Written by Marisol Dahl

The Sun is setting earlier, the days are getting chillier, and the Halloween candy that has taken up residence in your house is just a hint of all the holiday celebrations to come.

There’s so much going on. And that means it’s really really easy to write off the next three months. Q4 is often considered a “lost quarter” in terms of work and productivity, especially if we have the promise of a shiny New Year just around the corner.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. The key to successful quarterly planning is to not treat each quarter like all the others. It’s important to take into account the time of year, acknowledge where you are in your life/career/business, and gauge your productivity levels moving forward. You have to look at the big picture, and set realistic expectations for yourself.

4 Ways to Make Q4 Awesome

1. Tie up loose ends.

What one or two things have you been resolving to do forever but just can’t seem to finish? Q4 is a great time to clear the decks and wrap up all those projects and to-dos that always seem to get pushed to the back-burner. You’ll thank yourself when the New Year rolls around :) Tying up loose ends is also a great goal for Q4 especially if you are wary of taking on completely new projects.

2. Debrief on the past year.

Jenny and I love having debrief sessions right after major initiatives (like a program or book launch!). It’s a great way to acknowledge accomplishments and identify areas for improvement, and we always walk away aligned on a few solid things we want to focus on for the next few months.

In your debrief, choose an area of your life (work, family, relationships, etc.). Identify three things you did well, three things you’d do differently, and three things you’d like to celebrate. Feel free to add any questions to you debrief process, and repeat for as many “life areas” you’d like to review.

3. Focus on relationships.

This is a great focus for Q4, since this time of year is already very relationship-oriented. Instead of seeing the holidays as time and productivity-sucks, use them as an “excuse” to get in touch and open up opportunities for stronger connection and collaboration.

This is a natural time to check in with your extended family, old classmates, former colleagues, and any other business contacts you’d like to keep in touch with—and it won’t be awkward since this is one of the most social seasons of the year.

4. Do sprints.

If you look ahead at your calendar, you might notice pockets of time that aren’t as conducive to work as others. Maybe you’re traveling, taking time off for a holiday, or have a lot of commitments clustered over a few days.

Use your schedule as an indicator of when it’s time to hustle, and when it’s time to let it flow. Instead of trying to evenly pace your work over the next three months, identify a few periods of time where you can do “sprints”—times where you can kick focused work into high gear and make a lot of progress in a short period of time. When you’re “off-sprint,” enjoy the time to celebrate what you achieved and get much-needed rest.

Join Us for the 5-Day #PIVOTsprint — Starts 10/10!

We’re excited to announce the first ever #PIVOTsprint, kicking off on October 10! This is a 5-day kickstart for you to map what’s next, whether you are pivoting within your current role or business, starting a side-hustle, getting unstuck on a major project, or cookin’ up an even bigger life change.

The week of prompts will walk you through the four-stage Pivot Method in—you guessed it!—four days, with some extra reflection at the start and end. Sign up here to join the#PIVOTsprint, and invite your friends for some added accountability!

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About Marisol Dahl

Marisol graduated Yale in 2015 as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and brand strategy. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

My Favorite Thing About Being Self-Employed

Written by Marisol Dahl

Just about a year ago I decided to stop my search for a traditional full-time job.

I was just three months out of college, had turned down two job offers, and had spent the summer going on a handful of interviews. And I was already working with Jenny and other small businesses, helping them manage their businesses day-to-day and explore new and exciting ways to grow.

At the time, I didn’t want to rule out that more “traditional” job route. You know, the one with the 9-5, the steady salary, and your very own desk that’s quite distinctly not in your childhood home. The type of job all my friends from college were going for.

But the jobs that I explored that summer just didn’t feel right.

And then in late August 2015, I finally told the truth to myself. I was doing what I already wanted to be doing. I was working with a fantastic group of entrepreneurs. I was creating my own career, and felt my learning and growth going at hyperspeed. It felt amazing, and I was certainly not going to give that up.

As Jenny notes in her new book PIVOT, I had already been piloting self-employment for a year and a half by the time I graduated. I had tested my systems and strategies for building my business, and experimented with raising my rates and figuring things out along the way.

It was then—in August 2015—that I knew I was ready to move from pilot mode to launch mode—to fully commit to self-employment and not look back. I became a full-time freelancer. A solopreneur. My own boss at 22 years old.

Now, a year later, my vision is changing again. And you know what that means! Time for a pivot.

When Your Launch Becomes a Pilot

I spent the rest of 2015 and early 2016 building my client base and thinking about expansion. That was the whole point of running your own business, right? To add more clients, scale business services, and capital-m Monetize.

But as I got more and more involved with working with my current clients, the last thing I wanted to do was spread myself too thin. I was also still really unsure how to define what I actually did.

That’s when I realized my “launch” into self-employment had transformed into a “pilot” round in itself.

I was testing out what I really wanted to do. I dove into content marketing, social media, brand strategy, business-building, website copywriting, article ghostwriting, community building, and email management. I worked side-by-side with my clients as they launched new websites, built new communities, created awesome content, and took their businesses to the next level.

I spent months saying yes to nearly every freelance opportunity, and by spring 2016 it was time for me to refine my business, to cut loose what wasn’t serving my career development, and go all in on what truly held my interests.

This is why I loved being self-employed. In any other scenario, I would not have been able to pilot as many job roles, to take on the level of responsibility that I did, or be in a position of constant career analysis.

Self-employment gave me the confidence and security to try things I NEVER would have gone for.

For instance, when I graduated college, it never crossed my mind to apply for a job at a brand and design agency (and commit myself full time!). I didn’t know the first thing about design, but when Jenny referred me to her friend Adam at ABC Design Lab, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t know what would come of it—for all I knew, it would be a disaster fit. But time went on, and I grew my role at ABC from a 15-hour/week gig to being a (nearly full time) Communication Strategist.

Self-employment had helped me find work I didn’t even know I loved. And I am so, so grateful for that.

Last Week to Pre-Order PIVOT

It is absolutely nuts to think that the book launch is just a week away! We’re so grateful for all the excitement that has already generated around Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, and I don’t want you to miss out on this awesome pre-order bonuses!

If you pre-order by September 6, you'll get all these goodies:

• Signed Bookplate: a sticker that goes on the inside of the book. For you and a friend if you'd like to gift a copy! Offer good until midnight September 6 (launch day); for U.S. residents only.

• Sneak Peek: at one of Jenny's favorite chapters—an excerpt from the book on what it means to be High Net Growth, and how to assess your risk threshold.

• Early access to the Pivot Toolkit: 30+ templates, and a list of Pivot 201 recommended reading.

• Pivot Playlist on Spotify: Favorite songs Jenny jammed to while going through her last pivot and writing the book, that fit many of the themes she addresses in the book itself :)  

• Private Q&A Call with Jenny during the launch week. You can submit questions in advance to ensure she covers what you're curious about!

• Jenny's 20+ Page Behind the Book Toolkit: every tool, template and system I used at each stage of the book writing process: proposal, outline, writing, editing, marketing, and more.

To access the bonus bundle, order your copy of Pivot here. Then grab your confirmation number and fill out the form here . We’re so excited for you to read the book!

Even More Bonuses When You Join Momentum

With Momentum being one of my favorite places to hangout online, I can’t not mention it here and invite you to join this private community for side-hustlers and solopreneurs! :)

Right now, we’re offering a discount on this quarter’s membership to all members who pre-order Pivot (it’s like getting the book for half off!).

Jenny will also be hosting a private webinar later in September called Launch Ninja (+ JB Lessons Learned), where she’ll sit down with the Momentum Crew for a debrief on the launch, best practices when launching (anything), and lessons she's learned along the way.

Plus, you’ll have access to all of our regular Momentum membership perks and bonuses, including access to all of Jenny’s courses, templates, and checklists (over $500 value).  

Interested in joining the fun? Click here to learn more about Momentum.

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About Marisol Dahl

Marisol graduated Yale in 2015 as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and branding. 

She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

3 Things I Learned About Productivity from the Perfect Day Method (+Giveaway!)

Written by Marisol Dahl

As a freelancer, I often feel like I have the best of both worlds. I get to work with amazingly talented people and companies who are doing important and impactful work. But I also get a certain level of freedom in terms of how I work—how many hours I work, where I work, how I schedule my days, and when to take vacation time.

But that’s not to say that freelancing is easy or is the “perfect” situation for everyone.

There have been many mornings where I wake up and have a plan for the day: a few client calls, time blocked out to do certain things, some admin stuff in the afternoon. But then it all goes out the door when the emails come flooding in: new (more pressing) assignments, mini-emergencies, the occasional anxious phone call.

Suddenly I have a million new things screaming for my attention. And I know it’s not just freelancers who deal with this work craziness! :)

The fact is we are working in increasingly interruptive environments.

Pierre Khawand, work and productivity expert and founder and CEO of People-OnTheGo, notes that these interruptions are invasive to our lives and our results:

“We are overloaded with too many e-mails, too much social media, too many competing and changing priorities, too many interruptions. Worse, we are led to believe that we need to keep up, to speedup in order to succeed in the modern workplace. As a result, our minds are overwhelmed and scattered. Studies show that work in an interruptive environment, whether or not those interruptions are related to our work, increases the experience of stress, frustration, time pressure, and effort to get work done." —Pierre Khawand

These interruptions come in all forms—from digital communications and people knocking on your office door, to random thoughts and emotional needs. I was amazed to hear Khawand and his team recently developed a new time management method that takes into account these interruptive demands of the modern working world.

The Perfect 15-Minute Day Method

In his new book The Perfect 15-Minute Day: Managing Your Time, Thoughts, and Emotions, Khawand walks through a time management method that requires only a journal and a timer. It’s based on doing work within 15-minute focus bursts—enough time to get a good chunk of work done, but not long enough that we get lost in a time warp!

Check out the video below for a closer look at how it works:

I took the Perfect Day Method (PDM) for a test drive in July, and I was amazed at the results. This method goes beyond just helping you get more stuff done.

3 Things I Learned About Productivity from Using the Perfect Day Method:

1. There is power in 15-minute increments.

How many times do you look at the clock and see another 15 or 20 minutes have slipped by without having made progress? While it feels like such a short time block, deciding to focus on something for 15 minutes is such an easy commitment that lowers the barrier of entry into a task. There’s no pressure to complete the task—just to focus on it. You’ll be surprised how being more mindful of your short time blocks really add up in the end!

2. It is important to have a system in place for thought overload.

“The skill of intercepting a thought, before we act on it, needs to be learned and practiced.” —Pierre Khawand

When we set out on a work project, we often find ourselves managing tasks, subtasks, new developments, and other related to-dos along the way. The Perfect Day Method has a designated space for all of these things that we must remember to do— so that we can free up short-term memory, never forget about all the little details, and renew our focus on the task at hand.

3. Productivity means leaving room for the unexpected.

When was the last time your day went exactly as planned? We can set all the intentions, goals, and appointments we want, but the fact is our days develop organically. Our work affects and is affected by the work of other people, life events, and even environmental conditions. With the Perfect Day Method, you don’t have to map out every little thing; the system is tailored to let your day grow organically.

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to announce that five lucky Life After College readers will receive a copy of The Perfect 15-Minute Day Journal!

To enter to win, please answer the following question in the comments by Friday, August 19. We will pick 5 winners via random.org and email to let you know! Good luck!

Comment to Be Entered to Win: 
What is your best productivity tip?

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About Marisol Dahl

Marisol graduated Yale in 2015 as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and brand strategy. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

LAC Round-Up: Favorite Articles, Apps & Podcasts

Written by Marisol DahlHappy July, LAC!

I’m back with a quarterly round-up of what the team has been loving and reading lately. This time around, I’m digging into the archives of the Life After College newsletter to spotlight all of our favorite reads, podcasts, and apps of 2016 (so far!).

So without further ado, here’s what we’ve been up to lately:

Favorite Reads

• Fast Company: How To Know Which Skills To Develop At Each Stage of Your Career
• NY Times: Gap Year May Have Benefits Long After College
• Darling Magazine: 8 Inspiring Websites to Read When You Only Have Your Phone At Hand
• Julie Clow: Why I'll Never Get Married
• NY Times: Is Staying In the New Going Out?
• Hip Diggs: How to Break the Mindset of Always Wanting More
• NY Times: Letter of Recommendation: Segmented Sleep
• The Pool: You're Never Going to Retire
• Fast Company: Six Leadership Lessons From The Campaign Trail
• Man Repeller: How to Make Friends as an Adult
• 99u: The Most Defensible Thing You Can Do For Your Career: Build an Audience
• Medium: How To Consistently Write 3500-4000 Words Per Hour
• Harvard Business Review: “No” is the New “Yes”: Four Practices to Reprioritize Your Life
• 99u: The Power of Creative Cross Training: How Experimentation Creates Possibility

Favorite Podcasts

• Presidential Podcast: In 44 episodes leading up to the next election, this podcast from the Washington Post explores the rise and legacy of each American president.
• The Tim Ferriss Show: Tim Ferriss deconstructs world-class performers from eclectic areas to extract the tactics, tools, and routines you can use.  This includes favorite books, morning routines, exercise habits, time-management tricks, and much more.
• The Mash-Up Americans: Your guide to hyphen-America. Amy S. Choi and Rebecca Lehrer talk culture, identity, and what makes us who we are. Get to know yourself, America.
• The James Altucher Show: Interviews on entrepreneurship, investing, and health.
• StarTalk Radio: Science, pop culture & comedy collide on StarTalk with astrophysicist and Hayden Planetarium director Neil deGrasse Tyson, comic co-hosts, celebrities and scientists.
• RoboPsych: Tom Guarriello explores the psychology of human robot interaction
• Writer's Rough Drafts: Host Elisa Doucette climbs into the minds of some of today's most popular authors and business people to learn that and much more about how they moved on from their rough drafts.
• Two Inboxes: Interviews with the Side Hustle Generation: Learn how to tackle a life with multiple jobs and projects. Hear Molly Ford Beck, a member of the side hustle generation, interview guests who are climbing the ladder of corporate success and managing an entrepreneurial venture on top of their day jobs.
• Pivot Podcast by Jenny Blake: Jenny Blake talks with peak performers to reverse-engineer their most successful career pivots, interviews experts on what it takes to be agile in a rapidly evolving economy, and opens the kimono on what happens behind-the-scenes of her book and business.

Apps We’re Obsessed With

• Asana: A new favorite of me and Jenny's for project management. It's been the perfect solution for keeping a pulse on what's going on in each aspect of the business!
• Edgar: We went for it and made the upgrade! It's a "social media queue that fills itself."
• Duolingo + Fluencia: Two great apps to brush up on your Spanish.
• Countable App: Get informed on congressional legislation with this Tinder-like app.
• Apres: Helping women re-enter the workforce (Check out their feature in Fast Company)
• Wonder: Save time by getting detailed answers and resources delivered to your inbox by a trusted network of researchers.
• Hound: A digital assistant that's "faster and smarter than Siri, Google Now, and Cortana"
• Adhara: Your one-stop-shop for everything spiritual and wellness-related.
• Nomad House: Live, work and retreat with other digital nomads.
• Mixmax: A Chrome/Gmail extension that allows you to track email opens, schedule them for later, save templates, send bulk personalized email through mail merge, and more.
• Letterlist: Discover awesome newsletters!

Ready for More? Subscribe to the Newsletter!

If you liked these recommendations, there's plenty more to come in the Life After College bi-weekly newsletter, chock full of curated links and finds from around the web as well as updates from Jenny and the team. When you subscribe, you'll also get the Organized Like a Ninja Toolkit, which includes 30+ templates for every area of your life, as well as bonus audio, video and hundreds of other helpful tips and tools.

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol graduated Yale in 2015 as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and branding. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

Procrastination for the Win: 5 Ways to “Waste Time”

Written by Marisol Dahl“Anyone can do any amount of work, provided it isn’t the work he is supposed to be doing at that moment.” So says  Dr. John Perry, a Stanford philosopher and pioneer of the concept of “structured procrastination.”

Procrastination gets a bad rap. And that’s why I was thrilled by the very idea that procrastination might not be absolutely horrible. In fact, it’s kind of good for the soul.

Procrastination shows up in many ways, and we all have our own procrastination styles. And part of good procrastination comes with discerning the underlying problem going on: are your burned out and simply need to rest? Are you waiting for some sort of perfect alignment? Is the task ahead just not tapping into your creative genius?

Another way to think about it is to ask yourself: is your procrastination truly debilitating? A 2005 study in The Journal of Social Psychology found that there are two kinds of procrastinators: passive and active. Passive procrastinators are mentally paralyzed by the work ahead, and tend to fail to complete work on time. Active procrastinators better embrace it, knowing their work thrives under pressure. Interestingly, compared to passive procrastinators, active procrastinators were more similar to non-procrastinators in terms of academic performance, purposive use of time, and feelings of self-efficacy.

Procrastination for the win!

5 Ways to Positively Procrastinate

1. Brainstorm ways to make your task more enjoyable.

As Jenny Blake often says, “Let it be easy. Let it be fun.” When you’re facing a to-do that is in no way inspiring you into action, think about ways that it can become something you look forward to doing. Maybe for this particular task you sit outside in the sun. Or you listen to Beyoncé’s new song. Just don’t torture yourself!

2. Take a shower.

Our best thinking often comes in the shower, when we are left in solitude and have only our minds to intellectually engage us. There’s something about a shower that let’s us sort things out in our minds, come up with plans of action, and finally get us ready to jump to work. The next time you feel procrastination creeping up because you just don’t know how to get started on your task, hop into the shower. At the very least, you’ll be clean.

3. Get related work tasks done.

I can’t tell you how many times diving into my email inbox (as procrastination) ended up being the fuel I needed to jump into writing a new article, blog post, or other piece of content. I’d write a paragraph to a friend and realize I’ve come across the very idea I want to articulate or the perfect word to set the tone for my work writing.

When you do something remotely related to your work, like writing email, administrative tasks, or organizing Evernote notebooks, you are subtly warming up your mind, getting the gears turning without forcing it. Andthis is also one of the most productive ways to procrastinate!

4. Watch Anything But Netflix

I get it. It’s tempting to blow off work in favor of a binge round of Orange Is the New Black. But if you’re craving a little screen time, consider tuning into something that will challenge your mind a little. Documentaries and TED Talks are great. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of this year’s commencement speeches.

5. Go down the rabbit hole.

Follow your curiosity. Your fascinations, no matter how trivial or off-topic they may seem to you, are important to cultivate creativity and expand your knowledge. When you honor the things that truly interest you, whether it be the history of paper airplanes or how to grow the best garden tomatoes, you foster a love of learning and thrill for new thinking that can overflow into other, less exciting, areas of work.

LifeAfterCollege: Now Available On Audible.com

We are thrilled to announce that LifeAfterCollege is now available as an audio book, read by Jenny herself! Throughout the recording process, Jenny was able to add her own little notes and updates, so there’s even more to discover now.

And it’s another option for a little positive procrastination ;)

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol graduated Yale as a Sociology and Education Studies major in 2015. A longtime NewYorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

LAC Round-Up: Book Ninja, Audiobook, and Updates from the Team

Written by Marisol DahlHappy May, everyone! With the mid-way point of the year creeping up and lots of exciting things on the horizon, we thought it was about time we did a little round-up of everything going on in the Life After College world!

An Update from The LAC Team

Paul has put 10 years of writing, researching, and studying into a structured course that is helping other people create a framework for finding meaningful work they love and create the life they want: Finding Your Signature Sauce: Where Your Passion, Purpose, and Career Collide. He says it's been amazing seeing the successful and meaningful outcomes people are getting from the course as well as his free 3-part video mini-course called Get UnStuck.

Melissa’s new venture MConnected Communications is going strong, and she loves helping her clients take employee engagement and communication to the next level. Be sure to check out her guide, 3 Things Your Need to Know about Employee Engagement in a Multi-generational Workforce.

Davis has been enjoying working at Bain and growing his own blog, Change Your Mindset, Change Your Life, where he reflects on the lessons he’s learned from fighting his way from a poor community in Atlanta to graduating with honors and debt-free from Yale University. He looks to inspire his readers to create a better life for themselves and their families.

Marisol is now a Communications Strategist at ABC Design Lab, and she continues to work with solo-entrepreneurs to help them grow their platforms. Despite a love-hate relationship with the platform, she is most active on Twitter, where she keeps a log of her most interesting reads.

Book Ninja 101

Been itching to write a book but not sure where to start? Or in the middle of one but stuck on what’s next? You might be interested in Jenny’s upcoming course.

Fresh off a three-year marathon of writing Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, Jenny will be sharing her best tips and tools for every stage of the book writing process during a live week-long Book Ninja course. With amazing guest speakers, this course provides soup-to-nuts tactical tips for generating momentum and getting published.

Here is what we will cover:

• Monday, May 16: Craft a One-Page Book Pitch with Jennie Nash
• Tuesday, May 17: Systems for Outlining, Researching, Writing, and Editing with Elisa Doucette, founder of Craft Your Content
• Wednesday, May 18: Traditional Publishing Q&A with Jenny's editor at Portfolio/Penguin Random House, Natalie Horbachevsky
• Thursday, May 19: Self-Publishing Success with Taylor Pearson
• Friday, May 20: Open Q&A with Jenny (+ Special Bonus)

Enroll in Book Ninja with this link to get $28 off (making the course $97), or get the course for free when you join Momentum ($97/quarter), which includes every course and template Jenny has ever created ($700 value), live monthly workshops, and optional private office hours calls with Jenny.

Want a sneak peek at what’s in store for the course? Check out Jenny’s latest post 10 tips (+ 18 Tools) To Make Writing a Book Easier.

Life After College On Audible!

We’re so excited to announce that Life After College has been turned into an audio book!

With the voice talent of Jenny Blake herself, it’s amazing to see LAC come to life in this way. The book launches on Audible.com on May 24 and is available for pre-order—perfect if you’re looking for something to listen to on the road or an awesome graduation gift for a loved one. :)  

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol recently graduated Yale as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

Life After College's Big Reads of the Season (+ Giveaway!)

One of my favorite things about being out of school is being able to read whatever I want. Not being beholden to a course syllabus is an amazing thing. I’m no longer rushing night after night to finish hundreds of pages of assigned reading, and I get to let my curiosity lead whatever I read next.

It’s like being a kid at a candy store—happily overwhelmed by all the choices, I  decide to take a sample of them all!

In this new series on Life After College, I’ll be rounding up the team’s latest favorite reads of the last quarter. These books and articles have inspired us in our work—teaching us new things about our fields and pushing us to up-level our game. Enjoy!

The Life After College Reading List: Q1 2016

1. Lucent List

First up, we’ve been loving everything in the Lucent List emails, rounding up all the latest in meditation and mindfulness. They mention some great reads like 99u’s The Power of Creative Cross Training and Time’s The Mindful Revolution. Check out the Lucent List archive here.

2. The Internet to the Inner-Net: Five Ways to Reset Your Connection and Live a Conscious Life by Gopi Kallayil

Speaking of mindfulness and meditation, I just finished reading Gopi Kallayil’s new book The Internet to the Inner-Net. This couldn’t have come at a better time. Entering the workforce in this age often means being glued to your cell phone and laptop, and I’ve been craving some more balance between my inner world and my online world. Here’s a description:

A fast-paced career in the high-tech industry combined with a deep yoga and meditation practice has allowed Gopi Kallayil—Google’s Chief Evangelist for Brand Marketing and one of the leading voices encouraging yoga and mindfulness in the workplace today—to integrate his inner and outer technologies to a remarkable degree. Wisdom from his yoga mat and meditation cushion guides his professional career, and his work life provides the perfect classroom to deepen his wisdom practice. The Internet to the Inner-Net guides the rest of us to do the same. In some three dozen wide-ranging, sometimes provocative essays, Gopi shares his experiments in conscious living and offers insight, inspiration, and rituals—including yoga, mindful eating, and even napping—to help us access our own inner worlds.

3. Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World by Cal Newport

Deep Work  is a favorite of Jenny’s that I’m just now half-way into myself. In an effort to really turn our attention to projects that matter, we’ve been loving Newport’s message.

Deep work is the ability to focus without distraction on a cognitively demanding task. It's a skill that allows you to quickly master complicated information and produce better results in less time. Deep work will make you better at what you do and provide the sense of true fulfillment that comes from craftsmanship. In short, deep work is like a super power in our increasingly competitive twenty-first century economy. And yet, most people have lost the ability to go deep-spending their days instead in a frantic blur of e-mail and social media, not even realizing there's a better way. In DEEP WORK, author and professor Cal Newport flips the narrative on impact in a connected age. Instead of arguing distraction is bad, he instead celebrates the power of its opposite. Dividing this book into two parts, he first makes the case that in almost any profession, cultivating a deep work ethic will produce massive benefits. He then presents a rigorous training regimen, presented as a series of four "rules," for transforming your mind and habits to support this skill.

4. Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols by Nancy Duarte and Patti Sanchez

We’re always down to read something by Nancy Duarte, and her latest book Illuminate: Ignite Change Through Speeches, Stories, Ceremonies and Symbols does not disappoint.

“As a leader, you have the same potential to not only anticipate the future and invent creative initiatives, but to also inspire those around you to support and execute your vision. In Illuminate, acclaimed author Nancy Duarte and communications expert Patti Sanchez equip you with the same communication tools that great leaders like Jobs, Howard Schultz, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to move people. Duarte and Sanchez lay out a plan to help you lead people through the five stages of transformation using speeches, stories, ceremonies, and symbols.”

5. The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier

If you listened to Jenny’s recent Pivot Podcast episode with Michael Bungay Stanier, you’ll know his new book The Coaching Habit is a must-read. Questions are the bedrock of great coaching and guidance—start asking them more!

“Coaching is an essential skill for leaders. But for most busy, overworked managers, coaching employees is done badly, or not at all.  They’re just too busy, and it’s too hard to change.

But what if managers could coach their people in 10 minutes or less?

In Michael Bungay Stanier’s The Coaching Habit, coaching becomes a regular, informal part of your day so managers and their teams can work less hard and have more impact.”

6. The Happiness Equation: Want Nothing + Do Anything = Have Everything by Neil Pasricha

I’m still making my way through Pasricha’s The Happiness Equation, but it’s already helped me break through how I think of success and happiness in the pursuit of a great life.

“In The Happiness Equation, Pasricha illustrates how to want nothing, do anything, and have everything. If that sounds like a contradiction, you simply haven’t unlocked the 9 Secrets to Happiness.

Each secret takes a common ideal, flips it on its head, and casts it in a completely new light. Pasricha then goes a step further by providing step-by-step guidelines and hand-drawn scribbles that illustrate exactly how to apply each secret to live a happier life today.”

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to announce that five lucky Life After College readers will receive a copy of one of the books above! To enter to win, please answer the following questions in the comments by Friday, April 22. We will pick 5 winners via random.org and email to let you know! Good luck!

Comment to Be Entered to Win What books and other reading have been inspiring you lately? If you let curiosity and intuition guide your next reading choice, what would you read about next?

Drifting Away from Your New Year's Resolutions? Here's how to reset.

Written by Marisol Dahl

We’re officially one week into the New Year! How are your New Year’s resolutions going?

If you feel like they’re slipping away, you are not alone. Believe it or not, 25% of us drop our New Year’s resolutions within the first week.

These things happen. The holidays come and we are filled with excitement and hope. We look to the  shiny new year with big plans for greater health, more happiness, big career moves, and stronger relationships. We’ve mind-mapped and reflected for an amazing 2016, and we’ve set some solid resolutions with the best of intentions.

But now that January has hit, it’s all about execution, and this can be hard! It’s natural to feel a little resistance from trying to incorporate a “brand new you” into the normal routine of work, school, and daily responsibilities.

So if the first few days of your new resolution didn’t go as planned, don’t worry. It’s time to hit the reset button.

3 Steps to Reset Your New Year’s Resolutions

1. Reflect on why you couldn’t follow through.

As tempting as it is to simply recommit to your resolutions and try again, you likely won’t see much progress unless you make some strategic changes to your approach. Revisit the resolutions and goals you set. Think about why you let them slip, and be specific.

What’s blocking you from jumping in? Are the goals you set truly in line with the changes you want to make? Acknowledge everything that runs through your mind—big and small. To get to the root of the problem, keep asking yourself why.

2. Re-evaluate and simplify your resolution.

Make “alterations” to your resolution, with an eye towards making it more actionable and easier to achieve. Stay true to the heart of your ultimate goal, but do feel free to transform how you go about achieving that goal.

For instance, your objective might be to get more physically fit, and your first (failed) resolution was to go to the gym three times a week. You might shift your resolution to walking around the block every day. This new resolution is much more simple, and a lot harder to say “no” to.

Sure, walking around the block won’t necessarily have the same impact as working out at the gym, but the momentum of sticking to your new, simplified resolution will motivate more intense physical activities. Focus on little wins and on building that small habit—that’s how long-term change occurs.

3. Remind yourself: the year is not over yet.

No matter how far along in the year it is, you can still make it a success. Don’t give in to the mentality that resolutions can only be made at the beginning of the year, or that your track record predicts your future.

Alexandra Franzen put it best: today is not over yet. Each new moment is an opportunity to get it right—so go for it! What can you do right now to honor your New Year’s resolution?

Go on a Momentum Safari

One great way to get back on track with your resolutions is to join the free Momentum Safari. Each week you will get a series of small daily assignments to complete an action, reflection and/or connection to generate focus, freedom and flow in any area you choose. By the end of the three weeks, you will have a renewed sense of clarity and exploration . . . and unstoppable momentum!

Join us for a webinar on Multiple Streams of Solopreneur Income

Looking to expand your business and diversify your income this year? On Thursday, January 14 at 3pm ET Jenny will be sharing how she built up and manages multiple streams of income. Come with questions! Register for the webinar here.

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol recently graduated Yale as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

3 Resolutions for Life After College (+ Free workshop!)

Written by Marisol Dahl

Three months ago today, I graduated college. And as summer is winding down and that back to school season kicks in, it’s really hitting that I won’t be returning to the wonderful comforts of college dorm rooms, courtyards full of students, and 24-hour libraries.

There are a lot of changes that come with finishing school. We enter the world of full employment, glaring finances, and finally learning how to make dinner ourselves (goodbye dining halls!). We have to make big decisions about whether to go to graduate school and where to live. It’s a new and exciting stage in our lives.

To celebrate this new season and start off on the right foot, I’m making some resolutions.

3 Resolutions for Life After College

1. Take it one step at a time, and listen to your intuition.

I had one great job offer back in March. On paper it was perfect, and I was ready to pack my bags. But something in my gut was saying, this isn’t it. I hated saying no to the company, because it was rationally reckless! I didn’t have any other offers, and I wasn’t sure I would get as great a job package anywhere else. But something in me didn’t jibe with this path.

I turned down the offer, and ended up graduating without a traditional full-time job and not nearly enough freelance work to go “full time.” While my fellow unemployed peers panicked as they picked up their diplomas and packed their bags, I felt calm. I didn’t know where I would be next week or next month, but I trusted that everything will work out. And while it’s only been three months and things are far from completely “worked out” (are they ever?), I’m amazed at how slowly but surely the pieces come together.

Here’s the thing: for most of us college graduates out there, this is the first time in twenty-something years in which our future is completely, utterly open. There are fewer things than ever that are truly compulsory. We have this beautiful blank page.

But despite achieving this new level of freedom, we hardly take the time to wonder at it all. We feel that we have to take the job offer, because who knows when another one is coming? We have to go to grad school, because how else are we going to keep up in this world? And gosh, what about those student loans?

These pressures are all too real, but I’m making a point to slow down with my decision making. There are many great opportunities ahead, and while it’s tempting to pick a path and stick to it, we’re better off taking it one step at a time and listening to your gut.

A big thanks to Jenny for inspiring this shift in the way I think, especially her pieces on going with the flow and practicing intuition. :)

2. Keep learning.

College taught me many things. I learned why some social movements succeed and others fail. I learned the difference between an opportunity cost and a sunk cost. I learned how to do laundry without having to separate whites and colors.

But one of the most important things I learned is the absolute joy in engaging with new ideas. There is a true satisfaction in having the difficult conversations, questioning your long-held beliefs, diving into a book on a subject you know absolutely nothing about. These are the moments that exercise your mind and challenge your identity the most. This is how you become a better person and achieve greater work.

I don’t want that to end. I don’t want to get into a rut, involved only in my own little world. And so, I will keep learning.

3. Take chances. Meet new people. Make life interesting.

I’m not quite sure how to articulate this particular one, but it’s the most important to me. In essence, it is Jenny’s “live big” philosophy (ahem, check out the mission statement of Life After College).

This is a resolution to take the wheel and step on the gas. I am a firm believer that you are responsible for your own happiness, well-being, and excitement in your life. If life is feeling a little too comfortable or mediocre, you hold the answers to shaking it up again.

So this resolution will manifest in many different ways. It’s the intersection of intuition and adventure—take the time to listen to your cravings, your wildest dreams, your sudden and exciting impulses. Then go for it.

Living up to this resolution won’t look the same day to day, person to person. For me, right here right now, it looks like: picking up the guitar (again), starting a conversation with a stranger, and cold emailing someone I admire.

Upcoming Webinar: Connect with Influencers

Life After College is so excited to be co-hosting a live webinar with John Corcoran on How to Cold Email Any VIP on August 26 at 3pm ET.

In this webinar, you will learn:

• The 5 things you must do if you want your emails to be read and responded to by VIPs you admire
• How to go from getting your email opened to building a genuine relationship
• How to go from relationship-building to generating income
• [Bonus] John will also share 5 of his best email templates you can use to connect with the VIPs you want to meet.

Sign-up and download the free workbook here!  See you then! :)

I'd love to hear from you in the comments: 

If you could connect with any influencer you admire, who would it be? What is keeping you from reaching out to them right now?

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol recently graduate Yale as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

How to Mindshare Your Way to a Better Life

mindsharing

Written by Marisol DahlImagine having all the world’s experts at your fingertips. You’d not only have a wealth of information—you could use that information to make better, faster, easier decisions.

Now, I’m not talking about the Google search engine or even Wikipedia. Google can’t tell you which car to buy to meet the individual needs of your family, and Wikipedia can’t advise you on your next career move.

I’m talking about your crowd, your people, your network. They’re your real-life friends, Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, Twitter followers, and blog readers. Believe it or not, these are your experts. And all too often we miss out on tapping into the collective intelligence of the people who are not only most accessible to us, but also know us best.

In Mindsharing: The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything, Lior Zoref shows us exactly how to harness this collective intelligence.

Zoref calls this Mindsharing. With Mindsharing, you ask your crowd to think with you and help you come to a satisfying decision or answer. As Zoref puts it:

Mindsharing is a crowdsourced thinking process to solve problems, make decisions, access creativity, and create more ease and joy in our lives. Instead of thinking alone, we use social technologies to think with a big crowd. The process involves asking questions, analyzing responses, and coming to an answer based on the collective wisdom of the crowd.

Why does Mindsharing work? Crowd wisdom theory suggests that the collective intelligence of a group of typical people is just as good—if not better—than the intelligence of an expert. And in the age of Internet, social networking sites, and crowdsourcing sites like Quora and Reddit, the power of Mindsharing has never been greater.

Mindsharing in Action: Lior Zoref Buys a New Car

When Zoref left his vice president position at Microsoft, he had to hand over his company car. He then faced the daunting task of buying a new car, which involves everything from picking a model, to negotiating with the salesperson, to financing the purchase.

Not knowing anything about cars, Zoref decided to turn to his crowd. He posted on his Facebook page: “I’m looking to buy a new car for me and my family. I don’t care about the car brand. I only need it to be safe, efficient, and easy to maintain. What do you think?” A few hundred responses later, with people commenting on and “Liking” each other’s responses, the collective intelligence of Zoref’s Facebook crowd advised him to buy a Hyundai i30cw.

A while later, Zoref met with the editor of the automobile section in a well-known newspaper. The expert’s advice? a Hyundai i30cw.

See? The collective is just as wise as the expert. The crowd comes together, makes a ton of different suggestions, and then “judges its own intelligence,” resulting in the best possible recommendation from the group. It’s a fascinating and powerful concept.

In this example, Zoref used his crowd to help him pick a new car. But Mindsharing can be used for so many other decisions and situations as well. You can ask your crowd to help you pick your next career move, diagnose your strange knee pain, craft your résumé, choose a speaking topic, be a better parent, and even find true love.

All you have to do is ask. But as easy as Mindsharing sounds, it is an art. Only the best Mindsharing practices will bring you the best collective wisdom.

5 Tips for Optimal Mindsharing

1. Tap into a large, diverse group of thinkers.

As Zoref notes:

Mindsharing can happen only with independent thinking, a diverse and heterogeneous group, and without any preformed belief in the “correct” decision or outcome. Crowd wisdom is the end result only when you have diverse and conflicting viewpoints that are generated by a large group of people of different ages, backgrounds, and areas of interest or expertise.

2. Be genuine, be vulnerable.

Your crowd is more likely to help you if you share your humanity, your dreams, and your insecurities. People connect with emotion, and when you show a little emotion others will want to reach out to you and give you their best advice.

3. Ask clear, detailed, but neutral questions.

In your requests for crowd wisdom, be sure to give your people all the information they need. You’ll get better answers, and you’ll save everyone’s time. However, be sure not to sway the crowd towards a particular answer or a limited set of answers. Don’t ask yes/no questions or ask people to vote on a pre-determined set of choices. Those types of questions keep collective wisdom from coming forth, and they hinder productive interaction.

4. Listen to what the crowd is telling you, and respond accordingly.

The best Mindsharers tune in to the voice of the crowd, even if the crowd is saying something unexpected or completely opposite what the Mindsharer was originally thinking. Be honest with yourself about what your crowd is telling you, and act on their advice. Mindsharing is rarely about confirming the status quo—embrace evolution, and be ready to go in a different direction.

5. Treat your crowd like your significant other.

These are your people! Treat your tribe with the utmost respect. Take time to build meaningful relationships with your network: engage in conversations and be helpful and gracious when others Mindshare as well. Also, no “one-night stands,” as Zoref calls them:

Don’t rush things Don’t immediately go for a Mindsharing home run without first touching all the bases. You need to get to know your crowd and your crowd needs to get to know you. This is how trust and intimacy are built.

Above all, show appreciation for every bit of time, care, and wisdom each person in your crowd offers. Acknowledge what each person has to contribute.

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to give away a copy of Mindsharing: The Art of Crowdsourcing Everything by Lior Zoref to one lucky Life After College reader. To enter, answer the following question in the comments by Friday, June 12:

Comment to Be Entered to Win:

Try Mindsharing today! What question can you ask your crowd right now?

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol recently graduate Yale as a Sociology and Education Studies major. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

3 Ways to Bring More Joy to Your Workplace

Joy, Inc.

Written by Marisol Dahl

Try to think back to the last time you felt focused and in a wonderful state of flow in your work. Your spirit and energy are buzzing. You pursue each task with great concentration and a promise to do your absolute best work. Your projects are challenging, but you approach them not with fear but with a sense of adventure.

Now imagine if that is how you felt every single day.

At Menlo Innovations, a software company in Michigan, this type of work isn’t just a dream but a reality for all employees. In Joy, Inc., cofounder and CEO Richard Sheridan shares the true secret to achieving great work and unparalleled workplace satisfaction.

That secret? Joy.

The reasoning is simple. When we feel a sense of internal joy, we are more productive, more engaged, and produce better outcomes. Internal well-being translates to an external environment of positive thinking, fearless experimentation, and high quality work.

As Sheridan notes:

A pursuit of joy within a business context is not about the pursuit of fame or profit. Humans aspire to a higher purpose. Teams desire to work on goals bigger than themselves. They want to have a lasting and valued effect on the world. They want to make their mark, not for the glory, but for the purpose of bringing delight or ending suffering. Like the Wright brothers, we at Menlo want to fly. We’ve found that profit, fame, and glory often follow us in this path, too.

3 Ways to Bring More Joy to Your Workplace

1. Create an open, flexible space

When you walk into Menlo Innovations, you’ll notice that there’s tons of open space, lots of light, and an “underlying current of useful noise...the noise of work.”

The space itself is designed to be conducive to human interaction, a key ingredient for a more joyful workplace. Having lightweight furniture and strategic electrical wiring make it easy to move desks around in seconds, so the people working on the same project can easily collaborate and build off of each other’s ideas. The open space with few (if any) physical barriers allows everyone to be within eyeshot of each other, allowing for faster and easier flow of communication. An environment like this breeds a productive serendipity: the constant exchange of information and stimulation allows great ideas and solutions to bloom.

2. Pair Up

At Menlo Innovations, you’ll find something even more peculiar: employees work in pairs. Two people, one desk, one computer. Some may think this way of working is incredibly inefficient and a waste of a client’s money, but it’s actually quite the opposite.

When employees pair up, they teach each other and build on each other’s skills. When two people are together and not alone, they are able to tackle new problems with less trepidation and more comfort. With two sets of eyes on the computer screen, mistakes are much less frequently made.

With employee pairing, workplace culture and production are at their highest quality. The whole is certainly greater than the sum of its parts.

3. Feel Safe, Don’t Be Safe

Sheridan notes that freedom from fear is one of the most important components of a joyful workplace culture.

Freedom from fear requires feeling safe. If you feel safe, you run experiments. You stop asking permission. You avoid long, mind-numbing meetings. You create a new kind of culture in which you accept that mistakes are inevitable. You learn that small, fast mistakes are preferable to the big, slow, deadly mistakes you are making today.

When people feel safe to make mistakes and try new things, the potential for great work and innovation is infinite. A universal commitment to quality, meaningful work makes it easy to own up to a mistake without fear of punishment. It's not about being on the safe side and only doing things you know will work. It's about feeling supported enough to be bold cavaliers.

In all, Joy is about deep satisfaction and knowing you are working towards something great. It isn’t always happy and easy—sometimes you will feel stuck, angry, and frustrated. But joy is what drives you to keep going and deliver greatness.

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to give away a copy of Joy, Inc. by Richard Sheridan to one lucky Life After College reader. To enter, answer the following question in the comments by Friday, March 27:

Comment to Be Entered to Win:

What is one action you can take this week to bring more joy to your workplace?

Join the Momentum Safari!

Looking for find more joy in your work right now? Join us on the 21-Day Momentum Safari! Each day you will get a small prompt to complete an action, reflection or connection, all based on themes from different animal avatars.

By the end of the three weeks, you will have a renewed sense of lightness, play and exploration . . . and hopefully unstoppable momentum. The adventure starts March 23—see you there!

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction, and trying out new recipes. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

20+ Apps That Transform Your Smartphone Into An On-the-Go Office

Written by Marisol Dahl

Raise your hand if you spend the entire workday in your office, at your desk. No one? Only a few? That's not surprising.

With our jobs more mobile, more global, and more on-the-go than ever, we're spending less time in the office and more time out on the field. We're hopping on planes, meeting new colleagues at coffee shops, and hosting conference calls while cooking dinner.

You may not always have the luxury of a decked-out and teched-out office at your fingertips, but there are times when no matter where you are, you just gotta get stuff done. Here are a few of my favorite apps that help make on-the-go office-y things a breeze.

20+ Apps That Transform Your Smartphone Into An On-the-Go Office

Notes, Notebooks, and To-Do Lists

• Todoist: you can make lists for different projects and assign different tasks for different days. You can even add recurring action items.
• Wunderlist: Great for making multiple separate to-do lists.
• Notes: the good ol' fashioned iPhone app. Super quick and easy for when you want to jot down a new idea.
• Evernote: Create notes, sort them into notebooks and notebook stacks, and more! This app syncs across devices and makes it easy to share and work on notes with others. Everyday I’m finding new awesome tricks with Evernote—it’s my number one must-have.

File Access and Storage

• Dropbox: Cloud storage for all your files so you can access them anywhere. All of my files are on Dropbox, and I have very little that is just stored on my computer. With this app, I basically have the entire contents of my computer at my fingertips no matter where I am.
• Google Drive

Word Processing and Editing

• Google Docs: Syncs up with all your Google Drive documents and allows you to do all of the fancy editing that you normally could with Google Drive. Great for quick drafting that's immediately available to view on other devices and share with other people.
• Microsoft Word: Beautiful integration with Dropbox word documents. This is great for creating more formal documents to send and share. It has a few more formatting options than Google Docs, and you can do almost all the fancy formatting like in regular Word on your computer, like inserting tables, adjusting margins, fiddling with fonts and colors.
• Adobe Reader: Great for annotating PDFs that you can grab from other apps like Mail and Dropbox. You can highlight, underline, draw, comment, and more. Major bonus: it can convert files to and from PDF format!

Scanning and Faxing (yes, I said faxing)

• Scannable: This new app from Evernote will make any old piece of paper into a beautiful, crisp electronic file. No bulky printer needed—scan and send any piece of paper in seconds.
• JotNot Fax and FaxFile: I know, who faxes anymore? But every once in a while there's a situation in which something must be faxed. Just these past couple years, I’ve become much more comfortable with faxing than I thought I’d ever be. These apps are reliable and simple.

Calendar and Mail

• Gmail: Easily usable for any account on Google Apps for Business.
• Mailbox: People swear by it!
• Sunrise: A great calendar app that integrates iCloud, Gmail, and Outlook calendars. You can set it to give you notifications so you’ll always be on time.

Business Collaboration and Connection

• CamCard: perfect for quick business card scanning and for transferring your own contact info. If you want to get really fancy, there's FullContact Card Reader. Through Zapier integration FullContact is able to automate a lot of different actions once a new card is collected, including automatically adding that person on LinkedIn or to your Google Contacts.
• If your workplace uses online social work platforms, you bet there’s an app for that! Download Asana, Podio, Trello, Basecamp, and more to keep up with all project updates on-the-go.

Time Tracking and Invoicing

• Whatever you use for tracking time and sending invoices at the office, there’s probably an app for that. I particularly love Freshbooks and Harvest.

There you have it. With these apps, staying on top of your work while away from the office is totally manageable.

Looking for More?

To keep up on our latest favorite apps, tools, and resources, be sure to

sign up for the Life After College newsletter. Bi-weekly roundups chock full of new ideas and things to try, read, and explore—straight to your inbox!

So, what did I miss?

Do you have any other must-have apps that make working on-the-go easy?

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction, and trying out new recipes. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

The Rise of Online Learning (And Why It's Right For You)

Written by Marisol Dahl

From 2001 to 2011, the number of full-time college students rose 38%. In the same time, the number of people taking online courses rose to over six million. Just ten years ago, only about 13.5% of students were taking at least one online course. Now we’re talking 32%—one third of the college population.

It’s loud and clear: online learning is a force to reckon with. With their accessibility and competitive quality, online courses are allowing more and more people to continue their education and build new skills.

And it isn’t just colleges and universities that are offering online classes—we’re also seeing a rise in the quantity, quality, and affordability of unaffiliated courses, too. Groups like Treehouse and Fizzle offer subscribers tons of classes, support, and training in the fields of web development and business. Thought leaders like Shawn Achor and David Allen have put together entire online platforms to make their knowledge and techniques more accessible.

With more education opportunities at our fingertips, how do you know how or when to dive in? Is it better to go back to school full-time with a backpack and campus ID in hand, or will an online course suffice?

Online learning is here to stay, but how does it fit into your own life?

4 Signs It's Time to Take an Online Course

1. You’ve hit a ceiling with your current job and are ready to move up.

You’re great at your job—fantastic even. But something’s keeping you from jumping to that next level and significantly increasing your earning power. Is it your dexterity in technology? Lack of leadership training? Limited understanding of Facebook marketing?

Learning a new skill might just be your ticket to rev up your workplace performance and position yourself to take on more responsibility and projects. With hundreds of thousands of online courses out there starting at all levels of expertise, you can zero in on the exact skill you want to build without the added nonsense of college major requirements or re-learning the stuff you already know.

2. You’re just not that interested in adding to your student debt.

But then again, who is? With average undergraduate student debt now at $29,400 and average graduate student debt at $57,600, it’s no wonder people look to alternative learning methods. There are thousands of quality online courses out there for a fraction of the cost of a college class credit—many are completely free!

3. You can’t commit to a rigid class schedule.

Let’s be honest. Very few of us have the time, financial ability, or desire to leave our jobs. We want to keep learning, but not at the expense of cutting out time from our families, hobbies and other projects. Online courses are wonderfully flexible. Most are self-paced and location independent, so learning a new skill doesn’t require a complete pause on other things in your life. Also, going to class in your pajamas is pretty awesome.

4. You want to stay competitive in your field.

With a rapidly-changing job market and advances in technology, odds are there’s always going to be something new to master. Keeping up with it all through online courses is a great way to demonstrate competence and dedication to your employers and peers in your field.

Take Learning Into Your Own Hands

If you’re ready to take your career to the next level with online learning, we suggest starting with SkilledUp, an online course discovery platform built to help you gain new skills.

SkilledUp believes anyone can quickly learn something new and become more marketable to employers. SkilledUp curates the world of online learning by comparing courses across different sources and only focusing on the ones with high returns on investment. It has the largest collection of online courses all in one place, so searching for that perfect class is easy.

We’re proud to have a partner so dedicated to a quality online learning experience. SkilledUp allows users to browse course reviews and ratings to find that perfect match. Their new Trends & Insights section offers quality reporting on the trends, challenges, and innovations in education as it relates to workforce development.

SkilledUp’s ultimate vision is to transform education as we know it—how it’s delivered, how much it costs, and how quickly it helps you get to a career you love.

Exclusive Offer for Life After College Readers

SkilledUp is offering 90% off Udemy’s How to Get a Better Job Faster, an online course created to help you find your dream job. With this course you’ll learn how to amp up your resume, ace job interviews and develop a fool-proof job search strategy.

At just $10, you’ll get lifetime access to 28 lectures filled with job hunting facts and hacks. Learn more about this generous offer here.

We’d love to hear from you in the comments:

What new skill would you like the learn this month?

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction, and trying out new recipes. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

Six Strategies to Play Big (+ Giveaway!)

Written by Marisol Dahl

Did you know that over 70% of people have felt like a fraud at some point in their professional life?

Impostor syndrome is much more common than you think, and it is especially common in high-achievers. This phenomenon occurs when a person is convinced she is a fraud, a fake, able to pass off work that only “seems” good. Despite clear evidence of a job well done and the praise of peers and bosses, she just doesn’t think she deserves such success. It’s inevitable: one day they’ll catch on that she’s an impostor just flying under the radar.

But if you think impostor syndrome is just a matter of confidence, think again. It can have considerable effects on our careers. Studies have shown that when we think we’re fakes, we only apply to safe jobs we think we’re totally qualified for, we’re less likely to show off our good work, and we find it much more difficult to negotiate salaries and work responsibilities. Not to mention the constant anxiety that one day your cubicle mate will turn around and shout, “Aha! Quick Watson, I’ve found the impostor among us!”

There are many classic signs of shying away from your achievements and value:

• Dismissing your work as “easy”
• Attributing your success to luck
• Shrugging off praise from others
• Thinking your work looks better than it really is

But what if you don’t show the classic symptoms? How can you tell if you are hiding from your true value, strength, and potential?

Hiding Strategies and How to Play Bigger:

In her new book Playing Big: Find Your Voice, Your Mission, Your Message, Tara Mohr calls us out when it comes to not stepping up to the plate and playing big.

An expert on women’s leadership and well-being, Tara has identified six sneaky “hiding strategies” we use to avoid playing bigger and to trick ourselves into thinking we are making strong progress in our career endeavors when we actually aren't.

Hiding Strategy #1: This then that

What is it? This is the false belief that things must happen in a certain order.

What does it look like? “I want to teach a class, but I need to build a website about my classes first” or “I want to apply to this top-level job, but I need to move up the ladder first.”

Play Big: Know that there is no one right order in which things can happen. What is the most direct action you can take right now to play big and achieve your goal? Go for it. Submit that job application—what's the worst that can happen?

Hiding Strategy #2: Designing at the whiteboard

What is it? Creative work in isolation. It’s safe yet unproductive work that is out-of-touch with reality.

What does it look like? Brainstorming for a project without input from co-workers, building a business without talking to your ideal customers.

Play Big: Get out there and strike up a conversation! People often see advice- and feedback-seekers as smart players in the workplace. They admire you for wanting to up your game and are happy to help.

Hiding Strategy #3: Overcomplicating and endless polishing

What is it? Finding reasons to delay the launch of your finished work, often stemming from a desire to ensure your work is high quality and robust.

What does it look like? Constantly adding new elements and features to your project, finding new parts to revise or write anew, endless researching.

Play Big: Simplify and launch a bold bare-minimum—you can always add to your work later, and publishing an early version of your work allows you to get helpful feedback!

Hiding Strategy #4: Collecting or curating what everyone else has to say

What is it? Leaving out your own opinions and ideas. This is a classic way of presenting great thoughts, but protecting oneself from the vulnerable position of claiming ownership of innovative, sometimes provocative ideas.

What does it look like? Writing a book about people’s perspectives of September 11, but not including your own. Curating other people’s ideas on how to solve the ebola crisis, but not adding your own solution to the mix.

Play Big: Share what you have to say.

Hiding Strategy #5: Omitting your own story

What is it? This is the fallacy that the work you do should stay completely separate of your inner passions, questions, and curiosity.

What does it look like? “If I include my own experiences as a mother in my article on education reform, people will think I’m just another biased, harping parent. My research and ideas will be discredited.”

Play Big: Share why your work matters to you. There is no such thing as pure objectivity in the work we do—own up to how you are approaching your work, and this adds greater nuance, depth and productivity to the conversation.

Hiding Strategy #6: Getting more and more and more education

What is it? Retreating to the comfort of more school, more training, and more instruction, instead of leaping into the next big thing. This is a classic stalling tactic.

What does it look like? “I should get a PhD in education before I get elected to my district’s Board of Education.” “I need an MBA to start my own business.”

Play Big: Share what you already know. Trust that you have enough expertise to make an impact right now.

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to give away a copy of Playing Big by Tara Mohr to one lucky Life After College reader. To enter, answer the following question in the comments by Friday, November 14:

Comment to Be Entered to Win: What hiding strategy do you use most often? What's one action that you could take this week to move past it?

Introducing SkilledUp

This month we’re honored to partner with SkilledUp, an online course discovery platform built to help you gain new skills.  SkilledUp’s ultimate vision is to transform education as we know it—how it’s delivered, how much it costs, and how quickly it helps you get to a career you love.

Exclusive Deal

SkilledUp is offering 90% off "How to Get a Better Job Faster" - an online course created to help you find your dream job! 

Get this exclusive discount just for readers of Life After College.

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, her interests include business, communications, and marketing. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction, and trying out new recipes. She can be reached  on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

Train Like An Athlete, Speak Like A Pro

Written by Marisol Dahl

In August during the Speak Like A Pro virtual conference, I was struck by something Pamela Slim said in her interview:

“Presenting is a full-contact sport.”

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You can know all the rules to the game, but that doesn’t mean you are going to get out there and hit a home run. Giving a speech, much like playing a sport, involves preparation, a sound body, a strong mind, limber muscles, and a full playbook.

You have to exercise, train, and practice.

But as with any athlete or speaking pro out there, nerves can really trip us up and affect our performance. In Fearless Speaking: Beat Your Anxiety. Build Your Confidence. Change Your Life., Gary Genard plays Coach Joe Girardi to our Derek Jeter. This get-up-out-of-your-seat book is all about going on the offensive and getting to the bottom of your speaking fears. Genard certainly knows how to approach speaking with an athlete’s mindset.

The Athlete’s Mindset

1. Audience members are your fans, not your competitors.

“Most nervousness isn’t visible to others because it’s internal. And if people do see you’re nervous, they’ll most likely have the normal reaction, which is to sympathize with you. Since audience members feel good when you’re succeeding and embarrassed when you’re failing, they’re actually on your side and want you to do well.”

1. There is no “I” in “team.” Don’t hog the ball.

Genard delivers some tough love when he calls out speech anxiety and self-consciousness for what they truly are—narcissism.

“Hey, what makes you think this audience is here because of you? They’re contributing their valuable time attending this event because they hope to get something out of it. Instead of being concerned about your own feelings, ask yourself if you’re meeting your audience’s needs.”

1. Hold the dumbbells, focus on your voice.

“Keep in mind that the voice is inherently physical. That fact may sound obvious, but it’s easy to forget when you’re preoccupied with the content of a presentation or consumed by performance anxiety.

Because your voice is physical, it is intimately connected to energy and relaxation, as well as tension and stress. That means that the pressures of a too-hectic lifestyle or work schedule will emerge in one form or another in your vocal expression. Anything you can do to relieve those pressures—yoga, sports, and relaxation exercises—will pay off in a more fluid and powerful vocal instrument.”

1. Keep your eye on the prize.

“Your fear of public speaking and the measure of your success as a speaker are entirely separate matters. It’s easy to confuse these two issues: thinking that just because you were nervous, your presentation had to have been a failure.

Because speaking anxiety makes you so uncomfortable, it sometimes becomes an all-consuming state of mind. That makes it easy for you to lose sight of a critically important fact: Your goal is not to speak without anxiety it is to positively influence your audience.”

Become an MVP and Train With the Pros

How to Speak Like A Pro: Practical Tips for Your Confidence, Deliver and Impact: On October 27, Jenny will be leading a live workshop at Holstee’s new Learning Lab in Brooklyn, NY. Come connect with creatives, entrepreneurs, and others who want to master the skills of public speaking.

Heroic Public Speaking: Michael Port, One of my biggest influences in business and public speaking, will be leading a four-month interactive virtual program starting October 27. The class will culminate in a live workshop for all participants in February. Click here for details and to get Michael's free Heroic Public Speaking Guide To World Saving Speeches.

Can’t make it? You can still learn how to Speak Like A Pro from home.

Book Giveaway

We’re excited to give away a copy of Fearless Speaking by Gary Genard to one lucky Life After College reader. To enter, answer the following question in the comments by Monday, October 13:

Comment to Be Entered to Win: What do you do to beat public speaking anxiety?

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, she is interested in pursuing a career in education and child advocacy. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction and volunteering in her community. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.

How To Cash In On Your Skills

Written by Marisol Dahl

It's a little crazy to think that it's only early October and I've already hit midterms season in college. The clock is ticking and in more ways than one. By next May I'll have my cap and gown packed up, a job (haha, maybe), and an onslaught of student loan payments. Out of the college dorm and into the real world.

For those times of life transition, it's time to get serious about money-making. Yes, I went straight to the "m"-word. While money can't buy happiness, it is kind of nice to have when navigating exciting new changes.

And what better way to make money than by doing what you already know how to do? Ramit Sethi is the man when it comes to doing exactly this. Author of the book and blog I Will Teach You To Be Rich, Ramit is an expert when it comes to doubling down on your skills, turning a profit, and rocking your finances. We're excited to share his insight on freelancing and how anyone—yes, anyone—can cash in on their skills.

Is freelancing right for you? Q&A with Ramit Sethi:

Why should someone consider freelancing?

Ramit: The first thing most personal finance gurus will tell you about money is to cut back—be frugal! Stop wasting your money on lattes! The truth is that you can’t out-frugal your way to rich. While the “experts” focus on cutting costs, that’s only one part of the puzzle to living a Rich life. There’s a limit to how much you can save, but there’s no limit to how much you can earn.

Freelancing (or, taking your skills and turning them into income) is one of the easiest ways to get started earning more money, and it’s something you can do without quitting your day job, meaning very low risk. Most freelancing jobs—no matter how unique you think you are—can be priced easily, and the work-to-income is very clear compared to uncertain income-generating strategies like productization.

What are the typical objections you see people have regarding earning money on the side?

Ramit: Although it’s easy to get excited about earning more money—who doesn’t want to be richer?—we will always run into doubts about why we can’t do it:

• “I don’t have enough time”
• “That might work if you have an Ivy League education but I’m just a humble [occupation]…”
• “Maybe if you live in SF or NYC…”
• “Maybe if you’re a single guy, but I have a family…”

All of these are reasonable excuses, and some might be legitimate, but the objections to earning more are less about external barriers and more about your mindset.

I’ve seen people earn thousands in extra income as parents who live in Podunkville. I even have a friend who started a side job while working at an extremely demanding and prestigious full-time job. People can earn a great side income with ordinary jobs and incomes all because they took the initiative to do it.

What’s the biggest mistake people make when they try to start a side business on their own?

Ramit: I think the biggest mistake people make is spending too much time in the beginning “playing business.” They do things they think they “should” do but will never pay. They’ll get excited about an idea, and their next step is to launch a website, create a Facebook page, and buy 1,000 business cards. But then what?

After they’ve wasted a lot of time and money, they still don’t have one paying client to show for it and their excitement ends up withering away after a couple months. They end up blaming their failed attempt on others instead of their approach.

So if that doesn’t work, what SHOULD people do?

Ramit: Instead of random tactics that we see fail over and over again, there’s a more effective way to start that changes the entire approach.

The first step is finding a profitable idea.

My team and I have spent over 10 years of extensive research to bring you the exact tools and techniques that can help you identify what you’re already good at. Sometimes, you’re so good at something —it comes so naturally to you—that you don’t even realize it’s a skill. Then, you check to see if it’s a profitable idea before you spend months! Almost nobody realizes that they could “pre-test” an idea for profitability. This sounds simple but is actually a totally different approach than most people take.

The next step is to turn the idea into side income.

This is where a lot of people started doing random things they'd read about, like starting Twitter or Facebook pages. And again, they’d fall back into the same pattern! Launch something—this time, a blog with Google ads—and try and try to somehow turn it into lucrative side income.

What they actually need are less random tactics and “Top 10 Ways to Make Money from Home” lists, and instead, a system for testing your idea for profitability before you commit hundreds of hours. The right system can tell you whether you’re on the right track or not, so if something’s not working, you’ll know exactly what to do to fix it and get back on track. With the right system in place, you can grow that side income as much—or as little—as you want, with your available time.

What advice can you give to people who are ready to start earning more money?

Ramit: Most people reading this can agree that the thought of starting a side business isn’t just about money. It’s about living a life where you can control your income and your time. You could use the extra money to tackle your goals, to pay off debt, save more, or spend on the things you love. And freelancing is one of the easiest ways to get started.

"Cash In" On Your Skills

Want to freelance but don't know where to start? Ramit can help you earn your first $1,000 (and more) with his Earn1k Idea Generator Tool. Nail down a viable, profitable and fun freelance idea—you can afford to make a career change.

About Marisol Dahl

Marisol is currently a Sociology and Education Studies major at Yale University. A longtime New Yorker, she is interested in pursuing a career in education and child advocacy. Marisol started her blog in 2011 as a way to document her college years and beyond. When not running around campus and catching up with her school reading, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading dystopian fiction and volunteering in her community. She can be reached on Twitter at @marisoldahl.