First of all, thank you to those who joined us for our first meetup last night. And thank you to Ellen Afromsky for hosting us and Susan Danziger for being such a great and motivating guest speaker.
For those who couldn't join us, and to help those who did remember the key takeaways, below is a summary of the lessons Susan shared:
- Life is always about change so don't wait to be out of work to be open to new people and ideas.
- Make it a habit to connect to new people every day. Susan connects to 30 new people a day, but whatever number you choose, make this a priority and break it down between morning, afternoon, and evening. "Connects" can be responses to previous emails, a new message/email, or everyone you spoke to or invited to an event. This will make sure that you're always meeting new people and open to new ideas (see lesson 1).
- Have an online brand and include content you generate as part of this. Whether this is a blog or tweets, you want someone to be able to find you—and relevant and professional things about you—when they Google you.
- Know what you're worth and say no to the clients or offers that don't respect that.
- Don't chase the clients/jobs that don't get what you have to offer; wait for the ones who do.
- And if you need a new experience to get the next job/client/opportunity, don't wait or ask for permission: just do it. Either start your own project to demonstrate you've got the required skills or volunteer with an existing company to get them.
For those who attended, did I miss a key takeaway? And please share how you apply any of these.
Until next time!
