Richard Maun

Category: Uncategorized

  • Welcome To Last Year

    Gaze inside the island of your mind …learning points are waiting there!

    The world is alive with the smell of a freshly minted year and the cackle of a million people sharing resolutions and promising to do all the things they failed at last year! But what is gong to be so different for us this year? What are we really going  change?

    Instead of looking forwards it can pay handsomely to look back and reflect on what got in the way of our success last year, or what we did to make things happen for us. Change is based on learning from the past and the application of good decisions …and so we can all pause the headlong rush into 2012 and ask ourselves:

    •  What 3 things did I really learn from last year?

    Once we have some new learning to inform our thinking, then, and only then, can we plan for the current year and decide what to drop, what to change and what to start. And if all we do is tweak a bit here and nudge a bit there, then nothing is really going to change, is it?

    So, welcome to last year! What did you learn? How can you apply it for a better 2012?

    For me, I learned that to get a radio show I needed to swallow my competitiveness and invite a co-host in the space. And boy, was that ever a smart move …Julie Bishop is just the best person to work with and I’m so glad we found each other.

    I learned that I can commit to a regular fixed diary slot each week and can still run my business around it. It’s amazing how time and opportunity can be curved to fit the space you create for it.

    And I also learned that if you want to be really happy you have to think the unthinkable, get your backside into gear and start to make it happen. I have a book and a case study to write. And a radio show to sort each week, and a new edition of Job Hunting 3.0 to market. And some fab new clients to get into my stride with. And I’m going to continue being lovely to people and sharing my gifts and telling them what I feel and asking for what I need.

    It’s going to be an amazing, crazy magical year full of work and love and big smiles.

    Avoid the cackle of the masses. Take some quiet time to reflect and then let your brain know what your heart desires …and make it happen.

    2012 is your year. And it’s going to be wonderful!

    And thank you for reading my Modern Careers blog during 2011 …it’s a labour of love and I appreciate all the feedback and comments and ReTweets. Cheers All..!

  • Listen When Your Friend Speaks

    When a friend offers you gold – take it!

    I was lucky the other day, because a friend on Twitter complained to me that he was a bit fed up seeing tweets inviting people to head to Amazon and buy my book, called How To Keep Your Job.

    He complained in that gently teasing way that friends can be so good at, so I didn’t feel hurt, just a bit nudged in the ribs.

    I telephoned him (as that’s the correct verb here. Had I written ‘called him’, you might have thought I had hailed him over the fence in a neighbourly kind of way) and explained that tweeting sells books and that as an author my job is to write and sell books.

    (Seasoned authors know that writing can be the easy bit – selling is the really hard slog).

    ‘Aha!’ He replied, ‘I hadn’t appreciated that. Fair enough!’

    But the complaint remained, hovering in the air, like a, well, like a hovery thing – selling is ok, but over-selling isn’t.

    So, I will be more mindful in the future of how often I tweet ‘Buy My Book It’s Great’ and more importantly will remember that if people need to hear a message 7 times before they act on it, they will be fed up after hearing that message 15 times.

    And of course friendly feedback is the best because it’s truthful.

    Next time a friend gives you a piece of feedback, don’t dismiss it – listen carefully, because although they might be smiling and teasing you, underneath their words is a little nugget of gold, for you to think about and act on!

    Now, please stop reading this and go and buy my book! There’s still time before Christmas! Haha!