First, I'm going to introduce Alex. Alex is an author, teacher, coach, AI tech adviser, and sales leader who has enjoyed a 12 plus year career in tech, recruiting, and consulting sales at Oracle, Mercer, Talentful, and now Bright Horizons. He's a career expert. Alex is going to share some of his insights and research from his first book, 100 Skills of a Successful Sales Professional, as well as his upcoming book, Maximize, which is set to release this November. Please go pre-order. Alex is all about how to go first in a thoughtful and thorough way so others can thrive. He enacts his enacts this through his nonprofit, the Commence Foundation, which teaches college students essential life and workforce skills. What I love about Alex is he's a giver. He has just turned his company into a foundation. So, he is working with students, those 18 to 22 year olds who need these skills most and he gives and gives and gives. So, I'm just very very grateful for him and we I'm so grateful for his time. Alex, let's kick off with the very first question that I sent to you. And if you don't mind, you want should we try? Do we dare to try to share your screen? Do we dare? Top five career pitfalls. Yes, please. Awesome. Okay. So, appreciate that and appreciate the introduction. Uh, makes me sound much more interesting than I really am, but uh, thank you so much. So, um, but yes, so when Vanessa reached out uh, and Vanessa and her team with some excellent questions, wanted to prepare some material for you all to kind of maximize this session. no pun intended. So came up with um one of the questions being around you know high achievers and what do you see as high achievers kind of uh where where do they struggle or what could they learn? What advice would you give? So for me it was high achievers do the good things very very well. So let's think about some of the the downsides that you might not see or hindsight being 2020 let's let's get out ahead of hindsight. So for me the first one is failing to weave a cohesive career story. So I think a lot of people they take a lot of roles very impressive roles they think it speaks for itself but in reality you know it might look disjointed or oneoff here and there. So how do you kind of combine a cohesive coher uh career story I really love a model called ikagai. Um so we'll be talking about that in later slides but a little preview of coming attractions. So that's one thing is is what are you doing? How is it building? How are you building transferable skills through all of the work that you do? And what is the kind of underlying current or purpose behind all of your work? Number four, leaving Kudos opportunities on the table. So, uh it is definitely intended that the picture behind you see here is not only an empty table, but also an empty glass. So, it's representing that a lot of people forget to not only write down their own kudos that they've received, performance reviews, you know, remarks, things like that they can take with them to that performance evaluation or opportunity for upward mobility, but also giving back. So, I think one of the things that's really helped me in my career is anytime I I get an excellent job from anybody, I will reach out to their manager and I'll say, you know, put a thoughtful email together about how great that they've been doing for me and helping me. gets them some goodwill, hopefully gets them a promotion uh and selfishly does also help me by them being more responsive uh and willing to help. So that's number four. Three I would say is treating time as infinite. Nobody necessarily thinks of time as infinite. I don't think anybody literally thinks that. But when we don't create a plan to take action, we are inherently treating time as infinite. So we are trading a 100% guaranteed right now opportunity for something infinitely less as it goes and progressively less. So that uh opportunity for that next job, that course, um you know, whatever it is that you wanted to study, whatever it is you wanted to do, whatever that project was, uh a lot of people push it off and then it doesn't happen either in that role or in their career altogether. So start thinking about how to take action even if it's a little bit at a time. It's tough when the here and now is so overwhelming sometimes. Number two we had here was um being unwilling to ask for help and feedback. I think when I work with a lot of high achievers, they think that they have to show I'm a self-starter. I'm autonomous. I got this under control. Whereas, you know, in reality, you need to be able to show that you can ask for help. You are willing to grow. You don't necessarily know everything. And you know, you're you're being open to feedback. So, it's kind of a two-prong benefit. shows that you're being open to feedback and that you're willing to grow, but it also gives you an opportunity to showcase your skills that you might not necessarily otherwise. So, in their mind, you know, you're coming to them asking for help and they're kind of thinking, okay, this is an area my expectations are a little bit lower than they wouldn't normally be and yet this person's reaching out to me and they're actually doing a lot better than I thought. So, if they're doing this well in an area they're asking for help in, imagine what they're doing in the other areas. So, ask for help. It's a two-prong benefit. And then Vanessa, I think we had another follow-up question on uh Yes. First of all, I just this is so important what you're saying and like I want to just highlight a couple things specifically for people school students and tying them to our skills for failing to weave a co cohesive career story. We talk about the importance of selfnarrative right in skill in um yeah skill number seven about how that's the final level. I think being able to talk about your career as a narrative is essential conversation skill at work. So being able to say to a boss, you're chitchatting, you're talking about things, and you explain how you got where you are. That helps the boss understand your hero's journey, how hard you've worked to get here. Or you're mentioning it in an interview. Not just question answer, question answer, but here's where I come from. Here's what I've learned. here's how I see myself. So, not only yourself, like knowing that career story for yourself, but being able to tell that story easily and uh readily in work conversations, I think is really critical. So, I just want to call that out that I just like I love it so much. Also, what you said about emailing someone else's manager and and giving the kudos to their manager. This is I always say write recommendations on LinkedIn. That's better. Yours is better. It is. Well, they're both great. I'm like, what a gift. What a gift you could give someone. So, I just want to call those two things out. Okay, next question that I want to ask. So, that my first question was what what should high achieving professionals know? What what mistakes do they make? That was the first thing. The second thing that I wanted to talk about is I I think actually, let me see here. Do we have it next? So, talking about the three different things that you that talent could do, uh what are those things that they can do? Yeah. Awesome. I'll jump into that in one second. I just want to get to number number one here. Um, but that that's a preview of coming attractions on the three things that I got. I wish Yeah, I know. We're just it's it is an exciting topic, but just to wrap this one up real quick. Taking a transactional here and now approach. I definitely want to get to your question. Just want to make sure people don't miss this one since it is the number one pitfall I see is people get so caught up in the here and now, in performing, in their duties that they forget about all the people that helped them get to where they are today. uh as well as thinking you know your next five moves uh book by Patrick Beck David that I would recommend um thinking through how are you going to proceed forward in the organization in your career uh whatever that may be so um not just getting caught up in running the race and thinking that you know it'll just magically appear before you but being intentional about giving thanks and and and giving feedback as well as planning the future. All right but yes it's a great question I did want to get to it. It's even my slide is excited to get going, Vanessa. So, it already clicked forward. Um, but in the spirit of learning three things that I wish I had in the beginning of my career back at Oracle, uh, 12 some 12 years ago, a little over 12 years ago, I I created this little virtual room. So, it's a it's a little creative, but hopefully people enjoy it. Uh, and for those of you here in New York City, you'll appreciate the uh outside the window there. But um so number one for me is it's not the size of your rolodex but the depth of your relationship. Uh so it's or the depth of your connection really. So that one for me this is all kind of geared towards those in sales consulting client type of fla facing roles but I think there's a propensity to want to find more opportunities more prospects more deals more clients. uh and that's that's okay, but a lot of people do that and then you miss the opportunity to go deeper into a relationship. So, it's it's called out in my first book. Um but really, I think through uh going down the ladder, if you will, of increasing your relationship. So, if stage one is just being a vendor, you know, stage two is kind of being a consultant and stage three is maybe being anme, a subject matter expert. Um, stage three is where a lot of people will build successful careers. But stages four and five where you become the adviser and then the trusted adviser where people are asking for your opinion uh in other areas and when you get to that trusted advisor status they are greatly heeding your advice even if it is a tangential or adjacent area that you are in. Um I've had the benefit of being stage five for about two people. So, I'm still I'm still working on it, but some other fours and threes. And so, but it really is an unbelievable opportunity once you get down that ladder. And it's it it it definitely exceeds the uh the the other opportunity of getting more, you know, f three, four, five more opportunities that are stage one. So, it outpaces that, I guess, is the word I was looking for. Also, by the way, uh this quality over quantity is something that we talk a lot a lot about in people school, and I didn't even know that you were going to share that. So that absolutely fits in with what we talk about which is I would rather you go to level two with fewer people than have a lot of level one connections because we don't aren't as connected to from an oxytocin perspective with level one people. We are much more likely to help and get advice from and ask for advice. So even like for example uh I had a friend that flew in the other day, flew in yesterday and we um I was like let's go on like a dinner and a breakfast and a lunch and a walk. I was like, "Let's like take this relationship to the next level." And before she left, I was like, "We should do an event together." And she's like, "Yeah." And that never would have happened if I had not been like, "We're going to go beyond just a dinner." So, I think that's putting in a lot of time, but also putting in the quality of time, asking those deeper conversation charters that we talk about in skill number seven. And April mentioned that skill number seven is tomorrow in her session. So, if you want to practice your career story and talk about these questions, definitely join April's session tomorrow. Okay. Sorry, go ahead. Let's keep going. I love this vivaceious energy. I feel like I want to join tomorrow now. Uh, so Another favorite V-word is Vanessa and Vivacious. Those are my two favorites. Oh, well, I didn't even know that. Perfect. But, um, number two I would say here is you need to build your own brand, not just the company's brand. This is especially for high achievers. I know a lot of people uh, and there's no, you know, obviously you have to master the story of the company, but I know a lot of people that are Deote or Oracle basically parrots, right? They they've mastered the the company's brand, but they haven't injected any of their own personal brand or personal flavor, what what have you. So, it's not going to be all the time that you get an opportunity to really talk about yourself and your personal brand and build that brand. But what you can always do is learn outside of just what your company is teaching you. So, I really opened my eyes to this at during my time at Oracle when I started reading all these sales books. And that was the impetus behind uh writing the next book as I read 30 different sales books and kind of sharpened my craft. But if I just listened to what I was getting at Oracle, it still was very good, but it was really only one or two domains. So, building your own brand, not just the company brand. And then last but not least, uh this is a little bit of a reality check unfortunately for myself, but companies fill roles um with talent as opposed to creating roles to fill talent. So, what I mean by this is um people will look for the role, hire for that role as opposed to we have a great person here for talent, at least the larger companies, let's figure out a role to create for them. Just unfortunately, hasn't I haven't seen it in the sales and consulting world. I've had five different people kind of promise me a multifaceted role. All of which it's just, you know, I ended up getting hired for the role that I was put in place. Um, and then not as many opportunities as they were kind of sharing for for future growth. So, or for current growth in a multifaceted role. So, this isn't just me. I did run a talent acquisition roundt at my last organization. The likes of Google, Robin Hood, Cloudflare, all those folks were on it. Had about 12 people on the call. And one of the talent leaders actually said, "Can we get to a place where we hire for skill or talent-based as opposed to role-based?" And there was a long pause in the room and they actually said, "Uh, I don't think so." The Google leader said, "It's a great aspiration. I don't think it's going to happen. Not at least at the large organization." So if you're work working at a large organization, that's one of my little caveats in the sales and consulting world is that unfortunately it's more role- based. So how do you fit that role? Okay, that's just good for us to know. So no matter where you are in your org, right, that you're going to have different challenges if you're in a big or versus small. And if you're small or if you're a manager in a small or medium-sized company or if you're an entrepreneur, if you find a talented person and you can create a role for them, I think that is the back door into magic. Oh, like I Carolyn's not on this call cuz she's on vacation today. She's so missed, but hopefully she'll watch the replay. Which is after I hired Carolyn, I realized she's very talented with content and video editing. And so I'm like, "Oh my gosh, you should be doing our content management calendar." And so that role changed just because she had this amazing innate talent for it. So I think that as leaders, as managers, if we can be on the lookout for other strengths that might be not being used or underutilized and then adjusting as much as we possibly can to get those strengths, like that is magic. Okay. And 100% Vanessa, that's all that's a differentiator. If you're a hiring manager, if you're in an interview and you have that you're a smaller small to mediumsiz business where you can hire for multifaceted people, well, you'd have me. I'll tell you that much. So, uh, you know, there there's a lot of opportunity there when it comes to um, differentiators if as a hiring manager. That's it. It is it could be your differentiating power, right, as a hiring manager. Okay. We've been talking a lot about kind of the just the basics for career professionals. I asked Alex specifically about pivoting because I know we have a lot of pivoters in people's school or people even considering a pivot. So what I asked him was, "What advice do you have for career pivoters specifically?" And uh I I have a sneak peek of the slides. This is so good. So go ahead, Alex. No, no worries at all. So I appreciate that. Um so for me, a lot of times people come to me like, "Oh, I'm going to pivot in a career." And I'm like, "Okay." And then I go, "Well, why?" And then it'll be, oh, you know, my last manager I didn't like or there was no upward mobility in my company or I just don't really like it anymore. So I'm like, okay, is it more that you are pivoting to something that you like or you are getting out of a a career pivot? So is it a career pivot or you getting out of a career pivot? Uh something a little kity I just came up with, but I never heard that. That's magic. That's so cool. Hopefully it works. Yeah, whatever. But appreciate it. So So what is really the impetus? What's driving it? and a way to figure out what's driving it. I do have it on my uh my new website here. It'll talk about the lovability index. So, it's uh a questionnaire that helps you kind of in hypothetical situations figure out if it's something that you really love. Um but this is a little excerpt from that or a little bit of an offshoot from that uh of eight questions to ask yourself. And the cold stone crearyy adage is like it, love it, or got to have it. So, where do you kind of fall on this spectrum? Uh, and some of the questions kind of speak for themselves and I want to be cognizant of time, but a few that I wanted to call out is I think people have heard this one in the past, but do you have to or do you get to go to work? I would extend that further. That that's probably the like it into the love it or got to have it is how do you feel about after hours, overtime or nights or weekends. Um, you know, provided that it's not at the risk of your sanity or your work life balance, but uh are you actually excited about doing the work at at all different hours? I think one of the ones you can do this, one of the ways you can test this is when Friday comes and people say happy Friday, is it more that you're excited to hang out with your family or that you're excited to leave that job? So, think about, you know, what's kind of driving uh as a factor here? Um, one a couple other ones I'm going to call out here, just a couple three others. So, at the bottom left hand side, you see here it says, "If someone could only describe you based on what you do, would you be okay with it?" So, if they said, "Hey, Alex Dripjack is a sales director." And that's where the sentence ends. Uh to me that's not that that doesn't quite do it. And Vanessa's introduction was much better, right? You know, as far as author and uh some of the other things that I' I've been doing on the foundation side of the house. So So for me, I'm looking to do more. So from your identity perspective, is this something that really speaks to identity? If someone said Alex is a nonprofit leader, conversely, I would say absolutely. Awesome. Which I totally understand why you pivoted like that. Now it all clicks for me. I'm like, ah yeah, you wanted a different storyline for yourself. And this is something um as you're doing your career narrative, as you're writing that story, are you proud of it? Like a great selfch check is, does that feel good to you? And then if you're having trouble figuring out what to pivot to, what would be a reasonable narrative that you would be proud of? Just theoretically, but reasonable, like still like in the in the realm of reason, but like I I always always always knew I wanted to be an author. I just I wanted that as part of my career identity. And so I knew even when I was just starting out that whatever I was working towards it was going to be a book. So I was like okay blogging, YouTube videos, like I just knew that I wanted that as part of my nar the goal of my narrative. And so everything was just towards that goal. Is there something like that for you that you just really want to have that as part of your story that would make you feel good? I think writing that narrative is one of the best ways you can selfcheck it. I love that. I'll have to I'll have to I might have to steal that one, Vanessa, with your with your with your privileges and your rights. Vanessa Edwards. There we go. Yes. Awesome. So, uh, a couple other ones just to quickly call out. Um, feeling better, more energy in your voice when you talk about it. Uh, that's a huge one for me that I've realized. So, when I talk about certain things or certain jobs might not have been as exciting, but when I talk about my nonprofit work or even my current role, which I really like. Um, I'm I'm I I kind of stand up straighter and I I talk with more emphasis and I'm more excited about it. And then last I'm going to call out here is uh this is a um adaptation or steel from Start with Y which is here on the second shelf. Vanessa's books are on the top shelf just as a quick call out. But uh are the mundane tasks uh cementing rocks or are they building a cathedral? So when you have to go through some of the boring things, do you see the overall strategy, the vision, the purpose in it? Uh or is it kind of like, oh man, this is grunt work. I want to get it over with as soon as possible. So that's one I really like from Simon. uh which I'm sure a lot of people are familiar with Simon Synynic but those are some of the ones I want to call out and some of the other ones just to kind of go further on this model if you like models you like doing these exercises I mentioned icky guy how your passion profession mission and vocation kind of all coalesce awesome interview tool every time I've mentioned ikai I've gotten offered the job or the next step if I've decided to bow out so use ikai to your advantage if anybody's interviewing out there um and then also Jim Collins is good to great hedgehog concept is a is a big one. Mention a couple other ones in here. The one I'm going to highlight is why do you want to do what you do? And just keep asking yourself almost like your internal three-year-old, right, of okay, well, why? Okay. And why? Why? And the goal is to get through six W's. Um J Shetty and Think Like a Monk behind me here over there. Um so a top shelf book uh as well. uh really like this gets you into that practice of if you go four, five, six questions or four, five, six wise deep, you should figure out the root cause and then is the root cause intrinsic motivation or is it exttrinsic? And if it's intrinsic, is it uh duty, fear, love or money that's really or success that's kind of driving it? If it's love, you know, that's that's ideal. And if it's duty, that's number two. But, you know, if it's operating from a position of fear or success, not as um not as scalable or not as uh replenishable. And also, I was going to mention here, and by the way, thanks for all the chat questions. I'm I'm answering them in chat. Meline just said, "I just initiated a pivot, and a lot of the answers to these questions is why I'm I'm going from VP of marketing to launching my own thing. Last day is July 25th. Whoa, this was very timely." Yeah. There you go. Now, you know, you're writing your narrative. Um, I was also going to mention here that uh the intrinsic versus exttrinsic. Do you talk about this in your first book or is this the upcoming book? Which one is this? Um, it's actually just in the course. I don't think it's really covered as well in either book. It is. I I do have two pieces that are on the maximize book. So, that's all things productivity. So, motivation, alignment, habit formation, time management, all those things. Uh, 100 practices to help you kind of be your peak self. But there are about two or three sections that I'll touch upon intrinsic versus exttrinsic but not explicitly. And you mentioned on this slide, I saw it when I was peeking at the slides earlier today. Magnitude of impact. Can you tell me? Thank you. I I I knew I was missing something, but uh I was like that's a phrase I like. I don't really know what it means, but I don't. No. So, basically each slide in our presentation materials and usually our materials have a break at every 25 minutes. We do some kind of exercise together to keep the keep the retention of the information high. Um, but magnitude of impact is something else that's unique to the course where each slide we share, it's on a grade on a scale of 1 to 10. How much mastering the content on that slide is going to be able to change your life or, you know, greatly enhance your life. Um, so this is definitely one of the more impactful ones. Whoa. Okay. I love it. Um, by the way, for all the presenters out there, like this is a that's a very cool thing to add to your slides. Like that that is like that's like next level. I love it. Um, that is a really good tip. Okay. Um, continuing on career pivoters, you have counterintuitive gold nuggets which I think are so good. Can you please go through these for us? 100%. Yeah. So, I want to highlight some of these. So, we talked a little bit about the why or a lot of about about the why. So, now how about you know actioning this? How can you kind of put this in a tactical procedure? So, this of course you got to keep in mind my students are are mostly younger. So, for the folks you'll see here on the first line uh 60% of students expect to stay at their first job uh for two years. So, it's not necessarily about the company or about the role. It's about what you're going to gain from it. Most valuable transferable skills. Uh Meg Jay in her book, The Defining Decade, talks about identity capital. So, where can you go that's going to build identity capital? So, just think about growing your network and not necessarily growing, you know, your job. I think I got caught up in this and a lot of other high achievers do. Uh kind of running the race for your job and not for yourself. So, think more about that. How can you be more intentional? Uh recruiters are your friends. probably the only other person maybe outside of your mom that has a definitive interest in your success and gets compensated and paid for your success. So, uh think through, you know, reaching out or accepting that recruiters that are gerine to your domain. Uh unintentional rhyme, but we'll go with it. So, uh I personally like to start uh with big name, big name or big companies if you can. I just see people get recruited a lot easier from there. Uh it doesn't have to necessarily be a giant company like I started at Oracle, but if you start if you're starting at a bigger name company that might be in a niche that other people are always going to want. Uh it's it's it's kind of like the old adage that uh nobody gets fired for hiring IBM. You know, nobody gets fired for hiring a super successful person from a successful company. So I've just seen this a few times. Not saying anything against people that work for smaller companies, but I've just seen it'll be a little bit easier for people that work at big recognition uh companies. And then last but not least, reach out directly to hiring managers. Um, again, this one might might have some people on the other side of the coin here. I will say uh doing it for where you're a best fit and of course not skirting the online application since that's going to be necessary for uh the application process itself. But, um, reaching out directly, showing that you're a go-getter, showing that you did your extra homework uh, and that you have an opportunity to impress them. Love it. And by the way, we have scripts for this. So remember that one of your people school bonuses is a whole bunch of scripts to recruiters to hiring managers. And you can also use the Vanessa AI coach to help you write this. So if you're like, I don't know what to write. I got you. Just literally put in about you. You can copy and paste your resume. Uh ask, you know, put in the hiring manager info, maybe copy and paste their LinkedIn profile and ask Vanessa AI, could you please write um a a direct email to the hiring manager? Here's the role that I want. Right? like hap happy to help you with that. So we have tools for that that you can easily use. Okay, next question. So I also asked Caroline and April I was like what else should we ask Alex that is going to be most helpful for our students and I love this one for our entrepreneurs on the call. Can you share your perspective on sales and how to truly connect with clients? It's like woof good one. All right so this one is my longest slide I'm going to admit Vanessa. So I I want to be cognizant of time. So I'm going to try to do my best here. But uh this is my area of my first book and my career. So obviously something that I I love to discuss, but uh so you see these 10 circles here. They're not this is not a blank slide. We're going to fill these in together, but kind of adapted this from my from my first book kind of the 10 10 to one countdown. All my books are countdowns um of what I've kind of seen as the most impactful ways to truly connect with clients. So, the first off is tracking birthdays, celebrations, interests. Uh, there's a great book behind me. Second shelf, uh, Harvey McKay, swim, swim with the sharks without being eaten alive. Uh, so the McKay 66, I'll fix that later. McKay 66, uh, comes from this where it is kind of all questions to ask. So, you know, they say that they have kids. Okay, how old are the kids? What are their names? When are their birthdays? It gives you not only a way to be, you know, right in line with Vanessa being the foremost expert here on emotional intelligence to be more emotionally aware and empathic or empathetic, um, but also you have a built-in follow-up, right? To always kind of stay in front of them. So, I I I love this one from Harvey. Number nine, personalizing your long-term outreach. So, what I mean by this is um, a perfect example, I already talked about long-term memory. I was writing holiday cards one year to some former clients from from a former job and one I wrote and the guy got back to me and he said, "Hey, Alex, I was so touched by your your note. Uh, I'm actually going to be kind of transitioning out, retiring from this role and I need someone who's going to do exactly this. I'd love to offer you our head of sales role. Um, it's mostly kind of referrals and and managing a network." So, I loved my role so much that unfortunately that's where the story ends, but it is still one of the most touching moments I've had in my career. Um, and it comes from, you know, something somebody I hadn't talked to in a couple years and I sent them a Christmas. So, number eight, facilitating their business growth. So, um, not always just thinking about how can you get more opportunities, but going into that depth conversation that Vanessa and I were talking about earlier. Um, so one great way I've seen this, especially for the more nimble folks, we're talking about being nimble as smaller and mediumsiz business uh, organizations earlier. If you have an event or if you have a a golf outing or a dinner, instead of, you know, offering it to say maybe two different clients, offer it to one and let them bring their top prospective client or their top client to the table. Um, this way, you know, it shows that you really care about them. So, huge opportunity there. So, seven and six, I guess we wanted to combine them. Um, so turning down net non-bfeit opportunities, I'm going to start with that one. I think a lot of times when people reach out to you, they expect to kind of be sold uh as to how you're the best fit, how you're the best organization, drinking the Kool-Aid. So, when you actually go through a thoughtful evaluation and you say, "Hey, you know what? Actually, unfortunately, we're not the best fit here." And you can either refer to somebody else or you can just turn it down outright. Um, this is actually how I built when I was talking about those stage fives of trusted advisor. One of the two trusted trusted advisor statuses that I've gotten from started with turning down a best non-bit opportunity. So, that's one I love to call out. Helping someone close to them. I think that kind of speaks for itself, but Anthonyo, hard last name, uh, in his book, Eat Their Lunch, talks about entering from the right. So, if you start left is you're kind of pushing your product and right is you save their child from a burning building. Uh, how can you be as close to the right hand side, of course, without setting on setting a house on fire. So, um, yes. So, how can you add the most value to someone's life? And and and don't be push don't be pitching or pushing your product. Five, making valuable network introduction is not going to be labor this one since it ties in so closely with eight, but thinking beyond just the immediate uh new clients for them, but maybe um there's an author who wants to speak to them. Maybe there's a journalist who wants to speak to them. Maybe there's a partner that they could gain from uh for their business to kind of join up join forces. Four huge one. I think early early on in my career in sales uh I didn't do quite as well as I was hoping to do. Uh and then somebody came on stage at one of our conferences and kind of gave their perspective from HR as to you know every time we go to buy something you know it's kind of putting my own personal reputation at risk and I have to really be super sure and I don't have a lot of money and you know every time it's always a little bit risky. So when I kind of opened my eyes to this and seeking first to understand them as opposed to you know trying to position myself and trying to be understood uh it really getting back to the emotional intelligence and emotional awareness was huge but it also helped me craft better messaging more app messaging at better times too someone in my world of HR is going through open enrollment they don't want to be you know getting pitched right during that time so seek first understand then be understood number three again ties into number seven. Um, kind of the back end of it. So, helping solve problems and referring outside of your specialty. Anybody can be really, really good in their domain, but those that are thinking more holistically, those are the ones that truly get ahead. Number two, I almost debated with putting number two number one, but um helping when others don't. So, a lot of times when people are filling their pipeline and someone loses their job, it's on to the next one, right? I need to find the new contact. I need to maybe even find a new opportunity. But what you have here is actually a golden opportunity to really help someone who's going to be uh you know really interested in in what you have to say for the rest of your career if you help them land a job. And you can kill two birds with one stone if you have an open position at one of your clients or pro prospective clients uh by helping them introduce them to a talented individual. So huge huge huge opportunity. Of course is a little more longterm but I would highly advise people to to go that route. And then last but not least I'm this is not too bad. It's about six and a half minutes. So I I did better than I thought I would on this slide. Uh getting them recognition and rewards. So one of the things I always talk about is how can you get them a resume line item? So this is something I talk about in my consulting and in my speaking and things like that. But um can you get them a promotion? Is that million-doll savings by hiring you going to uh get them a speaking opportunity? Uh is it going to get them on stage at your next conference? Is it going to get them that promotion? whatever it might be. Uh how can you get them uh to look great? Okay, by the way, this is extremely valuable. Each of these tips, if you do one of these tips, I think it could be a game changer or a level up. I also so appreciate your perspective, Alex, of being giving of giving, right, of like always putting other people first. That's why I just love I just love your perspective. Okay, I want to take some questions from chat. So, if you have questions for Alex, we already have one from Andrea. I am 24 years old, currently trying to pivot my career from working in small tutoring company and remedial academics. How can I grow my network best to maximize my business potential as a Mary Poppins for working with children, organizing the chaos in their brains? Lovely. So, what advice would you have for Andrea? And by the way, if you have other questions for Alex, put them in the chat. Yep. I think this actually segus pretty nicely, Vanessa, into the the next question. I was I was like, "Oh my gosh, it's like perfect, Andrea. It's a perfect next slide." Yeah. So, I'm just gonna drop over there. So, if you're trying to make a change or if you're thinking about how to cold network to folks, uh I think it follows this is the formula I put together for my students. But, um you know, what is authentic that you can connect about? What are the commonalities you have? And it's not if you're if you're here in New York and you say you love the Yankees, so do 12 million other people here in New York City, but you know, maybe you also played soccer in Wales at the same university or whatever it is. That's likely to be the the better route to go. So, what's most unique? What are you most passionate about? Uh your interest in them. So why particular their career story? Uh making sure it's specific to them. So I I really would double down there. So it's not just, oh, I see you're in this role, but talking about how their role has kind of evolved or how their career has evolved or where where they started is similar to where you wanted to start, etc. Um taking a long-term perspective. So not asking for a job. You can never really you can never jump right to Z, right? A to Z. You can't just necessarily jump right to the end. So, how can you, you know, learn things from them, build from them, and kind of showcase your long-term approach to them and impress them? There's a there's an old saying from Robert Chelini in his book, Influence, and he says, "Oblation trumps like." So, I don't want to say you have to make them feel obligated, but when they see your skills, they're probably going to feel like they are obligated to help you. They're like, "Wow, this person's so good that I want to help them." And that's what you're really aiming for. And then last, but not least, what can you offer in return? And I have a whole section on that. Uh I'll just kind of highlight them. It's not a countdown as exciting since we're I know we're going to be low on time, but um just wanted to kind of quickly shout out some of these. See, I think can people screenshot this, too? Just like I think this is like what do I do? You know, I I really want to offer, but what do I do? This is the this is the list right here. So, screenshot and there's 20 of them. And uh the next page, so I'll wait for people to screenshot is actually how I got in touch with Vanessa. So, um, if we can I was hoping you would share. Can you So, like I think that a lot of people are like, "How do I reach out to people or how do I get help?" Alex and I didn't know each other. Alex reached out and we just connected slowly. Has it been four years? I think. Yeah. Four years. Yeah. And and here we are like you're offering to my students. So, do you want to share like how you reached out to me? Yeah. So, I'm going to go to the next slide to share. So, got all their screenshots. Three, two, one, screenshots. Okay. So, for me, um, it was it was kind of a combination of different things, but it was starting with buying the book and then I wrote, uh, probably shouldn't share this with Vanessa on the call, but I spent probably about two two and a half hours on my my message going through all my notes from the book. What did I have that was the most common, you know, all the way down to like the same pens that we liked. I think it was like Pilot G2 or something. It was Pilot G2. Love on. So, there we go. So, a number of years and we still commonality. Commonality, right? Exactly. So, um, and I, you know, I offered obviously commentary about the book, but also if there's anything else I can always help with in the future, if you need an extra I set of eyes or you need somebody to bounce some ideas around or even proofreading, you know, kind of just went that direction. Um, and I didn't know Alex, but it was such a lovely email and it was so full of offer and also I could see your competence like Alex's reach out all of your emails are always a balance of warmth and competence. Like I can feel that he really cares. I can feel that he cares about his students, but also like he really read my books. he really like dug deep into them and so I was like wow like this is amazing and I've always just kept Alex in the back of my head is like ah like that is someone who is highly charismatic and has like the right heart and so when like you've always just been the back of my head um and so uh I want to offer I want to ask you like how can I help you how can we help you no I appreciate that I mean for me it's it's really trying to fix what I think this the societal chasm of nothing against people in higher education a lot of great work but I think we missed the mark on workforce readiness life skills. So, I'm teaching networking, I'm teaching productivity, as I mentioned earlier, emotional intelligence a little bit, um, but mostly centered on interview skills, um, presentation skills. There's 12 different courses that we teach that I think are kind of missed during the typical educational, you know, K through 16, if you will, if you include college. Uh, so I'm bringing that to universities, uh, through the nonprofit foundation. So, uh, the biggest way is really if someone says, "Hey, I don't want to just give my money to the overall university. I would love to create a personalized program that maybe has my name on it and we bring that to the university to teach these skills." That's what we're starting to do at some some universities right now. So, uh, you know, you can like, uh, and follow content on uh, LinkedIn and Instagram and things like that, but that that's really what I feel like is my purpose in life. So, anybody who's spiritual, I'm a very spiritual person. That's what I feel like I was put on this earth to do is try to help fix uh fix that problem and leave the world better than I found it. So, let's make Alex uh like LinkedIn influencer. I do think that by the way, LinkedIn is just the way to get to folks. So, uh commence on LinkedIn also Alex on LinkedIn and then on Instagram, are you workforce ready? Great handle. I have two questions from chat that I was hoping you could answer if you don't mind. Could you first is could you just clarify eeky guy and yes and I'll and the second one I'll read you next from um sure yes if you if you yeah three businesses that will come next yeah literally right behind me so that worked out well okay um it is a it's a Japanese word um Japanese secret to a long and happy life is the subtitle but it's these four circles that talk about your passion profession vocation and mission how do they all kind of coalesce so you know what are you passionate about and it's a good it's a good uh career pathing tool so If you're not sure uh I like to use it in interviews saying that you know how everything connects for me but how do your passion profession so what are you currently doing your vocation and your mission uh all coales okay yeah then that's perfect I also highly recommend the book if you're like wanting to dive into that it's lovely um okay uh uh question if you operate three different business last question how do you approach a cohesive career story such a good question by the way because so many of us have side hustles pivots like three different careers. How what is the answer to this question? So, um I'll share how it worked for me. So, I shared my guy story and I told them right off the bat that I have my own my own it was my own business at the time. Now it's a foundation. Um and I shared with the CEO in the in the room, public company, 30,000 plus people. Uh he was in the interview and I said, you know, well, I told him about what I did with commence and I said, well, this is great because you guys do college coaching, which is high school to college. So, I'm excited to learn that and be able to position it to our clients. Um, so I joked around. I said, "Bright Horizons, where I work now, can be my um main job and my side job." And they just smiled and they didn't say anything. So I said, "Either I drove home that night. I'm like, either I nailed it or I did terrible and they're going to hate the fact that I have this side hustle." I got a call less than 12 hours later, um, sorry, 12 business hours later, um, saying, you know, hey, we'd love to offer you the position. So it worked out well for me. But um so I think is a great way to kind of go about you know how to coalesce everything together making sure that identity capital with Meg J everything that you do does it build towards the same story. So like in my current job talking about education and caregiving benefits ties right into what I do with kids as well or students as well young adults. So there's a lot of things that I can kind of go off on. But how do how does everything connect? Okay everyone, can we give Alex a round of applause? Yay. Okay. So, please go follow his content. Uh I think it's really inspiring. This was it's so helpful. I'm even wondering like can we put up some of it on my social channels for everyone and then I can and then I can feature your handle because it's it's so practical your advice and it's so good and then I can get you more like more followers from my from you know beyond people school students. So can I put why why would I say no to that? Of course happy to help. I can also send this slide. Okay, perfect. I I think I want to share it with like my wider audience just because it's so good. Like if if you're willing to be aggressively helpful, I am too. And then I can at you and tag you and hopefully drive you some some people. So, um LinkedIn will do it and maybe Instagram and Tik Tok if that's awesome. Awesome. I know we ran a little over time. I'll I can send this to the group as well. It's about work life balance. I think the last thing we didn't get to, but it's on screen here if you want to take a screenshot. Happy to uh to allow that to. And are you okay if I post the slides to people school students? Yeah, I think I I sent them to you. Yes, I have them. I have them. Okay, great. Everyone, I'm gonna I'm gonna share those for us in circle and then um Thank you, Alex. Yay. You're welcome to stay on, but we're going to do people school people school. Of course, I will. I'm going to drop off the uh the video chat. You have a four and a half struggling. Just go. You got to go. Okay. Okay. Awesome, everybody. Pleasure, Alex.