Your Career World Cup: Where have all your goals gone?

What can the world soccer cup teach you about your Brand and what employers want? I bet you do not want to be one more job market player nobody remembers!

I am a big soccer world cup fan which means I follow the games played by my favorite teams. I laugh, scream and talk about the moves with anyone willing to share the excitement of it. I also think about how great the game turns to be when there is a dynamic goal striker and a strong goal keeper.

For a winning team you must have both players in it, but what does it mean to your career vision fulfillment?  You MUST be able to switch between those two roles in order to achieve it.

The Goal striker is a human machine ready to follow on the agreed strategy to kick that ball straight to where it is supposed to go. It plays with the elements the game brings and keeps the adrenaline moving full of excitement for the crowd to CONNECT and FEEL that ball as if it were theirs! She is proactive, aggressive, strategic, dynamic and a true heart for the vision when moving along all obstacles in a ‘dance’ that brings passion to a game that can’t exist without her participation. She plays with others in order to conquer; she uses her counterparts’ failures and strengths as opportunities for her next move to get closer to her destination. She moves forward while working alongside her team and competition.

A Goal keeper is the one that keeps the ‘net’ free of balls. He’s got a vision that goes across the whole soccer field anticipating every move with enough premeditation to stop any ball. He is patient, self-controlled, mindful, defensive and sits ‘alongside’ observing/analyzing all the moves before stopping right on time any threat from the competition. He puts together the game’s puzzle while watching and deciding how to keep his vision intact.

You are a goal striker when you consciously follow the path you choose would be the most beneficial to get you closer to your career vision. You deal with the competition while obtaining what their attributes are, what your allies can do for you, what you also do genuinely and generously for them, what you understand must be learned and applied in order to get successfully to your goal. You are immersed in the field using the power of your network with everything it brings, its faults allow you to grow into a stronger player and your passion for the game connects you to your contacts/allies in a way that makes impossible for them not to believe in your unique Brand.

You are a goal keeper when you sit aside to carefully observe the trends your job niche brings. You analyze the competition, the moves your desirable target employers make. You are preparing with anticipation the required moves not just to prevent potential cracks in your Brand but to proactively assess the required attributes you need to bring to the game in order to successfully stop the risk of looking like one of the zillion copy-cats of the market. You know what the market wants and you are so ready to bring it to them. You are nothing more and nothing else that the BEST possible YOU!

You must be both a GOAL STRIKER and a GOAL KEEPER in order to be successful in being that memorable player everyone wants on their field.

You are the best of your past articulated in such a powerful present Brand connected to what the market needs in such a proactive way that your network is empowered by your moves and connected to your vision allowing your chances for success to be significantly increased.

You are THE PLAYER everyone wants to have in their winning teams, a visionary, a leader of your own Brand, a distinctive professional that is unafraid to watch and play the game at its best to meet his vision.

So, there you go and strike that goal. Hire that coach to help you identify the traits that will make YOU the exceptional player, because as Bil McCartney wisely said “All coaching is, is taking a player where he can't take himself”.

Best Success,
Your Career Coach,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
career4change@yahoo.com
www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Brand's Integrity Vs. What you did not mean to…but you still did

Branding is everything even if you do not know what it is, but what you know is when someone or something generates a noise in your system that does not sound quite right.


I can tell when a politician is talking without saying anything concrete on what people really need to know (I am sure you know what I am talking about) or when I get that e-mail telling me how someone I do not know in a very distant country wants to give me many millions out of nowhere for a very silly reason. It is not real; it is either a fake or a lie. People and Businesses do that all the time, don’t they?

I am sure Tony Hayward - BP CEO -did not mean to disappoint us with what he’s said to the media during the last few weeks but it seems he seemed to do so to many out there. I also believe that the Motrin manufacturers did not mean to sell an unsafe medicine for our kids, but they still did and a recall was generated. Or Toyota did not mean to hurt its Brand by contradicting messages about the issues/problems with the Toyota cars but they did!

I trust that you did not mean to mislead that potential hiring manager on your level of expertise in that particular software, but maybe you still did so! Or that you did not mean to sell that defective product to a client, but you did! Or that you did not mean to work on a contract that collided closely with your business ally's territory but you did, anyway!

Things happen! Bad thing happen to everyone. What can you do to mitigate being the originator of that noise or the ‘victim’ of it?

Decision Making is an art to master in a lifetime. A wrong turn and you are ‘history' until you manage to make a come back - if you can! One of the key evidences of your own Integrity is an open and transparent decision making process.

What distinguishes most of us is that we do not have the PR professional to define the communication strategy for our Brand or that Sales Department to handle sales. We are the CEOs of our Brand and as such we must confront the consequences of our actions whatever intended or unintended they are.

Acknowledgement is a first step on that direction. It is easy to say that others attack your Brand and because of it, your Brand gets hurt but it is wiser to say that the cracks in your Brand allow others to get in to see its weaknesses. Sit down and confront what is there in your own Brand that generates so much noise. There is a saying in my home country that states that if the river is noisy is because it brings stones meaning that if your audience is saying the ‘wrong’ things about your brand it may be you are the one to be blamed as the originator of that sound. Understand your vision and create your own Brand’s ‘white noise’ generating positive visibility and impact in those that cross paths with you.

Accountability in your decisions and their consequences. Unintended impact is always a risk, specially, when decisions are either not-well thought of, a result/product relies in a chain of providers/services or decisions are driven by emotions or quick delivery. When blaming starts getting into the picture your Brand's credibility gets highly impacted. If you are your own Brand’s CEO there is nobody else but YOU that others look at when your reputation is ‘at-risk’. When Mattel did a series of recalls with some of its toys I believe parents trusted mistakes were committed unintentionally and measures were taken for those not to be repeated, but when a famous furniture franchise business denied recalling a particularly popular bunk-bed after some kids were injured, then their Brand's integrity got damaged along the way. The same goes when your job is terminated and you blame your former manager for letting you go first or you reflect someone else’s Brand in your resume falling short on selling your own unique attributes to a potential hiring manager. You do not want to be any can of soda on that ‘job-supermarket’ aisle but the Brand that everyone wants to get in their business. Clear examples on how you can hurt your own Brand are available when you Google the key words ‘fired over Facebook’at  http://tinyurl.com/24365b5.

Learning Mode On. We can all remember some very ‘popular’ class lawsuits filed against major manufacturers. We also notice news’ headlines when bashing out famous household names/personalities for potential wrong-doing. We have access to the news everyday. What about if you got the control wheel on your Brand and you could incorporate some of the big lessons available out there? It may be you are worried about equal employment opportunity, you are discriminating or feel discriminated against, or you are writing those passionate e-mails without further thought unaware that anything you do or say reflects your Brand everyday 24 hours a day! Learning is a key element in anyone’s Brand for it to survive and get into a growing mode. Go and research your own unique attributes. Clean your act, if needed. Learn from your past to build a better future.

There you go, live up to the words your Personal Brand means...Say it, do it, own it…mean it!

"Regardless of age, regardless of position, regardless of the business we happen to be in, all of us need to understand the importance of branding. We are CEOs of our own companies: Me Inc. To be in business today, our most important job is to be head marketer for the brand called You."
Tom Peters in Fast Company, 1997

Best Success,
Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
Your Career Coach
'Because YOU can change what happens next'
+20 referrals available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco

Be strategic in your career path time investment and turn off that TV now!

Are you using Internet/Data strategically in your job transitioning and market research? How deep is your understanding in what’s available and the changes you need to make in your life/career to get you closer to your vision? According to Nicholas Carr* on his book ‘The Shallow’ a constant Internet use ‘impedes the sort of comprehension and retention “deep reading” engenders’. Therefore, you develop a sort of photographic memory that stops any meaningful reflection on how the information you access impacts your path or not. Even worse, if we consider a Nielsen Wire report*, ‘the typical American consumes almost 35 hrs of TV, 2 hrs of time shifted TV, 4 hrs of internet, 22 minutes of online video and 4 minutes of mobile’.


Are you hooked in an unproductive monthly routine? Are you paralyzed and victimized by your own choices? Is it Friday already and you have achieved not even 50% of what you've planned for the week?

What about stretching out of your comfort (or TV) box and do what you know you can’t postpone any longer?

There is a big number of networking events in each town. We are more aware than ever that the biggest piece of that job success pie relies on networking. Creating and building relationships with others is key. Not just business but personal relationships. The Networking impact is much higher than the use of job boards or anything else you can think of. If you decided to switch your time wisely and spend 40 hours of your week choosing actions leading to a change in your life towards the future vision you are looking to fulfill, then you could consider creating your own agenda. An example on what a more productive monthly agenda could look like is:

- A weekly networking meeting = 8 hours a month
- Playing/exercising with others 2 times a week = 8 hours a month
- Using online networking strategically - e.g. LinkedIn - for your job search= 12 hours a month
- Watching out for job market trends while applying actively on job boards = 8 hours a month
- Having a nice date with your significant other once a month= 4 hours
- Having time to choose the life you want to have = PRICELESS!

This would still give you more time to do what’s better for you rather than just following the distraction trends most choose to follow when overwhelmed by changes/potential changes in their lives/careers.

Using technology wisely is not about having 5-6 Internet windows open at the same time in your computer screen and knowing it all but actually connecting yourself to the content in a strategic mode that allows you to make best use of the information gathered to incorporate it effectively to your action plan.

Can you commit yourself to stop the someday syndrome and begin a journey that YOU know is the one that will drive you to your VISION fulfillment.

Can you start running your own statistics and choosing wisely how you invest your time everyday?
‘Television has proved that people will look at anything rather than each other.’ ~Ann Landers
Best Success!

Mariela Tinoco-Aramburu
Your Strategic Professional Branding and Career Coach
'Because YOU can change what happens next'
 + 20 Positive Referrals are available at www.linkedin.com/in/marielatinoco
* Nielsen Report: http://tinyurl.com/32tezj3
* Nicholas Carr's Blog: http://www.roughtype.com/