Tag Archives: Mark Franklin

Luke ramps up access. The story behind StopGap.

Posted by: Mark Franklin on March 21, 2016 9:40 am

“I left my life as I knew it,” Luke Anderson explained to Career Buzz listeners (Feb. 24, 2016) about the day of his mountain biking accident. “All of a sudden I was introduced to a world that’s not well suited to someone who uses a wheelchair.”

Luke’s frustration with the lack of accessibility led him to found Stopgap Foundation which builds ramps for single-step storefronts and raises awareness about barriers in our built environment. Listen to the podcast to hear how Luke used his passion to navigate his transition away from an engineering firm toward his life’s work.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Hot careers in welding & fintech

Posted by: Mark Franklin on February 25, 2016 9:15 am

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How does a so-so summer job lead to a 10-year cool career in fintech*? Learn how from Jameel Somji’s Career Buzz interview (Feb.3,2016). Jameel’s story illustrates the lucrative and in-demand world of *Financial Technology.

“I adore metal – and I want to go bigger with it!” said Meredith Kucey on Career Buzz. Hear how Meredith’s jewellery-making career expanded when she studied the art and science of welding. Meredith shares insights about the lucrative and in-demand world of welding careers.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

How 23-year-old Eleni became an MP candidate

Posted by: Mark Franklin on October 20, 2015 5:00 am

Career Buzz Podcast: Underemployed youth? Imagine what you’ll gain by becoming an MP candidate!

“After I get more experience,” was the response 23-year-old Eleni MacDonald gave after receiving an email asking who was interested in becoming a candidate in this federal election (Sept. 30, 2105). However, after a 30-minute conversation with the Ontario Green Party organizer who said, “I think you’d make an excellent candidate,” Eleni replied, “Okay, let’s do this!”

That’s how Eleni added ‘Member of Parliament Candidate’ to her resume, concurrent with her job at Lenscrafters, and after a degree and a post-grad diploma. Imagine how future prospective employers will respond to the skills she’s developing: communication, leadership, debating, initiative, media relations, and more.

How the clues apply to you: Opportunities pop up all the time yet so often we feel unprepared. Take a page out of Eleni MacDonald’s playbook, and next opportunity, just say, yes. Also, as you consider where to put your vote, consider all the parties’ jobs and youth employment platforms. Eleni talked about the Greens national Community and Environment Service Corps, which would provide $1 billion per year to municipalities to hire Canadian youth. Tell your candidates you care, and support #VoteYouthJobs by contacting your candidates through www.voteyouthjobs.ca

Download and enjoy learning from the Sept. 30, 2015 podcast, also featuring Emil Boychuk and Janice Chappell-Traimer of Association of Career Educators. Or, listen to any of our 300+ archived Career Buzz podcasts. (Hint: Use SEARCH at bottom right of any CareerCycles.com webpage for your topic, e.g. “circus”).

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Employment Adventures for Unemployed Canadian Youth

Posted by: Mark Franklin on June 17, 2015 2:31 pm

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Benjamin Guth loves making a difference so when the rules for Canada’s temporary foreign worker program changed, Benjamin started MobilizeJobs.ca to put unemployed Canadian youth to work. He told Career Buzz listeners (May 27, 2015), “I get to send them on adventures. It’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”

How the clues apply to you: That podcast also featured the fascinating career story of engineer and successful startup co-founder Jon Fishbein, who shifted careers when he became “really bored” with one of his jobs. His question to himself can be your question to yourself: “Is this the contribution I want to be making?” And another question inspired by Ben Guth: “What is the most fun I can have at work?”

Download and enjoy learning from the whole podcast.

Launch — or relaunch — your career adventure or someone’s you care about by investing an exploratory consultation with one of our amazing team of career professionals.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Be Kind, Not Nice

Posted by: Mark Franklin on June 5, 2015 9:42 am

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When Dr. Marcia Sirota was “too nice” she lost sight of her own wants and needs, and her personal life fell apart. That led her to shift her psychiatry practice, and found the Ruthless Compassion Institute to focus on the “nice versus kind” conundrum.

“People go to extremes in how they deal with themselves and each other,” Marcia told Career Buzz listeners (May 13, 2015). “They’re either too hard or too easy on themselves. And when dealing with each other they’re too tolerant of mistreatment, or too aggressive.”

How the clues apply to you: Marcia’s fresh perspective is finding balance between these two opposing points of view. Stop being “nice” and pleasing others at the expense of your own wellbeing. “Be kind to yourself, which is being honest but loving; be kind with each other which is caring but setting limits and boundaries.” Now, take that perspective into your workplace.

Download and enjoy learning from the May 13, 2015 podcast, also featuring Judi Walsh, the “habit interpreter.”

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Mountains, Leaves, and the Breeze of Change

Posted by: Mark Franklin on May 27, 2015 1:16 pm

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Career Buzz Podcast: Are you a mountain or a leaf?

“We often get lost in our head when we’re trying to change things in our lives and communities,” Lodro Rinzler told Career Buzz listeners (April 26, 2015). Author of The Buddha Walks into the Office, Lodro spoke about the importance of meditation to help you “come home to who you are, your true self and innate wisdom.”

“When the breeze of change or uncertainty or fear hits a mountain, it deflects off the mountain,” Lodro said, referring to the “weightiness” of our innate wisdom. On the other hand, those of us “not confident in our innate wisdom, we’re more like a leaf in the wind. We get carried wherever the winds of change take us.”

How the clues apply to you: Be who you want to be. Let Lodro guide you in this brief mandala exercise.

Listen and learn from the whole interview, also featuring Mike Fenton on where a degree in sports marketing and commerce can take you.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Five Ways to Listen and Learn When You Hear a Career Story

Posted by: Mark Franklin on May 8, 2015 8:10 am

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You can gain so much by hearing other people’s career stories, but you have to listen carefully and in special ways. After interviewing over 300 guests on Career Buzz, and hearing thousands more stories in our CareerCycles practice, I’d like to share these five ways to listen and learn, next time you hear a career story — like on Career Buzz this Wednesday 11 to noon, or by listening to our amazing archive of career stories.

1. Listen for clues and inspired actions. It’s not one thing after another, it’s one thing because of another. Listen for clues that people followed which led them to take action. Clues can be external like a conversation with a friend, or internal, like a thought or feeling about the situation.

2. Notice changes in working identity. As we progress through our careers and lives, we change how we identify ourselves. Identity statements sound like I am a… or I was a… For example, I was an engineer; now I’m a career professional and entrepreneur. Changing working identity doesn’t happen easily, and if you understand how someone else changed their working identity, you’ll have clues about how you can change yours.

3. Understand their lessons learned. I like to ask Career Buzz guests what they learned about making career and life choices from their own lived experience. Listen to their answers because you can gain a lot from others’ hard won self-awareness. It can save you years. If you listen to archived Career Buzz stories, it’s the last question I ask.

4. Borrow relevant language, especially about strengths. After helping thousands of clients, I’ve noticed how hard it can be for people to name their unique strengths, skills and knowledge. That’s why I always ask Career Buzz guests what strengths they draw on to be successful. Their surprising answers can help you name your own strengths.

5. Tune into yourself to integrate what you learned. We live in a fast paced world super-saturated with stories. It’s too easy to hear one and quickly move on to the next. Stop! Listen! Ask yourself: What have I heard that’s relevant to my present situation and will help me in my career and life?

If you need help figuring out what your own story is telling you about next steps, try an exploratory consultation with one of our amazing team of career professionals.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

How to Fail Forward

Posted by: Mark Franklin on April 15, 2015 1:20 pm

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Ashley Good on learning from failure

Starting from a side project taking over the leadership of the Engineers without Borders failure report, Ashley Good (Career Buzz, March 11, 2015) founded the world’s first failure consultancy, Fail Forward. How did it start? She came back from a troubled overseas project and when she got back “the only thing that made sense to me was failure.”

How do the clues apply to you? Ashley told Career Buzz listeners that she regularly draws on her strength of “seeing opportunities where other people don’t.” That’s how her business, Fail Forward, emerged. There’s a lot of opportunity in failed projects! Try this. Today, spark a conversation with one person, a colleague or friend, and talk about one project that failed. Ask yourselves, what’s one lesson learned from that failure?

If you’re trying to learn from your own less than stellar career moves or situation, get started with an Exploratory Consultation with CareerCycles.

Hear the whole interview also featuring Don Presant of Learning Agents on ‘open badges.’

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Stop Blaming Yourself. Find An Employer Who Invests in its Workforce

Posted by: Mark Franklin on March 24, 2015 4:25 pm

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Hear the Podcast: Tom Zizys on fixing our dysfunctional employment market and why you should stop blaming yourself

“Canadians have answered the call,” economist Tom Zizys told Career Buzz listeners (Feb. 11, 2015). “We have a large proportion of people with college and university degrees,” said Zizys, a Metcalf Foundation Fellow, but they’re “working in entry level service jobs that used to lead to something else but are more dead end jobs – which points to a larger dysfunction.”

“So many of our policies have been focused on the ‘supply side,'” explained Zizys. “We’re trying to fix those individuals who are looking for work or encouraging them to acquire skills by staying in school longer.” He says “we spend far less time looking at the ‘demand side.'”

If there’s one message from a policy perspective,” Zizys concluded, “we’ve got pay far more attention to employers and adjusting their practices.” Right on.

How do the clues apply to you? Zizys explained that when many employers look for candidates “they’re not looking within, or grooming people. They’re doing just in time hiring.” As a result, early career people “are not known to employers, and so they require credentials.” And that’s why advanced degrees and resumes and job search skills have become so important.

If you’re a job seeker, stop blaming yourself. Find an employer who invests in its workforce and develops talent within. Try Canada’s 100 best small and medium employers.

If you’re employer, read Zizys’ report, Better Work: The path to good jobs is through employers

Hear the whole interview also featuring Nicole Bendaly and Leslie Bendaly of Kinect on what makes teams work well together.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA

Avoid Being the Career Frog Boiling in the Water

Posted by: Mark Franklin on February 19, 2015 4:25 pm

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“My inner voice was speaking loudly saying, ‘you don’t want to do this for the rest of your life,'” Kate Hilton told Career Buzz listeners (Jan. 7, 2015). She realized leaving her law career “would become more and more difficult. I didn’t want to be the frog boiling in the water.”

Kate’s working identity was becoming more ingrained, so she quit the firm, leaving a trail of “startled” co-workers, friends and family. What was she going to do next? “My strategy was, I don’t actually know what I want to do. I know what I don’t want to do. And I have this excellent package of skills that are transferable. I’m an excellent writer and public speaker,” and she’d even won a national trial competition.

So, Kate told “every single person I knew that I’m making a career change, and I don’t know what it’s going to be.” She asked them to set up meetings with “anyone you think I ought to meet.” Kate helped them to help her by naming a few areas of interest: “public relations, communications, project management, writing.” One of those meetings turned into an informal job interview which led directly to Kate’s next career, “where I worked for 13 years.”

How do the clues apply to you? Kate’s career evolved because she intentionally explored possibilities of interest through inspired ‘field research’ meetings. She did no online job searching. Take a page out of Kate’s playbook and use a more effective, proactive and empowering approach of ‘intentional exploration’ rather than relying exclusively on posted jobs. See how Kate’s career has evolved one more time, as a successful novelist.

Hear the whole interview also featuring Michael Kerman on blending his interest in travel with his career in human services resulting in his people-to-people trips to Cuba.

*The views expressed by our authors are personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the CCPA