It used to be when a lot of us were kids that soap could just show and be soap, and everybody was happy.
Soap was in a bar, and you used it (if you were particularly hygienic) or were MADE to use it (if you weren’t particularly hygienic) to wash your hands and your body.
Times have changed.
Now soap shows up and has to do lots of things. What used to be “soap” now has to be a “Foaming Antimicrobial Handwash with Moisturizers” if it expects to get the job done.
That is a big career change strategy for soap.
The thing is, it’s the same career change strategy a lot of more experienced people need to make, too.
It used to be you could show up and do one simple thing . . . and that was enough.
Those days are gone, though.
It doesn’t matter how successful you’ve been or how much experience you have at that one simple thing.
One simple thing isn’t cutting it anymore.
You have to figure out all the other things you can lay claim to in your job and your career. You have to figure out what YOUR version of “Foaming Antimicrobial Handwash with Moisturizers” is going to be.
It may take going to school on people half your age to see what they’re bringing to the workplace now in the way of talents and skills. Then you have to go out and hone what you do to be just as good as they are at all those weird sounding new things.
Because when you couple all those weird sounding new things with all your experience AND an openness to change . . . THEN you have a career change strategy.
Get going! – Mike Brown
