As said before, your LinkedIn profile is how you make a first impression on others. Whether you know it or not, you are being regularly researched online. For the job seeker then, it’s exceedingly important you make that recruiter pick up the phone and call you.

Optimizing Your LinkedIn Profile

Just as it’s important to be descriptive for the person reading your profile to understand who and what you’re about, it’s equally important that search engines understand you, too. Why does Google, Bing, and Yahoo matter? When people research you, they typically don’t go to specific sites to find you. They enter your name and probably your location into a search engine, then start sifting through the results.

Associating your name with relevant keywords is why optimizing your profile for people and machines matters.

For example, let’s say you are an independent accountant. You focus on providing accounting and tax preparation services to small businesses in your city. You have no staff, no marketing budget, and a rudimentary network. How do you promote yourself?

One way to help you get found is to write your profile to include keywords that people searching for you will use.

Make a list of the types of businesses you want to attract. Let’s say you want to focus for now on lawn keepers because it’s summer:

• Lawn maintenance services
• Lawn mowers
• Gardening services
• 98122
• Small business accounting
• Small business tax preparation

This simple example lists search terms that you can incorporate into your profile. The search engines look at relevancy and proximity of terms to one another to determine context. That is, if your profile says the following, then a search engine is likely to score you a high match to the searcher’s query:

David Thompson is a small business accountant with 10+ years experience providing small business accounting and small business tax preparation for lawn maintenance, gardening services, and lawn mower small businesses in the Seattle area.

Make LinkedIn Profiles Work For You

As you write entries about your work experience and history, use specific terms. Avoid generic statements like, “Successfully achieved first quarter results for my division.” Instead, you can say, “Generated 24% rate of return on physical inventories in the first quarter of 2008 using CPERP inventory management system.”

Put Some Flair Into Your LinkedIn Profile

The impulse with LinkedIn profiles is to write dry, conventional resume-like statements. I encourage you to show more color in your profile. Certainly profanity is out of the question for most people but I have seen profiles that use mild instances to good effect. You know what is acceptable in your industry, so use good judgment.

By injecting some color into your profile, you reveal yourself as a well-rounded person – not another resume. And everyone wants to connect with a real person, not a piece of paper.

Honor the Facts

Tempting as it may be to stretch the truth here and there, you can better compensate for any shortcomings by using gentle humor or short-and-sweet sentences to fill in the gaps.

New to the work world and fresh from an internship this summer? Show what you learned but also show how you grew and enjoyed it.

“Advertising Account Specialist freshly minted from Northern University wants to surprise and delight your clients like I learned from Watson Advertising the summer of 2008. I listen to what they want, craft a brief so the creatives get it right, and know to fetch coffee if you need it.”

When In Doubt, Imitate

Look at several profiles in your profession on LinkedIn. When you find one that impresses you, study what makes it work. Pick apart the formula, then swap out the keywords that person used with the ones you need. You are better off imitating than being boring.

Looking for Some Mutual Optimization?

Want to review a statement before going public? We can’t give you lawyerly advice but we are great with a thumbs up or thumbs down and reasons why. Post your optimized profile in the Comments.

Your profile is the first impression you make on recruiters, business partners, vendors and maybe even a future spouse. Yes, LinkedIn gets used that way, too.

Profiles are based on your resume. Pull out the latest edition of your resume now.

Start by signing up for an account on LinkedIn from the home page at www.LinkedIn.com.

Register with the email address you check most frequently. Be sure this email address is suitable for professional use, too. This is not the place to use silly or nonsensical names. Ideally use your first and last name at a common email service provider, such as “Tom.Moses@GMail.com.”

If your email is currently not set up this way, take a moment to sign up for a free account with Google or Yahoo. They are the most commonly used email sites.

Many people still use AOL but some regard it as dated. Save the AOL address for family and friends. For career, appear current by using the popular services.

LinkedIn will email you a confirmation email to verify your identity. Follow the steps in the email, and your account is created.

Adding Your Name, Professional Headline, Location, and Industry

Enter the name you use professionally. If your name is a common one, differentiate yourself by including a middle initial, suffix, or other distinction.

Your “Professional Headline” is a clever recycling of your present or desired job title.

For example, if Human Resources says your job title is “Data/Financial Systems Analyst III” that means little to the outside world. Instead, consider the Professional Headline as a tag line or slogan similar to a product. Use “Expert Financial Systems Analyst” as a more approachable title in this example.

One concept that has emerged during the current economic situation is “personal branding.” Similar to an elevator pitch, personal branding entails building an idea of who you are in the minds of others. One aspect of personal branding includes defining your profession.

This is where personal branding is important. Write down five key traits you want associated with your name. Experiment with adding those to your headline.

If you have eight or more years in your field, preface your headline with “Experienced” or “Seasoned” or other term that conveys a solid history. Do not include the number of years if you are concerned about age discrimination – a common trend in the current economy, by the way.

Include your ZIP code – an important way that local search results are narrowed only to people in a given area.

Select an Industry from the pull-down list. Again, this puts you into the right search results of other people.

Choose the industry with which you want to be associated. That may not be the industry where you work now. If you are looking to enter a different field, associate your name with the crowd you want to join.

Finally, remember that LinkedIn also supports German, French, and Spanish if you want profiles in languages besides English. Create an additional profile in those languages if that is pertinent to your needs.

Here is how mine looks:

You must enter info in these fields at the least

Include thorough, well-written descriptions

Status Update

Regularly updating your status keeps your network posted on your latest activities.

This spotlights the events you are attending, interesting projects or organizations you support, and generally providing good, useful information.

Since LinkedIn provides users a choice of daily or weekly email updates to members, your Status Update should be refreshed at least one to two times a week. Doing so ensures your name appears in every update members of your network receive about their connections.

Unlike Facebook or Twitter, the pace of your status updates is not a constant, all-day stream of what you are doing at any given moment. Think in broader strokes (days and weeks) versus short, impulsive ones (minute to hour).

Employment History

Assuming your resume employment history is current, the easiest way to enter it is to copy it from your resume and paste it into LinkedIn.

After pasting, clean up the formatting in the paste field. Format it so that bullets are aligned, quotations are in the right place and no odd spacing occurs. A clean visual appearance adds to your first impression.

Your “Current” position is where you work now. For the job seeker (employed or unemployed), this requires more finesse. Your LinkedIn profile is not the place to scream desperation.

Many people treat LinkedIn as a billboard to announce their employment status – employed or unemployed. Begging, sounding overly needy and being a downer will not get you the right kind of attention.

If you are in job search mode, focus on clearly communicating what you want. Do not write, “Looking for the next great opportunity with a terrific company.” That is generic, bland, and will keep you looking for a very long time.

Write a concise, targeted statement that shows a potential employer who you are and how you will benefit their company.

Search LinkedIn for people in your field of interest and examine what they wrote. If writing is not your strong suit, note the ones that catch your eye, and mimic the formula.

Good examples are:

• Dynamic, seasoned Fortune 500 business development executive grows revenues 10% in six months through 500+ extensive nationwide network
• Targeted email marketing manager generates visually appealing, weekly newsletters on-time and within budget; digital strategies to dominate your market

Education

Credentials matter. They are how we quickly measure other people. Whether we admit it or not, a person’s education signals value assumptions we make about their worth. That is why we reward college degree holders higher than high school diplomas, without regard to the actual societal value the person contributes. There’s an inherent assumption that a four-year degree denotes greater intelligence or talent. Regardless of your position on the subject, be aware that it factors unconsciously into estimations we make of one another.

Include your education history starting with college or university.

Enter the name of the institution from which you graduated, the degree achieved, any honors or citations, and graduation year. Include all institutions that conferred an accredited degree to you.

If you do not have a degree but you completed a portion of its coursework, omit the degree and graduation year. Use the name of the program instead.

For example:

• Completed coursework Accounting
• Marketing Management, Senior year
• Systems Analysis

This shows you have made efforts at higher education. Address it tactfully and respectfully if it comes up in conversation.

If you are in school now, enter “Anticipated graduation” followed by the month and year you expect to finish.

If you have no higher education, but you have completed certification programs, include those. Omit the year achieved unless in the last 36 months to keep it fresh.

Recommendations

Know that if people have written Recommendations for you, and you approve what they wrote, only the number of them you have received will be shown here.

Read Chris Brogan’s post for details about Recommendations and best practices.

Connections, Connecting with LIONs

Networking can be a numbers game for some. However, don’t focus on how high that number is. Develop a quality network who will help you when you need it, and who you can help in return.

Your network should be a curated corps of allies, where there is a mutual exchange of value and benefit among all members.

Studies have shown that we can actually, at best, know about 150 people. Much more than that, our relationships become tenuous, less meaningful. There are simply too many connections to maintain with any vitality.

If you see a person with hundreds, if not thousands, of connections, don’t be intimidated – or overly impressed. The person may be a frequent linker for the sake of connecting; or in sales or recruiting. These roles need large numbers of connections as a job function.

In my own practice, I do not accept LinkedIn Connections from people I have not met in real life or connected with through another. Why? Because I want to validate that the connection is legitimate; is not linking to me for the sake of connecting; and is a real person (not spam).

Decide on a personal policy that makes your comfortable but meets your needs. Strike a balance between privacy and need.

There are members on LinkedIn known as LIONs: LinkedIn Open Networkers. LIONs will accept Connections from literally anyone.

LIONs serve one very good purpose. Let’s say you want to connect with a second- or third-degree connection. You can ask for an introduction to the person through a second-degree connection. But what if you have no one in common?

You need a connection point so that LinkedIn will grant your Connection request.

If you don’t have a person in common – save for the LION – then you still have a direct pathway to the person you need to reach.

By connecting to LIONs, you may find that is your only link to the person you want to reach.

Connecting with Web Sites and Twitter

If you have a blog or personal web site, include the link in the field for this. This significantly boosts your ranking in search engine results.

This is a good time to review your blog or personal site to ensure that the content is safe for work. If it’s overly personal, or doesn’t put you in your best light, don’t promote it until you can update the content. First impressions count only once.

Since the search engines regard LinkedIn as a high ranking site, links coming from it to your site receive higher scoring; thus, boosting your name higher in the first few pages of search results.

For search results, the goal is that you always appear first in any searches for your name.

Google yourself now and see where you appear. It’s very enlightening.

If you find others with your name in the list, consider how you can differentiate yourself from them.

For me, there are other men with my name in England, South Africa, and Australia. Luckily, we are all in different professions so people don’t get us confused. The different locations help, too.

As of November, 2009, LinkedIn connects to Twitter. Remember that when you update your status on LinkedIn, it can optionally update your Twitter account simultaneously by adding “#in” to your tweet. Don’t worry if those words mean nothing to you. Pop over to the Twitter section for details on hashtags and other social media jargon.

Public Profile

Your Public Profile contains a generic link that LinkedIn generates for your account. It uses random letters and numbers. Edit this link to use your actual name instead.

You may have to test different entries to get one that not already used. Experiment with your full first name (“William” instead of “Bill”), or add your middle name or maiden name. Each link is unique and the Bill Johnson’s and Mary Smith’s of the world claimed theirs long ago.

The goal is to assist the search engines in returning your name further up the page in search results. It also simplifies how people can locate you manually on LinkedIn.

Include the personalized link:

• On your business card
• In the footer of your resume
• As a part of your email signature

Finishing the Basics

Once you have entered this information, click the View Profile button to see how your Profile appears to the world.

If you’re satisfied, save the changes. If not, save the changes but return and edit some more. Once you’re satisfied, you’re done!

But wait, there’s more.

This is the bare minimum you should do in building a profile. The next steps will walk you through optimizing your profile so you achieve a score of 100% and begin using LinkedIn as not just a fancy business card, but also a tool to expand your network and find what you need.

Be Au Courant, Not Stale and Pale

Did you find a great profile? Share it here. Ready to road test your profile? Post the link below for constructive feedback and to share the tips and tricks you know.

Relationships matter. Relationships are about individuals connecting to share information, discover meaning together, and expand their mutual knowledge.

As social media expands its presence among the facets of our lives, the professional realm receives special focus.

Long considered the premier social networking site for business professionals, LinkedIn boasts over 50 million members in 200 countries in 170 industries as of October 2009.

Whether for meeting a new recruiter, business partner, vendor or job candidate, you can expect to be researched on LinkedIn. It is regarded as the web site to research people and companies.

Salespeople use it to mine for leads. Recruiters research job candidates before deciding to move resumes forward. Job seekers use it to uncover who they know at the companies they are targeting — and who those people know by extension.

Think of LinkedIn as an expanded edition of the yellow pages: not only can you find the right person at nearly any company but you can review their history and relationships, too.

Use it to create awareness of you among people you do not know but want to know. You can also use it to demonstrate your company’s strengths and build business relationships.

Who’s Using LinkedIn?

Who are those 50 million users?

• Executives from all Fortune 500 companies
• Entrepreneurs seeking new clients and investors
• Recent college graduates connecting with classmates and instructors
• Sophisticated job seekers
• Independent consultants of all stripes
• Individuals building professional networks for career and business development

What You Get From LinkedIn

Rather than exchanging a business card (buried on your desk never to see daylight again), LinkedIn keeps your connections vibrant and sustains your interactions with them by you maintaining your profile and network regularly. Otherwise, your connections can easily turn into that forgotten business card.

Many companies post job openings exclusively on LinkedIn to attract higher caliber candidates, and to recruit for those golden slots in the hidden job market.

Thousands of Groups, Discussions, and Answers offer a wealth of free expertise to help you solve specific problems. Just ask!

The more active you are by posting Status Updates, building new connections, participating in Groups and Discussions, and providing Answers to questions asked by others, the more value you gain from LinkedIn. With daily or weekly email updates, you are easily kept up to date with the goings on of your network, too.

Making Introductions

A terrific feature of LinkedIn is the ability to introduce your connections to one another. Since we can’t always meet in person, this enables you to connect two people who can benefit by getting to know each other.

Whether it’s a candidate interested in a recruiter’s company, or a friend needing services from a firm you recommend, the ability to introduce and build connections demonstrates the value you offer your connections. This value grows your network into a potent resource others will want to tap.

Degrees of Connection

As you build your network, people you connect with one-on-one are “first-degree” connections. Their connections are “second-degree” and those connections are “third-degree,” relative to you.

You might think a first-degree connection is better than a second- or third-degree connection. It’s counterintuitive but second degree connections often prove more vital.

This is because you cannot know everyone. But the people you know bestow a level of trust in the people they connect with, just as they do with you. This shows that if they trust you, they likely trust the other person also.

By extension, you can probably trust this person, too. Ask for an introduction through your mutual contact if you can offer value to that second-degree connection. Don’t just connect to ratchet your numbers higher. Building a network is not solely a numbers game but your number of connections strongly correlates with your reach.

Growing your network organically allows you to curate your base of contacts. Choose quality over quantity.

LinkedIn Tutorials

For a quick but thorough lesson on getting started, try LinkedIn’s online how-to’s for step-by-step instructions.

http://bit.ly/linkedin101

Looking for a Jump Start?
Unsure of how to create a profile or what certain settings mean? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Using social media in your personal life is a common practice for millions every day. How do you step into using social media for your business when you work for yourself?

Architecture firms operate in a very established field with rigid processes and procedures to ensure safety regulations are met and that structural quality is high. While their output is of extreme importance, the use of innovative marketing at architectural practices trails that of many other industries.

Pb Elemental in Seattle, however, has embraced social media in a fresh way to promote the firm’s projects, attract followers, and generate business.

“About two years ago, our receptionist recommended we put up a Facebook Page,” says co-founder Chris Pardo. “I got on Twitter at the same time. We do it to share our work without being in people’s faces.”

No Blogging, Just Building

While many businesses extol blogging, Pb Elemental prefers not to blog due to time constraints. However, many architecture blogs around the world republish and link to Pb Elemental’s Facebook Page on their blogs. From these re-postings, the firm receives inquiries from people who would otherwise never know about them. Pardo estimates that about 10% of these inquiries turn into revenue-earning projects in different locations around the United States. Pb Elemental does not practice outside the US at this time.

The firm’s fan base rapidly grew on Facebook, particularly among people who were looking to build a home. As of March, 2010, Pb Elemental had about 1,050 fans and Pardo himself had about 1,400 friends – mostly earned from the fan base.

Pardo also began to friend people who became Fans of the Pb Elemental Page on Facebook. He did this to reveal the person behind the firm, and reduce the appearance of being yet another faceless company.

He found that this gave an opportunity to show off more of the behind-the-scenes work they did, and clients felt that the firm was more approachable, trustworthy, and related to the firm as a connection.

“We receive about five to ten emails a week from people out of the blue asking us to design a house for them or asking how to buy the plans for the homes we’ve built,” Pardo explained.

Pardo described social media as a branding tool that provides a constant reminder to their audience, whereas traditional advertising provides one shot and then it is gone. That is why the firm conducts no advertising. Pardo comments that integrating blogs into Facebook works well if you have the time to blog.

Instead, they make social media a part of their everyday efforts and incorporate it into everything they do. His goal on Twitter is four tweets per day.

Facebook for Social Marketing

Pb Elemental uses social media to sustain interest and get people hooked on what they do. Pardo now tries to include more of the process behind how a final design is delivered instead of just showing photos of the finished project. This educates the potential buyer on the process of design.

Using social media also condenses the timeline, so he can post a complete sequence of photos from start to finish – a more engaging experience for his “friends.” He also provides multiple links back to Pb Elemental’s web site from the teaser content on Facebook.

Their latest project is a 10’ wide prefab house in partnership with Method Homes. The plan is to do time lapse photography while it is assembled over two days and publish this as the firm’s first video.

The interaction obtained from user comments is a key value that Pb Elemental sees in its social media efforts. Negative comments will remain but the troubling ones are deleted.

As for Twitter, Pardo began to see the light when his fiancé opened the gourmet hot dog shop Po’ Dogs. She used Twitter to communicate specials, discount codes, and events at the restaurant to attract customers. While Pardo recognized the value she gained from Twitter, he still works on how derive the best value for an architecture practice though they won a project in Houston via a tweet. They have about 450 followers on Twitter now.

About Pb Elemental

Chris Pardo is a founding partner of the architecture firm Pb Elemental. He co-founded the firm in 2004 with Dave Biddle. The firm was an outcome of their university thesis project: a residential home built for $125 per square foot. In 2005, their bank began referring them to builders who needed affordable construction methods. The firm has designed 475 projects as of March, 2010, and 340 of those have been built.

Since then, Pb Elemental has also won four awards:

• 2007 AIA Award (Commendation) for Queen Anne House
• 2008 Design Achievement Award
• 2009 Top 25 Innovators
• Chris Pardo: Top 20 Under 40 Architects

Construct a Facebook Strategy for You
Want to know more about how to use Facebook for your business? Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

Social media introduces a new facet into your life, one that is exciting, valuable and when done right does not require a huge time commitment. In fact, you can do it on an impulse basis – which often proves to be the best moments of clarity. These random thoughts will accumulate, and you will soon become comfortable with actively using social media in your everyday life.

This book-as-a-blog is written for the social media beginner to intermediate social networker. If you are a self-driven individual who enjoys learning new skills, this is for you.

Remember, it’s about collaborating, acting, sharing, networking, participating, and inspiring. And as Dan Schawbel, author of “Me 2.0” said, “There is no hiding anymore and transparency and authenticity are the only means to survive and thrive in this new digital kingdom.”

Social media users interact to find friendship and commonalities, and this requires that you have something interesting to bring to the conversation, that you show respect, and that you don’t impose on others. A friend remembers you and what you stand for.

That Spark of Inspiration

My initial idea for this eBook was to help myself better learn about social media for job search functions.

When I want to learn new skills, I rewrite what I’m learning in my own words to better retain the new knowledge. I have several Moleskin notebooks dedicated to specific books.

Then I started meeting more and more people who were also in job search mode.

More jobs were evaporating than being created and recruiters were receiving hundreds of resumes within hours of posting positions on their web sites.

To combat the deluge of resumes, recruiters were beginning not to review the resumes they received through their web sites. Instead, they quietly exchanged names of good candidates among themselves. It was a matter of efficiency and quality versus sifting through hundreds of resumes.

Layoffs continued to pour people onto the streets of Seattle by the hundreds, just like they did across the rest of America.

I witnessed people become progressively more desperate to return to work after overcoming sticker shock of salary reductions of drops of 15-25% or more in an environment where the employer set the price – not the market – to lower salaries that would keep their companies afloat. It was painful for us all.

In April, 2009, I attended a LinkedIn 101 class and about 50 people came, filling the room to capacity. As the speaker began, I glanced around and guessed the average age was mid-40’s, with an even mixture of men and women. I noticed great fear on their faces.

The speaker surveyed the crowd regarding their current employment status. Many had been with the same company for over 10 years and in their careers for over 15 years. They were hardworking and loyal marketers, engineers, programmers, network managers, project managers, finance and human resources professionals – the gamut of American middle-class, white-collar workers. The American Dream never felt more out of reach; more like the American duping.

As the presentation proceeded, the full advantages and special tricks of LinkedIn were explained. I learned some great tips I now use everyday. When the discussion shifted to take questions and offer answers, I glanced around again.

This time, almost every member in the crowd had that classic look of a deer caught in headlights.

And This Book Was Born

This LinkedIn 101 class reflected what I have encountered at other social media events: “I’m on LinkedIn but I don’t really use it.” Or, “My kids use Facebook but I don’t know what it is.”

How could these otherwise intelligent, and modern professionals not know how to use some of the most powerful and free technologies, the very tools that could most help them find new careers?

After seeing the scary expressions that night, and hearing this reaction a few dozen times over at the many networking events I attended, I decided to address this dire need for a straightforward book that explained all the social networking platforms in a way that would be friendly, achievable, accessible and manageable for an audience who is smart but feeling inept at marshalling the tools and benefits of social media.

By researching, testing, and combining the best of the best online resources, I have distilled these into a winning set of core skills to give you the simplest, strongest and most basic solutions to marshalling social media.

This book will get you up to speed quickly with LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and blogging tools that empower you to use them in an integrated fashion.

This will minimize your time managing your social networks and enable you to make meaningful contributions that simultaneously create solutions for your needs—in ways that also support others.

The Internet Is (Over)Loaded With How-To’s

Social media can be like drinking from a fire hydrant. This book turns down the flow of water to a manageable rate so you get exactly the amount you need and don’t drown.

While you can easily find much of this book’s contents through a search on Google, the sheer number of choices available is overwhelming. That is part of what I mean to address: which resources will serve your particular wants and needs?

Recognizing how frustrating deciding which venues might help you the most can be daunting. That is why I have collected and refined it all into a single source that provides multiple jumping-off points that help you explore specific topics in greater detail.

My second goal was to support you, the reader, in building these lessons into a progressive, start-to-finish method that gives you the following: (1) gets you on the right track using best practices, (2) keeps you up to date on the latest enhancements and tools, and (3) opens a precise, just-right approach that removes the confusion and intimidation.

Just an Hour a Day

If you worry that using social media sites requires a lot of attention and maintenance, then remember that you are in charge of your time and how it gets used. Don’t let the technology monopolize your time or distract you from your primary concerns.

Devote one hour-a-day to working on one chapter of each unit (set a timer to help you). In one week, you can finish the book with a stellar online reputation.

While you can share updates of your cat’s odd behaviors or your child’s antics, most social media pros do not recommend that you do this. Remember when your mom learned how to use email, and began sending you animated, glittery teddy bear grams 10 times a day? Don’t be your mom.

Use these tools productively! Do not spend all day online. Once you get started, though, you will likely find it rewarding enough that it quickly becomes a part of what you do daily. You will become more conscious of, “I should post this on Facebook” moments.

This book shows how to focus on being a contributing member instead of a person falling into the black hole of frivolity that can also be the shadowy feature of social media.

What helps me each time I get on to a social media site is this modern truism: “By giving value, I get value in return.”

Social Media Is About Sharing

If you find that this blog helps you, please share it with others.

Remember, pay it forward by helping other people get what they need and want. You will then find those same people helping you with what you need and want. This eBook on social media can get you there, especially in the new world that practices collaboration over competition. With the gifts of social media, there’s no doubt that we’re moving from a me culture to a we culture.

Not Sold Yet?

Want to ask a few pre-sale questions before committing? We can’t give you a toaster if you act now but we’ll put your fears at ease. Post your question in the Comments section for a response.

A little more from my favorite author Alain de Botton speaking at TED this month.

I am hyping him a lot right now because he points out the other side of things we keep forgetting or ignoring.

In this talk he describes how there’s a snobbery that defines what success is, and that this common measure is one that demoralizes many of us. He argues we need to set our own personal standard for what success is and grow past the conventional ones of money, fame and love/respect.Local Color rip

Copyright Monocle Magazine

I’ve taken a break from blogging for the past two months. I wanted to take some time to re-evaluate my job search, start to consider alternative career paths and just spend some time enjoying everyday life again. This period has been refreshing and lifted my spirits.

While on my blog sabbatical, I began reading one of my favorite authors. Alain de Botton’s newest book, “The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work” is a great read. Botton’s writing is always eloquent, crisp and succinct. Since reading his book “Status Anxiety” in 2005, he’s remained at the top of my must-have reading list. Botton’s writing contains nested and looping phrases. One might say it is very British. Read him slowly and savor his construction of language, his precise descriptions and digest what he writes. He is a wonderful philosopher who writes in accessible language despite the analytical thoughts expressed.

In our working lives, we draw much of our self-worth and sense of self-actualization from what we do. The author cites work as having an “…extraordinary claim to be able to provide us, alongside love, with the principal source of life’s meaning.”

Our culture especially prizes high-paying jobs because we equate salary with achievement. Even in this time of economic transformation, the old standards are slow to ebb away. Many of us are committed to obligations based on the old assumptions, though, that make it difficult to give up the paradigms we’re accustomed to. This doesn’t mean that we cannot opt out and try a new course that’s held our interest.

Botton describes the different types of work that are done – with pleasure – by people throughout economies around the world. It turns out that there is, after all, reward and honor in doing the most innocuous occupations. Perhaps the author glosses over the soul-grinding aspects of some labors that truly demean us but just the same he uncovers what propels people forward in what they do.

This blog entry highlights some particular points he makes, points that I found poignant and examples of beautiful writing. I will post additional entries as I finish the remaining chapters.

In chapter four on career counseling, Botton shadows a British career counselor. The man works for himself, and is hired by individuals seeking to determine what’s suitable for their lives, their interests and how to attain fulfillment from them.

In summing up how we ache for stellar achievement as a means to validate ourselves, he writes:

“Most of (us) stand poised at the edge of brilliance, haunted by the knowledge of our proximity, yet still demonstrably on the wrong side of the line, our dealings with reality undermined by a range of minor yet critical psychological flaws (a little too much optimism, an unprocessed rebelliousness, a fatal impatience or sentimentality). We are like an exquisite high-speed aircraft which for lack of a tiny part is left stranded beside the runway, rendered slower than a tractor or a bicycle.”

The ache for achievement has a gnawing potency on our psyches. It’s comparable to the persistent dream of winning the lottery. Oh, the things we’d do, the ways we’d help others, the comforts we could acquire. Nevermind there’s 1:200,000 odds usually. The dream is comforting and in it we numb ourselves for a little while from the reality of instability, need and not knowing what comes next. Meeting one’s potential is in large part dependent on the action one takes to make it happen. Without that key part, which I interpret as “advantages”, we remain the grounded airplane waiting to soar.

“For the rest of history, for most of us, our bright promise will always fall short of being actualized; it will never earn us bountiful sums of money or beget exemplary objects or organizations. It will remain no more than a hope carried over from childhood, or a dream entertained as we drive along the motorway and feel our plans hover above a wide horizon. Extraordinary resilience, intelligence and good fortune are needed to redraw the map of our reality, while on either side of the summits of greatness are arrayed the endless foothills populated by the tortured celibates of achievement.”

Those who climb the summit to greatness are surrounded by people tortured by knowing they have not climbed the summit, who clearly see where success lies but cannot climb.

“All societies have had work at their centre; ours is the first to suggest that it could be something much more than a punishment or a penance. Ours is the first to imply that we should seek to work even in the absence of a financial imperative. Our choice of occupation is held to define our identity to the extent that the most insistent question we ask of new acquaintances is not where they come from or who theirs were but what they do, the assumption being that the route to a meaningful existence must invariably pass through the gate of remunerative employment.”

For us, work defines who we are and our worth to our friends and family. We conceive of work as an endeavor deeper than one of necessity. Our basic needs are easily met. We do not have to bake our own bread; sow our own crops; and tend our own animals for survival. Nor do we weave our own clothing, construct our own homes or make much of anything by hand. Instead, we use our minds to pursue meaning by which we also supply our needs and indulge our comforts. Given the Great Correction of our present lives, though, it’s time to solve these problems with a new approach.

A Word On The Edition
The edition I’m reading is published by Monocle magazine (I liken it to The Economist meets Vogue in conjunction with the author. It is a very handsome cloth-bound limited edition signed by the author that includes a DVD discussing the book’s topics. There is also a video podcast on Monocle’s web site where the author and the magazine’s editor, Tyler Brule, (also a hero of mine), interviews Botton.