Daily Endeavor Blog

Amidst the upheaval and real economic uncertainty, some people are asking the big questions that often get swept under the rug in go-go times. Questions like: what’s important to me?

Today Mark Hurst’s Good Experience newsletter arrived with a great pull-quote from David Byrne on this very topic. From Mark’s column:

Finally, for more listening: throughout the month of March, David Byrne streams old school gospel. He writes (and I agree):

Byrne…

With the economy and people’s finances in free fall, this is a time when many of us pause to reassess our values — what is important to us, what really matters and how we might restructure our lives to reflect those values. …

Whether you believe in the geezer upstairs or not, you might enjoy these tunes. They’re also the structural foundation upon which a lot of popular music was built — a strong foundation, I might add.

http://www.davidbyrne.com/radio/index.php

It’s the line in the middle that I hear people asking more and more:

what is important to us, what really matters and how we might restructure our lives to reflect those values….

The opportunity cost has never been lower to explore what might be right for you. It’s great to see people doing it.

• A special report on entrepreneurship: An idea whose time has come — Entrepreneurship is the Endeavor Prep point of view: engage in sustained experiments in what works and what does not. (The Economist)

• Layoff survival: Ways to keep your skills sharp by Eileen AJ Connelly — Invest in yourself and connect like hell with others (Yahoo News)

• Weary of Looking for Work, Some Create Their Own by Matt Richtel and Jenna Wortham — Layoffs can turn into startups (New York Times)

• PricewaterhouseCoopers Launches Multimedia Career Resources Toolkit to Boost College Students’ Job Search — Video vignettes for college students and recent graduates in the job search – www.pwc.tv (MarketWatch)

Robert Safian, the editor over at Fast Company, led off his March issue with a message that’s timely and worth repeating. Amidst the gloom and the real pain, there are many reasons to celebrate. In profiling the 50 Most Innovative Companies (and 159 overall), he provides evidence to support his case.

While hope is the over-arching theme, his message is more than that. He outlines how we’ll build our way out of the cratering economy

Only creativity and aggressive innovation — in the face of hardship and layoffs and seriously tough choices — will fuel a turnaround…In the midst of our troubles, remarkable things have happened, and they will continue to happen — if we prune the unproductive and broken, and nurture those enterprises that point to a more positive future.

On a macro basis, the market (and increasingly the government) guide our choices about what’s not working and where to prune. What about on a personal basis? When you are thinking about what career move to make next, are you looking to where growth is? Have you assessed what’s been working for you and what hasn’t in the contributions you’ve made over the last 2 years? What will you prune? Where will you invest?

These questions are not only relevant to industries and companies, they’re important for each us as individuals. It reminds me of Reid Hoffman’s message that everyone is an entrepreneur and everyone is managing risk, even if you’re working in a job for a company.

With incomes stalling, and some even removed for now, the opportunity cost has never been lower to explore what you need and what you want to do next. So, what do you want to do?

• Set Smaller Goals, Get Bigger Results by Dan Heath & Chip Heath — In hard times, we retrench. We maintain. We certainly don’t stretch. Small goals break the status quo (Fast Company)

• When Goal Setting Goes Bad Q&A with Max Bazerman — Good people can focus so much on reaching the stretch goal that they fail to realize how this has dumped other work on their co-workers, led the company to accept mortgages that are too risky, etc.

• Reid Hoffman Tells Charlie Rose: “Every Individual Is Now An Entrepreneur.” by Leena Rao — Clear-eyed point of view: you’re indeed managing risk (TechCrunch)

• How to Change the World: Guest Post: Memo from Kafka’s Castle and What Employers Want to See on Your Resume by Glen Kelman — How to re-think the resume (Guy Kawasaki’s blog)