Managing Your Career

The trick is to be looking and planing your next shot. Do not focus on the last shot.

I do not know that anyone ever said that but it is certainly the trick to winning in pro sports.

I mentioned Farrah Fawcett July 12 in managing your career. An article in the SA Sunday paper caught my eye. I looked but could not find the interview with Geena Davis that Froma Harerop describes on page 9B. Anyway, stunning 53 year old Geena Davis complains that there are no good roles for women her age. Indeed Hollywood has been terrible about this. Anne Bancroft played Ms. Robinson at age 37, just six years older than Dustin Hoffman at the time. Davis and her husband produced Cutthroat Island in which she played an athletic pirate and she last starred in tv's Comnander in Chief.

I would note that at age 85+ Betty White is stealing the show in Sandra Bullock's latest romantic comedy but that is beside the point.

It seems to me that this is hthe perfect application of socionomics. What is suggested by the current popular culture that would resonate with audiences? Well let's see

unemployment is rising, and fast

the stock market has crashed

people cannot even afford divorce, the ultimate personal indulgence of the last four decades

I just read a story about couples having to live in their same home but sleeping in different rooms.

I recall an interview in which Sylvester Stallone recounted how many rejections he got for the idea of Rocky. By the way if you have never seen the original, with its fine Bill Conti music score and role of a lifetime for Burgess Meredith, watch it in the uncut version, not with all the commercials on tv. It is the classic underdog story. Its timing was perfect as the markets came off their 1974 crash low at Dow 577. With the markets coming off their crash lows at Dow 6600, housing in the dumps, America is likely looking for a another comeback kid. Boomers are not kids any longer, I would think Geena Davis is perfect for such a role.

Individuals that have successfully created their own roles include

Stallone, Rocky

Chuck Norris, Walker (don't laugh, he took over Sat nite ratings which were nowhere)

Eastwood, an iconic series of movies usually focused on an underdog often playing the role of avenging angel

Roseanne Barr-created the longest running sitcom since Lucy about a working class family

Paul Hogan, parlayed a commercial for Australia into Crocodile Dundee

Sean Connery avoided typecasting and left the Bond series to become an even larger actor

I suspect Geena needs to create a family along these lines

Husband laid off in the auto slowdown in the midwest

Marriage not going well

Teenagers cannot find work with their college degrees, they move back home

here we sit what to do

Mom re energizes herself, takes local auto parts factory, gets grant, turns it into a company to

make solar powered water heaters

Is that the right formula, I do not know, some focus groups might help but it is along the Roseanne Barr formula

And I would think that idea would appeal to a cable tv movie channel

anyway, back to the looking ahead idea.

It is easy to get caught up with school as an end in itself. But if your goal is say CPA, school is a building block to that end. Be thinking ahead,

Grad degree gets you a ticket to sit for the cpa exam

You must pass the cpa exam

that gets you a ticket into the job place, which way to go, tax audit, consulting, which industry

then what, cpa firm, industry, non profit, government

No one can tell you the answer. But it pays to be looking ahead. I do know this, one cannot just wait for the right thing to come along, one has to make it happen.

One response to “Managing Your Career”

Randy Ramirez

July 27, 2009

After earning a BBA in 1998 I thought that my school days were behind me. Now that I have spent 11 years in the general population I realized I am going to need some additional ammo to make my dreams a reality.
The last decade hasn’t been a bad ride for me what so ever but sometimes when you get a little you want more. If there is one thing that I have learned over that decade it is that if I don’t take charge of my own career, no one will. That includes taking advantage of every opportunity, even the ones that may not look so appealing. I spent three years handling company internal disputes and wondered why I had been sent to that particular part of hell. Now that I am out I am perceived by others as someone who has really paid their dues and someone who is capable of handling a variety of difficult situations and people. That experience as well as a three year stop in IT, and another three year roll in accounting has helped prepare me for my current role in operations.
Always looking ahead I decided I needed another edge and the right education that will allow me to possibly start my own business in the future. That is why I am back in school now.
You should always learn from your past experiences, and I concur that succeeding in business and life has a great deal to do with always looking and planning ahead.

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