Saturday, October 31, 2009

GREAT Book: Advice Written on the Back of a Business Card by Roger Smith

This summer, Dr. Roger Smith, CTO for PEO STRI, asked me a very thought provoking question:

"What one piece of career advice would you write on the back of your business card?  Imagine that you are about to give your business card to a young person entering your profession. But first, you turned that card over and wrote a short piece of advice to help them get started in their career. What would you write on the back of your own business card to help this person? "

Roger turned this into a GREAT book that I highly recommend and is called:

Advice Written on the Back of a Business Card

This book provides fantastic advice from a variety of industry thought leaders that is succinct and to the point for anyone who wants to improve their career or life.  This book accomplishes a very rare feat  - it provides clear, concise and compelling advice for anyone.

The book can be purchased at Amazon.com here. 

The book can be purchased at Barnes and Noble here. 

The book can be purchase at Roger's site here as well.

My personal response was captured in the book as well :-)
     
I do have three things that I tell any young person, four things if I think they will listen and five things if I know them.

For any young person, my career advice is:

1) Life is short.
2) Death is certain.
3) If you do not make your own decisions now, time will make them for you.


If I think they are listening to me:

4) Always pay yourself first.  I tell the story about the importance of compound interest using the twins story on my blog.

NOTE: The entry above is from the presentation that I give to Colleges and Unviversities.


Best Halloween EVER 1991 Sunrise in Vienna Austria - SuperSPARC Chip and Socket :-)



Above is a photo from a 1991 Sunrise in Vienna, Austria on Halloween night.  Julie and I were attending Sunrise, which is Sun's highest honor it could give an individual employee, as part of a large group.  I went as a SuperSPARC processor and Julie went as the socket :-)