FountainBlue's January 2025 Newsletter
Happy 2025!
May you have the time to do what you want and the health to do it with relish.
May your mind be quiet enough to relish the little things and celebrate the bigger things.
May your spirit flow with acceptance and joy while you courageously scratch that itch.
May your sleep be restful, your days be fulfilling, and your dreams inspire you to step into what’s next.
May meaningful conversations with trusted others be your mainstay.
May those around you blossom and support you in return.
Connecting Your Passion and Skills with Market Needs
As you plan for 2025's challenges and opportunities, consider this framework for identifying jobs in the ‘Sweet Spot’.
The ‘Dead End’ option leaves little impact or enjoyment and may even be in a realm that you are not especially skilled in. If current circumstances require us to adopt a ‘Dead End’ job as the best available option, accept it gracefully and plan for a change when circumstances shift. Consider changing what you can change - like your skill level or knowledge or your attitude and energy, but accept what you can’t immediately change, such as market trends, your colleagues, your role, etc.,
The ‘Day Job’ is an excellent option as the market is receptive, and employment options are consistently good. But it’s not your area of passion or skill. You can adjust your skill and knowledge levels and shift your attitude or role to enjoy your job better.
The ‘Passion Project’ option allows you to do something you’re passionate about, where you have tremendous knowledge and skill. However, it’s not necessarily a good option financially, as there are limited lucrative opportunities for passion projects. If you’d like to pursue a passion project as a hobby, recognize that there’s less likelihood that it will also be financially rewarding.
The ‘Sweet Spot’ option offers tremendous work opportunities, passion, and enjoyment. It offers work where you have excellent knowledge and skills. The trick with the sweet spot is that what’s a sweet spot for one person is not necessarily a sweet spot for someone else. Moreover, what’s a sweet spot today is not necessarily tomorrow’s sweet spot. To keep the spot sweet, keep learning and growing your skills, stay ahead of market changes so that you remain relevant, maintain a positive attitude, and proactively manage your stress level, your impact, and your role.
What will you do more to help you proactively manage your work and your career in 2025? What will you do less of?
Click on the button below to sign up for a 15-minute, no-obligation call to discuss what you’d like to do more or less of in 2025!
This Month’s Success Quote
Notes from last month’s When She Speaks Online Program
ountainBlue's December 12 When She Speaks program on the topic of the 'Seventh Annual 'Men Who Open Doors' Program. Please join me in thanking our esteemed panelists.
Facilitator Linda Holroyd, CEO, FountainBlue
The 2024 Men Who Open Doors Honorees are:
Kamal Kharrat, AppSec Engineering Leader, Halliburton
Sathish Nayak, Senior Director of Engineering, Pure Storage
Dave Winn, Senior Program Manager, Databricks
Raymond Zheng, Managing Director, Honda Innovations
This program also features a light roasting and introduction by our nominating executives:
Cynthia Dote, R&D Operations Leader, Pure Storage
Mio Harimoto, Venture Director, Corporate Venturing, Honda Innovations
We were honored to highlight the leadership and accomplishments of this year's ' Men Who Open Doors' awardees. Our executives came from a wide range of backgrounds, but they had much in common:
They have a passion for continuous improvement and a track record for navigating their careers through technical, leadership, process, and innovation challenges.
They have been acknowledged and rewarded for their empowering and engaging leadership style, which has created many projects, managers, and initiatives.
They are committed to delivering immediate results and equally investing in setting up ongoing future results.
Below is a compilation of their thoughts on how to best open doors for others.
Work with executives to define projects and programs worthy of funding and ripe for distributed participation. This may be the foundation for opening doors and providing opportunities for people to shine.
Look beyond the typical go-to people or the 'logical' choices to tap people with more diverse backgrounds for opportunities and initiatives.
Guide broadly and lightly, outlining goals and rationale without overseeing how solutions can be implemented.
Provide counsel, resources, and advice to help navigate challenges successfully.
Balance the need to deliver on current initiatives while setting up for longer-term strategic success and impact.
Counsel the full person - the technical and tactical prowess to accomplish a task and the emotional fortitude and drive to persevere despite ongoing challenges.
Before you open a door, consider which doors should be opened, when they should be opened, for whom they should be opened, and why they should be opened. This will maximize the likelihood that a door-opening connection will benefit all parties.
Thoughts on how to support your team and those you mentor:
Be open to doing things that might make you feel uncomfortable, for that may be the best opportunity for growth.
Offer a nudge to help someone have the confidence and opportunity to walk through an open door, engage, and succeed.
Ongoing connection and communication may help someone achieve full results from an open door.
Sometimes opening doors might mean that someone needs to do difficult and unpleasant things.
It was inspiring to learn from our panel this month. The bottom line is that opening doors for others strengthens and improves us as managers, leaders, and people. Leaders like the ones we featured today help ensure this.