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"I Love Writing" - Useful Skill, Satisfying Hobby, But Probably No Way to Make a Good Living

For reasons I'm still trying to figure out, youth is seeking out Boomers like myself for career guidance. When I entered intuitive coaching/tarot reading full-time I assumed my target market was restricted to the over-50. Well, currently I provide more and more complimentary coffee chats to college students and 20-something career-changers. To my surprise, despite all the media coverage of how AI is eliminating content-creation slots, they light up when telling me this: I love writing.  They know that I had had a lucrative high-profile career in creating content, all kinds. The assumption is that I will be resonate with their obvious. Gently, I lay out how the Law of Supply and Demand has been operating. Content creation is a declining sector. Parts of that have been going on for a while. Back post-Enron speechwriting collapsed. But some in that category retrained for researching and providing content for slide decks. Those were becoming standard for everything from board presentat...
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ChatGPT - All Too Human

 Communications professionals essentially blew off ChatGPT when it had been released in November 2022. Not a threat, they figured. That was primarily because the tone and content were, well, disembodied. That meant what humans brought to messaging of all kinds wouldn't be sidelined by AI.  Now, those of us who are heavy users (maybe downright addicts) of ChatGPT might be put off because its tone and content are all-too-human. Like so  many in our commercial lives ChatGPT sucks up relentlessly. For instance, it often responds to my prompt with: That's a very good question What insight you have If you want to know more, I can ... In addition, since ChatGPT has a memory function it will loop me back to earlier prompts and connect the dots for me - almost the way humans finish our sentences. Typical is: Since you asked about average water billing in Tulsa, Oklahoma, would you like me to calculate that for Conway, Arkansas. I was exploring relocating to a LCOL area. Accuracy? ...
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Obsolete: Your Version of The Brand Called You

In the late 1990s, management consultant Tom Peters explained the importance of self-branding. Creating/promoting a brand was not only critical for PG and GM. You also had to be a brand. That piece of career advice went by the title The Brand Called You. That's even more essential currently.  The labor market has become binary: stars and all the rest. All the rest are expendable. Or not even needed in the first place. In my coaching I warn young people and career-changers not to enter a line of work in which they can't stand out, twinkling brightly. However, the growing wrench in the works on that is that too many of those looking for work - full-time, part-time, contract - are out there with an obsolete brand. I have reviewed a large number of LinkedIn profiles for those in communications. The skills they highlight are not in high demand. They include: Journalism Story-telling Content-creation SEO (search engine optimization) Graphic design. In demand in communications are: Cr...
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Paul, Weiss Rebuilds: Trump Dealmaking/Epstein Association Fading in Collective Memory Bank

  Throughout the Fortune 500, human talent has been losing its value. In professional services, such as law, the value and price of that talent keep escalating. The game in large law firms is to recruit, retain and motivate that talent. So, it's a sign that Paul, Weiss is emerging from the residue of the Trump dealmaking and distraction of the Epstein fallout. It has been acquiring some top talent.  Recently in the US the star hires range from Trent Bridges , energy M&A Houston, to Daniel Zygielbaum , tax matters in DC. With Paul, Weiss's bulging war chest there could be lots more big-name partner acquisitions. It's not a stretch to size up Big Law as binary: stars and all the rest. The latter are increasingly expendable.  Eventually large law firms could reconfigure from the pyramid, with tons of worker bees at the bottom, to the diamond. The structure will have only a handful at the bottom, seasoned midlevels in the middle and a small pool of partners at the top. T...
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The New Hoarders: Aging, and Too Scared to Spend Money

  "I keep saying to myself that once the balance in my checking account hits this number, I will start spending again. My business is doing fine and I am way beyond that number but I can't spend." That kind of problem is the one I am handling more and more as an intuitive coach/tarot-reader for those over-60.  Those who can't spend are the New Hoarders. As Yahoo Finance documents, they are terrified of outliving their money. And maybe with good reason. The Stanford Center on Longevity found that if you're 60 and healthy you could make it into your 90s. The odds of that are best for females but males also are getting more time on planet earth.  One consequence of hoarding money is killing off joy. Much of life is about looking forward to whatever. And much of that takes money. For example, the trip to visit the grandchildren, the addition on the house, developing a hobby like photography. Fear of homelessness hardens the inability to spend that money. The common ...
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Your Employer's Social Events: Anxiety, Boredom and More

Team-building retreats, happy hours, celebration lunches, client dinners, softball games and more. Participating in those social events tend to be expected for full-time employees. Most of you experience anxiety being around the higher-ups, boredom chatting with co-workers/subordinates and fear of consuming too much alcohol in order to feel comfortable.  Rarely, though, are they mandatory. However, your absence can be noted.  And they were for employee Lionel Lim at accounting firm ClintonLarsonAllen. In his lawsuit Lim v ClintonLarsonAllen  the associate contends he was terminated for non-attendance. In this era when anxiety is the new common cold his reason for skipping the jolly good times might resonate. Bloomberg Law reports: "Lionel Lim accused CLA of showing a 'willful' and 'reckless disregard' for his well-being by not exempting him from non-mandatory events like happy hours after he reported suffering from social anxiety ..." Yes, Lim went by the boo...
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Bypassing Reputation Rehab: The Emerging Kathy Ruemmler Model

  Remember the traditional thinking about reputation. It goes all the way back to Shakespeare's "Othello" about the loss of one's good name is to lose everything. More recently, that is in the late 1990s, management consultant Tom Peters formalized that with the concept of "personal branding." And there we have been, that is, reputation is almost everything. An entire sector of services sprung up to take care of hits to the personal branding. Terakeet even specialized in the digital piece. But that whole continuum, from the critical importance of reputation to the need to hire a fixer, might be collapsing. Reputation may not be all that important. And fixes might not be all that effective.  The new emerging model of a career in apparent peril might be emerging with the situation of Goldman Sachs top lawyer Kathy Ruemmler. As everyone knows she was quite a Friend of Jeffrey (Epstein), even receiving pricey gifts. Eventually she announced resigning from Go...
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