Happy New Year!

Thank you to everyone who has supported me and the Awaken Your CAREERpreneur community since the launch of my book in 2010. While the AYC blog has come to a close, feel free to check-out posts from the last year-and-a-half from my team of writers and me regarding how to make career success a way of being.

If you haven’t visited me over at AlexiaVernon.com, I hope you will stop on by. You will learn how to make heart-centered, high-impact communication and presentation skills a way of being through my Step Into Your Moxie programs. Be sure also to check out my keynotes, presentations, and workshops. And most importantly, hop onto my Obstacles Into Opportunities list so that you can have a 3-5 minute burst of Alexia delivered straight to your inbox each week!

A year ago I launched Awaken Your CAREERpreneur, both as a way to give an overview of my book of the same name as well as to shift consciousness about the fundamental way career development, and as a consequence, job hunting has shifted. I’m thrilled by the ongoing conversation that has unfolded around how to leverage one’s understanding of the new job market in one’s career development strategizing.

In his new book, Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies, Joshua Waldman has done a stunning job of showing first-time job seekers through to seasoned executives the new rules for using technology to get yourself in front of your prospective employer. I was pleasantly surprised not only at Joshua’s ability to distill LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter down to the basics for those looking to use these most common social media platforms to connect with recruiters and hiring managers, but also at his comprehensive look at more of the up and coming relevant job hunting and resume sites, e.g., VisualCV, Innovate CV, Simply Hired and job hunting apps for Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter such as BranchOut, Jibe and CareerAmp.

What I like best about the book is Joshua’s entrepreneurial approach to career development and his compilation of strategies that put the reader in the driver’s seat. Joshua spends a lot of time giving tangible tools for authentic personal brand development. He looks at how to use blogging to develop one’s expertise (both through the strategic development of one’s own site as well as the specific ways to get featured on others’ blogs). Joshua explains the significance of managing your online presence–how to boost it and how to keep it clean and employer-centric.  And he really gets inside the mind of hiring managers. Whether you skim the book or read it cover to cover, you walk away understanding exactly what hiring managers are looking for, where they’re looking for you and how to make sure you pop when you get face-time.

Job Searching with Social Media for Dummies is one of those books every person needs in her library whether she is actively looking for a job, wants to position herself for a promotion, runs her own business and simply wants to continue to use social media strategically or dishes job advice to job seekers. I couldn’t believe how many pages I found myself highlighting either because Joshua introduced me to a site I hadn’t heard of or provided a new way of looking at a best practice.

Do you want to up your career game and bust bigger moves in the world? Check out my new virtual coaching group, Flip the Bird to the ‘R‘.

I had a relapse last night. And it was ugly. You see I’m a recovering serial overachiever (RSO) and I’ve committed a lot of time, energy and spirit to shifting from doing to being. To measuring my worth by how I love and contribute and by what I leave behind.

My late-afternoon started innocently enough. I responsibly ended my day at 5PM and kicked off the evening by swimming with my husband. But then I found myself back at my computer for another 4-hours, stuck on the question, “What’s next for me?” While the question alone is benign enough, if I’m to be completely transparent there was something dark behind it–a gnawing feeling that I need to do more.

The irony is that this has been a week of busting big moves. I’m featured on the cover of the August Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce Business Voice, had three high-profile interviews, completed my third to last chapter of 90 Days, 90 Ways, landed a couple of new clients, made headway on my partnership for a new kickin’ coaching and training program. Not exactly a time of playing small.  Continue Reading »

Four years ago over the 4th of July holiday I sent out my very first newsletter which in many ways was the launch of my life as a coach. I’d just gotten back from a 5-day intensive at Coach U, was committed to getting certified as a coach, and I wanted to share my excitement and coaching style with the people who were my first fans and proselytizers.

A whole heck of a lot has happened in the last 1460 days or so. Book tours, TV interviews, and several thousand amazing people coached between one-on-one, group and company and conference programs. I’ve been equally fired up and flat out exhausted!

To support my more consistent playing in the space between these two poles, some fierce and fiery change is on the horizon. I’ll be focusing my individual coaching on two platforms-Awaken Your CAREERpreneur (for those looking to play a bigger game in their careers, create the professional success that is their birthright and leave a legacy of positive social impact) and Step Into Your Moxie (for women looking to dive deeply into developing authentic and attractive communication with themselves and their tribe).

I will be working with just a handful of one-on-one clients for longer periods of time to enable us to go deep, dirty and delicious into the work and so that I can offer more personalized attention and targeted support. For those looking to dip their toes into my way of working and grow from the support and insight of a nutritious community, I’ll be offering a series of groups and more virtual events.

In an attempt to share even more practical holistic success strategies, I’ll be launching my own weekly TV show in August on the Soreal Network called Shatter Your Glass Ceiling. And I’ll be focusing my writing on book projects (the next, 90 Days 90 Ways: Effectively Onboard Young Professionals Into the 21st Century Workplace will be released by ASTD Press in Spring 2012) as well as a weekly Opportunities Into Obstacles column that will live on AlexiaVernon.com.

What I’m asking of you

1. If you subscribe to AlexiaVernon.com (and if you don’t, you can sign up on the homepage), be on the lookout for an email announcing that you need to reconfirm your subscription when it relaunches with a new design and more interactivity in late-August. (Note: If you don’t respond, you will no longer receive my holistic success strategy tips, updates or special pricing.) I want to make sure that I’m dishing to people who are interested in what I’m serving. As a thank you for resubscribing, and coming along with me on the next phase of my journey, you will receive my 7 Biggest Obstacles to Success and the Sinfully Simple Formula to Shift Them Into Opportunities.

2. If you are interested in being considered for 1 of 5 One-Month UNLIMITED One-on-One Coaching Spots with me email Alexia@AlexiaVernon.com and I will get back to you with more information. This is a special offer only for the month of August and once the spots are gone, they’re gone. I want to make sure that they go to my raving fans who are ready for some Lexilicious booty kicking and success manifesting! (And don’t sweat the price. Truly, I’m making it more accessible than any other coaching program I’ve ever run for those who know they are ready for it!)

Has the recession had a positive impact on young women, or is the surface success not getting to the source of a lingering problem?

I’m thrilled to announce that I have recorded a series of questions answering Mint.com fans’ career and workplace questions. Check out my first video on how to ask for a raise in your current job?

What are 3 things you are committed to doing THIS WEEK to earn the money you are worth?

Over the weekend I had the privilege of coordinating and participating in The Pachamama Alliance’s international symposium, Awakening the Dreamer (ATD). For those unfamiliar with the program, it gives communities an opportunity to come together to address the social, economic, and environmental crises of our time, explore where we are and how we have gotten here, and most important identify the opportunities for us to lead a change of course moving forward.

I am the Millennial cliche of a perpetual learner. I can’t imagine ever getting to a place where based on age, degree, or narrowing mindset I don’t still love being in a classroom or audience having my mind stretched. Much of my thrill of learning comes not only from what a teacher, trainer, or facilitator shares. Rather, I love how these folks’ ideas start a chain reaction of my own ideas. While in an adult learning environment I’ve gotten many an idea for a blog post, chapter, new service, and even a theatre piece. This weekend while at ATD, the quotes, videos, facts, and testimony that our leader, Ningay Sing, shared prompted me to start thinking about what I have thought I have known at various points in my life. As a coach, I often frame what I believe–and what I’m seeking to explain to my clients–in alliterative distinctions. i.e., forgiveness and not forgetting. I discovered that I can really chart my evolution of ideas by these less than 140-character, Tweet-like phrases. They tell the story of my life  in a way I rather like. Continue Reading »