I know I’ve blogged about this already, but it seems worth bringing up again, for a number of reasons. First, I’d like readers to share their own experiences on two topics, and second, I want to give readers a unique perspective and see what they think about it.

OK, onto the topics:

I. Head Trash
We’ve had this conversation once before, but it seems to prevail in the marketplace. I refer to head trash as those thoughts, ideas, and beliefs that serve no purpose other than to create a roadblock in your head. I have a theory on it as well: sometimes head trash serves to be the “reason” we’re NOT making progress in our job search. For instance, if I want to be a leader/manager in a company in the healthcare industry, I can tell myself, after being told the same thing many times, that it’s almost impossible because I don’t have healthcare experience. What does this do for me? It validates why I haven’t made progress and therefore, it can’t be my fault, right?

Well, as a counter point to this, I have a client in the healthcare industry that appreciates that our firm looks for people outside his core business for new ideas to help them serve their customers and beat the competition. CEOs like this are out there, they just have to be found.

If professional athletes listened to head trash, would they ever make the pros? What are the odds of someone making the pros in baseball, basketball, or football in this country? The odds against making it must be huge, right? Head trash right there!

Recently, I heard from a friend of mine with nearly 20 years of mortgage experience, (having been part owner of a very successful company) that a wholesale mortgage company wouldn’t look at him because he didn’t have wholesale experience, only retail. Now, I can turn this around very easily in my head – he is probably one of the best suited wholesale mortgage brokers, since as a large retail broker, he was a customer of the best of the best. He knew what made the difference between the leading firms and what he, as a customer of their products and services, looked for in a wholesale partner probably better than most with solely wholesale experience.

If I were him, I’d find wholesale company CEOs that are most interested in out-serving their competition and building market share, and send them a special report on what differentiates the best from simply good. Additionally, I’d share my thoughts on how best to penetrate and grow market share, based on my own experience regarding what would have made me try a newcomer. With the mortgage industry in a rebuilding mode, this is like the Wild West all over again, and most likely a prime market.

So, question 1: What is your head trash? Share a few thoughts so that we can get them out of our heads and start making headway toward our search (pun intended).

II. Going Above and Beyond
With Memorial Day falling just yesterday, I couldn’t help but watch at least one World War II movie (ok, it was more than one). One of the all time great movies of that genre is “To Hell and Back” with Audie Murphy as himself. Having not seen it in over 20 years, I didn’t remember the beginning. General Walter Bedell Smith kicked off the movie by talking about those many men (and boys) and women who distinguished themselves everyday on the field of battle by going “above and beyond the call of duty”. I seemed to have focused my thoughts in the past to just the “above and beyond” part, but “the call of duty” part is really critical to consider as well. Why? Because it depends on the circumstance. Our troops risked life and limb everyday, and some took additional risks to save their buddies, or “take the hill” and meet the objective, which might have served to save their own or other troops.

I continue to hear that people are working and trying harder, doing more today than in the past with their job search efforts. Is this really going above and beyond? In my introductory post on CEO Charlie, I profiled that he spent nearly 40 hours writing 4 special reports to get interviews with companies, rather than sending in his resume. It worked and he got the interviews! How many people have gone to that extent? I know many that have written special reports, but an entire week on just 4, with no certainty that it would work??

Question 2: What are some things you’ve done to go above and beyond? Maybe we can get some good ideas out to our readers that they can incorporate into their searches.

That’s all for now. I have more to say, but word count says I’m over 800 and that’s getting long for a blog, so signing off…

One last word – Linchpin. It’s a book written by Seth Godin and is very good. If you haven’t read it, you should. I might blog about it soon…Are you a Linchpin?