702. Level Up Your Career Through Learning

[00:00:00] Hey Family, Welcome back to the Cool Link Solution Show. This is James Russo aka Trick and this is Holy Culture Radio. As I mentioned at the top of the show today's topic is really about how you

[00:00:22] level up your career through education and actually let me say this how you love it be career through learning because sometimes we say education it sounds overly formal just learning how you become a lifetime learner but how you intentionally use that to level up your career

[00:00:37] and let me say what I think is obvious but let me make sure that it's not missed everything we do including in your career should be initialized with prayer asking the Lord earnestly guide me

[00:00:50] through what you are calling me to do we all have a purpose we all play a role in the ultimate purpose Matthew 28 19 go ye therefore baptizing all nations in the name of the Father the Son and

[00:01:03] the Holy Ghost but what are your specific tasks what is your specific piece of that purpose how do you enable that how do you use your gifts and talents man start everything with prayer start everything with prayer asking God to lead you in that and illuminate for you

[00:01:22] what that looks like let me be a lamp unto your feet fan with that said let me just underscore a couple points about continuous education and how you think about it to level up your career

[00:01:32] first and foremost it's a fast-paced environment you have to stay updated with what's happening the tactics you used literally six months ago may be moving towards being irrelevant today I mean things are moving that fact I mean just think about the term generative AI where a computer

[00:01:52] is improving itself or program rather is improving itself constantly based on the inputs and learning it can get from all of us who use it and from its own capabilities I mean just think about that for

[00:02:06] a moment so you have to be improving yourself and intentionally so it helps you stay ahead of industry trends improve your skills and increase your value to employers right so you yes you need to know

[00:02:21] what's trending you need to know what's happening some of us have a habit of going to Google trends a few times a week why do we do that to see what's trending in the world to see what people are

[00:02:30] searching for which gives us insights and what to what they care about our concern with at the moment you need to do the same in regards to your career so you need to be staying ahead

[00:02:41] of what's happening so if you're an accountant what's happening in the financial discipline what's developing are there new strategies new tactics new terms association etc and it's not just about formal education again I'm gonna talk about various methods actually I'm gonna give

[00:02:58] you a top 10 if you will we always remember top 10 so I'm gonna give you a top 10 if you will over the next couple segments and so stay tuned because I believe this is going to be informative

[00:03:09] as always I invite your feedback feel free email me at James or so at holyculture.net or at James or so SR any of the socials and if you want to call in to talk about it 302-894-7805 or

[00:03:20] 1833 radio HC it's important for us to talk about this you know as I talk about this topic of leveling up your career through education or through learning one thing jumps out to me I

[00:03:37] was a guy who tried to go to college right from high school I went to Temple University I was so excited about it because in my last year high school I had one of those assignments which was

[00:03:47] find someone who do today does what you believe you want to do and that for me was this guy duck Henderson at WDS in Philadelphia I at the time thought I wanted to be a radio jock I wanted

[00:04:00] to learn radio do radio maybe go on to management whatever but I knew I wanted to be in radio and so I went into view Doug Henderson was the best time ever came back was committed great

[00:04:12] I'm gonna go to Temple University for communications I get to temple my first day I'm excited Brad I bushy tail all that later that afternoon I get called down to the bursar's office

[00:04:23] and I am told that my financial aid did not go through and we were just in one of those situations where my mom made enough to I'm sorry too much to get some of the grants not

[00:04:33] enough for the financial aid to go through so I was in that squeeze the little middle place right and I was booted that was it done temple so I started working I just started

[00:04:42] working and I worked my way through a couple jobs I man I did overnight you know a parking job at the four seasons hotel parking lots during the day finally got to a restaurant in the Liberty Place downtown then I worked at today's man of security from today's

[00:04:57] man of security I got into the payroll department a little accounting stuff here and there key credit card apps and then moved into HR at a bank called WSFS in Wilmington Delaware

[00:05:09] and then continue to grow through there I think when I got to when I was doing payroll today's man I got involved in an association make note of that American payroll association and became a member and then became a local leader and my network started to grow led

[00:05:24] to the job at WSFS that led to another job in consulting for SAP systems in other systems Oracle etc and then I got to chase when Chase needed some work done in their payroll group

[00:05:38] they needed a new leader to help with some transitions etc I was still though feeling I should have some level of education that's going to help continue to lift my career

[00:05:50] give me a solid foundation etc so in my 30s fam late 20s early 30s went back and pursue my degree online and it was one of the best things I did for myself you can learn a lot

[00:06:01] of things through people and how they teach you inside of an organization or a job but there's something different about getting the formal underlying education that just man helps you understand well yes they got to you know 20 in their calculation but they

[00:06:19] did it this way here's another way to do that calculation here's the underlying reason you even do the calculation here is the way it was initially built and here all the derivatives

[00:06:31] I mean you you get so much when you do that and so for me it was illuminating I think that the other part about it is it was a sense of I've invested in myself and I've put

[00:06:42] inside of myself something truly no one can take away from me so I share all that to say one online courses and online degrees are a great avenue obviously I'm a board member

[00:06:53] to write always have to say that to be honest and so I'm always going to say the right university is a great place to go but you can use Coursera LinkedIn learning courses I'm a big fan of LinkedIn learning courses here even at Holy

[00:07:06] Coach radio the core link solution my team we use LinkedIn learning courses every member of our team we have a membership in and we use those courses is here's what the good thing is about courses they're flexible so you can

[00:07:19] typically go to them on your time if you're a morning person you want to do it during lunch you want to do it in the evening it's there and you can use it so I encourage you to check it out even now I'm doing online courses at Berkeley

[00:07:32] I want to get better at my death in the music industry in various aspects I'm doing Berkeley online courses I started those in January I'm doing them and I probably will be doing them for the foreseeable future because

[00:07:42] there are many perspectives or areas right everything from not just recording and marketing but to publishing and licensing to thinking about video game application and all those different things and there are people who've done

[00:07:56] it that train and so I'm getting that training fan the second method is to think about professional certifications I went four years ago National Association of Corporate Directors since I serve on a board and

[00:08:09] I serve on a formal board at DeVry University also serve on a board of a couple venture capitalist companies right to try to help friends who are growing in how they use their financial assets and thought I could be of

[00:08:21] help and so I've gone there too in doing that I thought about well man how do I become more what's what I'm looking for more educated on being a good corporate director again I've been a corporate executive directorship

[00:08:35] is a bit different there's a lot of nuance there right and so what are the lines of demarcation how should I show up how can I be of best use etc went through a certification program with the National Association of Corporate

[00:08:47] Director so that's another thing think about certifications you you may be in project management you may say hey I want to go to the PMI the project management Institute and get certified almost every profession has a level

[00:08:59] of certification and I encourage you to check that out the last thing I would say number three rather is workshops and seminars you know I've gone to workshop next week because as I just mentioned I want to get

[00:09:12] better in the number of spaces in the music business and for example Gospel Music Association is offering a workshop next week on artist and songwriters guide to music publishing why wouldn't I avail myself of the opportunity free workshop seminar by the Gospel Music Association so someone who's

[00:09:29] credible where and I'm a member of by the way and the people who are going to be teaching and training have done it this is not theory this is them sharing their expertise so another one to avail yourself of workshops and

[00:09:42] seminar I've been talking about how you level up your career through learning and I've given you three methods so far and I want to give you the next three that I think are important and let me start here you know I think

[00:09:54] mentorship is so important I I did a leadership presentation about I don't know six seven years ago and folks asked me to talk about leadership and what has helped me become a leader quote unquote that many people want to

[00:10:09] emulate and I was honored by even that phrasing that statement that asked and the second or third page of my presentation was literally a graph of all the mentors I've had or continue to have in my life and I talked about

[00:10:22] for example a gentleman named Ed McGahn Ed McGahn was a senior person at J. P. Morgan Chase who took an interest in me became a mentor and literally was one of the best people I've seen navigate organizational complexities. Another gentleman was John Smithland.

[00:10:37] John Smithland was the former chief technology officer at Bank one and when JP Morgan Chase and Bank one merged he stayed on for a while. I got introduced to him and he taught me I don't bus on time on budget on

[00:10:50] scope and at the time I was leading a large operation and several hundred people I was responsible for 30 functions and whatnot and when I meet went to meet John I was rallying off a number of things and he simply turned and

[00:11:01] said to me are you out of bus on time on budget on scope prove it and it made me really have a good shift and rethink some of my scorecards and how we reported out to senior leaders in the company so on and so forth.

[00:11:15] And he just was such a good mentor and coach in that way and I can go on and on the sheet I talked about probably had 20 names or so on it right from my first boss when I was 14 and took that summer job to

[00:11:27] people I still work with today Matt Winter as an example to all state just a great mentor for me on business courage and working your way and navigating your way through starting up a new business.

[00:11:40] He was a guy who had been vice chairman at a large firm before coming to all state was president of auto and home in all states really number two guy in the overall company in all state at that time was a 30 billion dollar

[00:11:50] company and same thing would spend time giving me solid mentoring coaching and such on man you're growing this new business the business has aspiration of reaching a billion dollars in revenue and really how to be

[00:12:04] courageous and leading and taking risks and all those good things to salute to Matt Ed and John. So one mentoring get some good mentors to what are you reading and researching you know I think about some of the things obviously I

[00:12:19] start every day with the Bible but after that I'm reading different books right now I'm reading one of Eric Mason's book. I love Eric Mason's books and people let's call it similar to Eric Mason and help me go into more depth of the Bible and its application right

[00:12:34] inside radio I try to read inside radio either daily or every other day it's a great newsletter that comes out obviously we're on radio so I want to know what's going on the radio the music biz newsletters a

[00:12:43] great piece I read water and music is a great newsletter and then a number of different things. So I just give you some examples in terms of things that spiritually feel me and things that from a vocational perspective fill me and give

[00:12:56] me insights I try to take those in on a regular basis so that's the fifth thing in terms of a method reading and research set aside time to read and take in things that are being published that could be helpful

[00:13:08] to you and then the sixth one is events now I'll be the first one to say I have tried to pull back on travel but yet I find myself calendar for these events this year I went to the practice conference

[00:13:20] a couple months ago which was just phenomenal the ELC the executive leadership council which is a group of African American executives focused on how we crack the ceiling of the corporate boardroom and having more black executives and the Fortune 500 boards the Dove

[00:13:36] Awards the stellar awards the Kingdom Choice Awards Flavor Fest the National Association of Gospel Radio Awards Smokefest and more and for each of those for me it hits method six on the head networking how are you making sure you continue to grow

[00:13:52] your network iron sharpens iron how can you make sure you're around people that will help you grow as they're growing so this is to me as a part of co-laboring and co-journeying together for lack of better terms you have to spend time with people to do

[00:14:06] that and sometimes we miss our greatest resources by not coming together in community and so fam these again are three more methods you could think about how you implement and that's really the challenge for you give thoughts to what

[00:14:19] methods resonate with you and hey fam this is James you're so a k a trick and this is a holy culture radio and you're listening to the Coralink Solution show thank you so much for tapping in by the way I always have to say it man

[00:14:32] please if you don't have it download the Holy Culture Radio app today everything you hear on our series sexem channel and more can be heard on the Holy Culture Radio app in addition to seeing all the great articles some of the

[00:14:47] videos etc etc download the Holy Culture Radio app for your Android or Apple device today fam I've been talking about how to level up your career through learning I've gone through six methods and let me finish with these final four methods

[00:15:05] the next one is what you listen to so there are a couple podcasts I love to listen to which is Trappital I love how Dan goes through kind of dissecting what's happening in the music business I'm always listening to audio books and so

[00:15:18] this is podcasts and webinars let me explain let me expand that to audio books the same thing I'm listening to Eric Sermon excuse me Eric Mason book right now uh listening to a uh Charles Spurgeon book right now and so on and so

[00:15:32] forth and so there's that how I built this podcast I love that I love listening to the journeys of founders who started companies based on a number of different things how to solve a huge problem how to live into their purpose etc and

[00:15:46] your brain at work obviously I love talking about careers and leadership so I love listening to it as well if you can believe that listening to what's evolving what's happening when what's underneath the water so to speak we all see the iceberg when it comes out but

[00:15:59] what's underneath the water what's happening sometimes but before it bubbles I love listening to things that may give me some insights there so podcast fam you know again easy to uh uh uh grab and listen to easy to do it when

[00:16:16] you want to do it so there's a thing of convenience there and the same thing is true with webinars by the way if you want to go deeper and be in a session where you also can listen but may have the chance to ask questions on and so

[00:16:28] forth webinars are great investment uh second uh or method number eight is volunteering for new projects so I mentioned earlier that one of the things I did and you know maybe project is not the right term for but I feel

[00:16:40] like it is to a certain degree I had two friends who have various stages of running venture capital companies one that was brand new another one that was probably two three years in but looking to expand in a different way and I

[00:16:52] took an advisory role in helping with both both of those venture capital companies and for me it was voluntary obviously I can potentially earn something as well but to me the time was seen for me as a time investment to help some friends and and co-labor with

[00:17:08] them particularly since you know one is hyper focused on things that will serve the kingdom another one man he's just a good good dude just a good dude for my my class at uh Kellogg man my my cohort so uh so another one is

[00:17:20] volunteering for projects think about projects that you can volunteer uh with introduce some of your time introduce your skill set your talents your gifts it could be local it could be somewhere you're going to show up physically to do some things I mean I do that every now

[00:17:34] and then too but I don't consider the project my church goes out and does outreach but I go and one of the things actually that the outreach director has me do is it show what my book and sometimes I give away books sign them but

[00:17:46] it introduces a conversation where I could talk to those people who are in different places in their journey and could use some advice and help some inspiration some encouragement etc and so that's another thing I do and so I encourage you to do the same thing method number

[00:18:00] nine join professional associations another one that sometimes we don't avail ourselves of because either a the cost may seem prohibitive and we're wondering will I get a return on that money I'm going to put out for the membership fee etc but I would say to you really think

[00:18:17] about it uh you know I am right now in the national association of gospel radio and executive leadership council we are looking to join American Association of Independent Music we're also part of uh national association radio I mean so joining professional

[00:18:31] associations again for me a couple things one advocacy people who are going to advocate for what I am working on they have an active role in doing that for the community to community being with folks who do what I do in our various

[00:18:46] stages opportunity for me to help someone who's trying to get to where I'm at on the journey opportunity for me to learn from someone who's further along from the journey three collaboration an opportunity for us to say man

[00:18:58] we've got some synergies here in this particular pocket or on this particular issue and to be able to spend time and say yeah let's get an iron sharpened iron what can we do how can we make one plus one plus one instead of equaling three

[00:19:11] equal ten because we've invested together not in just monetary not in just physical resources but in sharing thoughts in minds uh lastly is method number ten attending classes at local institutions a great way to make sure you're in a room with someone I talked about online

[00:19:29] courses earlier but also there's the physical thing of going to local institutions and you get everything you get online plus that opportunity to linger with people after a class etc so to recap I gave you ten methods for you

[00:19:44] to really consider how you may sharpen your saw to level up your career I hope you choose a few choose one choose two maybe even three and use it to level up your career hey family thank you so much for tuning into this

[00:19:58] episode of the Coiling Solution I greatly greatly greatly appreciate it I would love to hear from you if this was helpful in any way please make sure you let me know at James Rousseau at thecoilingsolution.com or at James Rousseau at holycoach.net either works or if you

[00:20:13] want to call the studio 30289478-5 would love to hear from you please make sure if this is your first time checking in that you subscribe to the podcast also like and share it please leave a review all those things are

[00:20:27] helpful until next time be informed be empowered be accountable