Career Tip: BEING TRENDY, BEING POPULAR AND BEING EMPLOYED

Reproduced with permission from The Culture Proof Blog

This diagram and article that you can reproduce if you give me credit, is about being trendy, being employed and being popular.

The X2 axis represents the quality of your skill that keeps you in the game. The X1 axis represents your level of skill that can be during school or trying to get work. The bottom curve represents your employment or unemployment status. If you have achieved X2 but are unemployed do not let your skill deteriorate back to X1. In all profession there is also some ‘fame’. Fame is like being the object of the latest trend. You need to maintain your X2 skill level without riding the Trend waves which is called being caught in the game. If you maintain X2, you ensure your employment, not considering the bigger environment like a recession. The Trend curve, is often misunderstood. Many people think the Trend curve translates to 100% saturation of the market, like every American citizen. But if all professions have their famous stars, every profession has their own Trend curve. Even in music, there are trend curves for pop, classical and country.

Popularity is like have more money over debt. Some people might be more famous and more disliked. That is not the definition of popular. If you are less famous and more liked, you are more popular. If a million know you and dislike you, you are not popular. If a mere 100 know you and like you, you feel very popular. If you are popular in the profession, you maintain your employment, regardless of the trend waves. That popularity is effected by X2, your skill on the job.

If you have what are called hard targets, instead of just showing up to work every day, but have hard goals there are moments when you want to give up. These are called lulls and are exactly like lulls in a video game. At some point in a video game, the ‘E.T.’ stop coming fast and furious and there is a long lull. The only way to finish that level is to maintain your focus because, usually you lose when your attention is divided and that is when the last ‘E.T.’ pops out and gets you. Or worse, you crash your ship into a stationary obstacle.