Bill thought he’d never leave the comfortable job he’d enjoyed for the past decade. But when another company reached out to him with an offer, it was so intriguing that he took the job.Then the fear set in because he hadn’t started a new job in 10 years. He read <a href="https://hbr.org/books/watkins">The First 90 Days </a>and learned he needed to make an impact fast, so he immediately started trying to solve problems.

Starting A New Job At Mid Career

Two weeks into his new job, Bill had already solved a problem — his first win (?).But he was noticing his coworkers were standoffish. His boss causally mentioned he needed to slow down but didn’t tell him complaints were coming in about his work approach and style.Bill didn’t realize his first win wasn’t actually about accomplishing a goal — it was about how he accomplished his work.

Not Really A Good Start

The first weeks in a new job are when you make your first impression, and it’s hard to change people’s perceptions once they’re developed.Here are five tips on how to transition into a new job, especially if it’s been a long time since you’ve made a move.

So what to do?

This is the most important priority when joining a new company. If you’ve been in a job for a long time, you may not realize how your relationships had a direct impact on your success. When building relationships, you’re building trust, and you can move faster when people trust in your decision-making.First, be as curious about others and their work as they are of you as the “newbie.” Understanding your coworkers’ needs will start the relationship-building process, because your interest alone will leave your them feeling good about your entry.

1. Build Relationships

When you enter a new company, you probably don’t know much about it except what you’ve read to prepare for interviews. Your new colleagues will view you as someone who knows nothing about the business. Spend time learning about the company and its culture.Find out: How does the company make revenue? What products does it sell? How do the products work? What are the quarterly and yearly goals? What metrics are used to measure the company’s success and substantiate its growth? Where is the company headed in the next three to five years?

2. Dig deep into the business.

While building relationships and learning about the company, also ask questions about how others perceive your job to understand their expectations of you, your role, and your overall function.Often, in a Company every one of your stakeholders have a different expectation of your role, and one leader had no idea how he viewed your role or how you could use your skills to bring value to his organization.You would have to spend time aligning everyone on what your role is and isn’t so you could meet their expectations.

3. Understand how others perceive your job.

Understand dependencies and cross-functional workflows to determine who needs something from you and what you depend on to be able to provide it.Who are you providing work output to, and how do your cross-functional stakeholders use it?Ask your manager who are the top 10 cross-functional people your team interacts with.Then, spend time understanding how they view the workflows between the functions and what they need from your role to be successful. Understand the timing of workflows so you can meet deadlines and provide the most value with your work.

4. Learn dependencies.

People take jobs and want to feel connected instantly, but that doesn’t always happen. It’s hard to onboard in any new company and can be even harder to onboard remotely.Give yourself grace to move through the <a href="https://www.ekrfoundation.org/5-stages-of-grief/change-curve/">Kübler-Ross change curve </a>— at first you’ll be excited, then shocked at what may be different or harder in the new job, and then in denial that it’s that different, which can quickly turn into frustration.Each person moves through the curve at a different pace, so be patient, breathe, and try to find one person to connect with if you’re not already paired with a mentor.

5. Give yourself time.

The best way to work through all of these steps is to listen more than you speak and phrase every thought in the form of a question. For example, if you’re in a meeting and you have a great idea, you could say, “I think we should do this.”Instead, phrase your input in the form of a question, like, “I’m curious, have we tried to do this?” If you’re wrong because it failed in the past, you’ll be educated on history and viewed as someone trying to learn. If it has never been tried before and could work, your curiosity makes you a hero.

Finally...

I've often thought to change my job, or simply propose myself as a freelance, and these advices illuminated me

If it’s been a while since you started a new job, you might experience a range of emotions once you start your new position. But those first weeks in a new job are when you make your first impression, and it’s hard to change people’s perceptions once they’re developed. The author presents five tips on how to transition into a new job, especially if it’s been a long time since you’ve made a move. First, focus on relationship-building. Second, do your research on the company and its culture. Third, get a sense of how other people at the company view your role. Fourth, understand dependencies and cross-functional workflows to determine who needs something from you and what you depend on to be able to provide it. Finally, give yourself time to adjust to the new role.

Five tips on starting a new job as a mid-career professional

The business world is built so that there is an insane abundance of deals, businesses, opinions, ways, suppliers and customers. This abundance is sometimes very confusing, and in times of crisis or financial distress, we are sometimes tempted to do things we would not choose to do on a normal day.Without a doubt, my biggest mistakes boil down to one thing: I did not listen to my intuition.

The biggest business mistake I made and what I learned from it.


The most important thing to understand as a business owner, is that everyone has the customers, the suppliers and the deals that are right for them and they are different from a colleague who deals with exactly the same thing.That’s why by the way why there’s no such thing as real competitors but that's for another post. The abilities of each of us to give service to a customer or work with a supplier, are different, hence the right choice is important even when it is very financially tempting, or there is someone who convinces us that it is a great deal.

Over the years, I have sharpened my intuitive abilities, and they have always proven themselves in my favor. These capabilities serve as a very strong internal compass spring, which if given the right place, one can easily identify whether we are dealing with a good or bad deal.Despite all this, it happened more than once that I turned off this important capability and chose to work with clients who from the beginning turned out to be a huge mistake for me and the explosion that followed was inevitable.

There’s a very big place for your intuition in business! This is your way of understanding the situation despite all the subjective noise of the environment. One can easily understand whether your feeling is fear or intuition so it is important to develop and use this skill as much as possible.

First, that I am human. No one is free from mistakes and whoever does not try is not failing, and therefore does not progress.I also learned how much I know, even when I do not really know all the details. I definitely understand that contacting a customer or supplier, right from the start, can give me a lot of valuable information, that if I choose to see, I can navigate my way as I choose.The most important thing I learned, is that even when you make a mistake, you can learn and correct it. In such a valuable lesson, it is important to understand what we have learned from what has happened.

What did I learn from this mistake?


Everybody makes mistakes, especially when starting something new. But when you’re starting your own business, big mistakes can be very costly — in money, time, and energy.

The business world is built so that there is an insane abundance of deals, businesses, opinions, ways, suppliers and customers. This abundance is sometimes very confusing, and in times of crisis or…

The biggest business mistake I made and what I learned from it.

In 2019, 50.7 million businesses were identified as small, employing up to 499 people. Eighty-one percent of those business owners had no additional employees. Solopreneurs are entrepreneurs who, by choice, run their businesses entirely on their own. They come in all shapes.

Solopreneurs are on the rise

People are leaving their jobs to start their own businesses. Yet, <a href="https://eig.org/news/the-startup-surge-business-formation-in-2021-on-pace-to-break-record?mod=djemRTE_h">less than three percent</a> of the 51 million independent workers filed as businesses intending to hire employees. A 2021 MBO Partners report found that 82 percent of independent small business owners want to keep their company small, and 56 percent said they wanted to remain solopreneurs. Many became entrepreneurs to improve their well-being, not to add complexity by managing other people or building a mass operation.

Redefining a work-life balance

A decade ago, solopreneurship might not have been possible but new technologies give the tools to turn anyone into an entrepreneur. <ul><li>Billionaire Kylie Jenner outsources manufacturing and packaging to private label producers while letting different services handle her sales.</li><li>Drop-shippers evolved from third-party order fulfillment for Amazon and eBay.</li><li>Solopreneurs, from dog trainers to therapists, can bring home six-figure incomes.</li></ul>

Diverse solopreneurs

As major enterprises continue to automate and consolidate, they’ll need less manpower and leave fewer places for everyone to fit. This will leave more room for people to start their own businesses. Reports predict that the number of solopreneurs will skyrocket by 2026. They’ll create more networks of solopreneurs hiring solopreneurs and increasingly develop more resilience working together. As they become more diverse, society as a whole will demonstrate greater economic endurance and stability.

A diverse economy is stronger

A new kind of entrepreneur is taking the business world by storm -- and solopreneurs are doing it all by themselves. 

Stashed ideas

Solopreneurs are Changing the Face of the Economy

As a freelancer, we all wish to be successful! Our definition of success might vary, but we all have bigger goals to accomplish!And most of the time, we tend to get so busy looking for a secret route that will lead to instant success! But honestly, there’s no underground route to success!The only way you can grow as a freelancer is to work hard and be smart.But your habits play a massive role in bringing you closer to success.

The Relationship Of Success & Habit

Stop considering your projects as a one-time gig!Honestly, there’s nothing like a one-time gig for an experienced freelancer. They believe in building rapport and long-lasting relationships with the clients. That pays them back very well in the form of more work, recommendations, referrals, excellent testimonials, and case studies.As a freelancer, these are the building blocks of your successful career.The only key to attaining all these is building a good relationship with clients.

RELATIONSHIP MATTERS A LOT

Freelancers tend to struggle a lot when it comes to time, tasks, and slot management.We can spend too much time on tasks that don’t need our immediate attention and in the process end up forgetting about the ones that are close to deadlines.Follow This Method: <ul><li>Note down the deadline for each project you are working on!</li><li>Then note down all the tasks you need to do to mark the project or a milestone complete.</li><li>Assign all these tasks a priority number from 1 to 10, depending on their importance.</li><li>Every day, you can pick out 5 or 6 tasks from all your projects and work on them.</li></ul>

SET YOUR PRIORITIES RIGHT

A productive day Is always a well-planned day!It means that even though you have all your tasks sorted out but didn’t plan your whole day, it won’t make much difference. You’ll still end up short on time to do other things.Remember, you are not only working for clients; you need time to work on your things, marketing, emails, portfolio, social media, client hunting, and the list goes on.Feeling stressed!!! You should, I lived the same lifestyle as a freelancer for the first two years.The only way out was to plan your whole day and get used to doing that every day!

SCHEDULE OR PLAN YOUR WHOLE DAY

Getting paid less! Not being able to assign the correct price tag! Questioning your worth and values! Doubting your skills!It has happened to every freelancer at a certain point in their freelancing career. There’s no escape, it’s part of the learning curve!No one can assign you’re worth other than yourself! They don’t know how hard you have worked to master your skills, to deliver value. They don’t know your story.So stop doubting yourself, questioning your worth! If you think you are providing value to clients, the client is generating profit because of your work, then charge accordingly.

KNOW YOUR WORTH AND VALUE

You’ll have like millions of excuses to give yourself to justify your delays, unproductiveness.You’d end up wasting days that you could have used to get ahead in the game.It’s quite a common thing for most freelancers. After all, we all go through quite similar situations in the beginning days. The decisions you make in these beginning days are what going to shape your career as a six-figure, seven-figure freelancer.How do you get out of this procrastination cycle? How can you accomplish more?Find an accountability partner! It can be anyone who cares about you and will help you keep in check.

FIND AN ACCOUNTABILITY PARTNER

Skills, knowledge, experience are the three critical aspects behind the success of every six-figure freelancer.How do you get knowledge? How do you upgrade and learn new skills? How do you gain more experience?LEARN! Keep learning.You can’t stop learning because the moment you will, you will lose your position, your success to someone who is right behind you, and still eager, excited to learn new things.Freelancing is a rat race! We all are running, competing, and growing consistently. The moment we show signs of laziness is when we lose our spot.

NEVER STOP LEARNING

I firmly believe the main reason behind every six-figure freelancer is their habits. If you want to be a six-figure freelancer, then the first thing you need to do is make some habits that will help you climb the ladder of success faster than everyone else.

As a freelancer, we all wish to be successful! Our definition of success might vary, but we all have bigger goals to accomplish! And most of the time, we tend to get so busy looking for a secret route that will lead to instant success! But honestly, there’s no underground route to success!

Top 6 Habits of Successful Freelancers You Can Develope To Succeed

<ol><li>The First Ideal: Locality and Simplicity</li><li>The Second Ideal: Focus, Flow, and Joy</li><li>The Third Ideal: Improvement of Daily Work</li><li>The Fourth Ideal: Psychological Safety</li><li>The Fifth Ideal: Customer Focus</li></ol>

The Five Ideals

We need to design things so that we have locality in our systems and the organizations that build them. We need simplicity in everything we do.

The First Ideal: Locality and Simplicity

The Second Ideal is all about how our daily work feels. Is our work marked by boredom and waiting for other people to get things done on our behalf? Do we blindly work on small pieces of the whole, only seeing the outcomes of our work during deployment when everything blows up, leading to firefighting, punishment, and burnout? Or do we work in small batches, ideally single-piece flow, getting fast and continual feedback on our work?

The Second Ideal: Focus, Flow, and Joy  

The Third Ideal addresses paying down technical debt and improving architecture. When technical debt is treated as a priority and paid down and architecture is continuously improved and modernized, teams can work with flow, delivering better value sooner, safer, and happier.

The Third Ideal: Improvement of Daily Work

Psychological safety is one of the top predictors of team performance. When team members feel safe to talk about problems, problems can not only be fixed but prevented. Solving problems requires honesty, and honesty requires an absence of fear.

The Fourth Ideal: Psychological Safety

Customer focus relates to the difference between core and context as defined by Geoffrey Moore. Core is what customers are willing and able to pay for, the bread and butter of your business. Context is what they don’t care about, what it took to get them that product, including all the backend systems of an organization like HR and marketing and development.

The Fifth Ideal: Customer Focus

These are five topics that underpin what is required to create better value, sooner, safer, and happier.

These Five Ideals, along with the Three Ways, are required to help our organizations survive and win in the marketplace.

Five tips on starting a new job as a mid-career professional

The biggest business mistake I made and what I learned from it.

Solopreneurs are Changing the Face of the Economy

Top 6 Habits of Successful Freelancers You Can Develope To Succeed

The Five Ideals of DevOps - IT Revolution

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