Tag / career

by Nathan Coumbe

What skill have you developed in the last five years?

For most of us, I’d bet it’s something like this:

“In the last five years, I’ve gotten really good at reading and sending emails and instant messages. But also, I’m really good at going to meetings.”

Not exactly skills you can sell when you’re looking for your next gig, are they?

For those of us who don’t make or sell tangible products for a living, skills are all we have to trade for money. But the nature of knowledge work means more of us are developing fewer skills the longer we’re in our careers.

We’re spending more and more of our time talking about work rather than doing work. We’re building fewer things and completing fewer projects.

AI is only exacerbating the problem, as we outsource more of our making and thinking to AI chatbots (and getting worse outcomes as a result).

Without projects that we do ourselves—without making things that challenge us to learn—we’re deskilling ourselves. And as a result, we’re making ourselves less marketable in the workforce.

The best time to develop a new skill was five years ago. The next best time is today.

by Nathan Coumbe

How to get a job in cybersecurity

I went to pick up a friend for lunch a while back, and while I was waiting, I struck up a conversation with one of his coworkers. The young man asked me about my job, and when I told him I worked for a cybersecurity company, he got excited!

“That’s what I’m studying in school,” he said. “Would you mind telling me how you broke into the cyber job market? It would really help me out.”

Here’s what I told him, tongue-in-cheek the entire time:

Step 1: Decide you want to be a physical therapist and spend the first couple of years of college studying biology, human anatomy, chemistry, and exercise science while working in the university’s gym.

Step 2: Realize how much you hate chemistry and biology, then switch your major to jazz studies because you’ve been a musician all your life and want to make a go of it as a drummer.

Step 3: Spend the next 3 years questioning every decision you ever made about becoming a musician and changing your major between history and music every semester until your wife-to-be says, “Why don’t you just double major?!”

Step 4: Graduate with a double major in history and music, then take a job working as an ophthalmic technician for two eye doctors because it’s the first job someone offered you that didn’t pay minimum wage.

Step 5: Become a banker after your wife graduates college because you have to move, and your boss’s daughter just happens to be hiring, and you’ve got a recommendation.

Step 6: Demote yourself to teller (seriously, I willingly took a demotion) because you hate putting people in debt and cold-calling people over dinner to sell them credit cards.

Step 7: Get recruited by Apple on the recommendation of a friend, and learn how awesome you are at teaching. Then spend the next two and a half years honing that craft.

Step 8: Go to work for a child support agency to develop your writing and marketing skills… Because yeah, that tracks.

Step 9: Watch the world go to hell during a global pandemic, lose your job, flounder in unemployment for 8 months, and nearly die from COVID at 30 years old.

Step 10: Find a way to combine your teaching and marketing skills by becoming a content developer for an online business education company

Step 11: Get laid off from that company for no reason at all, only to have a conversation with a former coworker from said company who gets you an interview with your future boss at the cybersecurity company.

There you have it: in just 11 easy steps, you, too, can get a great job in cybersecurity!

He got the joke, and he knew I was trying to be helpful even though I really had no idea how it happened.

But I ended my advice with an offer: if he wanted a job at my company, or any other company where I knew someone, I would give him a recommendation and make an introduction.

Because that’s how I got every single job I’ve ever had. I knew someone (or someone knew me and my work); that led to a conversation where we genuinely connected. That connection often led to a job offer.

I’ve (most likely) applied to more than 1,000 jobs since I started working at age 16. And the only way I ever got an interview was because someone treated me like a human being, had a conversation with me, and made a connection I needed to get my foot in the door.

Speaking of helping other people get their foot in the door, two of the best people I’ve ever worked with (Joe Charman and Rebeca Leininger) are looking for their next roles.

If you need hardworking, technically savvy, AI-fluent, customer-focused, cybersecurity and threat intelligence experts, you’d be extraordinarily LUCKY to have them on your team.

Reach out and connect with them on LinkedIn.

by Nathan Coumbe

The wrong question

The question is not,”What do you want to do when you grow up?”

It’s, “Who do you want to be?”

How do you want to contribute?

What legacy do you want to leave when you’re gone?

It might be part of what you do for a living. It might not. More likely, it will be a whole-person approach to living.

Ask the right question and you’ll get a better answer. 

by Nathan Coumbe

AI and job hunting

Here’s an idea:

Copy all the details from a job description on LinkedIn, then plug them into an AI (Claude is the best).

Then ask Claude, “Based on the information in this job posting, what can you tell me about the company and what I could expect from the role?“

You’d be surprised at how much you can glean from the answer.

Take it a step further: have Claude create a tailored resume specifically for this job based on your LinkedIn profile or a description of your work history. No need to spend hours on each job posting when your assistant can do it for you.

While you’re at it, why not ask Claude to help you decide what steps to take to ensure you’re a standout candidate for the role? He might suggest training, courses, or a certification you need to obtain for other roles like this.

You might even ask him to lay out a roadmap for engaging with people at the company, making connections and first contacts so that you aren’t just a faceless resume in the pile.

They are already using AI to screen everyone out without so much as a second thought. Why not use it yourself as your personal agent?

Movie stars have them; now so do you.

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by Nathan Coumbe

The ladder is gone

Many of the greatest business and self-help books of all time are woefully outdated.

And I don’t mean the examples used in the books. The working world has changed so much that the underlying assumptions on which the books are based no long apply.

Work hard and get promoted. You’ll make more money.

Move up the ladder for more responsibility, greater impact, and a nicer life.

Specialize in a certain field or department. That’s how you win.

The problem is the ladder is gone. There’s nothing to climb anymore.

Middle managers on are the way out. You’re either a doer or a leader (and often both at the same time).

Specialists are getting replaced by AI. We don’t need as many of them anymore.

Hard work doesn’t really matter much anymore. A computer can work harder, faster, and cheaper than you.

What matters now are remarkable results, unforgettable impact, and connection with other people. And being able to use AI and all the other technology available to us as tools to achieve those three things.

It’s the rare person who stays with one company and gets promoted over and over, making more money each time.

More likely, you’ll bounce around to 15 different companies over your working life, becoming a generalist that can synthesize tons of different fields.

And before you know it, you’re making your own field, your own specialty job that combines everything you’ve learned into something new.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Are you scared of failing? Or…

Are you afraid the path you’re walking is taking you somewhere you don’t want to go?

The former means you should probably keep going.

The latter is a warning from your inner self, your conscience, your child artist… Whatever you want to call that little voice that whispers truth in your ear.

But here’s the problem:

Often the two fears are hard to distinguish. To figure out which it is requires time for introspection, writing, silence… Sometimes even experimentation with what’s scaring you.

Often this fear manifests itself around our careers.

Are you afraid you might fail at being a salesperson? Or does the idea of selling this particular thing make your skin crawl?

Remember: one means you should try. The other means you should rethink your path.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Feeling stuck making your dreams a reality?

It’s okay to feel a little stuck sometimes… Stuck not knowing what to do or how to do it to make a change in your life.

Maybe you’re dreaming of a job that you actually enjoy… A job you wake up excited about doing.

Maybe you’re dreaming of time to spend with your family instead of working all that overtime just to make ends meet.

Or maybe you’re dreaming of work that puts your skills and talents to good use doing something that really matters.

But you don’t have a clue where to start or you’re just scared of letting go of the J.O.B. you have now. 

It’s okay to feel stuck. 

But it’s not okay to stay stuck.

My friend Dan Miller has helped thousands of people take their dreams and develop a plan and act on them with resources like his New York Times Bestseller 48 Days To the Work (and Life) You Love and No More Dreaded Mondays.

He’s going to be hosting a FREE Masterclass that I think you should check out on Thursday, July 15th with two times to choose from — 1 PM CT and 7 PM CT.

“5 Reasons Big Dreamers Get Stuck And How To Blast Through Them To Success”

You can sign up here.

He’ll walk you through those 5 reasons. Chances are one (or some) of them are what’s holding you back from your dreams as well.

He’ll also help you with some immediate action points and some real-life examples of people who have used them so you can start blasting through those stuck points to the success you’ve been dreaming of.

So take action NOW and save your seat for this FREE masterclass.

Click here to sign up.

by Nathan Coumbe

Life lessons from the last 18 months

Cherish your loved ones – they’ll be taken from you when you least expect it.

I’ve lost three close family members in 18 months. My father-in-law dropped dead of heart failure in December 2019. He was in perfect health.

My uncle died of cancer 6 months later. I had just seen him at Thanksgiving the previous year, and he seemed to be doing just fine.

Then my dad died in May. I had just spoken with him on the phone a month before… He sounded just like his old self. By the time I got to see him, he couldn’t speak or see me. I was able to say goodbye, but I’ll never know if he heard me.

And I might be losing someone else soon.

Tell your family you love them after you finish reading this. Then do it every day from now on.

Serious illness—or even death—can strike you down no matter your age or health.

My wife and I took the COVID-19 pandemic seriously. We quarantined, wore masks, and did all we were advised to do by the CDC. And both of us still managed to catch it.

My wife had a fever for eight days. I ended up in the ICU on forced oxygen for eight days gasping for breath. Wondering if this was what it felt like to die. The doctors told me had I not come in the night that I did, I would have died in my sleep.

I spent Christmas and New Year’s in a hospital room isolated and alone—except for the occasional nurse or technician. Eight days. And there were people around me even worse off than I was.

I was 30 years old and in perfect health. And I’m still recovering.

Never chase money – you’ll always end up miserable.

I was in my sweet spot at a job I enjoyed—teaching classes all day and putting my creative skills to use on a daily basis. But I felt I wasn’t making enough money, so I took a promotion.

The money wasn’t as good as I thought it would be. And I wound up in a miserable role that stressed me out more than I could have ever imagined.

Then another offer came my way, a chance to escape that misery, and it came with a decent bump in pay. But I had an uneasy feeling about it during the interviews.

I took it anyway, and it left me just as miserable as I was before, but for different reasons.

It might be a cliche, but find something that makes you happy. Then find a way to make a living doing it. Don’t take jobs you know don’t fit you simply because they offer you more money.

Take any or all of these lessons to heart. Let them guide your actions for the last half of 2021 and beyond.

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by Nathan Coumbe

Do you have big dreams?

I see you there, hiding away to dream about what it would be like if you weren’t in your current J.O.B.

  • If you actually enjoyed what you’re doing and didn’t have so much trouble waking up each morning to go to work
  • If you had time to spend with your family instead of working all that overtime just to make ends meet
  • If you felt like your skills and talents were being put to good use doing something that really matters in the world

It’s so great to have big dreams. 

So what now? 

Feel stuck in moving forward with those dreams? Do you want them to become more than just a break-room diversion over a bologna sandwich or a microwave pizza?

My friend Dan Miller has helped thousands of people take their dreams and develop a plan and act on them with resources like his New York Times Bestseller 48 Days To the Work and Life You Love and No More Dreaded Mondays.

He’ll be hosting a FREE Masterclass that you NEED to check out. It’s Thursday, July 15th with two times to choose from — 1 PM CT and 7 PM CT.

“5 Reasons Big Dreamers Get Stuck And How To Blast Through Them To Success”

You can register here!

He’ll walk you through those 5 reasons. Chances are one (or some) of them are holding you back from your dreams as well.

He’ll also help you with some immediate action points and real-life examples of people who’ve used them so you can start blasting through those sticking points to the success you’ve been dreaming of.

So open up those eyes, dreamer, and save your seat TODAY for Dan Miller’s FREE Masterclass. 

Click here to register!

by Nathan Coumbe

What’s Your “Why”?

Some people see this and think I mean “What gets you out of bed in the morning?”

They’d be wrong. Plenty of us have very little that gets us out of bed in the morning.

Maybe we have jobs we hate. Or tough relationships that don’t fulfill us. Or life situations we can’t seem to escape.

If you don’t have that “something” yet, think about it this way:

“What would make you WANT to get out of bed in the morning?”

My “why” has everything to do with my own personal freedom.

  • The freedom to rule my daily schedule
  • The freedom to control my income (however high or low I want it)
  • Freedom from debt
  • Giving my wife freedom to pursue whatever work, career, project, or lifestyle she desires

But I also feel I have a purpose that involves helping other people find freedom, happiness, and joy in their lives. And I genuinely believe the best way to do that is to help them create and run successful businesses or freelance practices.

Why? Because it’s the best way for them to have the freedom to live life on their terms. To do what they love and help the people they want to help. To make the difference they seek to make in the world. 

And I feel like I can achieve that purpose as a copywriter and marketer. That work helps people serve their customers, grow their businesses, and achieve the kind of freedom I’m talking about.

What’s your “why”? Tell me in the comments below.

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