The Traveling Introvert

 Today I'm going to talk about interviewing, video interviewing, actually. And the reason I want to talk about this is because people in general, don't really prepare for interviews the right way. What tends to happen is they'll have a job and be working in the job and be fine until some incident happens. And they decide they want a new job. And then they go into panic mode, and they start updating their LinkedIn and updating their resume and trying to figure out where they might want to move to next whether it be in the same department, a different department or a different company altogether. And then they'll stop splashing and and putting that their resume everywhere and getting recruiters and that sort of thing. And then we'll have a phone interview. And that's when the panic sets in because it's probably been a year Since they last did a phone interview, and so they kind of wing it. And they they maybe go and look on Google and see what questions they might not be asked or talk to the recruiter. And then the next stage might be a video interview. And then I've done a little bit of research on the company, and they've figured some stuff out. But they haven't really honed the answers to the questions that get commonly asked in interviews. And so the whole thing is going like a crash course in interviewing, and then then they wonder why they don't really get through until maybe the fourth or fifth round when they've got through doing a bunch of interviews. And it's because you're out of practice. And so there is a few ways to make this work for you. And you'd always have an upstate resume and your LinkedIn should always be up to date, you should always be getting new connections. So it doesn't tip anyone off. If all of a sudden you've you know, tried to get 18 new connections. It's normal if that's what you do all the time, but the business This thing, the biggest thing that is helpful for you is once a week, or once every two weeks, sit down in front of your computer against a background that you think would be suitable for a video interview. And if you can't find one, this gives you time to figure out where in your house might be good, depending on the time of day, because there might be, you know, it's mid afternoon the sun might glare or it might be a window issue. But once every couple of weeks, do a recording into your computer, like a selfie, and it can be just held on your computer. It could be Facebook, live into like a private group that you have. And practice answering interview questions, have a list and work your way through the list. You can do one question per week and that's 52 questions and you kind of good because that will give you a chance to figure out what you want to say how you want to say how it might look on video, maybe you have a weird facial expression that you didn't know about. Or that you say I'm a lot or whatever your your tick might be your verbal tic might be. So this is a great way to figure it out. And if you don't want to look at the video, maybe have a friend take a look at it and see what they think. And they can critique it in a nice way. Or if you have a recruit a friend ask them hey, you know, once Mufti just check this video and see what I'm doing wrong. This is a great way to challenge yourself a to get used to answering questions and be what you look like on video because sometimes there's nothing worse than seeing yourself on video hearing yourself back and cringing and see knowing that you have a good background. So should you be asked to do a video interview you're not scrambling to, to move the stuff toys out of the way you'll get the right settings or sitting down or standing up or whatever it might be. you've practiced this you're prepared. It will make you feel much more at ease because you've done it before. You know what you're going to say you know how you're going to say it and That alone will reduce your anxiety level. And that's really what interviewing is about. It's about seeing how you deal with pressure. And this is a way of combating that. And as intervale it's really exciting because you've gotten over all of those things and those nerves and this photo buys, because you've practiced over and over again, so always becomes second nature. And that is one way of making sure that you will fly through your video interview. I'd love to hear any other tips or tricks that you might have about going through a video interview. I know someone did literally 30 day live selfie, answering interview questions, and an employer saw it and hired him because of it. That's just something to think about how you can challenge yourself to be a better interviewee Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the Career Introvert helping all introvert shine. Have a great week.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. I haven't done a travel one in a while. And so this is going to be travel based one. And the reason I haven't done one in a while isn't because I haven't been traveling. But because I've been so buried in the weeds, I guess, planning my future travel because I have a lot of travel coming up shortly. And I'm traveling with somebody else for some of this trip. And discovered that we have very different travel styles, not travel styles, pre travel styles, we're going to call it pre travel stars. I'm going on something that I never really done before and going to place I haven't been to before, so I'm doing a little bit of research. And else I don't know if it's an internet thing, maybe it's just a me thing. I'm also going to be traveling a lot for work and a lot of conferences. And so as much as I would love to stay on site for these calls. fences because it's easy to escape. And, you know, you can get room service and you're not going to miss too much of the action and there's not that back and forth or trying to find an herb or walking in the rain or whatever might happen. I also, most places, way conferences are held hotels are normally 200 or $300 a night. And it's weighing up that return on investment, especially when Airbnb and other types of companies are available in that area. And even if you take away the fact that you might have to do an Uber or a taxi, whatever mode of transport floats your boat to and from, somehow it doesn't always add up to the extra money that you're paying at the hotel. The other is the perks of some places with room service, and that's nice, or you can put everything on the tab. And it's really interesting. I'm weighing up those pros and cons. Now the plus side of staying outside of the area where the conference is for me is I do get that walk, or that time between being at the conference and being at my place, I'm going to say home, I'm going to call it home. And that time where I get to have some fresh air, or maybe view some of the city, if I've never been there before, can be really rejuvenating in itself. On the other hand, it has a particular conference that I'm going to, and they admittedly, it is a travel conference, but they are planning group tours of the city. So not only are you going to the conference, but they're inviting you to stay with the conference people and go on a tour. And I, to be honest, I didn't really look at

the details because as soon as I saw tour and the group,

it closed out the email and maybe I should have looked, maybe it was maybe anyhow but most the time when you do a tour, it's two or three hours, headed it along with a group of people Which can be nice if you're networking and you're trying to make friends where it can be very cliquey. But if it's before or after the conference itself, you might be tired already, or there might be people that you don't actually want to hang out with at that point. So it's really interesting trying to find that balance of being available enough and hanging out enough at the conference, and not doing all the group stuff. The other thing that I'm doing is knowing that I have these conferences to go through to throughout the year, and keeping an eye on sticker meal. Because at least once every two months, they do some kind of deal on stickers on coasters or on buttons America call them buttons. In England, we call them oh my goodness, I forgotten pins. No, no, but I don't know. Now, I've forgotten because I haven't been home so long.

So

I try and stock up in advance rather than the last minute panicking of Oh, I have this conference to go to I need it like immediately. And I don't have the design ready, I just wait and see when the specials come up. And then I can order them and then just stockpile them. And its stockpile huge amounts, just small amounts. So things that I do to get ready for travel. And then also I, you know, I know how much space is needed and that sort of a thing and what's popular. And so one thing I've come up with is luggage labels that are stickers, which I'm really excited about. So I am planning my travel but trying to find that balance between my introvert needs and the conferences that I'm going to and some of them are within weeks of each other. I didn't have back to back conferences, but I definitely have events, at least every other week for about three months. And just saying that out loud is a little terrifying. I need to see how I can make this work for me. There will be more travel stuff coming up shortly because I am going on a brand new adventure that I've never been on and I want to share it with everybody. But that will come later. All right. Thank you for listening. This was Janice at the Career Introvert helping introverts shine you know, build your brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'm going to talk a little bit about overwhelm drowning. And the reason is because last last week, two weeks ago, over the space about seven days, a lot of things happened. And I had to take a break for my own well being and mental health. And the thing was, I kind of need some of it I knew was going to happen, and some of it was very unexpected. And so I'm going to talk through how I dealt with it and hope it helps somebody. I know that so this week happened, and I know that for the last four days to have a weekend day on a Thursday and Friday that I was going to try and take some time off. Even though I was taking time off. I knew that I had things planned I had events on the Thursday, Saturday and Sunday. which involves me socializing. And so this Friday, spent the entire day just chilling. I went out to eat. And that was kind of it. The person I was with was like, so you paid to go out and then you just dating in, I'm like, Yes. And it was great. And then Saturday I had to go out and I ended up socializing with people and it was in a place with a lot of people and pushing and shoving and very loud, and it was fine for a bit and then I went home and I came back out again, actually, I got a second wind, put some flat shoes on I went out and broke it a little bit. And then came Sunday,

where

went out again during the day and night for like a doubleheader. And it was loud socializing,

which was fine. And then come Monday. I was like, I

I feel a little Well, uh, normally, and this wasn't socializing in big groups, it's just one on one, one on two, one on three socializing. And normally I'm quite fine with that. But what it also happened at the start of that week, is that I'd gotten a bunch of new clients, or clients have come back from vacation or like, whatever it is that they were doing. So my normal flow of work was then like, doubled or tripled. And I had this to do list that just seem to keep on growing and growing and growing as more people's Tell me more stuff. And I felt like I was drowning. That's That's you. And it might seem like an overreaction, but it was, you want to provide the best service and help everybody but people will address this thing, this thing, this thing, this thing, that thing, this thing, the other thing and then you go to the next meeting and be this thing, that thing, that thing, that thing, the other thing, and the next meeting and so on and so forth. I spent one day in meetings that gave me a really long to do this. And so what I had to do was put my phone on airplane mode because my computer Go to a different room, meditate, breathe. And I found this meditation, which was, because I have an app that I kind of scroll through. And it was wonderful because they talked to you through exactly how to get through the overwhelm. And then had a really nice message at the end of which felt really personal. Even though I know this message goes out to like hundreds of millions of people, it felt really personal to me. Then I sat, and I brain dumped everything that I thought I had to do. And of course, you forget stuff in brain dump some more, then you go away, do something mundane like washing up, showering, whatever you need to do, then come back brain dump some more, take that brain dump. And for me, what I do is then categorize it into my clients, then categorize it into what's urgent or when or what has a due date. And then I put it into my project management tool that then gave me some sort of order. And then I figured out what I could delegate what I could outsource what I was going to do when it needed to be done. Also with the fact that I will be offline for a bit coming up in the future. So I need to make sure that things worked around that as well. Just taking that time out during that specific meditation, brain dumping, then going to do something Monday. And then brain demming, again, was like a pressure valve release. I mean, I also talked to some friends, but it made things better. Just getting it out of my head meant that I could then I came up with ideas about other things, or how to automate things or how to make things better how to do this quickly, I realized that I needed the space in my head. That's what was missing. So now what I have to do is make sure my head doesn't get filled with too much stuff. And so to do that, for me, I have to have a notebook around all the time so I can dump stuff straight to the notebook that keeps my head clear, and helps me I don't know if recharge is the right word, but it definitely stops me from feeling overwhelmed. And I get into a good habit and then sometimes I stop and then I realize I have to get back into that habit again. So what do you do to clear your head? How do you bring back balance in Your life I'd love to hear, please email me at [email protected] helping introverts build their brand and get hired. Have a great rest of your week.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I want to talk about interviews. I'm specifically going to talk about in person interviews right now. This is something as a person nevermind a introvert that can be very overwhelming can make you nervous and hot and sweaty you know you're trying to get them still a cool calm and collected, you know that your every move is being observed. And so because of this, being prepared is crucially important. So, I would just want to go over a couple things this isn't this isn't the be all and end all of interviews, but just I know top three things. Make sure you arrive on time. Take into consideration traffic app finding parking, the weather freak accidents. Whatever it might be, as an introvert, there's nothing better than getting to interview earlier actually have to be in the building, maybe being in your car. And just being able to have five or 10 minutes to breathe and think through your answers to your questions. Get yourself together, maybe change your shit, like whatever it is that you have to do. Just having that extra 1015 minute buffer, maybe maybe listen to a meditation tape or something on the radio, whatever it might be, that puts you in your happy place. Try and make sure you leave a buffer for that before you attend an interview. Now, the thing that's really crucial is your approach. think positively. You are offering your talents, your experience, your time, effort, energy education to this organization, and you give that impression that you would be a valuable asset and they'd be foolish to kind of not take you on This doesn't mean you have to be aggressive or overly enthusiastic, pompous or pretentious. But it does mean that you need to show the interviewers that you are confident and assertive and proactive. You are a professional who will perform successfully if appointed to that position. So, instead of thinking about the fact that you're boasting or saying bragging, for example, to help prepare, practice answering questions there are tons of resources on types of interview questions that you might be asked depending on the role that you are applying for. Now think about these questions I'm brainstorm with a colleague or friend or, and practice answering the questions. practice using the interview questions to strengthen the argument of why you will be the best person for the job. For example, you must certainly be asked about your experience and qualifications. Even though obviously this would be shown in your resume or CV, but your responses should be phrased in such a way that we let you experience and knowledge etc. to the new post that you are applying for showing how your existing attributes and skills can work in a new environment. And because you know that this is correct and true, when you're talking about it, you will have that confidence behind it. And so that will make you feel more relaxed because you know, it's true, and you're just wanting to point them in the right direction. So the other thing to think about is that, you know, you want to be able to give very specific examples, please listen to the questions and talk mostly about your strengths, but they will ask you about your weaknesses, and be honest about your weaknesses because nobody is going to be the exact perfect fit for job description, or you have nowhere to grow. So make sure that you just say, you know, be honest what you can do and what you can't do, and how you go about bettering yourself and how you learn from things and do your research. Please, please Please, please, please research the company that you are applying for. So many times I've interviewed people, and we'll go through the usual like, what do you think introversion is and why did you apply for this role? yada yada, yada? And then I'll be like, so what you know about me or the the organization? And they literally Oh, I didn't I didn't I didn't have time to research. That's, that's not a good answer. Do you want this job you would make time to research I don't care. If you were researching in the lobby while you were waiting, you would have made time to just Google. So please research the company. These are just a couple of things to help you be successful in an interview but being prepared and make giving yourself that buffer to put yourself in your happy zone and be calm and collected and know what you're doing and be okay with it. That will be will help you know end with being successful in an interview. Thank you. This is Janice from the career internet. If you have any questions please email me at [email protected]

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I am going to talk about quotations. Quitting for work as a freelancer, I know can be very daunting, and you're not sure how to do it. I'm in a lot of Facebook groups and I see this question all the time, like, how do I price my work? And one of the ways is, you know, you have to give a quote, someone tells you the work that they need doing. And you have to come up with a magical figure. And sometimes you might ask the person for that budget, and most the time the person's like, Well, it depends. Because they might have a budget in mind, or they just might not know because it's not work that they do. If you are not a photographer, and you ask a photographer for a quote, you don't know how much what they do is worth. I mean, you kind of have a rough idea, but you definitely don't know, the facts and the figures and the time that they take and the software and the overheads and all of that sort of a thing. So whenever you get asked about a budget, you Normally kind of freeze me, I don't know how much is gonna cost me, especially when a lot of websites don't have their prices very clearly out there. Which can be frustrating. I highly recommend having you know, minimum cost from X amount that helps people when they are shopping to know whether you're at least within or over their budget. Because otherwise then not only are you wasting their time, but you're wasting your time by sitting down and having this conversation when they cannot afford you. So, one thing I've learned when quoting something and normally I have my prices up on my various websites, but there's some things that I do back in that people, I don't advertise the services, and people asked me for them and so I have to give them a quote. And I want to tell you a little secret that's helped me create quotations where I don't feel that I'm being exploited but I feel I'm giving a fair price to my clients. And that has been because of the way I work. I currently work in a method. It's sort of like the Pomodoro method, which is 25 minutes of work and five minutes of rest. But I work more in a 30 minutes of work and 10 minutes of rest. And because I've been doing it for a certain amount of time, I become better and better at figuring out breaking down my tasks into 30 minutes segments. And so I might have a big overall task of updating my website, but then I have to scale that back into 30 minutes to update the font or change the colors will just update the homepage and then go to the about page and whatever it might be. And so because I've had practice and sort of changed my muscle memory, or not my muscle memory, my memory memory on working in 30 minute blocks, I find it easier to then be able to give a quote because a lot of the work I do I know Well, this and this will take me this amount of time. And so getting into the regular habit of breaking your work down in some way, shape or form will help you Be able to give quotes to clients. So it could be that you find it easy to work in 15 minute increments, or hour increments, or 40 minute increments or 47 minute increments, I don't know, whatever works for you. Try working that way for about a week or two weeks, just where you're solidly working. And from, for my example, 30 minutes on 10 minutes off, 30 minutes on 10 minutes off, I know how long I can do that for. So for me, I know, I can do that for about three hours depending on the work. And then my brain kind of fries. Or I can do it for two hours on one type of work, maybe very analytical work. And then I could do it for two hours on this very creative work. And that way you can do a four hour stretch. And so the idea is to get you used to working in a certain way and then when someone says hey, I want you to copyright under 53 emails, you know that well one email or three emails takes me at these times. times that by however emails needed, plus your overheads and everything else. And that gives you a quote. And it's not a quote that makes you feel that you're not, you know, being compensated for the time that you you're going to put into it. Because there's a lot of times where you, you, you hear about work and then you you give a quote for it and I go, No, it actually it can take me longer, because you didn't actually figure out how long the original thing was going to take you. So if you just get used to working a certain pattern, that will be the key for you to be able to go ahead and give quotes and work in a reasonable manner and know how much time it's going to take you how many weeks months, whatever it might be, and get paid at the right way. I hope that's helpful. Thank you for listening. This is [email protected] helping introverts shine build their brand. Hope you have a great week.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I want to talk about ways to kind of narrow down and pinpoint what might be your perfect career. This is all about goals and working and your commitment and brainstorming. Now the thing with introverts is we time to come to conclusions and time to analyze things and think things over. And so a lot of the time, people want you to make snap decisions about your career and life and etc. What I highly recommend is doing it in a slower, methodical way. But one of the first things you should kind of do is think about, you know, brainstorming on a sheet of paper.

And it's kind of a strategy I use in general all the time, but take a pad of paper and write down your top objective, exactly what it is you want to do. And so for example, you could say

What should I be doing with my time in my life? And then think about 20? Or so answers to that question. And you can do this all at once, say, you know, set aside 30 minutes and write down everything that flows to your mind whether you think it's insane or not. And then go away. And come back and do the same thing again the next day and see if you come up with something new or something different. But the key to the exercise is to come up with at least 20 answers, do not stop until you have at least 20 answers. And then you'll begin to see if there's any patterns or anything that that that crops up. One of the other things that you could do is ask three close friends of yours. Because generally speaking, what we think we see is generally different from what outsiders see. And so our friends might see us better than we see ourselves or they'll be able to see things that we don't think about all in a slightly different way. So what you can do

was talked to one of your friends or you know, three or four of them and mentioned that you're thinking about different things or different ways that you want to live your life and ask what they think you would enjoy doing and what you might be good at. You'll be surprised at how easily that they can zero in on your strengths and abilities and find something that you didn't even think about.

Another thing you can do to sort of pinpoint what might be a perfect career fit for you, is to take a career assessment test, there are lots of them online, you'll be able to go and take the test for free.

Or maybe if you know, a headhunter recruiter, they might have this software you can take the test for free, or anything of that nature. Just to give you a general idea of what you might be good at what is interesting to you what is new stuff you might not ever even heard of, because right now jobs are changing and evolving so quickly. That's really interesting that

You know, something you might not have thought of, or even a role that hasn't really been created yet. But you could market to other people.

And the other thing I find really useful for pinning down information or just when I'm brainstorming or anything of that nature, is to keep a journal.

Keep a place where you write down stuff, and take a look after a week or a month and see if they're general common threads in your writing. Is there something specific that you always upset about at work or something, ideas, types of ideas that you always come up with better things? Maybe you're very analytical, maybe you're good at brainstorming overarching themes, you might find that if you read through your journal that you will see patterns that will be common, and make you think, Oh, I didn't realize but this is something that I really like and enjoy when I talk about it, or there's something I really hate irritates me, so I should stay very far away from it. So keep your eyes peeled.

trends and activities, the things you'd like as well, as well as things you don't like. In fact, finding examples of what you don't like and what frustrates you is almost as important as finding out what you like. Because if you hate being overwhelmed or you hate like a boss, who is Mike, a micromanager.

It's better for you then when you're looking for your next move to find one, that maybe you in a more self directed position. Or if you hate, you know, co workers always being up in your business, then maybe you would prefer a new position that would involve some privacy or maybe working from home so you have your own office or your own space. So discovering what you really want to do with your life is one of the most important decisions you can make. But don't forget, that can change over time. And whatever, you know, happens but you do need to remember that we spend at least a third or more of our lives at work. So figuring out your right career is important because it keeps us

Your life happy and productive. Thank you for listening. This is Janice from the career internet. If you have any questions for me, please email me at [email protected] Have a great day.

In this episode I am talking about how PR agencies are missing the mark when it comes to podcasts.

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. 

I'm going to tell you a little story.

Basically, I have a podcast This is now obvious. However, there are podcasts on the wave up and people want to get on podcast to grow their brand, or to promote their latest book or their latest course or whatever it might be, which is great. And it is a great way to build your brand and to build backlinks and SEO for your website. And that is a good thing. However, right now there are a lot of PR companies also jumping on this bandwagon. Because one of the things is you know, you do book tours and now you do podcast tours, that sort of a thing that you can do to grow your brand. And so a lot of PR agencies are talent. That they can help you get on to podcast, which is great, and some are very good at it. However, recently, I got contacted by a PR agency. And they said, Hey, we have this particular client, they're also basically do the same thing that you do. And we think they'd be great for your podcast. Also, this person and can talk about the following topics, and it was literally like, what is an introvert and things like that. And there was some typos. And you know, they signed off, they gave me the person's name, and they signed off as a PR agency. And normally, I ignore these because I get a lot of them I get a lot of requests on LinkedIn, or on the email, you know, at Janice at the current red.com, sort of, Hey, you know, this person would be great for your show. And a lot of the time I ignore it, but this time, I will wanted to do something different. So I looked up the person that they were talking about, and I found their contact details. And then I decided, Okay, maybe I can help this PR agency and what they're trying to do. And so I sent an email to the PR agency copying their client, and I said, Hey, thanks for reaching out, whoever it appears you didn't do any homework, or at least listen to one of my episodes. Because if you did, you would have noticed that, Oh, wait. I'm not an interview podcast. And I know that a lot of podcasts out there that aren't in that sort of thing. But I am not. Not only that, you didn't really have good topics for the person to talk about. There wasn't a good angle. You didn't tell me what they could bring to my audience. Should I have been an interview podcast, and you didn't provide me social media links, I had to then go and search information on this particular client. If you are looking to get this client on other podcasts, I highly suggest that you do the following. And I gave them a bullet pointed list of things that they might want to consider not the entire list, but things that would point them in the right direction. So the problem here is, obviously, it was a copy and paste email. And I get that because they're probably emailing like a bunch of people. But at the same time, just doing the tiniest amount of research would have, you know, yielded better numbers. Because it's not about the quality quantity of like emails that you spam out. It's the quality of the emails. And I said to them, hey, if you just listened to one of our episodes of, Hey, I really liked this episode you did on this and this, or if that actually research me, notice how many other podcasts I had been on. It could have been like, hey, you're really good on this podcast. Could you introduce us to that podcast so we could get our client on there? But they didn't. They missed out on so many different ways that they could have approached us they could have talked about the book, like oh, we really enjoyed the book, maybe you'd like to, you know, interview our person for the next series, but they didn't. And so because PR agencies are generally used to dealing with television or authors, and they just don't have the nuance required for podcasting because podcasting is very personal. The podcast is you have their podcast, generally, it's their babies, it's something they're very proud of, and they put a lot of hard work into etc, etc. And so it's really important that you get that personal connection or at least, you know, make the effort to make that personal connection, follow them on Facebook or Instagram or what have you, and then reach out to them. cold emailing can work so like oh my God, this, you know, amazing person emailed me, but at the same time, put a little bit of frickin effort in. So PR agencies if you are listening, just the tiniest things can make a huge difference and how that email could have gone so differently for that PR agency. And for that fellow introvert so happened that I carbon copied that person. And so they reached out to me directly, because they saw the email that I'd sent to their PR agency and obviously they're paying that boutique agency and lot of money for not quality work. So if you want to be on a podcast, make sure you personalize your email show your value and include your social media links, please. Thank you so much. Thanks for listening. This is [email protected]. And please send me emails of questions you would like me to answer live have a great day

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I would like to talk about having a personal brand as an introvert. And the reason I want to talk about this is I want you to take a second and think about your closest group of friends, say five people. And I want you to think about them. And I want you to think about different situations when you've reached out to certain friends. Do you always reach out to the same friends for all situations? Or do you sort of pick certain friends or certain things? Do you have a friend that you go out and party with? Do you have a friend that you would read books with? Do you have a friend that you play games with? Do you have that friend in another country who you talk about mothering with and who do you go to when something's happened at work? Who do you go to when something's happened in your family life? I'm sure that most of you would do have friends that over Your friends and maybe equal so to speak, they are you go to them for different reasons, which of each of your friends are specialists in a specific area. And to you, that is their brand been whether you know it or not, that is their brand. So, you might have that friend who is totally into whatever or knows your industry so you can talk to them about industry stuff that might not work with you. But you can say certain acronyms or or talk about certain situations and they will understand, as opposed to another friend who doesn't work in that kind of area. And if you have to explain everything, like piece by piece, it's far more excruciating. So that brings me back to you. I wonder what your friends reach out to you for what is your brand in your friend circle.

And if you don't know, maybe, maybe find out maybe ask or maybe think back to when your friends have reached out to you for sensing what those things have been. because believe it or not, whether you realized it or not, you have built a brand with your friends, your friends know you as X, Y, and Z or that person who does a, b and F, whatever it might be unwittingly you have built up a brand. And that's how you've gotten friends. And that's how you keep friends. And that's what they know you for. Have you done the same for your business? out or for your career? And if not, why not? You might have done it unconsciously. But maybe you want to go and take a look and think of make a conscious effort of what you want your brand to be. What do you want to be known for? Do you want to be known for being persuasive? Being good negotiator? Do you want to be known for being very good at backend stuff? Do you want to be known for programming? Do you want to be known for something really frickin specific? Like you carve names in pieces of rice? I don't know, whatever it might be. What is it you want to be known? For? What is it you want people to Think of you, when they think of a certain thing. Do you want to be an awesome plumber? Do you want to be an awesome Carpenter? Do you want to be that plumber that only fixes European style toilets, or whatever it might be? Because building a brand as an introvert is really important because we might not go out there and brag about what we do very often, or we might not put ourselves first when people ask for stuff. However, if people just think of us any way, because they know Well, this person does X, Y, and Z or x, y and F, or x, y, and two and three, as long as they know you and have that in the back of your mind, their mind, they will come to you for this thing, whatever this thing might be. And so instead of you having to toot your own horn horn, you get referrals and referrals are some of the best things that you can get, whether it be for your career or you running a business. When you run a business and you get a referral someone has already paid money to work With you, and they've said that you're awesome and referred you to somebody else who knows probably how much that person paid and therefore is not going to try and lowball you. That's awesome. Job wise, most jobs are filled before they're really posted, is it because it's a friend of a friend or somebody knows somebody else. So if you're already at the back of someone's mind, or should say, bring them to the front of their mind, they will think, oh, hey, this person will be really good for this position. So building a brand as an introvert is really important. And how you go about that is thinking about what you want to be known for. And then doing that and doing it incredibly well. And every time you get someone says something nice about it, put it in a folder and quote, The Happy folder or the testimonial folder, or whatever it might be, but be known for something very, very specific. Don't go general. General doesn't help anybody. You don't think of a general doctor. I mean, you do but like then they move you on to a specialist. So you want to be a specialist. Think about those things as an internet how you can Grow your brand, know what your brand is and get people to know you for that thing. And to grow your brand doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be you shouting from the rooftops actually it's the smallest details and the customer service that can get you a really good brand as opposed to shouting from the rooftops. Thank you This was Janice from the career injury. If you have any questions you want me to answer please email me at [email protected] looking forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your week.

Check out other introvert items here 

Hello, and welcome to the traveling internet. Today I would like to talk about workspaces. I recently posted on Instagram, asking what type of workspaces people preferred. And I got a few answers and I got a few answers from other people that I talked to. And I realized that I actually missed the days of cubicles. I used to work in a big office environment, and we had cubicles and I always had the cubicle in the corner facing the wall away from the aisle. So if anyone wanted to get my attention, they literally had to come up behind me and sort of tapped me on the shoulder because I also used to wear headphones. And it was great for concentration because there was nothing that would draw my iomai attention way because it was just me and my two screens, Oh, don't get me started on having more than one screen. So that's something that I realized I miss even though now I generally have my own office, my my desk faces, sort of a filing cabinet type place open a filing cabinet is like a bookshelf type thing. And my door might be open or close. And I can see outside and I realized now that I do get distracted by various things. And so I might need to rearrange my room so that I'm facing a wall and make it a cubicle wall. And even if I put headphones on. And so this led to further discussions, one person mentioned that they liked being in coffee shops with classical music. And that might not be as easy to find as you might think. And my response was, Well, why don't you bring your own classical music and they were like, well, I edit Sound or podcast for my jobs, I need to be able to actually hear what I'm editing. So I copy my music. And I was like, Oh, yeah, that that makes sense. So they like the background noise of a coffee shop and people having people around. And also classical music. Another person was very much like me myself, and I know no one else. And so leads to the discussion of what kind of environment Do you work best. Some people work best in different types of environments for different types of tasks. For example, if it's like green sky, or blue sky thinking, you might want to sit on a couch or somewhere comfortable. If it's just a menial work where you're doing repetitive tasks, you might want to sit in a certain place. For example, if I have to do a very repetitive task, I actually have a playlist of music that I like to use. I have a friend that they if they're doing a menial tasks, they will have a podcast on TV on and I find that incredibly distracting, even if it is a menial task that I'm doing, I'd rather listen to music where, for example, I know the lyrics, so or Michael Jackson songs, or this, like brainwave music that's quite popular right now that you can find on YouTube or something of that nature. And everyone has a different way that they work and how they work best part of that is the environment that you are in. So what can you do to create the ideal environment for the work that you do, or the different types of work that you do? Be in an office or that you work for yourself? Even those digital nomads, as much as they work for themselves and get to pick to a degree where they work, they might not have the choice of the type of lighting that's in the CO working space, or the see that they have those of us who are short. And it's incredibly difficult to get a comfortable seat because generally we need a seat and a desk and a foot rest or an adjustable desk and that you don't get very often. So what kind of environments D You work best? And why do you think you work best in them? And what can you do to change your current environment to help you work better? And I don't think this is just an introverted thing. I think this is also just a people thing, trying to make what your tasks are and how you do them more efficient. I wasn't really talking about anything specific, I realize but for me, I think what I'm looking forward to is getting a plant. I've never had a plant before. And I think it will be interesting to see if that helps with my concentration. Also, I am going to now move my desk to face a wall and see what happens and give that a try and see what else I can add to my environment. Maybe lighting might make a difference. I'm not really sure because right now I just use natural light. But I'm wondering if having a lamp or white light lamp would make a difference. I would love to hear or see photos of your ideal workspace. Please email me at [email protected] or you can find me on Instagram at the courage of it. I look forward to hearing from you and have a great rest of your day.

If you want to know the kind of equipment I use check out this link https://kit.co/IntrovertMediaLab

Hello, and welcome to the traveling introvert. Today I'd like to talk about having enough time to play. I am trying to new thing this year where I am working for set amount of hours per day in a very focused manner. And then there's going to be other time that I can use however I choose. And I was talking with a friend today about their plans for the year. And they also mentioned the fact that they work in it and they spend a lot of their time managing their company, and they went to an event. Now last year, we've actually got to spend time playing with tech instead of managing tech, and how they didn't realize how much they missed playing with tech. Because I think a lot of the time when you start a business or you start doing your thing, you're generally playing or you're playing on behalf of somebody else. And when you play for yourself, it's okay it's kind of a low stakes and low risk when you're playing for someone else on behalf of somebody else. ends up being very, you know, there's a lot at stake possibly in you, you you pay more attention, and it's less play and more implementation. And then you end up like managing the thing. And so the play is no longer there. But do you do anything in its place to keep play in mind. And so we were talking about the fact that how play is important for innovation and creativity. But you can't play unless you give yourself the time, and headspace and availability to do so. So we were talking about how our lives are going to be different this year. And what we're, instead of talking about what we're planning to put in and all the things that we're planning to do, we actually ended up talking about all the things that we are going to take out, to leave a space to breathe for other things. And I think this is a wonderful thing because it's the start of the year. And people aren't about planning or looking back at the last decade or year and planning what to do and all the things to stuff into your calendar for the next three 6, 12 months or beyond. And that's great and all. But now we should take that time to reflect and think, Okay, well, last year I planned all of this stuff. Did I do it? No, do I feel bad about it? Maybe? Is it worth me feeling bad about it? Probably not. Because more often than not, we over schedule ourselves. We only have 100. And I think it's 67 or 77 hours per month that we can fill that stuff. And really, we should be aiming to fill about 50% of it with stuff bit personal work, to leave room for error, flexibility stuff happening, but also to have time to sleep, eat, breathe, and to play. And to play you must have that time and flexibility and that space and not be overworked and overwhelmed all the time. And that's when sometimes you get the best ideas. Have you ever realized that you get a lot of ideas when you're in the zone doing something else, like having a shower, you're doing something very automatic, like cleaning yourself, which you probably do every day. And that's when your mind rooms free and you have these ideas. Some people have installed sort of pieces of paper, not paper, like whiteboards in the in the showers that can write down their ideas when they have them, because that's when they get the awesome ideas. And there is a reason for that because you're on autopilot and you're free thinking and you're just like, you know, scrubbing yourself and getting some some soap and detonated editor. And your mind gets to let go and not be focused on a thing. And it's not quite the same as meditation. Meditation is a very different thing, and it is actually very focused in a certain way. But when you're just autopilot. That's wonderful. So think about the last time you let yourself autopilot and what happened, what ideas you had and the other part of playing is giving yourself a chance to try something you haven't done before or try something you have done before but in a different way. So like my friend was saying they work in tech, but they never got a chance to like play and they got to make this musical jukebox thing. And, and he was excited about it and used it and all sorts of things afterwards. So think about what you do and how you can turn on its head or look at from a different point of view, or talk to somebody else and find out what their point of view is, and how you can play with things. That's where innovation comes in. That's where joy comes in. And that's where you get your best ideas. take a pause and think about that. So thank you for listening. This was Janice from the career introvert, helping introverts shine. I look forward to answering any of your questions, please email me at [email protected]. Have a great rest of your week.

Book recommendation for this episode is Pause by Rachael O'Meara