David Zinger - Employee Engagement Speaker

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Career Zingers #26: What’s Your Currency?

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Money often costs too much. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is Only Paper (David Zinger, 2018)

What’s your currency at work? Currency is a medium of exchange. We narrowly think of currency as being money. I am not saying money is unimportant, just that it is not as important as we think. Countless studies have demonstrated that on the list of important motivators and contributors to employee engagement money is lower on the list.

Pause right now, consider what do you truly exchange your time, effort, and self for at work?

Over the years, I have learned my personal currencies for work are:

  • curiosity,
  • connection,
  • creativity,
  • playfulness,
  • stories,
  • learning,
  • expression, and
  • contribution.

When work offers me these currencies I am engaged and motivated. I have said numerous times, “I can’t believe I get paid to do this work.” I forget I am getting paid in the currencies listed above. When you exchange your work for the right currencies, work will make you well.

Career Zingers #23: Build a Nuanced Career

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Nuance Matters

The dictionary defines nuance as the ability to express delicate shadings (as of meaning, feeling, or value).

Own your subtle differences in meaning, feeling, and value. When you encounter career advice don’t trust it, test it. Does the advice fit for you? Is it helpful? How might you tweak or alter the suggestion or advice to make it your own.

You build a career not by assembling it like the 68 steps to assemble a piece of Ikea furniture — you assemble it by making up your own direction. You are not a beach – you are a grain of sand.

Career Zingers #20: Tilt and Flip

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In the game called your career, what puts you on tilt and how do you flip out of being tilted?

To play pinball well we must know just how much we can shake the machine to alter the ball’s path in our favour without tilting the machine and ending the game, and we also want to keep flipping the ball back into the game area where we can score points. If you imagine your career as a game of pinball, what puts you on tilt and how do you flip out of it?

Tilt. Do you know who or what puts you on tilt, shutting you down, and leaving you feeling “out of the game.” Do you have common triggers and habitual ways of responding to being tilted? Once tilted, how long, in minutes, hours, or days, does your emotional and mental tilt leave you shut down.

Flip. After you have been tilted how do you flip your career ending tilt around? Do you have a specific routine, person, or mental perspective that renews or rejuvenates your career quest?

Career Zingers #21: Don’t Let Mindlessness Sock it to You

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Pause before your foot hits the floor.

Don’t let your cluttered mind drive you off in all directions. Before you leap out of your chair and embark on the next action in your life – – pause – – be intentional. Ask yourself: Where am I going? Why am I going there?

Once you have a satisfactory answer to those two questions proceed because if the shoe fits, wear it. Otherwise, take a few more moments and infuse more intention into your everyday actions.

Career Zingers #19: Know Your Audience

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Who is your audience?

Carlos Santana Concert in Winnipeg (David Zinger, 2018)

I recently attended a Carlos Santana concert in Winnipeg. I enjoyed the show but there would have been no show without the audience. You also would not have a career without others. You required parents to be brought into being and so many relationships will provide threads as you weave your career tapestry. Don’t think solo in career, think about your impact on others, their impact on you, and the contributions you make to others from co-workers and customers to family and friends. Turn the lights on in your career and see “your audience.” Ask yourself: how well am I performing in my work to enrich, enliven, educate, enthuse, and entertain my audience?