The Door Has Always Been Open to You
By Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter
People hire me for No BS Career Advice globally. If you would like to schedule a paid coaching session with me, you can do it at www.TheBigGameHunter.us.
“I was looking for the key for years. But the door was always open”
Aravind Adiga, The White Tiger
My wife and I spent New Years’ eve having dinner and watching (in my case, re-watching) “The White Tiger” a 2021 drama film written and directed by Ramin Bahrani starring Adarsh Gourav, Priyanka Chopra Jonas, and Rajkummar Rao based on Aravind Adiga’s book of the same name.
Embedded in the movie is this quote and it hit me, and I hope you, like a ton of bricks.
Too many people feel trapped in their circumstances. living, as the movie describes, like roosters in a coop.
You have choices. They may not always be easy, likable by others, or desirable as befalls the lead character of the story. But you do have choices that shape a period of your life. You do not need a key. You need to leave the coop you are living in and create your own rules that serve you.
The door is still open.
I did a fun livestream last week–Me vs ChatGPT where I answered questions from people and then read ChatGPT’s answer. I am going to do it again tomorrow January 3 at 1 PM Eastern. Send your questions or join me live.
By the Career Coach Office Hours is now a Tuesday-only livestream. Search LinkedIn or YouTube for links to specific shows in the future OR send your questions in advance to me on LinkedIn.
I have been doing two new series for employers–How Recruiters Steal Your Best People and Employer Branding. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and get notified when I release a new video.
Companies and their interviewers send off signals you may be stepping into a toxic environment. Here are 13 more. At the beginning of the video, I mentioned an earlier video I did. This is a link to it.
Have you ever been in the position of having to negotiate or renegotiate your salary? Whether you’re starting a new job or asking for a raise at your current firm, the process can be intimidating and invoke fear. After all, you’re asking for a higher salary, and believe that means you need to be able to justify your request. But what happens if your salary negotiation fails? Here are seven things to do if your salary negotiation fails.
The Big Career Lesson from Top Gun: Maverick
I’m giving this to you prior to releasing it in my blog
When I saw “Top Gun: Maverick” in the theater, it was the first movie I’d been to since the pandemic began. I was delighted by the story and enjoyed the experience of being in a movie theater and watching Tom Cruise reprise the role from the original movie.
Recently, I watched it again at home on @Paramount+ and realized I missed a subplot that was important. Let me not spoil it but share (or remind you of) a few segments.
The opening act of the movie has Maverick as a test pilot for a program an Admiral wants to kill. Before the Admiral arrives on the base, Maverick takes the plane up, exceeds the speed the Admiral has demanded the plane be capable of, and pushes it to the point where the instrumentation fails and he has to parachute out of it. Criticized, he is told he has to report to Top Gun school at the request of his old nemesis, Iceman Kazansky, now and Admiral himself, and the reason why Maverick wasn’t thrown out of the military tells him he has to train the new top gun pilots.
After going to a local bar owned by a former girlfriend, he is mocked by the new pilots, referred to as Gramps, and eventually, tossed out of the bar by them, the door slams behind them. Of course, the next morning, the same pilots who tossed him out discover he is their new trainer. It is only when Maverick takes them up for dogfighting practice and he defeats every team of them that they start to pay attention.
Notice anything yet?
One of many subplots in the story is that older talented people are dismissed by systems (the Navy). In addition, those younger (the pilots) ridicule and dismiss him without knowing anything about him other than he is an older pilot. They assume he is incapable until he proves to them that the impossible-to-survive mission is survivable by flying the training course at high speed and proving the mission could be accomplished. Ageism is the first subplot.
The final half hour of the movie is about how Maverick needs the younger pilots to escape including the son of his RIO from the first movie (who hates him for his father’s death) and the most arrogant of the young pilots.
You see, we need one another—old and young. Each has talents that can help the other. Unfortunately, the walls we put up between generations leave older pros on the outside unheard and ignored. It leaves younger pros unable to help their elders because their arrogance blocks that possibility.
Now in the cinematic version of the story, Maverick does nothing to contribute to the divide. In real life, “know-it-all” older professionals act dismissively to their younger colleagues. I’ve seen a lot of this and, to be completely honest, acted badly to less experienced younger professionals much too often.
How have you contributed to the chasm between generations? What can you do differently?
Ⓒ The Big Game Hunter, Inc., Asheville, NC 2023
ABOUT JEFF ALTMAN, THE BIG GAME HUNTER
Jeff Altman, The Big Game Hunter is a coach who worked as a recruiter for what seems like one hundred years. He is hired to provide No BS Career Advice globally. That can involve job search, hiring staff, management, leadership, career transition and advice about resolving workplace issues. Schedule a discovery call at my website, www.TheBigGameHunter.us
He is the host of “No BS Job Search Advice Radio,” the #1 podcast in iTunes for job search with over 2500 episodes.
I do a livestream on LinkedIn, and YouTube (on the JobSearchTV.com account) Tuesdays at 1 PM Eastern. You can send your questions about job search, hiring better, management, leadership or to get advice about a workplace issue to me via messaging on LinkedIn or in chat during the approximately 30-minute show.
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