Successful careers - build your best ice cream sundae
I recently presented to a group of 13 years students on the impact of soft skills on my career and of course it lead me to ice cream sundaes!
Really, I would never joke about 🍧🍧🍧!
I wanted them to know you can start working on a successful career even if you don’t know what you want to do. We are all unique, powerful combinations of skills and abilities shaped by our experiences. Understanding your strengths and weaknesses allows you to create a customized plan for growth.
My career success being built by hard skills and soft skills.
Hard skills are the technical knowledge and training acquired through education or from direct work experience. Think of them as the ice cream foundation of your sundae–important, but not the whole dish.
Because a large part of my success has been from my soft skills like communication, problem-solving, and critical thinking. Things I developed and transferred across many positions and situations.
Soft skills are the behaviors, traits, and ways of working that come from within. They’re developed through life experiences and enhance how we get the job done.
Soft skills are like ice cream toppings.
There are lots to choose from, some mix & match better than others and everyone’s combination will be different. The best part about soft skills is they are easily transferable from job to job; they become a part of who you are and your reputation just as much as what you do.
Ice cream is great - ice cream with toppings is AMAZING! Doing the job is important, but HOW you do it determines your true impact.
Soft skills are amazing…
You already have these inside of you – you just need to practice
Soft skills matter in all careers - you don’t need to know what you want to do to work on them
It’s never too early or too late to start developing them - they will give you a competitive advantage in your current or future career
