Show Links

9 Things Re: The Hidden Job Market” http://getheroik.com/9-things-executives-need-to-know-about-the-hidden-job-market/

Show Notes

Welcome to the Heroik Hour, the podcast where we discuss and bring together Technology Leadership and Culture to help you get business, life and you mission ready for life. I’m your host, Nicholas McGill, Chief Experience Officer for Heroik Media. Thank you so much for joining us on episode 13.

In this episode I’m going to talk about some real gritty topics. I’m going to talk about the concept of fairness, the importance of unfair advantages in business and life and then I’m going to give you some unfair advantages by telling you about the corporate underground and the hidden job network for executives. You won’t hear this anywhere else. Let’s get started

Here’s a hard fact of life that Mom probably didn’t give you – fairness beyond the opportunity to strive and work to achieve a great life is a fairytale. A great life is not something you’re entitled to HAVE. You’re given the opportunity to build or to squander a great life with every choice you make. It’s still a jungle out there.

What is fairness?

When you get down to it Fairness as a value means you venture life seeking no advantage over anyone else on the field. If you believe in fairness you show up to the field naked and ignorant by definition – with no advantage over the other. That’s what fairness really is – equality. And when you think it through – fairness, as a practice is about creating a 50/50 shot. And just to have a 50/50 chance, you have to hope that the other people show up the same way. This is why fairness is always about someone aiming for the lowest common denominator. Think about this as a value and strategy.

Does this reflect how life works? Does creating an even playing field for everyone result in rainbows, unicorns, success and wealth for everyone? No way. Hell no. It doesn’t happen. Fairness is a crowded street corner where you can’t distinguish one brand from the next.

Think about the evolution of life. Think about a job opportunity, or your industry or the economy. You show up naked, and ignorant in the spirit of fairness with the hope and expectation that life is fair, that others will act fairly and do the same- what do you think happens? Who gets the job or the opportunity ? The guy who develops an advantage through strategy and preparation and tools or the person who shows up naked and ignorant with hope and fairness?

One of my points here is – you can venture out with a sense of entitlement, expecting fairness, hope and karma to win the day, and see how you fair just don’t ask the rest of us to do the same.

I once took a survival course taught by a Force Recon Marine, and he was making fun of primalists, people who venture out into the woods without any gear, thinking worst case scenario, they can rub two sticks together to make a fire. This marine volunteers with search and rescue to carry bodies off the mountain and out of the woods, and he explains this to support the lesson of being prepared, and mission ready -don’t expect nature to treat you fairly or with any matter of respect. Real world conditions are not all magically focused on bringing you riches and abundance, you have to work, plan, think, act, train, and get shit done to build the world that you want.

Business and life are the same way. In the market, in the real world and in real life, the stakes are your life and livelihood, and there’s no force that balances it all out magically. The assertive hustlers the people who do the work get to reap the rewards.

Now let’s talk about advantage. An advantage is a condition or circumstance that puts one in a favorable or superior position. By definition, having an advantage means inequality.

So which would you like to address the real world with the expectation of fairness or the benefits of unfair advantages.

You want advantages don’t you? Even if they’re unfair. Insight, talent, wisdom and experience, all of these are unfair advantages compared to the novice. They give you an edge that put the odds in your favor.

This is why i choose to and will continue to choose to show up mission ready for life, armed to the teeth with knowledge and tools, values and purpose, because I know better. I don’t want 50/50 odds, I don’t want nor do I trust to expect fairness, I want to lead, build, learn and grow to develop, 100% confidence in absolute victory.

This is a lesson that will get you mission ready for life.  

The expectation of fairness is a fairytale. Fairytales are luxuries we give to comfort children. As we become Adults we learn to see and confront the world as it is. There are winners and losers even when you turn off the score board. And though you want everyone to feel equally and fairly a winner, there is a winner who leaves the game in a nice car, to a nice home, to an amazing and attractive spouse.  Don’t hate winners – Hate losing. Focus on what isn’t serving you, losing doesn’t serve you beyond the lesson that teaches you that losing sucks and you’d rather win.

The hard truth most people aren’t fessing up to is that in life, in order to win, you need all the advantages you can cultivate to build live and enjoy the great life in the real world. And that’s what I’m all about being mission ready to build live and enjoy the great life by cultivating the all the advantages I can get to make life better and easier for me and my loved ones and customers and community.

You can be over there bitching and moaning about fairness and hoping for something to magically happen, or try to pass laws to turn off life’s score board, I’ll be over here hustling putting foot to ass and nose to the grindstone reading learning doing and exploring and we will see which is more effective.

Bottom line – Trouble uses every damn trick in the book and so will I. I won’t squander my opportunity or hinder my odds in the name of hope or complaining with an expectation of fairness from the world.

This world will gobble you up and make you its bitch if you sit there and let it.  I won’t seek to be dumber or slower or more naive to give the my competitors an equal shot. I want as many advantages, unfair advantages as I can get.

Before I move on – decide right now. Do you want an equal playing field really? Or do you want to put in the work, cultivate the advantages and use them to build live and enjoy the great life? If you want to live in the spirit of fairness, please don’t listen to the rest of this podcast, because I’m here to help people get mission ready, and make life really unfair for your competition.

So speaking of unfair advantages,  I bet you’ve never heard about the corporate underground, the collection of hidden networks, and the hidden job network for executives and top level advisors.

I’m not talking about LinkedIn – miles beyond that,  there exists a different kind of community that offers amongst other things, access to a treasure trove of resources including, a hidden job market for executives. It operates behind closed doors and connects the best and brightest to the real opportunities and connections that make careers.

The Linchpin to this hidden job market is a singular membership network, a pay to play platform where executives and top tier advisors gather, strategize and jockey for roles that serve as the gateway drug to the corporate career upgrade. There are direct executive roles, and more flexible advisory board roles served up on a platter to those who know how to play. Talk about an unfair advantage – this is an example of how being in the know makes all the difference.

Members of this underground network get access to elite networks and opportunities to collaborate to mid to upper tier organizations across many industries, as well as direct opportunities to earn cash advising these companies.

To get in, to make the cut, you can’t just be any bum off the street. Your magic wantrepreneur profile will not pass the sniff test. There are requirements and a series of secret handshakes and investments on your part. This is how the posers and pretenders are kept out of elite networks. Don’t hate the winners, learn to hate losing.

Ok – here are some of the Requirements & Secret HandShakes

Executives and executive advisors – This isn’t for posers or for the inexperienced. This is for Executives (VP or C suite only) who want access to an exclusive list of opportunities to Advisory Board, Board of Director, or Executive Suite roles.

For Experienced Communicators – able to impart their experience and knowledge at the executive/senior leadership level. They’ll smell a fraud a mile out. The system is designed for top tier talent only. So bring your A Game. Heroik Insiders know how we roll.

It ain’t cheap – The platform that we know of costs $200-$300 per month. If that’s a lot of money to you, you probably don’t swing at the executive level you need to in order to be a part of this group. This is pennies on the dollar compared to the rest of The Corporate Underground.

To Get In You need to know somebody on the inside to refer you. Coming in cold without the right connections and succeeding in the first year of membership is difficult. Most rookies meander and get table scraps unless they know some people and know what they’re doing.

Just like with anything else, you’ll need a wingman to ensure you’re eating with the right fork, have your ducks in a row and if I’ll lend you mine FOR FREE!

If you fit the bill, and you can afford the membership fees (I get none of nor am I a commissioned affiliate of any kind!), AND especially  if you’re already member of the Heroik Insider Group, I can vouch for you and  see if I can get you in. But I only work with growth minded, abundant thinking, A-game, Major league collaborators on my success team. I’m not selling anything. I’m always looking to bolster my success team. And, if you make the cut, I will Join YOUR success team if you make it to become a full fledged member.

If you’re interested, check out the show notes for this episode at getheroik.com. If you’re not in the Insider group, sign up for that too.  I’ll give you more details, explain in more depth how it works, what it is and connect you to my inside resource.

Now if this doesn’t apply to you and you’re not at this level yet, you’re still a street level hustler, don’t worry – I’ve got some tips to help you get there.

How do you elevate yourself to become a contrarian corporate advisor? Someone who got their MBA on the street vs. in school?

Here’s what I recommend

1. Find key opportunities to work on larger meaningful projects. I don’t care if you have to be an unpaid intern. Think bigger, identify a good target, maybe economic development group, or developing a better events platform for your local city, or a project that is borderless – not locally focused, like a startup that gives REAL VALUE – which is less than 10% of them these days. Look for adjacent plays, meaning plays that float you right next to getting face time with the people you want to work with. I don’t care if this means working the corporate cafe and talking to the CEO on the elevator – it fricking works. Be smart. Do not use the chamber of commerce, they expect this, it is an outdated legacy model, and they’ll break you in your volunteer effort long before you breakthrough to the top floor. Look for an independent project just to collaborate on, hand out fliers for, etc.
2. Once you find your project – insist on an awesome title – do not settle for intern, associate, partner, or any watered down bullshit title, be an advisor, be a manager, and then learn those roles and responsibilities – it’s really easy to google and read 10 articles on best practices for new managers. No excuses. On a single extended trip to the toilet you could read the one minute manager and be armed with the 80/20. I’m not kidding.
3. Interview the top 20 people in whatever industry you want to go into. Offer to write blogs about them.Very few people say no to free publicity and puff pieces.  Ask them key questions about if they were to start over from scratch what would they do, mistakes, regrets, best practices, etc. Under the guise of an interview and puff piece people open up and share freely. I’ve used this tactic since I was in college and I’ve found that this alone leads to new and direct opportunities for the kind of work I wanted to go into.
4. Start a damn blog already or get involved in one of our Heroik communities to help you do this. If you hate writing, start a vlog- video blog, or a podcast, or create kick-ass slide decks. If you refuse to create content – you’re basically refusing to do work on your own behalf and I can’t help you. If you’re in my insider group, I’m already helping you, and will continue to do so because I get psyched seeing people make shit happen. This is a huge unfair advantage. You can hack the brain and influence people to see the value that you see in yourself by creating content that is visual, interactive and persistent.

How did I get inside the doors at Yahoo and Google and Cisco? I kid you not I used these methods and people at consulting shop saw and were impressed by an early iteration of getheroik.com and brought me into their outfit and through the doors.  These methods WORK as long as you do. I went from intern to community czar to senior social analyst by using these methods and all the other Heroik arsenal I talk about and deliver to my clients.

Okay  quick recap, hopefully I’ve dissuaded you from complaining about or expecting fairness, hopefully you’re looking to cultivate unfair advantages in all their forms to build the life you want, I’ve introduced the top advisors and executives to the corporate underground and the personal invitation to have my guy bring you in to the hidden job market THAT’S NOT LINKED-IN, then for everyone else, I just went through a 4 step formula for dirigible architecture – a game plan that will help you upgrade your life and career. Not bad – I really hope you believe I’m delivering on my promise to get you mission ready for life. Please share this episode with a friend, WRITE ME A REVIEW FOR THIS PODCAST, and tune in to the next episode. – It’s time for the jam session so enjoy.

Welcome to the Hidden track after party.

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