Kara Clark Rodriguez on Loudon Now

EXCERPT:

“As businesses look to right the ship and prepare for recovery following the Year of COVID, three local business leaders are offering their own advice via new book releases.

Connie Steele

Co-Founder, Flywheel Associates

Building the Business of You

Lansdowne resident Connie Steele’s upcoming debut book integrates her own experience, with 20 years as a marketing and strategy executive under her belt. Steele’s career, like many young professionals and millennials, has seen its share of twists and turns. It’s part of an overall global trend of eschewing a career spent in one workplace, or even industry, and instead dabbling in different jobs to create a wealth of experience and skills.

Steele has a better term for it: “A career mash-up.”

“You have a whole different generation of people who don’t want to say, ‘I only want to do one thing.’ How do I find a way to mash it up? You can be bringing to bear all these different skills and experiences you’ve had with companies in the role that you’re in. When you have the diversity of thinking because of the experiences you have it creates a really interesting momentum and you’ll be able to problem solve very differently,” Steele said.

Connie Steele

As the desires of employees have changed, so has what an employer is looking for, she said. Now, there is a desire for a “hybrid worker,” someone who can bring different sets of skills and experience to bear. Soft skills, like communication and emotional intelligence, are “absolutely critical,” she said.

“People are not defined by one career title,” she said. “People are parallel pathing. Side hustles are the norm. You need to be your own CEO, which is why it’s about building the business of you. Once you understand you’re a business, how do you create your own career mash-up? You have to do strategic planning.”

Steele delves into this strategic planning process in her book, with a five-component system: spotting the trends in the business world; creating your own compass or plan; preparing for change; networking; and building skills.

Fluidity is a major tenet of the book, in a nod both to the ever-changing trends and practices of the business world, many of which were accelerated by the pandemic, and the need for an individual to be fluid in the way they think and work.

She refers to her book as more of a thesis, with the ideas building over her head over the last several years.

“Building the Business of You” is expected to be released Feb. 11. It will be available for purchase on Amazon.”