This Sunday we were privileged to host a talk by Mark Hershberg who just published his book “The Career Toolkit – Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You, the hard copy of which already sold out on Amazon two weeks in a row. He came with a prepared PowerPoint presentation and answered personal questions on how to manage our careers and our managers, how to interview, how to pivot, how to deal with challenges, and so many other things. Mark teaches a course to MIT students about career prep so he was certainly prepared. He’s a friend, and his book tour is obviously virtual, so he fit us in and we were lucky to have him. It was a well attended Groove, including some college aged kids of friends who wanted some tips, and we kept going later than usual with questions, both broad and very personal, which Mark generously and graciously entertained, as well as the ensuing conversation which some our questions triggered.
What was surprising about this Groove is no one really wanted to talk about what happened on January 6 when thousands of rioters overtook the Capitol during the counting of the Electoral College votes. It was a miracle none of the members of Congress were hurt, kidnapped, or killed as the rioters intended, and that their very young aides had the presence of mind to save the mahogany boxes of Electoral College vote certificates, and what heroes they were to return to count the votes just hours after what was probably the most terrifying day of most of their lives. We mentioned the lack of preparedness of the police, and how we’d like to see everyone involved thrown in jail. But really, this was a very small part of our conversation, that is, during the first twenty or so minutes before Mark started, time which I always allow before a scheduled speaker so people can unwind a bit and the latecomers roll in. Even though the event was only five days before, I guess we were all talked out about it having immersed ourselves in the news since Wednesday. Instead, we focused on our friend’s little dog which just got its first grooming since she adopted him. She calls him our Group Therapy Dog, and in this instance he very much was, a welcome distraction from the current chaos.
