The following is an excerpt from Career Choreography: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Finding the Right Job and Achieving Huge Success and Happiness publishing April 2021 from Greenleaf Book Group.
Praise for Career Choreography
”Ken Lindner’s brilliant strategies have certainly helped shape and grow my career. Now, he shares his wonderful insights with you in his new book, Career Choreography. ”
—Mario Lopez, American host, actor, author, producer
Your Introduction to Career Choreography
I have the honor of owning what many believe is the finest and most well-respected television news and hosting agency in the world. Throughout the past thirty-five years, I have choreographed the careers of many thousands of this country’s most successful and popular television newscasters and program hosts, as well as the careers of hugely successful entrepreneurs and professionals who now enjoy their most satisfying job.
The key to these individuals’ extraordinary success is that they effectively practice the art of “Career Choreography.” The term itself is one that I coined more than twenty-five years ago and then trademarked. The first of the Four Principles of Career Choreography is its definition:
There is a logical, success-evoking choreography for accomplishing all professional goals. The key is to construct and implement the most effective set of steps and strategies in order to attain your goals.
Career Choreography enables you to craft your most rewarding career path, secure the job or position of your dreams, and be hugely successful at your position or profession.
Career Choreography will give you invaluable insights into the career strategies of such well-known individuals as Lester Holt, Mario Lopez, Megyn Kelly, Robin Meade, and Liz Claman. Within these pages, you will find instructive stories about many national and local anchors, hosts, and TV stars with whom I’ve worked. I have also included enlightening anecdotes about individuals with whom I haven’t worked, such as Oprah Winfrey, LeBron James, and Katie Couric.
Additionally, there are insightful accounts about people who are not public figures, but whose stories will be highly beneficial and motivating for you. For instance, you will meet “Danielle,” who left her tenuous real estate business during the 2008−2009 economic downturn to become a hugely successful salesperson of reality-based TV shows; “Heidi,” who artfully crafted the steps to go from college graduation to, years later, living her dream of owning a fine art gal- lery; “Alan,” who created a unique niche for his marriage-counseling practice that gave him the platform from which to write books, lec- ture, and exponentially increase his income; Jennifer, who began her career as a hair salon assistant and thereafter strategically worked to become the owner of two major hair salons and “the hair colorist to the stars”; Sam Weisbord, who went from the William Morris Agency mailroom to become the agency’s president; “Sarah,” a high-school senior who skillfully crafted a choreography that will enable her to become both a special-needs counselor and the stay- at-home mom she dearly aspires to be; and Jack Lindner, my dad, who didn’t have a high-school education but persevered and went on to enjoy two legendary executive careers that spanned more than eighty years. My dad’s second career, during which he helped launch the T.J. Maxx department-store chain, began at age sixty-nine and lasted until he was ninety-eight. All of these individuals effectively utilized Career Choreography steps and strategies to attain their most treasured goals.
Personally, it has been through my being a lifelong “choreographer” that I have enjoyed enormously satisfying and rewarding life successes. I graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, and Cornell Law School. I was the captain and number-one singles and doubles player on the Harvard varsity tennis team and defeated Arthur Ashe in an exhibition match the year that Arthur was the fifth-ranked men’s tennis player in the world. I am the CEO of Ken Lindner & Associates, Inc.; I am also the CEO of the International POP Tennis Association, Inc., as I am in large part responsible for choreographing the national and international growth of the sport of POP Tennis. I was inducted into the POP Tennis Hall of Fame as being one of the best players in its history. And, of course, I write and continually counsel individuals as to how to successfully choreograph their careers. When people ask how I accomplish all of these things and also spend so much time with my family, I tell them, “I’m an efficient choreographer.”
I truly believe that Career Choreography will rock your world in tangible and wonderfully rewarding ways! Why am I so sure? Because these steps and strategies make sense, and they have brought huge success and career happiness to the thousands of individuals whom I’ve worked with over the past decades.
Career Choreography is divided into three parts. Part One is devoted to identifying and crafting the wisest and most beneficial career steps that will constitute your Career Choreographies. Part Two gives you the strategies to ensure that you will be extraordinarily successful and fulfilled in your chosen job, position, or profession. Part Three focuses on how to attain true career and life happiness.
Why Career Choreography is Essential For You
We are living in extremely challenging and debilitating times. Sadly, COVID-19 has killed an untold number of people, busi- nesses, dreams, and plans. So many professional lives have been decimated, put on hold, or shrouded by uncertainty and the lack of a clear and effective game plan for moving forward. Individuals everywhere have had the emotional and psychological wind knocked out of them, and they don’t have the tools or skill sets to rise from the canvas with confidence, fight on, and seize the job or career path they want.
The positive news is that the pandemic has given individuals worldwide the golden opportunity to reflect, assess, and tweak or reboot their professional plans and dreams. Just as there have been many jobs and businesses that have been lost or severely hurt due to the pandemic, there are new and exciting opportunities for cre- ative, insightful, and forward-looking individuals to seize, as well as new niches to identify and voids to fill.
In the pandemic and post-pandemic new world, most professions, businesses, and commerce will function differently. New models and paradigms of doing business will be put into place. So it is an excellent time to be a superior adapter to our ever-changing normal, and to professionally thrive in our new world by being a highly astute and effective Career Choreographer.
I have dedicated my professional life to envisioning what can be in individuals and enabling them to attain their most prized goals by virtue of their efficacious creation and implementation of their individualized choreographies. At a time such as this, when so many cannot find their way or visualize their endgames, or don’t have the knowledge, skill set, or discipline to implement and stick with their career game plans, the Four Principles of Career Choreography are an invaluable asset.
Career clarity and success-evoking choreographies are also essential for anyone mired in a no-growth or an unsatisfying job or career; for those entering the workforce for the first time, or reenter- ing it; and for those who aspire to attain huge success in their current positions. Additionally, with all the mediocrity and self-sabotage that pervade the workplace, those armed with the most constructive strategies and mindsets can truly excel. Almost everyone needs and can materially benefit from a Career Choreography.
I firmly believe that the difference between trying and triumph is an effective plan of action. With this insight firmly in mind, let’s begin choreographing your game-changing plan of action!