Aug. 15 Escaping Unemployment:
Ginny Grimsley sent me this article. Richard
B. Alman, principal and chief career/employment strategist of Recruiter Media,
owner of
www.RecruiterNetworks.com,
the world's largest owner/operator of career websites.
• One word: volunteer. “This is, by far, the
best advice I can offer if you feel like you’ve tried everything and it hasn’t
worked,” he says. Volunteering can pay very high dividends for anyone who is
unemployed, under-employed or simply looking for a new career trajectory. It
helps current and future employees of any age.
“You may not see the payoff right away, but volunteering has
many long-term benefits,” he says.
• Volunteer in positions that will build your
resume´. “When you volunteer, you can update your skills and resume´, which
shows potential employers that you’re not lazy,” Alman says. “Ask for
jobs that use the career skills you have. For instance, if you have a
background or degree in marketing, look for opportunities to volunteer in
marketing for a non-profit.”
For those with stretches of long-term unemployment on their
resume´, volunteering is the best way to show future employers that you value
staying active and building new skills. And, if you’re a low-wage worker at a
fast-food restaurant, for example, you can have a whole new headspace in which
to consider your future.
• Work on developing leads. “You can be just
like everyone else who’s desperate for a decent job or you can be proactive and
build professional relationships, which do more than resume´s to earn
interviews and employment,” he says.
The non-profit sector attracts people who are passionate
about a cause, a wide range of associated professionals and, frequently, people
who are in high income brackets.
• Where can folks go to volunteer? A half-hour
of research online can yield viable options for legit non-profit organizations.
Other great sources are hospitals, which tend to work closely with non-profit
organizations. Hospitals also involve a wide variety of professionals.
“Once again, if you work well and develop great
working relationships with others, you open yourself up to a whole network of
possibilities,” he says. “Who you know can make the difference.”
My opinion: These are good tips.
Overcome excuses: Ginny
Grimsley sent me this article.
"Great people throughout history often fail, quite miserably,
before finally reaching their goals," says international business strategist Dan
Waldschmidt.
“Van Gogh sold only one painting during his lifetime;
Winston Churchill lost every public election until becoming prime minister at
age 62; Henry Ford went bankrupt five times; Albert Einstein was a terrible
student and was expelled from school; Sigmund Freud was booed from a stage,”
says Waldschmidt, author of “Edgy Conversations: How Ordinary People Achieve
Outrageous Success,” (
www.EdgyConversations.com).
“Ideas, brilliance, genius – they all mean nothing without
the guts, passion and tenacity necessary to make your dream a reality. But
often, people fall back on excuses and give up on trying to reach their goals.”
Most of us have dreams, and many of us have big ones, but
few of us actually see them through, he says.
He offers six tricks for jumping off the excuse train and forge
the path to your goals.
• Avoid the need to blame others for anything.
Mean, small-minded people know that they suck. That’s why they are so cranky
and eager to point out others’ mistakes. They hope that by causing others to
feel inadequate, everyone will forget about how woefully off the mark their own
performance is. Don’t blame anyone, for any reason, ever. It’s a bad habit.
• Stop working on things that just don’t matter.
Not everything needs to be done in place of sleep. If you work for a boss, then
you owe them solid time. You can’t cut that out. You can, however, cut out
television time, meetings and anything else that gets in the way of achieving
your goals. Replace entertainment with activity toward your goal.
• Refuse to let yourself wallow in self-doubt.
You’re alive to succeed. Stop comparing your current problems to your last 18
failures. They are not the same. You are not the same. Here’s something to
remember: Your entire life has been a training ground for you to capture your
destiny right now. Why would you doubt that? Stop whining. Go conquer.
• Ask yourself, “What can I do better next time?”
And then do it next time. If you spend a decade or two earnestly trying to be
better, that’s exactly what will happen. The next best thing to doing something
amazing is not doing something stupid. So learn from your mistakes and use the
lessons to dominate.
• Proactively take time to do things that fuel your
passion. Exercise is a great example. Living in the moment requires you to
live at peak performance. A huge part of mental fitness is physical fitness. A
sparring or running partner is a great way to refresh physical competition.
Physical activity accelerates mental motivation.
• Apologize to yourself and those around you for
having a bad attitude. Do this once or twice and you’ll snap out of your
funk pretty fast. When you start genuinely apologizing for being a bad
influence on those around you, you learn to stop whining and start winning.
My opinion: This is an inspirational article to
motivate me.
Aug. 17 Mindfulness at work: Ginny
Grimsley sent me this article. Here’s an
excerpt:
“Mindfulness – being focused and fully present in the here
and now – is good for individuals and good for a business’s bottom line.
How can people practice it in a workplace where multitasking
is the norm, and concerns for future profits can add to workplace stress?”
• Focus on a single task for an allotted
amount of time. You might say, “For 15 minutes, I’m going to read
through my emails, and then for one hour, I’m going to make my phone calls,”
Dr. Romie says.
If your job comes with constant interruptions that demand
your attention, take several deep breaths and then prioritize them. Resist the
urge to answer the phone every time it rings -- unless it’s your boss. If
someone asks you to drop what you’re doing to help with a problem, it’s OK to
tell them, “I’ll be finished with what I’m doing in 10 minutes, then I’m all
yours.”
• When you get “stuck” in a task, change your
physical environment to stimulate your senses. Sometimes we bounce
from one task to another because we just don’t have the words to begin writing
that strategic plan, or we’re staring at a problem and have no ideas for
solutions.
“That’s the time to get up, take a walk outside and look at
the flowers and the birds – change what you’re seeing,” Dr. Romie says. “Or
turn on some relaxing music that makes you feel happy.”
Offering your senses pleasant and different stimulation
rewires your brain for relaxation, and reduces the effects of stress hormones,
which helps to unfreeze your creativity center.
• Delegate! We often have little
control over the external stresses in our life, particularly on the job. How
can you not multitask when five people want five different things from you at
the same time?
“Have compassion for yourself, and reach out for help,” Dr.
Romie says. “If you can assign a task to somebody else who’s capable of
handling it, do so. If you need to ask a colleague to help you out, ask!”
This will not only allow you to focus on the tasks that most
need your attention, it will reduce your stress.
“And who knows? The colleague you’re asking for help may
want to feel appreciated and part of your team!”
My opinion: This is a good article because we should
not only be mindful at work, but in life.
