Enjoy Your Life: Separate Work From Home!
February 1, 2008
As you begin to become more established in your career it is only natural to begin to place your focus on your work. This causes you to accomplish more, find new and insightful ideas or perhaps even some exciting new methods that may increase your efficiency or productivity. Allowing your career to monopolize your time is also a great way to increase your stress.
Images of the high-powered executive type come to mind, with a keen eye and a sharp grasp on their success. These are also the same people that live and breathe their job, answering work related phone calls in the evening and sacrificing their personal time in order to to get further ahead. Perhaps you have friends that are like this, or maybe this description parallels with many of your own traits.
I’m not saying that placing emphasis on your career is a bad thing, because that couldn’t be further from the truth. However, there’s a difference between focusing on your job, and placing the right amount of focus on your job. Remember the old saying “you either live to work or work to live”? Which one applies to you?
Living to Work - It’s common knowledge that people who live to work experience higher levels of stress and stress related illnesses than people spend more time on an active and varied personal life. These people may also experience higher levels of professional success, fulfilling their goal current goal structure and allowing them to set new ones.
Working to Live – These people tend to enjoy a much more relaxed work life, content to work at a comfortable pace and accept whatever challenges that arise as they come along. They tend to lead more active social lives, and generally focus on accomplishing a wide variety of personal goals.
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Secrets of Greatness: What it Takes to be Great
January 29, 2008
Research now shows that the lack of natural talent is irrelevant to great success. The secret? Painful and demanding practice and hard work
By Geoffrey Colvin
What makes Tiger Woods great? What made Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett the world’s premier investor? We think we know: Each was a natural who came into the world with a gift for doing exactly what he ended up doing. As Buffett told Fortune not long ago, he was “wired at birth to allocate capital.” It’s a one-in-a-million thing. You’ve got it - or you don’t.
Well, folks, it’s not so simple. For one thing, you do not possess a natural gift for a certain job, because targeted natural gifts don’t exist. (Sorry, Warren.) You are not a born CEO or investor or chess grandmaster. You will achieve greatness only through an enormous amount of hard work over many years. And not just any hard work, but work of a particular type that’s demanding and painful.
Buffett, for instance, is famed for his discipline and the hours he spends studying financial statements of potential investment targets. The good news is that your lack of a natural gift is irrelevant - talent has little or nothing to do with greatness. You can make yourself into any number of things, and you can even make yourself great.
Scientific experts are producing remarkably consistent findings across a wide array of fields. Understand that talent doesn’t mean intelligence, motivation or personality traits. It’s an innate ability to do some specific activity especially well. British-based researchers Michael J. Howe, Jane W. Davidson and John A. Sluboda conclude in an extensive study, “The evidence we have surveyed … does not support the [notion that] excelling is a consequence of possessing innate gifts.”
To see how the researchers could reach such a conclusion, consider the problem they were trying to solve. In virtually every field of endeavor, most people learn quickly at first, then more slowly and then stop developing completely. Yet a few do improve for years and even decades, and go on to greatness.
The irresistible question - the “fundamental challenge” for researchers in this field, says the most prominent of them, professor K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University - is, Why? How are certain people able to go on improving? The answers begin with consistent observations about great performers in many fields.
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How to Make Six Figures, Each and Every Year
January 24, 2008
If you read this, statistically you are not making a six figure income. We would all like to get make a lot of money so that we can be financially independent, but not all of us are willing to do what it takes together there. You can’t just take an application down to a major corporation and expect six figures; you have to do some work to get there. If you’re up for the challenge, here’s how you can earn at least $100,000 each year.
The first thing you need to do is choose the right profession. Some jobs are just a lot better paying than others. You won’t make six figures being a janitor. This statement is pretty obvious, yet so many people ignore this information and get that psychology major anyway. This does certainly not mean you should try to be an actor, because Tom Cruise makes millions of dollars for each movie he’s in. You should choose a career, such as finance, medicine, law, or higher education that anyone can do very well with if they work extremely hard at it. Before even considering an education, you need to figure out what you want to do, and find a niche in that industry that will pay very well.
The second thing you need to do is become the right person for the right profession. Yes, this means getting an education, whether it be self taught or through some sort of post-secondary education. Look at all of the different advertisements for the positions that you want to be, and see what they require. This will tell you exactly what you need to learn and become experienced in. Study on a part-time basis if you can’t fully commit yourself to a new education. Even if you pick out the right job, chances are you won’t make six-figures right away. Doctors have to be interns and residents before they can be part of a private practice. This is the step that requires the largest time commitment, and where many people seem to fail. If you can manage to hold out for long enough, you’ll get all of the education that you need.
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What are the Qualties of a Visionary?
January 19, 2008
By Ross Bonander
In 1899, the commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office wrote a letter to President McKinley urging him to abolish his office, noting that “everything that can be invented has been invented.” Lacking an imagination, this man’s vision was to shut down the state-sponsored hunt for innovation and new ideas. Contrary to this, a true visionary sees in ways others can’t or don’t, for whatever reason. Furthermore, visionaries across all disciplines share certain qualities, and while nothing they’ve done can be mimicked without corrupting their ideals, they stand today to inspire the rest of us to follow — not fear or reject — the direction of our own calling.
_________________visionary qualities
Conviction
Any man can disagree, but true dissent requires a rare conviction, especially when one’s thoughts or opinions face a roar of opposing voices.
In post-World War II Japan, Soichiro Honda defied a corporate culture that claimed “Japanese companies succeed as one.” He believed that Japanese corporations could benefit from the so-called American business phenomenon, which included a focus on individual achievement. He founded Honda Motor Company and put this into practice, even though he had to face disrespect and scorn from business circles and bureaucrats who tried to block Honda’s growth.
Dov Charney, founder of American Apparel, refused to believe that U.S.-based apparel manufacturers could only make money if they had their garments made in Third World countries. But he also knew that if he were to succeed, he’d have to change the way factory workers were treated. He accomplished this through highly competitive wages, paid vacations, health insurance extended to families, free English classes, direct paycheck deposits to save on check-cashing fees, and five certified massage therapists working exclusively with factory workers. The result? 2005 sales in excess of $250 million.
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