Articles on 'Career & Vocation' ↓

Is self education on the rise? Is it necessary for young people to educate themselves outside of the school system?

My Son’s Fiance, just sent me a link to an article her Sister wrote in collaboration with a couple of her journalism classmates. Their story, MakerCulture: Edupunks of the world unite!, is all about the growing trend to self education.

“The word is EduPunk and it sums up the need for educational reform — reform that, to some extent, has already begun.” “What does that mean? It means people are coming up with their own ways of educating themselves. Ways that don’t include conventional tools, but rather new devices”

Self learning, and what I perceive as a failure of the educational system, has been close to my heart since high school. I can honestly say that I largely educated myself. I took the onus upon myself because the school system as it was in my day, could not address my particular areas of interest and aptitude, early enough in the process.

High school for me then, was a boring and unnecessarily long-winded preamble. I got so fed up with it that I quit 3 months prior to graduation. Continue reading →

Young entrepreneurs have a huge potential advantage over older more seasoned business people.

“What?” you say? “We all know that experience is the best teacher, and experience comes with time and age.”

But experience can also teach us to fear; to play it safe by tried and proven methods. Experience can condition us to miss the moment. Instead of being consciously aware of our circumstance and its potential, we file our experience in the, “seen this, done that” category.

This lack of awareness can be fatal. If we take the moment for granted, we take ourselves for granted as well. We lose touch with the essence of our creativity and personal genius — our fuel for true success in business and in life. Continue reading →

Advice dealing with a reader’s fear surrounding being jobless

Sunny in Miami Fl writes:

I’m a true believer in the power of intention, work to keep myself centered in these trying times and strive to be a agent for peace and positivity in my little corner of the world.My question – how do I stay sane and centered and positive when I’ve been unemployed for 6 months and seriously risk losing everything that I’ve worked for? I really don’t want to be homeless and it’s a real possibility. I’ve looked everywhere for work and nothing nothing has come yet inside or outside areas that I qualify for.

thank you

Dear Sunny in Miami

Being unemployed triggers survival instincts and primal fears.

By genetic design, your fear sees joblessness and possible homelessness as a threat to survival. The purpose of this fear is to motivate you to take immediate action which creates the solution.

But we are human, and we humans are complex enough to thwart even the most entrenched biological imperative. Continue reading →

Customer relationship management directly impacts your happiness and job satisfaction. It is not just about the influence of effective communication skills on your employer’s business or your commissions.

Few things are more important than being happy where you spend a large portion of your time, and the bulk of your focused energy. Communication problems at work erode your quality of life, along with your job satisfaction.

If you work in a customer service business, then you’ve heard the familiar negative refrain about how picky, angry, or demanding customers are. Well, that can’t be much fun. But is it true? Continue reading →

Do you get so immersed in your work, that you lose the big picture and miss the obvious?

Well, sometimes the obvious just isn’t that interesting — but how your job influences your personal development is one obvious fact you can’t afford to miss. Rest assured that no one else will. Your career is your quickest and most powerful route to self actualization or self denigration.

Why? Because you spend 55% or more of your mental energy and creative focus on the job.

We mostly think in terms of time when we consider how much of our lives we give up for our career or employment, so it might be tempting to think that you only give 25% of yourself to your work. And that may be true if time were the only factor, but… Continue reading →