“Success means doing the best we can with what we have. Success is the doing, not the getting; in the trying, not the triumph. Success is a personal standard, reaching for the highest that is in us, becoming all that we can be.” — Zig Ziglar I’ll never forget the beginning of Jack Nicholson’s award-winning film, “About Schmidt.” It opened with a hideous shot of Warren Schmidt cramming his belongings into a box on his final day of work. After a lifetime as a life insurance actuary, Schmidt was finally packing it in. My mouth dropped to the floor. An entire life spent as an insurance actuary? What a depressing thought. The…
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What’s Gone Wrong with Our Hiring Practices And what we can do to fix them
Two years ago, I decided to make a bold move: I attempted to switch from the competitive world of freelance writing to an in-house writing position. Who knows? Maybe the Atlantic or the New Yorker were looking for another polished writer to wow their readers. After years of beating the bushes and competing with other cutthroat freelancers who undercut each other’s fees, I thought it would be a refreshing change to show up at 8:00 in the morning, put in my 8 hours, then collect a check every other Friday. The results weren’t pretty. The History of Looking for Work Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past…
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Are You Feeling Lucky? 13 ways to improve your chances of enjoying good luck
One of the most infamous scenes in cinematic history belongs to Clint Eastwood in the 1971 blockbuster, Dirty Harry. Who can forget the smarmy, squirming silhouette of Andrew Robinson facing down the barrel of Eastwood’s 44 magnum as Dirty Harry utters, “You’ve got to ask yourself a question: ‘Do I feel lucky?’ Well, do ya, punk?” While few of us have ever had the misfortune of staring down the barrel of a menacing handgun, we’ve all struggled with life, cognizant of the blessed lives other people seem to live. “Why did she get the promotion?” you complain. “I have more experience than her.” It seems like some people just have…
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Can You Be Too Niched? A best-selling author describes his experience with finding his niche
If you’re one of the courageous people who have thrown off the yoke of working for the man and decided to start a business of your own, you’ve undoubtedly wrestled with the question of who your customers are. Just who will buy your services or products? Are they men or women? What age groups do they represent? In short, who are you trying to reach? The answer of course, defines your niche. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, there were 28 million small businesses in 2010. More than three-quarters were non-employers, meaning they are owner-worker shops. They’re freelancers of every variety. Baby sitters, dog walkers and marketing specialists. They’re…
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The Mother of All Boredom Keeping entertained while at work can be a mother...
I have no idea why the bank hired me. Apart from a warm body and pulse, I didn’t have a thing to offer Ferneyhough Savings. They didn’t have much to offer me, either. Unless, of course, you count never-ending boredom and the $9.65 an hour entry level tellers make. To be honest, I didn’t even want the job. I was just trying to survive until ski season. Bank tellers are a dying breed that have succumbed to a lethal combination of online banking, electronic deposits and Square Cash. Unlike my counterparts of the 1950s who actually worked for a living, I spent the majority of my day staring into space.…