By Kevin M

All the talk in the media and business world these days is about the recovery. The GDP is up, sales are up, profits are up, and executive bonuses are up. While that’s all good for some people somewhere, for many in the rank-and-file middle class it still looks and feels an awful lot like we’re still in a recession. With the unemployment rate hovering just north of 9%, for practical purposes we still are.

Millions are still unemployed—some chronically—while many others are dangling precariously close to that status in what’s become a full blown employment revolving door. If you’re unemployed, or about to be, you need to have a concrete plan of action—preferably a written one—to keep you moving forward either toward a new job or into something completely different.

And even if you do have a job and don’t think you will lose it anytime soon you might still need a plan to deal with a layoff that could come out of nowhere. These days, a missed budget or just the hint that the company’s five year plan might not pan out just six months into it is all it takes for the layoff ax to be sharpened.

An action plan has to be customized to fit your circumstances, but if you’re looking for a starting point—or a few new ideas to jump start what you have—try adding some of these to your agenda.

Set and keep a schedule

One of the unexpected complications of unemployment is the nothingness. When you have a job, you have a schedule that you’re entire life’s routine is wrapped around. But when the job is gone, so is the schedule and the regimentation it creates. There are times we all rebel against regimentation, as if it’s the ogre that’s controlling our lives. But closer to the truth is that it provides the structure that enables us to move forward.

If you’re jobless, you’ll have to find a way to create a new form of regimentation, otherwise you’ll find your days wasting away with little to show for them. A written schedule is best, one that includes daily activities. Some could be focused activities, like the job search. Others could be more generic, like networking and researching opportunities. Just make sure you’re doing something constructive each day.

Get serious about those networks you put off while you were employed

We all know about the importance of networking, but during the normal course of life we tend to talk about them more than participate. If you’re unemployed, networking becomes a high priority and should be part of the scheduling we just talked about. Face to face meetings are much better than online, if you can make it happen. If not, the phone is always a good second choice.

One thought here though, most of us tend to network with others who are looking for similar jobs—that has value, but probably limited at best. What you’re really doing with that is networking with your competitors and it’s hard to see where that’s any kind of advantage. Better to seek out networks of potential employers, or even people in parallel fields who might know of a job opening in your field. Sometimes it’s better to come in through the back door where there’s less traffic.

Reposition yourself as a Problem Solver

You need a job, right? But your need won’t impress an employer. With so many prospects seeking out every job, the only way to get noticed is to position yourself as an answer to the employer’s biggest problems. Few employers are looking for generalists anymore.

What are the biggest problems common to most businesses? What are the biggest problems in your industry? What are the biggest problems for a specific employer? If you can identify what these are, and establish your ability to solve them, you’ll be carving out a niche that can get you a job. It isn’t easy, in fact it might require reinventing yourself. But once you do, a few doors should open up.

Start an exercise plan

If you already have one, you can skip this step. But if you don’t, this is the perfect time to start. When you’re unemployed it’s critical that you keep moving–and that’s both figurative and literal. Physical activity makes you feel better about yourself and everything else. If you’re jobless, you’ll need to be intentional about making that happen on a regular basis.

Being unemployed can make you feel useless and sluggish, and exercise can reverse both feelings. No, it probably won’t help you land a job, but it will get you moving in an entirely different direction and that will make you feel better about being you. And THAT just might help you find a job.

Do something new everyday

Unemployment is a time to experiment, to try things you didn’t have time for when you were working. Think self-discovery. This isn’t a flight of fancy either, but part of the attempt to reinvent yourself for another charge up the mountain of life. It’s often during these “free periods” that we find that we have hidden talents and interests that can take us in entirely different directions.

Investment advisor and best selling author Douglas Casey recommends facing an uncertain future with “courage, confidence and curiosity”. If you’re unemployed, you have nothing to lose by adopting this attitude. Try something new each day, even if it’s something small and see where it leads.

Get a part time job

Yes, this will reduce your unemployment benefits, but it isn’t all about money. Sometimes you need to be actively engaged in an income generating activity for emotional purposes, and a part time job can help. You’ll be doing something that you’re getting paid to do! It’s also another way to keep moving.

You might also be able to find part time work that will help you to learn a new skill or two. Many times you can get hired on a part time basis for a job you wouldn’t be considered qualified for as a full timer.

Start a side business that you’ll keep even if you get a new job

Are there any businesses you’ve contemplated going into? Now might be the time to give it a try. You can use your unemployment benefits to help with living expenses while you’re getting started, and you’ll certainly have the time to do what’s needed. It’s a way of 1) keeping busy, 2) doing something new, 3) reinventing yourself, 4) working part time, and perhaps even 5) building a new future in which a new job will no longer be the objective.

If you’re looking for an idea for a business you can start while unemployed, check out my post, The Freelance Blog Writer Side Hustle. Blog writing is a chance to start a business small and to grow it–risk free. Once you get a new full time job you can keep doing it as a side business. And if you ever lose your job again, it won’t feel nearly as bad because you’ll already have a an income generating business in place.

If you’re unemployed or have been in the past, what have you done to keep yourself active and engaged or to prepare yourself for the next job or business venture?

By Kevin M

Having a job is a good thing—the problem is complete reliance on it! That, unfortunately, is where most people are. The loss of a job can set a chain of financial catastrophes in motion, and even threaten the survival of a person or an entire household. Is there an answer to this dilemma? Is there a way to enjoy the benefits of a steady paycheck—preferably one with medical insurance—without being so totally dependent on your employer?

There is—the answer is skills, your skills. And not just any skills but two specific types that rise above all others: transferable skills and retail skills.

Everyone brings general skills to their work—management, administrative and organizational skills, typing, computer skills, “people skills”—we can think of them as the minimum requirements for employment.

But transferable and retail skills are much deeper. They’re skills that are in demand, easily recognizable, portable and have application across different industries and business types. When you have them, your ability to earn a living is never in doubt—even if your current job is.

Transferable skills—the ticket to employment security

Transferable skills are valuable throughout your industry and even beyond. They’re the type of skills that can have a direct impact on a company’s bottom line, such as sales or web design, and can easily be verified by production numbers, a portfolio of your work or some other easily recognizable form. They’re even more valuable if you have them to a greater degree than most in the field–that means being better than average.

If you have transferable skills and you’re work is known outside your company, you probably enjoy a great deal of employment security—there’s always someone willing to hire you even if your current employer doesn’t need you any more. If you’re not at that level, you need to get there.

Most employees are content to master only the minimum skill levels needed to perform their jobs and remain with their employers. Others develop skills that are so specific to their current employer that they have little value anywhere else. There’s little thought to preparing for the next layoff, the next job or the next economic cycle. Retooling, if it comes, happens only after a long periods of unemployment and often involves a costly return to school for yet another degree.

How do you develop transferable skills before a job crisis forces your hand?

• Pick a function in your company that’s crucial to the operation of the business—or any business—and take steps to gravitate into it. All functions in a business might be important, but some are more valuable than others and that’s where you need to be.

• Take a course or two at a local college to learn the basics of a desirable new skill. That may not get you a job in the field, but it could open up some opportunities that will.

• Look for a part time job where you can “apprentice” into the new skill set.

• Develop the skill as a hobby or even as a side business and then grow into it.

• Become the resident expert at what ever you do in your job. For example, if you work in an administrative capacity, learn all you can about common software applications like Word, Excel and Power Point. With software applications, there are many practitioners but few experts. But those skills are highly transferable and if you become an expert with them, your future prospects will improve significantly.

”Retail” skills—the ticket to a future without limits

Retail skills are just what the term implies–it’s the ability to sell your product, service, or trade directly to the general public. They’re the kind of skills that are not only valuable to employers, but can readily be converted to self-employment. All options are open to you if you have them.

I had this explained to me many years ago by a plumber who came to fix my dishwasher hook-up. He pointed out the difference between plumbers who work in the building trades—where layoffs run with the boom/bust cycle in housing—and repair plumbers who work on existing systems and therefore have work (and plenty of it) on a continuous basis. Building trade plumbers don’t know repair plumbing—it’s a different function entirely—they need someone to hire them and become employer dependent. But a repair plumber can work for someone else or for himself—he’s never unemployed.

Not all jobs and careers lend themselves to retail skills, but many do. Some examples include:

• A corporate accountant who has his CPA license and also prepares income taxes seasonally.

• An IT worker in a large company who also does computer repair or web design work for private clients.

• A company salesman who develops a sideline selling a product direct to the public that’s unrelated to the one he sells for his employer. He’s good enough at selling that he can sell nearly anything so self-employment is always an option.

• A manager who has worked for several companies during her career, solving significant problems at each, and developing a substantial referral network, all of which providing the ability to develop an independent consulting business if ever she chooses to do so.

Any of these people could quickly convert to full time self-employment, selling their services direct to the general public in the event they lost their jobs or decided they no longer want one. No matter what happens, they’ll always have an income. This is the optimal situation to be in because it enables you to move back and forth between a job and your own business, or even to have both at the same time.

What if you don’t have either transferable skills or retail skills?

You can develop them–and you don’t have to wait until a job loss forces your hand.

We all have some spare time for something as important as insuring your income in the future. Identify the skills that will be a good fit for you, learn them, and then put them into practice. You can do it gradually if you have a job, or fast forward it of you don’t. If you’re unemployed, or under-employed—and many millions of people are right now—you owe it to yourself to do what you need to do to retool with the right skills.

I decided that had to develop a retail skill of my own and chose freelance blog writing. I’ve never done any kind of professional writing in my life but it’s working well for me. If you decide you need to develop retail skills, make sure that what ever it is will be something you’ll enjoy doing, comes naturally to you and is something you can sustain over the long haul.

Look at what others are doing and see if you can work that into your own skill set. It doesn’t even have to relate to your current job, but can be an adventure into something completely new. As long there’s a market for what you want to do and you have the skills to fill it, go for it.

If blog writing is a retail skill you’d like to learn check out my post, The Freelance Blog Writer Side Hustle. It’s a skill that you can work into gradually, in your spare time and from your home computer.

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By Kevin M

One year ago—just about to the day—I took my first stab at this topic in Why Earning More Money is More Important than Frugality. It was one of the most popular posts I’ve done in the two years that I’ve had this site up and running. It seemed for a while that I’d covered the topic as thoroughly as I could imagine, but the subject has hit the blogosphere with a vengeance in the past couple of weeks stimulating additional thinking.

That doesn’t mean I’ve changed my original thoughts on frugality—quite the opposite. I’m now even more convinced that I was heading in the right direction on the first go round. My comment on Len Penzo’s 100 Words On: Why Frugality Has Its Limits made me realize that the subject is even more important than I imagined and that it’s time to take it on with some fresh ideas.

Frugality in a changing world

I believe we’re in the early days of a massive era of change that will eventually earn itself a chapter or two in the history books. Think Industrial Revolution here—an event so all-encompassing that it will change life as we know it. Space doesn’t permit presenting all of my thoughts here so it’ll be the topic of a future post that I’ll roll out as soon as I get the bugs worked out of my crystal ball.

In the meantime, we can safely say that at the moment we’re living in world of changing circumstances—I’d dare say negative for most, though I think the very long term will hold many positive surprises.

When change comes, and it seems disruptive in nature, we can do one of two things. We can either circle the wagons and work to protect what we have, or we can plunge forward and try to reinvent ourselves to thrive in a very different looking world.

The obsession with frugality strikes me as part and parcel of the circle the wagons strategy. Inside the wagons, we may feel secure and think that we’re in control, but as conditions outside deteriorate they’ll eventually drag us down in spite of our best efforts.

Frugality works best when you have something approximating employment for life, in a job that pays a living wage WITH full benefits AND predictable increases in pay. In that situation, your income is reliable and rises with time. By cutting expenses and saving the difference you save your way to prosperity.

But that’s not the world we live in any more. Jobs and long term employment are no longer certain, benefits are being cut, and raises–if you get them–are puny. Frugality doesn’t work as well in that situation and isn’t a long term solution to that problem.

The ultimate solution is to move beyond the circle, charge forward and work to cut a new path. Frugality doesn’t prepare us for that, at least not the way it’s generally used.

Micro-frugality vs. macro-frugality

So I don’t risk painting with too broad a brush, let me say that I think there are different types of frugality, and I can identify two as general categories.

Micro-frugality. This type of frugality is searching two dozen expenses for savings in each in the hope that collectively they’ll reach the level of real money. While that may (or may not) happen, the effort itself is exhausting, and requires constant vigilance. It has us researching, analyzing, discussing and executing cuts in nearly all expenses that make up our financial lives, and the effort can easily rise to the level of a part time job.

Macro-frugality. This is cutting the two or three biggest expenses that have the greatest impact on your finances. If your house is costing you $2000 per month between the basic house payment, utilities and upkeep, you replace it with one that you could live in for $1200 a month. A car with a $600 payment is replaced by a used car with no payment.

Macro-frugality makes abundant sense, especially if you’re trying to lighten your load to make a career push forward. You cut the structural expenses—which often causes other expenses to drop as well—and let the rest go. It’s better because you make two or three major changes and then move on. Simple, with maximum effectiveness.

Micro-frugality on the other hand, has us buried in small details. While we should be focused on generating fresh income streams, we’re busy plugging small leaks in our budget. What’s the end game to that strategy?

Is frugality motivated by a hatred of work?

That’s a strong statement but before you judge me too harshly for writing it, I came up with it while reading the comments posted on a New York Times article, Forget Frugality: Focus on Earning More.

The article was written by Ramit Sethi at I Will Teach You To Be Rich, an author and personal finance blogger who’s been very outspoken in his criticism of the frugality faith. There were 90-something comments responding to the article, and from the 40 or so that I scanned, the responses were overwhelmingly negative. I’d even go so far as to say that some of them were hateful, as though Ramit struck a deep emotional nerve.

Why the rabid responses? Ramit was suggesting that rather than use their free time to find new ways to save money, that they instead find ways to earn more money. That was the bone of contention—the frugal wanted to save money precisely so they wouldn’t have to work more.

But was Ramit suggesting that they become workaholics? Hardly. He was suggesting that they think long term. What he was pointing out was that the better use of spare time is to use it to earn more money so that credit cards and other loans can be paid off or savings can be accumulated. With less debt and/or more savings, structural improvements in life take place ultimately resulting in less work, more free time and more money. Its old fashioned work-save-invest, but the masses apparently want no part of it—too much work in the short run.

The primary risk of over-emphasizing frugality

Ever wonder why human beings are creatures of habit? It’s because life is easier that way. We don’t want to have to stop and think about everything we do, to hatch new ideas for the things we do every day, especially those that are mostly about survival. Going into automatic pilot is what we might think of as “brain save mode”, and there’s a good reason for that.

Each of us has only so much creative capacity, and so much time. True, some people are more creative than others, but all of us have the ability. The difference is primarily that some people make better use of their creative skills than others. The same is true of time. Each of us have only 24 hours a day, and much of that is consumed by work and sleep, leaving precious little time for much else.

That begs an obvious question: what are we spending our creative energy and time on?

Are we going to spend it analyzing four cell phone plans to see which is the cheapest? Running from store to store to see who has the best price on laundry detergent? Investing 100 hours of our time on research and efforts to weather proof the home so we can save $25 a month on energy bills?

All of these can seem like noble pursuits, but making a deep dive into details can also be a form of creative avoidance–that’s majoring on the minors, and it’s guaranteed to keep us right where we are.

That’s the risk that frugality brings—that the lions share of our creative energy and time will be dedicated to what amounts to an effort to keep what we have. In a period of changing circumstances and declining economic fortunes, will that be enough? Will it move us successfully into the future? I have serious doubts.

Yes, income generation IS more important

Frugality has its place—certainly macro-frugality does—but what I’m challenging is the notion of frugality as some sort of overriding financial guiding principal. That’s a role it can never fill. If your income shrinks down to zero, you won’t be able to cut enough expenses to survive.

Only by increasing income and generating new sources can we move forward, but it may be even more important than that. Why?

1. Jobs and careers are disappearing fast, and many of us need to completely retool in order to be economically relevant

2. Employers are no longer providing the type of training that will lead us to relevant new careers (they too are circling the wagons and have largely abandoned forward strategies like training in favor of cost cutting and survival)

3. Entrepreneurial skills are becoming critical as the choice for the unemployed is increasingly between self-employment and no employment

4. Developing multiple income streams may be the single best survival strategy in a world where fulltime, fully benefited, living wage jobs are becoming increasingly rare

5. University educations are not only prohibitively expensive, but the coursework is increasingly out of step with the most recent developments in the economy and job markets

6. Developing new businesses and income streams will take time, so the time to get started is now

Income earning ability is our single greatest financial asset. Our overriding financial principle then needs to be that we’ll always have an income—preferably a generous one. Making that happen is now completely up to us, and where we spend our creative energy and time will determine how well we do on that front more than anything else.

If you’re looking for a way to spend more time earning income to help your cash flow, check out my post, The Freelance Blog Writer Side Hustle. Even if you’ve never written professionally in the past, this post will help you get started converting your passions and interests into an income earning business that you can work in from the comfort of your own home.

Your thoughts?
 

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By Kevin M

Money Reasons did a review on a book called How Rich People Think. I commented on the post, and it got me to thinking about some issues that may go deeper than rich versus non-rich. As much as we might want to think of rich and non-rich as a state of being, there are components to each that make them happen—a mechanical process perhaps.

Much of that seems to come down to how we think about money. Money is the conventional dividing line between rich and poor, but it seems that our attitude toward it—whether we see money as an obstacle or as an opportunity —seems to have a huge impact on where we go with it.

So how exactly do we define obstacle and opportunity mindsets as it relates to money? Rather than attempting a deep analysis, we might be better to focus on examples of each type of thinking. In this way, we can not only see our own thinking, but we might also see how it either holds us back or pushes us forward.

Money as an obstacle

If you see money as an obstacle, you’re likely to see common ground with several of the following:

• You’re mind is never far from your pile of bills
• A single large bill has you in a state of near paralysis
• You worry about potential upcoming bills
• You hope you can make it to the end of the month; next month, the same cycle will repeat as it has for years
• Your financial M.O. is centered on crisis management
• You’re scared to death that you’ll lose your job—and have no idea what you’ll do then
• You don’t particularly like your job, but you play the “go-along-to-get-along-(hopefully)-until-retirement” game
• You’ve stopped entertaining serious thoughts about what you’d actually like to do for a living
• Your house and car are important components of who you are
• You fixate on your employer paid benefit package
• A comfortable retirement is the holy grail of you financial plans
• You worry about how other people will perceive your financial situation
• You live for weekends and vacations
• You’re more concerned with keeping what you have than with advancing in your career and finances
• You mostly think that luck is the main reason other people are successful
• You periodically dabble in TV infomercial get-rich-quick schemes, hoping that you’ll discover your own lucky streak along the way
• Your dreams have morphed into wishes and outright fantasies

This list is long but please know that it isn’t an attempt to insult anyone. It’s easy to come up with so many examples because most of us are either in this mindset or were raised in it. You might even say that it’s the default financial mindset.

Look at the list in total, rather than at any one of its components. Notice that the thinking effectively puts you into a box. There are no doors, no windows, no way out—in other words, you’re stuck! Because you’re surrounded by fires that need to be put out, there’s never time, money or mental energy to move forward to a better life.

The money-as-an-obstacle mindset mostly repels money, which ironically keeps its absence as the central focus in your financial life.

Money as an opportunity

If you see money as an opportunity, you’re likely to see common ground with several of the following:

• Money is a resource to be channeled, leveraged and increased
• Money is a tool that buys the really important stuff, like free time, exciting adventures, interesting experiences, freedom from worry and choosing your own destiny
• Houses and cars are important, but not if they get in the way of the really important stuff
• Pursuing opportunity is the goal—there is no end game
• Problems are details that need to be solved
• You avoid having a big pile of bills, but if you ever find yourself with one and it’s interfering with your pursuit of the really important stuff, you’ll get rid of the bills and what ever amenities that are producing them
• Nothing is certain, but you’re willing to try anyway
• You see life as a dynamic, not as a status quo, and that dynamic plays into your life’s plans
• You see a day—any day—as an opportunity to do something important
• Retirement is not the goal—living a rich and fulfilling life is
• Building a box is for others; your life is “out there”…somewhere
• Investment losses don’t paralyze you; wealth building is a process and you’re in it for the long haul—you avoid high risk speculations for exactly this reason
• You must be self-employed—there are risks to this, but a traditional job will get in the way of the really important stuff in your life and could never contain your ambitions
• Being concerned with what others think of you or your finances gets in the way of the life you’re trying to lead, so you don’t bother yourself with it
• You associate mostly with like-minded people, who feed and strengthen your convictions
• Your like-minded friends are providing you with opportunities you would never have discovered or mastered on your own

Thinking of money as an opportunity doesn’t guarantee that you’ll be rich but it does seem to attract money and it’s easy to see why. Money is held up not as the solution, but rather as a tool, an enabler, that gets the opportunist what it is he truly seeks in life.

Ironically it’s also a freer way to live. The opportunist may decide, for example, that if a house in the suburbs with a big mortgage is an obstacle to his better life, then the house will have to go. Among the obstacle crowd, this would be a heresy.
 

Our minds work much the way the rest of our bodies do—repetition and regular exercise create new patterns and habits. Do you believe that coming to think of money as an opportunity is a state of mind worth creating?

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Imagine Being Owned By No One

By Jacob Mojiwat

Being at sea for long periods of time can be isolating. You cannot access the Internet or reach your friends and family at a moments notice, but there is something wonderful about being out in a world that is just you, your crew, your boat, and the elements. I find that many of the principles I live by are ideas that I formed while I was out on these adventures, away from civilization.

Here are the main ideas that I’ve been contemplating lately, and find to be truly relevant in day-to-day life:

Sometimes you have to swim against the current if you want to get to where you are going

There are so many times in life when it feels as though everything is going wrong. They say bad luck comes in threes, but all too often it comes in a tidal wave, or at least a swiftly flowing current that feels as though it will wash us away. It is hard to swim against that current. It would be so much easier, and more peaceful, to drift along with it.

Maybe it would be easier to take a job that I don’t like rather than to keep struggling to make ends meet, while applying again and again for jobs that I truly want. Maybe it would be easier to stay in a relationship that my friends and family approve of, with a partner who is financially secure, rather than getting involved with someone I am passionate about who also happens to live a life on the margins of society, struggling to get by. Maybe it would be easier to easier to heat up a frozen pizza and spend the evening watching TV, rather than exercising and cooking a healthy meal afterwards.

The thing is, though, that if I drift with that current, it will wash me out to sea. Maybe I was hoping to explore a coral reef. Maybe I wanted to take some underwater photos. Maybe I just needed to get back to my boat. The current might be strong and really tugging on me, but at times, if I want to get to where I am going, I have to push back and find the strength in myself to swim against the current.

What always surprises me is that once I start swimming against the current, it is never as hard as I thought it would be. It isn’t a back-bending effort. Instead, it’s liberating and exhilarating to accomplish something that I set my mind, and body, to do.

At sea, it’s best to wear a life jacket

I don’t think I have to tell you why life jackets are important. They can save your life. We may think we don’t need a life jacket though, as I have gone boating many times with people who told me they were strong swimmers, the weather forecast was good, that the life jackets were too heavy, too bulky, too much of a nuisance. I just ignore them and tell them to wear the life jackets anyway. Why would I do that? I’m an independent thinker and I believe in swimming against the current. Why insist on a life jacket?

Because life happens, that’s why. You can’t really predict the weather. Even a strong swimmer can get hit on the head or faint or get sick. Likewise in life, at sea or on land, we all need an emergency plan. Especially if you, like myself, believe in swimming against the current. If you’ve done something that nobody in your support network of friends and family approves of, then you have to be ready to go it alone. And that means planning ahead and taking precautions. Don’t live beyond your means and always set aside a little money for emergencies.

Find a good friend or family member who you trust to be your emergency contact, in case you need help suddenly. Think ahead about the various ways in which life could take an unexpected turn and plan ways to cushion the impact when it does. I can’t predict the weather, but I can guarantee you one thing – life happens. And when it does, you’ll be better off if you’ve anticipated the unexpected.

The fishing is better after a storm

I love storms. The more thunder and lightning, the better. But there are times in life when we go through storms that are not exciting or fun. Storms that are more like hurricanes or tornadoes, that come through our life and wreck our plans for the future, leaving us marooned, stranded, or adrift.

I can’t tell you that there’s anything enjoyable about going through alife storm, whether it’s a physical and meteorological storm, or an emotional, financial, or occupational storm. But you know what they say about weather; if you don’t like it, be patient because it will always change. Once the storm is over, you can walk on the beach and pick up unusual seashells, or you can go fishing. If you can simply take time to relish the calm and be open to possibility, your intuition will guide you to something new and
wonderful.

There is something to be said for “no wake” zones

Nobody likes having to slow down. We all want to get to where we are going and in a hurry, in possible. This is particularly relevant to me as I am often running late. But in a no wake zone, we have to slow down – a lot. I guess this is what city people experience when they get stuck in rush hour traffic. It’s what athletes experience when they have an injury. It’s what parents experience when they have to stay home with sick kids and cannot go to work. Like it or not, you have to slow down.

If you have to slow down, whether you like it or not, then you might as well try to find peace with it. I’m not a Pollyanna or even an optimist, particularly. In fact, I can be as pessimistic as they come. But at sea you have to be practical and budget your resources. If you are in a situation where you are forced to slow down and take some time, then it makes sense to budget that time to rest and renew your spirit.

Later, when you are rushing forward and desperately trying to make up time, you won’t be able to rest. Rest, meditate, and take time to enjoy life when you can, or you will burn yourself out. Humans are not perpetual motion machines so we need to take time to do our own routine maintenance. Otherwise, you’ll blow a gasket later on when you don’t have time for it.

Even with a flashlight, you can only see so far ahead

My underwater camera has a flash that will allow me to take pictures even when it is very dark, but even with a flash, you can only see a certain well-defined area within the circle of light. Beyond that, there is nothing but inky blackness. In fact, using a flashlight to try to see better makes it easier to see the area right in front of you, but makes it harder to see into the distance.

Sometimes that is true in life as well. We all get lost or off track at times, even with GPS. Wise seamen know that even if you don’t know where you are, you are somewhere. Don’t panic – if a storm comes up, do what you have to and ride it out. Being prepared beforehand will keep you better off if you find yourself in the dark. Eventually you will find your way out again, so don’t be afraid.
 

I truly believe that living these principles of the sea in everday life, is the key to success. Slow down, be prepared, and when the unexpected happens, you’ll be ready for it.

Jacob Mojiwat is passionate about the ocean and water sports. Currently he is sharing the wonders of scuba diving in Malaysia with others. His company puts together Asia diving packages for an unparalleled diving experiences.

Controlling our tendency toward Creative Avoidance

By Kevin M

How is it that that some people seem enormously successful, yet astoundingly they have more free time than the rest of us? Have you ever noticed as well that some people who are incredibly busy are at best only moderately successful? Perhaps you’re one of them, always busy, but not having as much to show for your efforts as you think you should.

The typical human reaction to this apparent contradiction in the natural order of things is to assume that the successful person with all the time on his hands is a) lucky, b) has an “in” with important people, and even c) must be doing something unethical, immoral or illegal.

While each of those considerations isn’t beyond the realm of possibility, there’s a far greater chance that the successful person with all of the free time on his hands has found a way to
maximize his results while minimizing his efforts. He manages to do this by saying “NO” to unproductive tasks, either by making it clear to others up front that he won’t engage himself in them, or by simply refusing to participate.

Logically, isn’t that what we should all be doing?

Being busy won’t get you where you want to go

No one wins a prize, lands an important client or earns the biggest paycheck as a result of being the busiest person. Having been in that very position myself, I’ve learned that the busiest person in a company, department or family is often the organizational enabler, making it possible for others to engineer great accomplishments.

Sadly, the busiest person in an organization isn’t even the person most likely to be promoted. That’s quite possibly because the decision makers want the busy person right where she is, cleaning up and plugging holes for others. Every organization needs just such a person doing exactly what she does right where she is.

There’s nothing wrong with being diligent, with being the “go-to” guy or girl in your organization, but if you want more out of your job or career, or want to break into something completely different, you’ll need to get over your addiction to busyness and focus your efforts primarily on activities that will put the most money in your pocket—majoring on the majors!

In order to do that, we need to learn to say “no” or to otherwise disengage ourselves from unproductive activities.

Majoring on the minors

When your income is thoroughly dependent on accomplishing a relatively small number of major projects that define your career, all that efficiency you develop on small tasks becomes counter productive.

We can become so comfortable handling a large number of small tasks in assembly line fashion, that major projects can “get in the way”, always being relegated to the bottom of a never ending To Do List!

Being massively efficient in getting small tasks done can produce a false sense of security. We’re busy getting a lot of details taken care of so we feel as if we’re productive. But if we finish many small tasks and by the end of the day we haven’t completed that one major project or closed sale, we’ve failed to make meaningful progress. A complete shift in mindset is required.

Getting out of the weeds

We’ve all heard the term, “you can’t see the forest for the trees”, and that’s basically what happens when we get so caught up in the details of our business that we’re deep in it, but never on top of it. In that position we’re unaware of the big picture and thus unable to work it to any real advantage.

What can we do to get out of the weeds and centered on majoring on the majors in our careers or businesses?

Establish priorities. At the risk of being redundant, the priority must become the priority! All other distractions need to be delegated, discarded or otherwise minimized. The reality of life is that there will always be endless details that need to be attended, and we need to find ways to manage these. Succeeding at one major activity has more life transforming potential than accomplishing a dozen minor tasks efficiently.

Clear away the clutter. Look for ways to simplify life. We buy things and involve ourselves in more activities than we can comfortably accommodate. In business, if something isn’t working, get rid of it. Also eliminate business activities that are only marginally useful. The key is to clear your desk and your schedule to spend as much time as possible on activities that put money in your pocket.

Focus on the major objective. Our major objective has to be in front of us at all times, otherwise “urgent but not important” tasks will continue to dominate our time and energy. Only by concentrating our most productive time and efforts on life changing activities can we hope to get from where we are to where we want to go. The objective must be central in our thinking and planning. Use placards or computer screen savers posting your major objective so you’ll always be aware of it, then prepare to always work the details around the objective.

Concentrate on the one or two things you do best. Most of us can do one or two things very well, but when we get caught up trying to do too many things, we become the preverbal “jack of all trades, master of none”. While the rest of the world works 40, 50, 60 hours per week and more, many successful people work only 20-30 hours. But the entirety of that time is spent working on activities that put money in their pockets. We can’t balance the trivial with the meaningful, because the trivial has no constructive limit. And no matter how much of the trivial we work on, it won’t change our circumstances.

Jack Canfield, Mark Victor Hansen (see ad banner to the left of this post) and Les Hewitt, success coaches and authors of The Power of Focus: What the Worlds Greatest Achievers Know about The Secret of Financial Freedom and Success (available at Amazon) had this to say on the subject:

“Working harder and longer hours will not solve your dilemma…You must invest most of your time every week doing what you do best, and let others do what they do best.”

“Remember, your bottom line income is directly linked to the amount of time spent in our areas of brilliance.”

Manage your time. Learn what times of the day you’re most productive, and dedicate that time to your major objective. It’s not always a matter of time invested, but the quality of the time that makes the difference. If you’re a morning person, block out the first four or five hours of each day for your major objective, and hold detail work for later in the day. The key is to give your major objective your best time.

Guard your non-business activities. One of the often ignored “details” in life is what we do in our non-business time. In trying to accomplish anything worthwhile, we may have to give up some un-productive spare time activities in favor of greater effort at our major objective. One of the biggest time wasters is television, but it has plenty of company in the form of computer games, shopping and various gadget obsessions. Simplicity requires that we eliminate as many non-essential past times as possible. Upshot: once we begin succeeding in our major objective, we’ll have even more time for non-business activities.

Take charge of “people issues”. Do you have people in your life who always need your attention? You know, the type who always seem to have a crisis going on. And always said person comes to you to help them weather the storm. The problem is that their storm never seems to end, and neither does your involvement. If you have people like this in your life, you may need to find a way of gently moving them out of your way. Immediate family are your obligations, but friends, coworkers and extended family are another matter entirely. It’s one thing to help someone through a crisis, but quite another when their entire lives are one giant crisis. This is draining emotionally, and it will take away from your major objective.

 
The key is to focus your best time on your goals—to major on the majors—to minimize attention to never ending detail and learning to say “no”, either literally or figuratively, to people and activities that take you away from that objective.
 

If you’re making a significant change in your life, what are some methods your using to keep you focused on majoring on the majors?”

By Dave “Gonzo” Kelly

That is what Fortune (Charles S. Dutton) asks of Daniel “Rudy” Ruettiger near the end of the movie “Rudy”. This is after Rudy has been denied the opportunity to dress (be on the sideline in uniform) for the final game of his senior season at Notre Dame. Rudy was never good enough to be a member of the team, but he spent two years working harder than anyone as a member of the practice squad. At the end of his junior year, Notre Dame head coach Ara Parseghian promised to let Rudy dress for a game during his senior season due to his hard work and dedication.

But after Rudy’s junior season, Parseghian decided to retire.

The new coach, Dan Devine, did not know about this promise, nor did he intend to let Rudy dress for a game. Rudy went through the entire season checking the weekly dress schedule and never saw his name on it. After the schedule for the final game was posted and his name was not on it, Rudy decided to quit. He walked out of the locker room determined to miss his final practice.

Then he ran into Fortune, who had been a mentor to Rudy. And Fortune reminded him of who he was.

Rudy returned to practice. The seniors rallied to his side and convinced the coach to let him dress. He even got into the game for the final couple of plays. The movie ends with Rudy being carried off the field by his teammates. But it almost never happened!

What if he had not gone back to that practice? What if the example he had set had not resonated with his teammates? What if he had actually given up? Then he would never have known victory.

And he was only moments away from it.

I have to admit that even me, the master motivator, sometimes wonders if I am going to truly make it as a professional speaker. As an artist, if you go for even a short period of time without an engagement, you can get discouraged. You think you will never get booked again. But, you cannot think like that because victory is right around the corner!

Just as I was in a low point, I had a big victory the other day. My blog & video posted at CampusTalkBlog called “Building Leaders Through Community Service” that I referenced above had been viewed by over 250 people on the very first day!

But what if I had given up before writing that blog?

I believe the blog will result in some speaking engagements for me, however, the most important thing is that more students will become involved in community service because I am able to share my experiences and knowledge about servant leadership.

Press on! Don’t give up! Pursue your dreams!

Victory is right around the corner!

Do you need a great inspirational speaker for your next event? No matter what you call it, I am available for your next conference, convention, conclave, convocation, reunion, rally, workshop, ed session, orientation, meeting, before/during/after breakfast/lunch/dinner, gathering, commencement, groundbreaking, team building, staff development, leadership retreat, continuing education, ceremony, assembly, congress, council, confab, forum, roundtable, symposium, opening session, closing session, or any session in between. My career story is also a feature here at Professional Speaking—Turning a Hobby Into a Career. I am available for speaking engagements either through my website or by emailing Kevin at OutOfYourRut

By Kevin M

Now might not be the best time to make a job or career change, but does that mean you have to sit where you’re at and just tough it out until better times come along and open up the doors of opportunity? Well, don’t go quitting your job, but there’s plenty you can (and should) do right now to get yourself prepared for the day when…

Start preparing yourself now for the place you want to be when the economy starts to creep back—many of the best opportunities will come as the elevator begins to rise, and pre-positioning yourself for that moment is something you don’t have to wait to start.

Preparing for the career

Even though you may not be in a position to enter your chosen career or business right now, there are specific areas you can work on now that will speed entry when the time comes.

Network and make connections that will help you make the move when the time comes. Even if you have no contacts presently, begin reaching into the new field any way you can. The internet offers networking opportunities in nearly any business you can imagine. This will be a way to collect valuable contacts—or even job prospects—before you even leave your present job.

Enroll in any training or certification programs needed. Some careers and businesses require certification or completion of training in order to enter. Often such programs can take months to complete. If time permits, now might be the perfect time to begin. In fact, now may be the best time if you already have a steady paycheck; that may not be the case if you wait until you enter the new field since certain fields bar entry until you have satisfied the requirements.

Add or update skills that will enhance your marketability for a new job or career. Most careers and businesses have certain skills that are specific to the field. Find out what they are and begin learning them. Will the new field require public speaking, different computer software, use of unfamiliar equipment? Find out what they are and begin learning them, it’ll shorten the learning curve when you finally make the jump.

If it’s a new career or business, look for part time work in that field so you can gain experience and make some contacts. If you’re anxious to jump in and get a leg up on your new career or business, one of the very best ways to do it is by taking a part time job in the field. Not only will you get training and contacts, but working and earning a paycheck—even a small one—will make the transition real. If you’re having difficulty landing a part time job, try looking for one during the industry’s busy season when opportunities will be more plentiful.

Find a mentor and learn all you can. Enter a new field and one thing is absolutely certain: you will make mistakes. Many of those mistakes can be avoided if you can become friendly with someone who’s already working in your desired field and who is willing to share the dos and don’ts of the trade. Avoiding mistakes can be a career saver.

Preparing outside the career

Not all preparations are related directly related to the new career itself. Many will be in the area of preparing your personal life for the change ahead.

Motivational techniques—books, cd’s websites, seminars to keep the juices flowing. If you’ve been on your current job long enough you may be in that dreaded state of going through the motions. You know the job well, and you find it boring. That’s not a good state of mind to enter a new career. Start working now to find sources of motivation that will get your fires burning and have you ready to step up when the time comes. Getting and staying motivated is critical in any production related career.

Cutting you’re living expenses to be prepared for a drop in income, should that be the case. More often than not, a career change brings a lower income. Start preparing your finances for this now. Much of the cost of living is habit; adapt your thinking and actions to a lower income and that’ll be one less hurdle you’ll have to deal with when the career change comes. The better you can manage on a reduced cash flow, the greater the likelihood of success in the new venture.

Saving up money and paying off bills to get yourself financially prepared for the move. Much of the risk and anxiety that comes with career change can be reduced by a large bank account. If you normally have $5000 in your savings account, be purposeful about increasing it to $10,000, or even $20,000, if time and income permit. The more savings you have behind you, the more confident you’ll be when you strike out into the unknown.

Start a diet and exercise program. Energy level is an overlooked factor in career success. People who have it are usually more successful than their peers because they have greater capacity to produce. Equally important, in starting a new career or business, you’ll absolutely need greater energy to deal with the stresses of managing a new venture. All of that is better accomplished if you’re in better physical condition.

Build up your social network. If you’re going into a new venture, you’ll need strong social support. Any time we step outside our comfort zones, there will be stresses and unpleasant surprises. Having family and friends nearby can help insulate us from that stress.

Still feel like the bad economy has you stuck in a going nowhere job? Now you’ve got plenty to keep you busy while you’re stuck. Get enough of these action steps line up in the right direction, and the day to make your move might come a lot sooner!

STRATEGY #9 TO SURVIVE A DOWN ECONOMY

By Kevin M

In the best of times, borrowing seems to be a sensible way to get the things we want but can’t afford to purchase in full right now, but we’re sure we can tackle later with a predictably increasing income stream.

But when economic fortunes shift into low gear—as they are now—the same debt accumulated during better times can become a heavier burden, even one which is impossible to bear. Other than paying debt down and eventually off completely, there isn’t much we can do about the debt already accumulated. But the Great Recession should be a wake up call to all who might have come to view debt as a traveling companion in life.

In 10 Ways To Survive a Down Economy (published on Christianpf.com June 1) we listed ten strategies to help you deal with the bad economy. Our topic for today, Strategy #9:

”Envision a future without debt, and then pursue it.” Gradually pay down—then pay off—your debt. This includes your mortgage. It should go without saying that lowering your cost of living will be a crucial element in this effort as well. (Are you noticing a pattern?)”

Is that even possible any more?

Stop the madness

Even if you haven’t lost your job in this economy, there are enough people who have that you have effectively been forewarned. Debt is NOT your friend, and if you harbor any notions that it is, now is a stellar time to change that view.

Here are steps you can take to get the situation under control if you now have substantial debt:

1. Stop taking on new debt—new debt it not the solution for old debt
2. Cut your living expenses immediately
3. Build up a savings cushion large enough that you can live without credit
4. Once you have a chunk of savings, begin paying down your debt with any system you’re comfortable with
5. If you have debts you can’t pay, contact the lender and attempt to work out a settlement for a reduced payoff; if you have savings, you may be able to get a better settlement with a cash offer.

Once out of debt, stay out of it. If you have to pay for something with a credit card, you can’t afford it. Find a cheaper way. Buy second hand cars and pay cash. If you need financing for college, go to a less expensive school, work your way through and keep any student loans to a bare minimum. Student loans aren’t manna from above, they’re hard debts that will need to be paid back in an uncertain future.

If you buy a house, make the largest down payment possible (20% minimum), keep the term short (15 years) and plan on monthly prepayments to wipe it out sooner. Buy a less expensive home that will enable you to finance under those terms, and if you can’t, you might be better off renting. The practice of perpetual debt has been the undoing of the current housing market.

Save your optimism for your career, your health and your social life, but don’t bet real money that you’ll be able to pay for something over time that you can’t afford now. That thinking has proven to be a sucker bet for too many households right now.

A return to the recent past, or a different kind of future?

For many today, the 1990s are a decade remembered as a time approximating what we might call “normal”, that is, it was a time of economic stability and growth. But often when we think of a time as normal, what we really mean is something more favorable, even desirable, and those were the conditions that prevailed for most of that decade. No one knows whether or not we’ll return to the level of prosperity seen in the 1990s, a decade of low unemployment, low gasoline prices and low interest rates, and what seemed like a certain future. But here’s a clue: the circumstances that produced that gilded decade—the collapse of the Soviet Union and of oil prices in the aftermath of the Gulf War—were events of historic proportions, unlikely to be repeated.

If we’re going to look to the past for clues to the future, we can’t focus our attention on any one time period, especially the more recent ones. The predictable prosperity of the 90s doesn’t in any way invalidate the very different conditions that existed in most of the current decade, or of the 1970s or the Great Depression of the 1930s, another event of historic proportions that molded the spending and savings habits of two generations for decades after.

No one knows what the future holds, so what do we do? Best answer: we err on the side of caution.

What that means, in practical terms, is that we structure our finances on the assumption that the future will see unpleasantness not unlike what’s been experienced in previous times. The idea of taking on debt in that environment—least of all, long term debt—should be something we seek to avoid at all costs. A debt is a fixed cost that will not fall commensurate with a drop in income. For that reason alone, it must be approached with a great deal of caution, especially in times of uncertainty or recognized weakness.

The Payoff: Living without debt

For some, living without debt means living without things that we want that debt can pay for—a form of deprivation in many quarters. But consider a different future, one in which debt doesn’t rule your life…

1. A debt-free position, combined with low living expenses and a healthy bank account balance means you’re beholden to no one.
2. Better sleep and more peace of mind.
3. Not being crushed by a job loss the way it will a more typical household.
4. You’ll still have bills to pay, but you’ll have fewer of them.
5. Less money going to pay monthly debts means more money for savings, a problem for many households even in the best of times.
6. Greater mobility, including the ability to pursue new job and business opportunities that others weighed down by debt can’t consider.
7. A life that’s more people-centered and less money-centered.
8. And finally, an unencumbered mind is a productive mind; absent the worry of debt, the ability to tap your creative energies will be more possible than ever.

What ever the future holds, yours will be more positive in everyway if you aren’t carrying a load of debt along with you.

Is that a future worth working toward?

By Dave Kelly

One of my guilty pleasures is watching the audition shows of the various performance shows like American Idol and Last Comic Standing. So, of course, I was in front of my TV last month to watch the American Idol audition shows.

Some very talented people who auditioned received the golden ticket to Hollywood.

Some really bad singers did not and they were legitimately surprised when they failed to make it to the next round! (Don’t you think some of them just had to know how bad they really were?)

Then there were those who weren’t so bad, but they didn’t get the golden ticket. These people might actually have a shot at a career in music but, for whatever reason, did not pass the judges’ muster.

It is the last group that fascinates me. Some of them were so upset. Some even begged the judges for another chance, because this competition was their only chance to make it. They knew they were meant to be in the music business and if only they could participate in the competition of American Idol, they could prove that they were worthy of such a career.

And if not chosen? I guess that in their minds, they believed that their opportunities were over. At least, that’s how it seems from the post-audition interviews.

Gee, so there is only ever one vehicle or opportunity in life for us to achieve our dreams?

And your life can be over at the age of 19.

Really?

Are you kidding me?

Well, I suppose if someone is willing to give up on their “dream” so easily, then maybe it isn’t meant to be.

But, if it is real, if it is in your heart, then you can make your own break. You don’t have to be the next Kelly Clarkson or Carrie Underwood. Maybe you are more like Taylor Swift, who is a huge country artist with pop-crossover appeal who has made it on talent and persistence.

I was over 40 when I made my big break to pursue a career as a professional speaker. But even my first year of being a full-time speaker was not great. I only had 10 speaking engagements and could have easily been discouraged. But, I persevered and pushed on and tripled that number the next year. Because of my persistence and determination, my career has grown every year since.

Am I famous? No. Have I been on Oprah? No. Has MTV called me to join the cast of Real World: Motivational Speakers? No.

Simply put, there is no single path to the achievement of your dreams. Find one that works for you. Even if you have to make your own.

There is, however, one attribute that is absolutely necessary: Belief.

Believe in yourself and you will do amazing things.

And if you believe in yourself…

…then I believe in you, too!

Dave Kelly is a professional speaker and host of the website Gonzospeaks.com, and a contributing writer here on OutOfYourRut.com. His career story is also a feature here at Professional Speaking—Turning a Hobby Into a Career. Dave is available for speaking engagements either through his website or by emailing Kevin at OutOfYourRut