Waiting for Life to Begin

CBN.com – This morning I received a life coaching request from a 28-year-old, working in the professional specialty that matches his academic degrees.

In response to the question "Why are you looking for a change?" he wrote:

I am very unhappy with what I do. I am usually a passionate person and like for what I do to have meaning and to be of value to me. In my current job, I am not able to achieve these things. I seem to be on the sidelines of my own life, waiting for it to begin.

While this is a season for shopping and spending fun time with family members, this year-end is also likely to be a time for anxiously listening for company rumors, resumé polishing, and exploring new options. For some of you, the news is already in—downsizing and the accompanying layoffs often come in more of a flurry than any snowstorm as bosses look to trim their fixed costs in a last-minute attempt to have a fresh start for a more profitable New Year.

According to Challenger, Gray, & Christmas, more than 100,000 positions were slashed in December in two of the last three years. And it seems that for every person who loses his or her job, there are 1,000 more who are worried about it.

Dont get caught unprepared. You should see yourself as self-employed in some sense—even if you have only one client currently. That will remove the feeling of being trapped and vulnerable. In addition you should do the following:

• Re-assess your direction. Are you on track, or do you need a re-alignment?
• Recognize that a change (even if unexpected or unwelcome) often wakes up old dreams. What were the dreams you had as a child? What are those recurring themes in the things you dream of doing?
• Stay informed. You should be reading magazines like Fast Company, INC, and Entrepreneur to see the best new ideas being introduced. Dont count on knowledge you got in college 20 years ago to ensure your value today.
• Make age and experience your assets. The experience you have today should make you more valuable as a candidate than what you could offer 15-20 years ago.
• Be ready to document your value. Be able to describe unique areas of competence you have refined and developed.
• Be willing to look at all the options available to you. Perhaps youve been too narrow in looking at ways to put legs on your dreams.

Welcome this end-of-year self-evaluation. Just maybe youre ready to get off the sidelines and begin living the life you were born for.

48 Days Christmas/New Years packages

48 Days Online Radio Show

Thanks for the variety of interesting questions you are submitting each week. As you know, I then scan through and answer as many as possible in each weeks 48-Minute podcast. If you could please keep your questions to about 50 words they are much more likely to make it into the lineup!

Just click on this e-mail link and you can ask about resumes, interviewing, at-home business or finding your purpose in life: AskDan@48Days.com.

If you click on the 48 Days Podcast Player here you can listen to this weeks broadcast immediately no downloading no wait.

The Customer is Not Always Right!

Recently while shopping in an Office Depot store, I overheard an angry customer blast an obscenity at a very young female clerk. She apparently did not have the information he was looking for—and he screamed that he wanted to see the manager. As the next customer, I assured the frightened clerk that the behavior she had just seen was not acceptable and should not be tolerated, but she said they are told the customer is always right. I know thats the old adage, but personally I think its nonsense.

Bad behavior, unreasonable demands, and disrespect do not have to be tolerated in business. Trying to please every customer will drive anyone crazy. Businesses that try to accommodate every customer wish or demand will realize a diminished overall effectiveness.

If you can be the leader of the most powerful country in the world with 51% of the peoples support, Im convinced you can run a very successful business without having 100% of the peoples support. Robert Kiyosaki, author of the Rich Dad, Poor Dad series says that to be a successful author you need to have one-third of the people who love you, one-third who hate you, and one-third who dont really care. Pleasing everyone likely means you have not said anything really new or significant.

Even here at 48 Days we have the occasional belligerent customer who demands a magical solution, expects results with no work invested, or questions my Christianity because we charge for materials rather than give them away. Anyone on our staff is authorized to delete that person from our database, stopping all further communication. We decided years ago to do business with happy, positive, optimistic people, people who are excited about the future they are creating and who see the many possibilities. There will always be whiners, small thinkers, and complainers.

Keep away from angry, short-tempered men, lest you learn to be like them and endanger your soul (Proverbs 22: 24-25).

Humor: Christmas Spirit

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Christmas cards.

She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Christmas stamps, please?"

Knowing many people are still buying $.02 stamps to catch up to the recent postage increase the clerk says, "What denomination?"

The woman says, "God help us. Has it come to this? Give me six Catholic, 12 Presbyterian, 10 Lutheran and 22 Baptists."

News You Can Use

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How about another turkey?
We used to hear about companies like Ben & Jerrys where the CEO decided he would never pay himself more than seven times what his average employee was being paid. By 1982 the average CEO of a large U.S. company was being paid 42 times what his average employee received. According to the December issue of Money magazine, the average CEO today makes 431 times as much as his/her average employee. Starts to make that Christmas turkey look pretty lame.

Is my business doing okay?
Feeling alone as an entrepreneur? This site offers a wide variety of useful business data for free. Check out Bizstats.com to see average profit and expense percentages of other U.S. small businesses like yours.

Will my idea work?
Here you can post your ideas for businesses and have others vote on how successful they will be—or at least how interesting they are. At Spigit.com you can have an instant team helping you with innovative technology and marketing to launch your idea successfully.