#EarningPotential #jobs #employment #GrowRich
We differentiate the “rich” and the “not so rich” not by a difference in wealth.
We may look at the rich and say something like, “if they paid me what I was worth, then I could be rich, too.”
Brian Tracy’s book, “Your Most Valuable Asset: 7 Steps to Growing Rich,” works on the premise is that your most valuable asset is your earning potential.
Basically, it says that what you do to add value to others can make you rich.
The average working person may not see that. He may see himself as adding value to his boss, but that boss is not adding nearly as much value to him.
He may feel overworked, underpaid and completely used. He doesn’t see himself as wealthy, or potentially so. He may not even see himself as worth much at all.
“Your earning ability is like farmland – if you don’t take excellent care of it by cultivating and tending to it on a regular basis – it soon loses its ability to produce the kind of harvest you desire,” Tracy writes.
Successful people, Tracy adds, work daily to keep increasing (their earning abilities’) productive value, to keep up with the marketplace demands.
The marketplace Tracy refers to is indeed fickle. Once day, your boss loves what you are doing. The next day, you get a termination package or, worse, a layoff notice. The great work you did yesterday becomes meaningless.
Therefore, you must convince someone else in the marketplace that you have value.
Entrepreneurs have to do that every day.
So, if the worst happens, and the current person you are offering value to no longer values you, what should you do next?
First, don’t beat yourself up. The marketplace changes. You’re loved one day, and are dispensable the next. This isn’t your fault.
You might find a new person who values the skills you have.
Perhaps you could re-evaluate your skills, and, if necessary, acquire new ones to better conform to today’s marketplace needs.
Or, you can think outside the box and look for one of the many ways to apply the skills and knowledge you have to something you may have never thought to do. If that idea intrigues you, and you want to learn about one of the best options out there to accomplish that, message me.
Finally, if you have it, lose the attitude of worthlessness. NO ONE is worthless. Everyone has something to offer, or can learn something they can offer, to the marketplace. YOU are your most valuable asset. Cherish you. Protect you. If necessary, enhance you.
The marketplace is fickle, and successful people find a way to wade through changes, or even embrace them.
Look for the best you, that you can be. It may appear through that new person that comes into your life. Be open to improve. Be open to new things. Embrace the fickle marketplace.
Flaunt your most valuable asset. Someone is waiting to check it out.
Peter
Monthly Archives: March 2017
TRAINING AN IMMIGRANT TO TAKE YOUR JOB?
#opportunity #60Minutes #immigrants #JobsLost
It’s hard to believe that a company can tell a worker, who has been on the job there for, say, 20 years and has given his life to that company, that he will be laid off.
It’s harder to believe that same company would insult that same person by telling him that he CAN’T leave until he trains his replacement – an immigrant, who will make a good bit less than he did, to do the same work. If he leaves early in disgust, he loses his severance package.
The CBS News TV show “60 Minutes” reported on this practice on its March 19, 2017, edition. The report focused on groups of technology workers at various companies who are facing this.
The report talks about immigrants getting a special H-1B visa to come over here to do specially skilled jobs that could not be filled by Americans. But, as any law, some will find a way to exploit it. Companies are doing just that, the report says.
We can debate for hours what Congress and the president should do about immigration. But this report is not about low-skilled manual laborers. This is about highly skilled, and relatively highly paid, American workers who have needed skills, yet are getting kicked in the teeth.
It’s worse than digging one’s own grave, a worker told correspondent Bill Whitaker.
So, let’s break this down. If you have skills that are in demand, and believe you will never lose your job, think again.
If you believe the immigration problems in the U.S. are driven solely by immigrants, think again. This is a business-driven problem. There can be no reason this is going on, other than companies wanting to make or save money, no matter who is affected. These companies have ensured through lobbying that government isn’t going to mess with what they are doing.
So, logically, one could think, why are these immigrants, who obviously have skills they could parlay in their own country, coming here and agreeing to work for that much less in American dollars? It’s easy to presume that they are doing it because they are still making more than they would in any other country.
That’s may be true, but there may be another reason, and it has nothing to do with doing anyone any harm. It’s been said that one in 10 people who come to the United States from elsewhere become millionaires. That’s an astounding statistic. So these highly skilled folks may see potential opportunity to get rich by, say, inventing something, that they may not have in their home countries.
To back that up, Thomas Heath, in The Washington Post, reports that in Forbes Magazine’s annual list of the 400 richest Americans, a record 42 of them are immigrants from 21 countries. Heath’s story was also published in the March 20, 2017, edition of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
The fact that immigrants would make less than their American predecessors did, in the first job that brought them to the U.S., is insignificant to them. The OPPORTUNITY to be in the United States, and to do something great, is what drives them.
There is good news in all this for those displaced, highly skilled American workers. There are many vehicles out there for them to create their own, potentially lucrative, income, too. They may not know about them, or they may even believe that they cannot do what would be asked of them. Yet, they can potentially be not just financially stable, but potentially financially free, without that job they lost.
Such vehicles are available to anyone, regardless of race, education or background. To check out one of the best, message me.
In sum, immigrants WILL come, when they see opportunity. Companies will take advantage of every loophole in every law to improve their bottom lines. As a worker, there is little you can do about it. Your future is in your hands, no matter what happens to you.
Even if laws are changed, new loopholes will be created. The lesson here: ways to potentially fire the boss before he fires you are out there. Don’t be afraid to look for them, and look at them. You never know what someone, either already in your life or who will come into your life, may have his hands on. It could be a lifesaver for you.
As our parents used to tell us when we approached a railroad crossing that didn’t have lights or an arm that came down to block traffic when a train was coming: stop, look and listen. You never know when, or how or from whom, your opportunity will come.
Peter
HOW HARD IS IT FOR YOU TO LEAVE WORK?
#work #All-ConsumingJob #FamilyFriends #fun
You don’t work an eight-hour day.
You don’t know when to leave the office.
Even when you leave, work goes home with you.
Perhaps you’ve made a new year’s resolution to spend more time with family, friends and other people or things that give you pleasure.
But, you feel you can’t.
There’s a crisis at work you have to deal with.
Laura Petrecca discussed this topic in a Jan. 16, 2017, article in USA Today. Here are some figures quoted in the article:
• 60 percent of people have dreamed about something at work;
• 49 percent check work e-mail after work hours;
• 46 percent work during non-business hours;
• 44 percent are up at night thinking about work;
• 15 percent gave up vacation days.
Here’s another stat: the average person in Europe works about 19 percent less than the average American. Thus U.S. workers put in 25 percent more hours than Europeans, according to a study by a group of economists, quoted in an article by Ben Steverman for Bloomberg News. The article was published March 13, 2017, in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
You may know your job is eating you alive, but you fear that if you don’t put in the extra effort, you may be replaced.
News flash: you may be laid off regardless of how well you’ve performed, or how much extra effort you’ve put in.
“There is pressure globally … to do more with less,” Petrecca’s article quotes Patrick Kulesa, director of employee research at Willis Towers Watson.
So what does one do to bring sanity back into his or her life? One way is to just stop working when you get home. Reserve your home space strictly for family, friends and pleasurable activities.
If you have an after-hours crisis at work that requires immediate attention, deal with it at work, so you can go home with a clean slate.
Or, create a Plan B for earning money in what spare time you have, so you can eventually kiss the pressure cooker goodbye. There are many such ways to do that. To learn about one of the best, message me.
Instantaneous communication has become both a blessing and a curse. Take advantage of its blessing to give you pleasure, and pay less attention to the curse that allows work to follow you home.
In short, give yourself a break. Know that no matter what you do, you are not indispensable at work. Know that your boss will not hesitate to let you go if it makes his numbers look good, regardless of the effort you’ve put in.
Leave work at work. Delegate more of what you do, if you can. If you are good at what you do, look for other options if your situation shows no end in sight.
There’s only one you. You deserve to engage in the pleasure of family, friends and enjoyable activities. Don’t let a job deprive you of that.
It’s OK to enjoy your work, but it should not control you, or keep you from other things. No matter what happens at work, learn to live well.
Peter
STORYTELLING: THE BEGINNING OF BUILDING A BRAND
#storytelling #BuildYourBrand #EverybodyHasAStory
So you are just a working stiff. You don’t need to worry about building a brand.
In fact, we probably all engage in some form of brand-building no matter where we are in life. We build ourselves into the person we want to be, which, in essence, is building your own brand.
Adrienne Weiss and Greg Weiss talk about three breakthrough secrets in their little book, “Brand Buzz.” Their secrets, the book says, are storytelling, club making and country building.
For those who are not professional marketers, we’ll focus on storytelling.
The art of telling one’s story has really come into vogue. We used to compile resumes with facts – what we did, when we did it, what titles we’d held etc. But lots of recruiting and human resources experts today encourage applicants to include stories (short ones, preferably) in their resumes.
A job title may have meant something to you, and those who worked with you, but it means very little to the prospective employer, whose organization probably has different titles for different positions.
So, the experts advise to tell a story about your experience at your past employer. For example, tell what action you may have taken to save the company money, or to boost productivity. Be as specific as you can, i.e. “Because I did this, our department was able to save the equivalent of 30 percent of its budget. “
OK, admittedly some working stiffs can’t say that. Sometimes, you have to tailor your story to what you did. Maybe you can highlight your attendance record. “I took only three sick days in my five years at the company,” would be an example.
Or, “On most days, I reported to work early and left after my shift was over. I never left a task undone for the next shift.”
Sometimes, we have to think about our story before we tell it. Anyone can make widgets, but could anyone do it with the speed and quality that you can?
These days, too, stories become more important. Employers don’t often take the time to call references. Or, if they do, the reference may be under orders to say only that you worked there, from date X to date Y, for fear of a lawsuit or some other type of retaliation.
In other words, you have to blow your own horn by telling your own story.
How one casts a story is as important as the facts in the story. You can spell out the results of your actions with dramatic flair, instead of listing a bunch of boring tasks that you had accomplished.
So, after reading this, do you still believe you don’t have a story to tell?
Are you still in search of that vehicle that will give you a great story? If you’d like to hear about one of the best vehicles to create a great, potentially very prosperous story, message me. Even the most ordinary of working stiffs can potentially not only create a great story, and the resulting potential prosperity, but help others do the same.
Remember, facts ARE important. You want your story to be TRUE. But how you incorporate the facts of your career into a great story can help you build that personal brand that is YOU. It’s not a matter of modesty. Though we love to have other people tell our story, no one can tell your story as well as you.
So, shout it from the rooftops. Tell your story with pride. Impress those prospective employers, customers etc. If you need help crafting your story, message me.
The worst stories are the ones that are never told.
Peter