Gone are the days when you could graduate from college, find a respectable employer, and remain at the same company until you received that 50-year anniversary gold watch, a generous retirement package, and a nice pension. And even if the old-school work model was still available, I suspect many of ...

Since I left the corporate world, I’ve been having a bit of a time dilemma. When I was working in an office, I had distractions, sure. But those were all within the realm of work. Trying to stay productive here at home is a little different. So my planner and I had a come-to-Jesus meeting on F...

This post is part of a new series that I call "Soft Skills for Hard Time; How to be Your Best When the Economy is a Mess".  My goal is to get you to appreciate that your security comes from within and you can increase your security and value to the marketplace by in...

You’ve worked hard all week to meet deadlines, market yourself to new potential clients, maintain your books, and get a jumpstart on next week’s tasks. As tempting as it is to keep working in hopes of staving off an economic downturn in your own life, it’s important to schedule a l...

“To survive and succeed, every organization will have to turn itself into a change agent. The most effective way to manage change is to create it.” —Peter Drucker The creator and inventor of modern management had it right about change—the best way to manage change is to create it. Of...

Have you ever written a story, blog post, or any other piece of writing, and even after spending hours crafting your prose, you keep combing through your words over and over and over again? How do you know when enough is enough? How do you know when your best efforts are okay? How do you know when y...

You probably have editor’s brain if you’re always writing five words and deleting four, if you automatically critique every word choice (and everyone else’s), and you can pick up a newspaper or read a book and automatically spot the one error on a page. Editing skills are great to ...

If you exchange gifts during the holidays, I'll bet you received at least one gift that was totally wrong for you.  I'm talking about the gift that made you scratch your head and say to yourself "What the heck am I going to do with this?"  Perhaps aunt Maggie purchased that red-feathered fedora (s...

This post is one of the first in a new series that I call "Soft Skills for Hard Time; How to be Your Best When the Economy is a Mess".  My goal is to get you to appreciate that your security comes from you and you can increase your security and value to the marketplace by...

When was the last time you had ink-stained fingers after reading an article? It’s been a while for me. As someone who grew up around newspapers, I am almost ashamed to say this: I can’t remember the last time I picked up and read an actual newspaper. These days, I read all my news online...