A winter freeze has taken residence across parts of the country. The snow is falling, people are staying indoors and a storm is brewing outside (and in the markets) as I write these words. Although the wicked weather is a frightful mix of whipping winds, gray skies and the occasional snowflake where I live in New York, a rather large afternoon crowd took to the treadmills, weights, and steamroom this afternoon at my local gym; myself included.
This is really the time to turn up the heat and put more effort into removing holiday pounds. And with the job numbers at a new low not seen since after Katrina, it’s also a time to turn up the heat at work or in your career. Talk of recession might spark some jitters in job stability moving forward in 2008 due to the housing market mess and other fallout from the subprime crunch. It really depends on the sector in which you work. Regardless, it’s not such a bad idea to pump up the volume on your image at work or in business. Here’s a few ideas to get you started:
I heard it in the distance. Those feelings that hearken from childhood, emerged. But I was on deadline for a story working from home, so I was technically still working, albeit differently. I fit into the 20 percentile group of people who want to work differently, not less. The stats come from Cali Yost’s 2007 Work+Life Fit Reality Check survey. Yost takes a look at how employees view their worklife flexibility. Just last night it hit me like Santa coming down the chimney shoot with a big bang. I’m a stat. But I’m a happy stat – here’s why.
The truth is that no one can really take your power, it is yours to give or hold onto. That’s why I felt it important to respond when David Bohl at Slow Down Fast (check out his post he has a hilarious video there)tagged me on an original question posed by Donna Karlin at Better Perspective. At her OnGrowing Weekly Challenge she asks…
“Who are you giving your personal power away to and how are you going to take it back?”
A fractured view of our own character or baggage often appears when we suddenly find ourselves in a state of crisis or chaos, especially in a workplace environment. Taken with our own perspective, the blame game is an easy road to take.
Since 9/11 many of us, (including myself) came face to face in a new and deeper way with our own mortality, our fate, and our purpose. WorkLife Balance suddenly made an appearance and we learned that the human capital so taken for granted, are really disguised human beings – with a desire to have a more purposeful and meaningful worklife in a 24/7 world.
The greatest revelation is that while most chaos appears to be outside of ourselves, it’s really in the personal response to such events – which can bring about the most peace. Using chaos as fuel for personal transformation, we create a well of stillness to call upon when in crisis. So here is my list of 100 Ways to Personally Conquer Chaos:
A quick examination of my upbringing doesn’t exactly put me in the business category of entrepreneurship. My childhood was sans business acumen. My mom was an opera singer turned psychotherapist and my dad – a former high school administrator – had a Ph.D. from Columbia in Education.
Raising Judy and my sis, Mary of AnimalPerson.net, was a mishmash of opera, 60 Minutes, and cartoons. Not necessarily in that order. My sister and I learned of the arts, music and the power of the written word as our home was lined with hundreds of books.
As for my adult life, I am a step-mom without the benefit of the typical parenting process, but a quick read of Julie Lenzer Kirk’s, The ParentPreneur Edge, never the less offers a fun and unusually humorous alternative to the typical business book.
Greetings and Happy Thanksgiving to my fellow career or worklife bloggers. I’m actually working in the newsroom tonight but had some thoughts about what I have learned recently from a few of you who pound the keys to inspire on the topic of worklife balance. Here are links to a few pearls of wisdom to…
It’s been a week of compu-hell. There I said it. And I know I’m not alone. And as much as I tried to breathe through one technical issue after the next, it was hard to get past the moment and onto other business concerns. Sometimes we get so caught up in one problem and our inability to “fix it” instead of just giving it – and ourselves – a break. And then we think our conundrum is worse than our workplace colleagues.
Obviously, it’s all relative. If someone tells you they are having a rough day you can’t really compare your worklife chaos to someone elses. Take for example an audio technician named Larry who I met this past weekend. I REALLY felt for this guy. Check out his daily worklife scenario.
