Tag: life

Wake Up on the Right Side of the Bed Every Day

sleeping cat on bed

A positive attitude can be as elusive as a perfect cheeseburger, shoes that are both gorgeous and comfortable, or a TV show with a compelling and engaging script (we’re all missing Lost right about now). But by starting every day off on the right foot, literally rolling out of bed with a spring in your step, you are much more likely to live your life in a positive way and enjoy the many things that make being alive worthwhile. So here are a few ways to get on board with positive thinking so that every cheeseburger tastes better than the last (shoes and sitcoms are sadly beyond your control).

  1. Eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired. In this fast-paced world, we train our bodies to go without food and sleep much of the time. We skip breakfast and rush through lunch, only to pop a high-sodium calorie fest of an instant meal in the toaster or microwave when we get home (yes, we are all guilty of eating Pop Tarts for dinner once in awhile). We scrape by on five or six hours of sleep and lament the fact that our eyes are baggy and bloodshot and we just can’t seem to get rid of those ten extra pounds of spare tire around our midsection. But you can live like the Buddhists and lead a happier, healthier life by listening to your body and responding to its needs.
  2. Learn to say “no”. This may be the most important word in the English language, as every two-year-old knows. In order to put yourself first, you have to learn to deny demanding bosses, shrug off guilt-laden requests from friends and family, and stop yourself from joining every club and charity on the planet. Just say no! Schedule in some time for yourself and don’t let anyone deter you (especially YOU).
  3. Appreciate what you have. The world is full of have-not, why-me, and grass-is-greener complaints. Don’t be one of those myopic souls who can’t see the good that’s staring you in the face. Instead of wondering why you got passed up for promotion, get proactive and seek out ways to improve your standing and recognition. Don’t try to keep up with the Joneses (or Kardashians, or whoever else has more money, fame, and acclaim). Live well, within your means, and love the life you have. Being content is a big part of being positive.
  4. Create something. Working in a soulless corporate environment can often make you feel like you’re just spinning your wheels. So think about ways in which you can produce something tangible in your life that makes you feel good. Plant a garden, paint a portrait, or build a scale model of Devil’s Tower in your living room. There are plenty of ways to enjoy the creative outlet you desire, so make something (anything), even if you think it will be bad.
  5. De-clutter. This is something that you can do both physically and mentally. Proponents of feng shui will tell you that de-cluttering your living space will simultaneously clear your mind of debris. There may be some truth to this, but the two do not always go together. However, a clean house will certainly allow you to relax and enjoy your free time more, so it couldn’t hurt. As for a worry-free mind, that is easier than you think. If you have a problem, write it down and forget about it. You can always come back to it if you need to, but the simple act of releasing it from your thoughts will take a weight off your shoulders and allow you to focus on something more positive.

Today’s guest post was written by Kyle Simpson. Kyle writes for Medical Billing and Coding Schools where you can find more information about a career in medical billing and coding.

Photo by kevindooley

Finances are Fun: 5 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Embrace the Spirit of Enterprise

We live in a capitalistic society. Many say this with a sigh and a shake of the head, but there are some upsides that shouldn’t be overlooked. If you start early enough, it is possible to rise to unfathomable heights of success. Unfortunately, it’s also possible to destroy your credit and your life quite early in the game by not having a clear conception of how to manage your finances.

kids in belfast

American young adults and children are notorious for their lack of financial know-how. In a society that practically forces you to get a credit card when you turn 18, this ignorance can be deadly. Here are five ways to teach your children how to excel in a competitive economy and to avoid the pitfalls along the way.

1. Teach the idea of financial self reliance early on.

There are times when everyone could use a helping hand, and there’s nothing wrong with that. With that said, there’s nothing wrong with teaching self reliance as a preferred choice. From a very young age, help your child differentiate between needs and wants. If the thing they’re asking for constitutes a “want”— assuming you can/will give it to them in the first place— set up a system where they can work to earn it. Even if “working for it” only means doing extra chores for a couple days, they’ve learned that work is necessary and beneficial.

2. Learning about compound interest is crucial.

When your child first learns about interest, start to talk to them about credit. Explain the pitfalls of taking out too much debt. At the same time, open up discussions concerning investment. Show them the potential for making money if they invest early in life. Compound interest can work for you, or against you. Teenagers are more likely to be interested in these discussions than younger children, so keep the conversations age-relevant.

3. Teach them about other financial perspectives.

Every society and individual family has a unique financial policy. Discussing other viewpoints allows your child to pinpoint the crucial financial questions that any functional philosophy seeks to answer. Here are some examples:

“Is private property a good thing?”
“Should we allow extreme divisions of wealth?”
“How much influence should governments/companies/individuals have in making financial policy.”

Accept that you might not agree with their answers. Keep any debate friendly and informative.

4. Encourage early attempts to start businesses.

When I was 8 years old, I started a business selling golf balls and cans of soda on the golf course next to my house. These early experiences taught me the basics of running a business. This knowledge was carried into my adult life, and inspired me to become a freelance writer.

You never know how far a child’s chosen small business will take them. A close friend in high schools started a lawn-mowing business. By the time he was 18 and had graduated high school, he was able to sell the business for 500K. Now, he manages a department of 100 people in a Fortune 500 company.

5. Allow your child to enjoy the fruits of their financial success, and, if applicable, controlled financial failure.

Saving for college is important, but don’t’ demand that your child put every penny they earn from a high school job into a savings account. Help them save a certain percentage, and allow them to spend the rest how they see fit. Never feeling rewarded for your work can foster an attitude of futility.

Finally, allow them to make manageable financial mistakes. If they don’t save ahead-of-time for a desired item, it’s “ok” to allow them to go without the item. Now is the time to make small mistakes so that larger, life altering, mistakes won’t be made down the line.

Bio: Alexis Bonari is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at onlinedegrees.org, researching areas of accredited online degrees. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

Photo by larbelaitz

dea(ovzo1!DD

average career salaries

If I could travel back in time and give myself a little bit of career advice, I’d spend some time talking to young Steve about earnings over a lifetime of work, or average career salaries. The median elementary school teacher salary in the US, for example, makes about $51,000 a year. The median attorney salary is closer to $91,000. The median auditor is closer to $58,000. Here is the difference, though: a median is just a median, meaning that half of the people with that profession make more than that figure, and half make less.

The school teacher population is going to be made up of a lot of teachers making between $40,000 and $51,000 a year – maybe younger teachers, or lower-cost-of-living areas. The other half might make $51,000 to $70,000 or so. There might be a few outliers in expensive areas – New York or San Francisco – but there will not be teachers making $450,000 a year. The system is not designed to allow anyone to escape into a significantly higher pay bracket (and we’re talking about teachers, not teachers who become administrators – that’s a different job).

That’s a real difference from some other professions. Take the Big 4 firms – Ernst & Young, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers and KPMG. An auditor in a Big 4 firm probably makes less than a schoolteacher to begin with (particularly on an hourly basis). These lower-level auditors make up the majority of the employees of the firm. For every partner, there might be five managers, each of whom might oversee ten staff (for example). So 6 of every 56 people are managers or above, and only 1 in 56 are partners (I made up those ratios, but based on my experience that’s a fair guess). So the median’s lowered to account for the huge number of lower-level staff.

But in an environment like that, the chance for exceptional rewards for exceptional performance exists. Now, if you’ve worked in a corporate environment or read my last post on stupidification, you know that exceptional performance is not always the requirement for getting rewarded. Sometimes it’s being the CFO’s nephew. But as compared to the teachers above, there is a chance that earnings can grow far, far beyond their starting levels. A teacher can’t, even if they win an award as the greatest teacher in their state. An outstanding diplomat can’t break out of the government pay grades.

What all of this means is that not only do you have to consider the starting salary for your career, but you have to look at what the possibilities for exceptional earnings are. I know earnings are not everything. Many people can also fall into the trap of believing that they will be the exceptional performer, but in a bottom-heavy organization far more people will quit or be fired than will make partner or executive.

So consider average career earnings, and then think about whether you are willing to be the exceptional performer. If you aren’t, maybe the average career earnings aren’t that critical. If you don’t plan to excel, a career where everyone can be expected to be compensated within a narrow range is fine. If you do plan to excel, make sure it’s in a profession where that excellence might result in reward. That’s not to denigrate teaching or praise public accounting. I realized early on in my career in public accounting I wouldn’t be a partner; I didn’t have the drive to be an exceptional auditor. So I joined the lower level of the median salaries and might have been happier – and done better over the course of my first 10-15 years of working – had I done a job search and chosen a different career path, with a narrower bank of average career salaries.

Note: I haven’t read Seth Godin’s Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? yet, but I gather that’s what that book is all about – the idea of making yourself into an “artist,” which Godin believes makes you deeply committed to becoming indispensible to your organization. Maybe I should read it…

life strategies, and links

I’ve been attempting a slightly different life strategy recently - “if it hasn’t been working so far, change.” I’m taking a shot at things I have told myself I’ve hated in the past, like watersports and (just yesterday) crew cuts and so on, and giving them a shot. It seems a reasonable thing to do: attempt the previously unpleasant, in the hope that it will work out better this time. So far so good; maybe I’ll expand this line of thinking to other aspects of my life.

Links!

once more into the breach, and links

King Henry V:

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o’erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O’erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill’d with the wild and wasteful ocean….

Read the rest.

One of my favorite poems/sonnets/monologues/sayings/etc., right along with “Kill them all, God knows His own“, “”I pray thee, then, Write me as one that loves his fellow men“, “anyone lived in a pretty how town” and “Annabel Lee“. I bet you weren’t planning to get a list of Steve’s top five poetry/quotes selections, were you? Oh, and I’ll throw in almost everything this dude said, too.

Once more, I’m off into between-contract land; my current contract is ending and no new one is in sight. Thankfully I have my go-to-hell fund ready and no panic whatsoever on the horizon. I’ll work more on self-employment and blog monetization, and see what comes next, without fear. It’s a better feeling than being laid off while living paycheck-to-paycheck, I bet.

You Can Be Rich Without Being Smart: Amen. This is something that’s not discussed often enough. I know a lot of smart middle class people and a lot of less-than-smart upper class people. It’s neither good nor bad - there’s no harm in being middle class - but book smarts are completely and utterly unrelated to “wealth smarts.” Far too many book smart types - like me - become risk-averse and complacent based on the idea that employment in a highly skilled position is “success.” Let me tell you - it’s not. Success is doing something you want to do, not just having the brains to do something you hate (but are good at doing).

The much maligned Robert Kiyosaki: Amen. Here’s the best quote, as far as I’m concerned: “His book – at the time – inspired me to look into the field of personal finance a LOT further.” I couldn’t agree more. He spouts a lot of junk, but his statements (like “a house is not an asset”) really struck a chord in me and made me think a LOT more about personal finance. Take everything he says with a grain of salt, but he will make you think…without a doubt.

Increasing Penalties for Health Savings Accounts: An interesting series, especially since I’m making the transition to an HSA account for my family.

Financial Challenges for the Class of 2010: I am very, very grateful I’m not a grad. Good luck to the 2010 grads, but man… the times they are a-changin’… and not for the better.

Watson Inc: Millionaires Make a Return To Boom Levels: Eliminate Consumer Debt and Build Wealth: Some interesting stats here. Rich (or rather, I should say “wealthy”, since that conveys a mindset/lifestyle rather than a purely numeric status) people make money even in “down” times.

8 Critical Steps Every Family Should Be Taking to Prepare for the Next Financial Crisis: There will be another financial crisis. The US is not in any way, shape or form situated for the rapid growth so many of us grew to know and love in the 90s and mid-oughts. Maybe there will be another bubble, but next time there won’t be as much money for a “stimulus” package. The money is running out. Inevitably, there will be a stopping point for Citi and AIG and all the other boondoggle spending.

Caretaking As a Career Option – What’s In It For You?: Huh. Well, not a career path I knew much about - it sounds interesting.

Live Sports: One More Reason to Get Rid of Cable: Er…not quite. The day the NFL shows up on Roku, though, I’ll be fairly close to killing my cable subscription.

Why It’s Frugal to Live in Colorado: I’ve never been there, which is weird to me. I’ve been to Siberia, Kuala Lumpur, Indonesia, the back country of Romania, etc. - and never to Colorado. I’d like to go, though - I have seldom heard anything but good about it.

And a few more:

And of course, the greatest poem of all time (except, possibly, this one):

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Poetry started and stopped for me with that poem. Amazing. For the most part poetry and Shakespeare and the lot bore me, but once in a while, when I’m in a reflective mood, it blows me away.

the dead end of home ownership

the American dream

I’ve known more than one guy with the following life story: working at a corporate job as a middle manager, married with young-ish kids and settled in normal sized house in an acceptable neighborhood. Maybe the kids are really young, even though he’s in his forties; like me, a lot of men (and women) are waiting until later in life to have kids. The house is comfortable but small. The job is OK but if the guy’s honest with himself he knows he’s not likely to soar to the CEO floor in the 15 or so years of working life he has left to him.

So here’s the question: if you make X dollars at age 40, say, and 40% of your income goes to your mortgage that you took out at age 38 - a 30 year fixed mortgage - and you’re expecting a 5% raise every year (if you’re lucky) - when will you reach the finish line?

I know the common perception is that if you own instead of renting there will come a blissful moment when you burn the mortgage documents and skip off into sunset worry-free. In my mind, two things will be happening in 30 years when my mortgage is paid off that will throw a big monkey wrench in those plans.

Property taxes

Perhaps you live in Cheyenne, Wyoming. If so, your property taxes are the lowest (on average) in America, probably around $1000 per year. That’s $83 per month, a doable figure. However, if you live in places like Garden City, New York, your taxes run closer to $9000 per year, or $750 per month. One thing I can guarantee about both Cheyenne and Garden City that holds equally true for both is that 30 years from now, those taxes will be higher. Will they have grown at a rate faster or slower than your annual raises at work? With the strains looming on the US economy - an enormous national debt, rapidly ageing population, and so on, I’d be willing to bet those taxes will eat up a big chunk of your post-retirement income after you’ve paid off the mortgage.

Shoddy construction

On this point I only have my own limited experience to go on, but I remember laughing out loud every time someone asked me in New Jersey if I expected to pay off my mortgage on my townhouse in 30 years. I laughed because I really didn’t expect my townhouse to last 30 years. We moved in while construction was going on in the community, and I saw how these homes were built: pressboard and 2 by 4s. Not stone, not metal. K. Hovnanian put them up fast, using what (ahem) APPEARED to be workers who might not have been entirely legal citizens. These were not structures built to last. These were not cheap places, either; it was a very expensive gated neighborhood with fancy homes (think elevators installed in the homes, riverfront views, etc.) Most American homes will need substantial and continuous maintenance and repair work in 30 years. So think about that mid-70s guy dealing with a crumbling home. Again, no mortgage, maybe, but those bills can mount up quickly.

…the dead end

I still think you ought to own if you want to own, and you ought to work for a corporation if that’s what twirls your pigtails, but this scenario just looks like a dead end to me. This house I’m in now needs to be my last one, or else I’m going to need to move into a place where I can pay off the mortgage substantially sooner than 30 years or I’ll be working to pay the mortgage (and other costs) into my 80s. If you don’t think that’s a dead end, I don’t know what is. I for one don’t want to be struggling away at age 75 to finally pay off my mortgage just to get stuck in a crumbling house paying exorbitant property taxes. Figuring out how to stay out of this dead end ought to be a high priority for anyone who looks to buy a home in their late 30s or later.

job junkie

Dr. Drew - the famous radio/TV addiction-specialist doctor of Loveline, Sober House and Celebrity Rehab fame - has a layman’s definition of addiction: it’s any activity that you continue engaging in despite adverse conditions. Hits it right on the head, I think. If you keep drinking after a DUI, you’re addicted. If you keep doing drugs after going to jail, obsessively playing online bingo after your spouse has threatened to leave you, eating sweets after developing diabetes or smoking while you have a cold, you’ve got a problem. You don’t have to experience the adverse condition to be addicted, of course, but the adverse event is the proof, if you will.

I like this definition because you can apply it to many other areas of life. For example, if you keep charging crap on your credit card after you’ve started being charged interest for past purchases, you’re continuing in the face of an obvious adverse event. The interest is a fine, a continuing adverse event that would cause a normal, non-addicted-to-credit person to stop using the product. And many, many people have a far more severe addiction: the addiction to their job.

Just to prove I’m not preaching, I’ll use myself as an example. I have a good job - although, strictly speaking, it’s not a job. I do contract consulting and I am able to charge substantial rates for my work. I flatter myself sometimes that it’s because I’m just that good, but the real reason is that I offer my services to giant corporations for whom my fee is a footnote to a footnote to a rounding error. They don’t mind flinging some cash in my direction to avoid the hassle of hiring a permanent employee to finish their projects; they don’t have to train me, give me benefits and then file endless mounds of paperwork before they let me go. I can come in, do the work with a minimum of supervision, and leave with no fuss. So I get paid at a premium.

And because of that I’m addicted to my job. I’ve continued doing it for years, despite many adverse events and conditions, some obvious, some not. The job is stressful due to boredom, physically uncomfortable working conditions, long commutes, inflexible working hours and sometimes unpleasant coworkers (overworked, underpaid, and overstressed themselves). Audit often results in uncovering illegal, unethical or simply incompetent work by other employees. Stress comes easily when others around you are constantly suspicious, frightened or hostile that you are “out to get them.” And despite being freer than the the average employee to direct my work, I still have the adverse work conditions that arise from a direct exchange of my time for the client’s money: my income increases and decreases directly in proportion to the hours I work. Stress if I work too much and stress if I earn too little. Could you pass some cheese, by the way? I need it to go with my whine.

But how many people are addicted to their jobs? I know the argument is always that a job is a job in this economy. Fine. I am sure all of the people who stuck with their “good jobs” at now-shuttered assembly lines throughout Michigan are patting themselves on the back that they stuck with a good job instead of getting out and getting training in a new field before GM and Chrysler imploded. I’m sure that all of the finance guys who were putting in 80 hour weeks at my Wall Street clients are happy they put in all that unpaid time doing a job they hate before being laid off in 2008. Sometimes clinging to a job to the bitter end is a bad thing, even if it provides some temporary financial security.

It’s not just financial security; that job addiction can impact your long-term health. Many of us are happy to be moderately fit, moderately overweight and to have a job that doesn’t make us throw up before going to work every morning. Whitman’s quote about most men living lives of quiet desperation is not any less true for being massively over-quoted by people like me. I don’t think any parents dream for their kids to grow up to slog through life delivered in two-week increments when a paycheck arrives. Nobody wants to have a slow trickle of stress poured down their throat for 40 years. Your health - physical and mental - will inevitably suffer. True health is being free of addiction to any behavior that hurts you - be it alcohol, gambling, drugs, violence, TV, a bad job, on and on. It’s not enough to be fit and hate your job, either. It’s not enough to hate your job but endure it simply to make money. Whether you’re literally prostituting yourself for another puff off the crack pipe or figuratively prostituting yourself to break your spirit for 40 years so you can visit the beach twice a year for a week, you’re a junkie.

photo by Dominic’s pics
http://www.drdrew.com/

work-life balance is a false choice


Creative Commons License photo credit: pshutterbug

Everyone understands that being engaged in your work, life, family and self is key to a happy life. Nobody thinks that you’ll be perfectly fulfilled without a balance - everyone needs to be happy with their family, but you also need outside interests. Everyone needs to feel like they are a contributing member of both a family and a society. It’s not an easy balance for most of us.

I struggle with it - I make good money but I still have less free time during the week than I’d like. Bubelah struggles with it, too - she spends a lot of time devoted to child care now that we have two kids, although having my son in preschool has helped. This imbalance is something many single-income families face, because the roles end up being so sharply divided.

Yet at the same time most of us feel that we have to struggle with work/life balance. You will not gain financial independence quickly as an employee. Employees are performing a straight-up swap of their time for money; the possibility to increase the money-to-time ratio is at the employer’s discretion, never the employee’s. If you want to be rich and therefore gain some measure of independence in your financial choices - and therefore in your life, you have to start a business or buy real estate or become a person who understands the market in its current sickly state. Alternative income is key to building wealth. But I am not just talking about figuring out a way to get rich.

Why is it that we view work/life balance as a struggle, a conflict to be resolved? I worry about it more than I worry about most things in my life - and I’m a worrier by nature - but I am trying increasingly to focus not so much on work/life balance but on how to move towards integrating work and life together in the future. I don’t think balance is truly possible. If you work a long commute away from home, most of your waking time is spent away from “life.” If you spend all of your time at home, it’s hard to develop your career or interests. Again, figuring out a way to get away from selling your time for money is key. The key is not to strive for balance, but to find work you enjoy and can integrate with your “life,” instead of working hard then retiring early, or thinking that working an eight-hour day with a three-hour commute and having a few hours at home is balance. Figuring out a way to do it in a blended way is better than trying to figure out a balanced way - because if you sell your time for money, there will never be balance.

letter from a thief

Hello,

I wanted to see how you were doing these days. I know you never expected to receive a letter from me, but I’ve often wondered what my crimes against you did to your life. I think you should know they weren’t crimes of passion: I planned every minute. I tricked you, I forced you, I took advantage of your weaknesses. I struck again and again; I haunted the best days of your life. I took more from you than you ever realized.

You didn’t notice I was stealing from you. I took everything in small amounts. There might have even been stretches of time when I stayed away from you, or you managed to travel away from me. These times were few and far between. I was with you many mornings and every night. I waited in the house while you were gone, and sat between you and family and friends.

You couldn’t stay away from me. You knew something was wrong. Some days you came closer than others to realizing what I was stealing from you. But I was careful to dress up my crime in pleasant pictures and pleasing sounds. Sometimes you thought I made you happier, or better. I never did. I stole, relentlessly. I never stopped, and my only aim was to hurt you.

I stole your money every month, and you gladly gave it to me.

I stole your health every day, keeping you immobile while you ate things that people wouldn’t have recognized as food 100 years ago.

I snatched away the seconds of your life, then the minutes, the days and the years.

I filled your brain with the desire for things you didn’t need.

I kidnapped you from your family.

I showed you murder, rape, misery and all the horrors you could take - and you came back again and again for more.

I took it all from you and you never once complained.

I don’t know if you can find it in your heart to forgive me. Maybe you won’t. Maybe you can’t. I can’t stop myself, and I don’t want to stop. I steal from almost everyone you know. Now I even creep into your children’s lives, dangling toys in front of them and singing happy songs while I lure them away from their parents.

Maybe you read this, or maybe you were sitting - even now - in the room with me, mouth agape, eyes reddened, body and mind softened by the years of abuse I have heaped upon you. It doesn’t matter. I’ll still steal from you, until you stand up for yourself - and you probably never will.

Best wishes,
Your Television

Preparing for Your First Post-Grad Interview: The Importance of Being Well-Read

(Steve’s note: This is a guest post; I thought I would point it out since the references to Russia might make it sound like me!)

Funny story: Less than a year before I graduated from my alma mater, I studied abroad in Russia for a semester, and encountered some-needless to say- bizarre experiences. One that stands out in my mind was when I was sitting at a café, reading a book and sipping on wonderfully grainy cup of Nescafe instant coffee.

During my stay in Russia, I found that it was surprisingly unusual to hear English spoken in public, even in a city as big as Saint Petersburg, so my ears instantly perked up when I heard two people across from me speaking English. There was some Russian speaking involved, but from my reasonably proficient background in the language, I understood the situation—a woman, presumably working for a multinational company, was interviewing a Russian man for a bilingual job. Half of the interview was to be conducted in Russian and half was in English. When the English part started, the woman asked the man, “What are some of your biggest weaknesses?” The man looked slightly confused and nervous, then perked up and confidently answered in a thick Russian accent, “Nu, I drink too much, and I smoke too much, and sometimes I cheat on my wife.” His expression was completely blank, so I knew he wasn’t joking.

The woman’s face turned beet-red instantly; she was obviously not expecting that answer. I couldn’t help but burst out laughing. I suppose you could chalk up the man’s response to a case of “lost in translation”, but for me this example stands as the ultimate obvious no-no in an interview situation. Initially, I brushed this experience off as one of the many funny incidents during my time in Russia, but later the image of the man making a deal-breaking mistake would come back to haunt me as I prepared for job interviews after college.

Sure, I knew I wasn’t going to make a faux pas to such a grave extent, but still, I wasn’t sure exactly what to expect. Of course, for my first interview, I researched the company extensively, I practiced with a friend on eye contact, and she even threw at me some of the more bizarre questions to help me think on my feet. When time for the actual interview came around, however, the experience was like nothing I anticipated. There were the typical interview questions, like why I was best suited for the job and what did I expect to be doing in five years, etc. But what really surprised me was the extent to which my interviewers were simply curious about my intellectual interests.

What came in handy—what really saved me in this interview—was the fact that I had diverse reading tastes. Steve has written about the importance of reading before, but I’d venture to argue that reading a lot can do more than simply further enrich your intellectual life. Believe it or not, it can actually be useful in your career. During the interview, I was able to defer to several different theories and current events in economics, philosophy, technological advances, and even literature, simply because I read voraciously in my free time while in college.

And I don’t think that my experience was a singular one—many of my friends, all of whom are, to a certain extent, intellectually curious, also had similar first-time interview experiences. While I’m not sure if gauging intellectual curiosity is a newer trend in recruiting practices, I think it’s great that hiring managers seem to be taking this direction.

So in the final analysis, it pays to read. It is certainly worth your while to soak up ideas, from whatever angle or perspective. Being educated—and keep in mind, I’m not necessarily referring to formal education here—will make you a happier, more confident person. And it may just help you land that job, too.

About the author: This guest post is contributed by Emily Thomas, who writes on the topics of online college degree. She welcomes your questions and comments by email at emily.thomas31@gmail.com.

how to build a love of learning

Why don’t Americans like to read? And they don’t. You’re reading blogs, so you obviously enjoy reading, but many people don’t. You think other people ought to like to read. But books don’t hold much sway anymore.
From bookstatistics.com:

  • 58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
  • 42% of college graduates never read another book.
  • 80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.
  • 70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the last five years.

One of my fondest childhood memories is reading “The Hobbit” along with my dad. We had a big illustrated edition - a lot of the cheesy Rankin-Bass stills, where Gollum looks like a frog - and he read it to me in installments. I don’t remember how many times we read it or how old I was, but I do know that I read “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy (on my own) before 3rd grade, so it was probably when I was 5 or 6. But my point is simple: I remember being almost insanely excited with the idea that another chapter was going to unfold. A picture would be painted in my mind - by me - and the next day another picture would be drawn. I would go to sleep in the bunk bed I shared with my brother, my mind filled with trolls and dragons and dwarves.

I try to read to my children frequently, and have done so since they were born. My son likes books better than my daughter. Every time I start to read to Pumpkin, Little Buddy runs over and insists on sharing (which means reading to HIM). But I think both kids have an early love of reading. I don’t read to them for any other reason than a long-term attempt to inspire a love of books in them. Books have been some of my truest and dearest friends throughout my life, and I think children need to learn early in their lives that a life can revolve around books without TV, video games or the internet.

Books, for me, are a stand-in for intellectual curiosity. That curiosity is different from getting an education; far different. I argue that for most people, college is a crutch. Their intellectual curiosity is sated by four years in college - they read, they take interesting courses, they graduate and 58% of them never read a book again. Many people don’t even consider college as a place for true learning, but instead a diploma mill used to obtain fruitful employment. My wife, Bubelah, thinks college is necessary for growth, and that college forces people to expand in ways they never would on their own. I say that college can only assist growth. If you take advantage of the opportunities in college - or the continuing education available after college such as books, adult courses, or even through TV - then you have intellectual curiosity. Intellectual curiosity, if someone has it, won’t stop with college. There is no excuse to quit learning, ever.

I’ve gotten glances from my coworkers from time to time when I sit and read a book in the office cafeteria while I eat lunch. I look around and see I am the ONLY person reading (without exaggeration) in the entire cafeteria. I read history, or graphic novels, or fantasy/sci-fi. It’s hard for me to imagine how exotic that appears to most people. The idea of reading anything other than a newspaper or magazine seems trivial or immature to them. Worse yet, I might be considered an elitist, or a bookworm. When did intellectual prowess or a curiosity about life become a characteristic to be mocked? I care about history, space exploration, politics, ethics, literature. I’m a pointy-headed intellectual - and I drink beer and love pro football, too.

So how do you create a love of learning? Read. After our formal education is done, we may gain knowledge through experience, or discussion, or other avenues - but reading is so freely available and simple that it can only be deemed a great failure of any society that doesn’t encourage it as a core virtue. You should do it whenever you can. It doesn’t even matter WHAT you read: just read. I’d like to see America become a place that’s proud of intellectual curiosity, but too often intellectual curiosity is mocked and belittled by people whose idea of culture is determined by TV executives. Knowledge should be a lifelong goal, not something satisfied by four years in college.

(I originally posted this, in slightly different form, in 2008)

landscape design, and links

So this week I started taking a landscaping design course in the evenings.  Nothing too hardcore, just an intro to the general principles; I learned how to draft out the area I’m going to landscape and a few general principles about Florida greenery.  Why am I doing this?  I’m not a particularly outdoorsy person (although I enjoy being outdoors, just not working hard outdoors).  I’m not a green thumb kind of guy.  But as a personal development type of thing, I was looking at taking some finance/accounting classes and suddenly decided (with a little prompting from Bubelah) to try something completely unexpected.

To give a little background:  the house we bought in north Florida has a beautiful backyard which is a large square, fenced in, with nothing but grass.  No trees, no flowers, no shrubbery – a blank canvas.  I decided I could put something in like a Japanese garden (or whatever) and call that my hobby du jour.  Blogging’s lost it’s sheen as a hobby, to be honest – something new needs to take its place.

So wish me luck trying something completely out of my normal wheelhouse like landscape design.  There’s a little tingle you get when you learn something completely new – maybe next I’ll sign up for a class in pottery or something!

On to the links:

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