Asimo is a robot made by Honda and currently working for IBM Japan. ASIMO works as a receptionist for IBM. He greets guests and shows them around the building. Asimo’s gets paid $150,000 a year (Yearly lease for ASIMO) Compared to the salary of a human receptionist – $35,000. To perform these duties, ASIMO has to be specially programmed to know the layout of the buildings and the appropriate way to greet visitors and answer questions.

What about You!

I recently saw a documentary about a lady that could not smile because of a birth defect. It cost her $70,000 to surgically have a smile created for her. It’s close to the real thing but it’s still not the real thing. Knowing the value of a rolex watch, how much would you pay for a fake rolex. Now try smiling. Easy? That’s priceless but an artificial one would cost you $70,000.

Try squeezing your hand, pick up your pen, throw your pen a varied speeds, pick your ear, play with your hand, do what you wish. Asimo couldn’t even do a tenth of what you are doing, yet it is paid a salary of $150,000 dollars. Asimo is a fake version of you. No where near the real thing.

You are priceless and Asimo is worthless compared to what you can do.

Yet it gets paid more than most!

Why?

People will only see you as you see yourself! My father always told me; “If you sell yourself cheap during the day, don’t expect to increase the price at night, for you will not find a buyer” You are fearfully & wonderfully made, you probably have been nurtured and cared for by loving parents who in their own rights are priceless. You don’t have to be programmed to know the layout of a building, greet visitors and answer questions. You are not made by man but uniquely created and fashioned to invent, innovate, discover, adapt and rule.

Dr, Micheal Denton clearly states – the cosmos (universe) is specially designed whole with life and mankind as its fundamental goal and purpose. Cosmos – The universe regarded as an orderly, harmonious whole. In simple words, The world has been created specifically for you!

Trees have a purpose, gold has a purpose, water has a purpose, salt has a purpose, even micro-organisms have a purpose. What more of you? You are the most intelligent being of all creation – One that wills thoughts to action, one with feelings, emotions, a soul and a mind to invent, learn, discover, communicate, build and rule.

The more physicist, biologists and scientist learn about the universe the more they realise it has been created custom made for human existence. For you are made with love in mind – Psalmist

If the world has been built with you in mind, why settle for anything less. Asimo is a product of your your neighbours invention and how much is it worth?

The question I need to ask you is this:

How do you see yourself?

The most valuable things in life are not things but people. You and I.

Celebrate and value yourself daily and everyone else will treat you the same way.

www.careerinsights.tv

When you reach a certain level in your executive career, you start to … well, coast a bit sometimes. Be honest, now. Have you decided – actively or not – that you already know enough, and don’t need to continue improving your skill set?
Call it a feeling of invincibility. It has its advantages in the business world, but it can have its drawbacks, too. Particularly when you start thinking about changing careers, and especially when you start thinking about moving into a different industry. And particularly when it comes to making an unexpected job transition, as is happening more frequently these days.
Look at the people already doing the work you want to do. The ones who aren’t there yet, but want to be. Not all of them are pursuing continuing education to make themselves better candidates for the management positions they’re after. But a lot of them are. And that’s an extra point or two they’ll have on you when you start sending out your resume to recruiters and headhunters and the like.
Don’t sit on your laurels. It’s one of the most dangerous things you can do these days.
Need a little present-moment way to look at it? Think of the people working around you. How much could they benefit from your increased knowledge? How much could your company improve? And then (to make it all about you again), how much better would your resume look when you’ve helped your team and your company make great strides?
Education isn’t just a lark. If you have a company that helps pay for continuing education (most do), you know they don’t think it’s a lark. They know it’ll only help their bottom line by keeping their people sharp. It’ll help your bottom line, too.
And as we’re all learning in the world of work (or, as we may need to learn over and over again), if you’re not moving forward, keeping up, getting ahead – or whatever phrase you choose to use – you’re not just standing still as a result.
Fact is, you’re falling behind, or the rest of the world is moving ahead of you. Either way you look at it, the glass is half-empty for you, and getting emptier.
So enough mixing of metaphors. If you haven’t gone through that course catalog yet, now’s as good a time as any to start. Go for it!

Know Your Uniqueness
Find out what is unique in you that makes you stand out and makes you the right choice for the job advertised.
The first thing you need to have is an outstanding resume, one that will guarantee you an interview. Every organization wants only the best employees, and you need to prove that you qualify.
Some basic preparation to determine your uniqueness is in order.
1. Recognize your strengths. You need to review what you have already done as well as your competence and aptitude level. Your past appraisal reports, verbal or written, will help you with this.
2. Identify your skills. The skills and experience you have acquired over the years will help you handle your new job. You have technical skills as well as software skills that you carry with you wherever you go. Stress these strengths. For example, your communication, management and interpersonal skills might be your forte.
3. Highlight your personality. You also have certain personal traits that make you unique. You have a record of meeting deadlines. You have initiative and a great attitude. Being positive will carry you a long way.
4. Follow up your list of strengths with examples to support them. This is most important if your interviewer is to believe that you are not claiming strengths you may not actually have. This will help you stand out.
Locating the Job of Your Choice
Geographical limitations should not stop you from applying for a job that you are suited for.
Read every advertisement carefully, noting what each company is looking for. Then make your notes in two columns, one with the heading “What the organization is looking for” and the other “What I have to offer.” This exercise will help you see the closest matches.
It will help you identify your skills and strengths and how you might apply them. Spell them out in as many words as the advertisement calls for. This will make your resume stronger. You should also use this information in an interview situation.
Facing Your Interviewers
Remember to research the organization before the interview. This will demonstrate your interest in the company and also help you frame questions to them.
Wearing the appropriate clothing is important for any interview, so it is best to find out ahead of time what that is. In general, attire for an interview is formal; but if your research tells you that the organization is informal, dressing more casually might be a better choice.
Women candidates are faced with more choices. A good policy is to wear nothing very dramatic and keep it conservative. It’s better to avoid fragrances the day of the interview.
Always remember: first impressions are often the last impressions, so make the best of that interview call. You may not get a second chance.

I’m sure you’ve heard all of the saying to get you started on something new. You put one foot in front of the other. One thought leads to the next. One action causes a result. One breath brings the next. And the journey has begun.

Where are you not moving forward or taking action? I’m sure you have any number of reasons why you’ve stalled, taken a time out; don’t feel up to doing anything, etc. Some of this could be clinical, i.e. depression or anxiety and if so I encourage you to seek appropriate help and support. But it can also be environmental, fatigue, confusion, lack of clarity or you just don’t feel like it. Oh, I acknowledge that these could be legitimate reasons for you to place your career and life on hold – short term. But then, how do you rev up that engine to get going again?

Step by step, inch by inch… It’s no secret that the most successful people didn’t have fame and fortune thrust upon them. Heck, even Paris Hilton has to “work” to gain and sustain her publicity! But what they all know is that it’s one step, one foot, one thought will lead to the next. And that keeps them moving forward and taking action.

There are a number of ways that help you to get your motor runnin! But first things first…you must be or become crystal clear about what it is you want. Otherwise you’ll take a step, get distracted by life (as we all do) and lose your energy around moving forward. Next, just decide on one step, one thought, and one action, no matter how small, that will keep you moving and build momentum. It could be talking with an expert, reading a book, doing a free consult with a coach, making a journal entry, getting quiet and visualizing your success, meditating or talking with a trusted friend over a beverage. Think of the rock that begins to roll downhill, once begun it’s hard, if not impossible to stop.

You should keep track of each accomplishment so that you can look back at the evidence of your success. You can do this by keeping a journal. In it, write down your clear statements of what you want, capture all the ideas that come to you and make note of what you did and how it worked out. Once you have a record of your success, it becomes so much easier to repeat it. And your energy starts to surge with the pride of accomplishment. This is not to be taken lightly! Think back to your last successful undertaking. If you break it down and look at it in detail, you’ll recognize that it began with a first step, no matter how big or how small.

As you approach your career and life transitions, it can be overwhelming to see the big picture – grand and bright and not know how to get there. By starting with one step, one foot one thought, you can make it look and feel as if it were like magic!

Both the employers and the potential employees alike belonging to the counties of Wilson, Davidson, Trousdale and Rutherford know that the one and the only place their job search culminates is at the Nashville Career Advancement Center. This is true for people young and old, the freshers as well as veterans who seek advancement of their careers. The Nashville career Advancement Center has been established for promoting employment opportunities, inculcating self-suffiency in businesses and providing a useful link between the workforce services vis-a-vis the much needed training of emplyees and employers.
Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development manages the affairs of the Nashville Career Advancement Center. These centers structure themselves as per the identified employment needs in the state and help to co-ordinate the demand and supply of skilled and semi-skilled workers in the various businesses houses.
The Center is accessible to all within the counties, both the job seekers as well as employers. Different services including online listing of job searches is available for different categories as per their qualifications and experience. They have experts who groom the job seekers in various aspects as to success in interviews, resume preparation, job search tools and how to set yourself apart from other candidates. A lot of importance is given to helping all categories of job seekers to seek jobs as per their aptitudes and skills, or to seek advancement of careers, even in changing careers.
Online service is also available from the Nashville Career Advancement Center complete with effective search engines and special links that will cut short the route to the posted jobs. The service also lists various training programs for freshers as well as veterans, young as well as adult learners, students and immigrants and new entrants to the workforce.
Similary the Center is accessible for the employers both on phone and online. It is also approachable personally. If you are looking for employees, you can post job vacancy advertisements. You can avail of the opportunities to make presentations at career fairs and recruitment events organized by the Center as also come to know the special business programs working at the Center or those adopted by government.
Corporate houses can also conduct pilot projects to participate and improve the research programs of the Center both statewide as well as in Nashville area. All the areas covered by the Nashville Career Advancement Center also conduct employer training programs in the fields of interview techniques, job fair participation and posting of internet job requirements.

Changing jobs is quite natural for many people nowadays. Specialists kept on switching companies looking for a better place to work at. But their functional responsibilities still remain the same. However, such rotation without the change of your occupation is not 100% useful. Psychological research has showed that a person will have more chances to succeed if he changes his vocation once 5 – 7 years. Thus he will acquire new knowledge and experience and he will learn how to deal with new unusual tasks.Even if you have created a dynamic plan for developing your career from a clerk to a senior manager in a particular company new responsibilities don’t substitute old ones, but are just added to the existing duties. In other words, you don’t change your activity – but the sphere of your responsibility becomes wider. In fact, a person keeps on working in the same professional area.  However paradoxical it may be, but after a few years since submitting your sales resume you are more likely to lose your sales competence than to gain or improve it.  You get tired of routine work; you fulfill your duties mechanically with no zest and enthusiasm. That is why psychologists suggest changing the content of the work not its place. Human resource managers still make the same mistake:  they are looking for the applicants with at least a year – relevant experience. They don’t consider retrained specialists or those who have no experience in the pertinent area. They don’t take into account that inexperienced candidates have considerable advantages over the experts: they have no professional stamps/ clichés, they are ready to improve themselves, and they have sincere interest for the new job and others.Today more and more people are changing their specialty. Social psychology defines this   phenomenon as professional reorientation.   Mostly it applies to young people. Older people have less flexible thinking – their professional life is influenced by prevalent stereotypes and they have too high demands for themselves. People older 35 are afraid of taking risks.  Even if his life-time dream was to become an executive of car manufacturing company, he won’t set himself to writing a resume. The idea of cardinal retraining seems senseless and even careless to older people.  Most of them can neither afford no do they want to spend their time and money for obtaining a second education.  Two categories make an exception of this statement. They are housewives, who have adult children and now are free to take up their career.  Another category is retired servicemen. Both groups come across a lot of objective and psychological difficulties. Psychologists admit that only few people with a specific temperament are capable of abrupt changing their professional life. The ability to take reasonable risk in your professional life – is the major factor of success. And on the contrary – fear of changes or failure inhibit your success.  You will always have a well -paid job if you learn to regard studies and job changing as a natural component of your working life. A well – known American businessman, the author of several books on business psychology wrote: “It is not worth sticking to your primary vocation for being rewarded a golden watch when you are retired.”  Think, may be it is time for you to stop sending your teacher resume from one school to another and consider better choices.

The average person changes jobs every 7 years, and they will change careers an average of three times in their working lives. Why? Because many people are chasing someone else’s dreams instead of their own. I have many friends who were pushed into careers they were not truly invested in by well-meaning parents. While most of these parents simply wanted to help give their child the best career and thereby best life possible, what they did not realize was that each person needs to determine for himself what he needs to do with his life.

Thankfully, my own situation is an example of the opposite. I grew up working in a family business, a small retail operation. However, my parents never pressured me to follow in their footsteps. In fact I was discouraged from doing just that. Instead they pushed me to go out and get a liberal education so that I could see all the world had to offer. They understood that the most important thing in life was to be doing something that would make me happy, to find a calling rather than just a career. I happened to find that in teaching, which is what I have been doping for 14 years now- 11 of them in the same school.

I could have ended up running the family business, making more money than I do now, and having the opportunities available to me that are exclusive to business owners. But along with those advantages would have come the required risks: the uncertainty of income from one year to the next, the reliance on the national and local economy, and the stress of running a multifaceted operation. Both my parents and I realized that these were not my strengths and that I would not thrive, personally or professionally, under those types of circumstances. Therefore, I was never pushed in that direction but was allowed to find my own path.

Most people I know do not look forward to Monday mornings, as it signals a return to a job or career that while financially rewarding, is not personally fulfilling. I am fortunate not to have that problem, as I have found something that I love to do and can do well. The self-satisfaction that comes from doing something you know you were meant to do is honestly hard to explain.

We live in a society that often puts too much stress on financial success and not enough on personal well-being. Because of this parents understandably can over-focus on guiding their children towards a lucrative career rather than giving them the time and space to find their own path in life. In the long run if you are doing something you truly love, then you will find ways to make that financially rewarding. Most importantly you will have that sense of well-being that only comes from finding a calling rather than just a career.

Have many people dream of having more meaningful work? The average person spends over 65% of their life working. How many Americans wake up to job drudgery and the recurring thoughts, I wish I had more meaningful work, or I wish I could earn more. Downsizing, a slowing economy and rising costs are pervasive phenomena that affect us all. So the big question becomes, “What do I want to do for a living?” Searching for a new career can be tedious, filled with dead-end jobs, multi-level pyramids and get-rich-quick schemes.  

If you’re looking for a meaningful change, or perhaps you would enjoy a career earning a good income while supporting your local community, check out www.schoolheart.com. SchoolHeart® is an innovative company providing a fresh fundraising approach to schools and nonprofit organizations. For those that would love to make a difference in people’s lives as they earn, there are management positions, as well as full or part-time careers are available nationwide.

SchoolHeart is part of the solution, providing much needed fundraising to school and nonprofit organizations, as well as helping tie together the overall community. SchoolHeart’s smart and fresh fundraising approach is free, easy and perpetual; three (3) things nonprofit administrators covet most. 

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just all volunteer, helping out the over 130 thousand schools and over 3 million nonprofit organizations in the U.S.? Although it would be very rewarding, for most people, volunteering will not pay the bills. SchoolHeart’s opportunity can provide a rewarding long-term career, as well as a way to help those in need. SchoolHeart seeks motivated individuals, able to focus on results and perform to professional standards. Applicants should be reliable, computer literate, enjoy working with people, along with a professional appearance. 

The job recruit can expect professional business tools, freedom to work their own hours, solid residual income, personalized website, business cards, promotional materials, real-time reports, patent-pending technology and strong earning potential. This is a career you can feel good about while achieving recognition, prestige and goodwill.

You will be providing a FREE service to nonprofit organizations that need exactly what you offer, making it a soft sell. “Funding the Heart of America®” is more than just our company slogan; it is our primary focus. The schools and nonprofits win! The vendors and sponsors win! Nonprofit members win! The community wins! And you win as an Account Supervisor or Area Manager! Technology is moving fast. Can you afford to wait? This is your opportunity to capitalize on a first class business. To apply, email resume to myakos@schoolheart.com or fax to 810-885-5265. Include phone number and best times to call.  

Definition from Sun On My Back Redesigns:

“Home Staging encompasses everything involved with preparing a house for selling. The end objective is that the house has broad buyer appeal so that it will sell sooner and for more money than a house that is not staged.”

How I Got Started

I went through the same process and stages that many of my students who are looking for a career change have gone through. My previous work experience included a very successful 20 year corporate career but I always had ‘hobbies’ that involved decorating and provided a creative outlet for me. When I was approaching my 50s I decided I wanted to change careers and do something that I really really loved. So, I got my interior decorating diploma and became a certified Redesigner. I built my client base by starting part time and those initial clients not only wanted decorating and redesign advice, they wanted me to help them get their houses ready for selling. It was a ‘no brainer’ for me! And the rest is history…

FAQs Home Staging As A Career

There are many common questions that I get asked when people are looking into this as a career change for them. I would like to share their questions and my answers with you.

1. How do I know this is the right career for me? You will know if you have a gift for this type of work or not. It is something that will bring you joy and you are most likely doing it for family and/or friends for ‘free’ right now. They all tell you how good you are at it. Sound familiar?

2. How do I get started? The very best way to get started is to do some RESEARCH. Research can be done through a variety of resources. A very good one is the Internet. You can do a www.google.com search or a www.yahoo.com search and get great information on line. Another method is by conducting Informational Meetings with home staging business owners. Attend Networking Meetings – find out who knows someone in the business or a related business. Talk and meet with Realtors and other real estate professionals such as Mortgage Brokers, etc. Email or talk with graduates of Professional Home Staging Training programs.

3. Do I need to have a degree or training in interior design or interior decorating? Absolutely not. I do recommend that you continue to educate yourself in related fields. The more services that you can offer your clients the more revenue streams you will have. Your strategic alliances can be another source of revenue for you as well.

4. How do I know if I will be successful or not? My standard answer comes from a professional development course I took a few years ago – “How you do anything is how you do everything; how successful you have been in the past is a good indicator of how successful you will be in creating your future.”

5. How much money can I make? This is the million dollar question! When asked this question I put the questions back to you – How much do you need to earn? Will this be a part time or full time business? How willing are you to put forward a 100% commitment to grow your business? Do you have a business plan? Currently a professional home stager’s earning potential is being compared to that of an interior decorator. Because this is a fairly new profession there are not statistics to support what a Home Stager will make annually.

6. What kind of start-up costs will I have? The wonderful thing about this business is that the start-up cost is very minimal. You will incur some costs for registering your business as any new business would. Your main expenses will be for tools which can be as low as $150. There are many things that you can do for ‘free’ such as getting your business cards, creating a website and advertising. Other costs can be reduced by belonging to a professional redesign & home staging association.

7. Are credentials and a designation important? YES! As this business grows awareness about home staging is getting the recognition it deserves. Many home sellers and realtors will ask a home staging what their credentials are and who they took their training through. You can become accredited and certified and obtain a designation through investing in a professional training course.

8. What professional training courses are recommended? Selecting the right course for you will be a personal decision. Do your research and determine what you want your outcome to be from the course you are taking. There are several types of courses now being offered in Canada and the United States. Some involve classroom theory and business start up learning, some are all teleclasses and offer no hands on. Some of the 3 day courses offer limited hands-on while the 5 day courses offer 3 full days of hands-on experience in real client’s homes.

9. What happens after I take the course? Many instructors offer mentoring to their graduates formally and informally. Many associations have monthly meetings and networking events for graduates. If business coaching is offered after the course this is something worth looking into.

10. Any other questions? Email or phone me and I will answer them for you. Remember what the Law of Attraction says “Focus on what you want, speak about it and act upon it; have faith and believe it is possible and you will achieve it.”