Nine Steps to Corporate Success for Employees of Any Age
Whether right out of college, graduate school or coming in from another company, managing personal success in any corporation is challenging. Globalization, downsizing and outsourcing all have made that challenge even greater. There are steps that anyone coming into a corporation can take that will guarantee a degree of success, if not the CEOs desk (or perhaps cubicle for some companies today).1. Learn your new job inside out. Know more about your job than anyone in your company. And once you know everything about your job, learn all you can about the functional jobs that intersect with yours. Also learn all you can about your boss's job. But first, be the expert i

Solidifying Foundations
To ensure that your business runs smoothly, you need to establish a solid structure. The success of your business depends on how well you manage it. First, you need to choose how you will set up your business: as a sole proprietor, a partnership or a corporation. Most home-based businesses are sole proprietor-ships, but talk to an attorney to make sure that type is right for you.Next, set up an effective record keeping system. If this is one area that leaves you baffled or bored, plan now how you will cope. Take a course at the local community college, talk to a volunteer SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) representative from the S

What Does a Gerbil Wheel and YOU have in Common? 7.5 Secret Questions that can Change Your Life!
1. Do you seem to be running and running and running every day and getting nowhere just like a gerbil?2. As you lay in your bed at the end of each day, do you think about tomorrow and see grey?3. Are you tired of just having a J.O.B.(Just Over Broke!) and doing the same thing day after day after day never getting ahead or feeling excited about your work?5, Wouldn't you rather wake up in the morning, JUMP out of bed and rush to get dressed so you can get to work?6. Wouldn't you love to live your life purpose, making people feel good, making a difference in the world and make a good income as well?7. Are you good with your hands?>1. More control over my destiny, actions and choices. As an employee you will come across an opportunity where your heart will scream inside that this is it. This is the one long shot you have waited. If you are part of an open progressive organization there is a chance that you will be allowed to take that shot as long as you convince the right individuals in the hierarchy. But in most cases despite your best efforts your institution will force you to walk away from the one sure thing that life offered you. You will end up dancing to other tunes with little or no control over your actions, the events around you and the choices made by your team.

I worked for 8 years for others till it got to a point that the utility of making simple decisions like restricting travel or focusing on a sector, or outsourcing work became higher than the monetary value of my paycheck. When that time came, I packed up my storage boxes and went off on my own.

2. But control is only part of the equation. An equally important driver for me was the much larger share available to me in the value that I create in my organization. Starting from revenues and profitability in the short term to goodwill and intellectual property in the long term. Not matter how hard I worked or how many breakthroughs I made or how much good will I created, in the end when I walked away from my employer I left all that behind. Five or ten years later if any of my projects start gushing oil, I have no claim on their success.

3. I also work for my self

n most cases despite your best efforts your institution will force you to walk away from the one sure thing that life offered you. You will end up dancing to other tunes with little or no control over your actions, the events around you and the choices made by your team.

I worked for 8 years for others till it got to a point that the utility of making simple decisions like restricting travel or focusing on a sector, or outsourcing work became higher than the monetary value of my paycheck. When that time came, I packed up my storage boxes and went off on my own.

2. But control is only part of the equation. An equally important driver for me was the much larger share available to me in the value that I create in my organization. Starting from revenues and profitability in the short term to goodwill and intellectual property in the long term. Not matter how hard I worked or how many breakthroughs I made or how much good will I created, in the end when I walked away from my employer I left all that behind. Five or ten years later if any of my projects start gushing oil, I have no claim on their success.

3. I also work for my self

travel or focusing on a sector, or outsourcing work became higher than the monetary value of my paycheck. When that time came, I packed up my storage boxes and went off on my own.

2. But control is only part of the equation. An equally important driver for me was the much larger share available to me in the value that I create in my organization. Starting from revenues and profitability in the short term to goodwill and intellectual property in the long term. Not matter how hard I worked or how many breakthroughs I made or how much good will I created, in the end when I walked away from my employer I left all that behind. Five or ten years later if any of my projects start gushing oil, I have no claim on their success.

3. I also work for my self

es and profitability in the short term to goodwill and intellectual property in the long term. Not matter how hard I worked or how many breakthroughs I made or how much good will I created, in the end when I walked away from my employer I left all that behind. Five or ten years later if any of my projects start gushing oil, I have no claim on their success.

3. I also work for my self because it gives me more flexibility in defending and sticking with my personal and professional values. In making a difference when and where I want to make it. Not that I don't make comprises at work as an employer. I do but I make them at my terms and I make them by choice. As the architect said in the Matrix, the key element is choice – absent choice we are all inherently unstable. Introduce choice and you introduce stability.

4. Have you ever thought about what is life like after you turn fifty? Get laid off around that age and then try finding a job that fits in with your personal and professional goals. Doesn’t matter how politically correct we get as a race, nation, continent or planet, age discrimination is here to stay. At that age the problem is no longer if you can work or deliver, it is more who will take you in. I know of exceptions who have started off their own ventures post their golden handshakes and done well. But as a rule, the fifth decade of our life is going to be short on energy, optimism, tolerance and the ability to survive a big hit. For most of us it represents the final stretch in our professional lives with retirement waiting at the end. If it is an end that we don’t look forward to, that is just too bad. There are no extensions; there are no victory laps. Once you have been put out to pasture it will only be a short while before the butchers in animal farm will come for you.

If these are the reasons to jump in, I also know there is a hefty price that I will pay as an en