Debt-Free Forever Gail Vaz-Oxlade (best ereader for epub TXT) 📖

to your manager about your career aspirations. Get him to agree to help with your career growth. Set some goals. Companies love employees who have a plan for how they will increase their contribution to the bottom line. If you don’t have a manager who knows how, or wants to help, find yourself a mentor.

Successful people often have a mentor who sees their potential and offers to guide them through the political and corporate quagmire so they can move from one level to the next within an organization. You’re looking for a Yoda to your Luke Skywalker.

Your employer, your university or college, or an organization with which you or your family is associated may have a formal mentoring program in place that you can take advantage of. Or you may be able to identify someone you admire and respect at work, or through your personal connections, who could help you grow.

You’re looking for someone to help you assess your strengths and weaknesses. Ultimately you want to develop skills for success as well as create a long-range career plan. You need someone with whom you can work through career and workplace problems, someone who can provide a fresh perspective, someone who helps you make decisions more by suggesting alternatives rather than telling you what to do.

SHOP YOURSELF AROUND

If you take a job with an employer, and stay with that employer forever, you may not maximize your income potential simply because you’re taken for granted. If you’re in a rut, it may be time to look around. Most people earn more money when they change jobs. The key is to present yourself to a new employer in a way that will not only get you the job, but get you more money. From your cover letter to your resumé, from your interview to your follow-up, you need to send a strong positive message. You’re the product. But you’re also the marketing department and the salesperson. If you’re no good at either of those roles, get help.

And for heaven’s sake, don’t quit your job before you get another one. I don’t care how ticked off you are. People like to hire people who are already working. So if you’re in a job you hate, make a plan for getting out, but don’t just up and quit.

THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

You don’t have to be a lawyer or a doctor or a teacher. There are as many different jobs as there are kinds of people. Good mechanics are hard to find. So are good plumbers, electricians, and painters. Being good at what you do is far more important than what you do.

I’m a good writer. There are hundreds of people who purport to be writers, and there are dozens of editors who know differently. When I write a story for a magazine, there are very few changes needed. I figure out what my editors want and then I give it to them. So easy. Other people spend loads more time writing only to have the story returned with gobs of edits and hours of work attached. Doing something and doing something well are completely different things. If you’re really good at what you do, after paying your dues you can pretty well rule the world.

Don’t get caught up in what other people think you should do for a living. You have to decide what will make you happy. Since you’re going to spend between 8 and 12 hours a day doing it, you should like it at least a little.

When I was married to Husband #2, I got to see how a career choice can truly screw up a person. He was a dentist. His mother wanted him to have a profession so he would be his own boss. He followed her dreams and went into dentistry. And he was a damn fine dentist. But he was miserable. Did you know that dentists have one of the highest suicide rates going? Me neither. But I saw the stress first-hand.

Every Sunday night, while he slept he would scratch at his face. We tried putting socks over his hands, trimming his nails as short as possible, all sorts of stuff. He kept scratching. Ultimately the pressure got to him and he developed through-the-roof high blood pressure.

I can’t believe the money was worth it.

BEYOND “THE JOB”

Some people have jobs that have no future. If you work retail and know you’ll never be a store manager, buyer, or corporate executive, you may feel there’s nowhere to go. If you’re a server who barely puts together enough money every month to keep a roof over your head, you may believe you have no options. That’s sad. If you have no options, you’re doomed to the life you’re currently living. If you can’t find a way to increase your skills, maybe you can turn something you love to do into more money.

Exceptional people turn ordinary situations into phenomenal opportunities. Mrs. Fields baked her way to becoming a cookie maven. Mrs. B—who has a candy store in my small town—found a way to make money making candy. It’s a matter of seeing an opportunity and then busting your butt to turn that opportunity into a money-making proposition.

People who are passionate about personal fitness become fitness instructors or personal trainers. People who are passionate about gardening learn to landscape. People who are passionate about design, cooking, photography, sewing, animals can all find a way to turn what they love into an employment opportunity or business.

Think about it for a minute. Could you offer a service related to your expertise? If you like to write, you could help people with business plans, brochures, or by ghostwriting articles. Or you could start a blog and build your traffic until you were generating enough views that advertisers would want to be on your site. Could you use your programming skills to create a software program or a game? Could you build a website with collections of e-photos? Are you a craftsperson? Could you