Basic Training For Your Money

Author: Steve Repak, CFP

Steve Repak authors this easy to read financial guide from the perspective that most people really are stuck in a spending mode with a mindless system getting them into credit card dept, living from month to month and wondering how anyone ever really saves any money.  This was very hard to not be turned off by since I don’t struggle with those things and so you may feel the same reading this if you already know how to safely manage your money.  If you struggle with those things however, then Repak does a great job at empathizing with you, giving good tips for methods to break from your patterns and helps you get a plan in place to overcome that dept you may have, and spending more than you make tenancy.

This is the first financial book I’ve reviewed here and while it may be the first in hand book I’ve read on the subject, I am certainly no stranger to learning about managing money and knowing how to save. I learned this at a very young age thanks to my parents and have been careful with my money my whole life in order to have security, safety and plans for early retirement (which I can confirm are all very doable despite any skepticism). Anyway, I was offered a review copy of this book by the Cadence Group and was happy to enter the genre here since I felt I could read through it easily and understand it, since I have already developed such a foundation of knowledge around money, saving and investments.

Repak covers the foundations of wealth and refers to what he calls the six key traits to building wealth:

1. Spend less money than is made
2. Have little or no debt
3. Give and Save first
4. Have long term plans for money
5. Do not let emotions cloud  judgment
6. Start saving early in life

Today I welcome a new guest author, Carolyn who brings us this great article on advancing your career.  I am always surprised how many people think that the next great job for them is not at their current workplace, but at the next company or job for them.  The reality is, every job can be your next level job and people would position themselves much better by continuously advancing their careers and building their skills in EVERY job, just by dropping one and seeking the next.  So, please add your comments to welcome Carolyn and you can find more of her articles at her link at the end of the article.

Gaining a promotion at work is something that many workers would put on their to-do list. But how exactly does one go about the task of climbing the corporate ladder? Well, the corporate ladder is less of a ladder and more a staircase. What I mean by that is that advancement doesn’t come in huge upward motions. It most often comes in slow, steady moves. Continually move forward, display a desire to learn more about your job and strive to do the best you can on all of your assignments and before you know it, you’ll realize you’ve ascended quite a bit from your original position.

Before I outline a few points about advancing within a company and furthering your career, let me begin with a short illustration.

The Two Workers

Two men began work at an accounting firm at roughly the same time. The two new employees had attended rival schools but got along well enough. The first employee decorated his desk with memorabilia from his alma mater and the second chose to keep his work area sparse and sterile. At lunch during a coworker’s birthday celebration, while the cake was being passed out and “Happy Birthday” being sung, the first employee joined in with the chorus of voices while the other hung toward the back, not wishing anyone to hear his less than impressive singing voice. Both of the employees were well liked within the office. Neither participated in the intra-office politics or petty office gossip. Both were generally on time with their assignments and both pulled their weight. However, the first employee quickly got a feel for the office culture and began arriving in time to flip on the lights in the office in the morning. He was trusted with a key to the office because the bosses figured, if he wants to get here so early, why not let him?

Still the two men performed about the same amount of work. What the first employee accomplished in 9 hours at the office, the second employee could get done in 7.5 hours.

It wasn’t until an opportunity arose to get trained on new software that the first employee really set himself apart. The company was readying itself for a switch to a new type of software and it asked for volunteers to get trained on the new system. The volunteers would then turn around and train their coworkers on the new system. It was not a popular position — there were no benefits — but the first employee volunteered for the position, was trained and lent his new expertise to his coworkers.

When it came time for the accounting firm to consider applicants for a promotion to a recently vacated managerial position, whom do you think they chose?  It should be fairly obvious that the first employee demonstrated that he was worthy of the career advancement. But why is that? The second employee was technically the more efficient candidate. He worked at a rate that was about 17 percent faster than the first employee.

Eagerness

The fact is, most companies care about efficiency and your ability to carry a heavy workload only to a certain extent. The thing that many companies look for is eagerness. The first employee had that quality in spades. This is shown not only in his volunteering for the unenviable position of new software trainer but also in his loud singing at the coworker’s lunch time birthday party and his early arrival to the office each day.

Taking the time do something as small as stand by the water cooler for a few minutes on your break and chit chat with employees shows that you’re not just there for the paycheck. You’re taking an active interest in your work and your coworkers. It shows management that you’re eager to be there. You enjoy being there. So they should want to keep you.

Keep Learning

The software-training example is just a small example of a time that someone took an opportunity to learn more within their job. This often pops up at jobs in the form of new certifications, licensures or training opportunities. The first employee’s willingness to learn the new software demonstrated to management that they are looking to learn. The desire to take on new tasks is something that managers are constantly looking for in prospective recipients of promotions.

Respect Your Elders

The managers at your job got there for a reason. Although sometimes it may seem like they don’t quite know what they’re doing, they have a better job title than you for a reason. Part of learning on the job and using the knowledge you gain to advance your career is found in relationships made with management. Offer to take your boss out to lunch and ask how they achieved their successes, how they dealt with their failures and how you can get on track to follow in their footsteps.

This is not only a great way of learning about the company and its day-to-day operations, this is a great way of making sure your boss can pick you out of a crowd. If a chance for a promotion comes up, they’ll be much more likely to consider you if they can pick you out of a line up.

Contribute

The example of the first employee singing along to “Happy Birthday” is also a metaphor for something that too many employees fail to understand. Speak up. No one will promote you, let alone acknowledge that you’re in the room unless you make your voice heard. Contribute to the discussions. Put your two cents in at meetings. Don’t be afraid to put your opinions and ideas forth at meetings. This will raise your visibility within the office and, in the event that you say something incorrect, the correction you receive at the meeting will stick with you.

As the old proverb says, “Rebuke is more effective for a wise man than 100 blows to a fool.” The implication is that if you’re wise, you will only need to be corrected once and you will heed that instruction. If you’re a fool, you could have someone try to beat the information into you, but it wouldn’t take.

If you’re looking to advance your career but are worried about the opportunities within your company, don’t abandon ship just yet. Advancement opportunities will inevitably open up if you apply these principles for moving forward.

Carolyn is a guest blogger who writes about employment topics and RN schools.

I am happy to have another guest post by Jesse this week, who has posted previously a great article here at LearnThis.ca, Finding Happiness in Authenticity.  This time, Jesse writes a new guest post on goal setting. Goal setting has always been a favorite topic of mine so its great to have a new perspective on it and it can never be encourage enough to anyone interested in personal development.  Goal setting is a critical factor to success and is something everyone should be actively doing on a regular basis. So, it’s a great article and I encourage you to please add your comments and feedback below.

The whole point of making a list of goals for yourself is to meet them—so, why is it so hard for us to follow through? Part of it has to do with how we view goals; according to an article on productivity blog Lifehack, the more potential for positive growth a goal has, the more anxious and stressed we are by not achieving it. A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step—and sometimes, taking that first step can be tougher than the journey itself.

Nevertheless, you still have goals for different areas of your life: spending more time with your family, working toward a promotion at your job, or maybe pursuing higher education. But the problem isn’t that you don’t want to meet these goals—the problem is that you’re not working to improve your life and the lives of your family. So, how do you get back on the resolution wagon? How can you stay motivated to fulfill your aspirations?

Don’t give up

Seems like a simple directive—but it’s much easier said than done. Still, the fact is that you won’t reach your goals if you don’t work to achieve them. Find ways to keep yourself motivated: use a productivity app like Evernote on your computer, smartphone or tablet so you can keep track of both short-term and long-term tasks. You can also recruit friends and family to help you stay on track: if your goals are health-related, encourage your family to try a healthy eating plan or a family workout schedule; you can also share your goals with friends and ask them to help keep you accountable. The more encouragement and positive pressure you have in your life, the more likely you are to stick to your guns when giving up seems like an attractive choice.

Be specific

When you’re making goals, envision exactly what you want. While the journey is important, it’s the destination that matters—so be specific when you set objectives. If you want to improve your education, explore the subjects you’re interested in and decide on a degree program that works for you. From there, you’ll be able to plot a clear path to earning a degree or certification. Having clear and detailed goals can also give you clues on how to proceed: if you’re a working dad with a growing family, perhaps an online degree program or attending classes part-time would be your most beneficial course of action. With a clear set of goals, you’ll also be able to track your progress.

Don’t sweat the small stuff

Staying on track can be especially difficult when you’ve got a million things to worry about: by the time you’ve finished your workday, chances are you’ll still have a long list of chores to complete. But not everything is essential—and that can be hard to accept. You can’t be everywhere and do everything, so learn to let some things go in order to concentrate on others. That might require you to ask for help—and you shouldn’t be afraid to do so. Your spouse might need to do dinner duty a few more times a week; you could ask a friend to be your workout partner in order to keep you on schedule; or your older kids might need to pick up a couple more chores around the house. When you’re trying to stay on track to meet your goals, keeping your eye on the prize is essential—it’s easy to get bogged down in the minutiae of everyday life.

Make some changes

Reaching your goals will require rearranging your priorities—whether it’s committing to spending less time at the office, rearranging your school schedule, or passing on activities with friends or coworkers. Try this exercise: keep track of every single thing you do for one week. From the moment you wake up every morning until you return to your bed for the night, jot down how you spend your time. How much TV do you watch? How much of your day is eaten up with Internet surfing? How long are you stuck in traffic on your daily commute?

After a week, look at the hours you spend not working toward your goals, and cut out the non-essential activities. If you have an hour to watch TV, then you’ve got an hour to work out on an elliptical machine. If you wile away your evening hours tweeting or Facebooking, consider using that time to study instead. The key is to trim the fat from your life and devote more energy to your resolutions. The more free time you have, the more easily you can fill it with tasks that move you closer toward your goals.

Celebrate

That’s right—when you reach your goals, you should reward yourself! One of the reasons why may goals tend to be difficult to meet is that many of us have been conditioned to expect instant gratification or reward. But giving yourself a reward—like a vacation, or a new electronic gadget, or maybe a party—at the end of your journey can make it easier to stay motivated and keep going. Acknowledging your own hard work—and taking a little time to review how you got what you wanted—can go a long way toward making your all your work seem worthwhile.

Of course, just because you’re committing to making your dreams come true doesn’t mean that you’ll always succeed. And that’s totally okay: the most important element of working toward your goals is that you stay persistent and focused. While you might not meet your goals within the timeframe you set for yourself, if you keep at it, you’ll get there eventually—and that’s what’s most important.

Jesse Langley specialilzes in writing about education, professional and personal development, and career building.  He writes on behalf of Colorado Technical University.

Working as a manager or leader in any workplace leaves a lot of room to influence other people.  And shouldn’t that include then some specific coaching and discussion to help others improve their role and work results?  I certainly think so and I also think that every person in a leadership or supervising role should be expected to learn about coaching in the workplace.  If coaching were better understood and used on a regular basis, the results of whole teams and companies could be drastically improved given some time.

Coaching in the workplace is something I’ve practiced for a number of years through managing others and it is now one of the most effective ways I have to develop people for higher level roles, better performance and to address weaknesses getting in their way from being as effective as they could be.  I originally learned the model I use now for coaching from Manager Tools at one of their effective manager conferences.  I can’t stress the value enough of their many free podcasts and training for managers.  These models and tools create a foundation for coaching that works reliably and you then only need to tweak it to fit your style, your methods for your workplace and to adjust each session of course to the person you are coaching, the most important part of course.

Uncovering Goals through Questioning

Questioning is a tool, unfortunately overlooked and under studied which can help you tremendously in coaching others.  Learning to use probing questions and digging deeper with the 5 common W questions, you can get to the root of motivations or problems to uncover the real goals the other person might have.  Its often easier to determine some simple goal or short term item that you can coach a person for, but if it has an underlying motivation and meaning that has more impact and value to the other person, it is worth using questions to uncover that.  I have 3 previous articles on questions, all can really help in coaching:

• Better Communication: Using Questions Regularly
• Using the 5 W Questions to Improve Your Training
• Open Ended Questions Make Better Conversations

The Coaching Model

The model that Manager Tools is best described in their podcasts mentioned above.  It is essentially a series of 4 steps toward achieving the coaching goal.  They are:

1. Set a Goal
2. Brainstorm the Resources
3. Create an Action Plan
4. Act towards the Goal

Tailor Coaching To the Individual

Coaching only works if it is specific to an individual and the same coaching plan will never work for everyone.  The brainstorming and even the goal could be the same, but each person will have their own action plan and steps to achieve their goal.  This is because you need to let the action plan be something that works specifically for the individual you are coaching.  For example, just because I know I can easily learn content from reading a book by some subject matter expert, I know this doesn’t work for everyone and reading a book in a coaching plan might be more discouraging to some individuals than it is helpful.  Some people will need to learn by trial and error, some by courses or training, some self taught, some through experimentation, research or by hearing stories and reacting emotionally to some method.  Everyone will have their own style and its your job as the coach to tailor the coaching to find the methods that work best for the individual and then incorporate that method for them to practice and learn most effectively.

A Six-Session Investigation of the Toughest Objections to Christianity

Buy the AudioCD at Amazon

Author: Lee Strobel and Garry Poole

I know not everyone is interested in spiritual books so link ahead to other categories or articles here if you don’t care to explore what could be a way to discover new meaning and purpose in your life.  I’ve read several books by C.S. Lewis recently which I really enjoyed, like The Screwtape Letters, The Abolition of Man, and The Great Divorce.  The screwtape letters were wonderful and insightful in a sad and scary way while the other two were more intellectually challenging as they were a much harder to read from the sense of understanding the author, Lewis.

Anyway much of Lewis’ writings have triggered many other authors to seek their questions about God and Christianity and the Case for Faith is one of those examples, by Lee Strobel.  I’ve read several of Strobel’s other books (see my review of God’s Outragious Claims and The Case for Christ) and this book is definitely my favorite of the three.  Faith is something I have deeply grown in and it has become an important part of who I am, and it drives me to live the way I live.  It brings joy, contentment as well as turmoil and question about what I should be doing, what I can be doing and if I’m leading myself or letting God lead me?

Faith

Faith is a tough subject to write about, and even tougher to make arguments for since Faith itself is completely based on believing in something that you are not entirely sure about.  This book puts both of that into a mixture of questions around faith and Christianity, yet at the same time, providing a number of explanations and reasons why those questions are so important in the context of faith.  There are a number of interviews conducted in the book, with scholars and subject experts, both aethiest and Christian and Strobel presents them into a convincing set of apologetic answers and explanations that should be enough for any faith seeker to be convinced that there is ample truth and evidence in those many questions to warrant the faith that is then required to become a believer.

A few areas I especially liked in the book were how much of the atheist claims about science, evolution, and attempts to discredit the Word of God, have been repeatedly discredited by not only Christian research and scholars, but science as well.  I’ve learned some of this on my own researching science that has become the “standard explanation” for the origin of life and the universe.  Unfortunately, there is a lot of science taught in school as truths, when in reality, they are not proven any more than many of the cases this book argues.  I’ve met my share of atheists and even had arguments from them on this site, and surprisingly I see they have as much faith in their religion (I mean non-religion since that is what they would have you believe) as I have in mine.  That is still a clear case of faith and the ability to choose your faith should only be done with what can be believed with enough credit and evidence that you feel you can trust it, go with the uncertainly you still have and grow in that faith by experiencing the results of it.  This is where I feel Strobel’s book did an excellent job, covering in interviews how faith is not just an initial leap, but a transformation towards something through experience.  Faith leads to something you can truly know in your soul and that experience and relationship with Christ that so many discover is what separates believers in God and Christ from those who have a faith that He does not exist.  Not believing requires putting your faith in other people, scientific theory, research, scholars and much imagination, since there is no supernatural to explain the origin of life and the universe.

Strobel was once an atheist so many of his questions were formed when he was seeking answers and arguing against the requirements of faith which he now as a Christian, puts to the challenge with the evidence and arguments that he has collected to help others understand and explain some of the toughest objections to Christianity.  As with any book, and especially to the atheist, you have to understand this book is about a Case FOR Christ, it helps to steer you toward a Faith in Him that can change your life. I think the book is great for anyone seeking more answers about God, wanting to see arguments for or against their current views and to add a deeper perspective on what Faith really requires, regardless of your current believes, Christian or not.  It’s easy to read and doesn’t require you to know a lot of historical background or content from the Bible but of course that helps as many references are used as evidence but not the whole context of them outlined.  So, if Faith is either something you are lacking, want to strengthen or simply curious to explore what Faith is all about, I think you will then certainly enjoy, The Case For Faith!

It’s been a few months since I’ve shared another resource list so I’ve got a great round up for you, which hopefully you haven’t seen many of these.  

Articles

• I have my share of 100 lists and this is another great one: 100 Ways for Your Family to Make a Difference
• I wonderful response and article based on Gilbert’s Stumbling on Happiness.  This one is called Futile Pursuit
• Here is an article sent to me about inspiring elderly learners, who believe learning is worthwhile, no matter what their age.
• 50 Ways to Show Gratitude for the People in Your Life, gratitude is often overlooked, and these tips will help keep it active
• 14 Links to Make You A More Intelligent Person - Some great websites and online learning tools, many that I frequent are in this list and I’ve certainly found a few new ones, which I’m sure you will like as well!
• 30 Days of for 30 days of Growth – A worthy list of ways to grow in life
• How to be Yourself – some excellent tips at discovering yourself and being more authentic (a VERY important trait to great relationships)

 Videos

• This is a very interesting video about the Captch project and now, there new research for language translation, which I am excited to try once public.
• www.instructables.com is a great website for finding out exactly how to do a lot of things and simple DIY projects.

From the Archives here at LearnThis.ca

• Passion: Find your passion in life
• Reach Out Beyond Your Comfort Zone…
• Being Humble: Why Bother Learning to be Humble?