#mentor yourself

[mentoryourself]

Church!

[mentoryourself]

Get Better at Small Talk by Focusing on Your Idea Rhythm

If you’re worried that you’re dominating the conversation, or just not being interesting, pay attention to how long it takes you to convey a single idea or story. Use this to create a mental “rhythm” for your conversation:

I’ll define the rhythm of your speech as the rate at which your words communicate a single idea. A “beat” is a single idea unit. Next time you’re talking to someone, pay attention to this: how long did it take for you to tell Jenny that a bird flew into your house on Sunday? Two minutes? That’s one thought communicated, one beat.

You might feel compelled to keep talking to Jenny. You want to tell her how difficult it was to get the bird dislodged from the space above your kitchen cabinets, or what kind of bird it was, or about that summer you spent working at a chicken farm when you were sixteen. These things are all relevant, but they all compose a new beat in the song that is this conversation. Before you add another beat, you need to let Jenny respond.

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The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within.

Mahatma Gandhi

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5 Expert Tips for Updating Your Resume

1

A two-page resume is perfectly fine. A few years ago, it was expected that a resume would be just one page — no matter how much experience the applicant had. “That’s totally different now”, says Gelbard. “Although if you’ve only been out of school a few years, you don’t want a long two-page resume when you’ve only had one or two jobs.” But if you’ve been working longer, say, 25 years, “you don’t want to have a one-page resume because it doesn’t give enough information about you,” says Gelbard.

But it should be noted that a resume isn’t meant to list everything a person has ever done. That’s not strategic. “A 21st-century resume is focused on a specific career goal,” says Cunningham. So if an experience is relevant to the specific position you’re applying towards, keep it. Otherwise, cut it.

2

Replace the “Objective” with a “Profile Statement.” The modern resume is less “self-focused” than it used to be, according to Cunningham. It used to state: this is what I’m looking to do, how I can grow within a particular department, and how I’m going to grow my skills. But that way of thinking doesn’t cut it anymore. Instead of writing an “objective,” Cunningham suggests a “profile statement,” which “outlines the value an applicant brought to all of their past employers.” Basically, it’s a quick recap of a career, meant to quantify the applicant’s past experiences, performance and impacts.

3

Always send your resume as a PDF. That is, unless the company you’re applying to specifies otherwise. Gelbard says it’s not a given which operating system, or version of Word, a company will be using to view your resume. In Word, sometimes the format or the font might not translate over properly. “And that makes the resume look like a hot mess,” she says. “But if you send it as a PDF, the resume will be intact and fine.”

It’s also important to save your resume professionally. People go through a million iterations of their resume as they edit and update. But it’s important the resume is saved with a name that’s easy to understand. “It shouldn’t be ‘Name-Resume-Version-16,'” says Cunningham. “It should just be ‘Name-Resume.'” This keeps things clean and simple, and doesn’t make the employer feel like just a number.

4

Bullet points are your friends. Unlike in a cover letter — which should be short and written in paragraph form — a resume needs to optimized for readability. Using bullets does just that. People are reading resumes on so many different outlets, whether it be smartphones, tablets, or laptops; applicants need to make their resumes “scrollable,” Gelbard says. The simple truth is: if a paragraph is more than a few sentences, it’s difficult to read for those not using a laptop or desktop. Bullet points make paragraphs less bulky, and are more readable on a screen.

5

Keep your LinkedIn account updated. “A lot of people think that LinkedIn is just a job search tool,” says Gelbard, “but it’s also used for networking and researching.” People are looking at you through LinkedIn all the time. And it doesn’t matter if you are actively looking for a job, or if you aren’t notified that your LinkedIn page has been viewed. According to Gelbard, the Recruiter’s version of LinkedIn allows them to check profiles out incognito. So “it’s really in everyone’s best interest to have a strong LinkedIn profile all the time.” Having an up-to-date LinkedIn shows accountability, professionalism and even reflects well on your current occupation (if you have one).

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[mentoryourself]

There’s nobody I know under the age of 40 who believes Social Security will be paid in full when it’s time to collect. Maybe half of what’s owed, but certainly not 100%. As a result, many have smartly decided to write-off Social Security from their retirement plans in order to focus on accumulating enough assets on their own. Depending on an inefficient government during our golden years is dangerous. Instead, we must max out our 401ks and IRAs, while investing even more into after-tax investments.

FinancialSamurai.com

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See help as essential, not as a weakness...

Pretend you travel to an unfamiliar country, you know only a few words of the language, and you're lost and a little scared.

Would you ask for help? Of course. No one knows everything. No one is great at everything.

Productive people soldier on and hope effort will overcome a lack of knowledge or skill. And it does, but only to a point.

Remarkably productive people also ask for help. They know asking for help is a sign of strength--and the key to achieving more.

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