A recent article in The Economist states that our traditional concept of state-sponsored retirement is on the way out. This will mean for all of us working longer, which can be a challenge since many employers still harbor prejudices against older employees.
How can we compete? By thinking and acting young ... if we "rest on our laurels" and refuse to learn new things and technologies, we will not be able to compete against the young turks out there who are eager to get in line in front of us. By realizing that we may have to alter our expectations regarding salaries, and accept compensation that may be less than what we received at the top of our careers. By realizing that retirement is a fairly recent concept in the world's history and that remaining productive throughout the last stages of our lives is not necessarily a burden, but can be a source of joy and fulfillment.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Site Restructuring
I've restructured the site menus to (hopefully) make the site a little more usable, and switched to a different look for the site. I hope you like it ... and that your own life journey is going well!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
An Update
I haven't done any site maintenance for a while, and was appalled to find that it's been nearly a year since I added to the blog. Nearly a year! And what a year it's been ... I've been doing a lot of consulting and coaching, and am ramping up a new web design business aimed at coaches, counselors, and small businesses. The economy has taken a nasty turn ... who could have guessed it could happen so quickly? I pray that anyone reading this hasn't suffered too badly in these hard times. I've certainly seen the impact on my coaching clients.
I've also been designing a new online product for this site ... I hope to roll it out sometime this year, but I have a lot of work ahead of me! My intent is to post here more regularly ... I confess being embarrassed it's been so long.
I've also been designing a new online product for this site ... I hope to roll it out sometime this year, but I have a lot of work ahead of me! My intent is to post here more regularly ... I confess being embarrassed it's been so long.
Friday, May 23, 2008
What Is Abundance?
Coaches like to talk about achieving "abundance" in one's life. When I hear the word "abundance", I usually think of the symbol of the cornucopia, spilling over with the good things of the harvest ... or of the ads for a certain chain of Italian restaurants for whom "abundance" seems to mean ridiculously large and unhealthy portions of fatty food. It makes one a little uncomfortable, since one person's abundance is often another's shortage, and wanting more than what one needs can be, we have always been told, evidence of pure and simple Envy and Greed. And we all know that Greed and Envy are listed among the Seven Deadly Sins.
But perhaps we're looking at abundance the wrong way. Try this on for size: Abundance means having enough of a resource that you don't fear running out of it, and can bless the lives of others by giving the surplus away. The opposite of abundance, scarcity, would then mean living in the fear that you will run out of something, and not having enough of the resource to give it away without increasing your fear. Abundance is a subjective experience of tranquillity or perhaps fullness, then, and fear of scarcity or emptiness is its opposite. Envy is the resentment of the abundance of others, and Greed the desire to accumulate resources above and beyond what is needed to live in a state of perceived abundance.
Fear, Envy, Greed ... all signs of an attachment to things. And yet, one of the antidotes is to give things away. You can't give away what you don't have so everyone needs a minimal level of abundance to remain detached from things: enough to survive plus extra to give away. And one can experience abundance in other areas of one's life besides possessions and money: time, for example; and love in relationships. I can't tell you what abundance might look like for you ... but I know I've lived on both sides of the divide, and if one can't pay one's bills and meet the family's basic needs, it's hard to remain detached from the need for the things in one's life. Same with time: if one spends all his/her time working, there's no time left over to give away to the people one loves.
But perhaps we're looking at abundance the wrong way. Try this on for size: Abundance means having enough of a resource that you don't fear running out of it, and can bless the lives of others by giving the surplus away. The opposite of abundance, scarcity, would then mean living in the fear that you will run out of something, and not having enough of the resource to give it away without increasing your fear. Abundance is a subjective experience of tranquillity or perhaps fullness, then, and fear of scarcity or emptiness is its opposite. Envy is the resentment of the abundance of others, and Greed the desire to accumulate resources above and beyond what is needed to live in a state of perceived abundance.
Fear, Envy, Greed ... all signs of an attachment to things. And yet, one of the antidotes is to give things away. You can't give away what you don't have so everyone needs a minimal level of abundance to remain detached from things: enough to survive plus extra to give away. And one can experience abundance in other areas of one's life besides possessions and money: time, for example; and love in relationships. I can't tell you what abundance might look like for you ... but I know I've lived on both sides of the divide, and if one can't pay one's bills and meet the family's basic needs, it's hard to remain detached from the need for the things in one's life. Same with time: if one spends all his/her time working, there's no time left over to give away to the people one loves.
Saturday, May 17, 2008
More Changes to Metier Site
I've made a few more changes to the site; the client pages are now open to viewing. Most of the information there will be of interest to current clients only. It includes downloadable coaching forms, information on communication, and a link to pay via PayPal (still working on the latter).
Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Changes to Metier Site
I've added an Amazon store to the site; in it, you can find my recommendations for books and other things that I think will be helpful to you. Basically, I decided to include books, software, etc. I've mentioned and recommended in this blog and elsewhere on the site in the store. Just click on the Metier Store link in the menu.
If you're really observant, you may notice the Metier Forum link is gone. It really wasn't getting any traffic so I've decided to remove it and work on setting up a Metier page on Facebook. I'll let you all know when it's ready!
If you're really observant, you may notice the Metier Forum link is gone. It really wasn't getting any traffic so I've decided to remove it and work on setting up a Metier page on Facebook. I'll let you all know when it's ready!
Thursday, May 8, 2008
Business On A Shoestring, Part Three
When I decided to start this coaching practice, I had no experience as an entrepreneur, and no knowledge of marketing beyond a couple of seminars and the marketing component of my coaching training at the Institute for Life Coach Training. And I had neither capital to invest nor benefactors who could give me the money to start a business. I decided I'd do what I could with my meager resources, and do as much of the work as I could on my own. I needed: a website, internet marketing, business cards, a brochure, a business plan, education on marketing on the internet, and education on marketing in general. I also needed the forms and other things that one needs to run a business. I was willing to start small and grow the business without quitting my "day job". Here's how I did these things without a lot of financial resources.
The Website
Although I have a very strong technical background, I hadn't actually built a complete website myself. So I wanted something that was easy to use, would provide me quickly with a professional-looking site, and would also let me grow the site's content and complexity as I learned more about web design. Many designers recommend DreamWeaver, which is a very sophisticated application; however, its sticker price is $399.95, which was definitely out of my budget. So I looked at more affordable options. I found Freeway Pro and RapidWeaver; both are much easier to use than DreamWeaver. I settled on RapidWeaver because of the large number of third-party themes and plugins that are available for it, and the quality of the support forums. RapidWeaver costs $49.00; with the theme I used for this site and a few plugins, the total for web design software for the site came to just over $100. Still, a lot cheaper than DreamWeaver. The application I recommend that's closest in the Windows world is Web Easy Professional; it's also template driven, easy to use, and affordable ($49.95). In addition to the web design software, I wanted some images for the site to customize its appearance; $10.00 bought me four downloads at Big Stock Photo. A reasonably-priced hosting plan plus registration of the .com, .net, and .org versions of my domain name cost me about $37 per year at BlueHost. I chose them because they get consistently positive reviews, and my experience with them has been very positive. So my total initial investment in my website was about $147.
Internet Marketing
I found the thought of marketing rather intimidating. But I believe in what I'm doing with Metier, so I decided to jump in & get my feet wet. I took some free webinars on marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO); what I learned there was, you need to tweak your site content to make the search engines happy, always have new content (that's why blogs are a great thing), and get links to your site from other high-quality sites. Some of the marketing sites I've learned a great from include Get Slightly Famous, Entrepreneur.com, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Trends, Bruce Clay, and SEOmoz. All these sites have free resources for the entrepreneur-marketer, and there are many others out there equally good. I also relied on the RapidWeaver community forums for help with SEO as well as other aspects of designing my site (thanks, guys). I've been tweaking my site and adding new things over the past year and a half, so that takes care of the content part.
I couldn't afford experimenting with Google Adwords, or the $300 per year it costs to register my site with Yahoo's directory. So I decided to do what I could for free. I got a free listing at Superpages; in spite of the fact my listing was free, they called me & helped me set up the listing correctly. I submitted my site to the various search engines; I did so through BlueHost, but there are many free sites where you can submit to the search engines. In my opinion, you only need to worry about submitting to the top search engines. So that's what I did. I set up a Squidoo lens for Career Coaching, and set up a Facebook page. I also got a membership at SelfHelp.com and LinkedIn.com, and registered my blog at MyBlogLog. I wrote an e-book, and either uploaded it or registered it at various free e-book sites, including Publishd, Scribd, and ebookpalace.com (all of these sites are easily found with Google). I also started reading other folks' blogs and participating in them, making sure I added a link back to my site. Total cost of my marketing and SEO program to date: zero.
Business Cards, Brochure, and Forms
For most of my marketing materials, I used Apple's iWork suite (Pages, to be specific). It also provides a Powerpoint-compatible presentation program, Keynote, which was something I needed. Cost; $79. There are various places on the internet where you can design business cards online and have them sent to you, but I wanted to do it myself. I found a program for the Mac, Business Card Composer ($34.95), which is excellent. I also use it for doing logos and other images for my website and marketing materials. You can do all this on a Windows machine with an application like Microsoft Works, or Broderbund's Print Shop Pro ($69.99). Total cost to me: $113.95 (plus incidentals like paper & ink cartridges).
That's pretty much it; I've made other purchases since then but strictly speaking, they weren't necessary for the business. There are other things I want to get, like a Skype account and a Fax number, but for now I'm getting by without them. Total investment by me so far is therefore $260.95 (not counting many hours of my time, of course). Not bad, huh?
The Website
Although I have a very strong technical background, I hadn't actually built a complete website myself. So I wanted something that was easy to use, would provide me quickly with a professional-looking site, and would also let me grow the site's content and complexity as I learned more about web design. Many designers recommend DreamWeaver, which is a very sophisticated application; however, its sticker price is $399.95, which was definitely out of my budget. So I looked at more affordable options. I found Freeway Pro and RapidWeaver; both are much easier to use than DreamWeaver. I settled on RapidWeaver because of the large number of third-party themes and plugins that are available for it, and the quality of the support forums. RapidWeaver costs $49.00; with the theme I used for this site and a few plugins, the total for web design software for the site came to just over $100. Still, a lot cheaper than DreamWeaver. The application I recommend that's closest in the Windows world is Web Easy Professional; it's also template driven, easy to use, and affordable ($49.95). In addition to the web design software, I wanted some images for the site to customize its appearance; $10.00 bought me four downloads at Big Stock Photo. A reasonably-priced hosting plan plus registration of the .com, .net, and .org versions of my domain name cost me about $37 per year at BlueHost. I chose them because they get consistently positive reviews, and my experience with them has been very positive. So my total initial investment in my website was about $147.
Internet Marketing
I found the thought of marketing rather intimidating. But I believe in what I'm doing with Metier, so I decided to jump in & get my feet wet. I took some free webinars on marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO); what I learned there was, you need to tweak your site content to make the search engines happy, always have new content (that's why blogs are a great thing), and get links to your site from other high-quality sites. Some of the marketing sites I've learned a great from include Get Slightly Famous, Entrepreneur.com, Duct Tape Marketing, Small Business Trends, Bruce Clay, and SEOmoz. All these sites have free resources for the entrepreneur-marketer, and there are many others out there equally good. I also relied on the RapidWeaver community forums for help with SEO as well as other aspects of designing my site (thanks, guys). I've been tweaking my site and adding new things over the past year and a half, so that takes care of the content part.
I couldn't afford experimenting with Google Adwords, or the $300 per year it costs to register my site with Yahoo's directory. So I decided to do what I could for free. I got a free listing at Superpages; in spite of the fact my listing was free, they called me & helped me set up the listing correctly. I submitted my site to the various search engines; I did so through BlueHost, but there are many free sites where you can submit to the search engines. In my opinion, you only need to worry about submitting to the top search engines. So that's what I did. I set up a Squidoo lens for Career Coaching, and set up a Facebook page. I also got a membership at SelfHelp.com and LinkedIn.com, and registered my blog at MyBlogLog. I wrote an e-book, and either uploaded it or registered it at various free e-book sites, including Publishd, Scribd, and ebookpalace.com (all of these sites are easily found with Google). I also started reading other folks' blogs and participating in them, making sure I added a link back to my site. Total cost of my marketing and SEO program to date: zero.
Business Cards, Brochure, and Forms
For most of my marketing materials, I used Apple's iWork suite (Pages, to be specific). It also provides a Powerpoint-compatible presentation program, Keynote, which was something I needed. Cost; $79. There are various places on the internet where you can design business cards online and have them sent to you, but I wanted to do it myself. I found a program for the Mac, Business Card Composer ($34.95), which is excellent. I also use it for doing logos and other images for my website and marketing materials. You can do all this on a Windows machine with an application like Microsoft Works, or Broderbund's Print Shop Pro ($69.99). Total cost to me: $113.95 (plus incidentals like paper & ink cartridges).
That's pretty much it; I've made other purchases since then but strictly speaking, they weren't necessary for the business. There are other things I want to get, like a Skype account and a Fax number, but for now I'm getting by without them. Total investment by me so far is therefore $260.95 (not counting many hours of my time, of course). Not bad, huh?
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