From Property to Start-up

From Property to Start-up Success Story > From: Job To: Startup From Property to Start-up “I'd become disillusioned, unfulfilled and increasingly frustrated.” * From Property to Start-up With his heart no longer in his London property job,Hugo Douglassleft itto launch his own businessâ€" andwith no prior start-upexperience. This is how he did it. What work were you doing previously? I'd been an estate agent for several years, working mainly in central London. Although I knew that I didn't want to do that for the rest of my life, it was a matter of waiting for the right opportunity before moving onto something else. What are you doing now? I've set up a luxury knitwear brand called Plum of London. I'd always wanted to set up my own clothing company but didn't know what would be the best way to enter the market. After leaving my last position in property, I worked for a friend who has their own clothing label. After carrying out some research, I soon realised the amazing potential in working with alpaca fibre and learned of the relatively unknown qualities it possesses (although news is spreading!). Why did you change? I had become disillusioned, unfulfilled and increasingly frustrated with not only the property market, but also with the office politics which I felt I and my colleagues had to endure. Ultimately, my heart wasn't in it. I tried all I could to improve my working environment until I realised that it was no good flogging a dead horse. When was the moment you decided to make the change? My last employer went into administration and was bought out by a rival estate agent. This change detrimentally affected the office morale and soon after they made several of my colleagues redundant. I therefore felt that this was a good time to leave. I also co-owned a property with a friend who wanted to sell so I had to sell my home as well. The girlfriend I was with at the time didn't enjoy the whole experience, so that relationship ended quite abruptly too! Within the space of two weeks, I'd lost my job, sold my flat and broken up with my girlfriend. Although it was a pretty destructive few weeks, I felt that at least it meant I could effectively start from scratch and that it was a great opportunity to do what I really wanted to do. Liberating might be the best way to describe it! Are you happy with the change? Massively so. Things haven't been always been easy. I've had to move from London to the North East of England for monetary reasons and have had to experience a huge shift in lifestyle.However,from the very first day I started working on my business, it's been a huge improvement in job satisfaction. It's been so refreshing speaking to people in the industry and those in relevant organisations who are both positive and actually interested in what I'm trying to do. The saying 'find a job you'll love and you'll never have to work a day in your life' springs to mind! What do you miss and what don't you miss? Enjoying the company of some of my colleagues and working in a buzzy enviroment such as London. I have however always known that my current living arrangement is 'a means to an end'. Knowing that I'm working on something I truly believe in, there don't seem to be many negative factors. How did you go about making the shift? Carrying out relevant research in the fashion business by speaking to as many people who have industry knowledge as possible. I also approached local government bodies as well as some other organisations in Northumberland who have been there to assist me in areas I haven't had much experience in. I've also been appointed a mentor which has been an incredible help. How did you handle your finances to make your change possible? Although it wasn't what I wanted at the time, the sale of the property I co-owned has been invested in the business. I was very fortunate to have had this but I would have tried to source funding from VCs and Business Angels (as I may well do in the near future). What was the most difficult thing about changing? The change in lifestyle. I'm currently living with family and have done so since I left London (to save on expenditure), so the change in environment was quite hard to acclimatise to as well as not having many friends around me. I've always seen it as a short-term arrangement however. And I nowreally enjoy what I do, meaning that time has gone quite quickly and consequently, it really hasn't bothered me much. What help did you get? I approached a few local organisations as well as Northumbria University’s Fashion Deptartment, who have helped in everything from business plans to technical expertise in alpaca knitwear. The support I've received from my parents has also been invaluable and I certainly wouldn't have reached this point without them. What have you learnt in the process? That you literally can do anything and that's it's never too late to try something new! I had no formal training in fashion, yet have been able to achieve something no one thought possible in manufacturing machine knitted alpaca knitwear in Great Britain. What do you wish you'd done differently? At this stage, I really don't think I would have wanted to do anything differently. I've been very fortunate in receiving as much help as I have from all sorts of people. What would you advise others to do in the same situation? That anything is possible. Obviously it's of a massive benefit if you have a supportive network around you, but it's never too late to change. You really can succeed in something you've had no previous training or experience in. To find out more about Hugo's business. visit Plum of London. What lessons could you take from Hugo's story to use in your own career change? Let us know in the comments below.

Recruitment Content You Are What You Share Online

Recruitment Content You Are What You Share Online Recruiters and recruitment marketers want talent. They want it quick and they want it to stick. The same can be said for great, easy-to-convert leads… To help with this, I have a trusty hack which I call “feeders”.  They are great for recruiters who want to improve speed of attraction and conversion, as well as for  recruitment marketers who want to build their brand online. Not Welsh or Fat! What are feeders? If you  check out Google, youll get a  Welsh Rock Band or the Urban Dictionary telling you that a feeder is usually a male who likes to encourage weight gain in his partner through the consumption of food”. Scrap both of those. In my world, a feeder is much more positive and more helpful to recruiters than a screaming Welshman or a bloke who force-feeds me cake (not that I need force-feeding of cake!) What am I talking about? I define a feeder as a  website or stream which feeds you content; one that helps speed up the marketing process, improves your own profile, attracts candidates and moves contacts through the buyer’s journey for you. All the content you are fed from these feeders then becomes material which you can share to your wider network, helping you to attract the right kind of attention from the right kind of people, by adding value to them in the form of relevant online resources and entertainment. In my mentoring sessions, I conclude the best feeders to be: Instagram YouTube Pinterest Twitter At first glance, these are all sites  that might appear not to offer immediate (obvious) value, and  quite complex to set up and get ROI from. First consider this:  you don’t need to create videos on YouTube to get value from it, and you don’t need to spend hours creating Pinterest boards or taking and filtering Instagram photos to get ROI from these sites either. Being on Twitter may be a less intensive ROI activity than you think… Set up these streams to follow the right people (not candidates please… unless you want to give away your talent to competitors)! Check your homepage every day for food (content) â€" and share! What should you feed your online community? Brain food â€" knowledge Funny stuff â€" often  more engaging than the brain food Problem solving hacks (like this one?) to help your community love you and make their day  better What should you feed yourself? Simple! Information  about your talent,  clients and wider industry to  help you understand, nurture and convert. This is what sales and marketing (and recruiting) is all about. Get fed and stay slim Perhaps being a recruiter or recruitment marketer can be a fattening job?  Many recruiters and marketers that I work with often initially spend too much time surfing the web looking for the best content, often then to only post what I call “junk food” content think best ties to wear to an interview or best ways to shake hands in an interview. Be aware that you are what you share, and that kind of food will scream that you place people who can’t dress themselves or speak articulately! What systems should I use for feeding? Obviously Hootsuite is pretty good at segmenting Twitter feeds, Twitter lists are cool too, but don’t ignore your trusty homepages and the people you’re following on Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest and Instagram â€" and if your home feeds are pants, fix them by following the right people. Feedly is a pretty damn good system for content collation, and can really help automate some of your content gathering. What are you waiting for? Get feeding!

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring New Graduates

7 Mistakes to Avoid When Hiring New Graduates Graduates They’re a picky bunch, aren’t they? They have shorter attention spans than goldfish, yet have all these incredible ideas that are changing the way the corporate world works. They are turning down jobs that dont meet their needs nowadays, so to help you hire the right graduate for your workforce we put together the 7 mistakes to avoid in the process: 1. Strict work arrangements Nine to five work days just dont work anymore. Graduates want to know they are trusted and more importantly have the autonomy and flexibility to come into work ‘whenever’ they want. Telling them they can come into work anytime before 10 can go a long way. PWC report that for modern millennials and graduates, work/life balance is more important than financial reward. Which leads us on to our second mistake to avoid. 2. Throwing cash at them Nowadays, graduates are far more committed to their personal learning and development, rather than the amount of money they can make. They know that they will make more money as they grow older and progress professionally. So when hiring someone fresh out of university dont just focus on the payment package you can offer them, but the development and career progression that you have on offer at your company as well. Dont take this the wrong way though, you still have to pay them! 3. Hiring for a grad position but you need 3 years experience Stop asking graduates for too much experience. A lot of businesses nowadays tend to hire grads based on their CV, rather than focusing on the eagerness and inquisitiveness of a candidate. Experience is an important aspect when hiring, but its not everything. You will get the best results from hiring a graduate when they have a real interest in the position, a standout work ethic and an eagerness to improve. 4. Rarely challenging them I’ll be honest I’m a recent graduate, and I want to be challenged. There’s a self-fulfilling aspect to it that I can’t explain. If the job I’m in fails to challenge me, whether that be my problem-solving skills or my communication abilities, then my interest in the job will eventually fizzle out. Give us tasks that take us out of our comfort zone, and give us projects that we can lead ourselves. Continuously challenge us so that we want to stay and build a future with you. 5. Overly complicated job descriptions Most of us have read through a job description, and after reading for a good five minutes sometimes you still have no idea what the job really is. Businesses tend to include complex verbiage to define the purpose of the role and make the role itself stand out with fancy mumbo-jumbo. This can be a huge turn off for a young professional who is unable to understand your requirements. Be quick, concise and clear when describing the role you have on offer. We’re looking for an International Asset Financial Analyst… Just say Accountant for god’s sake. 6. Sticking to the same hiring style You wont hire a graduate the same way you hired a baby boomer. Stop posting in newspaper classifieds, and start utilizing the online space to its full capacity. 45% of people browse for jobs on their mobile, so get mobile-friendly and maybe even use social media to advertise the role you have on offer. Get creative with it. Check out 5 Great Creative Ways to Tweet A Job Vacancy and Get Noticed. 7. Assuming they always want to leave Listen, there’s a lot of truth to the fact that graduates and even older millennials enjoy change, especially when it comes to employment. They want to try out different things and see what interests them the most. But a lot of organizations assume that this is fact and think that you can’t employ a graduate for the long-run. Did you ever think it’s because, as we mentioned before, you’re not challenging them enough or offering them constant development? Don’t just assume graduates are short-term employees, if you want them to stay then try to avoid the simple mistakes I’ve listed in this article and build a future for the very best young talent in your company.

Genuine Friendships and Integrity in Nightlife with Jesse Waits - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career

Genuine Friendships and Integrity in Nightlife with Jesse Waits - Personal Branding Blog - Stand Out In Your Career I recently had the opportunity to chat with Jesse Waits, Managing Partner and Co-Founder of XS and Tryst. Waits led XS to repeat appearances as the number one club on Nightclub Bar’s Top 0 list in 2011, 2013, 2014 and 2015. In the interview we cover topics such as relationship management, ethics, and event marketing. When you first started a career in the nightlife industry, who were some of your mentors and what were the lessons they gave you that allowed you to succeed? My first mentors was Andy Masi. I worked with at Andy at The House of Blues for three or four years before I went over to help launch Light at the Bellagio with him. Pauly was someone who I used to bar-back and bartend with in the VIP Room and he was one of the guys who ingrained in me some of my core ideals. He explained to me the nightlife industry is kind of a trap. People get into a certain habits that are hard to get out of with the money, hours, and fast paced lifestyle. One of the things he always stressed to me was ethics and integrity. That was something that I think has helped me get through life in general. Even before meeting him, honesty, integrity, and work ethic were an important part of who I was. I am always the person who goes the extra mile in any job that I’ve had. The position didn’t really matter I would work extra hours and no task was ever too big or too little for me. Andy Masi was the guy who taught me not accept roadblocks and figure out a way to make i t happen. If I came to him with a problem, he would insist that I figure out a way to make it happen. That made me more resourceful and I delivered results. Sean Christie is another person I worked with from my early years. We worked together and planned on building and branding parties together. XS has been a staple in Las Vegas nightlife. It’s been consistently ranked as one of the top club destinations in the world. What’s the strategy you executed to achieve such results and how do you go about adapting that strategy to keep XS on top? We adapt and evolve constantly and that helps us stay ahead of everybody else. We are cutting edge. For example, we were the first ones to have a club with a pool involved. It’s 40,000 square feet and we have a great space being inside the Wynn. It’s very functional and built with quality. We were the first ones to go full force with the celebrity DJs. Everybody else dabbled. We booked Tiesto, DeadMau5, Skrillex, and Calvin Harris. We committed to it. For us, and for me it’s a lifestyle, it’s not just a job, it’s a culture. Everything I do evolves around nightclubs, all my friends, everything that I think about, my vacations. Everything is about what’s next. How do I make a better club? When I go on vacation I’m looking at different bottle services, or gimmicks, or things that make a nightclub function. Most importantly what people like. When they say something to me, I have no ego, and take criticism and when people say something I try to fix or adapt. Steve Wynn is a driving force of perfection. Then the most important thing is that I have a great team around me. From the president of the hotel, to Sean Christie, to my personal team: from General managers, DJ bookers, the marketing team and my PR person, Erika. One of the things I do well is give people space and room to grow. I’m also a perfectionist, but I dont try and control every aspect. I listen to what people say and realize my employees and guests have great ideas and if it can help us do better than we go in that direction. Can you tell us about the new renovation project that was just completed? We added 14,000 new RGB LED lights, 12 Pyro Cannons, and a kabuki drop. We basically animated the club. Before it was segment lights which is basically mood lighting. This portrayed the beauty of what we had. It showed elegance by design. We were able to exaggerate all of this with these modern updates. I think the modernization today is driven by what DJs want which is animation and lighting. So you get a better understanding of the bigger picture. David Guetta was one of the people pushing for it. I think that Vegas is the most cutting edge right now when it comes to technology. If you go to EDC, TommorowWorld, or Ultra they use the same technology we use in nightclubs. Light has some great stuff, as does Marquee, and Hakkasan, but what we wanted to do was top it. Many nightclub owners and promoters claim to have very close relationships with their celebrity DJs, but it seems that you have actually developed genuine friendships. The top DJs want to come back to XS! For all of the up and coming nightclub managers, what tips can you share with them in building genuine professional and personal relationships? For me I’ve known most of these guys before they were big DJs. I’ve known Tiesto for about years or so. Deadmau5 when he when he was kind of big but not as big as he is now. Avicii was just referred to me as a friend of Tiesto. I was with Alesso at one of his first shows in America. For me I fostered these relationships before they were big and I wasn’t trying to latch on to something that was already there. In the beginning when they didnt have a lot of friends and didn’t really know what was going on, I was there to give them direction. I was a genuine friend to them. I dont ask them favors. I treat them like a friend, not an artist. I separate my business from these guys. If I need business done I call the agent, or the manager. I treat them like a genuine friend. These guys stay at my house. Alesso is in LA right now driving one of my cars. We do things like go on vacations together and we are genuine friends. I take them on guy things to do. I take them shooting guns, o r racing cars, or on helicopter rides, things they want to do. I make time for them. Like I said before this is not a job, it’s a lifestyle for me. I’m available 24/7 for these guys because they are my friends. I text them and they text me, and sometimes its for personal favors. It’s a genuine friendship. I treat them like people. I don’t put them on a pedestal like they are a big celebrity and I don’t treat them like they work for me. Both XS and Tryst are massive clubs with hundreds of staff including promoters, bottle girls, security, and management. It’s well known that the turnover rate for personnel in this industry is extremely high. How do you keep staff motivated and appreciated and help them excel? We are like a family at the end of the day. We treat each other with respect. I make time for them and I’m there when they need me. For example, today I had an employee call to borrow some cash to buy a car and I was able to help. Small things like that carry weight with these guys. Then there are times when you need to have forgiveness when they make mistakes. It’s all about treating them like they are friends and family. At the end of the day they are. My philosophy with our team is wanting them to work for me out of respect and not out of fear. This leads to people wanting to do things to make me happy. Likewise I try to make them happy and I go out of my way doing small things. An example is I say hi to everybody, everyday. When I get to the club I shake people’s hands and hug people. I’ve been in the business for 18 years. We encourage our people not to drink and save money. We encourage them to do positive things like stay fit. One of my managers, John Wood, teaches a fitness class similar to the Tough  Mudder and probably a third of our staff goes to it. We also have outings together where the staff goes and hangs out together over dinner and vacations. We encourage that. The other thing is in Vegas nightclubs come and go and we’ve had Tryst open for almost years and XS has been open for 6 years now. When people look at the big picture there is consistency with our formula and if they go somewhere else they are taking a chance. Other clubs have reputations for some of the bad things you hear of nightclubs. Another thing that we do is get involved with various philanthrophies so that our staff has a sense of contributing to society at large.The Cleveland Clinic is a non-profit academic medical center that provides clinical and hospital care and is a leader in research, education and health information.After School All Stars is something that I personally make donations toward and my team at XS/Tryst participate in the annual dodgeball tournament . It’s Elaine Wynn’s charity benefitting after-school programs for low-income children, and investing in the future is something we care about. We also have an annual toy drive and in 2014 we donated about $195,468 in toys. XS and Tryst staff members are consistently  recognized  as the largest donors to the Toy Drive. A trend I’ve personally noticed across the country is that many promoters and venues today rely purely on DJs to market events. How does your team go about promotion other than utilizing celebrity DJs? In essence, what brings people back to XS and Tryst other than the DJ? How do you promote that? It’s all about the experience and our biggest focus is treating customers like they are getting a certified 5-diamond treatment. We make them feel like they are a part of the show. We give them respect. We don’t have VIP areas other than the stage, but thats for the DJ’s. We have a door that strives to treat people with respect. On the marketing side we focus on it being a top nightclub in the world. The whole marketing strategy is about longevity, branding, and staffing. We have real faces to the club other than just the big DJ. Personally I try and be there constantly. There aren’t a lot of guys that run clubs that are there every night of the week. At this point DJs are what’s driving business and the nightclubs are dependent on that. It’s a big part of what sells the experience. It’s probably 50/50. You have 3,000 people going to a nightclub but if you have a big DJ it’s 6,000 people. It does play a big part of the overall experience. There are a lot of different ways to market, but branding right now is definitely DJs. In addition to that we have other cool aspects which people like. We have a K drink. One of our biggest parties each week is a called Night Swim and its locals and that draws about four to five thousand people. Alec Monopoly is our resident artist and we also have trap artists and rappers visit. What are the characteristics you look for in your staff? How can someone go about building a career in the nightlife and casino industry? What does it take? I dont look for experience as much as I look for drive and passion. I think that it’s easier to steer someone in the right direction if they have that drive. There are different types of people in the world. Some want to move forward and succeed, and create things, versus the ones that just want to get by. I want people that want to advance and have big ideas and an overall vision. I want the employee that wants to be bigger than a nightclub employee. They want everything. There are different ways to build a career in the industry, but education is a big part. In Vegas it’s about getting in at the lower levels and just working your way up, just like any other job. But you definitely have to have a goal and vision in life. You have to know what you want and chase it. Anything is possible in Vegas. There are so many job opportunities since it’s such a transient city. It’s a trendy city and people come here with a two year plan. They go back home or move on or get caught up with all those bad habits people get caught up with. One of my biggest things, personally, is not drinking. I didn’t drink until I was 32 and I was in the heart of the nightclub business bartending, bar-backing, and promoting. Currently I don’t drink and havent for the past year. I never drank heavy or got into partying or clubbing. I was focused on the work side of it. It’s a big part of what gives me longevity and prevents me from burning out. I’ve been able to find a b alance of where I can still have fun and be personable without drinking. It’s obviously a lot easier to do that while drinking and partying but doing it sober is more challenging. How did you first attract the attention of Steve Wynn and get him to look at you as someone to work with? I think Steve just recognized talent. He had a heard a lot about me and was intrigued. He didnt understand the nightclub business at all when it first came to his resort. He was curious about the whole situation and we talked about how things work. He respected the work ethic and how we brought this whole new demographic to his resort. Now I’ve been with the Wynn Resorts for years. What does the future hold for Jesse Waits? I think the evolution for people in the nightclub industry is hotels and hopefully I will be able to get into that.

Reasons Why Overtime Is Actually Harming Your Business

Reasons Why Overtime Is Actually Harming Your Business It makes sense when business owners crunch the numbers. If they’re making a certain amount of money when employees are working X hours per week they’ll bring in more depending on the total amount of extra hours someone works. Unfortunately in the real world your employees aren’t robots, so you can’t use mathematical calculations to work out how productive they’ll be.Forcing someone to work longer than necessary could have a negative impact on your business from various reasons:1. Employees Will Actually Be Less ProductiveevalThis is something people find really hard to wrap their head around, but if you continually work overtime you’ll be less productive than if you worked your normal amount of hours per week.Although this won’t be noticeable in the first week and possibly the second, by the time the third week rolls around employees will be so tired and disillusioned they’ll be less productive than they would be on an average week. This will keep getting worse as the weeks progress until they get some much needed rest.2. It Could Lead To A Serious AccidentThere are thousands of new health hazards in the modern workplace. You can do everything within your power to avoid it, but the law of averages states someone will eventually get hurt. You can reduce the amount of injuries by making sure your employees are always completely focused on what they’re doing.When you throw overtime into the equation they’ll inevitably begin to take their eye off the ball. You could end up losing some of your best performing employees for a very long time.3. Sick Days Will Become A Constant ThingCount up the number of hours your employees are working at the moment after they should be finished for the week. Don’t get excited by the numbers because it turns out you’ll have to adjust them. Those who are working longer hours per week will take more sick days than anyone who isn’t racking up those overtime hours.After being exposed to exhausting length of thei r working weeks, people tend to become sensitive and prone to get ill.4. You’ll End Up With A High Staff TurnoverEmployees taking days off when they’re not sick is one thing, but what if they’ll become so disillusioned they begin looking for another job? One of the reasons a company becomes more and more profitable every year is because they have excellent employees who carry it forwards.evalIf you have a revolving door with new workers coming in all the time it’s hard to succeed, which is why overtime isn’t the greatest idea in the world. Businesses where workers are forced to work longer than necessary will have a higher turnover rate.5. It’s Hard To Tell Who Is Actually WorkingIf people are putting in 20 hours of overtime per week it might please you, but just because you’re happy it doesn’t mean you are not throwing your money down the drain. It’s been proven employers aren’t able to tell the difference in output between an employee who is working overtime an d one who is working their regular hours.When you add in the fact lots of people will pretend they’re working to stay in your good books there will be employees sitting at their desks getting paid to twiddle their thumbs.6. People Will Be Affected EmotionallyYou want everyone to be performing at their best all the time, which is unlikely to happen if they’re affected emotionally. It’s not just the extra stress those who choose to do overtime feel. The employees who don’t want to do overtime feel less valued and respected, plus some also feel like their job is less secure.evalIt’s also hard for people to gel as a team when they’re dealing with all these personal issues, which would be taken away if nobody was pressured into working a crazy amount of hours per week.There is nothing wrong with a little overtime, but it’s turned into a shark-infested world full of greed and suffering. Eventually asking someone to work too many hours is going to have negative consequences y ou could easily avoid.As long as you’re acting within the law you’re free to run your business as you choose, but take the potential negative effects of your decisions into consideration as well. It could help you build a much more successful company in the long run.

Are You Spending Your Time Wisely

Are You Spending Your Time Wisely Have you ever stopped to think if you’re spending your time wisely or wasting it? Time is the only thing we can’t get back. We have a finite amount and, at times, I’m acutely aware of this. That’s when I’m most motivated and productive. No dithering. Just getting down to business. But even with that mindset, at times I’m wasteful. How I Wasted My Time On a recent trip to Arizona, I arrived at my hotel hot, tired and thirsty. The ice cold bottled water in the lobby sold for $4.50 per bottle â€" outrageous in comparison to $1.50 at the supermarket. As hot and as thirsty as I was, I refused to pay that much on principle. So, you know what I did instead? I walked to the nearest supermarket under the searing Arizona sun (a 30-minute round trip) and bought three big bottles for the same amount of money. “Yay! I win!” I felt pretty smug… until I had to lug them all the way back in the heat. I returned so sweaty that I had to take a shower. All told, almost an hour spent on saving $3.00! That would have made some sense when I was back in college with no income. But now, I’m certainly earning more than $3-5/hour, and there are better things I could do with the time. Like writing my next blog post, reading a book, or chatting with my family on Skype, just to name a few. My decision-making was based on flawed thinking and outdated information. Thanks to that experience, it’s finally hit home that my circumstances have changed such that I shouldn’t think twice about spending an extra $3.00 for the payoff of time and convenience. (And the hotels have to make money too.) This made me step back and think about all the ways I waste my time, whether by spending it on things that don’t matter, or simply giving it away without realizing it until too late. 4 Takeaways for How to Spend Your Time If you want to make better decisions on how to spend your time, here four takeaways I’ve discovered for improving your outcomes. 1. What’s “worth it” is in the eye of the beholder When it comes to your most valuable resource â€" your time â€" the foundation for making good decisions is knowing what matters most to you. The more you care about something (or someone), the more you’ll feel good spending your time on it. The foundation for making good decisions is knowing what matters most to you The key here is to make sure it’s something you care about, and not be swayed by others. Because value is in the eye of the beholder and only you can determine if something is worth your time. For example, when I was 15, I wanted to be a concert pianist. So I practiced four hours a day, six days a week, for two years. Friends thought I was crazy to spend that much time playing scales and getting that one troublesome passage right. It meant turning down lots of invitations and not being on any sports teams. But for me, it was worth it. For you, maybe it’s that others think you’re crazy to take two years out of your career and pay six figures for an MBA. Or perhaps your family thinks you’re nuts to buy a sailboat and spend every weekend sailing. But when it’s what you care about and want to do, you’ll feel it’s worth it. Don’t be swayed by what others think or say. The only opinion that matters is yours. And only when you see the value can you persuade others to support you in how you spend your time. 2. What you value may change over time Recognize that what you care about may change over time, usually because your circumstances change. That means last year’s good decision may be a bad decision now. Back to my piano practice, it was only when I realized I was never going to be a virtuoso like Arthur Rubenstein that I stopped choosing to spend my time practicing. And just like saving $3.00 stopped being so valuable, playing scales for hours a day was no longer worth it. Roll the clock forward, and what matters to me has changed again, as has the way I spend my time. Now, I’m committed to helping people get to the next level of their careers and be the best they can be. So I carve out time to coach, speak, and write every single week to share my knowledge and experiences (I’m over 200 blog posts in a row now!). I’m also committed to staying fit and healthy, so I work out and practice yoga every week, even when I’m travelling. So remember to adjust your ‘rules of thumb’. Otherwise, you’ll still be marching to last year’s drumbeat and that probably won’t get you to your new destination. 3. We tend to undervalue our time It’s tempting to think, “I’ll just do this myself” when someone else doesn’t get things right. Or when you’d rather avoid asking someone else to take on a task. Or when you’re a control freak (something I know all about!). But when you take on tasks that others can and should be doing, you’re basically saying that your time is less valuable than theirs. And what about all the extra hours spent on making things perfect when “good enough” is good enough? As a recovering perfectionist, I can tell you that that’s a major time waster. I’m cringing at the thought of just how many hours of my life I wasted that way. The thing is, all those tasks you add onto your plate, and the extra effort to make something perfect, can take up a lot of time when added up together. When you keep piling that time on without thinking about the cost, it means you’re not valuing your time properly… if at all. Time has an opportunity cost, which is all the things you’re not doing but could be doing. Things like having dinner with friends, taking a walk in the woods, or starting a side business to diversify your income. 4. Never underestimate the rejuvenating power of joy No matter how hard you work and how dedicated you are to achieving your goals, it’s essential to take breaks and bring joy into your life. Frankly, it will help you be more productive when you’re back to work. I’ll admit I’m the original “Grinch” when it comes to indulging in fun when there’s work to do (and in my book, there’s always work to do!). But even I have come to appreciate the rejuvenating energy that comes from doing something that is joyful. For me, that’s dancing, working out, and belting out tunes with a karaoke machine. For my former colleague, who’s a partner in a Venture Capital firm, it’s playing keyboard with his band. And yes, they play gigs all across Manhattan. So as you strive toward your future vision, remember to invest some time in activities that bring you joy. What is your outlet for joy? What will you do? Since time is finite, make sure you’re spending it wisely. How are you investing your time? And what do you need to do to make better decisions? Leave a comment â€" I’d love to know.

Writing an Objective For Resume For Probation Officer

Writing an Objective For Resume For Probation OfficerWriting an objective for resume for probation officer is not a simple task. The responsibility of this document is to inform the reader what the job of a probation officer entails. It is important that the objective is accurate and professional so that it reflects the professionalism of the person writing it. In this article, we will discuss some of the most important things to consider when writing an objective for resume for probation officer.- What is an Objective? Writing an objective is the first thing a prospective applicant for the position of probation officer will do. Their objective is the very first thing they read as part of the entire resume. Thus, it is crucial that this aspect is written well. To write an objective, there are several things to consider.- The first thing is the sentence structure. There should be a regular structure for paragraphs that are easy to read. This will help the reader know what the job enta ils, as well as what needs to be done to achieve it.- The resume should also come with a cover page that includes details about the person who is applying for the position, his or her work experience, education, and employment history. He or she should also make a brief description of why he or she is best suited for the position. This will enable the hiring manager to make a decision based on the facts provided in the resume.- Paragraph flow is also important. It is a common problem that many applicants have; the paragraphs are written too fast and too often. This does not reflect the actual writing style of the person writing the resume. It also makes the resume look sloppy.- The content of the resume must be impressive. This will be easily visible in the resume. However, the reader must not lose sight of the fact that the objective for resume for probation officer is actually a written description of the applicant's qualifications. The writer can provide relevant and substantial details regarding the applicant's work history and educational background.- The applicant's attitude is also important. It should demonstrate how he or she will deal with situations. It must also portray how he or she will perform his or her duties, based on his or her personality.With these tips, you can now go on and write a resume that will be an eye-catcher among the thousands of other resumes that will be submitted for the same position. Once the prospective applicant gets to see your resume, it will be much easier for him or her to make a decision based on the information provided.