Creative Living

Aileen Journey shares at Life Optimizer:

What’s important is thinking about what you truly want in your daily life.

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My term for this type of thinking is “creative living.” How can you consider what you really want and come up with solutions that will work for you and your family?

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So many people feel stuck in their lives because they think of everything as a whole. They think they need a certain amount for expenses, but they don’t realize that maybe they wouldn’t have those expenses if they lived differently. Some people want to travel, some people want to live in a certain place. People want all sorts of things that are often possible with some creative problem solving.

Check her creative solutions here and more about her here.

Are you growing younger?

As a teenager, I always felt 'all-powerful' and 'knew' I could do anything.

I focussed on what I wanted to do and NOT on what is possible and what is not possible.

Then, life took over and I GREW up - and the word 'dream' was no longer in my vocabulary....

However, after a few battles, I saw people around me GROWING OLD, and realized it was time turn the clock and start growing younger!

Paulo Coelho writes in Pilgrimage:

When we are young
and our dreams first explode inside us
with all of their force,
we are very courageous,
but we haven't yet learned how to fight.

With great effort,
we learn how to fight,
but by then we longer have the courage to go into combat.

So, we turn against ourselves and do battle within.
We become our own worst enemy.
We say that our dreams were childish,
or too difficult to realize
or the result of our not having known enough about life.

We kill our dreams
because we are afraid to fight the good fight.

Actually, when you VERY CLEAR about what you want to do, then no fight is needed....one FLOWS, effortlessly!

So, are you growing old or younger?

Just Dream!

Dreams:

Determine your Future!

BE Determined!

Rejuvenate your Being!

GET Rejuvenated!

Enthuse People around you!

BE Enthusiastic!

Activate your Talents!

GET Activated!

Manifest your Destiny!

BE your Destiny!

So, JUST DREAM!

This is the Dream Technology!

Do you have the GUTS to DREAM!

Career Assessment Tools

As you continue to WORK and try to bridge the gap between "what you love to do" and "what you are doing now", you might want to asess your personality and align it with your career interests.

Online Career Assessment Review for Job-Seekers: Quintessential Careers provides reviews of the major online career assessment tools for job-seekers:

"If you are looking for some career direction, or perhaps just want to learn
more about yourself and your personality, then taking one or more of these
assessment tests can give you a better idea of your attitudes and interests as
they relate to discovering more about yourself -- and possible career choices."

Some of the FREE tools are:

Ansir's 3 Sides of You Self Perception Profiling System : This 168-question three-part self-perception test that provides you with insight into your styles of thinking, working, and emoting.
Big Five Personality Test : Formerly called All About You, this 52-question test measures personality aspects that can be applied to careers.

Career Competency Explorer from testingroom.com : This 151-question assessment looks at strengths to see how they relate to day-to-day work performance.

Career Focus 2000 Interest Inventory : This assessment's 180 inventory items about work tasks, drawn from 18 occupational fields that make up the U.S. work scene, help you identify possible career goals that match your strongest personal interests.

Career Interest Inventory from Emode.com (Tickle) : This test has you choose what you'd rather do among three choices for 44 questions.

Career Interest Inventory from testingroom.com : This 180-question assessment is a measure of occupational and career interests.

Careerlink Inventory : A 36-question assessment based on the premise that your self-estimates are a valid basis for career decision-making.

Career Personality Test from Emode.com : This 38-question assessment gives results in terms of Myers-Briggs types.

Career Values Scale from testingroom.com : This 88-question assessment looks at values to see how they relate to the test-taker's world of work and help to identify areas of career satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Career Zone : An extremely bare-bones, 3-question assessment.

Carolyn Kalil's Personality Assessment (True Colors) : True Colors is a personality system that has been around since 1979 and is modeled as a graphical presentation of both Keirsey's Temperament and the Meyers-Briggs Type Indicator. The assessment asks you to choose one of two ways to finish 36 statements. The results can help you define your skills and talents -- and possibly direct you to various career paths.

CoachCompass® Assessment : Defines an appropriate starting point for career services and coaching delivery.

Future Proof Your Career : This 84-question assessment helps the test-taker find fulfilling work and creates a personalized career strategy that works with the latest employment trends of the knowledge age.

Keirsey Temperament Sorter : This 70-question assessment is related to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator.

....many more....

Good Luck!

Are you happy in your career?

Do you love your job and feel "valued, challenged and balanced" in your work? Are you so passionate about your job that you jump out of bed in the morning to rush for work? Do you experience joy while working and find yourself truly self-expressed at your workplace?

Find out by taking this "Quiz: Are You Satisfied With Your Job?" by Kate Lorenz.

For a more detailed analysis, answer 100 questions at LiveCareer (takes 15-20 min). The "free" part of the report gives a profile of your career interests and provides a "workplace fit" report along seven personality types (based on six types in Holland Career Code Model, which has been in use since the 1970s):

• Realistic (Doers)
• Investigative (Thinkers)
• Artistic (Creators)
• Social (Helpers)
• Enterprising (Persuaders)
• Conventional (Organizers)
• Attentive (Servers)

LiveCareer has added the seventh type to specifically recognize the service-based economy. Attentive (Servers) types enjoy helping others, serving others' personal needs and looking after the comfort and well-being of others. They are happy in jobs requiring sociability, politeness, patience and a happy disposition.

What is your USE (Universal Soul Energy)?

I recently bumped into Janet S. Amare who talks about identifying the Universal Energy you were expressing in your moments of joy, such as love, charity, peace, and harmony.

I started thinking how "Universal Energy" can be converted to a mnemonic and I stumbled upon a treasure!

Co-incidently, I keep asking people what is their USE to this world? I was already asking this question using the acronym - Unique Self Expression!

Now, Universal Soul Energy synchronizes well with that:-)

So, your Unique Self Expression connects your Universal Energy with all Souls!

She offers a helpful clue: whatever you dislike and typically judge in other people, write
it down and then think of the opposite. This will usually be a U.E. for you. For example, you have a hard time with messy, disorganized people. The opposite of messy is orderly. Order is one of your U.E.’s.

It bothers you when people are inconsiderate or forget to acknowledge what they have received. You’re always reminding the children to say thank you. You realize that gratitude is another one of your Universal Energies.

Some possible Universal Energies: Abundance, beauty, compassion, delight, expression, happiness, honesty, order, power.

Finally she tell us to Clarify original intent in moments of joy. It may take some backtracking to get to the original intent.

She explains: Let’s say your moment is when you are teaching young children to sing in your daycare facility. When you think back to the reason you were teaching them you realize it is because you do care about the lives of others. You want to ensure that young people feel loved and fulfilled. When you ask yourself Why do I do that? you realize that your intent at a deeper level is to create a world where people are more loving, expressive, and powerful. This reminds you of how you love to feel yourself. Your true intent is to share your happiness with others through having a loving impact on young people.

So let me know, which of your Unique Self Expressions connects your Universal Energy with all Souls!

How To Be A Billionaire!

In a follow-up to the latest list of billionaires, Maureen Farrell asks us "Are You Born To Be A Billionaire?"

Some of her findings:

1. Billionaires are revolutionaries - they transform industries or start new ones.
2. They anticipate future fields - seeing spaces that no one else sees.
3. They have an Unwavering belief in vision--and an immutable will to pull it off.
4. They have a deep passion and a point of view about the future.
5. They believe that they have a better way to solve a set of problems than how they're being solved now.
6. They have a seemingly ravenous appetite for risk.

You have ALL THAT?

Good! But, before rushing into an action plan to catapult yourself to The Billionaire Club, ask yourself some fundamental questions listed by executive psychologist Debra Condren (who has worked with brands like 3M, Chevron and Hewlett-Packard) in the same article.

Also , see some billionaires share their "Secrets Of The Self-Made".

Some statistics on the latest members of The Billionaire Club:

Total number of billionaires: 1,125

Country having the largest of billionaires: United States of American [ 42% ], # 2 is Russia -87, # 3 is Germany, with 59

Total number of billionaires in Top Ten from a single country: 4 from India - #4 Lakshmi Mittal, #5 Mukesh Ambani, #6 Anil Ambani, #8 KP Singh [famous for DLF
City in Gurgaon].

The total net worth of the group: $4.4 trillion

Noteworthy Entrants: Patrice Motsepe (South Africa) and Aliko Dangote (Nigeria, also first in country), the first black Africans to enter this list.

Number of billionaires under the Age 40: 50. 34 of these have built their billions from scratch, including Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page; former
Enron trader John Arnold and India's Sameer Gehlaut, founder of online brokerage Indiabulls.

The youngest self-made billionaire in history: Mark Zuckerberg, age 23 [Founder Facebook]

Total newcomers: 226

View The Complete List.

How to Find Out & Do What You Love To Do!

For millions of people all over the world, it is difficult to "Find out what they love to do". Even if they have an inkling about what they love to do, they have no clue as to how to go about "Doing What You Love" as a career.

Brian Kim says in How to Find What You Love to Do:

What absolutely boils my blood is that we hear we should be doing what we love to do all the time, but there’s not any step by step advice out there on how to find what you love to do. The advice that is out there helps to a certain degree, but it’s just a bunch of pieces thrown together with no coherent logical structure or order.

Susan Basalla May also hits a nerve when she says in How To Do what You Love:

Unfortunately, this suggestion sounds irritatingly vague to someone in the throes of job hunting. What if you love being an academic and are being driven out of the profession by a weak job market? What if you have a number of different passions (dogs, French colonial history, and country music) that don't add up to any recognizable career? What if you just don't know what you want to do?

While describing How to Do What You Love, Paul Graham eloquently describes how the society conspires to take us away from "Doing what we love to". He concludes:

Whichever route you take, expect a struggle. Finding work you love is very difficult. Most people fail. Even if you succeed, it's rare to be free to work on what you want till your thirties or forties. But if you have the destination in sight you'll be more likely to arrive at it. If you know you can love work, you're in the home stretch, and if you know what work you love, you're practically there.

Brian Kim opines that It’s not hard at all to to find what you love to do. His Do-It-Yourself model:

Step 1: You WILL find the answer. No doubt.
Step 2: Make a list of your skills and interests in two columns and WRITE THEM DOWN.
Step 3: Set aside some TRUE alone time with no distractions to focus and figure out what you love to do by asking yourself the right questions.

For example:

What would I love to do on a daily basis utilizing both my skills and interests that will add significant value to people?

Susan Basalla May also outlines various strategies to "for putting the do-what-you-love philosophy into practice":

1. Finding Work You Love Takes Time

Even if you think you've already identified the right new career for yourself, it may take several years to gain enough experience to reach the position you want.

Don't put too much pressure on yourself -- be patient. As long you're heading in the general direction of whatever interests you, you're making good progress.

2. Avoid the Easy Answers

Take time to look beyond your academic specialty and investigate new fields.

3. Start Your Job Search From the Inside Out

An exercise known as "Seven Stories" -- from Kate Wendleton's book, Through the Brick Wall: How to Job-Hunt in a Tight Market (Random House, 1993), can help you evaluate your interests and skills from a different perspective.

Here's how it works: Make a list of 20 accomplishments - from anytime in your life - that you enjoyed doing and did well. You can mix childhood memories with recent events, and big professional moments with trivial victories. It may take you a few days to come up with your list.

Then, pick out the seven stories that seem most powerful to you, the ones that seem most characteristic of who you are. Write a paragraph about each of them describing what you did, how you felt, and the skills you demonstrated. You'll notice some surprising similarities. As you consider various career paths, compare them against your list of stories to see if they would draw upon the skills that you most enjoy using.

4. Dive In

While thoughtful decision-making is important, the best way to discover what you want to do is to simply try something new.

She concludes:

The key is having faith and trusting that your path will become clear eventually.

Last word to a reader - Bronwyn, who while commenting on Brian Kim's article, says:

So when you look over your goals, and one seems right, but you’re still finding excuses to not do what you have to do, that’s not it. It might be a close relative, but it’s not the one. Keep looking and you’ll find the goal that makes you counter every objection with a solution, the one where you’d happily pay whatever it takes, cash and years on the barrelhead right now. The path that makes you quiver with eagerness like a hunting dog on the point, the one over there you’ve been ignoring because you’ll have to learn a difficult new skill like drawing, or face big mistakes and big fears, and you didn’t believe you could do those things? That’s the one.

Admit how much you really want to go down it, tell yourself you really can do it, and then your passion will take over and you will not let anything keep you from it.

Here Lived A Great Streetsweeper!

Martin Luther King Jr. said:

If a man is called a street-sweeper
He should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say
Here lived a great street-sweeper who did his job well.

Alex & Brett Harris elaborate:

Our OVERALL SENSE OF PURPOSE gives meaning and significance to EVERY SMALL thing we do in life

We view them joyfully and wholeheartedly as opportunities to live well and beautifully for our Creator.

It is not extremely difficult for us to convince ourselves that the faithful practice of doing small Hard things should be valued as vital preparation for future achievements.

It is, however, much harder to view them as SIGNIFICANT in and of themselves.

Can we assign meaning to these simplest and humblest of acts?
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Great Thoughts!

A powerful way to be Fully Alive and connected to The Source every moment of your life!