Middle Age, Out of Work?--Create your Ideal Job

Are you at mid-life and unemployed--perhaps for months, even years? Are you frustrated by traditional job search? Is no one hiring for a position like the job you lost? Take heart--you can first define, then seek out or create the position of your dreams. I know this because I have been through 2 extended job searches myself and today have the perfect job for me.   This is the second in my series of blogs on mid-life career transformation. This week's challenge is to prepare in detail a position description for the job of your dreams. So what do you really want to do over your remaining productive years? Once completed, we can concentrate on turning your ideal career vision into reality.   Take out a clean sheet of note paper or create a new word document on your laptop. At the top of the page, list a job title for your ideal position. On the next line, list your intended next employer which may be "you" if you intend to launch a new business, purchase a franchise or work from home. Targeted employer may be either a specific entity or a general category of business, government or non-profit enterprise.   As a third step, list anticipated primary job functions you wish to perform. Fourth, list required vocational qualifications and educational prerequisites. Fifth, identify the person(s) to whom you will report (this may be "no one" if your goal is self-employment) and those who will report to you. As a final entry, at the bottom of the page write down annual compensation you expect to receive.   Once completed, examine your dream position description as you would an attractive job posting in a newspaper or on the Internet:   1. Would my ideal position as defined provide significant value to others?   2. Am I qualified this very day to assume my dream position? Would a personnel manager     or executive recruiter consider hiring me?   3. If not fully qualified now, can I become so given a reasonable amount of time, effort and     money?   4. Will anticipated compensation along with spousal earnings and other resources be     enough to support targeted family lifestyle?   5. Do my spouse and offspring support my targeted career transition? Will they share in     necessary sacrifice?   As a final exercise, visualize yourself performing anticipated routine daily tasks and functions. Is this truly how you wish to spend the remainder of your productive years? In the past, have you enjoyed and excelled at similar tasks? Are you certain that the vocation of your dreams is not simply a passing fancy?    Should you conclude after examination that your dream position is not a realistic possibility, your secondary task is to define an alternative position which is. At age 50 with no previous medical training you cannot realistically target to become a physician. On the other hand, should you excel at business and desire to promote health, you might target hospital or clinic administration, opening a health food store or marketing health care products from home. Your goal is to identify a realistic secondary career option provides similar gratification. Once fully defined, this secondary position will become your primary transition target.   My primary advise for today is to place yourself squarely in charge of your own job search by first defining in precise detail the position you seek. Next, you continually imagine yourself occupying your targeted position which over time will cause you to think and act like an incumbent. You can measure actual future employment opportunities as they arise against your ideal. Next week I will demonstrate how to establish and maintain a positive mindset tharoughout your search which invariably leads to an ultimate favorable outcome. The following week, I will suggest a method of take-charge, up-front financing which can "buy" you all the time needed to ensure a rewarding career in life's second half.   Please comment on this blog or contact me with questions or suggestions at roy@middleagerenewal.com or call me at (515) 221-9902. I encourage you to visit our MART web site at www.middleagerenewal.com.

Over 40, Unemployed, No Prospects--Time to Renew!

With the US jobless rate hovering around 10% and extended job loss becoming the norm, is it time to panic? Not at all! Assuming you can achieve an optimistic outlook and an unwaivering belief in self, right now may be the ideal time to plan out and launch your second half.   This is the first in a series of blogs on career make-over. Rather than seeking a new job in a vacuum, take time out--days, even weeks, if needed--to define your very own "ideal vocation." As your own CEO, precisely how do you wish to spend the remainder of your productive years? How much emphasis will you place on earning a living? What is your targeted end-point and how much as you willing to sacrifice to get there?   Ignoring for the moment earnings potential and your qualifications, what would you most like to do? What did you like and dislike about prior positions? What do you enjoy when free to set your own agenda? What are your favorite sports, hobbies and leisure-time activities? What vocations do you most admire? Of all those you know, who has the best job? Where do friends and loved ones suggest you would excel?   Your next challenge is to apply a hard dose of reality: "Will anyone pay me to perform the activites I most admire? Will I contribute value? If the answer is no, you will need to follow-up by researching more realistic alternatives which might provide similar satisfaction.   Once a realistic vocation is targeted, your next task is to visualize in exquisite detail your performance of the desired position and to immediately begin thinking and behaving as though the desired position or career were already yours. Trust the universal law of attraction: a consistently positive mind-set invariably attracts a positive result!   In future blogs, I will share insights into choosing a target vocation, wresting positive emotional control and financing an extended career transition. In the interim, please visit our web site www.middleagerenewal.com or e-mail me with comments o questions at roy@middleagerenewal.com.   Good luck in remaking life's second half!

Send your Employees on Vacation

As we emerge from recession, does your company need a shot in the arm? Are your employees running on empty? If so, send them all on a 30-day vacation! Take a extended vacation yourself.   You say your can't afford long vacations for all. That's OK, I am not actually proposing 30 days away from the store, office or shop. Rather than granting traditional time off, I encourage you to sponsor a company-wide "mental vacation" initiative whereby you and employees at all levels will step aside from the daily routine to contemplate an ideal career and lifestyle objectives for the remaining productive years.   Actual time off would be limited to one or two days in rotating shifts at exercise initiation. Periodic additional time-outs would be granted for follow-up assignments and self-examination. Your ultimate goal is to match up on-board talents and desires with your company's strategic objectives. But how can you inventory available talents, interests and aspirations unless employees first define for themselves what they are good at and precisely what they want to do?   Employee mental vacation exercises can be a huge success or a dismal failure. To ensure success, you will need to adhere to the following guidelines:   The exercise must follow a structured agenda and be coordinated by expertly trained facilitators (never an employee's immediate boss.) The exercise must be 100% voluntary and non-threatening. It must be equally OK to propose readical changes or to express complete satisfaction with the status quo. Challenge employees to cast off all self-imposed boundries. Ask each participant: "In a world free of limitation, how would you choose to spend your remaining productive years? What track do you desire: fast, slow or somewhere in between?" As a leader, you must be willing to listen and to sincerely seek to accomdate employees poposing change.You also must be willing to assist (within reason) employee efforts to develop those new skills needed to progress. Do you think an extended mental vacation might benefit you and your employees? To learn more, please visit our website: www.middleagerenewal.com or email me: roy@middleagerenewal.com.

An IRS Audit?--Preventing Mid-Life Renewal Relapse

I recently received a friendly letter from the IRS asking for $10,000 in additional 2008 taxes. How do I respond? IRS audit notices present an ideal excuse for us renewed mid-lifers to revert back to prior negative thought patterns. Similar relapse excuses might include job loss, a doctor's unfavorable diagnosis, a sharp stock portfolio decline or simply unkind words from a friend.   I implore you: don't abandon renewal! Should you receive troubling news, I recommend response as follows:    1) Always remember, others can change your circumstances but they can't erase your strenght of character or positive outlook on life. You and you alone can alter that!   2) Research all the facts. Was the mistake yours? Did you truly relish the job you just lost? What are your health treatment options? Can you salvage your investments? Are hurtful friends really saying more about themselves than about you?   3) Target the best possible resolution then visualize that favorable outcome continuosly. Internalize a favorable target outcome before seeking outside help. Tell your doctor you visualize full recovery then work with him or her on a comprehensive treatment and recovery regimen.  Work with your outplacement counselor to define what you truly wish to accomplish over the rest of your career and how to have fun doing it. Contact a tax accountant only after you have researched the facts. Invest only after setting firm short-term and long-term goals.   Above all else, never let a temporary roadblock derail your progress to sustainable mid-life renewal. Don't surrender to procrastination and depression. Take action now! Whatever the outcome, every time you and I face up to a problem and attack it, we will feel good and become stronger, more confident individuals. Six months from now, we can look back with pride.   Now go for a solution! Need some help? Our sole objective is to assist with middle age renewal Please visit our web site at www.middleagerenewal.com.

Don't Call Me a Boomer!

I recently read a convoluted article written by a demographer which referred to 6 generations--GI, Silent, Baby Boomers and Generations X, Y & Z (the latter contains only babies aged 5 and younger.) The first three generations are instructed to step aside to make room for the hard-charging X and Y. My first question: what will the demograhers call the next generation after Z--will they start over with A? My next question: why are demographers so obsessed with placing everyone of a certain age in an ill-fitting pigeonhole?

A general consensus these days is that the influence of boomers has or soon will decline and that those of us over 50 will create a major strain on succeeding generations. My reaction is "hogwash"! First, my I point out that we have been contributing our fair share to Social Security and Medicare for 25-30 years or more--it's not our fault that politicians have failed to keep entitlements in line with funding. Second, we have learned a few valuable insights during our 30-40 years of adult living; we just may have a little someting left to contribute.

Mr. & Ms. Demographer, please stop placing those of us over 50 in generational decline! As positively renewed, forward thinking men and women in the second half of life, we are not about to slow down. Each one of us is a unique, caring child of God. Most of us have at least some degree of financial security and our chidren are grown on nearly grown. We have unlimited potential to accomplish clearly defined personal goals while at the same time serving our communities and our fellow human beings during our remaining active years. A vast majority of us intend to be net contributors, not drainers of collective resources for years to come.

Are you tired of being labeled an over-the-hill "boomer", told you are on the verge of creating a major problem for society with the suggestion you quietly go away? Don't feel too bad, it could be worse. My wife and I were born before the end of WWII so we are labeled members of the "Silent Generation." Does that mean we are not supposed to speak at all? Well I will anyway--please join me in speaking out to promote a positive, renewed, contributing lifestyle whatever your age. Contact me and let me know what you think but please don't call me a "Senior"!

Roy Richards

Email in the Age of Social Media

Thank you for visiting the StrongMail website. The whitepaper that you requested, Email in the Age of Social Media, is available for download from the following link: http://www.strongmail.com/pdf/sm-wp-socialmedia.pdf Would you like to take your email programs to the next level? If so, we think you'll appreciate StrongMail's commercial-grade solutions for marketing and transactional email: The only complete, commercial-grade system for marketing and transactional email, offered on-premise or on-demand No CPM fees or other hidden charges allow you to grow your email volumes without increasing costs Superior relevancy enabled via direct integration with existing systems including CRM, ERP, financial applications and website back-ends Full delivery reporting and smart bounce management, so you can proactively monitor delivery rates and take action to improve them Dedicated system preserves individual sender reputation while built-in support for authentication standards and delivery controls facilitates delivery at top ISPs High-performance sending technology that can generate and deliver over 1 million highly dynamic emails per hour If you'd like more detail, please reply to this email or call (650) 421-4200 and ask for a sales representative. The StrongMail Team Copyright © 2010, StrongMail Systems, Inc. All rights reserved. 1300 Island Drive, Suite 200, Redwood City, CA 94065 | (650) 421-4200 You are receiving this message because you visited the StrongMail Systems website and requested information. If you feel this is an error, please reply to this email with "Remove" in the subject line.

Middle Age Renewal--Is Life Too Scary Right Now?

For most of us at middle age or beyond, esternal events has become markedly more scary over the past 3 months. Like me, do you no longer have much faith in your retirement planning or advisor? Has your stock portfolio lost 50% of its value? Like me, I am certain you wonder how retirement funds could have looked so secure just last August!

Rather than using the bad economy as an excuse for doing nothing but feeling lousy, now may be the ideal time to begin to revive positive emotions--this very day! None of us can affird tio remain a helpless victim. I trust every one of us can learn to seize the presenr moment and to plan a more solid future. Also, we should take time out right now to cherish time with those closest to us. With family and loved ones, each one of us should ponder a realistic updated set of life-long priorities.

It should come as no surprise that as we begin to transform positively our thoughts and emotions, we will become increasingly confident of challenging the future. With a revitalized inner compass, we will nurthure our ability to stand up to the biggest challenges.. As a beneficial side effect, we will begin to respond with greater warmth and compassionate to those less fortunate.

Unless you are Ben Bernake or Henry Paulson, neither you nor I can do much restore the world economy. Each one of us does retain absolute power to positively impact our little corner of the globe. As we seek to revive positive emotions and establish a new game plan for today's financial realities, we risk absolutely nothing escept loss of our perpetual excuse for doing nothing, then moaning about the consequences. Let us all pledge not to begin or end each day on a sour note!

I would like to hear from others on how you are coping with the downturn and keeping financial stress at bay. Would it be beneficial for us to set up a chat group. Please post your resonse or e-mail me at:
roy@middleagerenewal,com.