Copyright (c) 2007 Mary Foley
"Bodacious" means to be bold, outstanding, and remarkable. Take those attributes to work and you're on your way to building a fulfilling, bodacious career. Does having a bodacious career sound exciting to you? It is! After starting as an $8 an hour customer service rep, I rose through the ranks of AOL, accepting four promotions and surviving over six layoffs to become the head of corporate training for 12,000 employees. Along the way I learned I needed to be bodacious to achieve the career I wanted. Out of that experience I created my "cheat sheet" of ten essential Bodacious Career Builders. Here's number seven: Thrive on Shift and Change.
At AOL, my entire career was about rapid shift and change. For the first seven years, I was totally focused on the call center. I was promoted from customer service rep to trainer to training manager and then to call center manager. Soon other areas of my life ? namely one last-ditch effort to save my marriage after a year's separation ? demanded that I make a major change. I needed to shift some of the energy I was dedicating to AOL into reviving my marriage
I considered leaving the company altogether, but that seemed too drastic. So I started looking around the company to see where else I might be able to offer value. After 10 years and more than 1200 employees, the company still had no management training program and the new human resources VP was looking for a corporate training manager.
I knew I could help in developing and influencing this group of contributors. I thought I could have a greater impact throughout the organization and remove myself from the pressure-cooker atmosphere of the call center. Instead of ten- to twelve-hour days, maybe I could reduce it to eight or nine.
I didn't wait until I saw a job posting. I took the initiative and contacted the VP Although I was motivated to make a change for personal reasons, I emphasized to him my desire to help build the company from the inside out by quickly developing skilled managers. I didn't want him to know about my personal life, partly because it wasn't his concern but also because I wanted to maintain my reputation for being competent, efficient, and successful. So, courage in hand, I asked for a new role. Within a few days he made me a job offer; corporate training manager. My burgeoning Bodacious Career took another turn.
From this experience and countless others, I gained a few ideas about dealing with change. Consider these for your own Bodacious Career.
As you thrive on shift and change, expect some initial discomfort. Old weaknesses and insecurities that you managed to efficiently camouflage in the old systems suddenly make themselves obvious again. The stress of change can lower your immunity system and cause you to catch the flu, a cold or a case of hives. You may temporarily feel like a mess.
Learn to lead with your value. Trust that you can be resourceful. As you research options, look beneath the surface. The alchemy of your passions, combined with external needs may create an opportunity for you that hadn't existed before.
Get outside perspective whenever you can. You may not know how good you really are until you leave your fishbowl. When we're sealed up in our own environment, working hard, and focusing on the tasks immediately in front of us, we can lose perspective. So get out there! You may discover that you are further ahead than you thought.
Shifting and changing may cause you to go through some major culture shocks and climate changes. As with every alteration in your life you create or any alteration that comes you way (let's face it, some events are out of your hands), you may feel alien to your new circumstances. Don't worry, you'll grow into them. Soon you'll be more than surviving, you'll be thriving!
BODACIOUS CAREER BUILDER #7: Be honest about how you handle change in your career and life; make a commitment to thrive, not just survive.
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Mary Foley, author of ?Bodacious! Woman: Outrageously in Charge of Your Life and Lovin? It!? and founder of the Bodacious Women?s Club, inspires women to be courageously in charge of their lives. You can be inspired, too! Get the free audio ?Live Like Your Nail Color!? today at http://www.LiveLikeYourNailColor.com .
Catalogue & Home Shopping: Retail Therapy From Your Favourite Armchair
Copyright (c) 2007 Sam Benton
Whoever you are, whatever your circumstances and without knowing another single fact about you, I'm prepared to wager that for you, there just aren't enough hours in the day.
Like almost everyone, you have too much to do and not enough time to do it in. OK, so I'm not psychic and I've picked on a very popular theme that affects, well... almost everyone.
Between your job commitments, your family, and health and lifestyle commitments when exactly do you find time to go to the shops? Whether it's for groceries, for clothes, for the little luxuries that lift your spirits or for the spirits themselves for that matter.
Most of us divide retail therapy into at least two categories: The mundane essentials and the more pleasurable (indulgent) luxuries.
Mundane essentials like groceries and clothing (usually work or school clothes) take a little more effort to shop for and are difficult to get excited about. Shopping for more pleasurable luxuries on the other hand is never a chore and if you're like me, you'll always find the time.
Fortunately we now live in an age when both mundane and pleasurable shopping can both be done from the comfort of your own armchair.
A loaf of bread, a pair of socks, a blouse, a tie, a carton of milk, a school blazer, a torch, an armchair, a lemon cheesecake, a lemon cheesecake maker for that matter, virtually anything you want or desire can be sought and bought with the click of a mouse.
No queues, no heavy lifting, no concern about closing times, no fear of losing the kids and all with a cup of tea and a biscuit, oh and with your feet up!
This may not sound like something you'd like to do on a weekly basis, after all, isn't half the fun of shopping about touching and feeling and trying things on, but if shopping from home from a catalogue or online frees you up to indulge in some serious and enjoyable retail therapy, then it's got to be worth a look hasn't it?
Catalogue and home shopping companies are becoming more and more creative by the week in their ability to offer excellent choice and value for money, while expanding their product ranges and really focusing their efforts on creating an enviable and alternative shopping experience for you and me, the consumer.
Whether you're shopping for the essentials, for pleasure, a loaf of bread or an entire new wardrobe, catalogue, home shopping and the internet are able to provide a solution, and the outlook couldn't be rosier.
As always, Happy Shopping
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Affiliate Marketing Program Services Online
If you’re considering getting into affiliate marketing you’ll want to find an opportunity that offers the best affiliate marketing program services. This way you can be assured of the best chance to make the maximum amount of income off of your efforts. The best affiliate marketing program services are being offered by websites like internet casinos and poker rooms. These sites are highly competitive, and have found that affiliate marketing is the best way to get new players. They are willing to pay generous commissions and pay them on a regular basis.
Among the affiliate marketing program services they provide are free training to new affiliates and good customer service that is available 24/7. They also provide the best software and all of the tools needed for affiliates to get started and be successful. These include eye-catching banner ads for websites and text ads for e-mails. Each of these ads contains a link to the poker room website so when someone uses one to enter the site the affiliate gets immediate credit for a referral.
Also part of the affiliate marketing program services is providing the affiliates with the means to track the activity of the referrals they make and the commissions they are earning. This allows them to make any necessary adjustments to their marketing strategy. With the right affiliate marketing program services provided, both the companies and the people who affiliate with them can make money. The companies will see an increase in their bottom line and the affiliates will generate a nice extra income.
