Category: ALL POSTS

created as a super-category to the subcategory __(all posts)

Job-Seeking Resources

Posted on by Senia

Here are some job resources for you:

1) ASSESSMENT

2) TARGETING TOOLS

How else can you target your new job:

  • Apply – apply to jobs
  • Pre-apply – do informational interviews, group meetings
  • Work – run a Meetup group, be a contributor to a blog, start a website or twitter account about your industry, volunteer in it. You can do a lot of work without officially being employed. And then – BIG BENEFIT – it’s not like you were unemployed for ten months. It’s like you were running community events on that field in your industry.


3) ACTION STEPS

IN THIS ECONOMY:

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I wish you all the best and I wish you the most beautiful fate!

Am on radio about job-seeking in this environment at 8pm ET

Posted on by Senia

I am on the program Live! with Lisa, and you can listen live at http://wstcwnlk.com/ (there is a big “Listen Live” button).

We’ll be speaking about job-seeking in this economy, and positive psychology lessons to apply in seeking a job and in job interviews:

  • What to do when unemployed to stay current in the industry (mastery steps)
  • Whom to network with and how (self-regulation)
  • What to include on a resume (our mind as a cognitive miser)
  • What to highlight during the job interview (storytelling)
Posted in All

The Most Exhausting Thing

Posted on by Senia

This is a question for you.

What do you find to be the most exhausting thing?

  • Working out physically to exhaustion
  • Studying and tiring out mentally to exhaustion
  • Getting into a fight with a friend or colleague to emotional exhaustion

I think it’s the last option – the emotional upheavals – that really tire us and exhaust us. What can we do about this?

Should we ignore heavy emotional items? Should we swim through them? Should we take a lighter attitude toward them?

What works for you?

And which was the most exhausting for you from this short list?

Update (1/29): Are you exhausted because of attribution theory?

Happy New Year for the Year of the Ox!

Posted on by Senia

Happy New Year for the Year of the Ox!
Today, Monday, Jan 26, is the first day of the Year of the Ox!

I love beginnings.

SwishI love the nice swish they make as they land like a leaf off a tree right in front of you.
Swish. Swish. Swish.
One of my Year of the Ox goals is to be able to touch the rim on a basketball hoop.
Bonus points if I can hang on the rim!
Good enough if I can hang on the net!

The Year of the Ox is an excellent year!
Many great wishes to everyone who will turn 12, 24, 36, 48, 60, 72, 84, and 96 this year!
I hear this is your year.

I love the Ox for many reasons.

From wiki:
Ox

The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. … dependable, calm, and modest. … Ox people need peace and quiet to work through their ideas, and when they have set their mind on something it is hard for them to be convinced otherwise…. very logical mind and is extremely systematic … tremendous imagination and an unparalleled appreciation for beauty. … speak little but are extremely intelligent. When necessary, they are articulate and eloquent.

People born under the influence of the Ox are kind, caring souls, logical, positive, filled with common sense and with their feet firmly planted on the ground. Security is their main preoccupation in life, and they are prepared to toil long and hard in order to provide a warm, comfortable and stable nest for themselves and their families. Strong-minded, stubborn, individualistic, the majority are highly intelligent individuals who don’t take kindly to being told what to do.

The Ox works hard, patiently, and methodically, with original intelligence and reflective thought. These people enjoy helping others. Behind this tenacious, laboring, and self-sacrificing exterior lies an active mind.

The Ox is not extravagant, and the thought of living off credit cards or being in debt makes them nervous. The possibility of taking a serious risk could cause the Ox sleepless nights.

Ox people are truthful and sincere, and the idea of wheeling and dealing in a competitive world is distasteful to them. They are rarely driven by the prospect of financial gain. These people are always welcome because of their honesty and patience. They are reputed to be the most beautiful of face in the zodiac. They have many friends, who appreciate the fact that the Ox people are wary of new trends, although every now and then they can be encouraged to try something new. People born in the year of the Ox make wonderful parents and teachers of children.

It is important to remember that the Ox people are sociable and relaxed when they feel secure, but occasionally a dark cloud looms over such people and they engage all the trials of the whole world and seek solutions for them.

They are solid.
Dependable.
Loyal.
Supportive.
Staunch.
They believe in you.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Two types of work – planning and doing

Posted on by Senia

Hi New Years folks!

Are you just now sitting down to get some good work done? Do you find that you sometime have the right INTENTION and then see by 5pm that that intention starts to fall by the wayside?

People approach this differently:
* Gina Trapani will tell you to do your most important thing first in the morning.
* Some prioritization coaches will tell you to get the scheduling things out of the way, and then have time for the “doing work” things.

I recommend you are aware of and decide between PLANNING and DOING.

When is your most creative time? 5am, 7am, 9am, noon, 3pm, after dinner, late night? That’s when you might want to close your email and twitter, and turn your phone to silent, and do the work for a few hours at a time. Every night. That’s flow. And that’s DOING.

Planning is important to have time for doing.

What are you up to today? Planning or doing.

Hi, I’m on Twitter

Posted on by Senia

Find me here: www.twitter.com/senia

I started “tweet”ing at the end of 2008. There is an entire vocabulary and etiquette associated with twitter. For example: DM – send a “direct message” to someone. RT – ReTweet what someone else just posted.

What is twitter? It’s a website where people update new information relevant to their fields ALL DAY LONG. People can post as may as tens of thoughts a day, every hour sometimes. Each thought is about the length of one sentence. For example: “Best time to be in finance, technology, and journalism: http://adjix.com/j8yw ”

Other examples can be:
“Went to the movie Yes Man – great fun although expected it to be”
“Highly recommend this Top 20 list [and a link here]”

Here are the FIVE STAGES OF TWITTER ACCEPTANCE (written by the Influential Marketing Blog, and I read it at Tiny Gigantic):

1. Denial
“I think Twitter sounds stupid.
Why would anyone care what people are doing right now?”

2. Presence
“I don’t get it, but I guess I should at least create an account.”

3. Dumping
“I use Twitter to send people links to my blog posts
and to send people my press releases.”

4. Conversing
“I don’t always post useful stuff, but I am using Twitter
to have authentic 1×1 conversations.”

5. Microblogging
“I use Twitter to post useful stuff that people read,
and I’m having authentic 1×1 conversations.”

Come join if you want! twitter.com/senia, and let me know in the comments below what your twitter account is, please! Like Facebook, this takes a bit of time when you start. Somehow it becomes rewarding very, very quickly!

Interesting Brain Findings to end 2008

Posted on by Senia

I wonder if 2008 will be called the “Year of the Brain.” There were a lot of interesting results released. (For even more brain research, go to Sharpbrains.com).

WINE STUDY
The single most interesting IMHO is the wine study.

Price tag can change the way people experience wine, study shows

…According to researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology, if a person is told he or she is tasting two different wines—and that one costs $5 and the other $45 when they are, in fact, the same wine—the part of the brain that experiences pleasure will become more active when the drinker thinks he or she is enjoying the more expensive vintage.

A BUYING DECISION REALLY HURTS AND REALLY JOYS THE BRAIN
On the surface, this may not seem like a controversial finding. When a person is hooked up to an fMRI machine, and presented with a buying possibility, both pleasure and pain sensors activate in the brain. No big deal.

What makes this a much bigger deal is that when money is mentioned, the pain part of the brain activates, and when the item is mentioned, the pleasure part of the brain activate. (This is 2007 research actually).

HEARING AND THE BRAIN
Yesterday’s AP article about loss of hearing as we age pinpointed some aspects in which the brain may be responsible:

  1. the “dimmer switch” for controlling various sound inputs into your head – i.e. for ignoring another conversation next to you – may be getting dim
  2. contradicting the “dimmer” effect, the brain may work better when facing the person who’s speaking so our ears pick up more sounds simultaneously
  3. nerve signals in the inner ear that are extremely sensitive can change with age

INTUITION WORKS FASTER THAN LOGIC

Also from yesterday: another study that demonstrates that intuition (i.e. the automatic brain) may be aware of something before the rational brain can explain it.


EXERCISE AND REGULAR BLOOD SUGAR HELP BRAIN STAY YOUNG
Yesterday’s news. Regulating blood glucose improves memory. And a great way to regulate blood glucose is through exercise. Therefore exercising actually keeps your brain young.

Again, for much more in-depth info, check out Sharpbrains.com.

This is the best time to be in YOUR industry

Posted on by Senia

You can make a major difference in your industry now. Right now.
How do I know?

At the start of a DVD, the warning says the movie’s been formatted to fit your TV. Well – at my home – one person dislikes that announcement, and each time jokes, “How do they know the size of MY television?”

I do know about you and your industry. Why? Because:

It’s when things are bad and you keep going, then you can actually beat everyone, most importantly yourself. You could be in any company-cycle, and especially, you could have been at point A but point B is just an opportunity to get to a higher point D, and beyond. Yes, if you’re like most people, you are likely in your work and in your finances at a trough, at a point B if not C. BUT. That’s the time when you can be the differentiator. That’s right – it’s just like the Terminator, but it’s the Differentiator.

Is that why 20% of twitter’s current membership joined in the past 60 days? Are people trying to connect and move forward in new ways?

Frog that turned milk into butter and livedThere’s a time for rigor and a time for mortis. You have a choice to put more effort in when it gets harder, or to say, “Man, it’s getting harder.” Be the little frog who turned the glass of milk into a glass of butter rather than the little frog who didn’t and drowned.

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What I’m aiming to do: write the shortest post possible, get back to fun writing, and write what’s really me.