Four.docx

Four Have you ever asked yourself, what do I love to do so much I can make a career of it? More importantly, can I make a ‘Living Wage’ income from this passionate work I love so much that can support me and a family if I choose to have one? Many times, as children or young adults we decide what we...

Four Have you ever asked yourself, what do I love to do so much I can make a career of it? More importantly, can I make a ‘Living Wage’ income from this passionate work I love so much that can support me and a family if I choose to have one? Many times, as children or young adults we decide what we want to be when we grow up. Then we focus on becoming good at that craft as it becomes our lifelong dream. At this time in our lives, we don’t have the life experiences, nor do we have the wisdom to access what the long-term earning potential of our dream profession or craft will provide for us is. Can you earn enough money to support yourselves? If you choose to get a post-high school education through colleges, trade schools, or technical schools that may require student loans so you can still pursue your dreams. Some statistics indicate post high school graduates earn an average of $17,500 a year more than high school graduates. If you have to take out student loans, some of these planning, budgeting, and saving strategies suggested in this book will allow you to repay your student loans much easier. There are always great career opportunities available to those who enlist in one of the six branches of the United States Armed Forces. They have unlimited opportunities that will allow you to train in many fields with the most highly technically sophisticated weapons systems on the planet. You will receive the best on-the-job training from experts in their field. Many people make a career in the military, and you will get to travel around the world. Once you leave the military your specialty skills will be in very high demand and may choose a second career in the public sector. Plus, you will have access to reduced auto and homeowner insurance premiums available only for those who served in the U.S. military. This can be the beginning of a successful career choice that will provide you with a rewarding career and a wonderful financially secure life. On the other hand, it can be the beginning of a very challenging attempt to be successful in a career, where you have to be the exception or the cream of the crop in your field. These are those careers such as professional athletes, singers, musicians, or artists just to name a few. There are far more aspiring candidates in these fields than there are opportunities to make it in the ‘Big Leagues’, stardom, or celebrity status. Those who seek success in these highly competitive fields should always have a ‘Plan ‘B’. However, many of you would say, if you have a ‘Plan B’ then you are truly not committed to being successful, therefore you are planning to fail. It’s like a double edge sword, be committed and believe in yourself 100%, but also be prepared for another career in the event you don’t make it in your ‘dream career’. Wow! It’s still always better to follow your dreams so you will have no regrets later in . Many of you may know that there are going to be many times in your quest to achieve your goals you are in a heated competition where you are exposed to other competitors in your field who are also extremely talented. They might appear to be slightly better than you. That’s no reason for you to discard fulfilling your dreams to be a professional, no one said it would be easy. It’s just a time for a reality check, to make sure are you giving it your best efforts and are committed 100% to your craft. Have you practiced enough, is there any room for you to improve your skill level? Just make sure you are always giving it your best shot. There are several Network TV shows that highlight singing competitions where all the contestants appear to be great singers during their initial auditions. However, when they are paired against other singers, they may not be as good as we initially thought. This doesn’t necessarily mean they don’t have what it takes to be successful. It just means that in this competition, there were better competitive singers whom the audiences preferred. They can still go on to have successful professional recording careers outside of the TV show if they remain committed. Whatever your career choice, you’ll probably spend the next 30 – 40 years plus in that profession, therefore be the best professional you can possibly be. Take pride in whatever you’re doing, if you’re a housekeeper, sanitation engineer, clerk, or equipment operator putting your best in your work will not go unnoticed. Article: Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors Corporation made career history. She started working for General Motors, at age 18, as a co-op student, in 1980, checking fender panels and inspecting hoods to pay for her college tuition and subsequently held a variety of engineering and administrative positions, including managing the Detroit/Hamtramck Assembly plant. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Barra In February 2008, she became vice president of Global Manufacturing Engineering. In July 2009, she advanced to the position of vice president of Global Human Resources, which she held until February 2011, when she was named executive vice president of Global Product Development.  When Barra took over as chief executive officer of General Motors in January 2014, she became the first female head, CEO, of an automobile manufacturer. If you’re curious, you can research her current compensation package to assure you that hard work does pay off. Of course, this is not typical for most careers, although this is an example of what is achievable. This is an example of how your hard work can pay off even if it’s not at this high level. The takeaway here is no matter what your education or trade goals are, make sure you work hard and are in a position to move up when the opportunity presents itself. Promotions will allow you to support yourself in the manner that you desire in life. Take a minute to research the most successful people in your career field; check out their incomes and net worth. Most importantly research the average income of those occupations you are interested in. Ask yourself, is this enough income for me to accomplish all the things I need to support myself and possibly a family? This income assessment of your future career is critical to your potential satisfaction with your career choice. This is even more important than your selection of a ‘significant other’ or partner because it’s what drives you, it’s what gets you out of bed in the mornings, it inspires and motivates you and many times gives you your sense of purpose. First, keep in mind that your happiness originates within you, first. You must be happy with yourself before you can expect to have a meaningful and happy relationship with another person or employer. If at any time your happiness feels compromised, you should reevaluate whatever you are attempting to engage in. Is it worth losing your happiness over? This test should be applied to all those things you may be thinking about getting or committing to such as getting a puppy, volunteering, or tutoring. If they are truly beneficial for you and they will not compromise your happiness, you will be thrilled to take them on. Be honest with your assessment of what you want to do with your life’s work. If you decide later to change your occupation, many times you have to start from the ground one. Your occupation is like a spouse; you are married to it, it’s important to have a reciprocal relationship with it. Your job performance is dependent on your ability to perform, and your financial success is dependent on the income and satisfaction your job provides. It’s supposed to be a long-term commitment that usually ends when you retire from your job. Choose wisely, for it can be a wonderfully fulfilling life’s journey with great financial rewards. Whatever employment opportunity you end up choosing you are encouraged to work hard and do the very best job you possibly can. Along with a positive attitude and great job skills the easier the job will become. Your employer has expectations of productivity from all their employees no matter what positions they have. You may not realize it, but you are an intricate part of a large well-oiled machine making it run most efficiently. If your job position wasn’t necessary, then you would not have been hired. That being said, it’s very important for you to value your position and do the best job you can do while working in that position. A good way to help determine if you are doing your job as best you can be to make sure you are keeping busy all the time while you are on the clock. Do you tell your supervisor when you finish an assignment and ask for additional work-related responsibilities? Or do you start using your mobile device, and take a bathroom break until you are given another job to do? When you are at work put down and leave your phone’s social media alone until break time and you are off the clock. Whether you are being paid by the hour or on salary, you are trading your time, labor, and skills for a dollar wage amount for whatever job the employer hired you to do. Those of you who use your mobile devices and take excessive cigarette and bathroom breaks on company time decrease your overall productivity and value to the company as an employee. Your productivity is the amount of work you actually complete in an hour or day. The consistent use of your phone while on the job constitutes a form of ‘Theft of Time’ because it raises the employer’s hourly cost of your labor due to your reduction in expected productivity. Imagine if you hired a friend for $15.00 an hour to help you clean up the leaves or do something which normally takes you four hours to do by yourself. While helping you he/she’s always on the phone, and it ends up taking you three hours instead of the two hours you thought of working as a team to complete the job. So, you end up spending $45.00 to save only one hour of labor. Was hiring your friend really worth the money it cost you? Just think about it this way, had he/she not been on his phone at all you probably would have been able to complete the job in two hours or less costing you only $30.00 for their labor. Your net loss is $15.00 for that job, you paid an extra $15.00 for absolutely nothing. What you ended up paying for was the pleasure of your friend’s company. Let’s look at this on a larger scale, if you multiply that daily loss of productivity concept times 10 employees, that’s $150 of lost productivity. If there are 20 employees distracted from their work the daily loss becomes $300 and for 50 employees, the daily loss of productivity is $750 per day. Remember this type of lost productivity really translates into ‘Theft of Time’ where employees are being paid for more hours than they are actually working. You may not see or think of this as theft, but your employer definitely does see it as theft. Every company has operating budgets for all aspects of their business and that includes employees’ wages. They must be able to get their work accomplished within the financial budget limits provided. If the supervisors are not able to manage their labor budgets, then their jobs are on the line. In reality that is not an option for them, therefore you will get fired and replaced. If you show job skills by standing out with respect to other employees and have the initiative to grow within the organization your efforts will not go unnoticed. Management will notice and may put you on a fast track for promotions. Most companies have opportunities for upward mobility for those employees who take initiative, show the ability to achieve, and have longevity with the company. Just like any kind of personal relationship, it’s important to give it your best effort, and time to grow and develop into something meaningful. So, give your job a good amount of time to blossom into the opportunity you thought it would be. Each time you leave a job or a relationship, you have to start again at square one, learn new skills, job responsibilities and you have many other employees ahead of you for promotions. You may want to consider the many other benefits of the job than just the wages like benefits, so give your job the time it needs to develop into the opportunity you are seeking, you may be surprised. Many CEOs started in an entry-level position and with hard work and time they have worked their way up the corporate ladder to the top position. Companies don’t like employee turnover so it can be very costly for them to hire and train new employees. The longer you remain with a company, the more money you can earn with annual and performance raises. Companies realize when working as a team, ‘a happy employee is a loyal, long-term, and productive employee’. To help ensure there is an abundance of high-paying jobs in the future, please be cognizant of where the goods and products you purchase are made in the United States. If you purchase products from companies that manufacture their products in America, you will be strengthening the future job market for your families, friends, and children. Hopefully, there will come a time when there are higher-paying living wage jobs than people seeking work. A Time when everyone can adequately support themself and their families and save money. This will ensure a better work-life balance and overall quality of life for everyone. One last thing, in order to be successful in your financial life you must be proficient in math. No matter what you have heard or think besides learning the English language, math is one subject that you will always use throughout your life. Once you learn math and begin to use it in almost everything you do, you will never forget it. The financial world evolves around an abundance of numbers and calculations, so it would benefit you tremendously if you are able to understand math concepts, there is no way around it. It requires the fundamental use of addition, subtraction, division, multiplication, and percentages. If you feel you need to increase your math skills, please consider taking some fundamental online math courses or at your community center. Your knowledge of math will give you the ability to better plan, budget, calculate, strategize, and forecast the use of your income and to save money. It will reward you for all your planning, budgeting, and preparations with an increase in your income’s purchasing power. It will empower you to make the best financial decisions for managing your life in your journey to achieve your goals and dreams.