1. You are part of the herd.  There are a lot of other people that are competing for that job opening.
2. Your weaknesses will help employers thin out the herd.  Your weaknesses might make you stand out in the crowd; this is a bad thing and will get you eliminated from the herd.
3. Most of your strengths help you join the status quo.  It’s important to keep up with the herd.  Your survival depends on it.
4. Identify your talents that set you apart from the crowd.
5. Help the employer visualize how your talents will benefit them in the present and future.
6. Keep your skills current.  Nobody likes stale food.  It tastes bad and is pretty much worthless.  If you’ve been employed for a long period of time,  your skills might have become a little stale.  You might want to have your skills evaluated.  Maybe take some refresher courses to sharpen those skills you haven’t used in awhile.  Are you up on the latest technology or will the younger competition make your weaknesses visible to the employer?  You want employers to view you as quick and agile; someone who adapts to challenges and overcomes adversity.
7. Believe in yourself.  If you are not convinced that you are capable of doing the job, then how will you convince someone else that you can do it
8. Communication is one of your greatest tools.  You might be the greatest thing next to sliced bread, but if you cannot communicate your value, then how will the employer know?  Spend some time polishing your “Elevator Speech” or 60 second me.  Keep it relevant and don’t ramble.

Who stands out? You or Them is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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The key to developing a sense of urgency is to have SMART goals and good time management. During the remainder of this post, I will cover a very simplified urgency plan.

Creating a sense of urgency (A plan)

Creating a sense of urgency is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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How you get into the zone

• Do you have a special routine or ritual that you follow?
• Is it based on a schedule?
• Is it based on location?
• Is it based on music?

For some people, it doesn’t take long to get into the zone.  For others, the process seems a bit random.  It takes a long time to get into the zone.  One of the biggest challenges we face is being interrupted.  Dragging us out of our zone and back into reality.  How do you deal with interruptions?

Ways to get back into the zone

• Restart the process from the beginning
• Review what you’ve done during your last session
• Take a break, the zone won’t be back for days

I’m interested in your ideas.

• How do you get into the zone?
• How do you stay in the zone?
• Do you have different zones for different kinds of tasks?

How do you get into the zone? is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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For the first three weeks I ran it in automatic read mode but disabled the automatic delete mode.  During this learning cycle I reviewed every choice that MailWasher made. It had a lot of learning to do.  Eventually I trusted it enough to know that it was identifying SPAM correctly without false positives.  A false positive SPAM is a  real email that the software identifies as SPAM.  The main challenge with SPAM is identifying unwanted emails that look like they’re legitimate.

The default behavior that MailWasher exhibits when it is undecided is not to discard the email but to give the user a choice by presenting two buttons SPAM or Good.

The first couple of weeks, training the software, was a lot of work.  I wondered to myself if the effort was worth it.  Now that I’m on the other side of the training, I can definitely tell you that the time I invested in training the program to identify SPAM was well worth it.

I recently enabled automatic deletion of known SPAM.  Since MailWasher removes all the obvious SPAM for me I spend minutes instead hours looking through my emails.  This one feature eliminated a lot of wasted time.  Now only the valid emails appear in the queue to be processed.  If, for some reason, I suspect that an email has been incorrectly diagnosed, I can look through MailWasher’s trash and recover an email.

Now, when I am ready to read my emails I can review the MailWasher queue and make a final assessment of all the pre-screened emails.  Once I have flagged the undecided emails as SPAM or Good, I can tell MailWasher to process the email queue one more time, then tell my email reader to retrieve the remaining emails from the server.

The end result is I only spend a few minutes a week dealing with the sea of junk email. SPAM never stops. It keeps rolling in with better disguises but this tool helps make it more manageable.  It reduces the noise so the more subtle SPAM is easier to identify.

My recommendation is to give MailWasher Pro a try.  I think you’ll be happy you did.

Fighting SPAM update is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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The honey-do list
Over the weekend I started working on my honey-do list. The task at the top of the list was replacing some older doors we have in our house. We bought replacement door blanks a while back that need to be routed around the hinge plates.  As time permits I replace a door as I have time.

Standard operating procedure
In the past, I would put the old door up against the new door & copy the hinge cut from the old door to the new. This always worked like a charm in most cases.  However, in this one case, the door didn’t have the standard reference marks I had been using in the past.  So, I didn’t use the old door for the pattern.

Measured twice, thrice, then cut once
Since, the old door wasn’t used as the pattern, I measured the distance from the top of the door jamb to the hinge and placed a mark on the door. I measured once, the distance didn’t look right. So, I measured twice and sure enough the distance was wrong. I took one more measurement to make sure the distance was correct. It looked good, so I marked where the router would cut out the material for the hinge, attached the router template to the door and proceeded to route out the location for the door hinge.

Something I didn’t think of
I finished the routing, then happily attached the hinges.  I brought the door to the door jamb only to discover a problem.  I had neglected to check the orientation of the cut.  It turns out the orientations of the hinge cuts were reversed from where they were supposed to be.

Recovering perfectionism and lessons learned
This revelation made me sick to my stomach.  I pride myself in being perfect most of the time.  I discovered a while back that sometimes, functionality is the most important thing.  Plus, some things are fixable.  You learn from your mistakes, don’t repeat them and move on.  The good thing is these mistakes are repairable with wood putty, sand paper and a good coat of paint.  Just like with sprinklers in an earlier post, “Sprinklers and procrastination“.  The only person who will remember my mistakes are me.  So, I need to forgive myself for not meeting my own standards and make sure I do not repeat my mistakes in the future.

Failing forward – recovering perfectionist is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

No related posts.

It was based on personal observations of high school-aged students I have known over the years, including my own kids. 

This post takes things a little further, itemizing the 7 necessary skills a student should master before entering college. 

1. Personal marketing:  Above everything else, the student should know who they are and what they want in life.  If they can honestly determine their Life Mission & Vision they might be able to develop and direct their career down a path that is in alignment with their true wishes, rather than pursuing a goal of just making money. Ideally they can find something that fulfills their ambitions and makes money for them, too.

2. Interpersonal skills: Knowing how to relate to others is essential for survival in college and the business world.

3. Writing SMART goals:  Writing goals is good but writing SMART goals is even better.  When a deadline is attached to a goal it becomes more concrete. This acronym spells out why.

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Realistic
• Timely

4. Decision-making skills:

• Identify problem
• Evaluate choices and consequences
• Determine best solution
• Take action
• Evaluate outcome

5. Presentation skills: Being able to communicate an idea publicly and effectively is a skill every college student should be prepared for.

6. Organizational skills:  Putting information, ideas, schedules and even your living environment in good order is a great asset.

7. Leadership skills: You have a great advantage if you can manage human resources, possess vision and have a knack for influencing and motivating others.

7 necessary skills a student should master before entering college is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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Stop the Negative Talk (Thoughts):

• I’ve never done it before.
• It won’t be good enough.
• I’m not good enough.
• I can’t do it.
• I’ll probably fail.
• I’m going to fail.
• What if I make a mistake?
• What if I fail?
• Why do I even bother?

Ask yourself:

• What will happen if I am successful?
• What is the worst thing that can happen?
• What am I afraid of?
• Is this FEAR real or imagined?
  • If the FEAR is REAL
    • What must I do minimize the risk?
    • Can I prepare for the challenge?
  • If the FEAR is NOT REAL
    • Why am I afraid?
    • Is there an emotion tied to my past that’s associated with my FEAR?

Start the Positive Talk (Thoughts):

• You CAN do it.
• You will finish this task no matter what.
• You will be successful.
• You have the ability, You must do it.
• Start moving in the direction of success.
• Obstacles are there to challenge me, I will deal with obstacles if they appear.
• I will grow through this experience.
• I will be better because of the challenge.

NO MORE EXCUSES, GET STARTED

Courage is being afraid but going on anyhow.  ~Dan Rather

Acknowledge your FEAR, then Do It Anyway is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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As we take stock of the things we tried and the results that were acheieved or not.   We need to consider how much we stepped out of our comfort zone.  If last year you did not step out of your comfort zone, then this year you need to start doing things differently.

Ways you can step out of your Comfort Zone

• Social Networking
• Commenting on Blogs
• Blogging
• Face to Face networking
• Use the phone
• Informational Interviews
• Public Speaking

Step out of your comfort zone in 2010 is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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New Year’s Resolution accountability is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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I had several accomplishments in 2009 but three notable ones are.

1) Started this blog, MrWes.Net

2) Grew my network of supportive friends and colleagues.

3) Developed Personal Marketing Workshops – workshops that help people discover their Personal Vision & Mission

Did you accomplish anything in 2009?  Share it here.

What did you accomplish in 2009? is a post from: Words of Wisdom by MrWes thank you for reading my blog.

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