Choosing a career, for the first time, can be scary and difficult! You’re walking into the unknown; not knowing if you would sink or swim. Many things come across your mind, such as “how much money would I make”, “is that type of business booming today”, and “how do I know if this is really the career for me”? In excitement and eagerness, you outline your SMART goals and begin looking for ways to accomplish those goals. Today, I want to encourage you about career placement and advancement.
Society teaches the average individual to seek booming careers, such as law, medicine, and IT. In these careers, you’ll always find a job because they’re expanding and becoming necessities to the world. The statement is true, but I caution you to choose wisely. A lot of people start out in one career and transition to another; not because they aren’t intelligent or capable of handling their responsibilities, but because they’ve learned that it doesn’t guarantee happiness and self-satisfaction.
When I graduated from high school, I wanted to be a school teacher because I loved the character of the teachers I had. Educating others seemed self-satisfying to me, so I started pursuing a career in Education. I wanted to help others as well as help myself. Teaching benefits the student and the teacher. As I got through the first two semesters, I began noticing how this career did not meet my expectations. Expectations tend to change as we get older and as we experience new things. I couldn’t cope with my studies, so I dropped out of the academy and started seeking all over again.
There are so many people today that have wasted months, even years, trying to find the career that fits them. They go from one career to another and one job to another. The truth is they haven’t taken the time to stop and think about what makes them happy. Happiness increases productivity. If you engage in a career that makes you happy, you’ll do great at it and always look for ways to improve. Computers, coding, and technical stuff makes me happy, so I don’t mind learning as much as I can about the IT field. Major and go into a career that makes you happy. Some of you may be saying, “what if I don’t know what makes me happy?”
Sometimes, people take Undecided majors because they really don’t know what makes them happy and self-satisfied. One thing I’ve learned to do is watch and analyze those already in the career field. There’s no harm in reaching out to professionals in your desired career field and asking them questions about their experiences. Perform an informational interview with them and after reviewing their experiences, make sure it’s something you would be willing to handle. The second thing I’ve learned to do is job tours. Certain companies will allow you to tour the facility and speak to professionals in the company about their day-to-day duties. Google is a good example. They put videos on YouTube of their employees; showing you how they enjoy working for the company. If this doesn’t suffice, you can schedule a tour to meet Google employees; giving you the opportunity to ask as many questions as you like. Some people need visuals and if that’s you, seek job tours. Besides job tours and informational interviews, you can test out the career for 90 days. Your career today doesn’t have to be your permanent career. Get a feel of things and take in variety from different companies.
All in all, invest in and pick a career that brings you happiness and self-satisfaction. If you do, you’ll find yourself active in the career for a long time rather than becoming burned out after five to ten years. Once you’re placed in your career, be respectful, obedient, and mannerly towards leadership. Take the “baby” approach and learn as much as you can about the business’ overall objectives as well as your annual to-dos from management. Over-accomplish and don’t worry about rewards and compensation at first. It’ll find their way to your lap after a while. Be the sparkle, example, and role-model your team and its members need.
What’s an Indie author? The word “indie” comes from the root word individual. An Indie author is an individual author who has self-published a book without help from other entities. A lot of people may find this to be uncommon, but it’s not at all. Hundreds of years ago, every author had to go through a press in order to get noticed and published. Times change, people change. Today, media and technology is advertising a lot of Indie authors and supporting them through countless interviews and book blurbs. So, what’s the status quo, Carl? It’s been predicted by many researchers that Indie authors will become more prevalent and presses will become nonexistent by 2020. Yeah, 2020! Perfect vision, perfect writing! Why? The root reason is Indie authors are taking the time to learn all of the loops in getting a book published. Recently, I wrote a blog post about Book Publishing 101. Myself, as well as others, have had these experiences and going through a press for an agent and/or editor becomes unnecessary. Many presses of today do not publish certain books because of their content, theme, and the notion of them not making an abundant of purchases. It’s vital for Indie authors to understand how to manuever through the hidden fees they encounter. To conclude, Indie authors must build up a network of readers and writers, as well as doing freebies to draw a bigger audience. The bigger your network, the more successful you become in advertising your book!
I strongly believe one of the top failures for new, emerging authors is the marketing techniques they use in promoting their book. Typically, many authors purchase press kits with their publisher to help get their book recognized. Press kits are a good start point, but one should not fully rely on them. When I wrote my first three books, I did not use a press kit. I did “personal marketing.” Personal marketing and know how to do it well causes your book to be globally and locally recognized. I want to share some of the tactics and tools I have personally used in promoting my books. I also had help designing a website from 
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I’m making it a habit to write daily; that is, whatever comes to mind. A person can write for years and become good at it. Yet, they suffer with distractions. Writers are not exempt from distractions. Every writer has a personal life outside of writing and they too, have to deal with this. It agitates me madly when I’m trying to write down my thoughts and a train passes by my place of stay. My neighbors, sometimes, family will play loud music or constantly knock on my door. Better yet, the phone seems to never stop ringing. No one is calling about something important and you think, “Couldn’t this wait until a later time?” Writing in a world filled with distractions is very difficult. It takes a lot of skill and technique to get beyond it. Today, I want to share some techniques with you that I think could help you as a writer, author, novelist, poet, lyricist, or whatever form of writing you enjoy doing.
The third tip is finding the perfect timeframe. This is very difficult, though it sounds easy. Some writers have to write late at night when everyone in the house is sleep and all personal errands are done for the day. Other writers prefer to write in wee morning hours before any chaos hits the day. I have even seen some writers write in the middle of the day, during their lunch breaks from work, and at certain times designated for writing.
Writers write in different stages and with different moods. Sometimes, we have a gratifying, uncontrollable passion that keeps us up in the late nights and wee hours of the morning. You could look at our hands and see calluses on the back upper portion of our fingers. Our eyes look weary from staring at a monitor or a notepad for countless hours. The cups of coffee and slices of pie diminish; being used to invigorate the creative passion that lies trapped inside of us. This is the good mood, the good times as a writer.
Author Walter Isaacson is known for publishing biographies of the long-dead geniuses, Albert Einstein and Benjamin Franklin, tackled the task of producing the biography of Steve Jobs. The biography ‘Steve Jobs’ reaches out to current and future generations to explain the fascinating life of Steve Jobs. Using forty self-conducted interviews, along with interviews from family, friends, colleagues and even competitors.
Timothy Hatfield is a name the majority of you will not recognize, but it’s a name you will come to appreciate, and respect after you read some of his poems.
Toast Pop 