I am a big believer in investing in your own career. I hear people say they won’t buy something for work because  their company should pay for it.   Granted, I don’t think you should be expected to bring in your own desk and chair if you are hired to work in an office.  However, if you can do your job more quickly, efficiently, and effectively by spending some of your own money, why wouldn’t you?  For the purpose of this, let’s assume that we are talking about a small amount of money compared to your salary.

Back in the early 90’s, before radio stations went digital, they were still analog (as opposed to sending smoke signals).  I had thousands of pieces of audio, and no real easy way to get access to it.  I hired a programmer from MTV to come in and put all of my audio in a database.  I bought a laptop to keep in the studio, so we could type in a keyword and find audio we needed in seconds.  I don’t know of anyone else that did that back then, and it cost me some money.  However,  it added value to my show, my career, my bonus, and so I considered it a good investment.  Over the years, I have spent a fair amount of money on all kinds of products, courses, and equipment that I thought would help me improve, do my job better, and make more money.  Just because the company wouldn’t do that for me didn’t mean I couldn’t get it done.  You need to look at yourself as self-employed.  Whatever you do,  you need to think of yourself as a product.  Regardless of what you do for a living, if you improve your product (you), you improve your chances of career advancement and more income.

About a year ago, I was recuperating from an injury. My doctor was concerned about leg swelling, so I needed to have custom fitted compression stockings.  The woman measuring me had the exclusive contract with the facility where I was treated, as well as several other facilities. While measuring me, she complained about not having a laptop to input my information.  The company she worked for was set up where she could log in from anywhere, put in all the information, and the stockings could start being processed. However, the company did not provide laptops. So she would have to go home every night and type in all the information. We could argue how cheap the company was, but that is not the point. For $400 she could buy a cheap laptop, type in the measurements on the spot, and since almost every facility had wireless internet, the order could be sent before I could get my shoes on. As a side note, she screwed up my order, and I never got my stockings.  Sale and commission lost.  A $400 investment would save her hours of work. Her aggravation with her company caused her to not see the bigger picture, that she was did not value her time.  We figured she could buy five hours of her time back every week, for a one time payment of $400. Let’s say she had two weeks vacation, and the laptop would last for two years.  That is 100 weeks at 5 hours a week. She could buy 500 hours back for $400.  She would have paid $1.25 for her time.  I don’t know about you, but my time is worth more than that.  I would take that play every day.

I encourage you to invest money in your own career.  If you don’t think you are worth it, how will any one else?  I have met very few working people that are perfectly happy with their salary, and their job.  The quickest way to be seen as valuable is by being efficient, and willing to do the little things others aren’t.  And don’t be shy about letting your boss, or your customers, know what you are doing to stay on top of your game, and ahead of everyone else.  That being said, I understand the people above you have to be bright enough to pick up on your efforts.  Let’s be honest, some bosses are dip shits.  But in this economy, it never hurts to be the person getting it done.

We often here the term “thinking outside the box.”  Your boss wants that unique idea, he wants to do something nobody else is doing, so bring him fresh ideas.  Or you may want new ideas for your business or career.  Sure, we all want that, but it isn’t always easy to turn on the brain faucet and have genius spill out.  I have an idea that may help you succeed at that, and help you be even more successful in your career.  This is one of the best things I do.  I have no doubt it will work for you.

Every year, pick four things you really want to learn, or get to know much more about.  Then immerse yourself for the next three months of learning that skill. Then move on to the next, while continuing to improve on the skill you just learned.  In one year, you will be at least proficient in four new skills, in two years eight, you get the math. Look back over the last several years of your life. Time is moving regardless of what we do.  Five years ago was not that long ago for most of us.  Twenty additional skills could have had major influence on your life.  I can give a vague example now.  I am in talks about doing a project that may happen down the road, maybe not.  However, in the course of the conversation, a skillset of which I am knowledgeable came up in the conversation.  The people I was speaking with had a different, more promising project that involved someone that knew and could explain this particular skill.  They had no idea I knew anything about this subject matter, and quickly began to express interest in moving the project to the front burner with my involvement. I would have had no shot at being involved if it was not for me spending months learning about this. This skill has nothing to do with how I have made my living, but it could very well in the future.

I have learned about many things over the years, internet marketing, how to build multiple sources of income, speed reading, trading futures, options, and stocks, and others.  Personally, I like to learn from people who have done what I want to do, and do it successfully.  So I have sought out successful people in the fields I want to learn, and learn from them.  You may want to learn how to build a website, become a gourmet chef,  or speak a foreign language. The knowledge is out there.  You just have to go get it.  Not only will learning new things keep you young and curious, you never know how it will change your life.

I was already planning to blog about this. It seems even more poignant now with the possible heath issues of Steve Jobs, co-founder and CEO of Apple.  He gave an amazing speech to the 2005 Stanford University graduates. It has been re-published many times. You can find it on my website at this link http://www.rockyallen.com/rockys-favorites/ Take a few minutes and read it, it is well worth it.

I urge you to implement this plan in your life.  Take a pottery class, learn how to cook gourmet food, learn how to re-finish old furniture, write software, or write poetry.  There are hundreds of adult education classes. I beg you to never give up the quest for knowledge.  The worst thing that can happen to you is….you get smarter.

Google came out with a service not long ago called Google Voice. It is a great time management tool if used for that. There are a number of reasons people use Google voice, here is mine. It is a free sign up. You can possibly get a number that has your name in it, like xxx-xxx-JACK, or whatever. You can use that number to have all of your numbers forwarded to you so you will never miss a call. There are many uses for it. Feel free to read up on it on at www.google.com/voice . I am going to tell you how I use it as a time management tool. If you hate typing, this is a great service for you. If you have to send out a number of memos, this is for you. If you need to dictate things, and don’t like to waste time, this is for you. Here is the beauty of Google Voice. Call your number, and wait for the voice mail to pick up. Then simply speak what is is you need typed out. In fact, part of this newsletter was put together using Google Voice. After you speak to your voice mail, wait a minute, and you will have everything you said sent in an email to you. All you do is cut and paste, put the text in your document, email it or print it, and you are done. If you have a to-do list that you keep written, this is a great service. Just call your Google Voice number and say everything you need to add to your list and in minutes it will be typed for you and waiting in your inbox. And it is FREE. I will admit, if you do not speak clearly, or there is a lot of background noise when you are calling, a word or two may be mistaken and replaced with another one. For example, one time I said Google, and it typed Drupal, which if you don’t know what Drupal is, it is a type of format a website can be in, like Wordpress. But let me ask you, is it easier to go and correct a couple of words, or type an entire document? Just think, if you have a blog, and you are trying to keep fresh content on it, how much easier and faster it is to call your number and just say what you want to be your next post.   I think you have about three minutes before you time out, but hit redial and keep going if you need more time. If you think about it for a few minutes, this could be a great time management tool to put in your “toolkit”.

Despite the title of this article, this will not be some secret revealed that nobody has ever heard of, but rather something far too many people continue to ignore.  Despite us being in the era of “if you want to get what you want, you need to help people get what they want”, there is far too often a subtle thing people do that cost them more than they know. We often do things that impact us negatively, and we don’t realize it.  And because life does not often afford us the opportunity to get comment cards from people to see if they like us, want to be our friend, or buy from us, we lose out on information that could greatly change how successful we could be.  I believe we should all be a collector of people.  I think we should make more friends, we should make more sales, and if possible, always try to make more money.  Not only does it help improve you and your family’s life, but it is the lifeblood of a company.  If you have a business that can benefit from social media (which is almost all businesses) you want to continue to build followers as well.

Have you ever wondered why a person you thought you hit it off with finds excuses to not meet you for lunch, stops taking your calls, or answering your emails?  It is obviously possible that they have poor etiquette, they are busy, or they aren’t the people you thought they were.  It is also possible that they did not like you as much as you liked them.  It could be a simple reason.  It could be something you do or say that you have done so often it has never occurred to you that it may be off-putting.

When I have the opportunity, I always like to ask questions when I talk to people.  It is amazing what you can find out by asking. People may not tell you about what they like or don’t like about you, but you can find out alot by asking them about people they have met recently.  I like to find out what attracted them to this person (as a friend or collegue) and find out what they didn’t like about certain people.  I have found it to be very telling, and a good tool for self improvement.  Often, people don’t enjoy a persons company when  the problem is no more complex than they do something irritating that could easily be corrected.  Simply put, people are often self absorbed, and either can’t, or don’t want to  put themselves in the position of the people with whom they are speaking. I will give you a simple example.  Over the holidays, I was visiting my parents.  I am a person that pretty much lives in golf shirts and shorts.  My mother, who still thinks I am her baby, told me to put some socks on.  I said mom, I am not cold.  She says, how can you not be cold?  I said, I don’t know, I’m not cold. She said, well, I’m cold, I have socks on, you need to put socks on.  Don’t get me wrong. I love my mother dearly.  No one could ask for better parents than I have been blessed to have.  But in this case, it really hit home for me.  We often come at people from our own point of view, and because we experience something, we often expect them to experience, or have experienced what we have.  We overlook their feelings, and perspective, and we lose, sometimes for good, the chance to connect with that person.  Obviously, that is not the case with my mother.  She is a sweet, wonderful person, and by the count of how often her phone rang during our visit, she is blessed with a lot of friends. However, I would imagine, if she came across as a person who knew what was best for everyone, she would wear on people pretty quickly.  We have all been around that person who tells you to taste this, or try that, even though you have never liked that particular thing.  And you hear from them, sure, but you have never tried this. People, please!!!  It doesn’t matter, we don’t want your opinion.  I don’t like asparagus, it could be dipped in chocolate, or wrapped in cheese pizza, and I would hate it.  But I have been told by people, you would like MY asparagus.  Anything is possible, but I am not interested.  And that is the key.  When you start trying to tell people what they should do, or what they should like, instead of asking, you lose them, and maybe forever.

When you don’t give people what they want, but give them what you think they should want, it is a safe bet you will not make more friends, sales, followers, and money. It is a simple thing to correct, but it may not be easy.  Strive to make changes for the better, and you will improve your life, and those around you.  Happy New Year!!

You’ve heard the expression hindsight is 20/20.  It is.  Hopefully, you have enough time left in your career to make use of hindsight.  If not, at the very least you hope others can benefit from the value of your hindsight.  I have mentioned my non-theory “3 income theory”, also known as multiple sources of income.  The reasons should be obvious.  First, you provide yourself some financial insurance in case your main source of income suddenly vanishes.  Secondly, the more people and or money you have working for you, the more money in theory you should make.  I think that hard work is a given, smart, hard work is even better.  But  there are things you should do in addition to finding a way to get the multiple sources of income.

One thing you should do is be a people collector.  By that, don’t just meet someone, shake their hand, and move on.  Find out about them.  Get their contact info, and follow up.  Granted, there are people you meet that you realize that you just don’t like.  Make sure you distinguish that from people with which you have nothing in common.  You never know when that kid that interns for you ends up starting a company like Twitter.  Or that socially awkward lawyer you met at your spouses company holiday party becomes a senator.  Everybody wants to be their friend when they get to those positions, but you knew them and helped them when they were “nobody’s”.  What if the intern needed a lawyer for his startup, and you hooked him up with his lawyer now senator?  Your status rises with theirs.  It can never hurt your career when you collect people, and then introduce them to each other.  Be the middleman, and do it just because you know two people that could benefit by knowing each other.  Do it for no other reason than to be a good person, and help people out.  First, it is just a good thing to do to help people out.  Secondly, you just never know how it is going to benefit you.  But if you are positioned as the person that knows everybody, when the time comes that you need a favor, and it will, you will have people falling all over themselves to help you.  You should have multiple sources of income, I believe forever; but a huge Rolodex, or Outlook database, or whatever you use to keep your contacts straight, is a very important tool to have in your arsenal.

For career and financial survival,  work on multiple sources of income, and become a collector of people.  There is more information to come, including things that need to be on your watch list.