A lot has happened since my last blog post.  When I last posted an article in early September, John McCain was leading in the polls and the Dow Jones was 3,000 points higher than it is today.

Oh, and the US lost a ton of jobs.  They originally reported a loss of 159,000 job losses in September, the worst in five years.  Turned out that they were off (by a lot).  Instead, there was a loss of 403,000 jobs in September, followed by 320,000 job losses in October.  November topped them all: 533,000 jobs were lost, the worst in 34 years (which also brings the total to 1.256 million over the last three months alone).

They say that one sad story is tragic, but a thousand of them is a statistic.  It’s very easy to forget that every single job loss has a person, a story, a life that was attached to that job, and when we’re talking about numbers this big, it’s simply overwhelming.

Which brings me to why I’m writing this post after such a long hiatus.  During the last recession in the early 2000’s, I was one of those statistics.  It was my first job after being done with school.  Ever since grade school, I was told to get good grades so I worked hard at it.  In college, I was told that engineers would always be in demand so I worked hard in that major.  When I worked for an internet company, I was told to work hard and I would get rewarded in stock options.  The company went bankrupt, my stock options were worthless and I was out of a job.  I remember telling myself, “It wasn’t supposed to end this way.  I did what I was told.  I was faithful and worked hard but I have nothing to show for it.”  I was angry and unemployed.

Fast forward to the present.  I had to take a break with my blog to write a proposal for the company I work for today.  While I was writing that proposal, I got news of winning a previous proposal I wrote (I mentioned it in my last post).  So what about that proposal that made me take a break from blogging?  I just found out I won that too.

What changed?  Getting laid off a few years ago taught me the hard lesson that I can’t let others think for me - I need to think for myself.  I also learned that the Puritanical devotion of working hard is not nearly as valuable as working smart.

I’ve always wanted to get back to blogging, but the recent economic turn has really inspired me to pick it up again.  I was in the middle of redesigning the blog layout for a relaunch, but I’m not sure I can wait that long.  There’s chock full of stuff I want to write about!  I started this blog as an outlet for myself to help people do the right things for pursuing their goals and dreams.  It seems like a good time for me to blog about it again.

Just wanted to share with you that I have a guest post up at Write to Done called Use Michael Bay as Your Writing Muse (wow, they actually accepted my post!). It’s a fun read, so I hope you get a chance to check it out.

Also as a brief update, I’ve been fully immersed with a work proposal in my day job. While I was working on this proposal, I also got the good news of a new contract win from a previous proposal of mine! The good news is I succeeded in bringing more work to my company, but it also means that I now have more work that I need to find time to do.

Things should settle next week, and I have a few lessons learned from all this that I want to write about in the upcoming posts. In the meantime, check out the fun post that’s currently at Write to Done!

Image credits: focal intent

Lately I’ve been going through a change of heart. They say that it doesn’t matter if you win or lose, but only that you tried. I don’t believe this anymore.

I don’t want the doctor to just “try” and heal me from a life-threatening illness, I need the doctor to succeed! My bank will not accept that I “tried” to pay my credit card bills, my payments must be timely received or else my credit score gets affected. For these types of cases, simply having the intention will not make up for the failure to deliver.

This line of reasoning is making me think more results-oriented and focus more on the bottom line. It also got me to ask myself a more fundamental question: is it who you are or what you do that really matters?

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You’re faced against the establishment and all the rules are against you. Those rules are there for a reason - to protect the haves and to keep out the have-nots, and you’re one of the have-nots.

To succeed in such situations, sometimes you have to break the rules. If you’re willing to do what it takes to win, do it right. You’ll need the criminal’s mindset if you want to pull this off. Here are the guidelines for using the criminally-minded approach. However if you get caught, better not rat me out!

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Are you drowning in work? Do you consistently end your day with things on your to-do list that you wanted to get done but never got to? Has your productivity in your day job been reduced to the point that you regularly work nights and weekends? Let me ask: if someone gives you yet another project to work on now, will you scream?

My friend, I’m here to tell you that this lifestyle is not sustainable. Consider these 10 tips which might help give some immediate relief and help you ride those waves of work.
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