NOTHING GOLD CAN STAY — by Robert Frost
Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
Work is love made visible. —Kahlil Gibran
About 80% of people are unhappy at work, and 20% are happy. Our culture has separated work from passion, and taught us to prefer a higher paycheck to higher happiness. That mistake costs us our souls. The goal of career development is to uncover one's gifts and passions, and to link them to the practical needs of the world. We call that "being in the right place," "finding a good fit," or "making the best use of one's talents."
In What Color Is Your Parachute? my mentor, Dick Bolles, quotes Fred Buechner, who writes, "There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work . . . (and) the place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet." [2001 Edition, page 57.]
High compensation and high happiness are not incompatible. It's not that we shouldn't seek money, and lots of it; many of our clients do. But we should first seek to love, or at least to like, what we're doing. That's the realization of our highest calling.
No great thing is created suddenly. —Epictetus (A.D.200)
We live in a McDonald's culture. We want everything instantly and without effort. And we bristle when others around us appear to be getting more, sooner. Waiting for rewards or results is out of favor. It is so uncool.
Many things are created suddenly: the two-day house makeovers on HOME & GARDEN TELEVISION, for example, but they aren't great. They are adequate, functional, or practical improvements. Greatness requires thought and time, effort and sacrifice. Especially sacrifice.
Stellar careers aren't built overnight. Take the orthopedic surgeon, whose education extends 15 years past high school. Take the country western star on Grand Ole' Opry. Take the NFL quarterback or wide receiver, the CEOs, CFOs, and Vice Presidents of brand-name companies. Think about Edison, Einstein, or Galileo, or anyone else you might admire. None of them got there overnight.
Great careers are built upon hundreds of thousands of small efforts, undertaken daily, that eventually grow into a series of satisfying wins. An ad for Paul Masson Vineyards picturing a bottle of wine said, "Nothing good happens fast." I framed it, and hung it in my office.
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
This is a variation on "Actions speak louder than words" and on Shakespeare's superb quote, "Talkers are no good doers." An executive search consultant who recruited 500 bank presidents told me, "There are two kinds of candidates: tap dancers and superstars. Tap dancers go through the motions and superstars get the work done. I recruit the superstars."
No wind favors he who has no destined port. —Montaigne
The cliche, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there," is valid. And many careers are broken by lack of direction. Corporations define this concept as having a mission or vision, and organizations lacking vision usually flounder. "Career Planning" speaks to the idea of creating a blueprint for your future. That is, having a goal, a destined port—fulfilling your destiny. Stephen R. Covey said it well in The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People when he advised us to "Begin with the end in mind."
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage. —Seneca
I've been there. You've been there. Sometimes life is hard. You hit a career roadblock or dead end. Nothing seems to be working. You're fired or laid off. Or worse yet, you and your spouse are both unemployed. It happens. And it happens more frequently than you might imagine, to good people, qualified candidates, because of circumstances beyond their control. I like Churchill's words, "Never give in, never, never, never, never; in nothing, great or small—never give in except to convictions of honour and good sense." And I especially like the quote by Edmund Burke, who said: "Never despair, but if you do, work on in despair."
Do first things first, and second things not at all.
—Peter Drucker.
It's so easy to do what's familiar, comfortable, or fun. It's so difficult, sometimes, to tackle the highest priority. And sometimes it's difficult to even know your top priorities; hence, the phrase, "I can't see the forest for the trees."
We suffer from over-choice: 67 varieties of toothpaste, 487 styles of shoes, 186 brands of cell phones with 137 telephone companies. We demand more variety than we could possibly need or want; and as a result, we get lost in options, opportunities, and choices. There are 87 varieties of lawyers, and 75 specialties inside medicine. The world of work can be a confusing landscape.
When you're flooded with career possibilities, or "swimming up Niagara Falls," it's good to spend time answering questions like, "What is the best and highest use of my talents?" and, "How can I make a bigger impact?"
If you can't establish clear career priorities by yourself, use friends and business acquaintances as a sounding board. They will want to help. Ask them to help you determine your "first things" and "second things." Or seek an outside coach or advisor to help you focus. Because if you don't know what your "first things" are, you simply can't do them FIRST.
Your friend,
Chavez Repeats 'Devil' Comment at Harlem Event
Thursday, September 21, 2006
NEW YORK — Venezuelan Communist President Hugo Chavez, made an appearance Thursday at a Harlem Church for an oil-for-poor event, repeated his 'devil' reference barfed up a day earlier at President Bush during a speech of September 20th, at the United Nations where foreign dignitaries who hate Bush cheered.
"They told me that I should be careful after I called him the devil — and I think he is the devil — because he might kill me" Chavez told a crowd packed into the Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Harlem.
"But, I place myself in the hands of God," he said. Onlookers stood in awe of the bravery of a man who could poor-mouth a leader in the leader's own USA and not be gunned down like an activist in a Communist country. This probably says more for the USA than for somebody "popping off" who knows he is safe because the USA is protecting his "sorry rear end" from Venezuelan refugees who would ,indeed, like to "fill the dictator of their country, how you say,"FULL OF LEAD!"
Hugo Chavez, who was introduced to speak by activist-actor Danny Glover, was visiting the Harlem church as part of ceremonies to announce the selling of discounted home heating oil to qualified low-income families. How much income disqualifies makes it a "welfare" deal.
The appearance occurred just ONE day after Chavez delivered an insult-riddled speech at the U.N. General Assembly in which he called President Bush the 'devil.' and Chavez wasn't talking about "A Devil With a Blue Dress On".
As Chavez gave his speech in Harlem, U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel ranted robusquely against the Communist Venezuelan leader.for choosing Rangel's New York congressional district to attack George W. Bush, the president of the United States of America before it becomes the 17th state of Mexico which already calls itself, "The United States of Mexico" in preparation for that day..
"You don't come into my country, you don't come into my congressional district and criticize my president, " Charles Rangel declared from Washington's Capitol Hill.
Rangel added that "it would be crazy to think that Americans do not feel offended" by Communist Dictator Hugo Chavez's loaded vetriolic remarks.
New York Governor George Pataki gave a speech somewhere which called for "a united front by Americans from all political parties to stand together against Chavez".
"This person has no right coming to our country to criticize our president," New York Governor George Pataki said in a telephone interview on FOX News.
"He can take his cheap oil and do something for the poor people of Venezuela." A hot oil enema comes to mind but New York Governor George Pataki did not mention the enema that would "clear the mind" of Hugo Chavez.
That same day, in Harlem, the crowd chanted in Spanish, "Chavez, Chavez, the people are with you," as he walked into the church dressed in his signature red shirt.
Hugo Chavez named President George W. Bush a "sick man" who was "very dangerous because he has so much power."
As Chavez had previously done at the U.N. Assembly speech, Chavez again waved a copy of the book, "Hegemony or Survival: America's Quest for Global Dominance," written by American leftist writer Noam Chomsky, and at one point digressed from his long, Bill Clinton-style rambling talk to read passages aloud.
In several instances Chavez attempted to make the point that he was a good friend of Americans, and that the Bush administration was demonizing him as the low-down-hugging-the-ground-snake-in-the-grass-horse's rear-end-enemy.
"I pray that the American people will elect a president we can negotiate with," Chavez said, not naming any presidential contenders of the Democrat Party and asserting that he loved the American people, but that it was difficult for him to visit the U.S. because he was "threatened." If the scum-sucking-bottom-feeding-low-life had, in fact, been threatened,"The New York Times" would have made a HEADLINE of this as perhaps,"The Story of the Week". So this did NOT happen.
The Venezuelan Communist Dictator strongman mentioned his alliance with Cuba, a country he said had "been choked" by the U.S., and of his close friendship with Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Chavez said their (economic and social) cooperation had improved the lives of Cubans and Venezuelans alike.
The event is but one of a series intended to promote the Venezuelan leader's popularity in the U.S. It was organized by Citgo, a Houston-based energy company that is wholy owned and carefully controlled by the Venezuelan Communist government.
Citgo, bought out from Southland Corporation, is in a partnership with Citizens Energy, a program operated by former U.S. Rep. Joe Kennedy II. The program sells and distributes discounted home heating oil to certain low enough low-income families as a welfare program.
Venezuelan officials and Citgo employees passed out T-shirts immediately before the event with the name of the program,"From The Venezuelan Heart To The U.S. Hearths", emblazoned across the T-shirts' fronts.
Chavez made an unsubstantiated claim the Citgo program would eventually benefit over 450,000 American families during the winter months, and that it was made feasably possible and do-able because the program eliminates out the "greedy capitalist element" which is called,"The Middle-Man".
"That's another thing we're doing with this Bolivarian Revolution," he said referring to the name he has given his economic platform many hold is a big insult to the name of heroic Simon Bolivar. Chavez said,"We're transferring the power to the people."

Chavez got his wish...Barack Hussein Obama likes Chavez despite Chavez poor-mouthing Obama and calling him a socialist even more so than Chavez himself.

Serious thought went into this project. http://www.wix.com/Ernest10/PhD-Writer-Researcher-Advisor