By Andy O’Bryan

For most people, Labor Day symbolizes the end of summer, back to school, and another long weekend. Deep down however, when we stop for a moment and reflect as we often do on bank holidays, we all know that Labor Day is, in reality, meant to signify a time to recognize the achievement, struggle and determination of the working man and woman.

Here are 50 ways to acknowledge your employees in honor of Labor Day. See how many you are doing already, and which ones you could start doing better:

1. Ask them about themselves
2. Find ways to stay in an affirmative frame of mind, by saying yes as often as possible
3. If an employee makes a mistake, keep your emotions in check and mentor them to the make the right decision the next time
4. Be honest, ethical and forthright at all times. Stop yourself from stretching the truth about any issue that may arise
5. Listen to their needs and wants
6. Let them help you with your marketing plan
7. Listen to their stories about their families
8. Inquire if something is wrong if you feel an employee is acting different than usual
9. Remember the names of those employees in other departments you don’t know
10. Find out the birthdays of your employees and remember to send each one a card when that day comes around
11. Present several options when they seek your advice, but also allow them to come up with their own solutions
12. Surprise them with an impromptu incentive, reward or thank you just for doing their job in the unique way that they do it
13. Stay with them a few moments after you’ve resolved an issue, just to make sure there aren’t any lingering questions they were hesitant to ask
14. Have lunch brought in
15. Let them take the reins on a customer issue, giving them the empowerment they deserve
16. Stop by their work area just to say Hi
17. Let them vent
18. Discuss their higher aspirations
19. Let down your guard
20. Come out from behind your desk when they come to see you
21. Tell them they’re doing a great job (you can’t do this too often)
22. Learn something from them
23. Don’t think with your mouth open
24. Make yourself accessible, answer your phone and return your emails
25. If you make a mistake, say you’re sorry
26. Keep your promises
27. When you talk to them look in their eyes
28. Pass out their pay stubs and checks, and as you give it to them, thank them for the work they do
29. Acknowledge an everyday task they do, and tell them specifically how well they do it
30. Give them your undivided attention.
31. Ask for their opinion.
32. Encourage their creativity when faced with a challenge
33. Find out what they’re best at, and help them become masterful at it
34. Be genuinely glad to see them
35. Bend
36. Allow them to find their own way, but give help when requested
37. Give them immediate feedback.
38. Include them in conversations with your peers, don’t make them feel left out
39. Respect them.
40. Be patient when they’re having a bad day
41. Send them to a meeting in your place, with their permission
42. Believe what they say
43. Laugh at their jokes
44. Encourage them to think outside the box
45. Let them look at the big picture with you
46. Share company goals with them, even if you think they won’t understand it all
47. Encourage all types of feedback
48. Make sure your voicemail message is as friendly as possible
49. Introduce them to your boss’s boss
50. Tell them if they ever have a question or concern they can call you at home, and give them your number.

Andy O’Bryan is author of Incentive Toolkit 2005, the new ebook that gives employers creative and easy ways to motivate ttarget=”_new” he great performance and reward the job well done, available at http://www.incentivetoolkit.com. To book an employee motivation session, consultation or keynote send an email to ajobryan@aol.com for a menu of topics.

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Why Your Life Sucks and What You Can Do About It

Via The NY Times

January 9, 2010

The Children of Cyberspace: Old Fogies by Their 20s

By BRAD STONE

My 2-year-old daughter surprised me recently with two words: “Daddy’s book.” She was holding my Kindle electronic reader.

Here is a child only beginning to talk, revealing that the seeds of the next generation gap have already been planted. She has identified the Kindle as a substitute for words printed on physical pages. I own the device and am still not completely sold on the idea.

My daughter’s worldview and life will be shaped in very deliberate ways by technologies like the Kindle and the new magical high-tech gadgets coming out this year — Google’s Nexus One phone and Apple’s impending tablet among them. She’ll know nothing other than a world with digital books, Skype video chats with faraway relatives, and toddler-friendly video games on the iPhone. She’ll see the world a lot differently from her parents.

But these are also technology tools that children even 10 years older did not grow up with, and I’ve begun to think that my daughter’s generation will also be utterly unlike those that preceded it.

Researchers are exploring this notion too. They theorize that the ever-accelerating pace of technological change may be minting a series of mini-generation gaps, with each group of children uniquely influenced by the tech tools available in their formative stages of development.

“People two, three or four years apart are having completely different experiences with technology,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life Project. “College students scratch their heads at what their high school siblings are doing, and they scratch their heads at their younger siblings. It has sped up generational differences.”

One obvious result is that younger generations are going to have some very peculiar and unique expectations about the world. My friend’s 3-year-old, for example, has become so accustomed to her father’s multitouch iPhone screen that she approaches laptops by swiping her fingers across the screen, expecting a reaction.

And after my 4-year-old niece received the very hot Zhou-Zhou pet hamster for Christmas, I pointed out that the toy was essentially a robot, with some basic obstacle avoidance skills. She replied matter-of-factly: “It’s not a robot. It’s a pet.”

These mini-generation gaps are most visible in the communication and entertainment choices made by different age groups. According to a survey last year by Pew, teenagers are more likely to send instant messages than slightly older 20-somethings (68 percent versus 59 percent) and to play online games (78 percent versus 50 percent).

Larry Rosen, a professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and the author of the coming “Rewired: Understanding the iGeneration and the Way They Learn,” has also drawn this distinction between what he calls the Net Generation, born in the 1980s, and the iGeneration, born in the ’90s and this decade.

Now in their 20s, those in the Net Generation, according to Dr. Rosen, spend two hours a day talking on the phone and still use e-mail frequently. The iGeneration — conceivably their younger siblings — spends considerably more time texting than talking on the phone, pays less attention to television than the older group and tends to communicate more over instant-messenger networks.

Dr. Rosen said that the newest generations, unlike their older peers, will expect an instant response from everyone they communicate with, and won’t have the patience for anything less.

“They’ll want their teachers and professors to respond to them immediately, and they will expect instantaneous access to everyone, because after all, that is the experience they have growing up,” he said. “They should be just like their older brothers and sisters, but they are not.”

The boom of kid-focused virtual worlds and online games like Club Penguin and Moshi Monsters especially intrigues Mizuko Ito, a cultural anthropologist and associate researcher at the University of California Humanities Research Institute.

Dr. Ito said that children who play these games would see less of a distinction between their online friends and real friends; virtually socializing might be just as fulfilling as a Friday night party. And they would be more likely to participate actively in their own entertainment, clicking at the keyboard instead of leaning back on the couch.

That could give them the potential to be more creative than older generations — and perhaps make them a more challenging target for corporate marketers. “It’s certainly no longer true that kids are just blindly consuming what commercial culture has to offer,” Dr. Ito said.

Another bubbling intra-generational gap, as any modern parent knows, is that younger children tend to be ever more artful multitaskers. Studies performed by Dr. Rosen at Cal State show that 16- to 18-year-olds perform seven tasks, on average, in their free time — like texting on the phone, sending instant messages and checking Facebook while sitting in front of the television.

People in their early 20s can handle only six, Dr. Rosen found, and those in their 30s perform about five and a half.

That versatility is great when they’re killing time, but will a younger generation be as focused at school and work as their forebears?

“I worry that young people won’t be able to summon the capacity to focus and concentrate when they need to,” said Vicky Rideout, a vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation, which will release a sweeping survey on the technology and media habits of children and teenagers this month.

Children my daughter’s age are also more likely to have some relaxed notions about privacy. The idea of a phone or any other device that is persistently aware of its location and screams out its geographic coordinates, even if only to friends, might seem spooky to older age groups.

But the newest batch of Internet users and cellphone owners will find these geo-intelligent tools to be entirely second nature, and may even come to expect all software and hardware to operate in this way.

Here is where corporations can start licking their chops. My daughter and her peers will never be “off the grid.” And they may come to expect that stores will emanate discounts as they walk by them, and that friends can be tracked down anywhere.

“If it’s something you grow up with, you have a completely different comfort with it than someone who has had to unlearn something about the world,” said Mr. Rainie, of the Pew project.

It’s not yet clear whether these disparities between adjacent groups of children and teenagers will simply fade away, as the older groups come to embrace the new technology tools, or whether they will deepen into more serious rifts between various generations.

But the children, teenagers and young adults who are passing through this cauldron of technological change will also have a lot in common. They’ll think nothing of sharing the minutiae of their lives online, staying connected to their friends at all times, buying virtual goods, and owning one über-device that does it all.

They will believe the Kindle is the same as a book. And they will all think their parents are hopelessly out of touch.

From Mind Power News

By Dr. Robert Anthony
Creator of Rapid Manifestation Guided Audio

5 Mind Tricks to Beat the Recession

Here are the 5 Tricks:

#1 Start Your Own Business

#2 Pay Close Attention to What You Think and Say

#3 Invest In Yourself

#4 Understand that Scarcity is a function of the mind; so is Abundance

#5 Start appreciating what you already have!

I’ve never seen anything like it.

Over the past few months I have been swamped with emails from business owners panicking over the economy and wondering how they’re going to cope with it.

If you’ve been following the national and global economic news you know that it is not a very encouraging picture. We’ve heard about collapses, bailouts and the possibility of more to come.

The stock market recently experienced the largest single point drop in history. No one knows for sure whether the situation will quickly improve or get worse before it gets better…..

But make no mistake…….

The road to financial success and prosperity in your life and in your business starts in your own mind. Many business people I talk to blame the their current economic situation on the government, the housing market, the stock market, the war in Iraq, high taxes, and countless other factors.

While all of these issues do have an impact on the collective prosperity of the world, they are all inconsequential compared to the most important factor of all…

YOUR POINT OF FOCUS…

Why is this important? Because energy flows to where attention goes. Regardless of what type of business you are in or choose to go into, what you focus on will have greatest impact on your business. Now more than ever, it’s important to realize that YOU and YOU ALONE hold the key to YOUR financial success.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t really matter what happens to other businesses or how they are affected by the economy. The only thing that matters is what happens inside of YOU.

The fact is, you can still earn a LOT of money and enjoy a wonderful lifestyle regardless of what’s happening in the economy. All it takes is focus, the proper resources and realizing your power to succeed comes from your Rich Mindset.

Speaking of mindset, do you really know what your core beliefs are about making money? Have you ever stopped to examine what is running your life when it comes to your business or career?

Do you believe it’s possible to make money doing what you love? Do you believe, without any doubt whatsoever, that you deserve lots of money and the time to enjoy it?

I’m not just talking about a mental concept here; I’m talking about a deep, whole body, CORE belief. Your mindset is extremely important in starting out in any new venture. But mindset involves much more than just thinking positive thoughts. You have to operate from a deep well of positive core beliefs.

Sometimes we think that we are doing everything right and have a great attitude only to realize that we spend a lot of time in what I call F.D.W. — fear, doubt and worry.

If you have never stopped to examine which beliefs are running you, then you are not creating your life consciously. The problem is that most people are sleepwalking through life trying to find loving relationships, meaningful work, successful careers, businesses and the money to enjoy the fine things in life, but they have not developed the corresponding mindset to do it. In fact, instead of attracting the things they desire, they very often sabotage themselves due to their unconscious, negative core beliefs.

If you want to attract real riches into your life and business – including money – you need to deeply understand and apply the principles of conscious creation. “Thoughts are things” is a statement that has been around for a long time. Science is now beginning to prove that this is absolutely true!

Conscious creation in a nutshell says that what you believe to be true is true for you. Read it again! It does not say that what you say is true, it says what you believe is true. This goes way beyond just slapping a positive thought on top of a
negative belief. In simple terms, you attract what you expect out of life and what you expect is based on what you believe at the core level.

Opportunites Are Always Available

Here is the real secret – regardless of the economy, opportunities are always available to turn our ideas into cash. Despite the economy many people are still making a lot of money. There’s no reason why you can’t be one of them.
How can you do this?

#1 Start Your Own Business

If one of your goals in life is to achieve wealth and financial independence, one of the quickest and surest ways to achieve those results is through owning a business of your own. Period. Believe it or not, a recession can actually be a wonderful time to start a new business venture. I can tell you right now that some of the most profitable businesses were started during a recession. The owners simply addressed a need during an economic downturn which continued
to be successful even when the economy rebounded.

Starting a business in a recession is like vacationing in the off-season. It’s a little less crowded, and everything starts going on sale. It allows you to tap into new markets, launching new products that will serve the needs of the current economy and build a business for the future.

#2 Pay Close Attention to What You Think and Say
During tough times, it’s easy to get into the habit of thinking negative thoughts and making negative comments. Constantly thinking and talking about what is wrong with your life, your business or the economy will only serve to bring you more of what you focus on. Before you know it, you’ll end up in one of those self-fulfilling prophecies we talked about earlier.

Stay informed, but don’t keep repeating what you hear on the news. Remember, energy flows to where attention goes. By focusing on what you want instead of what you don’t want, you’ll also do wonders for your creative thinking. Creative thinking allows you to come up with solutions to your problems. It also allows you to see new opportunities. One of the biggest downsides to being in a negative frame of mind and focusing on what you don’t want is that it blinds you to opportunities.

#3 Invest In Yourself

Investing in yourself is more secure and more rewarding than owning stocks, bonds or real estate. Moneymaking ideas are everywhere. If you act fast on them, you can prosper fast. Don’t simply entrust your money to others to make money for you — have faith in your own ideas and take control of your own financial future.

The more you expand your awareness and education, the more you will be able to see opportunities to make more money. The more you invest in yourself — the better the return you’ll get when you take action on what you learned.

#4 Understand that Scarcity is a function of the mind; so is Abundance

The choice is always yours. Are you going to focus on scarcity or the lack of something or are you going to focus on creating more of what you want? These are your only two options. Instead of focusing on cutting back and spending less, change your point of focus to create MORE of what you want. Use that same creative energy to attract the things you desire and to improve your life and your business.

And finally…

# 5 Start appreciating what you already have!

If you really take stock of all the things you do have in your life, I bet you will be amazed. Too often people focus on what’s missing in their lives and as a result, they ignore the riches they do have; a place to live, a car to drive, a job, career or business, a great family, a loving spouse, wonderful children, fantastic pets, loyal friends and the freedom to create whatever they desire.

Every so often someone will write to me and tell me how desperate things are for them. Since I’ve been there myself at one time, I can surely sympathize. But I always point out the same thing…

How bad is it – really?

For example, how bad can it really be if you have enough to eat? Many people around the world have had nothing to eat in days….

How bad can it really be if you are sitting at a computer and writing me an email? Some people around the world don’t even have electricity to run a computer, let alone own a computer.

Ask yourself: how bad is it — really?

As difficult as you current situation may be, it is only temporary. There are millions of people all around the world would trade places with you in a heartbeat.
The good news is if things are not going your way at the moment this entrapped cyclical experience is only here to give you a warning that your POINT OF FOCUS in going in the wrong direction.

When you feel grateful you automatically place yourself in alignment for more good things to come into your life. It also opens the doorway to your mind. Only when it’s open, can opportunity jump in. Consistent gratitude is the easiest track to ending poverty internally and externally. When your abundance is measured by how deeply you FEEL grateful for what you already have and how often you visit this feeling, then your experience of attracting riches is truly unstoppable. This is
the most direct path to financially magnetizing massive abundance and success.

Your Financial Destiny is in Your Own Hands

Remember, the road to abundance and prosperity begins in your own mind. Money is unlimited because your mind is unlimited. Stay focused on opportunity. Because at the end of the day, it’s not the financial “experts” or politicians who are ultimately responsible for your financial situation, it’s you and you alone

Listen, I am NOT a wishful thinker. I’m a REALIST and the reality is that there ARE some economic challenges that we ALL have to deal with…. That’s a FACT…

Many people have had to deal with their fair share of money problems this past year… That’s a FACT….

Some businesses are going through a hard time and need to adjust. That’s a FACT…..

We ALL go through these things at one point or another. It’s part of the natural cycle of things.

But here are some more FACTS….

• History shows that people can prosper even in the worse economic downturn.
• There is never a shortage of new ideas and opportunities.
• Thousands new businesses will be started and these business owners will make a fortune.
• The Internet has opened up the world to a whole new realm of possibilities. Ordinary people can now turn hobbies and side businesses into lucrative money-making ventures like never before.

I could go on and on….

Do you get the point? It all depends on where you FOCUS YOUR ATTENTION!
There really ARE no limits. Possibilities are endless and everywhere…oftentimes right under our own noses. The key is you cannot follow the crowd. You have to zig, while others zag.

Think!

What can you do today, better and more profitably than yesterday? All it takes is one simple idea to transform a life of mediocrity into one of GREATNESS. We’re living in interesting times that require more creativity. The question is — What will you do differently?

The fact is, you are ONE IDEA away from your greatest opportunity, regardless of your personal financial situation or the economic climate. Circumstances may “appear” tougher during uncertain economic times, but in reality, there is never a shortage of opportunities to succeed. When you truly develop a Rich Mindset these
opportunities will show up in your life. And when they do show up, you have to act on them immediately!

Start taking some ACTION right NOW, even if it is just one small step. And remember…….

• Your thoughts will become your words.
• Your words will become your actions.
• Your actions will become your habits.
• Your habits will become you character.
• Your character will become your destiny.

Dr. Robert Anthony is the author of 15 best-selling books and the creator of the Rapid Manifestation Audio Program.

ALSO BY DR. ROBERT ANTHONY: The Disease of Self-Improvement

[NOTE: The 2 biggest complaints are 1) Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting and 2) Incomes have not kept up with inflation. Just imagine you are able to market your skills and products and business via Internet Marketing. Complaint #2 is always there at the beginning. Complaint #1 disappears if and when you follow the "17 Steps" - Please do not trust me - ask Jim Edwards and Joe Vitale, both are successful today after being broke, despearate and, in Joe's case, homeless. Their job satisfaction is quite high. Your's can be too.]

From: MyWay (AP News Service)

Americans’ job satisfaction falls to record low

Jan 5, 7:34 AM (ET)

By JEANNINE AVERSA

WASHINGTON (AP) – We can’t get no job satisfaction.

Even Americans who are lucky enough to have work in this economy are becoming more unhappy with their jobs, according to a new survey that found only 45 percent of Americans are satisfied with their work.

That was the lowest level ever recorded by the Conference Board research group in more than 22 years of studying the issue. In 2008, 49 percent of those surveyed reported satisfaction with their jobs.

The drop in workers’ happiness can be partly blamed on the worst recession since the 1930s, which made it difficult for some people to find challenging and suitable jobs. But worker dissatisfaction has been on the rise for more than two decades.

“It says something troubling about work in America. It is not about the business cycle or one grumpy generation,” says Linda Barrington, managing director of human capital at the Conference Board, who helped write the report, which was released Tuesday.

Workers have grown steadily more unhappy for a variety of reasons:

- Fewer workers consider their jobs to be interesting.

- Incomes have not kept up with inflation.

- The soaring cost of health insurance has eaten into workers’ take-home pay.

If the job satisfaction trend is not reversed, economists say, it could stifle innovation and hurt America’s competitiveness and productivity. And it could make unhappy older workers less inclined to take the time to share their knowledge and skills with younger workers.

Nate Carrasco, 26, of Odessa, Texas, says he’s been pretty unhappy in most of his jobs, including his current one at an auto parts store.

“There is no sense of teamwork in most places any more,” Carrasco gripes.

When the Conference Board’s first survey was conducted in 1987, most workers – 61 percent – said they were happy in their jobs. The survey of 5,000 households was conducted for the Conference Board by TNS, a global market research company.

One clue that may explain workers’ growing dissatisfaction: Only 51 percent now find their jobs interesting – another low in the survey’s 22 years. In 1987, nearly 70 percent said they were interested in their work.

Workers who find their jobs interesting are more likely to be innovative and to take the calculated risks and the initiative that drive productivity and contribute to economic growth, Barrington says.

“What’s really disturbing about growing job dissatisfaction is the way it can play into the competitive nature of the U.S. work force down the road and on the growth of the U.S. economy – all in a negative way,” says Lynn Franco, another author of the report and director of the Conference Board’s Consumer Research Center.

Conference Board officials and outside economists suggested that weak wage growth helps explain why workers’ unhappiness has been rising for more than 20 years. After growing in the 1980s and 1990s, average household incomes adjusted for inflation have been shrinking since 2000.

Also, compared with 1980, three times as many workers contribute to the cost of their health insurance – and those contributions have gone up. The average employee contribution for single-coverage medical care benefits rose from $48 a month to $76 a month between 1999 and 2006.

Workers under 25 expressed the highest level of dissatisfaction. Roughly 64 percent of workers under 25 say they were unhappy in their jobs. The recession has been especially hard on young workers, who face fewer opportunities now and lower wages, some analysts say.

The most satisfied were those ages 25 to 34, who may see some opportunities for upward mobility as baby boomers retire. Around 47 percent of workers 25 to 34 say they were happy in their jobs.

Some other key findings of the survey:

- Forty-three percent of workers feel secure in their jobs. In 2008, 47 percent said they feel secure in their jobs, while 59 percent felt that way in 1987.

- Fifty-six percent say they like their co-workers, slightly less than the 57 percent who said so last year but down from 68 percent in 1987.

- Fifty-six percent say they are satisfied with their commute to work even as commute times have grown longer over the years. That compares with 54 percent in 2008 and 63 percent in 1987.

- Fifty-one percent say their are satisfied with their boss. That’s down from 55 percent in 2008 and around 60 percent two decades ago.

Carrasco said he wishes his bosses would take time to listen to workers’ ideas – and their difficulties on the job.

“Most of the time they only listen to what their bosses are saying,” he says. “Bosses need to come down to the employee level more and see what actually goes on, versus what their paperwork tells them is happening in the stores.”

It wouldn’t be fair to blame low job satisfaction solely on bad bosses, Barrington says.

“It is two-way responsibility,” she says. “Workers also have to figure out what they should be doing to be the most engaged in their jobs and the most productive.”