How to Build Your Personal Brand with Periscope

How to Build Your Personal Brand with Periscope Have you ever used Periscope? You know that Meerkat clone that Twitter owns. Its a great live broadcasting tool that anyone with a smartphone can both view and use to do their  own broadcasts. Our friend Chris Drucker has looked at how Periscope can help you build your personal brand. According to Chris, Periscope is about intimacy and simplicity: No editing. No webinar slides. No countdown timer. No commercials. So its worth  trying it out for personal branding. 12 Periscope takeaways: Keep it candid: Dont stress about trying to come up with the perfect topic to discuss. Be you and be vulnerable. Entice with your title: Take a few extra moments to think of a title that would entice you to want to join in. And dont over think it. Acknowledge your viewers: A good Periscope session is all about hanging out with your audience. Ask questions: Draw out conversations from viewers by asking questions. Dont be afraid to go off on tangents: Dont be afraid to keep it real, go off on tangents and enjoy where the conversation takes you. Ask for some love and shares: Ask for people to share your scopes. They WILL do it and it WILL help grow your Periscope following! Follow those that show you some love: Offer a follow back for those people that show you the most love during a broadcast. Build a following by broadcasting often: No doubt the most successful broadcasters on Periscope will be those that broadcast often. Play show and tell: Introduce viewers to people near you, along with showing them any interesting items that happen to be there. Act like youre hanging out with a friend: Periscope is all about living in the moment and communicating that to your audience. Explore with me: Next time you explore something new like trying new food, seeing new places, meeting new people Or even using new gadgets take the world with you. Learn from your replays: Great athletes watch themselves on tape in order to get better. RELATED: Periscope  for Brands The Cheat Sheet

Side Hustles That You Can Grow With

Side Hustles That You Can Grow With Side hustles are those things that we do to help make some extra money to pay the bills, save for a vacation, or even save up for our retirement accounts. In plenty of cases, this is work that we  enjoy doing so the side hustle feels more like getting paid for our passions. Once in a while these same hustles can turn into careers. Not all side hustles can be shifted to full-time work so pay close attention to todays list to see if you are working a potential full-time money maker. From Barista to Maintenance Top notch coffee houses require special equipment beyond your basic coffee pot. A large number of baristas find job security when they know some basic equipment maintenance. Unfortunately, a lot of baristas arent on board with learning the maintenance tricks. This means many coffee houses rely on equipment companies to routinely visit and maintain or repair the equipment. This can be costly for the business. When a barista knows how to change grinder burrs, they can create a side hustle at any coffee house in town. Get enough coffee houses on board, or move to a region with lots more coffee houses, and you can work to create a full-time business that is nothing but repairing the equipment. Healing Powers Can Go Full Time Massage therapy is one of the most popular side hustles that can grow into even more. Its easy to gain clients while in school and purchase a table or chair. That table or chair can go almost anywhere and finding inexpensive places to set up (from home to co-ops) are plentiful. Building up the clientele is the top hardest issue to battle with learning to price your services as a close second. Building your network begins with family and friends but will truly grow once you look to local groups to join. Chamber of Commerce is one resource to learn who has networking groups in the area that meets socially. Meetup and Facebook are also two excellent sources for groups to join. Learning what the industry standard for pricing is in your area will also help you tackle the issue of how much to sell your services for. When you have all of that down pat, you can eventually become sustainable enough to work on your own, either out of your home or even doing office sharing. If the idea of working for yourself is overwhelming, consider working with local physical therapists or doctors office. Be The Personal Assistant Some people opt for being a personal assistant because the people who need their help most are often those who dont need a full time assistant. It could be as simple as handling the weekly grocery shopping trip to setting appointments. However, many personal assistants find themselves going full time when they find those clients that need more help than their friends. However, it is possible to gain enough clientele who need small errands ran that you can be kept busy all week long but it is harder to find those gigs and find enough of them, Finding a gig is really as simple as finding a way to fill a need with a skill that you possess and love using. It may not always turn into a full time career but if you are very good at it and really love doing it, its hard to believe it wont be.

Work Ethic

Work Ethic Is he ready for management responsibilities? Work Ethic: noun.    A belief in the moral benefit and importance of work and its inherent ability to strengthen character. I’ve written before about the differences between the generations at work. Just about every U.S. generation has blasted the subsequent one as the Generation that Ruined it All. No manners, no respect, and no work ethic. This time, the current generation may be in agreement with their parents. When a 2010 Pew Research study asked Millennials (those born after 1980) to identify what makes their generation unique, they were the first in four generations to drop “work ethic” from the list. They seemed to agree with the older groups that Millennials had ceded the work ethic high ground. What does that mean? For one thing, it means that there will be tension in the workplace between managers (Baby Boomers listed “work ethic” as number one in their generation’s distinctive characteristics) and the emerging, or entry level workforce. Eric Chester is the author of Reviving Work Ethic: A Leader’s Guide to Ending Entitlement and Restoring Pride in the Emerging Workforce.  Chester has spoken to or surveyed over 1,500 employers in the course of his career, and he admits that people can define work ethic in different ways. For the WWII generation, for example, “hard work” meant hard physical labor, something that exhausted your body. I’m not the only Baby Boomer who has been told by her parents that hours spent training, writing or doing taxes “wasn’t work.” For Baby Boomers, “hard work” meant long hours. We believed in the value of mental labor, but we made up for the relative ease of working with our minds by working long hours; in many corporate environments, working an eight-hour day made you a slacker. Twelve hours won you grudging respect; if you had time for fun or family, you kept quiet about it, lest you be branded as a lightweight and passed over for partner. For Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), the long hours made no sense; they were willing to work smarter, but not longer, on the job. While the definitions of working hard may have differed, each generation (until now)agreed that working hard was important. Chester has composed a list of qualities that most employers would consider to be the definition of “having a good work ethic.” He lists them as: Positive people, who show up on time and dressed appropriately, and go out of their way to create value at work, and do more than is required of them, and are honest, and play by the established rules, and give cheerful, friendly service, no matter what the situation is. Notice my emphasis on the word and; I think I heard a collective sigh from the managers who supervise young workers. Most of them would settle for any one or two of the above qualities, let alone all. Chester writes, “It’s true that every generation struggles to some degree with learning work ethic. But a lack of work ethic has become a systemic, defining quality of our culture â€" not just a brief phase of life for some teenagers.” He breaks don work ethic into a simple grid with two axes: knowing what to do and doing it. Chester describes workers who don’t know what to do and don’t do it as idle; they add no value and are most likely to be fired and stay out of work. They’re clueless. Workers who know what to do and don’t do it are cheating. They know the rules, but try to get away with not doing what’s required. They’re a corrosive influence in any workplace. There are workers who don’t know what to do, but get lucky and do it right every once in a while. They’re actually more likely to be in the idle quadrant, but manage, for instance, to show up on time when traffic is light. They may be able to be salvaged. The Valued workers know what to do and actually do it. The trick, Chester writes, is to know how to recognize and reward compliance, instead of ignoring it and waiting for brilliance. Build more compliance in your organization, and you may increase the odds of getting some occasional brilliance. The danger in ignoring workers who are meeting the minimum requirements of the job is that the pull of a bad attitude is so powerful. More on that in later posts.

A Simple Guide For Choosing A Good Insurance Plan

A Simple Guide For Choosing A Good Insurance Plan It is no secret that the American healthcare system has gone through a major revolution, due to the Affordable Care Act. Today, consumers are pretty much forced to maintain some type of insurance at all times. The risks of not having coverage are enormous and could result in you falling into a detrimental situation. At the same time, the tax repercussions are significant. Suffice to say, it is crazy not to have insurance at this point in time. If you are not covered, you need to get coverage as quickly as possible. Within this simple guide, you will learn how to obtain the best plan for your specific situation. Broker The mass majority of states in American now have their own insurance exchanges. The easiest way to obtain insurance is by logging onto your state’s website and browsing through your options. Although this might be the most convenient way to get covered, it might not be the most efficient. Instead, you should consider working directly with a broker. It is essential to choose a broker, which has a substantial amount of experience. The broker should also specialize in health insurance. Choosing a car insurance broker to help you obtain health insurance would be an incredible mistake. Also, be sure to consider the broker’s group health insurance plans and employee benefit packages. Out-Of-Network Providers When signing up for health insurance plan, you will be entering into a network. Your insurance will provide you with coverage for all of the doctors and healthcare providers within your unique network. However, it is possible to seek assistance from a provider outside of your network, but this generally comes at an increased cost. If you intend to work with a doctor outside of your network, you need to know the costs. Make sure you’re fully aware of these extra expenses, before signing up. Different Types Also, it is essential to remember that insurance fits into different categories, such as HMO, PPO, and EPO. Although they’ll all provide you with security and peace of mind, each is somewhat different. The HMO or health maintenance organization is a type of plan, which will normally limit the amount of coverage provided to doctors that work with the HMO. At the same time, this type of plan normally does not cover out-of-network providers, unless there is a legitimate emergency. The preferred provider organization or PPO will allow you to pay less when you work with a medical provider within your network. All of these plans are unique, so you need to familiarize yourself with all of them. This will ensure you can make the choice that works best for you. Competitive Premiums Healthcare insurance premiums can be very expensive, especially for those that have a family, with three or four members. With this being said, it is crucial to invest in a healthcare plan that will offer the necessities, without breaking the bank. The best way to obtain competitive premiums is to contact an insurance broker. An insurance agent can provide you with a list of price comparisons from several top insurance providers. The plans will be similar, as well as the prices. You will need to carefully scour the plans and prices, before selecting one from the list. Just because you expect to receive a competitive premium does not mean that you should be willing to sacrifice on quality. If you want to skip the insurance agent, you can utilize the free online quote form, which can be found on top insurance companies’ websites. These forms are absolutely free to use and you are not obligated to purchase a plan from the insurance provider, just because you utilized their quote form. Prescription Plan One of the most crucial elements of any healthcare policy is the prescription plan. Prescription medications are forever increasing in price, making them out of reach for individuals that earn an income below the median. A solid prescription plan will offer a reasonable deductible of $10 to $20, depending on whether the medicine is generic or name brand. Now, you should expect to spend a little more for this plan.  But in the long run you could potentially save yourself a lot of grief and money. Look At Out-Of-Pocket Costs When you are researching health insurance, each plan’s summary of benefits should clearly outline how much you are going to have to pay out-of-pocket. Comparing the differences in the out-of-pocket costs could be the difference in you choosing to visit the doctor or waiting for the illness to pass. What’s the point of paying for health insurance, if it is going to be too expensive for you to use?   Out-of-pocket costs are sometimes referred to cost sharing and it can be rather complicated to understand. For instance, cost sharing is not included with your monthly premium. In order to completely understand cost sharing, you need to be aware of insurance terminology. Throughout your search you will see the term deductible several times. Deductible is basically the amount of money that you are going to pay, before the insurance company starts dishing out money. Image credit. Main.  

TV show A House Through Time student house next series

TV show A House Through Time student house next series This post was written by an external contributor. George Cook tells us why a student house should be the next focus for TV series A House Through Time. A House Through Time has been something that has fascinated me since the first episode. From one house, we have seen people die, go to America, have children and undergo tremendous changes through time as we edge closer towards the present day. We’ve seen cultures and people evolve and the design of the house change, but I think David Olusoga is missing a trick and I’ve got an idea for the focus of the next series: a student house. But what are the things that are almost timeless in student houses? Cleanliness On social media, a lot is said about student houses. People always refer to how dirty, disgusting and disease riddled they are. Let’s be honest, this isn’t an unfair assumption! You’ll more than likely inhabit a kitchen that you wouldn’t dare walk barefoot in for the fear of getting enough butter and crumbs on your feet to make a slice of toast. Whilst the current student generation faces many criticisms, the dirty and disgusting state of many student houses and university halls is something I doubt has changed. Temperature Student houses are also notoriously absolutely freezing! You’ll often be literally shivering with the cold as you struggle to scrape together enough money to adequately heat your house. This means you’ll often be sitting there with three jumpers on, five pairs of socks and a blanket draped over your knees. Or always wrapped up in bed like a sausage roll. It’s as if student houses don’t actually have heating at all and reside in an Arctic climate, and that it could snow at almost any point (in fact as I write this I could swear I just a small snowflake drift down from the ceiling) Ikea catalogue Many student houses also have the same furniture in them: the usual brown-ish sofa, a very basic kitchen and if you’re lucky enough to have a table to eat off, it’s definitely from Ikea. Even though time has progressed, the furniture in student houses has remained constant. It makes you wonder how many brown sofas there in the country, and if anyone else apart from students actually has one in their house! Noise control These houses are also notoriously quite noisy places, but this is not helped by the fact they have walls that are so thin they may as well not be there. You’ll be able to hear your housemates breathe, plug their phone in and mutter to themselves over certain assignments. These walls are also far from ideal given the fact that students are renowned for having many parties, and a lack of sufficient wall thickness is likely to cause more irritation for the neighbours, who probably already didn’t like you before you moved in. Props There’s one thing that almost every student house has, something that is usually collected when are drunk and wandering the streets… you guessed it: a traffic cone! I don’t why students do this, but its like it’s wired into the DNA of every student to pick these up on the way home and add it to the array of already existing furniture. They then, inevitably, become the most treasured item in the house and are admired by almost everyone who enters. Connect with Debut on  Facebook,  Twitter,  and  LinkedIn  for more careers insights.

Book review Happiness Lessons From a New Science - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Book review Happiness Lessons From a New Science - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog Money will not make you happy, unless youre very poor, in which case a little money goes a long way. And yet individuals and societies seem to regard increased spending as the only reliable measure of success, and the main goal of most governments is to achieve an economic growth rate that beats out that of comparable countries. In Happiness: Lessons From a New Science economist Richar Layard argues that this is a totally wrong approach, which will not improve peoples lives. As an example consider indonesia where the average annual income is less than 1/10 of that of the US but where people are just as happy. Layard draws much inspiration from the philosopher Jeremy Bentham who had it right as far back as the 1800s when he said that The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation. The goal of the individual is to be happy, this has been known since Aristotle who said that whatever else we desire, we want it because we expect it to make us happier. Therefore happiness is the underlying why of all human activity including constructing and governing societies. So what can a society do to make its people happier? Layard mentions the 7 factors that have been shown to have the greatest influence on peoples happiness: * family relationships * financial situation * work * community and friends * health * personal freedom * personal values Its interesting to note, that an economic policy that seeks to encourage people to work more, eg. lowering taxes or increasing the mobility of the work force, will in fact decrease peoples situation in several of these areas and thus make people less happy. One country has in fact acted on this: In Bhutan, a tiny nation in the Himalayas, King Jigme Singye Wangchuck decreed that Gross national happiness is more important than gross national product [because] happiness takes precedence over economic prosperity in our national development process. I feel quite sure that more countries will come to make similar decisions. Western materialist culture has made us happy over the last few decades, but constantly increasing consumerism has probably taken us as far as it possibly can happiness-wise. We will not be happier because we can buy more or bigger cars, TVs and houses. More time and an increased ability to enjoy time with our friends, families and communities is a whole different matter, and this is where society needs to focus. Layards is the most cogent and readable book on happiness on a national and global scale, and seeing as Layard is an economist rather than a psychologist, most of it is based on hard-core numbers and statistics. Layards main point is that happiness can be objectively quantified in individuals and in socities and can thus be used as a measure of success. I wish every political leader would read it I think Ill send our prime minister a copy :o) Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related

An Example Resume: Focus on Your Qualities

An Example Resume: Focus on Your QualitiesAn example resume is one of the very best ways to show employers that you're worthy of an interview. It should be at least as informative as your actual resume and perhaps even more so. This one-page resume is a great way to show how well you can perform your job duties and how capable you are in your job.Sample resumes do have some disadvantages, though. It's easy to assume that the kind of resume you've been submitting to employers for years is what would get an interview, but this isn't always the case. The majority of employers know what to look for when they look through a resume, and that's because they've been there. Of course, the same applies to job seekers, too.One problem with sample resumes is that employers will often view them through the perspective of someone who has been employed in the same job for a while, which could end up putting them off. If you're unemployed, this can certainly take a toll on your impression of yoursel f. Employers are wary of employees who haven't been out of work for a while because it means they'll be returning to their old jobs and reliving the same stresses and fears again.The best way to show employers that you're different and have something new to offer is to approach them using a proper approach. Use a resume that focuses on your qualifications and skills, and one that highlights your abilities rather than a negative picture of your former job. An example resume doesn't need to sound negative.Instead, you should show the employer how you've managed to get over a problem or acquired an individual trait or skill that hasn't been offered to you before. Remember, this is their first impression of you want to stand out from all the other applicants so take advantage of it. Your resume is a reflection of your character, so if you can talk about your accomplishments, your character and your life experiences, then you have a chance to shine.Of course, an example resume is only ef fective when you don't plagiarize your resume. Most people tend to copy their own work, but this doesn't mean that they're not smart enough to use sample resumes as a foundation for their own resumes. So don't get caught trying to copy other resumes by giving your own a little bit of 'office makeover.'Use these unique features to focus your resume on your unique qualities. That is why it's so important to focus on your unique strengths and eliminate any weaknesses. An example resume is a tool that helps to highlight your unique traits, talents and abilities, allowing you to highlight those assets in your own resume and gaining an edge over other applicants.