It sounds either obvious or insulting, but the way you approach your networking should vary based on your age. An experienced business veteran of 40 years shouldn't create and build relationships like a 22-year-old college grad. So when looking at how those under 30, and especially under 25, approach networking, we have to be clear about the opportunities and obstacles they face. The business environment, the world they’ve grown up in, and the fact that they are at the beginning of your career create a unique combination. On the whole, when you are at the beginning of your career, you have more flexibility and freedom. You have more … [Read more...]
The Right Questions Can Help Fix the Environment (and Your Life)
“The quality of a person’s life is determined by the quality of the questions they ask.” – Anthony Robbins Have you read William Kamkwamba’s The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind? It's a fantastic story about perseverance, and how he used ingenuity to build an electricity-generating windmill for his family’s home despite being surrounded by poverty and doubt in Africa. There are a many reasons why the book engaged me, but one of them is because I’ve also been thinking about how to build windmills. One of the topics I daydream about is how to make every house in the U.S. a zero-sum electricity user by using solar and wind power right at the … [Read more...]
3 Questions to Ask Before Solving ANY Problem
A while back, I heard a stand-up comedian talk about the 3 questions you should always ask before you tell your significant other anything: Does this need to be said? Does this need to be said right now? Does this need to be said right now by me? The joke works because many of us don't think before we speak and act. (These questions are also great to ask in professional relationships, but that's for another article.) Solve Business Problems Intentionally A place you can see this lack of forethought in the business world is the rapid-fire manner in which entrepreneurs and business owners solve problems. For those … [Read more...]