Do you have a mission?

To find one's mission in life,  a person must define what is unique about them.

Our mission can guide us, telling us who we are, what we want to do, and what we plan to do in the future.  By following your mission you are being something as opposed to just doing things. Having a mission can help one decide what he or she is going to do with his or her time. What is he or she going to accomplish in his or her life? This sounds great,  but what on earth are the parameters for an individual or a companies mission statement?  

Some things to remember about finding ones mission

1.  Your mission exists in your daily life, you just need to find it!
2. Your mission improves the human race is some way of another. 
3. Your mission will be strengthened by using your talents to complete it, in places that are appealing and interesting to you, and will fill a gap society lacks. 

Denise Morrison, the CEO of Campbell's soup, defines her mission statement as follows: She hopes "To serve as a leader, live a balanced life, and apply ethical principles to make a significant difference."
Her mission statement fits all of the parameters mentioned above, it's something that relates to her daily life, improves the world through her management of her Campbell's soup company, and it dictates her decisions. 


It'll likely take time to create a mission statement that you full-heartedly support, but understanding yourself and your goals enough to have a mission statement will guide your future. Don't worry if it's not as short and concise as Denise Morrison's mission statement. 

You Could Be Your Own Boss

It's not easy and there are a lot of ways to fail. Here are some tips to become a successful entrepreneur.

1. Write

Write to figure out who you are and what you want to do. Look at (or create your resume) and find out what skills you already posses, what things you like, and how you can combine these skills and interest to get paid!

2. Read

Learn all you can about running your own business by reading. The author suggests a few places to look into including Daniel Pink's "Free Agent," workingsolo.com, Small Business Administration, A Small Business Expert, Business Owners' Toolkit, Business Owners' Idea Cafe,  Nolo's Business. LLC

3. Explore

Interview and look into others who have started a similar business, find out their mistakes and challenges. You need to figure out what skills, knowledge, and experience you have, what skills, knowledge, and experience you need, and finally what skills knowledge and experience you lack that is required for your business.

4. Get Feedback

Workingsolo.com and checkster.com are websites that ask the hard questions of whether you're cut out to run your own business.  Ultimately, you should discuss your plan with people who are important to you and close to you and see how they feel about it.

In the end, if you decide you do indeed want to be an entrepreneur, know that this involves some risk and that having a plan B if your plan doesn't work is very important. Have a plan b drawn out before you even start your initial plan!

Best of luck!

Finding a Career

Let's face it, in a world full of distractions, obligations, and complex long term decisions, it's hard to decide what to do with your time.

Do  I go to grad school? Do I enter the work force? Should I become a doctor? Will I have financial security? Will I enjoy what career I choose?

In Richard Bolles' book What Color Is Your Parachute? He discusses the numerous way people decide on a career to pursue.

Some ways to explore possible careers include
1. Looking all around the black hole we call the Internet. Sources like the occupation outlook handbook provide information about employment rate of jobs.
2. Through tests that analyze personality and interests like the Dr.Holland's Self Directed Search. The problem with tests is that they sometimes limit people too much to thinking that they have to pursue 1 specific career. The reality is that these tests should provide ideas as to what to do next.
3. Bolles' flower method which analyzes different aspect of one's life, aspirations, and current abilities to find a  dream career.
4. Changing careers in two steps by changing both he field and job you have to what you want. By doing this in two steps you gain experience in the field before getting your dream job.
5. Choosing a job based on what the job market currently needs by looking at projections of future "hot jobs.

The moral of the story is that multiple methods can help decide what career to persue d how to get there.  The adventure is trying the different method and finding a career that interstests you.

Everyone has Handicaps and Dragons

Have you ever met that person that seems like they have everything figured out? They know exactly what they want to do, where they want to be in 5 years, and have the perfect balance of work and play. It seems like there is absolutely nothing that can slow them down.

This sounds great, but does not realistically represent people. People are full of doubt and insecurities. Sometimes we find success, but we still feel like importers.

Handicaps can be physical disabilities, but they do not necessarily have to be.

Some examples include

• I am physically limited and cannot perform certain tasks ( a physical handicap) 
•  feeling like you lack experience or qualifications
•  I don't have the right degree
• I don't fit the "look"
• I'm too young and inexperienced
• I'm too old
• I'm too shy

The best way to approach a handicap is not to treat it as something that is limiting you. Instead, have a positive attitude towards it. This handicap is adding to your charm.

Keep a positive attitude, and do not let dragons prevent you from pursuing a job, a career, or even just an interest. 

Exploring Careers

In Chapter 8 of What Color Is your Parachute, Bolles discusses finding a job that overlaps with one's interests.

The reality, is that finding a job that overlaps with your interest is not always easy.  It also can be scary to make the decision of pursuing one job or the other. There seems to always be a slight sinking feeling that you're missing something by picking one career choice or the other. The hardest part, perhaps is where does one even begin? Do you go left, right, forward? What decisions do you make? It begins to feel a lot like being stuck in a corn maze, but a really large corn maze with no end in sight.

My best advice to the chronic existential is explore your options.  Talk to people in the fields you're interested in and get their takes.  This will also give you a better understanding of what the jobs your interested in entail and make you a more prepared interview candidate and job seeker.

To find out more about a company and feel less stuck in a maze,

• Read published materials from an organization be it from a website or in print
• Look for people to talk to at the organization or similar organizations.
• Look on the internet! Be wary, as I'm sure you know, the internet is vast and full of information.
• The author suggests www.Glassdoor.com, which contains reviews of companies.
• Try a temp agency
• www.Rateatemp.com is  a temp agency directory 
• Volunteer
• www.internships.com
• www.volunteeringinamerica.gov
• www.volunteermatch.org

Finding a career takes time and not letting the frustration get to you is very important. Keep exploring!

Social Listening

As I have previously mentioned, it's important to get content out onto social media. It is also important to monitor social media and listen to what people are saying. By listening to social media, you can find out what people are saying about a brand, gauge the health of a brand online, analyze and track a brand, and identify conversations of crisis about a brand.

The types of media concerned with social media monitoring and listening is

• Owned media includes social media pages that your company controls, like Facebook, Twitter, a blog, or company website.
• Earned media is media that comes from people starting conversations, it's everything else that is not company owned and operated.    

Tools that can be used to monitor social media include Omniture, Google Analytics, Facebook Insights, Radian 6,

Perhaps the most important reason to monitor social media is to catch a crisis early. Thanks to the internet and social media, a crisis can escalate out of control in just a matter of a few hours.

Ignoring social media, especially during a PR crisis can lead to large losses for a company. In 2013, Target loss favor of many customers because it did not act very quickly when their data on customers was breached.

Even two years later, in 2015, target still has a very extensive FAQs page about the breach on their corporate website.

PR Crisis are going to happen, but companies can reduce their effects by monitoring social media. The time to respond to a crisis is reduced, but customers also have acess to a company though the internet. The best way to combat a PR crisis is to admit to the mistake, formulate a plan, and then tell consumers what you plan to do.