“Winning is a great thing in our league. No substitute for winning, but it’s how you approach it every single day that puts you in position to succeed. It’s not about winning ball games, it’s about winning every day.”
LeBron James
Success
99% of Networking Is a Waste of Time – HBR
99% of Networking Is a Waste of Time – HBR.
“Opportunities do not float like clouds in the sky. They are attached to people.”
Anne Lamott – Time Lost and Found
I sometimes teach classes on writing, during which I tell my students every single thing I know about the craft and habit. This takes approximately 45 minutes. I begin with my core belief—and the foundation of almost all wisdom traditions—that there is nothing you can buy, achieve, own, or rent that can fill up that hunger inside for a sense of fulfillment and wonder. But the good news is that creative expression, whether that means writing, dancing, bird-watching, or cooking, can give a person almost everything that he or she has been searching for: enlivenment, peace, meaning, and the incalculable wealth of time spent quietly in beauty.
Then I bring up the bad news: You have to make time to do this.
This means you have to grasp that your manic forms of connectivity—cell phone, email, text, Twitter—steal most chances of lasting connection or amazement. That multitasking can argue a wasted life. That a close friendship is worth more than material success.
To Work Better, Work Less – The Atlantic
Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities – NYTimes.com
Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities – NYTimes.com.
Finally a story about OKC that doesn’t mention…
EARTHQUAKES.
It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave – NYTimes.com
It’s Official: The Boomerang Kids Won’t Leave – NYTimes.com.
One in five people in their 20s and early 30s is currently living with his or her parents. And 60 percent of all young adults receive financial support from them. That’s a significant increase from a generation ago, when only one in 10 young adults moved back home and few received financial support. The common explanation for the shift is that people born in the late 1980s and early 1990s came of age amid several unfortunate and overlapping economic trends. Those who graduated college as the housing market and financial system were imploding faced the highest debt burden of any graduating class in history. Nearly 45 percent of 25-year-olds, for instance, have outstanding loans, with an average debt above $20,000. (Kasinecz still has about $60,000 to go.) And more than half of recent college graduates are unemployed or underemployed, meaning they make substandard wages in jobs that don’t require a college degree. According to Lisa B. Kahn, an economist at Yale University, the negative impact of graduating into a recession never fully disappears. Even 20 years later, the people who graduated into the recession of the early ’80s were making substantially less money than people lucky enough to have graduated a few years afterward, when the economy was booming.
Read the entire article for a lesson in how to put a positive spin on our new Culture of Dependency. Watch the slideshow of a dose of reality. Then read the reader comments and decide for yourself if this “new and permanent life stage” is truly a “potentially thrilling economic evolution”.
Or not.
America’s Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted – The Atlantic
I asked Peter Senge about that. How to try to live and work in a sane way when you’re in the middle of insanity: a voracious workplace that will eat you alive, friends and neighbors who raise eyebrows if you pull your kids out of some competitive activity. He gave some important advice: Create your own community, a network of like-minded people. Humans are wired to conform—that’s why these cultural pressures, however silly they may seem, wield such power over us. So find a group that fits your values that would make you happier to conform to.
via America’s Workers: Stressed Out, Overwhelmed, Totally Exhausted – Rebecca J. Rosen – The Atlantic.
Students’ Top Goals Are Work-Life Balance, Security – Talent Management magazine
Students’ Tops Goals Are Work-Life Balance, Security – Talent Management magazine.
Work-Life balance. One of the questions I’ve posed to my own kids over the years has been:
Do you live to work or work to live?
Being honest and true to yourself when answering this question will enable you to have a quantum leap towards the life you want to live.
Blog Shift – From Life Underwriting Expert to Professional Writer (gasp)
As I typed the title I heard a collective gasp from the Force. You can’t be serious? Professional writer? Do you know how hard it will be to make a living?
Yes, as a matter of fact I do.
I have this to say to my legions of followers: do not panic. Here are the service offering changes to expect this year:
- I will continue to offer my consulting services on a limited basis to select clients.
- Life underwriting expert witness litigation support services will continue to be provided.
- Technical underwriting services are fully committed at this time.
- Professional corporate writing services for life insurance companies and their respective distribution channels.
There are a lot of very smart people in business today; there are not a lot of good writers. Couple this with the fact that companies need to produce more words, via a greater number of channels, than ever before, and you quickly come to realize that the corporate landscape is rife with opportunity for those who know how to communicate, you know, good. I.J. Schecter
Here is what to expect from this blog:
- More natural writing posts. As I transition to more writing for hire I need to write more. This blog will the primary landing area for my brain droppings.
- Less links to what I consider to be essential reading for professional life underwriters. The links to relevant articles will continue, just not in the frequency and quantity of the past five years.
- More painfully blatant examples of shameless self-promotion. Got to eat. And yes, I still have a mortgage, one child in medical school, one child still an undergraduate, three cars and and a nasty writing habit to support.
I look forward to helping you succeed in your business.
Thanks for reading and your continued support.
Trapped in a Cycle of Internships With Little Pay and No Job Offers – NYTimes.com
While the idea of slaving away in two, three or four quasi jobs without a clear path for advancement may seem unimaginable to an older generation, those in their 20s seem to respond to their jobless fate with a collective shrug. To them, internships are the new normal. “For some people, being an accountant, taking a safe route, is perfectly fine, but that’s not where my values lie,” Ms. Thomas said.
via Millennials Feel Trapped in a Cycle of Internships With Little Pay and No Job Offers – NYTimes.com.
Passion is overrated. The real question is how long are you willing to chase your dream before you understand all you are doing is letting other people totally screw you over?
lifeunderwriter.net 
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