It’s not so much when your career path requires a change as much as it is something in your personal life says time to move on.

Birthdays.  Especially turning 40 or 50.

When we attend school reunions there are surveys that show job search increases by 16% according to a Harvard Business Review article in September.  It may be that being with others your same age makes you take another look at how far you’ve gone toward career happiness.

Any midlife crisis can prompt a job change review.

But caution:  data shows that 50% of employees who wind up staying in their present jobs and accepting a counter offer are likely to leave anyway within a year.

The best time to consider a job change is when you feel that your best abilities are not being utilized.  When your growth is impeded.  When your dreams are getting away from you.

The best excuse for remaining where you are when these feelings start to emerge is that you need an income, you have a family to support, this is not a good time.

But even the best excuse results in unhappiness that can lead to career turmoil that actually accelerates your fears.

It requires courage to change careers not excuses or counter offers.

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Some parents are handing out cellphones to children as young as four years old.

Children are wired differently than most adults.  They can adapt to digital devices almost as quickly as they get them in their hands.

But should they be getting a cellphone when they are a child?

The average age seems to be ten when the majority of children convince their parents they need a phone.

And parents can overcome any guilt they might have by saying “at least I can know where they are at any time and contact them”.

Baby Boomers laugh at this because they grew up without that connectivity and they would tell you they turned out just fine.

YouTube is the obsession of young people.

They use it the way their parents search Google.  This can be good or it can be bad.

The issue most important considering when buying a cellphone for your child is changing.

Many children are turning inward and becoming so distracted by their phones that they are becoming less able to socialize, an important part in growing up and assimilating with others.

Even putting in place rules that keep children disconnected from actual phone service or real texting can be damaging in this light.

They just stare at their palm and play the games or visit the sites that their parents do allow them to use.

Going forward it is not whether children need a cellphone, it is whether they need to avoid the distractions that are making our modern culture detached, unfeeling and anti-social – until they develop socially — a new and important paradigm, indeed.

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The one thing people regret at the end of life is working too much and not interacting more with the people they love.

But the real world requires sacrifices at various stages of our lives.

Mouths to feed. Dreams to change. Goals to be met.

Let’s be honest. No one hands us a check to pay for expenses for the rest of our lives without having to earn it.

So working long hours is part of getting to where we want to be. It’s not something to be ashamed of unless we have no plan to balance that time in a realistic and doable way.

It’s not the numbers of “quality” hours we spend with loved ones and friends, it is the amount of time we are 100% present in their company, focused on them.

Long hours can be eventually rewarded by rewarding yourself and loved ones with more of that quality time described above.

Allow no one including yourself to make you feel guilty for putting in the hours deemed necessary to advance your career. This only makes life worse for everyone.

While it is almost impossible to have it all, we can have it better.

Better time together.

Better ways to spend the non-working hours.

Better listening skills so that those around us do not think that because we are working elsewhere we do not hear them – the number one need of almost everyone.

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You still have a few choices to protect yourself in a world that is increasingly insensitive to the feelings of others.

Mudslinging used to be reserved for politicians but now there are many victims including children, teens and adults who are bullied through the magic of social media.

Your choices:

• Never let another person record directly onto that “computer chip” we call our brain.  No one gets direct access to our psyche except us.

• Even restrict others from getting into your head with a compliment.  The safest way to accept a heartfelt compliment is to use it as more evidence to back up what you are already telling yourself.  If you’re constantly telling yourself you are a caring loving person then when someone else hands you that compliment, consider it more proof.  But when others get to say things directly to our psyche that we are not already telling ourselves, when they decide to pull it back, we tend to become co-dependent.

• The number one way to deal with hurt feelings is to take five seconds and remind yourself that it must be awful for the person hurling insults at you to have to live with themselves.   A moment of empathy even if it is not deserved, changes the way you respond and allows you to not make it about you.

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Quality time is not measured in hours or minutes but in the number of times you can look into another person’s eyes or listen to them talk to you.

When we push to find more time with children, spouses, partners and even ourselves, we are making a mistake to judge the time successfully by how much time we spend.

Asking a son or daughter if they’d like to go for a walk with you as you leave your cell phone on the table is a start. 

Asking 5 questions in a row to someone else without feeling obliged to also weigh in on it yourself is telling others that you’re focused on them. 

Being able to accurately repeat back what someone has told you is a learnable skill that most people do not have.  Others are delighted to know they have been heard.

Even silence is quality time between two people when they are connected by a common interest or focus.

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Here’s how you can increase your confidence without ever having to say a word.

Stand taller, shoulders back.

That’s right, people who stand tall actually increase their self-confidence and it has been verified through research to be true.

People who do not have sufficient confidence have a more slouching posture or even a cowering stance.

People who seek more confidence actually accomplish it by how they walk into a room, enter a meeting or when meeting people they do not know.

Before I speak to an audience I stand up as straight as I can and stick my chest out.  Often, this physical manifestation of confidence is more effective than all the subliminal messages I might try to send myself.

All of us are capable of adjusting our posture and stance which means that we can find a simple way to be more comfortable with who we are.

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Before you give another person a compliment, rely on a proven method for making it stick like glue.

First, sincerity trumps giving praise to manipulate someone else.

Second, a compliment is just mere flattery if it is not backed up by evidence.

You exceeded my expectations on this project because (and here comes the evidence) you’ve captured the spirit of what we’ve been trying to do in this company. 

You are so kind — it means so much to me that while I was in the hospital, you texted every day to check in on me.

Everyone likes a compliment that is backed up by evidence that conveys that you really mean it, but for a compliment that absolutely no one can resist, give the compliment to a spouse or a friend or another associate.

Bad news travels fast, but good news travels even faster.

I knew of a radio station where the boss paid bonus checks to his best workers by sending a letter to their spouses along with the check.

Your wife is again a super achiever this month leading everyone in local sales. 

Giving a compliment can be better than receiving it once you realize how people will become drawn to you for your sincerity and appreciation.

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Harvard Business Review published an article titled “How To Fake It When You’re Not Feeling Confident”.

This is a common theme of late at companies, from motivational speakers and even psychologists who counsel troubled foster children.

Should you “trick yourself out of the state of self-doubt”?

But it isn’t necessary to fake anything.

Remembering an I.O.U. for anything that you succeed at for use when more confidence is called for will be more effective.

Every success you have – big or tiny – add to a list on your smartphone which, as you know, is always with you.

Scroll through that list at least once a day – preferably more. 

Some examples:  I spoke up at a meeting without being asked to; I broke the ice and started a conversation with someone I didn’t really know;  I made it through a tough day without saying the word “can’t”;  I got a raise (you’ll be surprised how quickly we forget raises and promotions which are testimonials to our success shortly after we get them;  I was bullied today and I pushed back.

If you start looking for little successes, you’ll change the way you think.

Imagine hundreds of these accomplishments starting with most recent first on a scrollable list.

Then bolding the ones that you are particularly proud of.

No more is needed than to organize a way to easily view all the things that we tend to forget about that can become powerful I.O.U.s for future success.

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It’s not an iPhone or money or some other nicety.

It’s the thought of their favorite gift that can transform your relationship with your spouse, partner and/or family members.

Think of the way most people come in contact with loved ones after being away for some hours, the day, or for work.

Right back to business as usual and often with the burden of haunting problems on your shoulder.

Now imagine your first contact with them as if you are going to hand them something they really, really want.

Say, a new digital device or whatever.

When we have a gift in our hands, we almost can’t hide the anticipated joy in giving it.

Except, don’t bring that gift.

Walk in as if you have it with you – happy, bright-eyed, anxious to please.

Believe it or not most people would rather have you 100% in the moment and not thinking about work, how tired you are or what else you have to do that day.

You are the gift they wanted all along.

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Even the most self-assured person has lapses of self-doubt.

And many others have more self-doubt than confidence.

For that occasional bout of self-doubt, insert work ethic for ability.

When we get a pang of self-doubt it has very little to do with our ability and everything to do with fear of failure.

Replace that fear with a vow to outwork everyone to assure your success.

Replacing fear thoughts with promises to outwork all replaces negative thinking with positive thinking.

Doubt kills more dreams than failure.

“Make sure your worst enemy is not living between your own ears”

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Everyone wants it all, but few attain it.

Whatever ALL really is.

So handling a career and family at the same time can be challenging.

Balance is important but employers often have a way of bending those boundaries and families have ways of increasing the time you are needed.

• Smartphones are beautiful things at work but toxic when children and spouses need you in person.  Phones off.  No exceptions.

• The time you spend 100% present with family members and children is more valuable than the gross number of hours.  Lean in.

• Children need boundaries and many career-oriented men and women blur the lines out of guilt or convenience.

• Eat dinner together – always.  Phones off – yours.

• Prepare and clean up dinner together.

• Become a better listener.  This occurs when you can hear what someone else says and say it back to them.

When I got divorced I saw a child counselor who gave me the best advice in our first session together.

She said, “Your job is not to put on a show for your children, just make them part of your life even if it is mundane and boring”.

Redefine having it all from being able to be fully actualized in your work and in your family and personal life to being happy with a life that you consciously work to keep in balance.

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On the first day as program director of a Philadelphia radio station, I faced this crisis.

The person whose job was to prepare and type the commercial logs required by the FCC under the station’s license was fired at the end of the day – not by me, but by the general manager without asking me (a bad radio management practice that unfortunately continues to this day).

She was fuming.

I was taken aback and very apologetic.  I told her the weekend logs looked perfect to me but she was so hurt and so shocked that she ripped them up.  Keep in mind that they were not computerized at the time which means they had to be retyped.

That left me with the huge task of having to retype these legal documents for the rest of the night Friday and all-day Saturday and Sunday which meant that I spent my first weekend as the station’s program director doing a sales job all weekend long.

On Monday, I dragged my tired body into the station ready to beg this person to come back if the station would only let me rehire her and of course they wouldn’t.

The hard work tired me but didn’t kill me.

What did bother me was that no one – not the manager or anyone at the station thanked me for spending the weekend cleaning up this mess.

Being appreciated means being acknowledged.

I vowed to remember that in the years to come by doing what my employers forgot to do – I thanked myself – and it felt so good.

Never let your job well done go unappreciated by the most important person in your life – YOU!

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Back then I never gave a second’s thought to what made the best friend I ever had, Jimmy Weinraub, such a good friend.

Now that he is gone much too early, I have figured it out.

It was like we both had a clock inside of us and knew when to reach out to each other.

Too much time never went by no matter where we were – we were always connected.

And we didn’t just text or email – he would never have liked that – we spent face time together.

One of us always knew when we needed to contact the other.

It was automatic. You could set your Apple Watch by it.

We didn’t just huff and puff about how busy we were and how work and family was so stressful, we always made time to eat together and look each other in the eye.

Jimmy always – and I mean always – followed up with a note of gratitude for as long as we knew each other to thank me for my time and enclose something inspirational or motivational (we were both Dale Carnegie instructors so that was like crack to us).

Our friendship was not just another entry in Outlook or iCal, it was celebrated in spirit and in person on a very regular basis.

I may never know another friend like this in my life, but it has taught me this much.

The litmus test for a good friendship is not how long you spend planning to be together but how many moments you actually spend together.

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The Washington Post did an interesting piece on how baby boomers are losing their battle against ageism.

But Millennials roughly 18-34 years old are also fighting ageism from the other direction.  They were born into an economy that left many of them unemployed or under-employed.

Today Millennials are still facing age discrimination in that they find it hard to get full-time jobs with benefits.  So ageism either has nothing to do with age or something to do with age for everyone.

The best gauges for hiring are …

1. Does this person have the passion and skills for the job.
2. Do they get along with others easily.
3. Can they motivate others to bring out their best.
4. Do they have impeccable integrity.

Therefore, in planning to seek or change employment, concentrating on these four things makes you more attractive.

Emphasize your passion for the job and the skills that you possess to be successful.

Show confirmable results of how you get along well with others.

Likewise show specific examples corroborated by others that you are a motivator of people.

And let your integrity show through with meaningful examples in the words of others not you.

It is harder to discriminate against anyone offering a proposition as impressive as this.

“Ageism works in both directions” – Alanis Morissette

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Failure feels worse than almost anything a human can experience.  I hate it.  You hate it.  No one wants it.

But if you study successful people, they almost always have a path through failure before they arrive at success.

In other words, we don’t have to like it, but failure is an important component.

It tells us how badly we want something to go back again and again to confront it.

Failure introduces us to ourselves and our friends and makes us stronger.

If we try once or twice and give up, then maybe we don’t want what we’re pursuing.  But if we never give up then we are almost willing a positive outcome.

Failure teaches us patience because no successful person ever got what they wanted without some cuts and scrapes first.

Stop becoming discouraged and begin being encouraged by studying the successful people you admire who had to fail their way to success.

“Failure is a rehearsal for success”

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My best friend in high school stole the girl I liked and eventually went on to marry her.

I owe him thanks because I couldn’t have had my children or married my wife.

Once in college, another friend and I in communications school planned to pitch a two-person radio show to a small suburban radio station.

The call was made from a phone booth (what’s that?).

He did the talking because two of us couldn’t be talking into a pay phone to the program director who was hiring.

When he pitched our idea, the PD said, “I don’t have any need for a two-man show but I need a weekend jock”.

And yes, my friend took it right on the spot.

For himself.

I got continued unemployment.

A few weeks later, I got a job in Philadelphia radio, a major market on a major station.  I had no choice but to keep dialing for dollars.

In the end, again, I got the better end of the deal.

Sometimes things work out better when we don’t get our way.

That sounds horrible to say but it’s true.

We often don’t know what we really want or what is best for us.

So I have learned that when I feel a knife in my back, I tend to the wound and go on to an adventure I never saw coming.

 “Being betrayed is one of the most valuable lessons life can teach” – Shania Twain

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People born after 9/11 have lived every day of their lives with the insecurities of terrorism.

And each year, the outrages get worse as it seems hatred has replaced love and once again we’re fighting over religion as humans have done since the beginning of time.

A local doctor and his wife took their children to London for what sounded like a nice vacation.  She was worried about terrorism but pushed her worries aside.

Unfortunately, innocent victims were killed in the street during her stay.

Penn Station in New York is more than just a rundown train terminal.  It is a fortress for military personnel with automatic weapons at the ready.

We live in a world of insecurity, fear and uncertainty by understanding that fear is the desired outcome for terrorists.

And remembering the helpers – the people who respond first and show their humanity to others – is a way for us to focus on love and not hate.

“If you and I are having a single thought of violence or hatred against anyone in the world at this moment, we are contributing to the wounding of the world” – Deepak Chopra

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Our level of confidence usually comes down to that little voice in our head that gives us permission to succeed or sets us up to fail.

A baseball player doesn’t take the field and listen to an inner voice that says “Don’t hit the ball to me, I might drop it or commit an error”.

And their inner voice doesn’t even say “I will not make an error”.

It’s better yet.

“Hit the ball to me – I can handle it”.

This is how to change that little voice in your head that somehow says “I can speak one on one but not to groups”.

Kick that voice out.

“I can speak to anyone from my heart, as myself, as long as I have earned the right to speak on the topic”.

Or for folks who say, “They will never hire me with all those qualified people applying”.

Adjust your inner voice to say, “They ought to hire me – I’m an excellent candidate, I work hard and I will make a difference”.

For those of us looking for the perfect mate in our lives, why not choke off that unhelpful voice that says “I can’t find that person” and replace it with:

“Someone is waiting to meet and get to know me as the person I am so I will just keep being that person”.

Tweetable reminder: Banish that inner voice that says “I can’t” with the one that says “I can handle it”.

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A friend of mine, Jim Carnegie, passed away this past week.

Jimmy was a complex man with whom I had a complicated relationship but I was horrified to see an ex-employee of his rip into a dead man the way she did on the RadioInk website.

I’m not taking away from any shortcomings they may have had in their relationship with the deceased but I got the feeling that she had the need to air her dirty laundry more than the mourners, friends and family needed to hear it.

In our digital social media world, we have all been victims of personal attacks but when it is aimed at the dead before the body gets cold, you can see we have problem.

The best defense for personal attacks is not necessarily what is intuitive to us which is to hit back.

One of my media publication readers ripped me in an e-mail last week to which I agreed with him and left a phone message for him to personally hear him out.

I’m still waiting for a return call.

Personal attacks are bullying.

Here are some defenses.

• Just because someone has hurt you the most does not mean that they are correct.  They may have issues of their own like the two examples I cited above.  Don’t make their issues your issues.

• Reach out to the attacker and most likely they will run which will help you accept that they are just being mean and you are being open minded.

• 9% of personal attacks do not happen live in person between two people.  It doesn’t take much courage to attack another person behind their backs so what they say is not worth considering.

• And this is my favorite – when anyone points fingers at me, I am reminded they are also pointing several fingers back at themselves.  If you have to deal with such people, consider what their issues may be before beating yourself up.

“How people treat you is their karma.  How you react is yours” – Wayne Dyer

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I never rehearse a presentation more than 3 times.

And I do it 3 times only to prove to myself that each time will be different and the fourth – the actual presentation – will be different yet which is just fine.

The best prep for a presentation is to build your confidence not over prep the material.

• You have earned the right to be doing the presentation which is why you are doing it.
• Your goal is to give your audience a “gift” – something special that they will remember.

• Doing a perfect presentation is not as important as doing an authentic presentation.

• Before you can ask your group or listeners to accept you as a credible presenter, you must see yourself as a credible presenter.

“People who know what they’re talking about don’t need PowerPoint” – Steve Jobs

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