Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 3 Tips to Negotiate Your Salary

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from Fast Company discusses how you can negotiate a better salary, starting with doing your homework and understanding your worth. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: Harnessing Positive Thinking to Grow Your Career and Business

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• Harnessing Positive Thinking to Grow Your Career and Business: "If you allow yourself to dwell on the negative, habitual skepticism will run your life and influence your decisions. It’s hard, if not impossible, to build success when you’ve resigned yourself to negativity."

• How to Have a More Energized and Productive Meeting: "icebreakers and other getting-to-know-you activities promote better collaboration. These exercises raise the energy level and give people a chance to get to know one another."

• 10 Best Practices for Managing Your Email: "Emails are clearly a major part of our personal and professional lives today, and yet many people spend as much as one or two hours a day managing them."

• Motherhood Inspired These Entrepreneurs to Start Companies With a Mission: "Palmer encourages aspiring entrepreneurs to identify a problem that needs to be solved and create a solution that your audience will love."
• 9 Ways to Build Wealth Fast:"Don't think that you have to do everything. Instead, focus on a few things and do them well. It all starts by investing in yourself."

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: How to Be More Productive with "Mini-Habits"

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from Better Than Yesterday discusses how incorporating a practice of "mini-habits" can help you become more productive and get things done. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: 6 Tools to Build Resilience, Happiness & Success

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• 6 Tools to Build Resilience, Happiness, and Success: "Start by writing down what is most important to you. Then track how much of your time each day you are actually devoting to these priorities. If the answer is little or none, that’s a clear indication you need to carve out time in your day, week and month to focus on them."

• Check Out the World's Coolest Offices: "Modern furniture and minimal lines make for an elegant interior while floating lights in the shape of clouds add softness. A variety of meeting rooms provide separate areas for teams to get together."

• The Benefits of Bringing Your Whole Identity to Work: "When we began examining how professionals of color have succeeded in fields where they’re underrepresented, we expected many of them to tell us that they’d used some version of this strategy to get ahead. But that’s not what we heard in our interviews."

• 8 Fears Entrepreneurs Face When Starting a New Business: "Every new entrepreneur has one or more moments when they start thinking twice about what they're doing, or whether they're even up for the challenges they've taken on."
• 10 Strategies to Become a Thought Leader:"Getting out of your comfort zone may lead to more challenges and mistakes than you'd like, but they will force you to be in a situation where you evolve or perish."

What to Do When You Dislike Your Job

Let’s face it, we’re not always going to be in our dream job, and at times, we might even dislike the job we’re in or the company we work for. Rather than view your job experience as a waste of time, or hate every minute you’re at work, there are ways to make it more tolerable and even beneficial for you and your career.

If you find yourself disliking your job, here are five things to focus on to improve your work experience.

Aspects of the job you enjoy. Rather than think about how much you dislike your job, focus your attention on the parts of the job that you appreciate. There are many things in our work that we cannot control but we can shape the way we think about our work and focus on the positives.

Building good relationships. Developing effective working relationships is a skill that transfers well to other jobs. Use your unpleasant experience to leaner to work with a variety of people with a variety of skill sets. This experience will serve you well wherever you end up in your career.

Expanding your skills. Your job, even if you hate it, can provide opportunities to develop and expand your skill set, either through on-the-job training, courses or classes, or by moving to another department. Take advantage of these opportunities to grow in your knowledge of the industry and to develop new skills that can be useful in another job.

The challenge of staying positive. It can be difficult to stay positive in a job you dislike and, yet, a positive approach to you job and career is critical to future success. Being in a job that challenges your ability to be positive will help you in future jobs, and help you develop the strategies necessary to maintaining a positive approach to whatever your job (or life) throws at you.

Building character. Like the challenge of staying positive, is the opportunity a job you dislike provides for building character by getting up daily and heading off to do great work and build positive relationships despite how you feel about your job. Take this as a challenge to deepen your character and you’ll become a better person and a better employee.  

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 3 Signs You're Burned Out at Work

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from Fast Company discusses three ways to know you're experiencing burnout (and what to do when you experience it), starting with feeling chronically exhausted. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: How to Stay Positive in the Midst of a Company Crisis

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• How to Stay Positive in the Midst of a Company Crisis: "People with high optimism generally have better overall health, and people with an aptitude for emotional resilience are better protected from overwhelm and suffering."

• 13 Hacks for When You Need a Boost of Creativity: "Studies have shown that walking increases creativity rapidly. Every time I catch myself in a slump, I take a 20-30 minute walk near the office without trying to force anything to happen. You’ll slowly ponder on whatever problem you’re trying to solve and are likely to come up with a unique angle."

• What to Say When Your Employee Makes a Mistake: "Emotional courage is the willingness to tolerate all feelings. It’s entirely developable, and developing it increases your ability to lead effectively, get business results, communicate in a way that inspires others, and make the impact you’re trying to make."

• A Small Change to Your Morning Routine to Increase Productivity: "Taking time to reattach to work helps our work goals to become more salient, which energizes us to focus. When we consider how to achieve our goals, we become more aware of our autonomy to accomplish them, as well as the resources and people we have supporting us."
• How to Host an Excellent Event:"In a world where we connect via technology in an instant, relationships are still best built in person... Hosting events, for work and for pleasure, has huge benefits, that last a lifetime."

How to Deal with Your Company's Uncertain Future

Market conditions and business realities can change in a hurry and, with it, plans for a sustained career with a specific employer.

When your company goes through rounds of layoffs or strings a few down quarters in a row, it can be difficult to stay focused on your job, especially if the rumors are flying and others around you have been laid off or are feeling pressure.

\

Here are a few steps to deal with the uncertainty.

Stay informed. Be aware of the situation of your company and the state of your industry by attending company meetings, listening to calls with shareholders, or reading industry websites and magazines. The more you know about the situation the better prepared you will be to manage whatever comes. Be sure to have regular conversations with your manager or boss to discuss the specific situation your company is facing and how it might impact you and your team.

Manage stress. This is a particularly good time to practice self-care and focus on ways to feel healthier, both physically and emotionally. Eat well, reduce alcohol, eliminate unhealthy habits like smoking, sleep well, and practice meditation or yoga. The better you are at managing the stress levels in your life, the better prepared you will be for any eventuality at work.

Be prepared. It’s possible your company could file for bankruptcy, be sold, or go out of business. Any of these possibilities could lead to you losing your job. Prepare for this possibility by deepening your network of contacts, updating your resume, and becoming familiar with job search sites that will be most relevant to your work interests.

Diversify skills. The more valuable you are to the company the better your chances of remaining employed, and like the NFL, one way to increase value is to be able to play multiple positions. What that looks like in your company is specific to your work and industry, but it also means developing your soft skills, like conflict resolution or empathy, while also being a good accountant or engineer. Think about the skills and abilities your company needs to succeed and find ways to develop the skills needed to make a positive contribution.

You might not avoid a lay off or the impacts of the market on your company, but you can find ways to better position yourself for a more positive future.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 19 Small Habits that Can Bring Big Results

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from The Art of Improvement presents 19 small habits that can lead to big improvements in your life and career, including doing what you say you're going to do and journaling every day. Check out the video to learn more.

High 5 Weekly Career Transitions Roundup: The Question Successful People Ask in a New Job

This is our weekly roundup of some of the best career-related articles, interviews, blogs, etc., we've read during the week. We share them so you have some great resources to prepare you for the coming week. Enjoy!

• Successful People Ask This Question When Starting a New Job: "Successful people are less interested in learning what they are supposed to do in a new job than they are in learning what value they can create."

• Should You Work at a Startup?: "When there’s a smaller workforce, you’ll spend more time interacting with your colleagues. This can present unique and fulfilling learning opportunities."

• How to Identify the Skills that Energize You: "Don’t let fear keep you stuck doing only what you’re already good at, especially if it doesn’t give you energy."

• 13 Habits to Boost Your Success: "Setting goals and boundaries, both personally and professionally, is necessary to sustain the life you’ve worked so hard to achieve."
• How to Boost Personal Performance and Improve Your Business:"This triple threat of mental and physical boosters is the total package that entrepreneurs need to thrive."

How to Handle a Major Disagreement at Work

Sometimes, no matter the size of your company or your place in it, you disagree with the direction your company is headed, or you think a project is headed for disaster, or you don’t believe in a project you’ve been tasked with, and you must decide how to maneuver through the situation.

You can voice your disagreement or refuse to go with the flow, but you are risking your future with the company. There might be a better way to proceed.

Consider the following four steps when your confronted with a scenario or project that you don’t agree with in your job.

Do your research. It’s certainly possible you are wrong about the direction your business is taking or the project you’ve been asked to lead. Be sure to take your time and do the necessary research to understand how the decision was made to move forward and what it means. Talk to the decision-makers to gather more information. Then use all the data you’ve collected to reach your decision. If you still believe the decision is wrong move on the next step.

State your case. Meet with your supervisor or manager to present your case. Be clear and provide the reasoning behind your decision, including data that supports your opinion. Do not become angry or aggressive but calmly provide your reasoned opinion and move on.

Accept the outcome. Your appeal might be met with silence. Or you might receive some thanks, but your company or manager decides to move ahead with the previous decision. If that is the case, you need to accept the outcome and realize there might be factors influencing the decision that you are unaware of. You don’t need to like the decision or agree with it, but if you are planning to remain at your company you need to accept it without becoming bitter or angry that your opinion was not heeded.

Do your best work. This should go without saying but continue to strive to do your best work. Even if you believe a project is doomed to failure market conditions or customer needs could change and you could help turn a potential disaster into success by doing your best work and applying your skills and expertise to a situation or project that you initially disagreed with.

Daily Leap Career Video of the Week: 5 Mindsets to Upgrade Your Life

Each week we present our Daily Leap Career Video of the Week. The video we share presents news or advice related to career and life development, searching for a job, the economy and employment, and other career-related topics.

The video below from Modern Health Monk presents five mindset changes that contribute to success in life and work, starting with knowing that you can change. Check out the video to learn more.