[Life Back West] January 2012 – Paging Amelia Earhart

Trailblazer, aviator and stereotype breaker Amelia Earhart once said “When a great adventure is offered, you don’t refuse it.

Amelia, however, wasn’t helping raise a son. She also hadn’t just rebuilt a coaching practice working with individuals and teams back to pre-Great Recession levels.

Taking a risk for her, covering a gamble, was perhaps easier, with less downside to go along with any upside.… Read the rest

Is a Job Still A “Job”

Where communications abilities takes us a host of other trends and patterns follow.

For better or worse it’s given us a world where you can be tethered to work by iPhone or computer, and share information via short text bursts and immediate access And as this week’s Wall Street Journal chronicles in “Why E-Mail No Longer Rules“, changes in the nature of communication have changed how we fundamentally think of a host of related relationships – such as jobs.Read the rest

[Career Thoughts for 16-24 Year Olds] Is BusinessWeek’s “Lost Generation” Really Lost?

The current edition of BusinessWeek trumpets a “Lost Generation” of 16-24 year olds – and notes, “The continuing job crisis is hitting young people especially hard—damaging both their future and the economy.” The article talks about the drag on future earnings, as well as the experience of a similarly aged generation of Japanese youth from the 1990’s.

No doubt that the impact of the recession is hard on this group – but is the prognosis true?Read the rest