I’ve written numerous times about how joining a Toastmasters club can help your career based on what you learn from going through the program. However, not everyone is interested in joining a speaking club and not everyone’s goals involve communication skills. The good news is that there are hundreds of clubs out there for every interest. You can find clubs for hobbies on topics such as sewing, reading (book clubs), chess, cribbage, car enthusiast and even video games. There are clubs that focus on business or political issues as well as public service. And there are clubs that are community focused that can focus on anything from improving a neighborhood to planning statewide events. My point is that there’s a club for practically every interest and most of these clubs (unless it’s something bizarre such as a fetish club) can give you an opportunity to move ahead with your job or business.

The great thing about clubs is that your involvement is the perfect win-win situation. The club wins because volunteers help run the club and provide the benefits to the members. The volunteer wins because he or she gets experience that otherwise might not be available to him or her with their current job. This experience falls into several categories and depending on the club and the position, not all of them may be present.  Read more... (944 words, 1 image, estimated 3:47 mins reading time)

I participated in NaNoWriMo this past November. If you’re unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it stands for National Novel Writing Month and is an event held each November for writers and those aspiring to be writers. If you have ever wanted to write a book and you just haven’t been able to get started, I highly recommend you give it a try. I first learned of NaNoWriMo while checking Twitter on Thanksgiving of 2011. At that point, it was a little late for me to participate so I made it goal to participate in 2012. I’m really glad I did because it was a great experience.  Read more... (872 words, 1 image, estimated 3:29 mins reading time)

Happy 2013! There’s something about the New Year that causes us to use it as a milestone for starting over. Perhaps it’s the act of replacing our desk or wall calendars or maybe it’s the fact that it’s a new tax and financial period. Whatever the reason, most of us use this opportunity to drop old bad habits and pick up new good ones.
If you’re not sure what to do for your resolution, here are some ideas to get you started.

1. Quit drinking/smoking/over-eating.  Read more... (1054 words, 1 image, estimated 4:13 mins reading time)

The story that has dominated the news over the last several days has been the heinous and cowardly murders of moviegoers in Aurora, Colorado. My prayers go out to the victims: those killed, injured and their loved ones – it’s an unfortunate and unnecessary way to die.

Given the way the story has trended on news sites, the killer’s name and photo have been all over the place. More people are talking about him than the latest Hollywood scandal.That’s the problem with our news outlets: criminals tend to get famous quickly and the more heinous the crime, the more they are talked about. How’s that for incentive for a psychopath trying to get significance in this world?  Read more... (375 words, 1 image, estimated 1:30 mins reading time)

If you’ve been a follower of this blog for some time, you’ve probably noticed that prior to this year, I’ve never gone more than a month without posting – in most cases, I’ve rarely gone more than two weeks. So what happened? Where have I been for the last five months?

The last five months have been challenging for me both personally and professionally. I won’t get into all of the details here as they aren’t that exciting. I’ll just say that I’ve been really busy and put some other priorities ahead of blogging. Also, other than a bad case of the flu in March and some other minor issues, I haven’t been sick either physically or mentally.  Read more... (977 words, 1 image, estimated 3:54 mins reading time)

With this year being a Presidential election year here in the United States, more and more people are following the issues and the political process which I think is a good thing. But as a result of this, many people are sharing their thoughts and opinions on particular issues which is within their right as far as I’m concerned. The big question is whether or not it’s the smart thing to do.

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One of the benefits of improving your speaking skills is that you can actually uses these skills to make money, even a living. It’s a great way to put your speaking skills to use and can be rewarding in more ways than just monetarily. If you feel comfortable speaking to groups, becoming a professional speaker can be quite lucrative provided that there are people willing to pay to hear what you have to say.

Professional speakers can make money a number of different ways. We’ll talk about some of them, both the obvious and not so obvious.  Read more... (970 words, 1 image, estimated 3:53 mins reading time)