Workers in certain industries can have more comfort in knowing that, even if they are fired, there is so much demand they should be able to find another job very quickly.

Talk of a recession and creeping unemployment rates are enough to make you wonder: Where can you find stability in unstable times? Kiplinger consulted career experts and combed through job trend data to come up with five industries that should provide safer havens to workers, no matter what the economy is doing. No matter what field you work in, you have the possibility of losing your job. But there are things you can do to protect yourself and increase your odds of getting another job, just in case.

Healthcare  
Many of the nation’s fastest-growing careers are in the health care industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. An increasingly aging population fuels demand in this field. Some specific jobs with stable prospects include doctor, nurse, pharmacist, physical therapist and physician assistant.

Education
Teachers for any grade level who specialize in high-demand fields such as math, science or bilingual education should have an easier time finding and keeping a job. And the outlook for college instructors looks stable, too. College enrollment is rising as the number of 18- to 24-year-olds increases. Some areas of the country are more stable than others for teachers because education jobs follow population trends. So teachers in fast-growing states in the South and West, such as Nevada, Arizona, Texas and Georgia, will have more opportunity than in slower-growth areas in the Midwest and Northeast.

Security
Crime doesn’t stop in a recession. That makes security jobs, such as police officers, detectives, private security guards and international security experts, a good bet. Layoffs in this industry are rare. In the off-chance law enforcement officers lose their jobs to budget cuts, they have little difficulty finding jobs with other agencies because demand is so high.

Environmental Sciences
The current “green” movement reaches far beyond changing your light bulbs to fluorescents. It’s also translating into a solid career choice. The BLS expects environmental careers, including ecologists, hydrologists, environmental chemists and others, to grow 25% over the next decade.

Government
Some of the most stable jobs around are within the federal government, where firings and lay-offs happen at just one-quarter the rate in the private sector. One reason: Even in hard economic times when big businesses are forced to downsize, the government must carry on. And only one in every 5,000 non-defense workers is ever fired for poor performance each year. Crazy odds! Due to an increasingly aging workforce, the government is doing a lot of hiring lately, especially among the 20-something crowd.

You just know in your gut whether or not you can work with your spouse.

For many, the notion of working with a spouse sounds, at best, dangerous, and, at worst, like a direct path to marital collapse. But for a growing number of American couples, running a business together offers the best of both worlds: pursuing a professional dream with someone you love and respect, while getting a chance to spend more time with them. According to the National Federation of Independent Business, there were approximately 1.2 million husband- and wife-owned small businesses nationwide in 2003, the most recent year for which the group has data. Anecdotally, family-business experts say that number has only continued to climb.

The increase in the number of women choosing an entrepreneurial path is playing a role in the growth of husband-wife teams. In the past, men tended to open a business and often a wife is helping, but he doesn’t always see her as his partner. Now, women are more entrepreneurial and recognizing that more in themselves than they used to.

It’s nearly impossible for couples to completely separate their work and personal lives. Other couples say that a key to maintaining both a strong business partnership and healthy marriage is to establish distinct responsibilities that do not overlap. Still, it’s not for every couple. When personalities and business acumen mesh in a couple’s professional life, these married entrepreneurial teams say the personal relationship often follows suit.

Those with net worth of $1 million to $10 million reshape U.S. culture

• Middle-class millionaires now account for 10% of the U.S. population.

• 7.6% of American households, or 8.4 million households are middle-class millionaires

• The average middle-class millionaire works 70 hours per week

• Middle-class millionaires are five times more likely than the average worker to say they are always available for work

• 89% believes that anyone can attain wealth through hard work

• 62% believes that networking, or knowing many people, is the key to financial success

• 9 out of 10 middle-class millionaires say they made a bad career or business move, but almost three-fourths say that was crucial to their business success

• They are five times more likely than the average middle-class person to continue on in the same business course in spite an earlier failure

• 65% of middle-class millionaires characterize their approach to negotiating as “doing whatever you need to do to win“

• They say they need a net worth of $24 million to feel wealthy, and $13.4 million to be considered rich.

 Take The Quiz

If employee turnover and absenteeism within the company are too high, and productivity and morale too low, the person in charge may be the one at fault.To find out how good or bad — a boss you are, the National Federation of Independent Business, a small business advocacy group, suggests asking yourself these questions:

1. Have you ever publicly criticized an employee?

2. Do you take credit for your employees’ work?

3. Do your employees fear you?

4. Do you expect employees to do what you tell them without question?

5. Do you believe employees should know what to do without you telling them or providing guidelines?

6. Are you a yeller?

7. Do you demean employees as a form of punishment?

8. Do you play favorites?

9. Do you hate delegating?

10. Do you check everyone’s work?

According to the answer key, the more “yes” answers, the greater the likelihood you are a bad boss. Author Trevor Gay has come up with a basic list of the differences between good and bad bosses. In his 35 years of work (in the health care industry), Mr. Gay said he discovered that his best bosses had these attributes:

• Inspired confidence
• Were humble
• Had integrity
• Knew what they were talking about
• Let me get on with things
• Were always there when I needed help
• Usually said, ‘Yes, try it.’”

His worst bosses had these deficiencies:

• Never seemed to be around when I needed them
• Always asked me to justify what I wanted to do
• Always wanted to know what I was doing
• Often said ‘no, we can’t do that’
• Gave the impression of being distrustful
• Didn’t smile much
• Talked about themselves a lot.

Doctors and Lawyers, Make Way For The Hedge Funds and Private Equity Firms

As of 2006, nearly 60% of doctors polled by the American College of Physician Executives said they had considered getting out of medicine because of low morale, and nearly 70% knew someone who already had. Make no mistake, law and medicine (the most elite of the traditional professions) have always been demanding. But they were also unquestionably prestigious. Sure, bankers made big money and professors held impressive degrees. But in the days when a successful career was built on a number of tacitly recognized pillars (outsize pay, long-term security, impressive schooling and authority over grave matters) doctors and lawyers were perched atop them all. Now, those pillars have started to wobble.

“The older professions are great, they’re wonderful,” says author Richard Florida.  “But they’ve lost their allure, their status. And it isn’t about money.” The pay is still good and the in-laws aren’t exactly complaining. Still, something is missing, say many doctors, lawyers and career experts: the old sense of purpose, of respect, of living at the center of American society and embodying its definition of “success.”

In a culture that prizes risk and outsize reward (where professional heroes are college dropouts with billion-dollar Web sites) some doctors and lawyers feel they have slipped a notch in social status, drifting toward the safe-and-staid realm of dentists and accountants. It’s not just because the professions have changed, but also because the standards of what makes a prestigious career have changed.

This decline is rooted in a broader shift in definitions of success, essentially, a realignment of the pillars. Especially among young people, professional status is now inextricably linked to ideas of flexibility and creativity, concepts alien to seemingly everyone but art students even a generation ago. Indeed, applications to law schools and medical schools have declined from recent highs. Nationally, the number of law school applicants dropped a 6.7% between 2006 and 2005.  44% of lawyers recently surveyed by the American Bar Association said they would not recommend the profession to a young person.)

Unquestionably, many doctors and lawyers still find the higher calling of their profession — helping people — as well as the prestige and money, worth the hard work. And the stars in either field are still that: commanding the handsome compensation and social cachet. But to others, the daily trudge serves as a constant reminder that the entrepreneur’s autonomy simply can’t be found in law or medicine.

Life for attornies is less like “Ally McBeal” and more like “The Practice,” where lawyers work like dogs in a thoroughly unglamorous setting. Doctors face similar pressure. Complaints about managed care crimping doctors’ income and authority over medical decisions are nothing new, but the problems are only getting worse, several doctors said. Increasing workloads and paperwork might be tolerable if the old feeling of authority were still the same, doctors said. But patients who once might have revered them for their knowledge and skill often arrive at the office armed with a sense of personal expertise, gleaned from a few hours on the internet, doctors said, not to mention a disdain for the medical system in general. And then there’s the money issue. Or rather, money envy. Associates at major New York firms often start at $150,000 to $180,000. Partners at the country’s biggest 100 firms took home an average of $1.2 million in 2006. Hardly small sums, but for many senior investment bankers, bonuses and salaries this year will average $2.25 million to $2.75 million. Doctors rarely approach such heights. While income varies widely, a typical physician might earn $150,00 to $300,000. A surgeon might make $250,000 to $400,000; hot-shot surgeons can earn $750,000 a year, and superstars over a million dollars.

Careers in more entrepreneurial industries like hedge funds and private equity firms follow the ’sky is the limit’ model of the entertainment industry, the Web or professional sports. Kevin J. Delaney, a sociology professor who has studied the culture of hedge funds and private equity firms, said executives there “love the idea of being responsible for their own fate.” They’re going to make a million or lose a million based on the trades they make.

This star-system mentality is particularly attractive to college students, many of whom were reared with the ’80s philosophy that every child was a potential superstar. And they want immediate rewards — not exactly the mentality that will fuel a student through years of medical school, a residency and additional training for a specialty.

Look at the World Differently and Come Up With New Solutions

 As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of the proverbial box in which we think are thickening along with our experience. “When everybody knows that something is so, it means that nobody knows nothin’,” said Andrew S. Grove, the co-founder of Intel. In other words, it becomes nearly impossible to look beyond what you know and think outside the box you’ve built around yourself.

This so-called curse of knowledge, a phrase used in a 1989 paper in The Journal of Political Economy, means that once you’ve become an expert in a particular subject, it’s hard to imagine not knowing what you do. Your conversations with others in the field are peppered with catch phrases and jargon that are foreign to the uninitiated. When it’s time to accomplish a task — open a store, build a house, buy new cash registers, sell insurance — those in the know get it done the way it has always been done, stifling innovation as they barrel along the well-worn path.

That’s a common reaction when experts set out to share their ideas in the business world, too, say co-authors and brothers Chip and Dan Heath. It’s why engineers design products ultimately useful only to other engineers. It’s why managers have trouble convincing the rank and file to adopt new processes. And it’s why the advertising world struggles to convey commercial messages to consumers. People who design products are experts cursed by their knowledge, and they can’t imagine what it’s like to be as ignorant as the rest of us. But there are proven ways to exorcise the curse.

To innovate you have to bring together people with a variety of skills. If those people can’t communicate clearly with one another, innovation gets bogged down in the abstract language of specialization and expertise. “It’s kind of like the ugly American tourist trying to get across an idea in another country by speaking English slowly and more loudly,” says Heath. “You’ve got to find the common connections.”

Author Cynthia Barton Rabe proposes bringing in outsiders whom she calls zero-gravity thinkers to keep creativity and innovation on track. When experts have to slow down and go back to basics to bring an outsider up to speed, she says, “it forces them to look at their world differently and, as a result, they come up with new solutions to old problems.”

Everyone plays up the notion that we are in huge amounts of debt. This is simply not true.

With Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in China this week to discuss a range of issues related to U.S.-Sino commerce, we thought it would be an opportune time to separate fact from fiction and highlight some key issues that presently define the economic ties between the United States and China:

1. U.S. Foreign Investment in China — Not As Much as You Think     Rarely does a day pass without the media reporting yet another American firm de-camping the United States for China. Reality is quite different. U.S. foreign direct investment (FDI) to China has climbed over the past decade, but a little perspective is in order. The $15.5 billion the U.S. has sunk in China this decade equates to only 1.6% of the global total. U.S. FDI in Ireland and Germany was roughly triple the level of investment in China over the same period.

2. The U.S. Enjoys a Huge Lead over China in FDI     It is no secret that Chinese investors are quite interested in increasing their direct investment position in corporate America. Equally, it’s no secret that any planned purchase of a U.S. company by Chinese investors is subject to a great deal of scrutiny in Washington. Next to America’s massive trade deficit with the mainland, China’s foreign investment in the U.S. has emerged as a key tension point between the two parties. That said, it’s interesting to note that when it comes to foreign direct investment — or the corporate presence of the U.S. in China versus China’s presence in the U.S. — the U.S. enjoys an overwhelming advantage over the mainland. In 2006, for instance, U.S. foreign investment in China on a historic cost basis totaled $22.2 billion, a figure well in excess of China’s investment stakes in the U.S. In other words, U.S. firms have far better access to the Chinese market than their Chinese counterparts in the United States. This investment gap represents a strategic competitive advantage to corporate America.

3. What really attracts U.S. firms to China? Consumers     Contrary to popular opinion, access to the Chinese consumer remains the key motivation of U.S. firms entering China. Keep in mind that China is not a unified market of 1.2 billion people but a collection of markets with different dialects, varying levels of development, and disparate per capita incomes. These variables, along with many others (the brand-sensitivity of Chinese consumers coupled with intense foreign and local competition) dictate that American firms adapt to local tastes and operate on the ground. Customer proximity, in other words, is key in China.

4. “Made in China” — What It Really Means     The mainland has emerged as an exporting powerhouse, with “Made in China” the most ubiquitous signature in the world. Yet lost on many folks is this: A great deal of what China exports to the United States and the world are goods from so-called foreign-invested enterprises, or foreign subsidiaries of various global multinationals. “Made in China” is not what most people think. Thousands of low-cost Chinese firms are not flooding the U.S. market with goods, displacing U.S. workers in the process. Rather, foreign firms are increasingly leveraging low-cost China to their competitive advantage.

5. The U.S. Trade Deficit with China: A Dangerous Scorecard     Much has been made of China’s merchandise trade surplus with the United States, which topped $230 billion in 2006. That’s a large figure, to be sure, although the figure does not accurately reflect the true nature of bilateral commerce between the United States and China. Missing from this equation are local sales of goods and services of U.S. foreign affiliates operating in China. The latter totaled some $86.5 billion in 2005 (the latest available data. Missing from the trade debate is the following: The primary means by which U.S. firms deliver goods and services to China is via foreign affiliate sales, not exports. At the end of the day, China does sell more to the United States, but not by the lopsided margin some might suppose.

6. Capital — China’s Top export to the U.S.     China’s most important export to the United States is capital — or U.S. dollars to be more exact. Lost on many legislators in Washington that want to punish China for running such a large U.S. trade surplus is this simple yet critical fact: China not only provides U.S. consumers with cheap, high-quality goods, it also provides the capital to purchase such goods by recycling greenbacks earned from trade back into U.S. treasuries and other dollar-denominated assets.

7. The Mainland — An unlikely Source of U.S. Profits     The lopsided nature of U.S.-China trade gives the impression that all the benefits go to the Chinese. That is simply not true. One of the best kept secrets on Wall Street is this: U.S. firms are making tidy sums of money in the Middle Kingdom.

Data on foreign affiliate income from the government’s Bureau of Economic Analysis corroborate these findings, with U.S. foreign affiliate income in China rising from $1.2 billion in 2000 to $4.7 billion last year. The bottom line: At a time when the U.S. is threatening to impose greater trade sanctions against China, U.S. firms with operations in China are posting record profits.

Here’s the rest of the list.

Dyslexia Forces People To Master Verbal Communication 

It has long been known that dyslexics are drawn to running their own businesses, where they can get around their weaknesses in reading and writing and play on their strengths. A new study of entrepreneurs in the United States suggests that dyslexia is much more common among small-business owners than even the experts had thought. Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at the Cass Business School in London, found that more than a third of the entrepreneurs she had surveyed — 35%— identified themselves as dyslexic. The study also concluded that dyslexics were more likely than nondyslexics to delegate authority, to excel in oral communication and problem solving and were twice as likely to own two or more businesses.

“We found that dyslexics who succeed had overcome an awful lot in their lives by developing compensatory skills,” Professor Logan said. One reason that dyslexics are drawn to entrepreneurship, Professor Logan said, is that strategies they have used since childhood to offset their weaknesses in written communication and organizational ability — identifying trustworthy people and handing over major responsibilities to them — can be applied to businesses. Entrepreneurs are hands-on people who push a minimum of paper, do lots of stuff orally instead of reading and writing, and delegate authority, all of which suggests a high verbal facility. Compare that with corporate managers who read, read, read. Only 1% of corporate managers in the United States have dyslexia.

Individuals who have difficulty reading and writing tend to deploy other strengths. They rely on mentors, and as a result, become very good at reading other people and delegating duties to them. They become adept at using visual strengths to solve problems.

Parallel Lessons

• Let Them Cry   Sometimes, no matter how hard it may be, you need to let them cry it out. Whether it’s an employee who wants more of something but hasn’t quite earned it yet or a baby who is overtired and needs to sleep, you can’t always get what you want. As a parent and a CEO, you can’t always give them what they ask for.
• Count to 10   Losing your temper is not a good way to show that you are in charge and worthy of respect. It’s also not a good way to help your staff/child improve. Count to 10 before you react, and think about how a measured response will get you much better results. I’ve found that in most cases when I’m really angry, it’s a very temporary thing.
• Let Them Fail   There are many times when you just need to sit back and watch people fail for their own good. Employees need to botch a sale, sometimes, in order to learn how to do it correctly. Kids have to fall down when trying to stand, walk or ride a bike. If you save either from the mistakes before they happen, you’ll deprive them of the chance to learn important lessons firsthand.
• Carrots, Not Sticks   This is a wonderful lesson that really works with kids. Rewarding good behavior creates a desire to behave well without all the trauma of avoiding pain.
• Be the Boss/Parent   There is a desire among bosses to be friendly with your staff. When push comes to shove, you have to be able to separate as a friend and be the boss. There is a huge difference between being friendly and being friends. Parents are in the same boat — you can love your kids, but you are not their friend. You need to have that separation for times when you need to use your authority.

How Could You NOT Judge This Guy? 10 Popular Myths About Wealth and Luxury

1. The Wealthy made their money easily and spend their money easily. Most wealthy individuals spend far more hours working, embrace far more risk, and create far more value for society than their mainstream counterparts. Even today, for most, it still takes years of immense sacrifice to achieve wealth. Wealthy consumers are therefore very value conscious and discerning when they buy luxury goods and services.

2. The Wealthy are conspicuous consumption machines living in another reality. The minority of wealthy individuals who live ostentatious, opulent lifestyles are often portrayed as stereotypical wealthy consumers. In reality, most wealthy consumers are value creators, who seek quality and value, including authentic prestige, in luxury goods and services. Like many of us, some of their biggest concerns include taking care of aging parents and raising well-educated, generous children. When marketing to them, acknowledge their basic human values and show you understand them as the well rounded and balanced individuals they really are.

3. The Wealthy can’t really define luxury. Put a list of brands in front of the typical wealthy consumer and she, or he, will not only be able to articulate the attributes that constitute a luxury brand, but will also discern differences between brands better than any luxury marketer. The ability of wealthy consumers to define true luxury, individually, and as a group, is laser-accurate.

4. Luxury goods are a far larger industry than luxury services. Luxury goods such as couture fashion, watches and jewelry, get all the attention, yet, are dwarfed by the size of luxury services such as wealth management, travel and leisure, security, etc. Innovative services, including those as basic as nanny services, concierge services, and medical services, aimed at the wealthy, will grow faster and more profitably in the future. Many luxury goods firms are busy transforming themselves into services, or adding services to add value.

5. The Wealthy don’t participate in consumer satisfaction surveys. Wealthy consumers provide feedback and respond to surveys, sometimes more that the general population. Most wealthy consumers are highly educated businesspeople. They recognize the value of feedback and will provide theirs candidly to brands they trust. No metric is more highly correlated with financial success than customer satisfaction. Brands that fail to solicit and measure their customers’ feedback and continuously seek to improve customer satisfaction will become extinct.

6. The Wealthy don’t go online. A recent survey by the Luxury Institute found that the vast majority of wealthy consumers are regularly online. The wealthy work long hours, are more time-starved than the general population, and use the internet more heavily for researching luxury goods and services, and conducting transactions.

7. The Wealthy don’t use ratings and reviews to make purchasing decisions. A recent survey by the Luxury Institute found that over 80% of wealthy consumers use ratings and reviews sites to facilitate purchasing decisions. While the wealthiest may rely on a few trusted experts, many have middle class values and lead regular lives that include seeking information from ratings and reviews sites and publications. The difference is that these savvy consumers steer clear of biased websites and publications and “Best of” lists that pretend to provide non-conflicted advice.

8. Luxury marketers should be targeting only the wealthiest clients. Luxury brands that seek to serve only the $100 million plus net-worth consumer are usually small and often have fairly low profit margins. The truly under-served wealthy, in luxury goods, and, especially in luxury services, are households with a net worth from $ 1 million to $50 million. Their lives are busy, and often complex, and require many types of trusted advice. There are far more of these individuals globally, and growing in numbers.

9. Wealthy clients do not give referrals. Research with wealthy and ultra-wealthy consumers indicates that the vast majority are willing to refer trusted brands to friends and family. Yet, ask luxury goods and services CEOs what their client referral rates are, and the answer is usually well below 50%. This disconnect is due to the fact that most luxury goods and services firms rely on individual salespeople for referrals rather than creating a company-wide referral program. It is one of the greatest revenue opportunities in luxury today.

10. Wealthy consumers are not very loyal since they can go anywhere. The majority of wealthy consumers are among the most loyal customers. Their loyalty must be earned with great service. Ratings show that most luxury goods and services firms have yet to internalize what brands such as Ritz-Carlton, Nordstrom, Neiman Marcus, and Bessemer Trust inherently know: That the entire customer experience, from A to Z, must be at a level that makes customers happy to do business with the brand. This is the greatest, and easiest to implement, opportunity for luxury goods and services brands globally today.

“Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need.” ~From the movie Fight Club

Researchers have found that low self-esteem and materialism are not just a correlation, but also a causal relationship where low self esteem increases materialism, and materialism can also create low self-esteem. They also found that as self esteem increases, materialism decreases. The study primarily focused on how this relationship affects children and adolescents. Researchers found that even a simple gesture to raise self-esteem dramatically decreased materialism, which provides a way to cope with insecurity.  By the time children reach early adolescence, and experience a decline in self-esteem, the stage is set for the use of material possessions as a coping strategy for feelings of low self-worth.

Most of us want more income so we can consume more. Yet as societies become richer, they do not become happier. In fact, the First World has more depression, more alcoholism and more crime than fifty years ago. This paradox is true of Britain, the United States, continental Europe and Japan. Statistically people have more things than they did 50 years ago, but they are actually less happy in several key areas. There is also the considerable cost of what materialism does to the environment. We don’t yet know what final toll that could take in terms of quality of life and overall happiness. What many people don’t understand is that if we want to save the environment then at some level we have to buy and consume less.

The reason people want whatever is currently “hot” is because they believe it will contribute towards their satisfaction and happiness in life. The word “believe” is the key here. People believe that buying more and more things will make them happy, when in fact research has shown time and time again that this simply isn’t the case.

10 Nightmare Handshakes: Which One Are You?

Handshakes have been around since the birth of civilization. In fact, they were originally a way to prove you had no weapons in your hand when meeting someone new. Nowadays, we use handshakes in meetings, greetings, offering congratulations, closing a business deal or sometimes just to say, “How’s it goin’?” No matter the basis of your handshake, it should become part of your repertoire. Handshakes are a sign of trust and help build strong relationships. Prospective employers said they’re more likely to overlook visible body piercings and tattoos than an ineffective handshake, according to a 2001 survey of human resources professionals. Plus, when you shake hands with people upon meeting, they’re two times more likely to remember you than if you didn’t shake hands. The time has come to find out if your grip is powerful, pathetic or just plain bad.

To evade making a bad first impression, losing a business deal or simply embarrassing yourself, take heed of 10 terrible grips to avoid:

1. The “Macho Cowboy”… is the almost bone-crunching clasp many businessmen use to shake hands. What are they trying to prove, anyway? There’s no need to demonstrate your physical strength when shaking another person’s hand.

2. The Wimp… is usually delivered by men who are afraid to “hurt the little lady” when shaking women’s hands. Modern female professionals expect their male counterparts to convey the same respect they’d show their male colleagues.

3. The “Dead Fish”… conveys no power. While there’s no need to revert to the macho cowboy death grip, a firm clasp is more powerful than one that barely grabs the hand.

4. The “Four Finger”… is when the person’s hand never meets your palm, and instead clasps all four fingers, crushing them together.

5. The Cold and Clammy… feels like you’re shaking hands with a snake. Warm up your hand first before grabbing someone else’s.

6. The Sweaty Palm… is pretty self-explanatory, and pretty gross. Talcum powder to the rescue.

7. The “I’ve Got You Covered” Grip… happens when the other person covers your hand with his or her left hand as if your shake is secretive.

8. The “I Won’t Let Go”… seems to go on for eternity because the other person won’t drop his or her hand. After two or three pumps, it’s time to let go.

9. The “Southpaw”… happens when the person uses the left hand to shake because the right hand has food or a drink. Always carry your drink and plate with your left hand to keep your right one free for meet and greets.

10. The “Ringed Torture”… occurs when the person’s rings hurt your hand. Try to limit the number of rings you wear on the right hand to only one or two and be mindful of any that have large stones.

Six Steps To An Effective Greeting:
1. Stand up
2. Step or lean forward
3. Make eye contact
4. Have a pleasant or animated face
5. Shake hands
6. Greet the other person and repeat his or her name

Once I’ve read a book I keep it. It becomes a part of me.

Serious leaders who are serious readers build personal libraries dedicated to how to think, not how to compete. It is impossible to put together a serious library on almost any subject for less than several hundred thousand dollars. Perhaps that is why — more than their sex lives or bank accounts — chief executives keep their libraries private.

Few Nike colleagues, for example, ever saw the personal library of the founder, Phil Knight, a room behind his formal office. To enter, one had to remove one’s shoes and bow: the ceilings were low, the space intimate, the degree of reverence demanded for these volumes on Asian history, art and poetry greater than any the self-effacing Mr. Knight, who is no longer chief executive, demanded for himself. “I’m always learning.”

Forget finding the business best-seller list in these libraries. Students of power should take note that C.E.O.’s are starting to collect books on climate change and global warming, not Al Gore’s tomes but books from the 15th century about the weather, Egyptian droughts, even replicas of Sumerian tablets recording extraordinary changes in climate.

Personal libraries have always been a biopsy of power. The empire-loving Elizabeth I surrounded herself with the Roman historians, many of whom she translated, and kept one book under lock and key in her bedroom, in a French translation she alone of her court could read: Machiavelli’s treatise on how to overthrow republics, “The Prince.” Churchill retreated to his library to heal his wounds after being voted out of power in 1945 — and after reading for six years came back to power.

It took Dee Hock, father of the credit card and founder of Visa, a thousand books to find The One. Mr. Hock walked away from business life in 1984 and looked back only from his library’s walls. He built a dream 2,000-square-foot wing for his books in a pink stucco mansion atop a hill in Pescadero, Calif. In his library, Mr. Hock found the book that contained the thoughts of all of them. Visitors can see opened on his library table for daily consulting, Omar Khayyam’s “Rubáiyát,” the Persian poem that warns of the dangers of greatness and the instability of fortune.

It’s All About Goals. Don’t plan to fail by failing to plan.

Most people don’t have goals. They have dreams instead. Some 97% of people don’t take the first step, writing down goals. They just keep dreaming. Millionaires, on average, read their written goals daily. This cements them (the goals) into their minds. Billionaires use “the power of three.” Billionaires read their written goals an average of three times daily, three times more often than mere millionaires.

Here’s how millionaires differ from middle class people, according to author Keith Cameron Smith, in his book “Top 10 Distinctions Between Millionaires And The Middle Class:”

1. Millionaires think long term, middle class people think short term.

2. Millionaires talk about ideas, middle class people talk about things and people.

3. Millionaires embrace change, middle class people are threatened by change.

4. Millionaires take calculated risks, middle class people are afraid of risks.

5. Millionaires continue to learn and grow, middle class people stop learning after they’re finished with school.

6. Millionaires work for profit, middle class people work for wages.

7. Millionaires believe in being generous, middle class people believe they’re unable to be generous.

8. Millionaires have multiple sources of income, middle class people have one or two income sources.

9. Millionaires focus on increasing net worth, middle class people focus on increasing their paychecks.

10. Millionaires ask questions that empower, middle class people ask questions that disempower.

By all means, even if you’re broke, the first thing to do is to get rid of your middle class mindset, which confines you to a life term in your own mental prison of self-limiting beliefs and the low expectations paupers accept passively. Whether you succeed or not, whether you are financially blessed or dirt poor, it’s up to you (not an employer and certainly not the government) to make yourself financially successful. If you’re poor, don’t blame God. Look in the mirror instead. Then get to work.

Cashing in on Medical Tourism

Medical tourism is a $40 billion business globally, and the people packing their bags most frequently are Americans. Numerous nations–notably India, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia–are making a lot of money off the American healthcare system’s problems, but it isn’t all bad news for the U.S. Medical tourism companies are cropping up across the country–approximately 50 so far–and there’s no end in sight. It’s not just a case of Americans traveling abroad for surgery. Europeans and Arabs are going to other countries as well.

How do the doctors feel about this? Some physicians will say that it’s a great way to offload treatments that don’t pay well, anyway, because the insurance companies will only pay $19,000 for that $100,000 operation, and $19,000, by the time they take care of overhead, isn’t that much.

Americans could contact an accredited hospital in Malaysia directly to find out if one of its surgeons can do a kidney transplant, but because it’s complicated to determine which hospital is right for each person and operation the medical tourism agencies have caught on. A few American health insurance agencies already have pilot programs looking into the feasibility of paying lower costs for people to travel abroad and have expensive surgery, which means that businesses may soon be offering medical tourism packages to their employees. Even more telling, some American hospitals now have branch hospitals overseas to capitalize on medical tourism. Yes! Who can beat having plastic surgery for $5,000 versus $16,000 to $20,000 in the U.S.