Tag Archives: skills

“If You Teach a Kid to Fish…”

This blog is NOT going to actually be about fishing–I thought I should put that out here right away. In truth, I wanted to write about all those things we have a tendency to do for our kids instead of teaching them how to do for themselves. As single parents, the sooner we teach our children how to handle things on their own (appropriately, of course), the sooner we won’t be overburdened doing everything for them! A friend of mine, with a nearly-thirty grown son, shared with me last week that he had called her wanting her to not only … Continue reading →

Identify Strengths

I think that it is human nature–or at least it seems so in this age and society–to identify our weaknesses and try to work on those. As single parents, we are often quite aware of our weaknesses–those places where we struggle or think we need to make improvements. Instead of focusing in on our weak points, however, we might be much better off if we identify our strengths as a person and as a parent, and focus on those! I could probably sit here and list my faults and flaws all day–or at least for half a day. What is … Continue reading →

What Skills Do You Need to Succeed? And, Where Can You Get Them?

I think many of us are tempted to look at the skills we already have and think that is the end of the line. We evaluate our existing skills in terms of what we can bring to our home business and then assume that whatever is missing will stay missing. But, it can be beneficial to take a good look at what sort of skills are required for your business or industry—especially in order to be competitive and successful—and then figure out what is lacking and how you can develop those skills to be even more successful. Different jobs and … Continue reading →

Maximizing Potential

So, maybe not all of us are cut out to be Donald Trump; we may not become billionaires or influential business tycoons, but we can do our best and we can figure out how to make the most of what we have to work with. After all, that is what maximizing potential is all about… It can be helpful to periodically take stock in your personal resources. I am not talking about beating yourself up or comparing your work and your home business to someone else’s. This is seldom productive and can often make us feel worse about what we … Continue reading →

The More “Good Stuff” You Can Pass On, the Better

Even though we cannot expect our children to be clones of ourselves, and they certainly will not take on our personality, all of our dreams, and our values–we can pass on skills and life knowledge that can better enable them to take care of themselves and achieve the independence we both desire. You have heard the old saying about teaching a man to fish (as being far more useful than just giving a man a handout of fish that you’ve caught) and I think this is a perfect guideline for parenting. Sure, our kids might learn things even if we … Continue reading →

Help Children Get Good at Some Things

I wrestled with exactly how to title this blog and this was the best I could come up with. I want to write about how gaining skills and mastering some things is a huge benefit to a child’s developing self-esteem. A child doesn’t have to be fabulous at everything, but parents can help encourage interests and the development of skills. Getting good at and mastering skills and “things” is an important step in a child’s personal development. I am not talking about talent here, but more about how when we learn how to do things well—sometimes very ordinary things—we gain … Continue reading →

How’s Your Competency?

There is just no way we are going to be super stars and experts at every element of our home businesses—even the most amazing among us has some weaknesses. BUT, we can strive to achieve a satisfactory level of competency when it comes to all the pieces and parts of operating our home businesses. Being proficient and capable at things like bookkeeping, record keeping, marketing, networking, sales, cold calls, business communications, and all sorts of other things that might not be things we feel particularly talented at—is one of the important aspects to being a successful business owner. Again, it … Continue reading →

Learning New Trades

The unthinkable has just happened. Your boss calls you into his office with that grumpy, sour, Monday morning look on his face and you know, just by looking at the unattractive bald spot on the back of his head as you follow him down the hall, that something isn’t right. Sure enough, you’ve just lost your job. What are you going to do? You’ve been training in your field for the last five years, and none of the other companies that do what you do in your area are hiring. You start putting in applications with companies across the country, … Continue reading →

Looking At The Book ” Shepherding a Child’s Heart”

One of the most profound parenting books that I have read to date is a book by Dr. Ted Tripp called Shepherding a Child’s Heart. An introduction to the book says: Drawing on more than 20 years of experience as a pastor, counselor, school administrator, father and grandfather, Dr. Tripp shares valuable insights and suggestions for communicating directly to your child’s heart through the various stages of his/her life. The book was written in 1995, but is still very applicable today, and the older publishing date means that you can buy the books used for less at Amazon.com or win … Continue reading →

Developing an Eye Catching Resume

The important thing to remember when creating your resume is that yours will be competing with many, many others. You need to do whatever you can to make sure that yours stands out and gets noticed. Getting your resume noticed is the first step towards being called for the interview that you want. Spending extra time to make sure your resume is just right is definitely worth it. Here are some things to keep in mind when you are writing your resume: Lots of White Space Don’t feel like you have to fill in every bit of space on your … Continue reading →