Four Things You Can’t Recover From:

• The word – after it’s said
• The occasion – after it’s missed
• The time – after it’s gone 
• The stone – after it’s thrown 

We often talk about how we can set ourselves up for success, or get off on the right foot with potential clients or new employees. But what happens when we say or do something that we wind up regretting later?

Here are four examples of things that you unfortunately cannot take back:

• The Word – After It’s Said
  Have you ever said something to a potential job candidate that you really wish you could take back? To avoid a situation like this, it’s extremely important that you are able to see your company through the eyes of your candidates and present the image that you want people to see.
• The Occasion – After It’s Missed
  Every day there will be opportunities that present themselves to improve yourself or your company: potentially great employees, excellent seminars, networking events, etc. Simply put, life is too short to miss out on every single opportunity that crosses your path.
• The Time – After It’s Gone
  You can’t get back lost time, which makes it even more important to constantly be working toward all of your goals. Stay committed and make this the year that you take advantage of the time you have.
• The Stone – After It’s Thrown
  Always remain positive. You can never take back negative remarks about your competitors, your coworkers or your work in general. Negativity strongly affects how potential candidates view you.

Don’t put yourself in a situation where you have to regret anything you do in your career. Consider how you can prevent yourself from getting into situations where you wish you could take back your actions.

Returning to Tim Hoch’s Thought Catalog article,“10 Ways You’re Making Your Life Harder Than It Has To Be” we’re going to tackle point number 5,“Waiting for a Sign.”

Chances are you or someone you know have at some point uttered the phrase, “I’m not sure if it’s the right time. I’m just waiting for a sign.” Of course, there is something to be said for a belief in fate or a higher power, which is typically what this phrase is referring to. But at some point, it’s important that you take your success into your own hands.

Think of it this way: would you rather take charge of your own destiny, or sit around and wait in hopes that someone will do it for you? If you are truly concerned with achieving success in your life, you need to take responsibility for reaching out and grabbing it yourself. Even if fate plays a role in our lives, it doesn’t hurt to try to influence fate ourselves. The last thing you want is to miss out on a major opportunity because you didn’t get the “sign” you were waiting for.

As we continue to analyze some of the key points made in Roger Herman’s Impending Crisis, our next step is to emphasize the importance of Herman’s point about providing space for growth and opportunity.

Outstanding employees are drawn to positions in which they will have the ability to grow both personally and professionally. While highly motivated employees always have an eye on their future marketability as job candidates elsewhere, providing constant opportunities for growth, advancement and new experiences will make them much more likely to settle into a position with a company for a longer period of time.

Companies should do everything they can to facilitate growth on the part of their employees. They should encourage employees to engage in additional training, gain new experiences and take on new responsibilities. For true go-getters that are looking to get on the fast track, companies should be prepared to allow them to grow rapidly, yet in a controlled and supportive environment.

As soon as these employees begin to get bored or feel as though they are stagnating, they are going to be likely to move on to the next job. It’s the employer’s responsibility to prevent such stagnation from occurring.

With college graduates being steeped in deeper debt than ever before, it’s not unreasonable for people to be questioning what the true value of a college degree is in this day and age. However, some research into debt and university costs presented by an article in Liberty Street Economics indicates that the value of a bachelor’s degree today is still at approximately the same record-high value it’s been at for the past decade.

The authors of the article, Jaison R. Abel and Richard Deitz, use a statistic called “net present value (NPV)” to describe the dollar value of a bachelor’s degree. While the NPV of a bachelor’s degree has fallen slightly since its peak in 2000, it is still among the highest levels it’s ever been at, and significantly higher than where it was in the 1970s, 80s and early 90s.

Meanwhile, the amount of years needed to recoup the cost of a bachelor’s degree has been on a downward trend since the early 1980s, when it peaked at around 23 years. Today, it takes about ten years for the average graduate to regain the amount of money spent on a college education, slightly up from the low point of eight to nine years hit in 2000 and 2012. This means that despite the challenges of the job market perceived in college graduates today, they’re actually getting back the money they spent on their degree in near-record time with the value of that degree at a near-record high.

These numbers show more reason to believe that things are looking up in financially for recent college graduates who are still experiencing sticker shock over their student loans.

Today we are going to continue to take a closer look at the great points made by Tim Hoch in his article for Thought Catalog, “10 Ways You’re Making Life Harder Than It Has To Be.” We’re focusing on point four: having unrealistic or uncommunicated expectations.

It’s so easy for us to build up expectations in our mind of how others will treat us, whether it’s coworkers, superiors, friends or family members. But building up unrealistic expectations only serves as a good way for us to create scenarios in which we are extremely likely to be let down.

The fact is that people can’t read your mind, and they can’t possibly know what your expectations are unless you communicate them. This isn’t to say that the solution is to vocalize your unrealistic expectations, though better communication of reasonable expectations is always encouraged. Rather, you should attempt to lower your expectations instead. Lower expectations make it much harder for you to be let down.

As Hoch says in the article, “minimize your expectations, maximize your joy.” Developing a more realistic view about what you can expect from other people and how you can share those expectations will make your life a whole lot easier.

It’s time once again for us to take a look at another key point made by Roger Herman in his book Impending Crisis.

When people are on the job hunt, one of the biggest factors they consider when filling out an application is the quality of care that the business provides to its employees. In today’s business world, quality of life issues are more important to employees than ever before, according to Herman. Employees want a safe and healthy environment that makes them feel comfortable, almost like being at home.

This goes beyond the type of salary or benefits that a company provides. People are concerned with the types of working conditions they’ll have around them, the amount of flexibility they have within their position and the kind of recognition they get for a job well done. They want their free time and their families to be valued as well as their work. They want to be able to have open lines of communication with people high up the food chain within the organization.

Simply put, people value a more relaxed and gracious approach to business management. If you can set up your business in a way that provides this level of care, you will find that the quality of your applicants will steadily rise.

According to a new national study performed at Rutgers University, Americans continue to be pessimistic about the state of the economy and its future after the recession.

In fact, that pessimism seems to have increased over the past five years. In 2009, approximately 50 percent of Americans believed that the impact of the recession would be permanent. In this most recent study, that number rose to around 70 percent. Additionally, just one in six Americans believe that the next generation will have more job opportunities than they did, whereas four in 10 held that view just five years ago. Only one in three people believe the economy has improved within the last year.

Finally, there also appears to be pessimism surrounding the state of the federal government. Four in five Americans have either little or no confidence that the federal government will make any sort of progress on the most important problems facing the nation within the next year.

Clearly, the nation appears to be more cynical than it has been in decades in regard to the state of the economy and the federal government. However, there is some reason for positivity, despite these numbers. Within the last few years, there have been sustained levels of job growth, and unemployment rates have shrank significantly since the end of the recession. The most recently published national unemployment numbers at 5.8% seem to indicate that the economy is improving, despite the opinions of the people surveyed in this study.

As the numbers continue to improve, it stands to reason that public opinion will eventually follow.