Should Women Rule the World?

At 31, Dee Dee Myers became one of the youngest White House press secretaries in history. She was also the first woman.

Whether due to her age, gender, or experience, the job offered to Myers came with less authority and a smaller office. She was still able to demonstrate her capabilities, staying with the job for two years. During that time she told the president she needed appropriate access and authority to show what she could do - and she got it.

Myers' book, Why Women Should Rule the World, talks about the differences in how men and women approach their lives and their work. She suggests that our world would be a better place, with a stronger economy and more effective institutions, if the upper echelons of organizations were filled with many more women.

The book recounts many of Myers' own experiences, along with other women who have held positions of power. It is also grounded in research.

Studies have confirmed that men and women have brains that operate differently. Men have larger brain areas controlling action and aggression. They brains also devote more than twice as much space to sex drive than women's brains. All brains have two halves. In women, these halves tend to be somewhat less specialized and there is a stronger connection between the two halves.

There are genetic differences in the way boys and girls act and react. Within 24 hours of birth, Simon Baron-Cohen, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Cambridge University in England saw distinct differences between the reactions of males and females. When shown a mechanical mobile and a human face, girls almost always preferred the face, while boys spent more time looking at the mechanical object. Another study shows that this trend is also exhibited in infant monkeys. When given a choice of human toys, male monkeys prefer trucks and the females choose dolls much more often.

At an early age, boys can be up to 50 times more competitive, while girls tend to be much more cooperative. Boys will often look for an "adversary" in their games. Girls generally prefer games that involve nurturing. They also take turns much more often, even at an early age. These trends continue in later life. Women use conversations to develop and maintain relationships. What they discuss is often not as important as the fact that they are communicating. Men prefer to share activities, rather than thoughts or feelings, with their friends.

Myers notes these findings then talks about them within the context of how organizations, especially government, operate. Our society, like almost every other one in history, is male-dominated. This tends to value male traits, like competition and aggression, over female traits, such as nurturing and cooperation. This can make life for women difficult, especially within the executive offices of most organizations.

Myers has talked to a number of women who have demonstrated the ability to excel in leadership positions. There are those who run organizations and those who lead countries. Her book is full of examples of strong women who have handled difficult situations with a combination of grit, poise, and grace. These women have almost invariably also had to "thread a needle," walking the line between getting accepted by their male counterparts while maintaining their female viewpoints.

Women who are in strong roles in organizations often look for ways to compromise to move decisions forward and get work done. In Congress, the women support one another, looking for ways to get their bills through. And the bills they champion often deal with family-related and work-life issues that have been previously overlooked. Women can help a war-torn nation heal more quickly, as demonstrated after the Rwandan genocide. They are more likely to set aside the tragedy of the past in order to move toward a better life in the present and future.

Our world will change for the better, according to Myers, when women are represented equally at all levels of society and particularly when they have a much stronger voice in decision-making. She is quick to point out that women are not better than men. Rather, including more women at the uppermost level of organizations adds to diversity. That gives us a stronger talent pool, more choices, greater experience, and multiple viewpoints, all of which almost always leads to better group decision-making.

Why Women Should Rule the World, by Dee Dee Myers, was published by HarperCollins in 2008. It is full of information, yet written in a conversational tone that makes for a great read. Myers ideas are well-grounded and intriguing. Look for it in your local library or bookstore.

Judy Downing is a freelance writer who focuses on marketing, sales, customer service and women's issue. She shares tips, techniques and strategies with small business owners to clarify and enhance their customer and business practices. Visit her website at http://www.customerapproach.com/ or email her at judy@customerapproach.com.

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Facing A Career Transition - You Are Not Alone

Whenever I meet someone to discuss their career needs, it is not unusual for them to feel as if the career issues they face are unique. While the specifics are unique, facing a career transition is not.

How can I be so sure? Well, besides my years of experience in this area, there is also an author who writes about the stages of adult development which MUST include career/life transitions. The author is Gail Sheehy who has two books of interest: NEW PASSAGES and UNDERSTANDING MEN'S PASSAGES.

When I first read Gail's book, I was so relieved to know that it is natural to face these transitions - that we don't need to know what we want to be at age 20. Even if we did, we would face a time when we questioned this choice. This relief quickly ended when I faced my first career transition. Who would ever want to feel the distress of this time of questioning? YUCK!

Gail describes the natural stages of adult development: building stages and transition times. During building stages you feel energized and excited by your life and your career. Then, suddenly, without warning, you enter into a transition time. During this time you feel confused, anxious, distressed. Sometimes you know what caused the transition to occur, sometimes not. Being human, it is natural to want to get out of these transition times as quickly as possible. Who wants to feel the "YUCK"? We all want to feel the "GOOD STUFF" of being in a building stage. If, however, we don't take the opportunity to explore what the next steps need to be while we are in the transition time, we will keep bouncing back to the transition no matter how hard we try to push ourselves into a building stage. The result is to prolong the transition.

Most of us have never been taught how to move through this transition time. Most of us have never been taught how to create a career/life vision and plan. The worst time to learn this is during a transition time. Why? We need to add to the learning the management of emotions to ensure that we are not making choices based on emotion. However, again because we are human, it is usually during the time of transition that we have the need to learn the skills necessary to make a wise transition. The first step is to understand that this is a natural transition and that the emotions need not guide you. By using a process you can guide the emotions for more effective results. The second step is to find a process to develop a career/life vision and plan that uses your needs, wants and desires to direct the next steps of your life and your career. Using these two steps, you can manage the "YUCK" and lead your life to a new area of "GOOD STUFF".

Cheryl Leitschuh, Ed.D. is a coach and consultant creating environments of success for individuals, teams and organizatons.

Practice services include:
*Career Development assessment, retreats and coaching.
*Professional Practice Development coaching and assessment.
*Key leader development and assessment.
*Executive Coaching.
*Team Coaching.
*Performance Improvement Coaching and Assessment
*Speaking and training on key aspects of workplace development.
*Succession Planning.

For information on services and resources for individuals and organizations visit http://www.career-future.com/

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Extra Time Well Spent - Life As a Film Extra

If you've ever been to watch a television show being recorded, you'll have seen what goes on behind the glamorous facade - lots of people dressed in black, running around, muttering into the kind of face microphones singers wear these days, while gently but firmly keeping you, the audience, in your place. Now imagine being part of the show, on camera, but without having to learn any lines. That's a partial description of the film or TV extra's job. You might occasionally be given a line to act, but that's unusual. You might be asked to do something on your own - walk across the shot, sit in a railway carriage next to a principal character, or walk out of a shop - but for the most part you will be in a group of people mingling at a party, dining at a restaurant, drinking at a pub, walking purposefully down a hospital corridor, strolling through the park...you get the picture.

Extras - or 'background artists' - provide colour, noise, anything to give the shot more authenticity - whatever the director needs to tell the story. In the United States, in fact, film extras are called 'atmosphere'. Make of this what you will!

Some would say extras don't need to be able to act, but there's nothing more distracting than some guy in the background who looks so awkward that your eyes are glued to him and before you know it you've missed vital dialogue, and then you've lost the plot. It's actually quite difficult to act as though the camera's not on you. Most often, though, you're filmed in groups or crowds and that makes it a lot easier than, say, sitting alone, in shot, at a cafe table, endlessly stirring your coffee and waiting for your fictitious date.

Established extras casting agencies are the best way in, so try and register with several of them. They have a particular time of year when they accept CVs and photos -read their websites and follow their instructions. They're bombarded with applications and they're busy people. It also helps if you have an interesting skill or three, like horse riding, cycling or CPR. Some extras even maintain a wardrobe of uniforms and specialised work clothes. But tell the truth about skills: it's easy to get caught out, and you will not be popular.

Film extra work is never steady - you might be out of work for weeks or months and then get a three-week job on a feature film. The agency isn't interested in how you pay the rent in between; it's not their job. You could be working days or nights. Very often you won't know when you'll be finished, so you can't make plans. Most of the time you'll be on location and you'll usually have to find your own way there, often in the early hours. You will almost always miss breakfast, or be in wardrobe, or hair or makeup when it's being served. Take something with you to get your blood sugar up and running. Just don't eat it on set.

If all this sounds like hard work, which it often is, it's offset by lots of good stuff: dressing up in ll sorts of costumes, watching films being shot, making friends and generally being part of the action. Extras are usually treated (and fed) well, even if sometimes, of necessity, they're herded around. Sometimes you'll be treated less professionally, but if you treat your environment and your co-workers with respect, listen to instructions - and most importantly of all, you don't chatter on set while the cameras are rolling - you should be respected in turn. And as most people know by now, you need to possess a healthy dollop of patience. Filming is a painstakingly slow process. You need to love being there...because you will be there for hours...and hours...and hours.

One small health warning: if your heart's desire is to become an actor, film extra work is not for you. It may look like a way in, but generally it isn't, and it could do you more harm than good. Extra work is for people who want to be in the background, and stay there.

Christopher Spiers founder of Interesting Jobs, the web's premier resource for interesting jobs & fun jobs.

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Want A Portable Career? A Career In Your Suitcase (Book Review)

Once upon a time, getting a job was the ultimate goal. Along came Generation X and the goal posts shifted: esteemed jobs needed to be international -- and well-remunerated to boot.

Now, thanks to Generation Y and 4 hour work week advocates like Timothy Ferriss, the playing field has changed again: why wait for a job offer when you can create your own international career and work your own hours -- anywhere, anytime?

Jo Parfitt is at the forefront of the portable career movement -- writing and speaking about it for years before Timothy Ferriss came on the scene. Jo is a portable career expert who has been practising what she preaches while riding the expat rollercoaster in Dubai, Oman, Norway, England and The Netherlands for more than 20 years.

Much to the delight of those who loved the first and second editions, the third edition of this definitive portable career bible, A Career In Your Suitcase, has just been released and it is better than ever. It is jam-packed with tools to help you self-assess your passion, drive, skills and goals, plus real-life quotes from men and women living the portable career dream abroad.

There is also a great chapter entitled 60 Brilliant Ideas -- all of which Jo attests have worked for either herself or people that she knows. These ideas will surely get you started and include: looking after holiday homes off-season; teaching people to do the things that you find easy; exporting local goods; importing goods from home; selling your artistic creations, or teaming up with someone artistic and marketing theirs; writing travel articles; and/or becoming a freelance photographer -- the list goes on.

Whatever your generation, if you have ever dreamed of creating a career that allows you to follow your passion and/or follow your partner, at home or abroad, A Career In Your Suitcase is for you. With its comprehensive advice, real-life stories, ideas, checklists and hands-on exercises, this book is not only a wonderful read, but it could just be the catalyst that you have been looking for to positively change your life forever.

Copyright belongs to Andrea Martins.

Reprints welcomed.

First published by The Telegraph (UK) online on 14 May 2008.

Andrea Martins is the Director and Co-Founder of ExpatWomen.com (http://www.expatwomen.com/) -- a global resource site full of inspiring features to help all women living outside of their home country. Visit ExpatWomen.com today as your first-stop website to get inspired, share stories, network globally, develop personally and find the best resources.

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Pleasures and Sorrows of Work - A Response

de Botton asserts that satisfaction at work is dependent on your expectations, which I would broadly agree with. As with anything, if you set out with a negative mindset then you will find reasons to back up your assessment that work is dull, boring or meaningless. Alternatively, if you look with a more optimistic eye, you can find good in the work you do, whether it be related to the actual activities in which you are engaged, the end product, the effects of that product on people's lives or even simply the relationship you enjoy with your colleagues.

Philosophies of Work

In an interview with Edward Champion last year however, shortly after the release of the book (and an unfavourable review, to which he was responding), the author states that there are two broad philosophies of work prevalent in society. There is the working class view that says you work to feed yourself and your loved ones. Work is a necessity to be endured and you live for the weekends. Your colleagues are the people you work with and not necessarily your friends. This is something that I saw very often in my first real job and it scared me, probably because I didn't understand it. Instead, I hold to what is apparently the more middle-class view that work is 'absolutely essential to a fulfilled life and lies at the heart of our self-creation and self-fulfilment'. Interestingly the workplace I mentioned above, was filled with highly educated, skilled IT professionals, but even so, many were simply looking to work hard and then retire to enjoy the fruits of their labour. Is it that they did not believe in work as a fulfilling experience, or were they simply working in a job that was unfulfilling for them?

I would agree with de Botton that the former attitude is more prevalent in a recession. However I also believe that the recession will not go on for ever. When we come out the other side, people should start to assess the job that they do, taking time to weigh up the pleasures versus the sorrows to analyse what it is worth to them. I don't think we should be constrained by what he defines as the class-related distinctions though. Surely anyone would rather have a job that they enjoy, even if the reason for having it is simply to earn money? I would argue that the boundaries are more related to levels of ambition and assessments of self-worth. If we settle for a job that is not ideal, outwith recessional times, is it actually more because we don't think we can get anything better, or a fatalistic sense that the perfect job doesn't exist for us, or from some pseudo-Christian belief that we should be content with the humble and lowly things and not look to be happy?

Types of Work

Whatever our view of work though, the book goes on to make some interesting points and observations about a variety of industries. It looks at cargo shipping, huge containers being ferried around the world unnoticed, despite the huge scale of operations. This is followed by a chapter on the logistics involved in bringing tuna from the sea to our tables pointing out how little we stop to think about the myriad stages involved. There are stories about rocket scientists, comparing the complexities of what they do with the natural world and its wonders, an artist following his passion to showcase perception with little apparent regard for the commerciality of the studies and then the passion for detail but lack of desire for significance amongst top accountants. de Botton visits an airshow and meets the people in the trade there and walks a powerline with someone who chooses pylon designs and locations. Through all of these he looks with fresh eyes, yet tries to keep some perspective and reflect fairly on the work being done; he attempts to portray something of the positive and negative aspects of the job whilst also painting vignettes of the workers, hinting at the fit that these people have for the work they carry out.

Work that fits

This for me is the key to work being pleasurable or full of sorrow: how well does who we are match with what we do. If there is no congruence then there is little or no pleasure. It is irrelevant how the next man sees and assesses our job, unless he is our clone - the importance lies in how we see and value it. What matters is whether our role and the environment we are in matches our personality, strengths, skills and value system. If we regularly make use of our strengths (what Marcus Buckingham describes as 'the things that make you feel strong') then we fail to see so easily the negative aspects of our work. It's not that they don't exist - there will always be some bits of our employment that are less enjoyable. Rather, it lets us revel in the things that do match with what we want to do and so plays a part in our positive viewpoint and feeling of fulfilment through what we do.

There are three other chapters that particularly struck me because of the lessons the author drew out of them, but they each deserve a more thorough investigation than there is space for here. They are: the manufacture of biscuits, prompting a discussion about the meaningful nature of the work that we do; career counselling, looking at helping people "tormented by a residual notion of having...missed out on their true 'calling'". Finally there were the entrepreneurs, following their own unique path, begging the question, 'do we equate an ordinary life with a failed one?'

de Botton closes with some lines that outline reasons for working, based on what he has seen, heard and experienced second-hand from other peoples careers. It seems to imply that work is a necessary evil because it fulfils a number of functions, like distracting us from thoughts of our own mortality. However as someone who enjoys his work immensely, I would seek to refute that with some force. I can see where he is coming from in his closing line that says work 'will have kept us out of greater trouble' but I think he is also guilty of low aspirations. Work can be rewarding, enjoyable and fulfilling. If we fit the niche we are in.

Nick is an Outdoor Life Coach and Trainer specialising in working with people who haven't yet found their niche at work. Within his company, Square Pegs Coaching, he uses outdoor experiences to help people develop themselves. To understand better what this means in practice and to take greater advantage of his expertise, go to http://www.squarepegscoaching.com/ or read his blog at http://www.nickjs.co.uk/

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A Dying Trade or a Niche Opportunity? Become a Master Thatcher

At the forefront of conserving buildings of heritage for generations to come, thatching is an extremely important job that is carried out by small dedicated number of craftsmen around the country. Being up on a roof for eight to ten hours a day, completely at the mercy of the elements is certainly not suited to everyone. But those people who do it, and have a passion for it - often passed down through the generations, have a very different opinion. For them it's much more than just an occupation, and the work they do lives on as a reminder that some things truly are worth keeping.

As one might expect of a specialist industry such as this, thatching work tends to be more widely available in places where old buildings and heritage have played a significant role in the history of the area. Equally, due to the nature of thatching being a somewhat irregular affair that's only needed once every hundred years or so, work tends to be carried out by firms who also do carpentry work and other associated practical tasks.

Thatching is an interesting and fascinating skill to learn, but naturally, and as with any occupation, there are downsides. One being that thatchers have little or no protection from the elements and are often forced to work in conditions which are occasionally less than satisfactory, such as standing on top of a building exposed to high winds and heavy rain. On top of this there are endless splinters and blisters to contend with, and a certain hardiness is required in order to brave a full working day and everything it can throw at you.

Still, those wishing to pursue thatching as a career learn to love their job and make the most of the many and varied benefits: namely the satisfaction of knowing that their work will see the roof of a listed building live on for many more years to come. And there is far more to this job than merely laying the reeds on the roof's: before this can be done it needs to be cut down (in January and February), cleaned with a pitchfork and braided into individual bundles, before being hoisted up for use above ground.

So what makes a good thatcher? Well you should enjoy working with your hands and have a genuine interest in being a craftsman of time honoured trade. Manual dexterity, ability to work efficiently, ability to work at heights and a love of the outdoors would also be beneficial.

So where to begin if you do choose this? Well, first of all (most companies being in the UK) you'd want to find out who does the thatching in your area and ask if there are any openings as a apprentice. Generally apprentices are taken on at an early age and an employer would favour candidates with carpentry skills. Don't expect to find jobs posted online or in the newspapers: thatching is a closed-community, and those who succeed in becoming apprentices usually possess an ability to be self-motivated and are quite capable of thinking on their feet. There are also some courses available in the UK, although these are few and far between.

As an apprentice you will have to prove yourself by doing a lot of the manual work such as carrying materials and cleaning before being given a chance to learn the trade. As for what happens next, that's entirely up to you. After doing an apprenticeship, many thatchers choose to open their own business which can prove to be very lucrative; equally, though, success can be had working for one of the few established companies, eventually leading to a senior position.

The last thing you need to remember about thatching is that it's a love-over-money occupation, meaning many choose thatching as a lifestyle rather than a way to a fast buck. If your serious about finding an interesting career in this niche traditional industry then get in touch with National society of Master Thatchers to find firms in your area.

Christopher Spiers founder of Interesting Jobs, the web's premier resource for interesting careers & exciting careers.

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Legit Online Jobs Reviews - Discovering Ways To Find a Legit Online Job

A person just like me always wants to know if they can REALLY find a legit online job. Well, you can and you can't. The only way you can find a great legit online job is if you are willing to spend some time and effort in finding a legit online job. The way you can't is if you are a lazy bum who just wants to work for someone for $10/hour.

The ways I figure out if a legit online job works is by asking friends, family members, and check out if they have tried making money online. If so I would continue with what they tell me to do. The best resources to finding legit online jobs is google. You can always find great ways to make money online by searching in google. I mean, even a bum can use google, right?

There is an unlimited way to finding a niche to any type of person. I mean, you can simply find a niche within a week or so, all you have to do is research how you are going to find this niche, and start spending time on actually using the techniques you learned and start making money.

As mentioned above, you can't really find a legit online job if you don't try, and if you are not going to put some effort in making money online. You are not suppose to assume that you will get rich over night from the internet, Give yourself some time and you will be on your way to becoming a successful online marketer.

Do you want to work from home through legit online jobs? Start earning a full time income from home and quit your day job.

Finding legit online jobs has never been easier. To discover how you can begin working from home, click here.

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