Mastering a Skill

In today’s society where both time and money are rare commodities, people need to master one simple skill that will free both of these things up for them and that skill is hairstyling. The reasons that I believe this skill can be very beneficial are because first and foremost, for the women, you would not have to pay anyone to style your hair for you, unless you wanted to. On average, a simple wash and set style at the beauty salon will cost you no less than $40! That may not sound like a lot of money but when you add it up, forty dollars, and let’s say for sake of argument, you get you hair styled once every two weeks, that’s (at the very least) one hundred and twenty dollars a month. And Americans wonder why they never have any money.

Also, for the men, if you mastered this skill, you would not have to pay anyone to cut and or style your hair. On average, a haircut (a very good one) cost about the same amount as a pair of hair clippers themselves. And just because I know men who go and receive haircuts regularly, I know that men, unlike women, have to go to the barbershop every single week. Another reason this would benefit most is, because I am a woman and can attest to this, when you get you hair done, you really cannot sleep well because you are so worried about messing your hair style up. But if you know how to style your own hair, then you won’t have to waste time not getting good sleep because you will be able to style your own hair anytime you want.

I have shared some of the benefits now allow me to share some consequences of not mastering the skill of hairstyling. On average, a woman will spend no less than five hours of her day in a beauty salon waiting to get her hair styled. If you think that’s bad, you haven’t heard the rest because some women have spent between 12-18 hours of their day just at the salon! Now as for the men, the average wait time in a barber shop is no less than two hours, for a simple fifteen minute haircut. I don’t know about you, but I think that I would want to invest my time a little wiser than that. If you do the math and add up all the time you spend in the salon, for a woman going to the salon three times a month, taking the maximum amount of time spent at the salon, you are looking at spending three days of you life, (36 hours) just trying to get your hair styled. And for the men, you are looking to spending between 8-10 hours of you life to get a simple fifteen minute haircut.

In conclusion, the reasons that most people should master the skill of hairstyling are because we need better time and money management. Just because I have already mastered this skill, and practice this on the regular, I can give you actual living testimony of more time and money. I really do enjoy the idea of not having to wait all day just to give my money to someone. If I have a function to attend, I don’t have to make an appointment and hope to get in to see a hairstylist, I can do it myself. I only go to the salon once a year—on my birthday and that’s just because I want to be pampered by someone else on that day. I believe that most people should have the same choice. If I took a poll and asked everyone one what two things in their life they needed more of, they would probably say time and money. So here is it I have laid out what one skill that would allow you to free not one, but both of these things up for you, so the choice is now do you want to free those two things up for yourself.

How to communicate with someone who knows it "ALL"

Okay so let's say you are trying to have a conversation with someone you know. We will refer to this person as "knows it all", and if you have any strands of sanity, you know that dealing with an individual like this can drain you, if you're not too careful. So lets approach this subject with the white gloves on, shall we.

Nine times out of ten, the person you are dealing with that knows it "all" feel that you are inferior to them in some way or fashion. Maybe they have a bigger house than you, or a better car, or maybe even a more extensive degree, nevertheless, they feel they are "better" than you in some respect. This is the first thing that you must understand so that you will know how to deal with this individual. Now that you know what this person's "problem" is, you can come to a solution on how to deal with this individual.

Most would say to agree with this person on every level to keep them quiet but is that really the right thing to do? OF COURSE NOT! The more you allow this person's foolishness to continue, the harder it will be to break down the tough exterior of communication with this person. So you must confront this person on things that are not correct EACH AND EVERY TIME THEY DO SOMETHING OUT OF LINE! One thing about a "know it all" person, they put themselves in the position to be critiqued and criticized on every level simply because they feel they know more than anyone else.

Remember, this person thinks you are beneath them so therefore, whatever you do, in their eyes, it still does not measure up to them. So when you find that they have said or done something incorrectly, you must call them on it every time because then and only then will they come off of their high horse and understand that the Sun, Moon, Earth, and stars do NOT rise and set because of them!

So who do you deal with that is a know it all? How will you confront their behavior?

Social Media ruining relationships?

One thing that we have learned is that the Internet is being more widely used today. Whether you are looking for a job, or just looking for the next best place to have dinner, the Internet will have what you are searching for. But at the same time, there are other uses for the Internet that most people are buying into more and more lately, social media sites.

Social Media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace, have all become one of the main reasons some people go online today. Most are looking for friends, some are looking for love, and some are just networking but whatever the reason, a lot of people are saying that social media networking sites have or are ruining relationships. How is this possible? The last time I checked, the Internet is a vehicle that is designed for use by anyone in order to gain the results they desire. Its just like a car. Yes it is designed to get you where you need to go but it is totally up to you to put it in drive and actually get there.

You cannot blame your car for sending you to jail if you decide to use your vehicle as the get away car when robbing a bank, no where in the world will that hold up in the court of law, so how are we allowing people to buy into the hype that social media outlets are ruining relationships? One thing is for certain, we all need to assume personal responsibility for whatever we choose to do with the information we have and using social media sites to tell the latest drama between you and your companion is definitely not wise.

So what stories do you have to share about social media sites? Have you bought into the hype about them ruining relationships or are you the one selling the hype?

B.O.B. (Black-owned businesses)

Alright ya’ll let’s talk about something that I know has been on your mind---black-owned businesses or B.O.B. as I have so eloquently named them. Now, when talking about B.O.B., I like to mention that as an African American, I seldom find any B.O.B. that I will enjoy spending my money in. Not because I do not want to support our B.O.B., but simply because most of them ALWAYS come with the same terms and conditions.
First and foremost, what is the deal with the customer service? Is it just me or do most B.O.B. have the most horrible attitudes in the country? Like hello? Do you not know how your bills are paid and the lights stay on in your establishment? CUSTOMERS! Secondly, why is it that most B.O.B. use the most inexpensive materials, and or tools and expect you to pay top dollar for that crap? Have you looked at your inventory lately? Are you kidding me? I guess they think that most people have a sign on their foreheads stating, ‘I worked hard for this money just to give it away to you.’ And in return, I am guaranteed a nasty attitude, some poor quality, and NO REFUNDS! Come on now, we got to get it together if we expect to do better as businesses.
As an African American business-owner, I can tell you right now, I most certainly am not ashamed to say that I do not nor will I ever operate like a B.O.B. I believe in what old Sam Walton (Wal-Mart’s founder) used to say, ‘without the customer’s you would not be here.’ And also I believe producing quality for fraction of the cost, that’s what makes people come back. Now let’s all learn to do better as B.O.B. then maybe we wont have to complain about people not wanting to support our businesses and then we will have true wealth.

Failure or Success?

In our society, we have come to classify people into one of two categories: either you’re a failure, or you’re a success. It’s really simple, you’re a success if you have material things, and you’re a failure if you don’t. But throughout the years, I have come to question society’s credibility on determining whether an individual is either a success or a failure. I will show you how both failure and success are not what you are, but who you are.

To give you a glimpse of what Webster thinks, I have the dictionary’s definition of both success and failure. Just because it’s easier, let’s take the word success and define it. Success is: the favorable or prosperous termination of attempts or endeavors. Please keep in mind the key words that make up this definition: favorable, prosperous, termination, attempts, and endeavors. Now let’s look at the definition of failure. Failure is: an act or instance of failing or proving unsuccessful; lack of success. Oh my goodness! Look to me as if failure has a lot of success wrap up into it! How do I come to that conclusion you say? I’m glad you asked that question because I’m going to show you how. Look at how many times success was mentioned in this definition. So just judging by this definition and nothing else, I would conclude that failure is just being successful at not terminating favorable or prosperous attempts or endeavors!

Now let me appeal to my skeptics who are asking themselves ‘how did she come to that conclusion?’ Let’s say you have someone who starts a business. This person has worked very hard to save money to get their business started and off the ground. Spending endless hours walking the streets to post flyers because they don’t have money to hire anyone to do it for them just yet. Well after all their efforts, the business is costing more to stay open than making money and the very ambitious business owner runs out of both money and energy and thinks of closing the business down. Is this a failure or success? Ok let’s take someone we all know named Harland David Sanders, founder of KFC. Before he started his restaurant chain, he drove across the country offering his fried chicken recipe to restaurants, in exchange for royalties for each dish sold. He had over 3,000 rejections before his first sale! After maybe 1,000 rejections, how many of you would have thought of him as a failure?

So you have a story of both a success and failure right? Before you answer that question, let me finish the first story for you. The business owner decides to seek advice from another successful business owner before finally closing the doors to the business. They soon found out that they were advertising in the wrong areas for their business. The business owner took the friend’s advice, took out a loan, and the business is now flourishing!

In conclusion, I have come to define failure and success as such: failure is not seeking advice and or not getting back up after falling down and success is learning from your mistakes and not repeating them! So you see, both failure and success are a state of mind; if you state your mind as a failure, that’s what you’ll become, but if you keep it on learning from your mistakes, then you are already successful!

J.O.B.

J.O.B. (Just Over Broke?)

While commuting to work one day on the train, ironically, I hear four older women complaining about their “jobs”. I began to question myself and where and what I would rather be doing at that age instead of complaining about a dead-end “job”. Let’s dissect the word job for a moment. Someone once gave the acronyms for the word that were both quite fitting and amusing. The word job is short for ‘just over broke’! Wow! Talk about an epiphany.

Back to the women on the train, while listening to their conversation, there were two things that was a constant frustration variable with all four women about their job and that was their money (or lack thereof) and appreciation. There are two arguments that are to be addressed here and those are: are most employees expecting too much from their employer or are most employers expecting too much from their employees? Given that I have had the opportunity to be on both sides of the situation, I can give an unbiased opinion for both.

From an employee stand point, there is absolutely no way in the world that any company (no matter how big or small) can pay a dedicated employee what they are worth. All the bonuses, company cars, pay increases, vacations, or anything else could never satisfy an employee’s total desire to be independently free. The reason is that with a job your time is now owned by whoever writes your check. You have a certain time you have to be there and a certain time that you can leave. As for an employers’ standpoint, there is no way that a company can pay a very valuable asset to the company everything that they are worth unless they are not looking to profit themselves. It’s going to be either more time or money that is going to be requested from the employer by the employee and if an employee is unable to work and provide a service for the employers’ business, then what will you as the employer do?

In conclusion, in the job situation as a whole, all involved parties need to keep the acronym in mind that a job is exactly what it states, ‘just over broke’. When you keep that in focus, you will have much more peace in your life because you will stop placing so much focus on things that will never be more than what they are, just stop trying to fit that square in to your circle.

Say that again

Now this discussion is for all of you out there much like myself who cannot live without clarity. In other words, 'say that again please'! Is it just me or do a lot of other people find that people get offended when you ask them to repeat themselves? Why is that an automatic insult when someone asks you to repeat yourself? Is there anyone out there that can remotely explain to me why is it that when you are the type of person, much like myself, that do not like to assume anything and want to ensure that you have correctly heard someone, so you ask them to repeat it or, 'say it again' and they get angry?

Is it that we as Americans are so lazy that even when we have to repeat ourselves when don't want to do it? Please someone offer me a pillar of hope and tell me that this is not true because if this is the case, then I will GLADLY hand over my citizenship card because I don't want to be mistaken as lazy just because I am American. Now, let's hear it people, what is the real reason people get angry, offended, and down right nasty when someone says, 'say it again'!