5 Skills to Face the Recession

You excel at your job, have received many awards and special rewards, you are acknowledged as an expert in your organization. You have always demanded excellence of yourself and the others around you … and you have achieved and faced all technical challenges till today. You have invested in yourself and have considerably improved yourself in all soft skills. You also stand out from the crowd.

As mentioned in my previous article “5 Steps to Escape being Downsized”, you have followed all the 5 steps successfully … for past 2 to 10 years and more of your career. You were looking forward to a much deserved promotion and a better economical status.

However the present economic situation altered all that …

So what went wrong? And more importantly, what skills do you need to ensure that you are never again caught in such a situation? Read on …

What went wrong: External forces, the economy, the financial situation that the world sees itself in … all these are not of your making, they are not your fault. Then why is it that a just God, a generous God has allowed it to affect you?

New situations need new skills, new challenges need new approaches. “Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.” ~ Albert Einstein

1. Financial skills – Control your financial health

Learn what your assets and liabilities actually are, and what your cash flow is and what your survivability factor is. You must learn to manage your cash flow and increase your passive income and thus your survivability factor to become free from financial stress.

The key words are “leverage” and “control”. How much are you leveraging others efforts and others money legally and ethically? How much are you in control of the end results? “When our cash flow is poor, we can't do what we need to do.” ~ Cassandra Dunn

Read Robert Kiyosaki books like “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and “Why we want you to be rich”. Also books by Kim Kiyosaki, read their blogs, subscribe to their newsletters, read their book reviews too (you get a good synopsis … for free).

2. Thinking skills – Protect your mental health

The more information and knowledge we acquire, the faster the third partner wisdom disappears. We must learn to think what we think, be positive, question and rebel.

(a) Be Aware: Learn to think what you think. Catch yourself. Watch your thoughts. “Come aware and see what kind of BEING it is that we express in the Moment.” ~ Guy Finley

(b) Be Positive: It takes courage, faith, self-esteem and confidence to be positive in a negative world. “If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.” ~ John Heywood

(c) Adapt: Question, analyze, think for yourself. Be a rebel. Forge your own path. Associate with leaders who have what you want, who are doing what you want to do and who are being what you want to become. Be unreasonable. “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.” ~ George Bernard Shaw

3. Thanking skills - Enrich your spiritual health

Law of attraction works best when we have an attitude of gratitude. Listing out all that we are grateful for helps put us in the receiving mode … to receive good things from the Universe. Be grateful for successes and also for the failures and challenges. Admit the setbacks (fears, weaknesses, and challenges), Ask forgiveness for them, Give Thanks to God for them, learn the lesson intended, set them aside & Begin the comeback process. “Gratitude is not only the memory but the homage of the heart rendered to God for his goodness.” ~ Nathaniel Parker Willis

4. Relationship skills – Invest for your emotional health

Emotional quotient is a great buzz word in the recruitment scene. Managers prefer EQ to IQ and mere technical skills. Why? Because it is good relationships that anchor us during stormy seas, give us good ballast and adjust our sails for a smooth journey and safe arrival at a desired destination. “With the furious pace of change in business today, difficulty to manage relationships sabotages more business than anything else - it is not a question of strategy that gets us into trouble, it's a question of emotions.”~ John Kotter

5. Serving skills – Enhance your social health

Learn, prosper and then give back. The single most important reason for your lack of wealth is your selfishness, the Me/You attitude; join the “We” brigade and achieve more. Real wealth always follows real service. To become wealthy: identify a need, find the solution and help many people … the more people you help, the wealthier you will be. “Whoever renders service to many puts himself in line for greatness - great wealth, great return, great satisfaction, great reputation and great joy.” ~ Jim Rohn

Start practicing these new skills. Be teachable, humble to learn, generous to teach and watch yourself grow resilient and famous like those leaders whom you admire today. Be the example for your children to follow. Start. Focus. Keep on going on. Plan purposely, Prepare prayerfully, Proceed positively, Pursue persistently … and you will be on the journey called success.

References:

1. “5 Steps to Escape being Downsized” by Naseem Mariam