Is the new Freelance Economy the future?

Empowered volunteers must attempt to envision the future needs of their volunteer work force as well as where their pool of talented volunteers may be drawn from. A recent article in Forbes reflected on studies that by 2020 freelancers, that is those who are self-employed hires for businesses on short term projects will make up 40% of those employed. Bloomberg business also provided a video on how freelancers are being created from the unemployment disruption and how everyone from stay at home moms who want to return to the work force to out of work professionals are taking control of their employment future.

The explanation for the hustle economy goes something like this. Businesses have fixed costs that they would rather turn into variable costs. In most cases labor costs are fixed and many economy experts say that it is to everyone’s benefit to have locally outsourced freelancers come in and handle small projects rather than keeping a dedicated workforce in house for the same work. This benefits the company with lower costs of labor, insurance and health care costs and it is also supposed to benefit the laborer who freelances by freeing them from being employed by a business.

For employees who have lost their job in the recent economic downturn and now his or her job has been replaced by someone who wears what were formerly two or three “hats”, the job reentry barriers are high. Retraining into the multiple hat worker environment with complimentary skills is daunting for many laid off workers.

The newly created productivity shown by the remaining employees who took on additional job burdens during the downturn, hoping relief was only a short time away now find themselves facing a new business reality, employers have seen the productive pattern and have averted their eyes to the human costs of grinding overtime and always being “on call” to the human toll. After all, the employees can always be replaced, like a cog in a wheel is the prevailing opinion for many of the business owners participating in this new economy. Well, that is except for the shrill cry of businesses claiming that American workers are not well trained and don’t have the new skills to be hired.

For those individuals with the entrepreneurial bug, this new freelancing strategy, often cited as an off shoot of consulting will be a welcome adventure. But not every one likes to live on the edge, often being unable to pay for health care or any kind of 401K savings. Type “A” personalities with high energy and who are not risk adverse have in the past succeeded in this kind of atmosphere. But what about those who don’t have the skill set to compete in this new economy? Where do they learn public speaking, needed business skills, networking, and many other skills needed to succeed in this evolving economy?

Empowered volunteers have opportunities that fill the needs of the people who are going to drive the new hustle economy. These people will not likely come out of college already set up in networking 101, they will have to expand their network beyond their former peers. Those who want to succeed will need to practice leadership of small groups and short term projects. They will need sales skills that are perfect for the volunteer group needing to raise funds. In short, good volunteers often have or are seeking these very skills which the new economy is going to require from the participants who either seek or are forced into freelancing.

It seems that at some point in the future the economy will recover for most of us. If the hustle economy is going to drive the future, ensure that you have the skills and the endurance to compete and to survive. Volunteer, find the skills you need and practice the skills you will need. The charity your group supports will thank you, your associates will thank you, and lastly keep in mind the many health benefits you gain from proper volunteering. If you have not yet read my prior posts on the health benefits, feel free to check out the earlier posts.

As I write this, the government is in shutdown. Congress is divided like few times in our past. The potential for a dooms day economic collapse has seldom been greater. This would usher in times like the Great Depression and all of the human toll that history documented if our legislatures don’t find a way to cooperate.

Even if this dire set of circumstances is avoided again as it was recently with the stimulus infusions that are still very misunderstood, we will still be set with high unemployment and limited potential if a divided Congress continues to avoid taking any possible helpful action.

For better or worse, the future belongs to the bold and those who will challenge themselves to build something or start something. Many of those who venture into these uncharted waters will need to find the skills and they won’t be able to succeed if they do it through some kind of “hard knocks” university. Volunteering can help them tremendously.

How do we iron out the economy? Only good policy can do that and it is beyond the scope of our topic today. But one thing is sure, most people need to worry about their individual economy. That means their future and their future depends on other people in one way or another. We rise or fall together in the volunteer business just as we do as a society.

Examples of volunteer needs abound, here I present only a few. Rotary are full of business people and are often in need of fresh new faces, as are clubs which support landlords or other investment groups. Toastmasters have great programs which train speakers for business platforms of all kinds. Nearly all charity supported volunteer groups need fundraisers. Charities need members on the boards of directors for strategic planning, as well as accounting, investment advice, etc. From the worker who rallies the troops to the focused fundraiser, all positions are in need of filling in many volunteer groups.

In the hustle economy if you are merely hoping to remain home to watch the new TV season of shows, you are missing a great opportunity to network and to practice social skills that can make a huge impact on your future. Get out there and volunteer at least twice a month! You will be the better for having done so.

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New Hustle Economy

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In 1992 Ross Parrot ran for President of the United States. A wealthy businessman, he used charts and slogans to make his points for the American public. He is famous for many things, but his phrase, “The great sucking sound” that would be the result of passing the Free Trade Agreement became a catch phrase for all sudden job transfers between countries or regions.

Parrot was referring to the loss of American jobs to Mexico and over seas if what came to be known as NAFTA was passed. Bill Clinton won the election and he signed NAFTA in January of 1994.

Elements of NAFTA offered incentives for business owners to outsource, allowing a path for the destruction of what remained of the American labor movement. With that last shred of protection from big business the great transfer of wealth from the populace to the very wealthy could continue and has up to recent times. Deregulation and the housing bust, supported by both political parties over time sealed the fate of the American worker’s safety nets and hard fought rights to collective bargaining.

Recent GOP policy shifts have provided a path for the total dismantling of even government collective bargaining groups at the state level in Wisconsin, with many other states in the process of attempting to follow suit. The rallying cry was that state unions were hurting the economy and state budgets. History showed us the need for collective bargaining from the free economy days of monopolies, particularly in American history.

Socialism on a world level was given greater credit when it was observed that the “hidden hand” of capitalism flat our failed to work as predicted to prevent the support of the workers for safe working conditions, among other things. Why should anyone want to be an economic slave? Better to share the economy and live than to return to some version of debtors prisons was one of the rationals.

More and more people are seeing their safety nets evaporating as one business after another is taking pension funds and health care and either canceling them or reworking them to off load the responsibility to someone else, often the tax payers in the case of air lines and steel companies, not to mention several others.

Several businessmen have followed the money and bought companies for their lucrative pension funds and health care, only to take the company into debt to pay off the investment stakeholders and then let the company sail on it’s merry way to either sink or swim.

Mitt Romney, a recent GOP candidate for U. S. President was highly successful at taking companies, loading them up with debt and sending them on their merry way to sink or swim. He made a fortune at this type of activity, following a long and illustrious list of previous businessmen who had blazed that trail ahead of him. He also used outsourcing as a wonderful leverage option, resulting in the loss of jobs according to many reports posted during the election cycle.

For the empowered volunteer all this is simply a basic review of recent history, but so what? Well, it matters a bunch. The people who have lost their jobs are now hustling for a living. The people who have a job are sweating losing theirs. Big business has recaptured the position of the 800 pound gorilla. Jobs that have been lost are now often combined into what used to be two or three previous jobs. The increased stress of doing the responsibility of what used to be two or three jobs will show up in the health patterns of U.S. workers in the future, but by then it will be too late. With no protections from big business, the negative pattern of the industrialization age will repeat itself in modern times, with predictable results of continued wealth transfer and depreciating social capital for those who survive.

None of those results involve the upward mobility of most Americans. The gap between the quote, “haves and have nots” has even captured the attention of economists now, with no solution in sight. The Reagan “Trickle down economy” failed at its most basic level. When you guide the flow of money to a tiny and select group and then hope it will be transferred to the rest of society, you ignore basic human motivation. I personally found much to admire about President Reagan, but his degree in economics gave him ideas which were found to be unworthy of a large economy like the United States.

What can those people who have either dropped off the hunt for entering the great middle class of Americans and just hope to be allowed to float or hover in the working class do to help alleviate the new physical body stresses they find themselves in? Beyond work outs and socializing, meditation and other relaxing programs they should volunteer.

I have elaborated on many earlier posts on the benefits of volunteering for the individuals health. The science is real, the benefits are too. However, in this new hustle economy where the labor force is now returning to the days before unification, where giant companies can and will again squash the individual spirit of any who don’t accept low wages and deregulating safety in the name of productivity, one must look towards their individual safety first. Everyone must return to survival mode and it is truly a survive until you can thrive situation in America today.

The uncounted thousands of American workers who have resorted to such things as freelancing their skills to cobble together an unfocused path towards making a living will likely in the future produce the first generation who can’t afford to retire.

Accountants, computer specialists, skilled trades, so many have turned towards this path of employment that it has spawned websites and other social media in support. Their efforts to find economies of scale in order to make a profit will find an end as big business notices and take action. Often, small businesses sacrifice health care and future retirement savings to simply survive the moment, while competing for the scraps of work that can be found from businesses who have downsized and now claim that they can’t find workers who have the skills needed to be employed.

This cycle is repetitive and unless some kind of outside stimulus emerges, such as a world war it will not be broken. In America we have a history of economic success after a war though, a positive one for society too.

Keep in mind that the American GI Bill was the result of the huge failure of efforts to reintroduce servicemen back into society after WWI. So Congress passed the act to encourage regular American’s to go to college. It worked very well and produced an American middle class that felt empowered and enlightened. Before the end of WWII, regular citizens had no chance of going to college! Only the elite could do that.

Today, education and the public support of it is under enormous stress from the political party who doesn’t see educated workers as worthy. In many states the public funds have been cut so much that real free public high school education is no longer worthy of helping drive our kids into good jobs. Only the wealthy can assure themselves of a post secondary education if this continues. Sound familiar from the short history lesson reviewed above?

It is not in the interest of a free capitalist economy for big business to allow the freelancers to associate or to empower themselves into any kind of actions which lead to unionization. Thus it is very unlikely to be allowed. There is an attempt right now for this to happen. I don’t give their chances much hope though.

Now that deregulation of some industries like banking has been shown to be dumb, again showing how human motivations conflict with a few theories that only a free economy can harvest the engine of American creativity and energy, the regular American family is left destitute and without a clear future while those who caused this failure profited enormously from their actions.

The empowered volunteer can’t fight this pattern and should not try to do so. But on an individual basis these people can be helped if they are willing to step outside of their hustling and just serve others. They can also improve their resources and their personal network, all good reasons to volunteer too. But the biggest reason is that volunteering has been scientifically shown to extend lives and positively affect an individuals health.

As a point of interest, a volunteer group was front and center in the push to pass the Serviceman’s Readjustment Act of 1944. The American Legion helped 8.8 million veterans get college or training which resulted in the transfer of many into the great middle class!

Help this growing segment of society live longer and better by inviting them to volunteer!

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Influence for empowered volunteers

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Influence is a concept that is in every persons life, and every empowered volunteer must understand this and how it applies to their situation.

Cultural influence drives our economy and our lives to a great extent. Teens revel in the newest and latest imagery for their “generation”. Slang, dress, and even sometimes purchasing power through their parents influenced by marketing provide trends. Vampires and zombies are an example that has shown up in movies, teen clothing choices, books, and of course TV shows.

The caption of Lenard Nemoy from Star Trek fame reflects a huge influence of the culture of science fiction, followed closely by Star Wars. These influences are being felt to this present day.

Political influence has a harsher history for most people. This idea brings up images of politicians in rooms behind closed doors making deals that will not be fully understood by the general public until it is too late.

How does the empowered volunteer influence his group or an individual for the greater good of the charity or the group supporting the charity? Is there a pattern or script to use so that success can be predicted? Strangely, there is.

In the book, “Influencer, the New Science of leading Change”, by a group of authors is identified a system and a process for influencing others. Joseph Grenny, Kerry Patterson, David Maxfield, Al Switzler, and Ron McMillan combined to write this book, in this case a second edition published in 2013.

“Influencers do three things better than others. They are clearer about the results they want to achieve and how they will measure them. They focus on a small number of vital behaviors that will help them achieve those results. They overdetermine change by amassing six sources of influence that both motivate and enable the vital behaviors.”

From the book the authors reflect on the 80-20 rule, where twenty percent of the factors needed to influence the changes will produce eighty percent of the desired results. This high leverage focus helps to keep the momentum going.

The six sources to engage are, personal motivation, personal ability, social motivation, social ability, structural motivation and lastly structural ability.

For some people reading this the information will not resonate. It may sound like too much work to do. But many people structure their campaign or project with these steps in mind, more or less. It is a process and thus it can be learned. That is the point.

An example from the book is how the authors suggest going about getting someone with a fear of something to take the action and see success from that, building on the successes until their behavior is sufficiently influenced that it is essentially modified or changed for the better.

The authors cite studies and data, but in a nut shell the idea is that nothing succeeds like success. So the influencer must have the person undergoing the change see small successes that drive the actions towards the goal that is desired.

How is this done?

“You achieve this by providing short-term, specific, easy, and low-stakes goals that specify the exact steps a person should take. Take complex tasks and make them simple; long tasks and make them short; vague tasks and make them specific; and high-stakes tasks and make them risk free.”

Some of this is very common leadership training and you may recognize my attempts for providing these concepts in earlier posts. When I suggest that there is no pressure in asking someone to join a group since no money is changing hands or other patterns of responsibility I am attempting to make the process “risk free” as one example.

One note here, these concepts are not some vague form of college professors book written without knowledge of the real world. These concepts were developed and proven in one of the most difficult cultural behavior change environments that we have in America, criminal release programs that wanted to rehabilitate and reform prisoners released back into society. The success rate is very impressive.

Dr. Mimi Silbert has been using these concepts to make positive behavior changes for released inmates for many years now, with great success, according to the authors.

The authors use many examples for their premise of influencing leaders. One of the ideas they suggest and which readers of this blog will recognize is “social capital” and how to use it effectively. This idea, that many people are better at projects and issues than just one, with reciprocal social engagements between people leading to more social trust and deeper levels of influence, allows for greater good projects and impacts than any one person could achieve.

The empowered volunteer must look to the future as well as focus on the day to day engagement of building the membership of the group.

Setting up these influencing factors as you build up your social skills recruiting new members will impact your future in huge ways. Use the empowered volunteer position as a stepping stone to further your skill building and you will benefit greatly, possibly even in your employment some day.

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Empowered Volunteers Pillars of Health Wisdom 2

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In the first Pillars of Health Wisdom post we reviewed stress, how to combat it in real life and then we showed how some sources of data and research gave us insight into how to deal with our busy lives for a healthier and longer life expectancy.

We also encountered the new word, positivity and how it can be utilized for better individual health, mainly through meditation exercises.

This post will show other pillars of health for the empowered volunteer but it will also move past the individual and embrace the greater good of society beyond what we saw in The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects our Health and Longevity by Michael Marmot in the last post.

Meditation has been documented in the history of mankind for thousands of years.

It seems that the western traditions did not embrace this practice nearly as early or as readily as the eastern cultures did. Philo of Alexandria is perhaps the first westerner to really investigate the “spiritual exercises” that we now call meditation. A Roman philosopher Plotinus also developed a system of meditative techniques we are told but they did not catch on with Christian meditations.

Saint Augustine also delved into meditations but he was in the end not satisfied with the results.

Meditation in the Old Testament is seen as influencing Judaism as well, with Jewish culture and writing seemingly always containing some form of meditative tradition. This would put Christians on firm footing for the use of meditation as a spiritual exercise, even if it was not found in the Bible.

Several translations of Genesis have the word meditation included in Genesis 24:63. This is true for all the translations that this author reviewed except for the Revised English Bible of 1989.

Even the online Hebrew translation has the word “meditation” in the verse, so I am inclined to go with the translations of those who have carried the Torah from the days of antiquity to the present day and to discount the one Bible translation which omitted the term.

This should end any claim that meditation is solely the process of eastern traditions and the practice of such exercises will make the practicing member suddenly a lapsed Christian. If someone lapses their Christian beliefs due to meditation, those beliefs were already on wobbly supports before the the individual conducted any meditation practices.

Meditation has more than just some benefits to mental concentration and an improved vagal tone connecting one’s heart to their brain. But if that was all it gave practicing members it would still be worth the effort.

The kind of meditation studied by Barbara L. Fredrickson, PH. D. in her book, Love 2.0 was of a Buddhist tradition called Loving-kindness Meditation (LKM). She found that, “The fact that reflection on social connection appeared to penetrate the body to affect enduring heart rhythms made us take a closer look.” She is referring to the medical health benefits here.

They found that the physical vagal tone improvements and other aspects on health were verified. These were rigorous scientific studies, with double blind population groups.

They also found what many church goers already knew, if a group does something in unison, their heart rates often synchronize. Evidence suggests that when a group synchronizes like this, they broaden their minds collectively.

Negative emotions narrow your views of the world, positive emotions broaden your views of the world. Meditation is one direct method of raising your positive emotions!

When this and other aspects of meditation happen people often feel more connected to each other and to the world as a whole. That concept alone has tremendous implications for society if we could just get enough of a population density to employ the techniques.

Fredrickson writes, “Clearly something powerful was embedded within this simple thought exercise.” She continues, “From the perspective of emotions science, LKM is not the least bit supernatural”.

Meditation in the United States has had a mixed history. The Beatles were known to have used Transcendental Meditation (TM), which had ups and downs according to how prominent the profile of the latest celebrity membership was at that time.

Some studies found merit in the practice but then some claims by the leader for “flying” were simply not true, at least for the observed physical body.

Claims of spirit flying or astral projection have yet to find any study validation that I am aware of. Things like this and others, popularized in books such as Wisdom of the Mystic Masters, by Joseph J. Weed tended to give new age thinking a bad reputation, something that meditation often found itself included into even if it was unrelated to crystal therapy and other such practices on the new age front.

Practitioners of martial arts brought versions of meditation to the United States after WWII. These forms of meditation were highly influenced by the style that it was learned under, with the associated cultural leanings that accompany any such culture transfers. Karate and Kung Fu members tended to reflect their styles in their meditation practices.

I learned meditation personally in 1979 from a Hopkido practitioner who was my dorm neighbor in college. He was an anthropology major and he was a black belt who usually refused to teach others in the dorm due to the aggression many in our house exhibited.

When some of us did persuade him to work with us, we were taught meditation and breathing katas, which were simply an arrangement of moves coordinated with the forceful intake or exhaling of breaths.

Meditation was focusing on an object, often a candle that flickered if one was practiced enough with an immobile object. The idea was to strengthen one’s individual ability to focus.

Every martial art style seemed to have meditation in it. Ninja’s, popular in the 1990′s had several levels if the books and printed material were to be believed. Most martial artists I knew liked the meditation but declined to follow any of the eastern religious underpinnings.

When I was in boot camp, one die hard gym rat had aspirations of becoming a U.S Navy SEAL. We constantly saw him sitting next to his “rack” meditating after normal working hours. The Christian cross he wore certainly did not reflect any eastern religious traditions either. He claimed a high accomplishment in a martial arts style that I was unfamiliar with at that time so I don’t recall which one it was. I remember him as the most even keeled guy I ever met. I don’t know if he made it into the Teams, but his chances seemed pretty good to us at the time.

He was sure in control of his emotions during boot camp and he could do hundreds of push ups, on demand. He said it was all due to his mental training, much of which he credited to meditation.

Also popular the last few decades is the Edgar Cayce meditation techniques, which are available online. The Association for Research and Enlightenment (ARE) is a very fun place to visit, located in Va. Beach, Va. Edgar Cayce was a Christian clergyman who became known as the sleeping prophet.

LKM is a better scheme of meditation than I was taught for what I need in the hear and now and also for what I am suggesting for the empowered volunteers out there. It seems also to be the most studied version of meditation too.

While improving your focus is worthy and achievable, it is more helpful to achieve the health improvements associated with this specific type of meditation. There are many people who need to register a much needed break from the stress induced impact of their job or their commute or other stress producing portions of their lives. They need LKM and most have never heard of it.

Today, it is very hard to have too many stress busting processes. LKM is a great technique that works and has great value for every single person who has excess stress.

The key to LKM is that it produces a measurable effect on the human body reflected in the body language which studies with solid empirical evidence have reflected, “will take whatever positive feelings you generate in LKM are likely to imbue the rest of your day with more positivity as well.”

Furthermore, the “Pathways through which LKM seeds subsequent moments of positivity resonance are wholly physical.” Fredrickson continues, “Since nonverbal gestures are contagious, your openness also allows others to become more open and relaxed. Meeting each other with openness like this increases the odds that the two of you will come into sync.”

If you ask any salesman, they would love to have a method of generating more rapport with their clients. Every businessperson would love to go into meetings generating and emitting nonverbal signals embedded with positive feelings which the other members would pick up on and react more positively to, hopefully helping his or her presentation close positively. Teachers would love to have their students receive the messages more deeply due to positive messaging transfer too.

Things usually go better with positive vibrations!

The message received through a more positive delivery method always has a better chance of being received more positively, and therefore it also has a better chance of being accepted.

The old saying, it’s not what you say, but how you say it really resonates when you used LKM.

Everyone would love to have more positive interactions in their lives! This is the one thing that an individual can do that can ensure your positive emotions will be generated and received by many if not most of those around you.

Every empowered volunteer should carefully consider this technique for their own health as well as their impact in spreading the volunteer message. If you present your message in a better tone, it will be heard more clearly and it will be received more readily.

So LKM gives the meditating member better health over time and also puts the member into a better state for presenting the empowered volunteer message! This increases the potential for success in membership building, thus helping the charity too. Everyone wins under these circumstances.

Below are links to studies which are current and give compelling reasons for engaging in positive mental training for better individual health and also for better results in interactions with other humans.

1) Can Meditation Change Compassionate Behavior?

http://www.mindandlife.org/can-meditation-change-compassionate-behavior/

2) Meditation causes compassionate action?

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/meditation_causes_compassionate_action

3) Morality and Meditation?

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html?src=me&ref=general&_r=1&

So take heart if you read this article dear empowered volunteer.

The next time you meditate, know that you’re not just benefiting yourself, you’re also benefiting your neighbors, community members and as-yet-unknown strangers by increasing the odds that you’ll feel their pain when the time comes, and act to lessen it as well.

4) This link is a deep study which many people may find too much to digest. It is offered for those who like to really dig into the material and know that the findings are sufficient to produce the effect claimed.

http://brainimaging.waisman.wisc.edu/publications/2013/WengCompassionPsychSci.pdf

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Empowered Volunteers Pillars of Health Wisdom

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Stress moderation is at the top of the pillars of health care wisdom for the empowered volunteer. You can actually die from stress related effects.

When volunteers think of how to work their time around volunteer projects they don’t automatically think of stress. Their passion for the volunteer group or the charity supported by the group helps them prioritize their emotions and their time management. Simply put, they make it work no matter how much effort it takes to get the job done.

For the empowered volunteer, what is the incentive for someone who is not already involved in the represented group to join, pending their busy, busy, busy schedule? Obviously if they have a passion for the charity they might be persuaded. But what if they are not passionate for the charity? What then? They say that they are too stressed and that they don’t have any time! Then the empowered volunteer needs to refer to the pillars of health wisdom!

The empowered volunteer is all about helping people. That must be the first priority, above all other things.

If you put people first, the other things will find a way to resolve themselves, one way or another. Happy passionate people solve problems and they also brag about the experience. They also have better health, statistically speaking. First, let’s tackle the stress issue and then we will address the other health studies and how they affect our message.

Stress is manageable in our lives. But for those who find themselves under extreme stress they should explore the science discoveries from the power of positivity.

This topic was addressed by Barbara L. Fredrickson, Ph. D. in her book, nicely named Positivity! In it she presents credible and robust scientific evidence on how proper meditation helps humans deal with stress. Then she moves on to give concrete examples of how to meditate and other features in order to help drive your health benefits from lowering the effects from stress on your body. She has placed guided meditations and other simple tools on her website, which is very easy to use and worthy of a visit for anyone who would like to feel better in our stressful world. This kind of easy to do it yourself stress modification is why Dr. Fredrickson’s book and website are a pillar of wisdom for the empowered volunteer.

http://www.positivityratio.com/index.php

Once you go to the site, use the tools tab or the take the test tab and see how you are faring on an individual level. With over two decades of research on this subject along with tons of behavioral science supporting data going back several more decades it is worth checking it out and seeing if you can benefit. To be honest, everyone can benefit unless you just don’t want to let it help you. Meditation has been used by many civilizations for thousands of years, from Christians like St. Augustine to Chinese Kung Fu monks.

Never underestimate how you can improve your life with small changes that affect your health in a magnified way beyond the small time and effort you expend.

Decades of data from research into how social status affects your health are also available and helpful for the empowered volunteer to understand for their pillars of health wisdom. Scientists use the term social economic status (SES) for these kinds of studies and conversations about them. SES is in general terms an individual’s social level in society. Usually this is divided into three areas, low or working class, middle class and upper middle class or upper class status levels. Low class is the working people, usually living from pay check to pay check. Poverty level is below this group.

Middle class is the group who was lifted by many factors after WWII, but one of the most controversial was the GI Bill, which allowed many of those returning from the war to attend college and then better their lives with better paying jobs and more upward mobility. In this case, a veterans group was instrumental in helping pass this important piece of legislation, one which in looking back historians and economics agree was a huge success.

Harry W. Colmery, a former national commander of the American Legion and former Republican National Chairman, is credited with drawing up the first draft of the GI Bill.

Some people reading this will be surprised that a former Republican Party National Chairman could have been involved with promoting a middle class path towards education back in the days after WWII. Back then, only the very rich could afford college. But keep in mind, political parties change over time and their policies change over time too.

The GOP today is not your grandfather’s party! The current Republican Party thinking on education is reflective of some of those changes in mindset regarding middle class education at the high school level as well as for higher education and is thus beyond the scope of this post.

SES is very important to the empowered volunteer from the point of those who are least likely to be volunteering and which also can benefit the most from volunteering, health wise.

Upper middle class is more often defined as someone who has physical assets which generate enough income so that if that person suddenly stopped their regular employment they could still live off their passive income. This status level is worthy of achievement and is the focus of another pillar of wisdom, that of wealth which will be addressed in a forthcoming post. For our purposes here, the higher the status the better the likely hood of good health is expected.

Michael Marmot, in his ground breaking book 2004 book, The Status Syndrome, How Social Standing Affects Our Health and Longevity has reviewed and distilled the data results from over three decades of studies in order to write about how we can benefit from this knowledge.

One key to his book was that if someone has little autonomy over their lives, as most working class people find themselves, then they are more likely to have lower health.

This is true for many countries beyond the United States too. It goes further though, for those people reporting “the greater the degree of inequality of material deprivation and of income, the worse the health.” He found that low control over one’s life to be the big central factor that linked everything to health, happiness, etc.

In America’s past labor unions were often the only way for laborers to exert any form of control over their lives. Before the unions formed, safety and other factors we take for granted today were not common in many industries.

For those people then and even today in many industries, having some control over their life could determine their future health. Volunteering is one path towards restoring some form of control over one’s life if it is not found elsewhere. Each person can control how much they volunteer and where, and to what extent for each group they join.

This kind of life control opportunity can help them if they are in a job where they have little or no control over their lives.

The main thing here is that no matter what your station in life, you can do things to help your health and your mental or emotional wellbeing. The positivity ratio is so simple once you start that you will wonder why you have not heard of it before. I would suggest starting with the guided meditation and then moving on where ever you are comfortable. This tool is absolutely awesome for its potential to help people with high stress jobs.

The health harming aspects attributed to many working class jobs should surprise no one. They have been apparent for generations of American workers. From swing shifts to heated environments too hot to stay in for very long to extended nursing hours for patient coverage. The potential ways to combat the negative effects seem to have escaped the general public’s notice, until now hopefully. Even middle class American’s can use this information to their advantage so that the stress from the job doesn’t inflict further harm to your health.

Knowing the health harming effects of low autonomy is important for the health of employees and management.

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College Students as Empowered Volunteers

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College students wishful image of college experience

College students dream of their efforts at grades resulting in a work place in the real world where they are respected, wanted, and better treated than most find their college experience to be in real life. Unfortunately, a new poll from the Society of Human Resource Management reflects the perception in the hiring market that college students are NOT ready for work in the real world!

An article from the Kansas City Star and authored by Diane Stafford shows plenty of issues in the perception of the newly graduating college students. To be blunt, the numbers are really difficult and discouraging.

From the report we find English skills are not proficient in the eyes of the hiring managers. My first thought was are they talking in some sort of text lingo? The report did not go that deep, but no student should ever demonstrate their language skills in text talk around any business people who later may be in a position to network on their behalf.

“Forty-nine percent of human resource officials polled by the professional organization said this year’s college graduates lack basic English skills in grammar and spelling. Eighteen percent said the grads come up short in math and computation. Thirteen percent faulted the grads’ spoken English, and 10 percent cited a lack of reading comprehension.”

If that was not bad enough, the survey found that hiring professionals also expressed that their “biggest complaint by hirers was that the graduates lacked “professionalism” or “work ethic,” a deficiency listed by half of those surveyed. Nearly half detected a lack of “business acumen.” as well.

High School image of college experience

Further reading on the poll showed that 20% of hiring professionals see graduates as “under-qualified” for their job openings. This is really hard core real world data that should smack every college student and high school student thinking of college up the side of their heads!

College student on bike with backpack

College students often think they deal with real world reality when they hit campuses every year. The cost of a car may be too much, so a bike may be used to save on gas, if they even have a car for instance! Sitting on the grass singing camp fire songs is something that is rare too on real world campuses. College is competitive and it is a business, from both ends of the experience, the school end and the student end.

Students study in the library

Where is the average college student going to get the skills that the Society of Human Resource Management members see many of them lacking? Well, one place could be as an empowered volunteer if the student has positioned him or herself for that opportunity.

A student could conceivably pull off a spontaneous empowered volunteer crusade, particularly if their results were worthy and verifiable in their past. Usually this would require a past history of success. Hopefully your volunteer track record supports your requests for the opportunity!

The social skills needed to deliver on demand a set number of qualified candidates is something worthy of a resume note, particularly when accompanied with the data support for the effort and the return on investment you produced by taking on the project lead the new members were required for in the first place and seeing that project to a successful conclusion, all with proper data documentation.

The potential to take the summer (if you have it off from classes) to volunteer between your income supporting job requirements and perhaps run a committee with a special project that delivers measurable results would also be a great resume addition. For this kind of opportunity to work, most likely you would have to be already a member of the group and have previously proven to be able to lead the effort, as justified by past successes.

This means that being seen in volunteer circles as a person who can get things done is well worth cultivating. You can’t start too early in this regard, since emotional intelligence or social intelligence are characteristics which are very hard to demonstrate numerically.

Poll showed graduates are more likely to be “tech savvy” over older applicants.

From college applications to resumes, everything goes better with data on it. Data can be demonstrated in many ways, but failure to gather data is one potential deal killing detail that in the business world is unforgivable. Never fail to gather meaningful and pertinent data at every potential chance, you can always condense and edit the data later. Once the data is lost, it is usually not recoverable.

If you can show a trend in growth for building memberships, finishing projects, leading small groups or teams to completion of a special project, or take on a task that no one else wanted and succeed, then you can be one of the graduates who can demonstrate that you have business sense that they are looking according in this poll.

The key is to document things properly and to do so consistently early on in your student life. You can’t have too much data to draw on, and depending on how many different resumes you will have to produce, different data might be needed on different targeted resumes.

College student in lighter moment

A real life example of something the hiring managers might consider worthy would be taking your church group’s initiative to start a new youth camp at a new facility which previously had not existed, with no ready source of funding identified. You conceived the idea and sold the it to the church leaders, successfully promoted and funded it through your social capital sources built over your high school time as well as business sponsors you successfully pitched, and then implemented the structure for the camp to continue into the future, all on a budget. That is a very worthy project if your numbers reflect your story properly!

Business leaders positively favor those who can bring in a project on time which they had to seek donations to fund and then kept to a budget as well.

Make no mistake, leading volunteers is challenging for anyone, but for college students the challenges of leading others who are likely to be older than you are even greater. The social skills needed to stroke the right emotions on each and every member in order to get the desired results are vital to your success and they are very easily transferable to the real world when you interview with a hiring manager who wants demonstrated successes. They will want to know how you got your team motivated and how you kept them on track for an entire summer when most people have other things they would rather be doing.

Be ready to illustrate your success with good answers that reflect team building words, keeping the “I’s” to a minimum.

College student in suit on steps looking for a job

The same poll found that currently hiring managers described as “very difficult” jobs to fill were engineers, computer technicians, programmers, scientists, and skilled trades which are often more on the job training or technical school sourcing rather than requiring college.

STEM Majors

If you are in a major which is not a STEM type (science, technology, engineering, or math) such as political science, humanities, languages, or perhaps philosophy and you find your resume short on business supporting data points reflected in this poll, consider using the empowered volunteer strategy for some resume muscle building.

Finding jobs today is better conducted when you have an active network that can support you. People who have already worked with you and found your work ethic worthy are much more likely to support your effort to find the underground network of unadvertised jobs too. Way too many of those who go into STEM majors find themselves without the ability to demonstrate their soft skill sets, their social intelligence, or their emotional intelligence data points too.

Everyone needs to improve their soft skills while properly recording and documenting their achievements which demonstrate these skills in abundance for the competitive job market graduates are finding themselves in today.

Empowered volunteers in college can be the cream that rises to the top if they plan accordingly for success by becoming an empowered volunteer, making themselves more ready for the real world.

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Giving in the real world, both unknown and famous

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Man giving a rose to a lady, who accepts it gracefully

Men have given ladies gifts ever since couples have gathered into families, perhaps earlier! In the real world, ladies admire men who can set the gift giving bar high as well. Volunteering is giving of your time and expertise over money, something that is worthy for everyone to do, no matter what your social economic status or political leanings.

Donations are often thought of for charities, with fund raisers common for high profile charities that often as not are sponsored and have high status figures leading the fund raising. This helps the charity and the contributors often see benefits in the area of tax incentives.

At the time of this writing Warren Buffett is offering a free online course, “Giving with a Purpose” with the chance to help him decided how to spend over $100k of his sisters money! That kind of course is a first as far as I can tell.

Bill Gates

Volunteers without vast wealth are simply donating their time more than their money in the real world. They are often not able to donate their money in the sums that would make huge differences in the same way that Bill Gates does with his vast wealth, taking on diseases around the world. So time is traded instead of money. Giving your time instead of giving your money becomes the working class way of staying involved and still making a difference.

Bill Clinton, author of Giving, How each of us can change the world

In his best selling book, Giving, How Each of Us Can Change The World, former U. S. President Bill Clinton makes a very powerful case for how everyone in the world can help improve the world through giving or volunteering of their time or money or a combination of both, regardless of their social economic status.

He talks about the Make-A-Wish foundation volunteers who will “leave you feeling good about yourself”. On the next page of this book he relates about how volunteers built houses to turn over to residents in need for another charity group. The giving can come in many different forms and result in many different methods of helping those in need.

As a high status individual Bill Clinton has certainly provided leadership for giving that is way beyond what the normal man or women could do! He has social capital that most of us could only dream about.

In the real world, we have examples of political rivals who have set aside their differences to work together. Former U. S. President Bush Senior and former President Clinton have set a very high bar for such unified efforts, among them the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund.

Former U.S. President Carter has for years led programs of volunteers for very worthy efforts, with very high public praise for his achievements. He has certainly led by example when it comes to volunteering to make a difference in the real world.

The first U.S. President of the Bush family, George H.W. Bush had his faith based initiatives which resulted in the Points of Light group, a group still operating and helping others. Today he is visiting the White House where President Obama recognized the 5,000th Daily Point of Light Award, which went to a retired farm couple from Iowa.

Giving and volunteering seem to abound in the top levels of American Politics, intersecting with the real world in a very profound way that has resulted in enormous benefits to mankind.

Campaign button for President Ford in 1976

American Presidents have a long tradition of enjoying volunteer groups, with 15 known members taking the first degree and 14 completing the required 3d degree to become Master Masons, the last one being Gerald Ford. Abe Lincoln petitioned but did not go through with the Freemason initiation and Bill Clinton was a member of the youth group of Masons, called the DeMolay named after a historical figure who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition.

Past U. S. Presidents who were involved in other volunteer groups which still operate today were Warren G. Harding, FDR, and Harry Truman who all belonged to the Masons as well as the Elks, the Moose, and the Odd Fellows!

That is a bunch of volunteering over time. It is worthy to note that these groups all share some common values, and they were at one time known to also have some initiation similarities. Today they mostly share a common membership belief in a Supreme Being along with what today we would call family values in various forms.

Teddy Roosevelt in Yellowstone

Teddy Roosevelt, our 26th U.S. President had a love of volunteering it seems, with his many accomplishments including the founding of the NCAA, his support for various conservation efforts which helped establish our National Parks, his many public service posts, and of course his most famous volunteer effort historically was his inclusion in the 1st United States Volunteer Cavalry, a portion of which he later led and was nick named, the “Rough Riders”. It’s hard to be more into giving of time or money than this individual, considering his impact on the future of our National Parks particularly.

Rough Riders photo

Of course, Teddy Roosevelt volunteered to be President so frequently that he was later the focus of legislation to limit the terms a person can serve for the U. S. Presidency! You can perhaps give a bit too much it seems.

Former President Bill Clinton wrote a whole book on giving as we noted above, with over 200 pages of examples and information on how individuals and groups can make a difference in today’s world. This post is not for book reviewing, but I would say that the book is a worthy start for those wanting to become an empowered volunteer or to rebuild America while seeking their potential for giving in today’s real world, no matter if you are unknown or famous.

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Living in the Real World

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Red sky in morning, sailors take warning! Real world views of nature in contrast!

What is the “real world” for the empowered volunteer? I have personally been in a few groups where the idea of emerging into the real world was viewed as many things, exciting, growth oriented, scary and to be avoided, or simply as another stage of development.

Students, both high school and college face this phrase in their emerging from the student atmosphere and entering the next stage of their life. I don’t know how many times I heard while going to college that we were not living in the real world.

Dr. Phil McGraw in his powerful book on real world living, Life Code, The New Rules For Winning in the Real World writes on what he calls BAITERS, which stands for backstabbers, abusers, imposters, takers, exploiters, and reckless members of the individuals you encounter. This list really helps organize the people you can encounter who do not wish you to succeed.

I will have to say, in my experience Dr. Phil’s book on these “real world” people is dead on correct and I really wish I had been able to read his book way back when I was in college! Because you can and often do encounter all of these people types in your college experience and in my case I encountered many more of them in my graduate college experience too. I would encourage everyone who plans on interacting with people to read and digest his book so they can minimize the negative impact these people have on your life and career.

The college experience can prepare you for the real world is my point here, at least in how to effectively deal with people who do NOT have your best interests in mind.

Another group which uses the “real world” us versus them mentality is the military. Somehow it is felt that those in the military don’t live in the real world. That is of course nonsense, but it is a mentality which is often felt and even promoted by some people, many of who I would label BAITERS from Dr. Phil’s book!

I repeatedly found in my military career examples of BAITERS who not only not have my best interests in mind but they did not have the team’s (ship, command, or whatever) best interests in mind either. How to deal with them once you are their latest target would have been incredibly helpful if this book had been available.

Another place where the “real world” is supposed to not be interwoven with is volunteer groups, NGO groups, activists groups, and other special interest groups.

I don’t think that the volunteers in the Peace Corps or volunteers in the Rotary helping to vaccinate against infectious diseases are somehow disengaged from the real world. They are simply working on a focused part of the real world, where they trade back and forth between specialties and then widen their focus when they are not doing a specific world task.

Some people have claimed that those who live in academia after tenure no longer participate in the real world.

They put it even more impolitely, saying, “Those who can, do, those who can’t teach”. Wow, is that a really harsh way of labeling teachers and those in the profession of education? We heard this and related themes of distorted reality in the last presidential election from the party that is even today really pressuring students to carry a much higher percentage of the cost of higher education than those in the past have done. Many say this is to further erode the opportunities of the middle class, but that is yet to be shown in the data results. Personally I like data to sort the truth from the emotional responses, but that is just me.

Politics is another lofty area where the term real world applies in different meanings depending on your party affiliation. Real world Tea Party doesn’t equal real world GOP or real world Democrats unfortunately. Sorting these conflicting issues for the political volunteers or even the citizen voter is demanding and also important for America’s future.

In my next post I will explore more of the real world from the volunteers perspective and how to minimize or dampen the negative impact some BAITERS would provide for the new empowered volunteers who are trying to make the world a better place.

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Empowered Volunteer Neighbors Risk versus Reward

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Every citizen neighbor of every country is constantly doing calculations of risk versus rewards for a stream of decisions every day of their lives. That is the nature of living here on earth.

High Risk

The empowered volunteer also faces the risk versus reward scenario’s, but for the most part they are not life or death when it comes to inviting a prospect to join a neighborhood charity volunteer group. The risks are less of a threat, but the rewards can often be much more far reaching and in some scenario’s much more dramatic.

If the risk for the empowered volunteer is low then, what is the potential reward? Glad you asked! The reward for gaining the skills and knowledge in how to get people to join a group for their own benefit as well as the groups benefit is huge and can be applied to the local community where you live as an example.

Communities survive and thrive on risk management transferred through individual levels of reciprocity between members. It’s just that simple.

If the local community members are known to each other and have previously established a level of trust then in situations of outside stress they can rely on each other and support each other. This was the basis of the American community for our early years.

In cities or in the rural areas neighbors helped neighbors all over the world 50 years ago. Today, in many areas neighbors don’t know each other more than to wave when they are outside shoveling snow or cutting the grass. They more often than not are unaware of the other’s name. Even in the cities where being from the “neighborhood” meant something years ago, today it is much less meaningful in many places, unfortunately.

If the empowered volunteer finds him or herself learning their neighbors names and other associated information they are in a much better position to engage in reciprocity and networking.

This is social capital in action, as reported on in the book, Bowling Alone, by Robert Putnam, a Harvard scientist. He identified the issue that initially generated my convictions on helping solve the membership decline in American volunteer groups. But the issue extended to neighborhoods too. So my solution to this should extend to neighborhoods as well, in my mind at least.

When you help someone, even if it is only to show an interest in them and establish a bond or some level of trust, you help both parties involved. See previous posts on the many health and other benefits gained by both parties in these type of events.

They don’t have to join to become a bit more interested in the neighborhood, they could simply take an interest in another neighbor and being more friendly to someone else, extending the idea in a domino effect.

American farmer stories abound with someone getting hurt and his neighbor drives the tractor over, plows the field or plants it or even harvests it, and never even stops to say much. They do the work, and return to do their own. In my youth they may have shouted out on the CB radio a hi or bye, but that’s about it. Everyone stood by each other, without fan fare or any fuss.

Neighborhoods in the city often operate in similar fashion. Believe it or not, this is not an American institution, it can be observed in many countries. People locally are much more likely to help their neighbor than someone they don’t know in these cases.

Neighborhood risk management is fundamental to American citizenship and to the American lifestyle.

We are constantly pulled towards big government for some things and to local government for other things. This can make for a stressful political atmosphere, where one candidate can claim that 47% of the other group is not worthy of his votes even. This kind of division is really sad.

For the empowered volunteer anything and everything that can happen will impact the local community. Thus, if you are to hedge your bets on how to react to any one event or even a large event such as a power grid-down scenario you are much better off if you have already established yourself in your community as a worthy person who is known and respected.

There is no need for politics here, indeed I would counsel against it. Politics divide and in this type of thinking you want inclusiveness rather than division. You want to know each and every person within walking distance at the very least if you can. Know them by name if possible, but know them by face at the very least.

It is empowering to just be one of the people who knows everyone in the neighborhood by name, or even a first name basis!

In my youth block parties were common. They are still used in some parts of the country but I think they are used less and less. This is a shame.

For any disaster that you can think of, citizens are impacted and react according to how well they know their neighbors. For economic stresses, neighbors that care are better than strangers. For major natural disasters like hurricanes, earthquakes, wild firers, or even mudslides knowing your neighbors as you are standing behind the police tape is better than suddenly introducing yourselves to each other.

People that know others and can ask for help with a better than average likelihood of success are valuable, but to be in that position you must be known and have a network already created.

The empowered volunteer is in a unique position for influencing the risks of his or her neighborhood. They will find success helping their group over time and that learning process will be one that can transfer to other team building groups forever. All groups, churches, volunteer groups that are less organized than the formal ones I have mentioned before, perhaps a start up group to construct local neighborhood needs, any sort of needs can be better met with a group of like minded citizens.

I would encourage all empowered volunteers to actively solicit in their neighborhood for their group, if appropriate. This is a great excuse to exercise your techniques, meet the neighbors and embrace them wither or not they join the group, to fully extend your network beyond your work or charity related associates, raise awareness for your cause or charity and ensure a positive messages is transmitted in your immediate area, and to learn how to make friends and influence people of all kinds. These skills may just come in handy some day if you ever have a situation where you face a risk versus reward that is wide spread in nature.

The risks for meeting your neighbors is small and the rewards may just be life saving some day. Embrace your neighbors, you will be better off for it.

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Body language of the empowered volunteer

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Body language is something not often discussed openly in volunteer groups, but it can be a prime factor in the empowered volunteers success.

For many people who take on the challenge of volunteer group membership building it will be the their first encounter with sales or any form of direct solicitation with the possible exception of helping a child move some Girl Scout cookies.

body

This means that most empowered volunteers will have only informal or nonexistent knowledge of body language mechanics that are not dramatic, such as poses like that of a boxer or acting poses for the most part. This post can’t substitute for books or videos on the subject but a few reminders and a bit of structure can go a long way towards success in prospecting.

hand shake

The hand shake is often the initial response to meeting someone for the first time or renewing an old relationship, even if it is only one of customer sales relationship. Usually hand shaking is a normal way of renewing relationships too.

There are variations of the regular handshake, but most of them should be avoided. The normal firm, grip to grip is expected, no matter what the combination of the two involved, mixed sex or both male or both female.

The sometimes encountered “fingers only” grip some lades give sends a message that is in my experience followed up by either indifferent or negative body language, telling the other hand shaker that the message is not being received well. In my limited experience when I was on the receiving end of this partial handshake, the interaction was always difficult and for her part indifferent.

I suggest any female empowered volunteers always avoid the fingers only hand shake.

For the rest of the body language supported hand shakes such as the two handed politicians grip, or the over the top businessman who shakes but also includes the other hand on the elbow or worse, on the shoulder, these have no good use for the empowered volunteer. They convey way too much intimacy for nearly all encounters you will find with even well known prospects.

From The Definitive Book of Body Language, by Allan and Barbara Pease I have gleaned some very helpful hints for the new empowered volunteer to employ. Select which, if not all of these helpful hints Allan and Barbara Pease provide in their international bestseller, revised and expanded edition of Signals you find worthy of employing.

Laughing is unique to humans and worthy of cultivation by the new empowered volunteer, even if it needs practice and refinement before being used in public. Allan and Barbara point out research that in the 1980′s several American hospitals introduced the “Laughter Room” for medicinal purposes. All it took was 30 to 60 minutes a day to show dramatic results in many forms for patients, including painkiller drug reductions. Laughter and smiling are powerful features for any human to use in bonding.

They concluded, “He who laughs, lasts”.

Humor research has determined that, “Only 15 percent of our laughter has to do with the jokes. Laughter has more to do with bonding.” Relationship building is what is more important and jokes are a fundamental tool for that bridging. Further research concludes, “The results demonstrate that the more social a situation is, the more often people will laugh and the longer each laugh will last.”

Advertisers know that humor sells too. A marketing professor, Karen Machleit from the University of Cincinnati’s College of Business Administration found that consumers will accept advertisers claim if humor in included, such as a funny ad with a famous person will become even more readily accepted.

Empowered volunteers will be more effective if they find ways to include humor in their presentation.

Smiling has been studied and the results are predictable, women smile more than men. The portion for the empowered volunteer to take from this is that for women, smile less when dealing with dominant men in business or to mirror the amount of smiling that men do. Unfortunately this is a fine line, research shows that for women photos of unsmiling women were judged to be unhappy while the same thing for men were judged as a sign of dominance. Male empowered volunteers in dealing with women need to smile more in all contexts, according to the authors.

From a health perspective many posts have shown that when properly applied, many of the suggestions for the empowered volunteer help parts of the body cope better or help extend the life expectancy of one’s life. In short, body language that is positive will have health benefits and body language that is negative doesn’t help.

In this case, another fact the authors bring up is that, “Evidence shows conclusively that smiles and laughter build the immune system, defend the body against illness and disease, medicate the body, sell ideas, teach better, attract more friends, and extend life. Humor heals.”

The authors include a section on touching to gain maximum effectiveness for your message and it is very detailed, with the percentage of success between different European nationalities and how exactly, “skillful elbow-touching can give you up to three times the chance of getting what your want”. At this point the fine points are too detailed for this forum, I would encourage the empowered volunteer to either view their website or to purchase or borrow their book. Information from their website can be found here.

http://www.peaseinternational.com/

Also, through the power of the internet a pdf is available for downloading. It is large so allow time of a minute or so for downloading please. It contains a bunch of the information I have related already. I would recommend it if you can support this for a reference tool.

http://e-edu.nbu.bg/pluginfile.php/331752/mod_resource/content/0/Allan_and_Barbara_Pease_-_Body_Language_The_Definitive_Book.pdf

Something interesting to note, cultural differences between world regions. Europeans and Westerners blow their nose into a handkerchief while Asians and Japanese spit or snort! This stems from the days of tuberculous in past times, the authors say. Spitting, which is the Asian way of dealing with the same issue was seen as a method of spreading diseases, thus making it disgusting in the eyes of Westerners. For the empowered volunteer, avoid either in public if at all possible.

The authors also review lie detection, which is valuable for the empowered volunteer to know when the prospect is not being honest and thus they can disengage the presentation without the prospect ever knowing that they have been found out.

One detail I will mention, “Research shows that people smile less” when lying. Most people think its the opposite. In this case less positive or more negative means just that, the message is not good and the empowered volunteer should read the body language accordingly.

I am going to revisit a topic I have mentioned before, if you find these tips overwhelming or even daunting to learn you might consider broadening your mind and making your awareness to body language easier through another researcher, Barbara L. Fredrickson’s website on Positivity. The site provides for free a few guided meditation exercises that takes only a few minutes to learn and are very powerful at expanding your awareness of body language when done properly over a few weeks.

Couple these techniques from Barbara with the lessons in the book on pdf for body language listed above and you are on your way towards a better life no matter how well your prospecting goes! Here’s the website for the meditations as well as the positivity ratio needed for moving your life toward flourishing. Who doesn’t want to flourish?

http://www.positivityresonance.com/meditations.html

Body language can’t be learned overnight, nor would you want to believe that meditation techniques will transform your life experience overnight.

Extensive research show both tool sets reviewed in this post work and will help you live a healthier life if you use them and retrain your mind to work better. When you’re more positive and perhaps even funnier when appropriate you will be more effect in your encounters with others, whither you are trying to persuade them to your point of view or just trying to be friendly.

Enjoy the empowerment expanding your mind and improving your communication skills which the proper reading of body language can help you achieve.

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