Saturday, March 29, 2008

Is A Higher Education Really Worth The Money? Education is Outdated, Especially in Business

As a former financial broker and a graduate of an Accredited University, I look back on what exactly my education got me. It is important for you to understand that I worked very hard to graduate with honors and acquire the knowledge that I thought would make me rich. I even studied International Business in China, but the education lacked a sense of understanding how to create true wealth. I felt deceived when all I got was a very expensive piece of paper and a job that barely paid for the debt I'd piled on with the costs of college.

In this society we are conditioned to think that is okay to spend more than we make, and more importantly not invest in our future. When we are encouraged to invest, the returns balance the Interest on our current debts...if we're lucky. When an opportunity to supplement and someday replace an income that just no longer cuts it in this ever changing world, people view it as "risky".

So the question is, where is the real risk? The risk is in us relying on a system that is outdated and not self sustaining...AKA Pension plans, Social Security, Mutual Funds, etc. I don't know about you, but relying on outdated systems of security just don't seem to be that appealing anymore. An entrepreneurial spirit that harnesses the trends in the market will be the ones that benefit. Those that want to create their lives are grabbing a hold of opportunities that will create true wealth for their future.

As a writer, a musician, a world traveler, and an entrepreneur Matthew Frieling is a business marketing and leadership mentor. To find out more about Matthew's business ventures, please visit Squidoo or visit The Official Reverse Funnel System Page.

Friday, March 21, 2008

Online Training Opportunities In The Mental Health Industry

This article is part four of a series of five exploring unique and noteworthy trends in the mental health profession. The article focuses on Web Seminars and Online Training trends that are penetrating the mental health marketplace. The purpose for examining all of these trends is to note business opportunities and competitive influences within the industry.

Online Training: A Unique Way to Promote Your Services

Looking for ways to share your expertise and promote your services beyond traditional training opportunities? E-learning is fast becoming a powerful medium for building credibility and expanding one's reach at a national and international level. Online learning has also become an important vehicle for employee assistance programs and other practitioners who are seeking a presence within the corporate world. It allows you the ability to offer significant value to employees and managers using a platform they are familiar and comfortable using.

You can post your coursework with any existing training platform or simply create your own personal online training platform. I have seen business savvy clinicians use this form of training as an extension of clinical services they offer other practitioners and potential clients. How can you possibly do this without paying a pretty penny? Easy! In today's world there are several free open source learning management systems available to you. These systems allow you to quickly and easily create your own e-learning courses and programs. If you would like to find out what those platforms are I suggest searching under "free open source e-learning platforms" and you will find what you need.

Professional associations have also gotten into the e-learning game and offer numerous courses for members. Take a look at the American Counseling Association website and you will see a series of online offerings for their members. Posting a course on a national association website is another powerful way to expand your reach and build credibility within the profession.

Web Seminars (Webinars)

At present, Oprah Winfrey is offering a free 10-week web seminar with spiritual guru and author Eckhart Tolle. The webinar is being held every Monday 9 EST for 10 weeks. What is important to note about this hallmark event, whether you are an Oprah fan or not, is the fact that together they are delivering an interactive educational program on a global scale. Participants enter a virtual learning environment where they can access workbooks and course material, post questions and view real time discussions and presentations by Eckhart Tolle. Not impressed so far? How about the fact that they have over 700,000 participants each week from 139 different countries!

This single event demonstrates the power of web seminars and is introducing a mass audience to this technology. No longer is it simply a tool for facilitating virtual business meetings. It has become an effective vehicle to communicate a message, to build awareness and buy in about a particular topic and to offer an interactive educational experience.

Web Seminars, as part of the rising social nature of the web, will become more and more prominent in our near future. Larger behavioral healthcare organizations and practitioners alike will want to keep an eye on this model and think about how it might be useful in the mental health profession.

The information provided in these articles should offer practitioners some insight into what may lie ahead in the future as both a challenge and opportunity. Online training and web seminars are two trends worth exploring further.

Copyright 2008 - David Diana.

David Diana is a Licensed Professional Counselor and sales manager for Palmetto Behavioral Health, a private behavioral healthcare organization in South Carolina. In addition to his sales role, David provides consultative services to mental health practitioners in the community by helping them to market and grow their business. He is an experienced Licensed Professional Counselor and business consultant who has worked for many organizations in both the public and private sector to include IBM, PricewaterhouseCoopers, HayGroup, AVON Cosmetics, U.S. Customs, and the IRS.

Please visit him at http://www.davidpdiana.com where you will find more useful tools and information about the positive changes sales skills can have for you as a mental health professional.

Friday, March 14, 2008

Education is the Key to Your Success

No matter what path you take in life there is always the necessity for the life sustaining component of an education. Education comes in many forms drilled down to two distinct types; the formal and the informal.

There is no point in getting out of bed in the morning if you don't learn something, no matter how old or how young, every single waking hour of our lives we are learning.

Never fool yourself that there is no possibility for an education when it is economically just not a viable option for you. There is a never ending supply of ways for you to create a formal education. Libraries are free and plentiful and a wonderful source of information. Join a library and search out information in reference to your subject of interest. Librarians are always willing to assist you if the whole area seems too daunting, many successful people in this world have no formal education, but armed with the personal desire to be successful and the will to win they have educated themselves to a level of expertise and success in many fields which they are able to select. During even the earliest years of our lives education and sustenance are the keys to our survival.

Numbers of the 'lucky' members of our society spend many years going through the formal educative processes, schooling us in all forms of communication. Speech, reading, writing, all sciences in their own area of expertise, why is it that we reach a stage in our lives when we are apt to process some thoughts which are so completely negative, when in this age of knowledge the ability to acquire information is endless.

Personally I am of the opinion that it is never too late to learn and many life changing educative processes can begin at any age. It is a well known fact that there are a number of the so called privileged members of our society who have not been the recipients of a well paid formal education, but yet are listed among the most successful members of our so called civilized society. These people saw the opportunity of making the most of their lives and used every moment for the 'education' of themselves and now they are the employers of a very high percentage of our society and also employ many of the educated members of this world.

Never let an opportunity pass you by, make every post a winner, use every waking moment of every day and take your own life in your hands and educate yourself in some way each day. You should never let the sun set on a day when there has been nothing learned as each evening brings the end of a day never again to be lived.

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself -Leo Tolstoy

The Author has owned and administered businesses over a period of 30 years. Having achieved many awards for excellence during her years in business, has mentored many new business owners to success. The Author is the owner of http://www.homebusinessadvice.com.au

Friday, March 07, 2008

Guide, Teach and Mentor with an Online Tutoring Business

Tutoring is a fast growing and extremely popular profession in the modern era. With students not receiving individual attention in school and working parents lacking the time to help their children with school work, more and more people now search for tutors.

Tutors are sought for in many areas, in which skills can be taught and acquired. For example in academic subjects such as math, languages & geometry, for sports such as tennis, swimming & baseball, for acquiring computer skills such as word processing, designing & programming or even for hobbies such as sewing, crafting or sculpting.

Tutoring to students is carried out in many ways. "In-home" tutoring is when the tutor visits the home of the student to offer his/her services while "at-my-place" tutoring is when the student visits the home of the tutor to obtain his/her services. Online tutoring and email tutoring is when the tutor and student conduct their lessons via the help of the internet. For online tutoring a specific time is set between the tutor and the student to carry out the lesson through instant messaging services such as Yahoo, AOL, MSN, etc. Email tutoring is when the tutor and the student rely on emails to perform their lessons. The advantage of online and email tutoring is that the tutor and the student need not be in the same city or country to carry out the studies and also the time and money spent on commuting is saved.

With the increase of demand for tutors, more and more people prefer to stay at home and start their own tutoring venture. The most essential qualifications that are required to become a tutor, with the exception of having an in-depth knowledge of the subject or subjects which you are going to teach are good communication skills, enduring patience and the ability to connect with your students. You should also posses the qualities of reliability and dependability. Sticking to the planned schedules with your students are very important since you are providing a valuable service.

Having your own online tutoring venture provides you with many advantages. For starters you would be working from home which in turn provides you with more time to spend with your family. Reduction of costs involved in commuting and of acquiring office attire is another advantage. In addition you would be having more flexibility. And above all you can have the satisfaction in providing an esteemed service to the society.

You can carry out this venture as a part time or full time occupation. Also the subjects and the number of subjects that you want to tutor, completely depends on you. When considering the subjects, it is important that you have a thorough understanding in that particular field. In the tutoring profession your potential students could vary from elementary to high school or even grown ups who require tutoring in specific areas such as the computer field or hobbies. The number of subjects that you wish to tutor depends on the amount of energy and time you can utilize for this venture.

As an independent tutor you would have an advantage over tutoring companies, since you would be providing one-to-one tutoring which most parents prefer for their children at a much friendlier rate.

Starting a tutoring business costs very little and it provides a steady source of income all year round. Your tutoring rates will depend on your experience, the demand for that specific subject and the market price. If you are new to this venture it is always better to charge less than the competitors till you are able to gain experience and prove your value in the field.

When launching your own online business, you should first determine the number of subjects you want to tutor and the age group you are focusing on. Depending on these factors you can concentrate on your target audience, how to approach them and your marketing strategy. Even though "word of mouth" is the biggest marketing tool in this profession, having a website is another significant way to market your online tutoring venture.

When conducting tutoring sessions, in order to make it as effective as possible you should prepare your sessions in advance, know your subject and any changes in the content, be professional and supportive of the student. The keys to succession in the online tutoring profession are being result oriented, establishing sound relationships with the students and their parents and providing an exceptional service.

Bizymoms.com has been helping work at home women start a home business for over 10 years. Their TutorMonster Career Kit includes everything you need to start career as a tutor including a basic business start up guide and an easy start program, which provides step-by-step guidance on how to build up your Tutoring business within 29 days!

Sunday, March 02, 2008

Online LPN Degree - Truth or Scam?

Nursing school programs all over the country are turning away qualified students because of the nursing teacher shortage.

As a result, these days, more and more people are searching for an online LPN degree to get past those nursing school waiting lists.

Well, there's good news and there's bad news for those folks.

The fact is, there is no way to get your LPN degree online.

That is because during the Licensed Practical Nursing program, a lot of the learning is the hands on, practical stuff. LPNs interact with patients while being trained and observed by registered nurses known as proctors. It is during the second year of learning that nurses learn the classes that they are able to take online. Those classes are more heavily focused on management and theory.

In fact, there are a lot of nursing skills that can only be learned by doing them, and practicing them on a real live person. The idea of a nurse who learned absolutely everything online, frankly, a scary one. And it would be quite unsafe.

There are, however, numerous LPN to RN online programs, paramedic to RN online programs, and even respiratory therapist to RN online programs. They are offered by private, expensive degree colleges but they are also becoming increasingly popular at community college because of the nursing shortage and the desperate need for registered nurses.

So it makes a lot of sense for an aspiring nurse to get a licensed practical nursing degree (or, in some states, what is called a licensed vocational nursing degree.) But it can't be done online.

However, the waiting lists for LPN schools are much shorter than those for traditional RN programs. And there are "career colleges" which, while more expensive than technical schools and vocational schools and community colleges, often have no waiting list at all. It is worth exploring those options, because one a student becomes a Licensed Practical Nurse, it is very simple to find a bridge program which will give them their degree as an RN.

But just remember, if you hear someone talking about an "online LPN degree" or "online LPN school" it's pie in the sky - because there truly is no such thing.

Don't keep waiting to fulfill your dream of becoming a nurse! Visit http://www.nursingschoolprograms.com to find the secrets to getting into nursing school - and getting your degree! faster than you ever thought possible!