Forget about the stock market and think about how you can invest in yourself to improve your future. Besides money, you have other important kinds of capital. Think about what you know and who you know. What you know is your intellectual capital. Who you know is your relationship capital. A great exercise to do is to write down your most important clients/customers and then next to each one write down the name of the person who was most responsible for making that introduction or where you were when you met them. When you do this, you'll often see there are a handful of people in your life who have driven things your way, stirred up the karma in a good way. If you need to train or retool, think about ways to keep you ahead in your field. One of my clients, Cheetah Learning, is a leader in training for the PMP certification -- that's Project Management Professional certification. This certification is hot right now and a good one to look into...after all, who doesn't need to manage projects effectively. Beyond being more effective, many corporations and industry sectors, as well as the government, really value the PMP certification. You can download free tools from Cheetah that give you good food for thought about project management. All you have to give is your email address. Check out the tools at http://tinyurl.com/freepmtools.
The most important thing is not to let the doom & gloom get to you. Turn the news off and instead think about how you can adapt to what's happening and how you can use what you know and who you know to your advantage. You don't have to be rich or famous to work what you have. And action always feels so good. Nothing is more of a downer that doing the same old things and getting the same old results. As a wise friend said to me recently, "Somethings gotta change or nothings gonna change." Pick a couple of changes and go for it.
