People lost homes, but that was not the biggest worry. They lost their healthcare, and they didn’t have money to pay for their hospital bills. Now that the recession is behind us, people now know better and knwo what teir priorities are. Healthcare is among the top of the lists of most people, and this has created a demand for people for health care jobs who can promote the products that are available in the market for potential clients.

Working in a family business. Hmm. Sounds rocking. The rules of the business would have been set by your ancestors, and you will be working under the people of your father’s generation along with your cousins and brothers and sisters. For one thing, working in a family business is a lot better than working for someone else and making them richer. Here, when you are working under your family, the money you make at least stays within your family, and eventually makes you richer.

Usually, children born in a huge family having its own business are moulded, brought up, exposed and educated in line with their joining the family business when they are ready. A marble trading family will not let a kid in their family go and learn software engineering and pursue a career in that field while their business is expected to do great for the next few generations and they could use an extra hand from within the family.

The Tatas are a world renowned business family and have been in real big money business for about 2 Centuries, fully successful and never getting themselves into any trouble. Ratan Tata is the current Chairman of the board, and he has been preceded by several others. The Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay was built by one of Ratan Tata’s Ancestors, the world’s first All Jet airline company happens to be Tata Airlines (Now Air India, undertaken by the Govt. of India), was founded by JRD Tata, Ratan’s Predecessor, and Ratan has now produced the cheapest car in the world, that costs about $2500, and he has taken over the Jaguar and Land Rover brands recently. His Steel Factory has taken over Corus, and that wing is now the 5th largest steel producer in the world.

Ratan would have been nowhere if he had started a business of his own. His integrity, his ability to workout such major deals, achieve great goals and moving ahead to the top of the world doesn’t come with just one generation’s expertise in business. The Tata Group owns several companies that include Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Motors and Tata Steel.

Family business does have its draw backs too. Politics can be very high between cousins and uncles. If there is a difference of opinion, it is far too difficult to handle, and the damages that it might cause to the company could be much higher than what it would be if you were working for some other business. And in family business, succession is always a problem. It always creates disputes. There would be certain people of the later generation who work very hard to prove themselves to the current head of the group so that they get a chance to go on the will of the head and become the successor. At times like this, the cousins that you played with when you were young might act against you just to gain the throne, while you might have been working hard to get to it, or by default you are eligible for it, and this could hurt you a lot. The feeling wont be something like what you get when a similar situation arises at some other workplace. It could devastate you mentally, since its family that is working against you now, and not someone else.

There are good and bad aspects to a Family Business. But it is all in the hands of the head of the business. If he can handle everyone in the family, guide them and direct them so that there are no differences between them till the end, and if he defines his successor, and make the others agree to it, everyone is happy, and the business will have nothing but growth.

There has been a shortage for tlds, since there is no good legible name that you can choose in a dotcom, and even the .in launched about 4 years ago nearing exhaustion of good names for Indians, new tlds are sprouting up everywhere, and that too with a hype.

Registrars are now selling .mobi at a promo offer, buy for a very low price for the first year, and pay the normal price for the 2nd year, if you feel like renewing it.

I dont seey why mobile users should be using a .mobi extension, and not just a .com website. Cant there be ways to indicate that a website in a .com too could be a wap? And these days, mobile phones are reading more than wap sites, I have seen Blackberrys that can display a full site, just like you see them on a computer.

And with the price the mobile operators are charging for wap access, who would want to browse .mobi sites when they can watch a better looking site on their PC?

I dont know where this is heading.

Likewise, there is a similar offer for the .asia domain as well. The tld started off with a very big hype, and they did not provide the domain in first come first served basis earlier, and that resulted in getting a lot of duplicate names, and they just auctioned those names, and have now started the first come first served basis for the names that have not been taken. What a way to make money. The price of the .asia domain will go below that of a .com very soon, no one is going to buy it.

In the past I held positions of responsibility and always had others who did the doing things for me. I used to supervise personnel; I tended to be in charge of my own work unit, and my own time.

I once attended a job interview where I was asked by members of the interview panel how would I organize and set up a telephone conference. I replied that I would email/telephone the IT guys with dates and times and have them do it.

To my horror, I learned that apparently I was the one responsible for this task and would have to arrange this telephone conference myself. Gee that sucked! Needless to say I immediately lost interest in the job (nor did I get it, for some strange reason). Whenever I retell this story I still manage to laugh at my reaction ?What, I have to organize what?? Thank goodness for my attitude readjustment!

Over the years I?ve had many job and career changes and with each role someone would always be available who I could count on to help me out. Always, without fail!

Never having to worry about all that other ?stuff? kept me a prisoner of my own comfort zone. There was always someone else who did that ?stuff? while I got on with other work I was responsible for, there was always a safety net.

Back to the advertising leaflets, I tried, with the help of others to find personnel to do that ?stuff? (handing out leaflets while I would be doing something else I was responsible for) for me.

I quite simply couldn?t find anyone who was okay with doing ?stuff? for me.

Then an amazing thing happened.

As I was telling my sad and pitiful tale to a friend of mine, my friend cheerfully offered to help out. I was stunned and thought to myself ?if my friend is willing to go out on a limb for me, what was my hang up?

The hang up was easy to identify. It was the fear of doing something for the first time. It was once again time to step outside my comfort zone. Sigh.

After I gave myself a stern silent talking to, like ?What on earth is up with you??

?You know you?ve been running away from having to do this that?s why now you have to do this, you need this experience!?

?Becoming fearless will set you free!? Reply to self, ?easy for you to say!?

Once I worked out exactly what my strategy would be in overcoming this fear I became peaceful with a new attitude of ?Let?s do this, it?ll be fun and you never know how many nice people I?ll meet today?? and ?This is the perfect excuse and trade off to do lunch in town with my friend?

Remember back to when you first stepped outside your comfort zone. Maybe you were scared and fearful because you were unaware of what would happen next or you were fearful of being rejected by others of what you had to offer (for example: advertising leaflets)?

Now recall the second, third (or more) time you did the same thing. What was your experience like after several times of doing the same thing? My wild assumption is that you learned something new every time and you adjusted your strategies accordingly.

Your mind remembers all that you do (whether consciously or unconsciously). The more you do something outside your comfort zone, the easier it will become to adjust to your new comfort zone.

Whenever you try on something new know that it does get easier with time and as you continue to learn, grow and as you continue doing, you?ll become an expert before you know it.