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Today President Obama takes office. Today he gave his inauguration address. In that address, he summed up much of what I have been saying in all my motivational posts. Endurance is character. Americans have the quality of endurance. Rise up, as your president has called you, to do your part to try, to do, to be tolerant, to be creative and to get beyond the past and make a new history.

God bless the President, the Nation, and us all.

With the economy down, I know a lot of people who are either out of work, or concerned about their current jobs. There is no way around it, it is a very scary time for most people. Some of the people I meet with are mentally stuck. They have dome one job for years, and see themselves only in light of what they were doing before. In a time where jobs are hard to come by, you have to be creative in looking at your skills set in seeking other work. The firs step is to stop thinking you have to find the exact same you job you had before. Odds are it either doesn't exist, or somebody else wants it just as bad as you do

Instead, look at yourself with a fresh appraisal. If you have a degree, you might consider if you can teach. Teaching is very rewarding, can lead to retirement benefits, and there are many types of teaching jobs available. You could tutor, you could seek a teaching fellowship in primary, secondary or college level institutions. You could seek to become a corporate trainer as well.

Perhaps your last job had you marketing, even though you may not have been comfortable doing it. Marketing is a skill that is almost always in demand, either as a direct salesperson, or as a corporate marketer. Marketing is a hard skill to teach, it relies heavily on personality, drive and understanding people. If you are good at it, you could even find yourself in an entire career change.

Perhaps your last job had you interfacing with government agencies or politicians. That experience could lead you to a career in politics, political campaigns, or lobbying.

Perhaps secondary to your last position you found yourself often doing something else. Many people I know may have been hired for administrative tasks, but found themselves the informal "help desk" in the office for technical support. If you were good at it, had a broad knowledge of many applications, maybe a job in technical support awaits you.

This list could go on and on. The important thing is to realize what each of the scenarios depended on. In each scenarios what happened was re-assessing your skills set, realizing you had not only your known skills from your last job, but that you could adapt yourself to other jobs. Adaptability is the key to finding new employment in this time. You have to keep your spirits up, look at the market, and find the way you can change to fit an available position. The only other choice is to feel sorry for yourself and keep looking for the exact same job you used to have, while you slowly watch your savings and self esteem rot away.

If you run a business, or think about it, you see these list sites everywhere. Quizzes, personality tests, and other tools to help you figure out if you have the right stuff. I will tell you this, they are all BS. Entrepreneurs come in all types. Some have a deep desire to do it, others fall into it. It isn’t for everyone, of course. It is very demanding. It can be very rewarding. Many times it is disappointing. Personally, I think the greatest challenge to the entrepreneur is the overwhelming responsibility of it all.

Everyone has responsibilities, entrepreneurs take upon themselves a heaping dose of it. They are not only responsible for the usual home, family and bills, but for making sure EVERYTHING happens in a business. I do mean everything. From cleaning all the way to making and selling the product. If the entrepreneur takes a break, the entire business and personal life takes a break too.

The quizzes and such never really discuss the awesome weight of having EVERYTHING depend on you, everyday, all the time, twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year (more in a leap year). That doesn’t mean you should not try it. Just be mentally prepared for that day when you feel burnt out and yet cannot stop.

There ways to help that. Schedule your time to allow for the business, allow for family and allow for personal time. Strive to not just be “caught up.” Strive to be ahead, so you can schedule a break. Look far into the future so that you are not surprised by a bump in cash flow or productivity. Solicit help, take people up on offers to help. Make the first business goal to be established and your second goal to have support staff. Entrepreneurs tend to be “do it myself” types, but if they don’t plan to find help quickly they will ether burn out or find a disaster in something as simple as a three day flu.

Are you an Entrepreneur? A quiz won’t tell you. You will only know if you try. It is like asking if you are a coward or not. You won’t know until you are placed in a dangerous situation. If you are going to try to start a business my best suggestion is to not only do all the regular business planning, but plan your way out too. Make sure you plan for a way to get reliable help, and include your “real life” in the plans. Once the planning is done… The only thing left is to do or do not.

I saw "Michael Clayton" recently, starring George Clooney. It is an interesting film. It is a bit slow so don't start it late at night. What struck me about this "lawyer movie" was that it wasn't typical. In fact, it might have been closer to real lawyering than most "law films." There was no research, no dramatic speeches to a jury, and no tense battles in front of the judge. The lawyering was all done off the cuff, out of the courtroom, and had little to do with actual law. What was essential to Michael Clayton's skill and success was how he understood people.

There comes a point in practicing law where you just know the rules of what you do. Sure, you have to keep going to continuing legal education courses to catch up on trends and changes, but for the most part you aren't cracking open a book or talking to private investigators much. Most of your time is spent not trying to figure out how to make a law work, but in figuring out how people will react to situations. Your goal is usually not to win a legal battle, it is to work the situation to a favorable conclusion for your client. Working that conclusion involves more understanding of people than it does the law.

It made me think how much time I actually spend trying to analyze what an adjuster, the other attorney or a defendant will do. I find myself constantly putting my mind in the other side's place, trying to figure out their motivations, what they fear, what they want. If I can understand what the other side thinks, I can figure out the best way to push for a resolution my client desires.

Michael Clayton comes to the realization he is a "fixer" or a "bag man". His skill is not in his legal savvy, it is in his ability to understand people and how to work a situation. That kind of skill can't really be taught in school. It is based very heavily in the moment. Since people and situations are all different, you can't teach a cause and effect relationship to students. They have to learn it themselves by being an astute and observant student of life and human nature.

I used to tell people there wasn't much difference between a five-year experienced lawyer and a twenty-year experienced lawyer. I have to correct that now that I think about it. The big difference isn't something you'd see in their research, their writing or courtroom actions. The difference will be in how the lawyer understands the situation and how to best work that situation based on the people involved. If the more experienced lawyer has learned the trade well, that lawyer will have a much broader depth of understanding about how people work, and can use that information to more often than not, bring home a result the client will like.

... most of us have already been failing on our efforts to follow through with New Year's resolutions. It might be because they were too grand of plans. It might be that life is just in your way. It might be that you lost momentum or resolve. Don't give up though! It is still early in a new year. Just because you have fallen behind doesn't mean you can't start again, or resolve yourself to do better. The point was to better yourself and you still can.

If one of the things that is blocking you is life (by that I mean interruptions or complications to your plans caused by things outside your control), forgive yourself. You could not plan on the kids getting sick, or the car breaking down. Take care of it and move on. If you just seem to not be getting started, forgive yourself the failure and start as soon as possible.