Adding Lanes to the Highway of Your Career

"Don't put all your eggs in one basket." "Make sure you diversify your savings." "Hedge your bets." "Minimize your risk and exposure." Sayings like these are all excellent mantras to live by when you think about ways to invest and save your money. But what about when you make your money?

Imagine your career trajectory as an interstate highway with one lane. That one lane is the one job that you have now. You do one thing and you get paid one way to do one thing. For most American employees, this is standard operating procedure.
But what happens when there's an accident on that one lane highway? The road completely shuts down because people cannot pass that accident. The same thing will happen to you if you lose your one source of income. Your life will essentially come to a halt if you are not prepared to deal with a loss of income from your one job.
Now imagine your career trajectory is a two lane highway. Each lane of the highway represents a different source of income. (For me, these two lanes are real estate sales and construction services.) When an accident happens in one lane, I can still manage to get by in life - albeit slower than normal - and move pass the accident. This allows me to still make a living even though one source of income has been reduced or lost. On top of protecting yourself in the event of an accident, when the road is clear and open, you can drive a little faster than you could drive on that one lane highway. Essentially, a two lane career trajectory offers more opportunities in a shorter amount of time.
Let's take this another step forward. Imagine a three lane interstate highway. Speeds on this highway can reach some of the fastest in the country. So too will your career advance if you learn to add more lanes to the highway of your career. (For me, these three lanes include real estate sales, construction services, and property management.) When an accident happens in one of these lanes - i.e. a loss or decrease in income - I can easily get by with little inconvenience because I am not relying on only one source of income.
An obstacle that drivers often come across on the highway is construction. Road builders and civil engineers continuously add lanes to overcrowded highways to make traffic flow more smoothly in the future. While there certainly are temporary headaches to contend with, ultimately the project has benefits for everyone involved. This is how you should look at the training and education you give yourself in your career. While taking some time away from work or family to focus on getting an advanced degree or pursuing additional licensing may result in a temporary roadblock, the long term benefits will certainly outweigh the short term inconvenience. Focus more of your attention on highway construction now to benefit more in the future.
A note of caution for everyone trying to add lanes to their highway. Make sure the lanes are all going the same direction. Drivers don't like it when engineers are resurfacing roads because each lane is different than the other during the resurfacing process. Don't look to be an events manager, a car salesman, and a biotech engineer. Clients and customers will be confused by what services you really focus on. Stick to careers that have a similar or complimentary trajectory so your customers will understand the added value you can provide.

Finally, when building your super highway that is your career, you will notice an interesting phenomenon. As you add more and more complimentary lanes to your highway, more lanes will be built and added for you. The more and better projects you work on, the more people will want to be involved with the work that you do. This will ultimately allow you to make more connections and add even more lanes to your highway.

While the saying, "don't put all your eggs in one basket" is a mantra that should be highly regarded in the world of finances and savings, it is time you start applying that ideal to the process of making money in the first place.

The Best "Green" Homes in Tampa Bay

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, millions of people around the country celebrate by wearing the color green. Today, the word green has many different meanings from color, to currency, and now to environmentally conscious practices. In that same respect, sustainable design and building has come a long way in the last two decades, especially in the residential real estate and construction industries. To honor these new "green" leaders, here is a look at some of the best sustainably designed and built homes in Tampa Bay.



A note about the rankings: the homes on this list have been compiled by examining the HERS index. All the homes on this list have a HERS - Home Energy Rating System - score of under 70. A typically resale home in the United States will have a HERS score of 130, while a new construction home will have an approximate HERS score of 100. Therefore, homes with scores at 70 or below go at least 30% above and beyond what is required for sustainable construction.

#5 4213 Callista Ln., Sarasota
HERS Score: 68
$349,900



This two bedroom, two bathroom home with a den boasts nearly 2,000 square feet of interior living space, with nearly another 1,000 square feet of exterior living space. This home also qualified as an Energy Star Home and a Silver rating by the Certified Florida Green Home Council. Special features in this home include low-maintenance James Hardie Fiber Cement siding/fascia/soffits, PGT impact rated hurricane rated low-E insulated windows throughout.

#4 21219 Quiet Haven Ct., Land O' Lakes
HERS Score: 63
$419,000



This four bedroom, four bathroom home with a bonus room, theatre room, and a three car garage on nearly 3,300 square feet of heated living space is a Southern Crafted new construction masterpiece. This home achieved a Certified rating with the Certified Florida Green Home Council all while maintaining the creature comforts the best of modern construction can buy.

#3 10832 Charmood Dr., Riverview
HERS Score: 61
$464,990



This five bedroom, four and a half bathroom split-garage home with two master suites boasts over 4,300 square feet of interior living space, with nearly another 1,000 square feet of outside entertaining space. With all of the latest sustainable and green features available in new construction homes, this property has the best of luxurious design and environmentally friendly features.

#2 14204 Homosassa St., Tampa
HERS Score: 59
$531,517



This four bedroom, four and a half bathroom, two-story new construction home gives the best of energy efficiency while being close to the heart of the city. Every new construction home in this community showcases the builder's commitment to providing incredibly energy-efficient homes that let you spend your money on better things than utility bills. Known for their energy efficient features, our homes help you live a healthier and quieter lifestyle while saving you thousands of dollars on your utility bills.

#1 1414 S. Osprey Ave., Sarasota
HERS Score: 56
$950,000



This three bedroom, three and a half bedroom luxury home features 2,300 square feet of perfectly executed design in a sustainable home. With a energy efficient rating nearly double that of current new construction homes, this home allows you the benefits of luxury living without spoiling the natural environment around the property. This home achieved the highest rating, Platinum Certification, from the Florida Green Building Coalition while including an Energy Star package.

The White Spaces in Your Organization Chart

Every employee currently working for a company - whether it's a small, medium or large business - has a job to do. Those duties and tasks were most likely laid out during the interview process, and most of those specific functions have stayed the same throughout that employee's tenure with the company. Then, to take it a step further, those that hired that employee also have specific jobs to do and they have specific people to report to. Moving up the ladder of responsibility, each supervisor also has specific jobs and functions they must perform and specific people they must in turn report to as well.

To help employees better understand their roles and remind them who they should report to, companies develop organizational charts. Within any company that has more than one employee - be it a three employee sales office, a 30 employee retail store, or a 3,000 employee manufacturer and distributor, there will be an organizational structure to define the roles and responsibilities of each employee from the CEO to the receptionists. (See the title picture for an example of an organization chart.)

But, one thing you may not notice in an organization chart is all of the white space in between and around each person. Employees and managers typically function and perform well when their roles and their duties are defined and when they know who is their superior. But what happens when those roles and duties are not defined? What happens when a task may require two, three, or four different people or departments to have a hand in the decision making process? What happens when there is no clearly defined boss?

Here are three crucial elements to sort through when addressing any issue that pops up in the white spaces of your organization chart.

Communication

No matter the type of company or the type of industry, every employee, every supervisor, and every customer will benefit from clear, open and consistent communication. Secrets and lies are the bane of every decision made within a company. The more open a company is to have meaningful discussion, the better off is that organization. A company should encourage ideas and brainstorming. A company should never discourage or quell communication. When employees are free to express their thoughts and opinions, the more likely a company can come to the right decision that best fits everyone involved.

Leadership

While communication may be the key to addressing any issue that does not directly fit into an organization chart, having thoughtful and motivated leadership can make a cacophony of ideas seem like a concise and clear message. If every department within your organization has come up with a solution to a problem on their own, it can be nearly useless if someone from each department does not head the charge to connect with the other departments within the organization. Then, once the organization as a clear message established, one leader should take the reigns to recite the message to the company's clients and customers.

Care

Having a strong leader or leadership team deliver a clear message to any party involved in an issue can be rendered useless if the message falls on deaf ears. Essentially, your leaders have to make sure that those who are delivering the message truly believe in the message that they are giving. The general public and members of the press can pick up on messages that do not have any beliefs behind them. Think of the athlete or politician who must step to the podium and deliver the same humdrum apology every time they do something wrong. While the words coming out of their mouths are the right words on paper, they almost surely have no heartfelt intent.

On top of the level of care needed by those who are delivering the message, those messengers must also be sure to respect those to whom they are speaking. If a customer only cares about getting a complete refund on a product or service and a company is unwilling to give any compensation for an unsatisfactory service or good they provided to that unhappy customer, the company has failed. Instead, the company should understand exactly what the customer wants and provide them with exactly what they want, if possible, or provide a reasonable, respectful solution that can benefit both the company and individual. This goes a long way toward showing clients and customers that the company truly cares.

An organization chart is meant to keep duties, functions, and responsibilities for all employees of a company in check. However, when something comes up that does not fit specifically into a particular place on the organization chart, a company must make sure to have clear and consistent communication, thoughtful and motivated leadership, and a sense of care to all parties directly and indirectly involved. While you may always have the white spaces in your organization chart, the best companies know exactly how to fill them.

Reader's note: the following blog post was something out of the ordinary for me, but I felt the topic was a good one. I was inspired to write this blog post after attending a panel discussion, hosted by the Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce, where Pete Slade, CEO of the Tampa based company Nitro Mobile Solutions gave some meaningful insight to some of the problems with expanding companies.