Thinking of my favorite blogs was difficult because I bounce around a lot and read a range of topics – careers, personal development, marketing and technology. I probably read more on marketing and technology than careers if the truth be told.

One of the reasons why is that when I write, I want to convey a unique point of view. I often wonder how much other bloggers are influenced by what their contemporaries write or say.

Here is a list of my ten favorite blogs, in no particular order:

Great  Leadership by Dan McCarthy

Dan stays ahead of the leadership curve with Great Leadership. A former Rochesterian, a few years ago he made a career move to the University of New Hampshire where he is the Director of Executive Development Programs. We had the pleasure of meeting before his departure and when Great Leadership’s readership and clout was climbing. Since then he has expanded content to include other leadership guest bloggers and continues to produce cutting edge information.

Sugarrae  Aka Rae Hoffman

What some of you may not know is that I do all my website development. Sugarrae is a “white collar redneck” (her words, not mine) who is one of my go-to web and affiliate marketing gurus. Why? I love her style, advice and transparency. Besides that, she also moved from Thesis to Genesis like I did!

JobMob by Jacob Share

Don’t discount career advice outside the United States – JobMob is based in Israel and is your ticket to everything you need to know about job hunting. Jacob is known for creating lists – a favorite for readers who like to see lots of information in a single post.

Penelope Trunk

Here’s what I learned from Penelope. Share your life experiences in your blog. When I started Elephants at Work, I was mesmerized by how much she shared about her deepest fears and flaws. Lesson: You develop stronger connections with your readers when they see your vulnerabilities.

Evil HR Lady by Suzanne Lucas

If you have a burning question about what Human Resources says or why they act the way they do, ask Suzanne. Her advice is no-nonsense – whether it is on the side of the employee or company. Who cares if she is based in Switzerland, treating employees fairly is a global goal.

Seth Godin

Meaningful and to the point – that’s what Seth’s blog is about it. It is an art to express your message with fewer words.

Mildred Talabi

Hailing from the U.K., Mildred knows how to create a winning CV, but that’s not all she writes about. To manage your career successfully in today’s fast paced environment, effectively develop social media and networking skills and Mildred gives you examples of how to do it.

Traffic Generation Café by Ana Hoffman

Ana’s weekly tips satisfy my geeky interests and keep me up-to-date on SEO and social media changes on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Google.

Viper Chill by Glen

A 22 year man of the world, Glen is a successful blogger and affiliate marketer who is quite remarkable. I learn something from every post he writes about blogging, SEO and marketing. What sets him apart? His posts are long with examples and detailed information. I only wish I had the time to do half of what I have read.

CareerSherpa by Hannah Morgan

People who are on their career journey want to be led by Hannah. She tells it like it is and has a natural quirkiness that connects with people.  Perhaps I am biased, but she’s my career partner here at the Career Development Carnival.

What is your favorite blog? 

Opportunities. Possibilities. Openness.

These are traits I admire in people who are facing difficult situations. Why? Because these traits represent some of the qualities that let them open doors to successful change.

When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one that has opened for us. – Alexander Graham Bell

If you are facing a tough decision or have been given some bad news and find yourself stuck and not moving forward, think about the door analogy.

When a door is closed prematurely or is slammed in your face, it is easy to fall into the trap of wanting what you don’t have – even if what you had was not good to begin with!

Just because a door has shut, another one may open. Maybe not immediately, but when you explore other possibilities, it is bound to happen. If you find yourself fixated on the closed door, find a way to break the cycle, otherwise you might overlook another door.

Check to see if in fact the door is locked. A locked door takes lots of work to open. Do you really want to spend that kind of energy to reopen it? Sometimes you have to. Sometimes there’s another way to get to what’s behind that door (maybe a back door?).

Let’s say the door opens. What do you do with that open door? Do you go through it or does fear set in?

Perhaps you don’t want to look behind the door. You may think or imagine that the alternative is worse than what you have today or that you are committing yourself to another course of action and you can’t change your mind.

Get both of those ideas out of your head!

Doors represent opportunities. When you peek behind the door, you can decide whether you want to walk through it. If you decide to walk through the door, it may require a commitment but…peeking is free!

You may decide it is not for you and close it or you may leave it ajar. Leaving the door ajar lets you revisit “it” later. “It” could be your relationship, a new job, relocation, a business idea or other personal decision.

As you close a door, decide if you want to lock it. Locking it will make it more difficult for you or the other person to reconnect.

When you think of doors (ajar or unlocked) as opportunities to explore possibilities, you will be in a better position to find success.

Reviewing the top posts for 2012 tells me what’s important to you because you vote each time you search for a topic and it brings you to Elephants at Work. The top topics include: interviewing, being fired, and unethical behavior, thanking your boss, leadership, bully bosses, dysfunctional teams, job references, Herrmann Brain Dominance Instrument (HBDI), career progression, turnover, and critical thinking skills.

In fact, the exact search terms or questions that readers posed were:

• the five dysfunctions of a team
• inflated ego
• how to deal with a bully boss
• career progression
• reducing turnover
• how to reduce turnover
• examples of tenacity
• engineer career path
• ways to recognize employees
• norman schwarzkopf leadership
• when someone hurts you
• anger in the workplace
• termination paperwork
• thanking a boss
• reasons for leaving a job when fired
• reduce turnover
• herrmann brain dominance instrument
• five dysfunctions of a team
• trip to abilene
• hbdi test

The search terms or questions you ask are just one measurement of what’s important because once you visit Elephants at Work, you may wander around and read other posts of interest. The most popular posts for 2012 are:

1. Interviewing or Job Applications: What do I say if I was fired?
2. Do I have to sign my termination or separation agreement?
3. Company or boss demands unethical behavior
4. Best Approach to Thanking the Boss
5. Norman Schwartzkopf’s 14 Rules on Leadership
6. How to Deal with the Bully Boss
7. Is your team dysfunctional?
8. Do you ask your boss to be a job reference?
9. The HBDI Question Series: Part 1
10. How to Evaluate Career Progression within a Company
11. 10 Keys for Reducing Turnover
12. Critical thinking skills – Important, potentially life changing

Let’s see if your focus has changed since the blog’s inception. Here are the top Elephants at Work posts of all time:

1. Do I have to sign my termination or separation agreement?
2. Interviewing or Job Applications: What do I say if I was fired?
3. Company or boss demands unethical behavior
4. Best Approach to Thanking the Boss
5. Norman Schwartzkopf’s 14 Rules on Leadership
6. Critical thinking skills – Important, potentially life changing
7. Is your team dysfunctional?
8. Twenty Ways to Recognize Your Employees
9. 10 Keys for Reducing Turnover
10. Tenacity – More Than A Leadership Quality
11. How to Deal with the Bully Boss
12. The list of assessments

Clearly, career challenges hit the top of each list. Personal and career traits are important too – identifying your strengths through assessments or through examples.

For the last two years, our blog readership has doubled each year. Thank you for being a part of our growing Elephants at Work community and please continue to share your favorite posts with others who can benefit from our career tips.

Cycles are a natural part of living life. Sometimes you are riding high and other times you may find yourself scraping by. Regardless of where you are in life’s cycle, be sure that it will change because that’s the nature of a cycle. How you deal with your life cycle depends on attitude.

Where you are today? Is your situation better than a year, five years or ten years ago or worse? Think about your career or personal life separately because they may in fact be in different cycles.

If your situation is worse, know that it can get better when you focus efforts on improving a situation or on how you deal with it – aka your attitude.

Some situations don’t change quickly (career change, layoff, sickness or illness) or may never recover fully (divorce, loss of loved one). It is easy to get impatient, depressed or upset – that’s where a positive attitude makes a big difference.

A positive attitude can be acceptance of what you can control and not beating yourself up over things you cannot control.  It sounds simple – most of the time it is not because you are probably your own worst critic.

If you are fortunate enough to be riding the crest of your cycle, you probably have many friends and colleagues supporting your efforts along the way. The fact is, people like positive attitudes because it is a strong indicator of a winner.

When you need to sell an idea to upper management or sell yourself in a job interview, attitude and self-confidence influence decision makers – often over technical skills.

Positive attitudes, just like good karma opens doors to opportunities.

No one can change your attitude except for you.

My brother, Dave has pancreatic cancer. I shared his story in June 2011. At the time, his prognosis was bleak because of the tumor location. Surgery was not an option according to his doctors. He was on an enormous amount of drugs for pain and had lost a lot of weight. The doctors told him to make sure everything was in order.

Dave went through several rounds of chemotherapy and radiation treatments over the next several months. By December, he was able to take a break.

While he was going through treatment, never gave up, in fact, he worked harder than ever on being present.

Attitude Makes a Difference

There was a clear agenda in our family, which my father said better than anyone else.

“You have to be around to take advantage of future cancer advances.”

That philosophy laid the ground work for Dave to fight the disease for himself and others. He challenges assumptions, sets goals and looks for creative solutions. I’ll share some of those with you.

Health Makes a Difference

During his treatment and afterwards, my brother focused on his health, not his disease. From his research, he found that people, who die from cancer, don’t necessarily die from the disease. They die from pneumonia or some other secondary condition that is brought on by declining healthiness.

His goal was to stay as healthy as he could and that meant pushing himself to exercise, eat right and exposing himself to other germs to keep his immune system engaged. This last effort was contrary to what the literature suggests – more often you find cancer patients limiting their interaction with others during critical times.

Exercise has been a part of gaining his strength and stamina. Today, he can easily ride 100 miles in a day – in fact he is probably in better health than ever.

When Dave walks into his doctor’s office they can’t believe he is a cancer patient.

Research Makes a Difference

Dave has the BRCA2 gene defect. Knowing about this gene mutation has been instrumental in treating the tumor. The “cocktail” of drugs used in chemotherapy were different because of this gene mutation.

When Dave talks to other cancer patients and asks if they have had any type of genetic testing, the overwhelming response is “No”. This baffles us. We realize that genetic testing is not a mainstream recommendation. However, if cancer has been in your family history, most insurance companies will cover it. Even if they don’t it might save or extend your life.

The decision whether or not to take a genetic test often scares people. They are afraid that insurance companies will not cover them. However, if you have cancer, that becomes a moot point.

If you are thinking about taking a genetic test to find out if you carry the gene because your father or mother has had cancer, then you do want to go about it carefully. One doctor advised me to make sure you have life insurance before taking the test.

Bottom line for Dave, I believe knowing about his BRCA2 genetic defect significantly increased his treatment effectiveness.

The Payoff: Re-evaluation of Options

Over the next several months, Dave continued to have CT/ETC scans and in each case, the tumor remained inactive and there were no signs of it spreading to other organs.

This summer, his doctor suggested that the surgeons re-evaluate his case. On Friday, he is having the Whipple Procedure done.

On the one hand you might say it is a difficult decision – he’s doing well why rock the boat?

The fact is cancer can become active at any time. Remission is a transitory state. Now is the best time opportunity to have the cancer removed.

Dave has a long recovery road ahead, but his attitude is in the right place. He knows what he did to pull himself from that bad place eighteen months ago and is determined to do it again.

That is right, I got rejected, actually, I came in second place but technically, that is still being rejected. Not everyone wins a promotion, speaking engagement or consulting assignment. In the process, I got a great gift – constructive feedback!

Being a consultant is very similar to being a job hunter. You have to get used to rejection because it happens all the time – in varying degrees. And just like the job hunter, when a consultant fails to get the engagement, they want to know why.

So, the story is a few weeks ago while I was on vacation, an Elephants at Work reader contacted me about doing a speaking engagement for 75 sales people for a regional meeting. I have tons of experience working with sales groups and knew I would be able to deliver a quality presentation that would resonate with each attendee.

I had just delivered a program a few weeks earlier – Leading with Your Strengths for 30 people. The program was a huge success – my feedback scores were very high with four major themes:

• Unique way of identifying my core strengths through group interaction
• Helped me to rebuild my lost confidence
• Exposure to the HBDI model
• I wish we had more time

Any presenter will tell you that these comments are like music to our ears.

A few weeks go by and the sales group’s decision maker tells me I am one of two people being considered for the speaking engagement. I had pitched the Leading with Your Strengths program as one option. They wanted a two-hour presentation and I pressed for an extra hour – especially given the group size and interactivity of the session.

The decision was going to be made on a Friday. I did not hear anything. You know the feeling. I sent a note on Sunday asking about the decision and received this response on Monday:

My apologies for not communicating with you on Friday.  As you said, “schedules flex” – but I had several business issues crop up that required my immediate attention. 

I wanted to let you know that we have decided to go with another speaker for our upcoming meeting in September, and I would like to provide the rationale – because it was a tough decision:

We (my director and co-chair) loved your presentation concept – and found many of the objectives to be very relevant to our group.  However, we were just not able to devote the agenda time that we thought would be required to fully bring these concepts to fruition.  We didn’t want the presentation to feel rushed and therefore diluted – because there is a lot to be learned by our group!

I enjoy your blog, and would like to raise awareness of my local representatives (from Rochester/Buffalo, and myself) to any opportunities that you might be speaking at.  You had mentioned a video that was going to be posted – so I’ll keep my eye out for it.

This is a new group, so as learning opportunities present themselves – I definitely would like to keep you in mind for the future.  I appreciate your availability to discuss and answer my questions over the past several weeks.

Some people would be really upset they did not the speaking engagement. I won’t lie; I was disappointed because it would have opened the door to a potential new client. At the same time I was elated! The decision maker conveyed the decision and provided great constructive feedback. I was so excited I called her up and told her so (much to her surprise)!

When you get constructive feedback, it is easy to take action. I know where I fell short. They had a time constraint and I was pushing them for more time. When I develop proposals for clients, I always give them three options. I need to do the same with my speaking engagements – a one hour program, two hour program and a three hour program that takes things to a workshop format.

Thank you for the feedback – I really do appreciate it!