Career Nation Receives 2011 Best of White Plains Award

U.S. Commerce Association’s Award Plaque Honors the
Achievement

NEW YORK, NY,
December 11, 2010 — Career Nation has been selected for the 2011 Best of White
Plains Award in the Employment Agencies category by the U.S. Commerce
Association (USCA).

The USCA “Best
of Local Business” Award Program recognizes outstanding local businesses
throughout the country. Each year, the USCA identifies companies that they
believe have achieved exceptional marketing success in their local community
and business category. These are local companies that enhance the positive
image of small business through service to their customers and community.

Various sources of information were gathered and analyzed to
choose the winners in each category. The 2011 USCA Award Program focuses on
quality, not quantity. Winners are determined based on the information gathered
both internally by the USCA and data provided by third parties.

About U.S. Commerce Association (USCA)

U.S. Commerce Association (USCA) is a New York City based organization funded by local
businesses operating in towns, large and small, across America. The purpose of
USCA is to promote local business through public relations, marketing and
advertising.

The USCA was established to recognize the best of local businesses in their community. Our
organization works exclusively with local business owners, trade groups,
professional associations, chambers of commerce and other business advertising
and marketing groups. Our mission is to be an advocate for small and medium
size businesses and business entrepreneurs across America.
SOURCE: U.S. Commerce Association
CONTACT: U.S. Commerce Association
Email: PublicRelations@uscaaward.com

People come to me all the time because they are unhappy in
their careers and are not sure what to do about it. They tell me the reasons
they don’t have what they want; the economy, their company; some are even
honest enough to blame themselves.  They
are all facing tough challenges, either internal or external.

When you have an unresolved challenge in your career, it
affects your whole life. You think about your challenge all the time, and in
many cases, it consumes and defines you. You want more and are willing to do
the work; you just don’t believe it’s possible. Or, you don’t how to get there.

I believe that people do not move forward in their careers
for 2 reasons. Once you overcome and push past these 2 items, you are ready to
go.

So what are these 2 items? See them below.

1) FEAR

Everyone is afraid of something and fear is normal.
Actually, fear can be a good thing, because it protects you from harm or
getting into damaging situations. But, fear is negative when it paralyzes you
and keeps you from taking action. For example, fear of making a mistake will
keep you from trying something new. Fear of looking bad in front of friends and
family will keep you from expressing your true career wishes to the people in
your life. Fear of failing will keep you from succeeding.

It’s important to recognize fear for what it is; a scary
thought that turns into an emotion, that in turn, stops you. If you can
remember that a thought is just a thought, without judging it, then your
thought does not have to keep you from moving forward anymore.

Many people believe they will act when fear goes away, but
fear doesn’t disappear on its own. You eliminate fear by talking yourself
through it. That’s how you push past fear, you become your own savior and tell
yourself that it’s ok to be afraid, but it’s not ok to stay where you are. Fear
goes away when you switch your mindset to pro-active, rather than re-active.

2) LOGISTICS

While fear covers the thinking portion of your problem,
logistics is the set of steps you take to move your career forward.

Say to yourself, “here are the steps that I’m going to
take” and then take them.  If you
take these steps on a regular basis, you will reach your career goals. If you
don’t take these steps, you won’t. If you take these steps here and there, you
may reach your goals, or you may not. And, if you do, it will take a long time.
Some people stop at logistics because they don’t know what
steps to take. Again, this is normal. Write down what you do know and begin
there. Put these steps in your calendar and start moving forward. What you
don’t know turn into a question. For example, “I don’t know who to
call” becomes “who can I call that will point me in the right
direction?” You are not supposed to have all the answers, so expect that
you will be reaching out to people who do.
Logistics also is about taking one step a time. Small piece
by small piece. You may want to rush to the finish line, but slow and steady
wins the race.
So, what do you say? You only have one life to live, so it
might as well be a life you love!

http://www.tnj.com/departments/africa-focus/india-moves

India is expanding its footprint in Africa so aggressively that a mighty buzz has arisen about Sino-Indian rivalry for influence on the continent. On the face of it, India and China are not in the same league when it comes to trade with Africa. While India’s two-way trade with Africa soared from about $1 billion in 2001 to $46 billion in 2010, it is eclipsed by China’s, which surpassed $120 billion in 2010. Still, officials in both countries were forced to respond to talk of rivalry after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in May offered $5 billion in loans to help Africa meet its development goals, $700 million for new institutions and training programs, and another $300 million line of credit for a new rail line between Ethiopia and Djibouti. Singh announced the loans at the second India-Africa Summit, held in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They follow a $5.4 billion credit pledge at the first India-Africa Summit in 2008.

“Chinese and Indian leaders have stressed that India and China are not competitors but cooperative partners. It is a good thing that international community focuses on Africa,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jiang Yu told reporters when asked about denials by Indian officials that the Addis Ababa summit was an attempt to counter China’s influence.

India’s foray into Africa is far from philanthropic. As with China, India needs access to Africa’s vast energy and natural resources to sustain its fast-growing economy, projected to expand by 8.5 percent between 2011 and 2012. “That requires further deepening engagement in Africa. Natural resource diplomacy is one of [the strategies for engagement] — be it oil, coal, uranium — and another is about widening other connections that India has on the continent — building infrastructure, agriculture expansion,” CNN quotes Alex Vines, head of the Africa Program at the London think tank Chatham House, as saying.

In May, India put forward a framework for its “partnership” with Africa that emphasizes skills transfer, capacity building and trade. Among 80 institutions it plans to finance are an India-Africa Institute of Foreign Trade in Uganda, the India-Africa Institute of Information Technology in Ghana, an India-Africa Diamond Institute in Botswana and an India-Africa Institute of Education, Planning and Administration in Burundi, according to Ruchita Beri, senior research associate at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis in New Delhi. Other institutions at the pan-African level will focus on food processing, integrated textiles, weather forecasting, life and earth sciences, agriculture and rural development; at the regional level, they will include soil-, water- and tissue-testing laboratories, regional farm-sciences centers, seed production and demonstration centers and material-testing labs for highway development; at the bilateral level, they will include institutes for English language training, information technology, entrepreneurship development and vocational training. India also proposes to set up an India-Africa virtual university with 10,000 new scholarships and raise the number of training slots and scholarships available to Africans under the India Technical and Economic Cooperation program.

Africa watchers say India’s approach to Africa differs, deliberately, from China’s, in placing emphasis on what they term “co-development” — building strong, mutually beneficial bilateral ties with African countries. India cannot compete with China in terms of acquiring mines, oil fields and other resources in Africa, so it’s doing what it is good at, which is to help build infrastructure development in Africa and create goodwill through a positive role, they say. India’s business links in Africa are also growing. One of the most recent examples is telecoms giant Bharti Airtel Ltd.’s $10 billion acquisition last year of mobile phone operations across Africa from the Kuwaiti firm Zain Group.

If there is rivalry for the heart and mind of Africa, it is between China and the United States, despite Washington’s insistence to the contrary. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton asserts, however, that China plays a dirty game in Africa. Whereas the United States demands proof of “democratic practices” and “good governance” before extending its hand to Africa, Beijing has no such concerns. “We are… concerned,” says U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, “that China’s foreign assistance and investment practices in Africa have not always been consistent with generally accepted international norms of transparency and good governance, and that it has not always utilized the talents of the African people in pursuing its business interests.” But it is China, not the United States, that is sub-Saharan Africa’s largest trading partner.