Building Successful Careers

Great Fall at Florence Looking at two big scars on my right elbow and left knee, I smile.  A beautiful picture of of the Arno river floats in front my eyes. I fell in love with Florence many moons ago when I was in college. This summer, I finally saw the handsome David in the Accademia Galleria (Galleria dell'Accademia) and the beautiful Cathedral, while eating delicious pizza, chocolates and Gelato, talking to artists by the side of the street. I tried to record every second and capture every beautiful scene.  I certainly fell in love with the Arno River and more so with the Ponte Vecchio bridge.  I walked with one eye closed and the other looking at the Ponte Vecchio bridge through the viewfinder of my camera.  I fell forward toward the thick river wall. To protect my face and my favorite camera, I elbowed the rough brick wall and fell left sideways. I do not remember how painful it was.  I only remember the beautiful Arno River and the Ponte Vecchio Bri...

Myths of the Promotion - 10 Steps to a Successful Career                    by Elizabeth Xu, Ph.D. and Pat Zimmerman Amazon book link Myths of the Promotion provides you with ten systematic steps extracted from great leaders in the industry and authors’ real corporate executive experiences. The virtual position concept is original and paradigm changing for professionals to advance their career from individual contributors to mid-level managers and then to executive positions. Myths of the Promotion will completely change your mindset and your understanding of career advancement.  These ten actionable steps will assist you in refining your career vision, building realistic goals, developing feasible plans and executing them flawlessly. Also discussed is how to create an effective professional brand and network, how to collaborate and influence others as well as how to build and lead a successfu...

Six Essential Leadership Skills There are 6 categories of skills that make or break a leader: Strategic Formulation Customer Orientation Business Strategy Implementation Being a Team Player Leadership Personal Traits Understanding these skills will help you to recognize your opportunities. Elizabeth Xu, sample content from the to be published book.

Christmas Memories My Mom was the Queen of Christmas. To this day, I remember the beautiful decorations, wonderful foods, joyous music and, of course, the gifts. Although money was never plentiful in our home, she found ways to make memories that linger in her daughters’ minds forever. All four of us have tried to pick up from where she left off. We made red and green chains out of construction paper and homemade paste. She hung these in the doorways to decorate the house. She hung the wonderful Christmas cards received from loved ones around the doorways. We all joined in the decorating of the tree. Favorite ornaments would be hung in a prominent place. Mom liked each piece of tinsel hung separately not flung at the tree. This is the season of love and family. Mom would bake cookies while we were at school. When we came home, the whole family would frost and decorate them. We felt so proud when she served our “works of art” to friends and relatives or when we took a tray of o...

When we were at college, money was the most important element of my life. We needed it to pay bills and buy things we liked.  Many of us worked many not so glamor jobs, exchanged time for money.  We learned tremendously from that life experience. We treasured money. After a few years of stable jobs, we earned more money. But money was never enough for us to feel secure.  We work more. We work day and night.   Some of us have to make appointments with our spouses just to spend some time alone.  We became smarter over time,  we now use money to buy time:  we pay for cooks, cleaning services, baby sitters; we pay drivers to drive our kids around, we get 1-1 private classes for our children at home. When we sit next to our children, we check our messages, reply to our boss’ emails at all hours.  One of my friend’s son one day yelled at her: “ You love your phone more than your love me!”  We are physically with our family but our minds dri...

I heard the term “location, location, location” for the very first time when I was hunting for my first house. No surprise at all, because I didn’t grow up in the United States and had no clue about how to select a house. What does this expression using three “locations” really mean? A curious person as I have always been, asked many realtors and got many interesting answers. Most of them told me that three repeating locations mean that location is very important. My interpretation from my house hunting experience is: 1) Location: which city you want to grow your family and what kind of life style it provides 2) Location: What street you want to live on, small court close to highway or close to school, what kind of convenience it provides to your daily life 3) Location: the orientation/direction of your house, facing east, south, floor plan, size of the lot, plus some other consideration depending on your culture and the comfort level it provides When I had these three locations in...

John came to me at noon time. He opened our meeting with serious business topics talking professionally about projects and resources. After our discussion, he relaxed and smiled at me: “Elizabeth, would you please give me some feedback?” I smiled back at John, “I would like to pass on feedback I once received from one of my mentors.” Harry, the Executive Chairman I worked for, had a productive meeting about software global resource strategy with me. At end of the meeting, I asked for his feedback. Harry looked at me with a serious face: “Elizabeth, you are too serious, and you are too scary!” Then he laughed. What an astonishing remark! I was too serious and too scary! I viewed myself as a nice, flexible and resourceful professional. I knew for fact that I was not outwardly humorous. However, I was not boring either! What could I do to correct that impression? Solutions appeared. A few days later, my husband came home with a tip on effective communication with executives. ...