Bare necessities: 5 Essentials for every Young Professional

1. A Resumé: You should ALWAYS have a copy of your most updated resume within reach. Be sure your resume is an accurate and honest representation of your abilities and your qualifications. It should be as close to perfect as possible (free of typos, consistent formatting, etc.). Print it out and comb over it line by line before you distribute it to others. Be sure your contact information is always up to date.

2. Business Cards. I think this one is a given especially since business cards are so cheap and easy to come by. Dont believe me? Imagine this, you meet someone at a networking event and they do not have their cell phone. How are you going to give them your contact information? Write it on a napkin? Heck no! Politely offer them your business card and take down their information. Follow up within 24 hours with an email or a phone call (NOTE: texting and calling are not the same and should never be used interchangeably) and continue to build from there. After a few months of communicating you can look back and say it all started with a business card.

3. Mentor: Find someone who has been where you are or someone who is where you want to be. Do not be afraid to reach out to them and make a genuine connection. They have valuable information and you should make use of them as a resource. Having a great mentor will make an incredible difference. They can light your path and become lifelong friends. Hey XW *wink*

4.A tailored suit: Don’t just buy a suit in your respective size. Take it to a tailor and have it cut to fit you. Your waist may be a size 2 or 32 but you may need your pants hemmed. You WILL be able to tell the difference. Although you will have to invest a little more time and money in tailoring your suit, consider it an investment in your future. Click here for tips about "looking the part" of a YP from HUSL Today.

5. The perfect handshake. Handshakes that are too firm make you seem like you're trying too hard and a soft handshake is just annoying (especially for men). Practice yours with friends you trust until you reach the oh so important middle ground. Well my friends, I know this list is by no means exhaustive. What do you consider essential to your success in your profession? Did I miss anything? Do you agree.

The floor is yours. What things do you think have been essential to your success? What do you consider a bare necessity? Share it amongst friends

Talented Genration Salutes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes, (February 1, 1902 – May 22, 1967) was an American poet, novelist, playwright, short story writer, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best-known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance. He is also best known for what he wrote about the Harlem Renaissance, "Harlem was in vogue."

Hughes' life and work were enormously influential during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s alongside those of his contemporaries, Zora Neale Hurston, Wallace Thurman, Claude McKay, Countee Cullen, Richard Bruce Nugent, and Aaron Douglas, who, collectively (with the exception of McKay), created the short-lived magazine Fire!! Devoted to Younger Negro Artists.

In his work he confronted racial stereotypes, protested social conditions, and expanded African America’s image of itself; a “people’s poet” who sought to reeducate both audience and artist by lifting the theory of the black aesthetic into reality. Moreover, Hughes stressed the importance of a racial consciousness and cultural nationalism devoid of self-hate that united people of African descent and Africa across the globe and encouraged pride in their own diverse black folk culture and black aesthetic.

Langston Hughes was one of the few black writers of any consequence to champion racial consciousness as a source of inspiration for black artists. His African-American race consciousness and cultural nationalism would influence many foreign black writers, such as Jacques Roumain, Nicolás Guillén, Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Aimé Césaire. With Senghor and Césaire and other French-speaking writers of Africa and of African descent from the Caribbean like René Maran from Martinique and Léon Damas from French Guiana in South America, the works of Hughes helped to inspire the concept that became the Négritude movement in France where a radical black self-examination was emphasized in the face of European colonialism.

Langston Hughes was not only a role model for his calls for black racial pride instead of assimilation, but the most important technical influence in his emphasis on folk and jazz rhythms as the basis of his poetry of racial pride. In 1930, his first novel Not Without Laughter won the Harmon Gold Medal for literature. Hughes's first collection of short stories came in 1934 with The Ways of White Folks. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1935.

Langston Hughes died of complications from prostate cancer in May 22, 1967, in New York. In his memory, his residence at 20 East 127th Street in Harlem, New York City, has been given landmark status by the New York City Preservation Commission, and East 127th Street has been renamed "Langston Hughes Place."

Here is another one of my favorite poems from Hughes:

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore--

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over--

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Check out a montage Nike created for the 2008 Beijing Olympics:

A Selected Bibliography

Poetry

Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz (1961)

Collected Poems of Langston Hughes (1994)

Dear Lovely Death (1931)

Fields of Wonder (1947)

Fine Clothes to the Jew (1927)

Freedom's Plow (1943)

Montage of a Dream Deferred (1951)

One-Way Ticket (1949)

Scottsboro Limited (1932)

Selected Poems (1959)

Shakespeare in Harlem (1942)

The Dream Keeper and Other Poems (1932)

The Panther and the Lash: Poems of Our Times (1967)

The Weary Blues (1926)

Prose

Good Morning, Revolution: Uncollected Social Protest Writings by Langston Hughes (1973)

I Wonder as I Wander (1956)

Laughing to Keep From Crying (1952)

Not Without Laughter (1930)

Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925-1964 (2001)

Simple Speaks His Mind (1950)

Simple Stakes a Claim (1957)

Simple Takes a Wife (1953)

Simple's Uncle Sam (1965)

Something in Common and Other Stories (1963)

Tambourines to Glory (1958)

The Arna Bontemps-Langston Hughes Letters (1980)

The Big Sea (1940)

The Langston Hughes Reader (1958)

The Ways of White Folks (1934)

Drama

Black Nativity (1961)

Collected Works of Langston Hughes, vol. 5: The Plays to 1942: Mulatto to The Sun Do Move (2000)

Don't You Want to Be Free? (1938)

Five Plays by Langston Hughes (1963)

Little Ham (1935)

Mulatto (1935)

Mule Bone (1930)

Simply Heavenly (1957)

Soul Gone Home (1937)

The Political Plays of Langston Hughes (2000)

Poetry in Translation

Cuba Libre (1948)

Gypsy Ballads (1951)

Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (1957)

Translation

Masters of the Dew (1947)

For his contributions to African American culture and his inspirational literary works, Talented Generation salutes Langston Hughes!

On THIS date in Black History

1810 - The Argentine national hero from Buenos Aires, Argentina, Antonio Ruiz (El Negro Falucho), joins the ancestors, fighting for his country.

1855 - The Wisconsin Supreme Court declares that the United States Fugitive Slave Law is unconstitutional.

1870- Congress ratifies the 15^th Amendment. The amendment granted black men the RIGHT TO VOTE.

1874 - Blanche Kelso Bruce is elected to the United States Senate from Mississippi. He will be the first African American senator to serve a full term and the first to preside over the Senate during a debate.

1879 - Charles Follis is born in Wooster, Ohio. He is the first African American professional football player in the United States reported by the press. He played for a professional team known as the Shelby Blues, in Shelby, Ohio. He played from 1904-1906 and retired due to injuries.

Editor's note: In 1972, the Pro Football Hall of Fame will discover proof that William (Pudge) Heffelfinger, a Yale All-American, played one game for $ 500, for the Allegheny Athletic Association in 1892, making him the actual 'first' to play football for pay. Follis will join the ancestors in 1910 after succumbing to pneumonia.

1935 - Johnny "Guitar" Watson is born in Houston. Texas. He will become a guitarist and singer known for his wild style of guitar playing and the sound which merged Blues Music with touches of Rhythm & Blues and Funk. He died of a heart attack on May 17, 1996.

1938 - Emile Griffith is born in St. Thomas, Virgin Islands. He won the Golden Gloves title and turned professional in 1958. In his career, he met 10 world champions and box 339 title-fight rounds, more than any other fighter in history. He was elected to the International Boxing Hall of Fame with the distinction of being the third fighter in history to hold both the welterweight and middleweight titles.

1938 - Elijah Pitts is born in Mayflower, Arkansas. He will become a professional football player with the Green Bay Packers. A major contributor as a running back, he will help his team win Super Bowl I. He will spend nine years with the Green Bay Packers during their championship years under Hall of Fame coach Vince Lombardi. The Packers will win four NFL championships and two Super Bowls during his career. He returned to the Super Bowl thirty years later as a running back coach with the Buffalo Bills. He died on July 10, 1998 after succumbing to abdominal cancer.

1939 - The Baltimore Museum of Art exhibit, "Contemporary Negro Art," opens. The exhibit, which ran for 16 days, featured works by Richmond Barthe, Aaron Douglas, Archibald Motley, Jr., and Jacob Lawrence's Toussaint L'Ouverture series.

1947 - Percival Prattis of "Our World" in New York City, becomes the first African American news correspondent admitted to the House and Senate press galleries in Washington, DC.

1948 - Laura Wheeler Waring, portrait painter and illustrator, died. Trained at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, she received the Harmon Award in 1927 for achievement in the fine arts and, with Betsey Graves Reyneau, completed a set of 24 renderings of their works entitled "Portraits of Outstanding Americans of Negro Origins" for the Harmon Foundation in the 1940's.

1948 - Rosa Ingram and her fourteen and sixteen-year-old sons are condemned to death for the alleged murder of a white Georgian. Mrs. Ingram asserted that she acted in self-defense.

1964 - School officials report that 464,000 Black and Puerto Rican students boycotted New York City public schools.

1965- Geraldine McCullough wins Widener Gold Medal for Sculpture

1980 - Muhammad Ali starts tour of Africa as President Jimmy Carter's envoy.

1981 - The Air Force Academy drops its ban on applicants with sickle-cell trait. The ban was considered by many a means of discriminating against African Americans.

1984 - A sellout crowd of 18,210 at Madison Square Garden in New York City sees Carl Lewis best his own world record in the long jump by 9-1/4 inches.

1989 - Former St. Louis Cardinals' first baseman, Bill White becomes the first African American to head an American professional sports league when he was named to succeed A. Bartlett Giamatti as National League president.

1993 - The federal trial of four police officers charged with civil rights violations in the videotaped beating of Rodney King, began in Los Angeles.

1993 - Marge Schott is suspended as Cincinnati Reds owner for one year for her repeated use of racial and ethnic slurs.

As always, I know this list is not exhaustive, feel free to share your knowledge about what happened on THIS day in black history.

Talented Generation Presents: Spotlight on YP Companies!

This is Talented Generation's first ever spotlight on YP Companies! Here, we will highlight companies and other organizations owned and/or ran primarily by Young Professionals. The companies highlighted here can also serve as inspiration for my Talented Generation friends who are plotting their career paths.



Creative Party Designing is a premier licensed event planning company that has been specializing in personal and professional event coordinating since 2007. Creative Party Designing is dedicated to coordinating events to satisfy unique & traditional customer specifications.

Creative Party Designing has coordinated events in Los Angeles, New York, Atlanta & Florida.
Creative Party Designing handles ALL of the following:
Destination weddings
International events
Corporate Events
Sporting Events
Celebrity Events
Charity Events
Make-up Bars
Fashion & Trunk Shows
Engagement Parties
Weddings
Receptions
Bridal Showers
Bachelor/Bachelorette Parties
Anniversary Parties
Retirement events
Promotion celebrations
Graduation parties
Birthday Parties
YOUR NEXT EVENT!

To ensure the success of each event, Creative Party Designing employs a diverse staff of event planners, personal assistants, publicists, photographers, videographers, graphic & webpage designers, hair stylists, make-up artists, entertainers, venue locators, florists, and musicians. It is a one stop shop for all your event planning needs. If you can dream it up, Creative Party Designing can make it happen!

Their motto is "You name it, we plan it!" There is no job too large or too small!
If you have an event coming up, do not make the mistake of planning it without Creative Party Designing. Give your guests the ultimate experience!

All customers are provided with a free initial consultation. Send all inquiries to Creative Party Designing at creativepartydesigning@gmail.com.



The owner of Creative Party Designing, Makeva Harold, is also giving back to her community through her non-profit foundation-The Makeva Harold Foundation. Her foundation seeks to broaden the horizons of youth and adults at risk or in crisis through individualized need assessments, providing education, employment, therapeutic, and housing services intended for the development of independent, productive and successful members of the community.

The Makeva Harold Foundation provides community members with computer training, workshops on professional resume writing, budgeting skills, parenting skills, interviewing skills, assist the unemployed in obtaining gainful employment and any other skills deemed necessary for community members to be self sufficient.

The Foundation has two divisions: adult services and youth services. Each division conducts monthly workshops on various topics which focus on creating self-sufficiency amongst individuals in the community. The Foundation hosts quarterly fundraisers, which allows them to offer their services to the community for free. If you would like to donate or volunteer your services to the Makeva Harold Foundation, here is their contact info:

Makeva Harold, MSW
Makeva Harold Foundation Inc.
100 S. Dixie Highway, Ste #304
West Palm Beach, FL 33401
Office: (561) 655-8508
Fax: (561) 370-3322

Golden Rules for Young Professionals Vol 1

Three things to be respected are : mother, father & teacher

Three things to be taken care of are : wife, wealth & wisdom

Three things never to be forgotten are : debt, duty & disease

Three things to be kept in control are : greed, sex & tongue

Three things to avoid for happiness are : anger, hatred & jealously

Three things to avoid are : bad company, selfishness & hypocrisy.

Three things to the path of prosperity are : god, education & hard work

Three things that do not wait are : time, death & customer

Three signs of maturity are : forgive, forget & befriend

Three things that do not come back are : arrow from the bow, word from tongue & life from body.

Three wrongs that to be avoided are : wrong eating, wrong living & wrong


Did I miss something? Do you agree? Would you change anything?

Sidenote: Happy Birthday Oprah and congrats to WPGC's Donnie Simpson who broadcasted his last show this morning after 16 legendary years on the air.

Talented Generation presents: Words to know

How is this segment going to help you? Well studies show that your intelligence is directly correlated to your vocabulary. Although you may know the definition to this word, you are encouraged to explore new vocabulary words daily. Whenever you come across a word you do not know the meaning to, write it down and look it up later. Try to use the word in a sentence and in your conversations today.
Set a goal for yourself to learn 5 or more new words per week.

Today's word is: Improvident (Adjective)

Pronunciation : im-provvi-dnt

Definition:
1. failing to put money aside or give any thought to the future
2. reckless, especially in the use of material resources
3. characterized by unthinking boldness and haste

Synonyms:
brash, foolhardy, harum-scarum, hasty, headlong, hotheaded, ill-considered, impetuous, impulsive, incautious, madcap, precipitant, precipitate, rash, reckless, slapdash, temerarious, unconsidered, thriftless, unthrifty

Antonyms:
careful, cautious, miserly, provident, thrifty

Contextual Examples:
• All things will be clear and distinct to the man who does not hurry. Haste is blind and improvident.

• Some of them retained a little of the thrift and forethought of the civilized man, and became wealthy among their improvident. neighbors.

Related Words:
• improvidence : Noun

• improvidently : Adverb

Expand your knowledge my friends!

Info source: English-for-students.com

Alert: 5 Things you should know about your facebook privacy settings!!!

This one is for all of my social networkers. A little over a month ago the powers over at Facebook decided to change a few key things about their privacy settings. According to Facebook's guide to privacy, the changes mean:

• You can now control who can see every post you share, from status updates to photo albums.
• Regional networks (like London or Australia) have been removed.
• A common set of information for all users is now publicly available.
• Facebook-enhanced applications and websites now have access to a limited set of information when you use and interact with them: your publicly available information and information you've made visible to Everyone.
• No changes whatsoever to ads on Facebook. We do not give—and have never given—anyone's data or personally identifiable information to advertisers.

Although the changes were supposed to be user friendly, I was only able to figure out the new layout a few days ago. Based on my experience with securing my profile and the information contained therein, here is my list of the things you should check (and possibly change) in your privacy settings.

1. Public search listing: Before the switch, I had this feature turned OFF but after a quick google of myself I quickly discovered that this feature had been turned ON without any sort of notification to me. To check this setting, log on to your account and click on Settings>Privacy Settings>Search. If the "Allow indexing" box is checked next to "Public Search Listing" then search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing will be able to index your information. 24 hours after you change this, type your name into any search engine and verify that the public search listing has been deleted. If it has not, double check that the"allow indexing" box is unchecked and then post your question under the "help" option.

2. Publicly available information. This is the information that is available to members of a group, quiz developers or fan page you may be a member of. Even if your Facebook profile is "private," when you take a quiz, an unknown quiz developer could be accessing almost everything in your profile: your religion, sexual orientation, political affiliation, pictures, and groups. Facebook quizzes also have access to most of the info on your friends' profiles. This means that if your friend takes a quiz, they could be giving away your personal information too. The ACLU has created a quiz called "What do Quizzes really know about you?" which will give you a shocking idea of what info is shared about you when you take a quiz. It may make you think twice the next time you feel compelled to answer questions to find out "what kind of girlfriend are you?" or "which boondocks character are you?"

3. Privacy lists. These can be useful when you want to publish information but only allow certain people the privilege of viewing it. With the new changes, You can select a privacy level or choose to customize your privacy. You can easily create Friend Lists from the Friends page and selecting "Custom Setting" any time you set your privacy. This will allow you the opportunity to restrict the information for the intended viewers.


4. Friends lists: You can restrict who sees your friends lists. If you want to restrict who sees your friends list within Facebook, click on the pencil icon next to your Friends widget below your profile picture, and uncheck the box that says "Show my friends on my profile." While you're at it, you may choose to make your gender and yoru current city invisible as well


5. Be careful what you post. As an avid user of social networking sites, I can relate to one's concern about their privacy on the internet. However, I encourage all of you to avoid things that you would rather not share with the world because you never know who may see you or when a hidden camera may just be filming you. Use online communities sparingly and with care. Be honest, polite and meet new people while putting your best (digital) foot forward. Once you post something, you can never truly delete it. Think twice before you post an angry status update about your spouse or family members because the memory of those words will linger long after you have deleted the post.

You can read Facebook's privacy policy here.

Are you concerned about your privacy on facebook? Were these tips helpful for you? Did we miss an important tip? Drop your thoughts and feedback off in the comments area.

Image source: Google

Afternoon snack

Did you know that we subconsciously make resolutions everyday? We may not say them out loud but we make resolutions (promises to ourselves) several times a day. Here are some examples:

Today I will get to work on time.
Today I will find a new way to my destination.
Today I will be prepared for work/school.
Today I will remain calm in the face of an angry driver.
Today I will smile more.

Why not take the time to make more significant resolution? With each New Year comes a new resolution that may fall by the wayside come January 31. We tell ourselves to lose weight, get rid of negative people, meet new people and the list goes on. I propose that all of you try something new and make a significant resolution everyday this month. Daily resolutions can range from taking the initiative to start your own business to getting to work 5 minutes early instead of on time.



Don’t wait until another new year to make a resolution, start today! Resolve to change your eating habits instead of going on a diet. Resolve to project a positive outlook on life to attract more positive people. Resolve to limit your spending on unnecessary items from day to day. Most importantly, STICK WITH IT! Share your resolutions with your friend(s) and you can make a pact to help each other change. It will serve as a reminder that someone is traveling on your journey with you and it will make the journey that much more fun.


Grab a pen and pad and start planning. It is time to start living your best life! Resolve to become the best version of yourself EVERYDAY! Remember Young Professionals have a phoenix inside of them. All of us will rise through the flames a new improved version of our old selves!

Post your resolutions in the comment area, you never know who else may have the same resolutions.

Make 2009 jealous!


Be Young;
Be Professional;
Be Great!