REPOST: Gabrielle Bernstein: How to achieve unlimited happiness by making changes in your life

How can we achieve unlimited happiness in both our career and life? Dan Schawbel of Forbes.com shares his recent conversation with Gabrielle Bernstein, author of The New York Times bestseller " May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness."

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I recently spoke to the wondering Gabrielle Bernstein, who is the New York Times bestselling author of May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness. She also wrote Add More ~ing to Your Life and Spirit Junkie. She’s been featured on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday as a next generation thought leader. Forbes named Gabrielle one of the Top 20 Best Branded Women and YouTube named her one of their Next Vloggers Gabrielle is also the founder of the social networking site HerFuture.com for women to inspire, empower and connect. Gabrielle has a weekly radio show every Wednesday on Hay House Radio and is a featured curator for Opensky. You can follow her on Facebook or Twitter @GabbyBernstein.

In this interview, she talks about how she’s developed her career, the biggest obstacles that she’s had, why she focused on spirituality, how people can get back on track in this bad economy and more.

You’ve created your own media empire over the years. How did you originally get into this career path and what were some of the biggest obstacles when you first started out?

I started my entrepreneurial journey right out of college. At the age of 21 I incorporated my first business, a PR firm based in New York City. I successfully ran that business with a partner for five years, but all the while I felt there was something missing. In 2005 I made major changes in my personal life that led me to shift gears. At that time I put down my PR business and began working as a life coach and speaker. I gave talks on what I was experiencing in my own life and shared the incredible lessons I was learning. Through my own spiritual journey I was guided to teach others how to crack open their authentic truth.

Over time, my lecture circuit grew. I witnessed a new Zeitgeist emerge: Young women were choosing real happiness over the party scene and fancy shoes. It has been a true pleasure to be at the forefront of this shift.

When selecting your field, why did you focus on spirituality and did you know that younger women would respond to it like the have?

I got started on my spiritual path when I was a kid. My mom taught me how to meditate and brought me to ashrams and spiritual circles. But I turned my back on spirituality for several years–until I hit a big bottom at 25 and had no choice but to return to my spiritual roots for help. I did just that. Since then, I have been on a steadfast journey inward as a self-proclaimed Spirit Junkie. As I grew spiritually I reclaimed a strong sense of self-respect and self-love, which is what led me to become an author and a speaker. My transition was very smooth because I was following my true purpose.

I believe that my work has been well-received because it is authentic. All people really want are authenticity and truth.

The bad economy has really ruined people emotionally and some have even given up on their job search completely. What are your recommendations to them? How can they get back on the right track?

When times are tough we have two choices: we can get sucked into fear or we can get creative. Fear is often our immediate response to uncertainty. There’s nothing wrong with experiencing fear. They key is not to get stuck in it. When we’re mired in fear, we feel like victims. We feel exhausted and helpless—or bitter and angry (or all of the above) because we focus on fear-based thoughts. Each thought we have influences our energy, and our energy makes the first impression on a job interview. My best advice for people looking to get out of the recession funk is to work through their fears and change their thoughts and energy. Everything else will flow from that.

In my new book, May Cause Miracles, I have an entire chapter dedicated to finance. Throughout the chapter I suggest several concrete ways you can change your mind about your experience. One example is to practice using the affirmation, I am not my lack mentality. I am not my lack mentality. Throughout the day, make an effort to be conscious of your recession fears. For instance, maybe your heart pounds every time you look at your bank statements. Or maybe you avoid negotiating for fear of not getting what you want, or because you’ve convinced yourself you’re not worth more. In the moment that you recognize your fear popping up, simply say (out loud or to yourself): I am not my lack mentality. This affirmation will remind you that you’ve merely chosen the wrong-minded approach to money, and that you can forgive yourself and change your thoughts. This practice will kick off the process of disconnecting from the fear.

Trust that by thinking or saying the words you’re creating a subtle shift that will move your focus away from fear. Remember that this path requires a moment-to-moment commitment to a positive perspective. That commitment will strengthen your faith in abundance one loving thought at a time.

In your book, you offer an action plan for people that takes 40 days. Why does it take that much time to bring out your best self? Does the amount of time required to transform your life change based on who you are?

Like any effective practice, true transformation occurs with daily repetition. Begin with a 40-day commitment and start experiencing positive results immediately. Why 40 days? Metaphysicians and yogis place much emphasis on the repetition of a 40-day practice. Mythical examples range from Moses’s 40 days and 40 nights in the desert to the story of the Buddha reaching enlightenment on the full moon in May after meditating and fasting under the Bodhi tree for 40 days. The number has scientific significance, too: research has shown that after repeating a new pattern for 40 days, you can change the neural pathways in your brain to create long-lasting change. So let’s take a cue from the mystics and scientists alike, and commit to this 40-day fear cleanse. It’s the simple, consistent shifts that count when you’re making change—so I’ve outlined May Cause Miracles to be fun and achievable. In the book I guide readers to keep it uncomplicated and stay on track. And one day at a time you’ll begin to experience the miraculous shifts.

What are your top three best pieces of career advice to those who are just starting out?

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1. Love what you do. Though this suggestion may sound cliche, it is the most important career advice I could offer anyone. When you love what you do, a power greater than you takes over. Passion creates purpose. When we live from a place of purpose, doors open effortlessly, money flows and incredible opportunities arise. The Universe supports you when you’re inspired.

2. Be authentic. There is nothing cooler than your authentic truth. Throughout my career the people who I’ve hired have been those who are honest and real. Don’t be afraid to be YOU. When you are yourself in a work environment or on an interview, all false pretenses lift and people feel connected to you. Everyone wants to feel connected, and when you are your authentic self, you offer them that opportunity.

3. Don’t be afraid to ask for more. Particularly during a recession, I see many people settling for less. Folks are plagued by the limiting belief that in tough economic times, “you have to take what you can get.” This fear-based belief system is not supporting the economy or your bank account. There is no harm in asking for more. Women in particular have a very difficult time negotiating and asking for what they want. Truth? The only way you’re going to get what you want is if you ask for it. It might make you uncomfortable to ask, but it’s important that you acknowledge that fear and discomfort … and ask anyway.

Marc Accetta has inspired many people to achieve their personal goals. He believes that to be successful, one must be able to shake off doubts and fears, improve self-esteem, and hone personal skills. If you want to become successful, follow this Twitter page for more self-improvement tips.

REPOST: 7 Things great employees do

If you think you know the difference between an average employee and a great one, think again. This CBSNews.com article talks about the seven things that great employees do.

Look, you've got to understand the reality here. People will cite ridiculously esoteric research studies and pull all sorts of popular, feel-good stuff out of their utopian behinds -- whatever it takes to get you to click. That's great for feeding your ego and your addiction to distraction, but it doesn't do squat for your career.

This is different. It's not some kumbaya fluff that will get you a big pat on the back, a "Nice job, buddy" from the boss, or a gift certificate for a cheap dinner. This is what employees really do to distinguish themselves in the eyes of management. It's how up-and-comers become up-and-comers. It's how you get recognized and moving up the corporate ladder. It's what today's top executives did when they were in your shoes.

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Take responsibility for hot projects with a fearless attitude. And get this. If it works out, you don't waste a lot of time basking in the glory, at least not at work. Maybe you go out and celebrate with the other team members. That aside, you're all about finding the next big challenge. You're hungry for more. And if it fails, you don't point fingers. You take full responsibility and learn from it. And you know what? That's when management will start to see you as one of them. That's big.

Demonstrate natural leadership. That means when you take charge of something, people naturally follow, even though you don't have the title or the authority. Never mind everything you read; that's what natural leadership is really all about. There are all sorts of different styles that work, but mostly it comes down to a fearless self-confidence and charisma that people find magnetic. That's like gold in the corporate world.

Say, "Sure, no problem, will do," and then do it. It's one thing to have a solid work ethic and get the job done. That certainly key in the real business world. But it's another thing entirely to always accept challenging assignments with open arms and a simple, "No problem, will do" acknowledgement. And the tougher it is, the more confident you sound and the harder you work to make it happen. That's the sign of an employee who needs a promotion or two.

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Roll with the punches without taking things personally. Sure, it's hard to keep your balance when the rug's just been pulled out from under you. But let's face it. The nature of contemporary business is one of constant change, reorganizations and layoffs. Programs come and go. Companies too. One day you're rolling in resources, the next day you need three signatures for a chair. That's the way business is. And if you're flexible, you're adaptable, you've got fortitude and you don't take things personally, that's big.

Think of the company's goals as your goals. I know, the jaded among you will say that blind loyalty to a company will enslave you and get you nowhere. Well, there's truth to that. After all, any employee can be fired or quit, and that's as it should be. This is about understanding how companies operate and making the company's or the department's priorities your own. When you start to identify with the goals of management -- live, eat and breathe them -- then you start to become management. Yes, that's a good thing.

Do whatever it takes to get the job done, even when you're not getting paid for it. Look, success in the real world doesn't work like tit for tat. First, you put yourself out there, take risks, do the work, and accomplish things. Then, and only then, do you get to put your hand out and say, "Give me some." Then, if your company doesn't take care of you, you learn a lesson, put your accomplishments on your resume, and move on to a better place that values overachievers like you.

Grow the business or improve the bottom line. Yeah, I know it's not popular, but that doesn't make it any less critical or true. These days, it's all about doing more with less. Being more efficient, effective, scrappy, innovative, motivational, engaging, and not only that, happy about it. Think of it as a problem-solving challenge where the problem is how to grow the business or cut spending while improving productivity. Like it or not, that is what it's all about.

One of the most recognizable figures in the life coaching arena, Marc Accetta has inspired many people to face challenges, hurdle obstacles, and achieve personal success. Visit his website for more information.

Five simple daily habits for a happy life in the office

In today’s busy world, work, deadlines, and a demanding boss can overwhelm employees. While committing errors is inevitable and can even serve as a lesson, fewer errors mean more chances of success in one’s professional life. Embracing best practice and adopting the following expert advice from certified life and career coach Ann Mehl can result to more ‘happy days’ in the workplace.

• Improving physical health. A sluggish body leads to a laid-back attitude towards work. Mehl suggests taking the stairs instead of riding the elevator, or taking a 20-minute walk during breaks.

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• Spending emotional energy on important things. Discernment works when individuals spend their emotions on important things, rather than on trivial matters. Workers must surround themselves with positive energy by developing close ties with people who can inspire and uplift them.

• Exercising the mind. People can learn new things every day by recalling facts, sorting information, and engaging in mental games. By engaging in mental activities, an individual is able to maintain a sharp mind.

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• Getting in touch with a ‘higher force.’ Connecting with something bigger and higher puts things in perspective. It doesn’t have to be about meditating for hours or even believing in a god. It can be done by being one with nature or just being grateful.

• Reaching out to others. An old adage says that no man is an island. People need people. Whether they are close relatives or long lost friends, people are a reminder of the realities in life.

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With these pieces of advice in mind, no challenge is too big for the employee who wants to have a happy life in the office.

A lot of other pointers on how to live happily are available on this Marc Accetta blog.

REPOST: The secret art of negotiating: Take your ego off the table

Successful businesses have a strategy  in everything they do. Nevertheless, these questions remain: How many people have a negotiation strategy? How does putting off one's ego help in achieving a successful negotiation? This Forbes.com article shares the details.
 

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Think negotiating is all bluff and bluster? Think again. According to Rony Ross, founder and executive chairman of Panorama Software, a provider of business intelligence software to 1,600 customers in 30 countries, the secret to successful negotiating is to take the ego out of the equation.

Ross developed this negotiating strategy early in her career. With an MBA and background in computer science, she was one of few women working in the high-tech space. “It was very competitive, predominantly male and full of young, egoistic people,” she recalls. “As a woman, I faced several disadvantages. Even though I was as ambitious as the rest, overt ambition or assertiveness was interpreted as aggressiveness.”

She developed a successful data-analysis software through her start-up Panorama, and in mid 1996, Microsoft came knocking. After a three-hour product demo, the Microsoft team took Ross out to lunch and offered to buy her company. “Panorama had only 20 employees then, and Microsoft was a giant company,” says Ross. “This was an extremely challenging opportunity for me to test my strategy.”

Not only did her negotiating approach work, Ross ended up with a decades-long partnership with the software giant. She says the technique serves any negotiation, from a raise request to a company buyout, and breaks down exactly how it works.

Keep The Discussion Results-Oriented

“You have to be very comfortable with yourself to deal with something without any ego, but it really works wonders for me,” says Ross. She recommends keeping the focus of the negotiation solely on results and what would make the best long-term deal for both parties. By taking the emphasis off the people involved and keeping it on the facts, the negotiation is less likely to become hostile. While it’s easy to take things personally—considering that most business negotiations hinge on assigning a value to you or your product—it’s important that you don’t confuse yourself with the issue.

Be Wise, Not Smart

“Always show respect and understanding for the other party,” Ross advises. Framing the negotiation around mutual interests rather than your interest alone helps both sides feel good about it. And if you’re respectful, it’s more likely the other side will reciprocate. Ross also recommends that negotiators “be wise, not smart.” Rather than looking for short-term gratification that bolsters the ego—like assuming a power posture or making a joke at another’s expense—keep your eye trained on the end result.

Put Your Concerns On The Table

Being the smaller party, Ross felt threatened by Microsoft. She worried it might not follow through with the deal and instead develop its own product, which would likely put her out of business. She decided to admit it. She voiced her fears and said, “I’m concerned, and I don’t know what to do about the situation.” The next day, the Microsoft team came back to her with statistics. Out of all the deals they’d started in the last year, they’d closed all but two. They also provided her with contact information of others who’d gone through the process with them, so that she could speak with them and feel more at ease. Says Ross, “Every time I ran into an issue, I turned it over to them and said, ‘I have a problem; help me deal with it.’”

Avoid “I” Statements

“I’ve been in so many negotiations with men who start with ‘I want this, and I want that,’” says Ross. “If you talk instead about how ‘we need to reach a solution,’ it’s a very different approach. It doesn’t gratify your ego requirements, but it reaches a much better deal.” Ultimately, she turned the deal into a technology acquisition and held on to her company. Ross also leveraged a long-term product development partnership with Microsoft, which wouldn’t have been possible had they left the table feeling bullied, offended or put off by how she handled it.

Engage With Your Body Language

Over the years, Ross has noticed that oftentimes people in negotiations lean back in their chairs rather than forward, which puts a physical distance between themselves and the other side. However, she tries to communicate openness and interest by sitting on the edge of her chair, placing her elbows on the table and leaning into the conversation. “With my words, eyes and body language, it’s all about engagement,” she says.

Follow this Marc Accetta Twitter page for more tips on unlocking your business potential.

Business coaching: What it can do for a company and its employees

Business coaches, like Steve Fagan of Fagan and Associates and Marc Accetta of Marc Accetta Seminars, would agree that coaching has become one of the most powerful solutions in putting businesses on the right track to success. Business coaching can yield a lot of benefits. A company is not the only one that benefits from business coaching. Its employees will reap the benefits, too.

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The following are just some of the benefits of business coaching:

• A company becomes more focused than before

• The employees become more motivated

• There is improved working relationship among members of the organization

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• Human capital is enhanced

• There is sound understanding of business principles

• Individual potential, talents, and abilities are strengthened

• There is direct proportionality between customer service and the rate of productivity and level of quality.

Businesses looking for business coaches must remember, though, that coaching companies vary in their focus and strategy use. For Fagan and Associates, Inc., for example, life coaching is an established standard for professionalism, pushing organizations to the forefront of global commerce. Meanwhile, Marc Accetta Seminars advocates a combination of education and entertainment in inspiring individuals and helping them learn how to face challenges, making them succeed in their personal and professional lives.

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Having a business coach does not mean the business is taking desperate measures. Rather, it’s a strategic tool towards maximizing business solutions.

Know your business coaching options by visiting this Facebook page.

REPOST: Does affirmative action do what it should?

What is "affirmative action"? How does it affect the educational and employment opportunities in every individual? This article from New York Times has the details.
 

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WHAT’S more important to how your life turns out: the prestige of the school you attend or how much you learn while you’re there? Does the answer to this question change if you are the recipient of affirmative action?

From school admissions to hiring, affirmative action policies attempt to compensate for this country’s brutal history of racial discrimination by giving some minority applicants a leg up. This spring the Supreme Court will decide the latest affirmative action case, weighing in on the issue for the first time in 10 years.

The last time around, in 2003, the court upheld the University of Michigan Law School’s affirmative action plan. A divided court ruled, 5 to 4, that “student body diversity is a compelling state interest that can justify the use of race in university admissions.” Writing for the majority, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, “We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today.”

In the intervening period, scholars have been looking more closely at how affirmative action works in practice. Based on how they interpret the data that have been collected, some of these scholars have come to believe that affirmative action doesn’t always help the students it’s supposed to. Why? Because some minority students who get into a top school with the help of affirmative action might actually be better served by attending a less elite institution to which they could gain admission with less of a boost or no boost at all.

The idea that affirmative action might harm its intended beneficiaries was suggested as early as the 1960s, when affirmative action, a phrase introduced by the Kennedy administration, began to take hold as government and corporate policy. One long-simmering objection to affirmative action was articulated publicly by Clarence Thomas years before he joined the Supreme Court in 1991. Mr. Thomas, who has opposed affirmative action even while conceding that he benefited from it, told a reporter for The New York Times in 1982 that affirmative action placed students in programs above their abilities. Mr. Thomas, who was then the 34-year-old chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, didn’t deny the crisis in minority employment. But he blamed a failed education system rather than discrimination in admissions. “I watched the operation of such affirmative action policies when I was in college,” he said, “and I watched the destruction of many kids as a result.”

Scholars began referring to this theory as “mismatch.” It’s the idea that affirmative action can harm those it’s supposed to help by placing them at schools in which they fall below the median level of ability and therefore have a tough time. As a consequence, the argument goes, these students suffer learningwise and, later, careerwise. To be clear, mismatch theory does not allege that minority students should not attend elite universities. Far from it. But it does say that students — minority or otherwise — do not automatically benefit from attending a school that they enter with academic qualifications well below the median level of their classmates.

The mismatch theory, if true, would affect many kids. According to a 2009 book, “No Longer Separate, Not Yet Equal: Race and Class in Elite College Admission and Campus Life,” by Thomas J. Espenshade and Alexandria Walton Radford, a black student with an otherwise similar application to a white student receives the equivalent of a 310-point bump in SAT scores.

Mismatch theory attracted little attention until 2005, when a law professor at U.C.L.A., Richard H. Sander, published a provocative article in the Stanford Law Review, which focused on how affirmative action affected law students. Mr. Sander claimed that “a student who gains special admission to a more elite school on partly nonacademic grounds is likely to struggle more” and contended that “if the struggling leads to lower grades and less learning, then a variety of bad outcomes may result: higher attrition rates, lower pass rates on the bar, problems in the job market. The question is how large these effects are, and whether their consequences outweigh the benefits of greater prestige.”

In other words, do the benefits of the connections made at, say, U.C.L.A. School of Law, and the weight U.C.L.A. carries in the job market, outweigh the cost of struggling academically there? Based on his reading of the data, Mr. Sander concluded that they did not.

Law school, as it turns out, is a somewhat natural, though imperfect, environment for studying mismatch effects. Law students have their knowledge tested in a fairly uniform way, first on the LSAT and then again, after graduation, on a state licensing exam, the bar.

MUCH of the squabble over mismatch centers on differing interpretations of the Bar Passage Study. The B.P.S. was commissioned by the Law School Admission Council in 1989 to determine whether blacks and Hispanics had disproportionately poor bar-passage rates. In 1991, more than 27,000 incoming law students — about 2,000 of them black — completed questionnaires for the B.P.S. and gave permission to track their performance in law school and later on the bar.

Among other things, the questionnaire asked students (a) whether they got into their first-choice law school, (b) if so, whether they enrolled at their first choice, and (c) if not, why not.

Data showed that 689 of the approximately 2,000 black applicants got into their first-choice law school. About three-quarters of those 689 matriculated at their first choice. The remaining quarter opted instead for their second-choice school, often for financial or geographic reasons. So, of the 689 black applicants who got into their first choice, 512 went, and the rest, 177, attended their second choice, presumably a less prestigious institution.

This data presented a plausible opportunity to gauge mismatch. The fact that 689 black students got into their first-choice law school meant that all 689 were similar in at least that one regard (though possibly dissimilar in many other ways). If mismatch theory held any water, then the 177 students who voluntarily opted for their second-choice school — and were therefore theoretically better “matched” — could be expected, on average, to have better outcomes on the bar exam than their peers who chose the more elite school. Mr. Sander’s analysis of the B.P.S. data found that 21 percent of the black students who went to their second-choice schools failed the bar on their first attempt, compared with 34 percent of those who went to their first choice.

The experiment is far from ideal. Mismatch opponents argue that there are many unobservable differences between second-choice and first-choice students and that those differences, because they’re unknown, cannot be accounted for in a formula. In the case of the B.P.S. data, maybe the second-choice students tended to have undergraduate majors that made them particularly well suited to flourish in the classroom and on the bar, regardless of which law school they attended. “All this work on mismatch assumes you know enough to write an algebraic expression that captures what’s really going on,” says Richard A. Berk, a professor of criminology and statistics at the University of Pennsylvania. “Here, there’s so much we don’t know. Besides, the LSAT is a very imperfect measure of performance in law school and thereafter, as is the bar exam.”

Daniel E. Ho, a law professor at Stanford, also disputes the mismatch hypothesis. In a response to Mr. Sander’s 2005 law review article, Mr. Ho wrote in the Yale Law Journal that “black law students who are similarly qualified when applying to law school perform equally well on the bar irrespective of what tier school they attend.”

Political changes in the ’90s created another opportunity to study mismatch. In 1996, California voters passed Prop 209, a ban on affirmative action. Critics of Prop 209 expected black and Hispanic enrollment at top University of California schools, like U.C.L.A. and Berkeley, to plummet — and it did, for a while. But these schools eventually saw increases in minority enrollment, particularly among Hispanics, as sophisticated new outreach programs kicked in. Enrollment has not, however, gotten back to pre-Prop 209 levels.

Recently, economists from Duke studied the effects of Prop 209, comparing undergraduate graduation rates for blacks, Hispanics and American Indians before and after the ban. In a paper being considered for publication by The Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Duke economists conclude that mismatch effects are strongest for students in so-called STEM majors — science, technology, engineering and math. These subjects proceed in a more regimented way than the humanities, with each topic and class building on what came before. If you don’t properly learn one concept, it’s easier to get knocked off track.

The Duke economists say that lower-ranked schools in the University of California system are better at graduating minority students in STEM majors. For example, they conclude that had the bottom third of minority students at Berkeley who hoped to graduate with a STEM major gone to Santa Cruz instead, they would have been almost twice as likely to earn such a degree.

“Prior to California’s ban on affirmative action,” Peter Arcidiacono, one of the study’s authors, told me, “what Berkeley did well was switch relatively ill-prepared minority students out of the sciences and into majors where credentials are relatively less important.”

SOON the Supreme Court will decide Fisher v. University of Texas. The case is complex, but essentially boils down to a young woman’s claim that U.T. violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause by denying her admission because she is white. The justices, save perhaps Clarence Thomas, are unlikely to address mismatch in their opinions. But the court could force schools to be more transparent about the racial preferences they use in admissions, and even to track the consequences for their students. For now, social scientists debate what can be gleaned from flawed data sets. They continue to argue over whether mismatch even exists and the extent of the harm it causes if it does. This raises another question: Do some of the more concrete if intangible benefits of affirmative action, like prestige and the superior connections one makes attending a fancier school, outweigh the potential cost? If affirmative-action admits are less likely to pass the bar after going to a certain type of school, or less likely to follow through with their field of choice, then the cost is potentially considerable. But are we really going to tell a kid embarking on adult life that he’s better off attending a less prestigious school?

“The real question is what we want affirmative action to achieve,” says Richard Brooks, a law professor at Yale. “Are we trying to maximize diversity? Engagement in the classroom? Whatever it is, I don’t think the purpose of affirmative action is for everyone to have average grades.” Mr. Brooks believes that mismatch exists. But he rejects the idea that it’s as insidious as others claim and says that some mismatch might even be a good thing. Striving alongside people more capable than we are is a key ingredient for growth of all kinds.

In the Fisher case, Messrs. Brooks, Berk and Ho signed a friend-of-the-court briefdisputing a brief on mismatch that was co-written by Mr. Sander and the legal journalist Stuart Taylor Jr. Messrs. Sander and Taylor also wrote a book together that was published last fall, “Mismatch: How Affirmative Action Hurts Students It’s Intended to Help, and Why Universities Won’t Admit it.”

“Mismatch angers affirmative-action supporters because it quantifies a downside without weighing it against potential upsides,” says Theodore Eisenberg, a law professor at Cornell, “such as the benefit of a diverse classroom, and the reality that some people who do attend better schools because of affirmative action are more successful in life as a result and help other minorities thrive.” Mr. Eisenberg is on the board of The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, which in June is publishing a paper by E. Douglass Williams, an economist at Sewanee: The University of the South, that appears to corroborate Mr. Sander’s “first-choice/second-choice” analysis of the B.P.S. data.

In essence, affirmative action is about how to fairly distribute opportunity after our long history of racial discrimination. Whether it “works” is as much an issue for school administrators as for policy makers. That is, before we tell a student to choose School B over School A, it’s worth asking what schools can do to improve the experiences of students, particularly those pursuing STEM majors, who arrive less well prepared.

The upside of affirmative action might be harder to quantify. But part of the problem with the current affirmative action regime is how its supporters define the goal, what the Supreme Court calls the “compelling state interest”: classroom diversity. Meanwhile, little regard is given to the actual forms of adversity that disadvantaged students of all races must overcome. If affirmative action continues — either until Justice O’Connor’s 2028 horizon or beyond — then the results from California and the Bar Passage Study suggest it’s worth a closer, numbers-based look at the consequences, for everyone.

Have you ever felt ‘stuck’ or confused about what you should do? Have you ever wanted to achieve a new level of success in an area of your life that is already working for you? Visit this Marc Accetta Facebook page to learn how you can identify and achieve your personal goals.

Good business sense: Enhancing human capital

Does employee training deliver long-standing education and contribute to professional growth, hereby improving the company’s profitability? Does learning advance the value of services of the company?

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These and several other questions come to the mind of business owners who are shelving the idea of investing in human capital development. However hesitant they may be, businessmen are in the right track when they ask these questions. And the answers to these questions could lead them to realize that spending on employee training and development has a remarkable impact not only on the employees themselves, but also on the company as a whole.

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Diana O’Brien, managing principal of Deloitte University and Talent Development couldn’t have agreed more with the above-mentioned point when she admitted to being one of the biggest advocates of providing learning to employees. O’Brien noted that Deloitte’s move to invest in employees’ learning signified the company’s commitment to its people. Consequently, it made such an impact to its market, creating an edge over other companies.

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Although Deloitte’s education program for employees remains to be an ambitious strategy for many companies, there are other ways of achieving favorable results. These include sending employees to sponsored workshops and having an in-house trainer.

For Marc Accetta, investing in employees’ learning is an important aspect in the journey toward attaining success. Read more tips to achieve business success on this blog site.