Fixing Obamacare: The Democrats Have To Talk About It

Last week Aetna, one of the country's largest insurance companies, announced that it was cutting back its participation in the health care exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act (ACA). With several other major insurers also cutting back their participation, there will be very limited competition in many markets. This prospect has supporters of the ACA worried and opponents gleefully looking forward to the day when millions may lose their insurance.

Before looking at the economics, it is worth mentioning that Aetna is upset because the Justice Department is blocking a merger with Humana, another major insurer. Aetna quite explicitly threatened the Justice Department with reducing its participation in the exchanges if it blocked the merger. While there could be real economics behind both Aetna's threat and its pullback from the exchanges, it is also possible that Aetna's main motivation is to retaliate for the refusal to approve the merger.

Leaving Aetna's motivations aside, there is a real problem with the exchanges. The people who are signing up on the exchanges are proving to be less healthy than the population as a whole. As a result, they are more costly to treat. This means that either people on the exchanges will have to pay more for their insurance or the federal government will have to pay larger subsidies. We can try to make the insurers swallow the cost, which is pretty much the policy currently in place, but they will not stay in a market if they are losing money, as Aetna now claims to be doing.

It is important to recognize that this is not a problem of health care costs rising rapidly in general. The rate of growth in health care spending has fallen sharply in recent years and has been much slower than was projected at the time the ACA was passed. So the problem is not overall health care costs, the problem is the mix of people who sign up on the health care exchanges.

There are two simple ways to address this problem. For one, the insurers are still making money in the individual market outside of the exchanges. We could simply make participation in the exchanges a condition for participating in the individual markets. This in effect tells the insurers that if they want to make money insuring healthy people, they will also have to bear the risk of insuring less healthy people.

The other route would be to do what President Obama originally proposed in his 2008 campaign: set up a Medicare-type public option in the exchanges. This would ensure that everyone had an efficient low cost plan which they could buy into.

Both of these steps would require political action either by Congress or state legislatures, as would most other routes for dealing with the problem. At the moment, the Republican Congress is not about to do anything to sustain the ACA since they have made its destruction the centerpiece of the last three national elections.

A main reason that they can attack Obamacare - threatening the health care insurance of tens of millions of people - is that almost no one knows what it is. Back when the ACA was being debated, Republican opponents circulated absurd stories about the government deciding which people would live and which would die. For tens of millions of voters, the ACA is about death panels coming to take away their mothers.

It is not about people, including white Republican people, getting health care who could not previously afford it. Republicans are happy to attack their fictionalized version of Obamacare (who wouldn't?), but they are unwilling to go after the real thing because they know it matters to their voters.

We have a chance to see this hypocrisy in action in Kentucky where Republican governor Matt Bevin recently got elected on a platform of destroying Obamacare. Yet once he took office, he has left in place the state's popular system of exchanges, Kentucky Kynect. He also is continuing to have Kentucky take part in the ACA expansion of Medicaid, although he does want to increase the role for private insurers.

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell did the same thing in his re-election campaign in 2014. While calling for the death of Obamacare, he insisted that Kentucky Kynect had nothing to do with the ACA. Obviously McConnell is an astute politician, he surely knows that Kentucky Kynect is Obamacare, but he also knows that his constituency actually likes Kentucky Kynect. Unfortunately McConnell's opponent was too scared to defend Obamacare and point out McConnell's deception.

If we are going to see the problems with the ACA addressed, Democrats will have to start talking about the program and explaining what it has done in ensuring that people have health care. If people understand what the ACA is, they are likely to want to protect it, just as millions now rush to the defense of Medicare whenever it is threatened.

If people understand that their own access to health care, or that of their friends and family, would be threatened by the demise of the exchanges, it could be possible to muster the political force to bring about necessary changes. If people think ending Obamacare is simply about putting the death panels out of business, then we have a problem.

Why Starting a Conversation is a Cold Email Strategy That Works

By Justin McGill

Over the last couple of years, I have had the privilege of overseeing more than 3 million cold email messages. Unfortunately, most of them fail miserably.

Why Most Cold Emails Fail

If your cold emails look like this, you are doing it wrong:

"Hi Justin, hope you're doing well! Can we schedule a short meeting to discuss our company services at your convenience?"

There are several reasons why cold emails fail: these can include anything from bad subject lines, to emailing the wrong contact, to not personalizing your message enough. Unfortunately, it is pretty easy to create bad cold emails.

A Simple Cold Email Framework

Because quality cold emails are so rare these days, I came up with a simple formula I call "QVC" to help people increase their responses.

Q is for Question. This should be one sentence.

V is for Value Proposition. This should be one to three sentences maximum.

C is for Closing. This should be one sentence.

You don't want to worry about introducing yourself in the very first sentence; this immediately tells the recipient that they don't know you. Aside from the subject line, this is the single most important element of your entire email, because it's what shows up in preview panes in their email client and on their phones.

You can introduce yourself and your offering in the next section. However, you want to focus on your benefit here. This means you should replace the "I" and "we" with a "you" in this portion of the email.

Lastly, you want to close the email with another question. Ideally, a question that is easy to respond to while helping the conversation advance to the next stage.

Using the QVC framework, I've been able to generate a 45 percent open rate on my cold emails. Even better is the combined 14 percent response rate (31 percent combined between the first two emails).

Nail the Subject Line

Two things need to happen with your cold email subject lines. One, you want to capture their interest, and two, you want to avoid being flagged as spam. Believe it or not, 69 percent of email recipients flag an email as spam solely based on the subject line.

Emails that have "Re:" perform higher than any other subject line. This is especially important for follow-up emails: include your previous email correspondence in your follow-up for easy reference, while using "Re:" at the beginning of your subject line.

If you are having a hard time coming up with a great subject line, don't stress. Studies show an 8 percent improvement in open rates with no subject line at all!

Send at Least Four More Follow-ups

Unfortunately, 44 percent of salespeople stop following up after two attempts. Meanwhile, 80 percent of sales occur after five attempts. Don't just quit after one or even two emails.

You also want to avoid the typical "checking in" or "I haven't heard back" follow-ups. Instead, try to bring value. Use a case study for one follow-up, ask a question for another follow-up, link to a relevant blog post for another, or focus on a different benefit than what you did in your previous emails.

Getting a Response

By writing cold emails with the intention of getting a response, you are helping your future email deliverability. This is because you are showing engagement. Any response is a good response (even when they request to never be emailed again).

In addition, by having a more naturally flowing email, you help reduce your risk of being flagged as spam.

Lastly, you won't have to burn through so many of your ideal prospects, because you'll be converting a higher percentage of them into actual conversations that move the sales process forward.

If they do respond and are interested in what you offer, I recommend sending them a link to your calendar to book a time to chat further. Don't try to simply close the deal via email.

Justin McGill is CEO & co-founder of LeadFuze, a B2B lead-generation platform that automates prospect discovery and personalized outreach at scale.

How We'll Co-create Our Future By Changing Business For Good

We've all bemoaned the headlines. Exorbitant CEO pay, environmental devastation, corporate fraud, corruption. We read about big scandals in the business world, are dismayed, and then we see them happen again. But what many don't know is that thousands of people are working all over the United States and worldwide to reverse this trend by using business as a force for good.

How do we counter the adverse natural selection that has come to characterize corporate behavior where the spoils go most to the agents willing to act the worst against people and planet?

B Corps give us an answer. They offer a way to improve the state of business by re-imagining how a company defines success.

A B Corp measures its success based on its impact on people, communities, and the environment just as much as its profitability. These companies have embodied the triple-bottom-line approach, meaning they are structured to create and achieve economic prosperity, social justice, and environmental sustainability. This approach makes the company accountable to all of its stakeholders, not only shareholders. To gain certification, every B Corp undergoes a rigorous assessment of five categories: environment, workers, customers, community, and governance. And they must perform to very high standards, well in excess of industry averages.

There are many naysayers who would condemn us all to a dismal view of the role of business in society, but we hold a more hopeful outlook. By helping businesses align their operations with their values, tackling equity and inclusion in the business world, and building a powerful movement, we and the entire B Corp community can and will change the world.

At Beneficial State Bank, we believe in total values-alignment. We use the B Corp assessment tool as a yardstick against which we are constantly measuring and re-measuring our success. We're able to reinforce what's going well and identify areas ripe for improvement. The B Corp assessment helps us to look at our company's relationship with our workforce, such as compensation, worker health, and job flexibility. It examines the environmental sustainability of our supply chain, our products (are they promoting public benefit?), our community involvement, and of course our mission and overall transparency of practices and policies. It affirms our strengths, but more importantly, it reveals our weaknesses and gives us a roadmap for how to do better, and be better, for the world. As a certified B Corp since 2013, we've been honored "Best for the World," a designation reserved for the top 10% of all B Corps, and we score in third place, worldwide, on the B Corp impact assessment. Our certification is a signal to potential customers and vendors of what we are about, and our score is a benchmark against which we are always trying to improve.

Our B Corp status keeps us accountable to our mission of building prosperity in our communities and creating an equitable future. When we think about the world we want to live in, it is one that recognizes the promise of every person, realizing that we do better together than we can apart. We envision a world that doesn't leave anyone feeling desperate; it's fully inclusive, racially and gender justice, and environmentally restorative.

Banking fits into this vision of prosperity if you think of it as the original and most powerful form of crowdfunding. Banking is our collective desire to pool deposits to finance the economy -- and therefore, to a good degree, the society we want to see. It's not that a specific deposit funds a specific loan, but all deposits fund a lending practice with which depositors are therefore associated.

Our Beneficial State Bank model is designed to address the imbalance of power, justice, and equity in the economic system. Our B Corp certification ensures that we are addressing issues of racial, ethnic, and gender equity in all aspects of business, from our hiring practices to our procurement policy.

Finally, we know we can't do this alone. Our system is designed to work against the B Corp model of business. With critical mass, we can shift the perception that the sole purpose of business is to generate profit, and prove that business has the potential to be a much more powerful force for good.

The B Corp movement is strong and growing. Today, there are over 1,600 certified B Corps from 42 countries representing over 120 industries. With more B Corps getting certified every day (and thousands more taking the initial B Corp initial assessment), our missions are strengthened by the increased commitment to measurement that ensures we are using business as a force for good.

B Corps tend to be community-oriented businesses. In certain cities, the network of certified B Corps get together for monthly meetings to coordinate their efforts and find ways to better serve their community. B Corps are already making a difference, and there is significant potential to do more. By continuing to ask: "What does our community need?" B Corps will change the nature of business as we know it.

We invite you to join the movement! If you believe in aligning your business with your values, addressing and solving for equity and environmental issues through your daily business operations-- and if you want to be a part of one of the most important movements of our time, join us! Consider taking the B Corp assessment.

As an individual, your role is critical to stop the trend in business that rewards those who act most harmfully against our planet and communities. Support B Corp businesses with your everyday shopping, including where you bank. Banks are, after all, a part of your personal and commercial supply chains. Find B Corps near you here.

We must turn the spotlight toward businesses that are using the power of social markets to solve social and environmental problems, and away from those that exploit communities to merely reap a profit.

The B Corp Life is a new blog series geared towards exploring what it's like to work at a benefit corporation. Why do b corps matter, and what does the future hold for them? Let us know at PurposePlusProfit@huffingtonpost.com or by tweeting with #TheBCorpLife.

6 Questions You Should Ask Your Credit Card Issuer

by Ellen Cannon

Actively managing your credit card account can save you money, improve your credit scores and help you manage your overall financial life. If there's something your credit card issuer can do to make things easier, it never hurts to ask. You might be surprised at what they're willing to do to give you a little help.

Here are six questions to ask your card issuer. The worst thing that can happen is you get a "no."

1. Will you forgive a late payment?

Obviously, paying on time every month should be a priority -- but sometimes life takes a sharp turn. Say you miss your payment due date for some reason. "If you have a good record with your credit card company, and you miss a payment due to illness or moving or something, ask them to let it slide and ask to have the fee removed," says Beverly Harzog, credit expert and author of "The Debt Escape Plan."

Some card issuers make forgiveness a policy. Others give their cardholders tools to make late payments less likely.

Discover, for example, doesn't charge a late fee on the first late payment or raise your interest rate, says spokesman Derek Cuculich. "We do not have a penalty APR, so the second missed payment would not result in a raised APR, but it would come with a fee."

Citi offers a card that doesn't charge late fees or a penalty annual percentage rate even after multiple late payments.

Capital One is trying to make sure customers don't pay late. "About a year ago, we automatically enrolled every customer in the payment-due alert," says Jennifer Jackson, managing vice president of Capital One's U.S. card division. "We're designing products and services to help our customers succeed. We're measuring the impact, and we know that it's impacting customer behavior."

Even if you do get a late fee set aside, be aware that the missed payment itself could still be reported to the credit bureaus, which would hurt your score. Usually, payments are reported to the bureaus once they're 30 days late. Whatever happens, consider it a learning experience and work to avoid repeating the mistake. Paying late is a terrible habit to get started.

2. Can I choose my payment due date?

One of the best ways to ensure you pay on time while managing your cash flow is to choose the date your payment is due each month. When you can pick your own due date, you can set it for a time when money isn't as tight. All major card issuers allow you to choose your own due date; some even let you do it online.

"When people can change their payment due date, they can set it to stay on track with their overall finances," Jackson says. "They can decide how they want to manage payments."

One thing to be aware of: You usually can't choose a due date of the 29th, 30th or 31st because not every month includes those dates.

3. Will you lower my interest rate?

If you've been a good customer and you're carrying a balance, consider asking your issuer to lower your interest rate. Harzog says there's another signal that it's time to ask for a lower rate: "If you start getting offers in the mail for premier cards, it means your score has probably gone up. You can call your issuer and tell them the offers you're getting, and leverage that to see if they can match it."

4. Will you raise my credit limit?

You can always ask for an increase in your credit limit -- but be sure you know both the upside and downside. A higher credit line gives you access to more borrowing power, and it can improve your credit score by lowering your credit utilization ratio. The downside is that the issuer may pull your credit report, which could ding your credit score.

"You can decide whether you want to take that short-term hit to your credit," Harzog says. "If you're close to the next level up -- from average to good, for example -- a hit of even five or 10 points could hurt you, especially if you're planning to apply for a mortgage or other large loan."

Asking for a credit line increase can also produce unintended consequences. Harzog says she knows someone who asked for a credit line increase and it backfired. "When the issuer looked at his credit history and saw some black marks, they actually decreased his credit line. If you don't have a good record, you don't want to ask them to look at your credit account."

Many times, issuers have mechanisms in place to boost your credit limit when they think you're ready.

Jackson says Capital One has a "credit steps program" to increase customers' credit limits. Customers "have to do two steps to get a credit line increase," she says. "Use your card, pay on time for the first five statements, and on the sixth statement you will get a credit line increase. We continue to evaluate accounts over time for additional increases, looking at on-time payments and the ability to pay. We want to make sure our customers won't inadvertently get into trouble. And we don't extend lines where we don't think they will ever be able to pay it off."

5. Which credit score do you use?

To reduce your chance of having a credit card application rejected, check your credit report and credit score before you apply. These days, you can get your credit score for free from many credit card companies. Discover and Capital One will give you your score even if you're not a customer. Once you know which card you want, call the issuer to see which score it uses when considering applications.

Here's why it matters: Each credit bureau collects its own information and calculates scores based on that information, so scores can vary from one bureau to another.

"You can ask which bureau they pull from," Harzog says. However, she adds, "I've noticed in the past few years, some issuers have changed their policy and don't tell you. The best strategy is to be sure all your credit reports are good so you don't have to worry which bureau is being pulled."

Federal law entitles you to a free copy of your credit report from each of the three credit bureaus once a year. You can access those free reports at AnnualCreditReport.com.

6. When do you report account information to the credit bureaus?

"If you're trying to raise your score, paying off your credit card balance before the issuer reports it to the credit bureau will help by lowering your utilization ratio," Harzog says.

Call your issuer and ask when it reports account information. If you don't want to call, your best bet is to assume it reports that information on your statement closing date, which you can find on your statement. It could take a few days for the credit bureaus to update their data. If you're working hard to raise your credit score, another alternative is to pay your credit card more than once a month so your utilization ratio is lower throughout the month.

The common thread of these six questions is this: Getting the most out of your credit cards means managing your accounts so they put you in the most advantageous position. Don't just passively accept what your issuer gives you. Ask your issuer to work with you to produce the best financial results for your situation.

Ellen Cannon is a staff writer at NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: ecannon@nerdwallet.com. Twitter: @ellencannon.

This story originally appeared on NerdWallet.

Entrepreneurs: How to Avoid Screwing Up Your Most Vital Relationships

Best way to wreck your business?

Easy: sabotage your most promising relationships.

Yes -- it boggles the mind. Entrepreneurs will go to extraordinary lengths to connect with people who can help them -- potential investors, mentors, partners, employees, customers -- and then permanently damage these relationships with unnecessary mistakes.

What mistakes are these? I give you three of the worst -- and better yet, I talked to two expert relationship builders to show you how to fix them.

First up: meet Ryan Westwood, founder of a software company called Simplus, contributing writer on Forbes, and organizer of Evening on the Terrace -- an event which brings together people from many different backgrounds, to take part in a meal and talk about anything except their work.

Turns out, the foundation of valuable conversations is simple: stop and listen.

1) Don't pitch. Listen as if your life depends on it.

Never made sense to me: an entrepreneur finally manages to reach an experienced person in their field, and then talks over them. Worse, they even try to pitch. Yikes.

Westwood suggests the exact opposite. While interviewing people for Forbes, he realized the value of such conversations.

"I feel like I've accelerated my growth as an entrepreneur by doing these interviews better than any school I did, or anything else."

"It was the best way for me to get educated as quickly as possible and with the smallest number of mistakes by simply listening to people with experience."

And hence, he founded Evening on the Terrace, to take this personal and business growth to the next level.

The point? The atmosphere of trust and cooperation at these gatherings made it easy for people to discover new ways to attack old problems.

For instance, at one such event, when Westwood put a problem into play in the conversation -- something he and his staff at Simplus struggled with for some time -- it gave him a fresh look on his business. Novel angles to a current problem, discovered only because he listened like crazy.

Same for you. Take this to heart: when the other person talks, you listen. Mouth closed, ears open. Full attention on their words and message.

Make sense? Good -- because if you fail at this, you lose on two counts. Once, because you can't learn anything, and then again by wasting the other person's time.

2) Do not let relationships die. Nurture them.

Sad fact: many entrepreneurs connect with influential people once, and then never again. Huge waste of potential.

Our second expert, Cheryl Snapp Conner, founder of SnappConner Public Relations, shared a powerful story with me.

While running her firm, she connected with Tom Post, who at the time ran the Entrepreneurs content channel on Forbes, and asked if she could have a column on his platform.

He agreed. Several years later, she made him a job offer...and now Post acts as SnappConner PR's "feet on the street" in New York.

How did this happen? Conner had a gut sense Post was ready to become an entrepreneur himself. Plus, due to internal changes at Forbes, Post now faced a long daily commute. And Conner was attuned to all of this.

See the point? To nurture a relationship, you need to tune into the other person's world. To continually support them on their journey. You must ask yourself: since they live in their world, and you in yours, where can the two connect such that the other person gains from it?

Try this: pick 10 people you respect and would love to build relations with. Now go and see what they've been up to for the past couple months. Can you spot an opportunity to be helpful to some of them?

But look -- you can touch base in small ways. Congratulate them on a recent achievement, thank them for something they helped you with, or just take the time to thoroughly read something they wrote and then tell them about it -- any of these count.

Once you identify a way to provide value for them, go for it -- and better yet, don't expect to get anything in return.

3) Take the self-interest out of it.

Conner nailed this one. She told me:

"When something is genuinely given, nobody has to keep score."

True. To constantly keep score means you did not truly commit to giving.

As an entrepreneur, you need to "take the self-interest out of it," as Conner puts it. She sees this in many of her clients: they set out to get published on various platforms, to achieve their own business goals, rather than provide value for readers.

Bottom line? Sounds strange, but it rings true: you rise above the noise when you genuinely help another person. Barriers vanish which you couldn't even see before.

Westwood sums it up for us. The most valuable asset is not money, but human relationships:

"My view: relationship capital trumps actual capital. If you have the right relationships, it will pay immense dividends in the long run."

Now -- guess what? When you do all the above with diligence, things change. People start to take you seriously. The strength of your relationships will no longer take a nosedive every time you talk.

A Few Hundred Good Reasons to Avoid a Marijuana DUI

By Alex Glenn

Unlike laws for drunk driving limits, which are fairly uniform across the U.S., regulations on driving with marijuana in your system vary from place to place. Six states enforce specific limits on how much THC, the main psychoactive element in marijuana, drivers can have in their blood. Twelve others have zero-tolerance policies. Most states, however, still lack concrete marijuana laws for motorists, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association.

The point at which stoned drivers are considered "impaired" fluctuates by state, but if you're found guilty of driving under the influence of drugs, or DUID, you will likely face an increase in car insurance rates at your next renewal time, no matter where you live.

To give you an idea of how high your rates could leap, NerdWallet looked at car insurance quotes in five states for drivers with a DUID, which can encompass other substances as well as marijuana. Check out the results here.

» COMPARE: Car insurance quotes

California car insurance rates were the most affected in our price sampling. Our research found that rates in the Golden State jumped by more than $1,500 per year for a first DUID conviction. Ohio had the smallest increase, $336 per year on average.

Higher auto insurance rates are just one of the possible costs drivers face if charged with a severe moving violation. Those convicted of driving high could also have to pay steep legal and court fines, drug-treatment program costs and a driver's license reinstatement fee, among other penalties. All told, a single DUID could mean thousands of dollars down the drain.

» MORE: Arbitrary marijuana limits on drivers impair legal judgment

We also tested rates for drivers who receive a repeat DUID citation within a year of their first conviction. Here are those results.

If you're hit with a second DUID conviction, expect rates to spike by several hundred dollars again. Having multiple serious moving violations on your record also increases the chances that your car insurer will drop you at renewal time. If you have trouble qualifying for a policy with another company, you may end up looking into coverage for high-risk drivers.

Shop around if you have an imperfect driving record
Because insurance companies treat accidents and violations differently, consider shopping around if you've recently been convicted of driving under the influence of marijuana. The company that offered the cheapest rate the last time you searched for a policy may no longer have the best deal.

NerdWallet's car insurance comparison tool lets you view quotes from multiple companies.

Alex Glenn is a staff writer for NerdWallet, a personal finance website. Email: aglenn@nerdwallet.com.

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METHODOLOGY

To estimate the car insurance increases after a DUID, we first ran rates for 30-year-old drivers with no accidents or violations, then we ran rates for those with one and two convictions. We did this by averaging the three lowest rates from the largest insurers across 10 ZIP codes in California, Colorado, Ohio, Texas and Washington.

Coverage included 100/300/50 liability insurance limits, 100/300 uninsured motorist bodily injury coverage, and collision and comprehensive with a $1,000 deductible. We used a 2012 Toyota Camry in all cases. These are sample rates generated through Quadrant Information Services. Your own rates may be different.

How I Rescued My Career From The Brink Of Failure

It was just over three years ago that I thought my career was over.

I remember the exact moment well: There I sat in my drab, mundane-looking cubicle, which sat in the middle of a rather large call center. Most days I could drown out the noise.

However, on that day, the sound of what seemed like 1,000 simultaneous conversations going on left me unable to focus. I sat there with my head buried in my hands. 

You see, I had just realized at that very moment that the company I had joined was far more dysfunctional than the one I had just left.

This wasn’t the first time I had left a job to go to another company in hopes of greener grass only to end up being worse off than I was before. I was depressed and unhappy to think that a career that only a few years before had looked quite promising was in jeopardy of going nowhere, and I felt like a complete failure.

I needed to do something to change the course I was on, and it wasn’t simply to change companies again. I attribute reversing my career path to five things. 

1. Take ownership of your career.

Up until that point, I had been quick to blame external factors for my unhappiness and the shortcomings in my career. I put the blame on things like bad management, company policy, poor timing, etc.

The result is that I stopped improving as a professional, and if I’m honest, I probably regressed a bit.

Making a change in your career is tough. However, perhaps the hardest part is admitting that you need to change yourself to make the career change you desire.

2. Be bold.

If doing things the way you’ve always done them has gotten you to the point in your career where you’re feeling like a failure, it’s time to try something new and bold.

For me, that was starting a blog. Before I started my blog on LinkedIn just over two years ago, the only people who had ever read my writing were my college professors and my mother.

In fact, there was almost nobody from my inner circle telling me I should start a blog. I decided to do it anyway.

Can a blog change your career? After a few of my blog posts went viral on LinkedIn and received over a million page views, I began to get offers to write professionally, which led to the start of my company and the career path I’m on now.  

3. Continue your education.

For me, that meant getting an MBA at age 39. I needed additional skills and knowledge to move ahead in my career.

I reached the point where I was no longer learning in my position. I needed an outside source to inspire me to develop the new skills I lacked, which was preventing me from reaching my career goals. 

You don’t have to pursue a fancy degree from a formal institution. In today’s online world, there are all sorts of ways to further your learning and gain the skills you need to move ahead: certificate programs, short-term courses, webinars, online learning programs, etc. 

4. Become entrepreneurial. 

You don’t have to quit your day job! However, if you’re like I was and you feel stuck in a position where your skills are being underutilized, consider doing some consulting work or starting a side business.

Doing so could lead you to several positive career outcomes: additional income, added skills that you can use to gain a more fulfilling position, or a successful startup that ultimately replaces your corporate job. 

Today, I’m working with two startups―my own Social Marketing Solutions, a social ― media marketing agency, and beBeebeBee, a high-growth business social-media and blogging network with 11 million users. 

5. Get social.

Before I invested in social media, I was always the one reaching out to people about opportunities. My networking activities were 100 percent outbound-based.

Once I started to grow my online community and produce insightful content, a significant shift occurred: People began to contact me. In fact, all of the business for my company has come from my online activities. Instead of me always being the one to initiate contact, now people regularly seek me out to discuss opportunities. 

While my career journey is far from complete, I now feel as though my work is appreciated, meaningful, and fulfilling. I’ve stopped blaming external factors and switching jobs when things don’t go my way.

I finally realized that when it comes to my career, the grass is as green as I make it.

This article was originally published for my column on Inc. Magazine. Republished on Huffington Post with permission.