Million Builder

Amid so much downsizing, it’s risky and unnecessary for managers to let feelings confuse what ought to be a clean transaction

Since January, more than a million jobs have been cut in the U.S. Although the pace of layoffs has been declining, the downsizing is by no means over.

Job cutting is never easy, but it often becomes progressively harder as we go deeper into an organization. At the beginning, employers may be able to lay off only weak employees they might have considered letting go anyway. While these weak performers are human beings worthy of dignity and respect, we can make ourselves feel okay about their terminations because they are based on merit.

The deeper we get, the less likely it is that we honestly can say that a job elimination is simply a matter of letting go those who should have been let go years ago. Now we are letting go of solid performers who would remain employed in a good economy. Every organization has solid citizens who do fine in anything but a deep recession.

But we are not done yet. We are told to go even deeper. Now we must let go of good, or even stellar performers — employees who add value and who at a different time might be considered for promotion, rather than termination.

Last Fired, Last Hired?

Letting talented employees go is further complicated and can become emotionally difficult for managers. First, those terminated earlier often receive better severance packages than those terminated later. As times get tougher, organizations often cut back on severance or eliminate it altogether.

Second, the last to be let go often are competitively disadvantaged at landing jobs, in contrast to poorer performers who were let go early on. Mediocre employees laid off at the outset of the economic crisis had less competition for scarce jobs — and open positions are even harder to find now.

Perhaps the worst feeling of all may arise when employees you protected from termination in the early waves are caught up in subsequent layoff tides with less severance and fewer opportunities. You may wonder if you hurt them by protecting them.

Finally for some, there is survivor guilt. When you don’t go down with the ship, you may be plagued by your “good fortune.” This can become too much for a “feeling” manager. Such an administrator may need to find meaning in the job eliminations — or at least explain his or her role.

So managers often say things in termination events to make themselves feel better. Unfortunately, the comments can make the employees on the wrong side of the axe feel even worse.

The Top 10 Comments to Avoid Uttering

Here are 10 things you should never say when terminating an employee:

While these comments may not be evidence of an illegal motive, they may produce anger that results in the employee’s visiting a lawyer to determine whether a viable claim exists.

1.”This was a job elimination and had nothing to do with your performance.” Do not say this when a discharge had everything to do with an employee’s performance. Your desire to protect an employee’s feelings — or your own — can later be used as evidence of pretext if the employee brings a discrimination claim.

2. “We have carried you for many years. It’s just not possible to continue to do so during these difficult times.” Don’t trash the past. It is not only insulting to the employee, but it may be inconsistent with the employee’s prior evaluations. Remember, pretext alone wins cases.

3. “We have no choice but to terminate your employment.” There are always other options. Why not tolerate mediocrity a little longer? Termination need not be the only viable option, so don’t suggest that it is.

4. “You have no one to blame but yourself. You just did not try hard enough.” Hold employees accountable, but don’t impugn their integrity. When employees feel personally attacked, they fight back.

5.”This is just as hard for me as it is for you.” There are few absolutes, but it is absolutely true that it always harder to be fired than to fire. Don’t ask an employee who is looking at unemployment to feel your pain.

6. “This is not the right job for you. When you get the right job, you will thank me.” That may make you feel good, but it will make the discharged employee bristle. The “thank you” may come in the form of a complaint.

7. “I am sorry, but you are fired.” You may mean: “I am sorry we have come to this situation.” The employee may hear that you think you are wrong. It’s not a good time to have a conversation about the meaning of “I am sorry.” Avoid apologies, even though you may genuinely feel badly.

8. “I know how you feel.” Unless you have been fired recently, you don’t know how the person feels. If you have been fired recently, now is not the time to share that experience.

9. “You will always be a part of the corporate family.” Trust me. This will make the fired employee think: “Oh, good. Will I still get the newsletter after I sue you?”

10 “Pardon the e-mail, but you are fired.” This may not be unlawful, but it’s gutless. And it invites the angry employee to go for your gut.

1. Matt Maddox

CFO & Treasurer
Wynn Resorts (WYNN)

Age: 34
2008 Total compensation*: $17.66 million

The house may always win, but Wynn Resorts’ CFO is on a streak: Since joining the company in 2002 to head financial operations at the Wynn Resort in Macau, Maddox rose quickly up the corporate ladder and last year was promoted to CFO of the company.

Now he oversees the entire cash flow of Steve Wynn’s casino and hotel empire. And he’s become a high roller pay-wise too: With a base salary of $593,590, stock options worth more than $11 million, and stock awards worth more than $5 million, Maddox tops our list of highest-paid public company executives under age 40.

2. James R. Murdoch

Chairman and CEO, Europe and Asia
News Corp. (NWSA)

Age: 36
2008 Total compensation*: $10.15 million

The second son of media titan Rupert Murdoch — older brother Lachlan left his job at News Corp. in 2005 but still sits on the board — James is the heir apparent to his father’s $33 billion empire (and No. 3 on our 40 Under 40 list).

As the head of the company’s publishing, television, and digital interests in Europe and Asia, he oversees News International (publisher of The Times and The Sun in London), SKY Italia, and Star TV, and serves as the non-executive chairman of British SKY Broadcasting.

3. George L. “Mike” Mikan III

CFO & EVP
UnitedHealth Group (UNH)

Age: 37
2008 Total compensation*: $6.73 million

Since joining the health insurance giant in 1998, Mikan rose through the ranks to oversee the financials of its UnitedHealthcare and UnitedHealth Networks divisions, then was named CFO of the entire company in 2006 following the departure of former CEO William McGuire, who left the company amid a stock options scandal.

Mikan’s healthy 2008 compensation includes a base salary of nearly $700,000, options grants of $2.7 million, and non-equity incentive pay of $1.75 million (talk about a public option). Mikan also sits on the board of Best Buy.

4. W. Robert Berkeley, Jr.

EVP & Vice Chairman, Berkley International
W.R. Berkeley (WRB)

Age: 36
2008 Total compensation*: $6.63 million

It’s all in the family for Robert Berkley, vice chairman of the $4.7 billion global underwriter of property and casualty insurance, and son of CEO and founder William R. Berkley.

Robert earned $3,868,500 worth of stock awards last year, as well as $1.8 million in non-equity incentive pay. Berkley shareholders did well too: The company, number 490 on the Fortune 500, was a top-performing stock last year with 4.9 percent in total shareholder return, thanks to volatile stock and debt markets.

5. Jonathan Z. Cohen

Vice chairman, Atlas Energy Resources, Atlas Energy Management
Atlas Energy** (ATLS)

Age: 38
2008 Total compensation*: $4.29 million

Another family affair: With its holding company made up of various components — Atlas Energy Resources, Atlas Pipeline Partners, and Atlas Pipeline Holdings — the Pennsylvania-based Cohen family has made a profitable business with tax-advantaged investments in the oil and gas industry.

Jonathan Cohen, the son of CEO Edward E. Cohen, earned a hefty $4 million-plus at Atlas last year. That doesn’t include his other jobs as CEO of his father’s Resource Capital Corp., a separate commercial real estate investment trust based in New York and Philadelphia that trades on the NYSE, as well as hedge fund Castine Partners.

6. Wayne S. Deveydt

CFO & EVP
WellPoint (WLP)

Age: 39
2008 Total compensation*: $4.13 million

He could only compare favorably to his predecessor: Deveydt, who joined WellPoint in 2005, stepped in June 2007 to replace David Colby, WellPoint’s disgraced CFO who left the company after lawsuits from former paramours alleged he romanced multiple women and made false promises of money and marriage.

Deveydt had timing on his side, too, stepping in during a period of record earnings at the insurer. Last year he collected a base salary of $648,769, with option and stock awards worth more than $3 million.

7. Christa Davies

CFO & EVP, Global Finance
Aon (AOC)

Age: 38
2008 Total compensation*: $3.84 million

Davies is the highest-paid executive woman on our list; no wonder she’s also among our “Ones to Watch.”

Before joining insurance brokerage Aon in 2007 as head of global finance, Davies spent more than a decade at Microsoft, where she most recently oversaw financials of its most profitable sector, the platform and services division.

Those jobs are a world away from her college major: Davies studied aerospace engineering at the University of Queensland.

8. Keith A. Meister

Principal Executive Officer & Vice Chairman
Icahn Enterprises (IEP)

Age: 36
2008 Total compensation*: $3.00 million

It can’t be easy working for takeover king and activist investor Carl Icahn, so it’s not surprising the pay’s good.

At Icahn’s holding company of diversified interests, Meister oversees gaming and real estate holdings. He’s also a senior investment analyst at Icahn’s High River Limited Partnership and is a director of the Icahn Fund. Prior to working for the billionaire, Meister co-founded an IT and software venture capital fund and worked in investment banking at Lazard Freres.

Are all bankers evil? Maybe not. Over the past year, it’s become fashionable to trash Wall Street for unbridled greed and the rapacious use of billions in taxpayer bailout funds. Much of the outrage is justified, since Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch, and Citigroup stoked the flames that nearly torched the entire economy. But there’s been rough justice for a few of those firms, now either defunct or de facto wards of the state.

Other firms have filled the void, becoming even more prominent. One of them is JPMorgan Chase, whose chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has largely escaped the pitchforks aimed at his fellow Wall Street CEOs. Over the course of the financial crisis, JPMorgan Chase remained profitable, a pillar of relative stability in the midst of an earthquake. The bank absorbed the failed Bear Stearns and Washington Mutual, while accepting $25 billion in bailout money that it paid back with interest once the government allowed it to. Through it all, Dimon consulted frequently with officials in Washington, and news reports have even depicted him as President Barack Obama’s favorite banker. A new biography of Dimon, Last Man Standing by Duff McDonald, describes Dimon as a diligent and trustworthy executive who has risen above the swill of Wall Street. I spoke recently with McDonald about the man some think will be the next treasury secretary. Excerpts:

Jamie Dimon is clearly a survivor. Is he that smart or just lucky? Of course there’s luck in any career, but wasn’t it Seneca who said, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”? Jamie is the guy who was ready to take advantage of opportunities when they happened. So I don’t really think it’s luck at all. Jamie has proved that preparation is all there is on Wall Street.

How do you think of Dimon today? He’s the most prominent banker in America, and if there is such a thing as a financial philosopher, Jamie’s it. His letter to shareholders in the 2008 JPMorgan Chase annual report was a tour de force of explicatory brilliance. He explained what happened.

Was it Dimon talking? Or corporatespeak? It was totally Jamie talking. He explained the risk exposures, which were mostly mortgages. Where we went wrong, ways the system can be improved. He explained: Is JPMorgan caught up in this? Yes. But he’s aware of the exposure. This is a guy who wrote the letter while still in the midst of the crisis, since he began writing it at the end of 2008.

How is Dimon different from other Wall Street CEOs? I was talking to Warren Buffett about Jamie, and he said, “Banking’s not that difficult. You just need to be a banker, and Jamie’s a banker.” All these other guys weren’t being bankers, they were being gamblers. There’s a great line from Andrew Ross Sorkin’s new book, Too Big to Fail. At some point during the crisis last year, an executive from Morgan Stanley gets a call from Jamie and goes to talk to John Mack [Morgan Stanley CEO]. He says that he just got a call from Jamie Dimon, who asked if he can do anything to help. The executive says, “Jamie is always hanging around the hoop. You know Jamie’s saying, ‘Let’s make friends with these guys before I eat them.’ “His entire career he’s played it conservatively so he can pounce on opportunity. All these other guys were gamblers. Bear Stearns. Lehman. That’s fine, but Dimon was the guy standing around the hoop waiting for the ball.

How do you see the new Wall Street firmament? Goldman Sachs is clearly still a betting house, and that’s fine. I understand the debate over taxpayer dollars going to these firms, and that will go on for a long time. But Goldman is clearly the best at what it does. Morgan Stanley is a betting house, and then you have Citigroup and Bank of America, which are just kind of screwed up. The bank of the moment is JPMorgan Chase. Other than Goldman, JPMorgan Chase and Jamie Dimon are the kings of Wall Street. On investment banking they go toe-to-toe with Goldman.

Was the Bear Stearns takeover in March of 2008 a good deal? The Federal Reserve bore a lot of the risk for that deal. Jamie Dimon will tell you he felt a patriotic imperative in doing what he did. He was asked to take over a $400 billion balance sheet from a firm that everybody knew was the dodgiest on Wall Street. In 48 hours. It turned out to be a big loser. They’ve already booked substantial losses. The assets they backed, they’ve lost a ton of money on. They got a decent commodities business and a prime brokerage business, but they lost money. Buying Bear Stearns was not a good deal in and of itself. But it worked out beautifully because it made them the bank of last resort. That helps you get customers. No one’s leaving Chase, the retail bank. And JPMorgan’s institutional business boomed at the end of 2008.

What’s Jamie Dimon like? He’s a fun person with a sense of humor. He’s a CEO, so he’s somewhat unapproachable, but he’s a nice guy. I’ve never met a man who has less doubt about who he is. He has a sense of conviction and no second thoughts. He’s also a total family man. He has three daughters who love him and a wonderful wife. They have a house in upstate New York and a nice apartment on Park Avenue. He spends time with his family and doesn’t do the really obvious things, like golf. He just works all the time. The wonderful thing about the Dimons is they don’t seek publicity.

Is he humble? No. He’s proud. He knows what he’s accomplished. He’s well aware of his own capabilities and his achievements. The difference is, he’s not resting on his laurels. He thinks. He’s diligent.

Does he have a future in public office? I don’t think Jamie Dimon would ever run for office. He wouldn’t put his family in that position or deal with the attendant issues. But would he accept an appointment? Don’t be surprised if he does. When Obama got elected, there were rumors that Dimon would end up in Washington. I asked him why he didn’t shoot down the rumors. He said, “Isn’t it kind of presumptuous to turn down a job you haven’t been offered?” But if he were offered the position of treasury secretary, it’s almost a slam-dunk he would take it. It’s the only thing he has left to do–public service. He told me that his one regret is never having done any public service, and he’d like to.

He’s a Democrat? He’s a Democrat.

Why? Because he comes from a free-thinking family. His father played violin in their living room during social events when he was growing up. The family talked about a lot of things beyond just the day-to-day. He was exposed to different ideas.

What have been the toughest moments in his career? Being fired in 1998 by Sandy Weill [Dimon’s former mentor and CEO of Citigroup at the time]. He’s still hurt.

What did he learn from that? He learned how not to be Sandy. How not to fire your most valuable person in a fit of pique.

Could Jamie Dimon be more than a CEO? Could he be a transformative figure? He could be. There’s a deep sense of integrity that guides his decision making. The guy is motivated. He absolutely wanted to be rich, and he is rich. Paired with that is a deep sense of doing the right thing. Despite what populist anger seems to be suggesting these days, these are not inconsistent beliefs in America.

Let’s face it; we all don’t make millions of dollars a year, and the odds are that most of us won’t receive a large windfall inheritance either. However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t build sizeable wealth - it’ll just take some time. If you’re young, time is on your side and retiring a millionaire is achievable. Read on for some tips on how to increase your savings and work toward this goal.

Stop Senseless Spending

Unfortunately, people have a habit of spending their hard-earned cash on goods and services that they don’t need. Even relatively small expenses, such as indulging in a gourmet coffee from a premium coffee shop every morning, can really add up - and decrease the amount of money you can save. Larger expenses on luxury items also prevent many people from putting money into savings each month.

That said, it’s important to realize that it’s usually not just one item or one habit that must be cut out in order to accumulate sizable wealth (although it may be). Usually, in order to become wealthy one must adopt a disciplined lifestyle and budget. This means that people who are looking to build their nest eggs need to make sacrifices somewhere - this may mean eating out less frequently, using public transportation to get to work and/or cutting back on extra, unnecessary expenses.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t go out and have fun, but you should try to do things in moderation - and set a budget if you hope to save money. Fortunately, particularly if you start saving young, saving up a sizeable nest egg only requires a few minor (and relatively painless) adjustments to your spending habits.

Fund Retirement Plans ASAP

When individuals earn money, their first responsibility is to pay current expenses such as the rent or mortgage expenses, food and other necessities. Once these expenses have been covered, the next step should be to fund a retirement plan or some other tax-advantaged vehicle.

Unfortunately, retirement planning is an afterthought for many young people. Here’s why it shouldn’t be: funding a IRA early on in life means you can contribute less money overall and actually end up with significantly more in the end than someone who put in much more money but started later.

How much difference will funding a vehicle such as a Roth IRA early on in life make?

If you’re 23 years old and deposit $3,000 per year (that’s only $250 each month!) in a Roth IRA earning and 8% average annual return, you will have saved $985,749 by the time you are 65 years old due to the power of compounding. If you make a few extra contributions, it’s clear that a $1 million goal is well within reach. Also keep in mind that this is mostly interest - your $3,000 contributions only add up to $126,000.

Now, suppose that you wait an additional 10 years to start contributing. You have a better job and you know you’ve lost some time, so you contribute $5,000 per year. You get the same 8% return and you aim to retire at 65. When you reach age 65, you will have saved $724,753. That’s still a sizeable fund, but you had to contribute $160,000 just to get there - and it’s no where near the $985,749 you could’ve had for paying much less.

Improve Tax Awareness

Sometimes, individuals think that doing their own taxes will save them money. In some cases, they might be right. However, in other cases it may actually end up costing them money because they fail to take advantage of the many deductions available to them.

Try to become more educated as far as what types of items are deductible. You should also understand when it makes sense to move away from the standard deduction and start itemizing your return.

However, if you’re not willing or able to become very well educated filing your own income tax, it may actually pay to hire some help, particularly if you are self employed, own a business or have other circumstances that complicate your tax return.

Own Your Home

At some point in our lives, many of us rent a home or an apartment because we cannot afford to purchase a home, or because we aren’t sure where we want to live for the longer term. And that’s fine. However, renting is often not a good long-term investment because buying a home is a good way to build equity.

Unless you intend to move in a short period of time, it generally makes sense to consider putting a down payment on a home. (At least you would likely build up some equity over time and the foundation for a nest egg.)

Avoid Luxury Wheels

There’s nothing wrong with purchasing a luxury vehicle. However, individuals who spend an inordinate amount of their incomes on a vehicle are doing themselves a disservice - especially since this asset depreciates in value so rapidly.

How rapidly does a car depreciate?

Obviously, this depends on the make, model, year and demand for the vehicle, but a general rule is that a new car loses 15-20% of its value per year. So, a two-year old car will be worth 80-85% of its purchase price; a three-year old car will be worth 80-85% of its two-year-old value.

In short, especially when you are young, consider buying something practical and dependable that has low monthly payments - or that you can pay for in cash. In the long run, this will mean you’ll have more money to put toward your savings - an asset that will appreciate, rather than depreciate like your car.

Don’t Sell Yourself Short

Some individuals are extremely loyal to their employers and will stay with them for years without seeing their incomes take a jump. This can be a mistake, as increasing your income is an excellent way to boost your rate of saving.

Always keep your eye out for other opportunities and try not to sell yourself short. Work hard and find an employer who will compensate you for your work ethic, skills and experience.

Bottom Line

You don’t have to win the lottery to see seven figures in your bank account. For most people, the only way to achieve this is to save it. You don’t have to live like a pauper to build an adequate nest egg and retire comfortably. If you start early, spend wisely and save diligently, your million-dollar dreams are well within reach.

It may be time to defrost my frozen credit cards. It turns out that using a debit card for every purchase—which I’m so guilty of!—is a bad idea.

Here are the do’s and don’ts of using a debit card:

DON’T use debit cards for big purchases. They don’t offer the same protection that credit cards do. Credit cards allow you to reverse or dispute charges, and some will even extend the length of warranties.

DON’T use a debit card online. If you use a credit card, your liability for unauthorized charges is capped at $50, no matter what. If your debit card is lost or stolen, it must be reported within two business days to limit liability to $50. If a lost or stolen debit card is reported within 60 days, liability can go up to $500. If an unauthorized transaction is not reported within 60 days of the statement date (and the card hasn’t been reported lost or stolen), you’re on the hook for charges made after the 60th day until the report is made.

DO click on “credit” and sign for payments instead of giving a PIN. Card companies might extend the same zero-liability protection to debit cards as they do to credit cards if the debit cards are processed like the latter, but PIN transactions might not have that protection.

DON’T link your debit card to an account with a lot of money. Thieves can empty your debit-card-linked checking account, so keep just enough in the account to cover current purchases.

When it comes to women and finance, sometimes there’s a disconnect between what women know and how they act, their ability as achiever and their financial underachieving, and between the power they have within reach and the powerlessness that rules their actions.

Financial expert Suze Orman gives her list of the top 10 money tips for women to follow:

1. Listen to Your Gut

Women are compassionate toward those in need. Instead of going with their gut, they sometimes overlook the obvious and make an emotional money mistake. “A friend, relative, loved one will approach you saying, ‘I need to borrow $5,000.’ You’ll think ‘I don’t want to’ and yet you say ‘OK,’” Suze explains. So, think twice before you say yes if your gut is saying no.

2. NEVER Co-Sign for ANYONE

If a friend or family member asks for you to co-sign on a loan, it’s probably best to say no. Suze says more often than not, the borrower will default or pay late and you risk losing money or lowering your credit score because as the co-signer, you are ultimately responsible for the loan. Say no out of love, not out of fear.

3. Save Yourself First

If you don’t have enough to save for your child’s college fund and your retirement, your retirement takes precedence.

As explained in Suze’s book “Women & Money,” women think they are actually helping their children by paying for their college or wedding. It’s a myth. You help your children by saving yourself first. If you retire without ample money to support yourself, you will become a financial burden to your children. There are plenty of loans for college, but there are no loans for retirement.

4. Don’t Hand Over Finances to Your Husband or Partner

Suze says women often hand over their family financial matters to their partner because they are either scared, lazy or following an old-fashioned role.

Being in control of your financial destiny requires that you be an active participant — not just by paying bills, but in overseeing your investments, too. Suze: “Take this step and I think you will be surprised how this helps your relationship.”

5. Don’t Put Yourself on Sale

Don’t treat yourself like you’re on sale. If you’re reluctant to put a real value on what you do, then it diminishes who you are. As Suze explains, women tend to devalue what they do.

This creates a vicious cycle: “When you devalue what you do, it becomes inevitable that you — and those around you — devalue who you are.” Women will settle for less. They may offer discounted prices on their services or accept a smaller raise, even when the company is doing well. They have to ask for what they know is “right.”

6. Protect Your Assets: Get a Pre-Nuptial Agreement

The basic rule is that you are jointly entitled to assets accrued during a marriage and you are on the hook for debts accrued during the marriage. Anything you bring into the marriage is not automatically shared. Protect your assets.

7. No Blame, No Shame

Two of the heaviest weights women carry (invisible twin obstacles of the past) are the burden of shame and the tendency to blame. Suze explains: “If you don’t feel confident in your knowledge of how money works, you hide behind the shame of it, deferring decisions to others or staying stuck in a pattern of inaction. You blame society, your parents, your husband/partner or all of the above. Blame renders you powerless and shame only serves to hold you back.” You have to go and find out about personal finance for yourself.

8. Take Care of Your Money

Women nurture people and things that are important to them. So take care of your money the way you do your husband/partner, family, friends, pets, plants and clothes. Cherish money like all of the other irreplaceable items in your life. Find wise investments, save and don’t throw it away on meaningless things.

9. Don’t Make Your Underage Children Life-Insurance Beneficiaries — It’s a No-No!

Life insurance companies will not make a payout to children under 18 years of age. Suze suggests you create a trust account and name the trust as the beneficiary of your life insurance policy.

10. Own the Power to Control Your Own Destiny

Give to yourself as much as you give of yourself. Power comes from who you are, not what you have, and the transformation starts with how you allow others to treat you. Do what’s right, rather than what’s easy.

Suze says, “Remember to muster up your courage and silence your fear … keep your eye on the goal, on what you really want to accomplish, no matter what anyone says or does to deter you. Just keep moving forward.”

If you needed to find a new job, how many people could you turn to for help? If the answer is “not many,” you may need to upgrade your professional network.

“Maintaining a network should be a routine part of your career development strategy, not just something you turn toward in a career crisis,” said Janet Civitelli, associate director of University Career Services at the University of Houston, who works with both students and alumni.

Civitelli and other experts offer these questions for assessing the health of your network:

1. How many former co-workers’ contact information do you have?

Focus particularly on your peers and people above you in the organization.

The more people you’re in touch with, the better. If you need to beef up the number of people in your network, a tool like LinkedIn can help, both with searching and with keeping up with former colleagues’ job moves.

2. Does your network include a handful of people who could serve as references?

These people need to be willing to recommend you — and they need to know your work well. “References can’t be vaguely positive,” Civitelli said.

If you can’t think of four to six good reference candidates, you need to step up your networking to make sure people you work with know about your achievements.

3. How many of your contacts have you communicated with in the past six months?

This is a measure of your active network.

“You don’t need to talk to everyone in your network every three minutes,” said Richard Phillips, owner of Advantage Career Solutions. But you should check in regularly, even if you just send a brief email saying you hope all is well. That way, when you do need to ask for job-hunting help, it will be “emotionally much easier” to make the contact.

4. Have you had lunch or coffee with someone from your network in the past month?

Make a point of meeting in person with a former colleague or another professional connection every few weeks.

5. Have you attended a professional event recently?

Attending professional conferences will help you expand your network beyond former colleagues. Becoming active in a professional association will also boost your resume.

6. Have you added any professional contacts in the past month?

Your network needs to grow in order to stay vital. Try to add new contacts — either by getting back in touch with former colleagues or by meeting new people — frequently.

7. Are you networking “outside the box” — that is, making connections beyond your former colleagues and friends?

Job opportunities can arise from unexpected sources. Marianne Adoradio, a career counselor in Silicon Valley, recommends expanding your network to include some people outside your industry and at different stages of their careers, who can tell you about trends and opportunities you might not otherwise hear about.

8. When your professional contacts get in touch with you, do you answer?

“People just kind of steer away from you if you’re not responding,” Adoradio said.

What if a contact is asking for job leads and you don’t have any? “You do have the ability to offer something of great value,” Phillips said: encouragement. This will also increase the chances that that person will help you sometime in the future.

According to a study of college students at the Ernst & Young International Intern Leadership Conference in Orlando, Florida, 59 percent of these young leaders expect to be millionaires within their lifetime. What’s more, 5 percent of them expect to hit the million-dollar mark while in their 20s.

And the super-rich are a growing group. The top 0.1 percent of the population’s average income was $3 million in 2002, up two and a half times the $1.2 million, adjusted for inflation, that group reported in 1980.

Earned Money vs. Easy Money

Easy money usually comes from inheritance or luck, such as winning the lottery. The track record of people who get their money through the lottery or other windfalls is usually very different from those who created their wealth themselves or who planned for an expected inheritance. Lottery winners are often a sorry lot; more than 90 percent use up their winnings within 10 years — some go through their money in weeks or months.

But there are some consistent patterns among those people who earn or plan to inherit their money, and these five strategies may be worth emulating.

1. Avoid the Earn-to-Spend Mentality

Michael LeBoeuf, author of The Millionaire in You, points out that to increase wealth, it’s essential to emulate millionaires who view money as something to save and invest, rather than income to spend. Many wealthy people live quite simply, he points out, choosing less pretentious homes than they could theoretically afford and opting for financial independence over material showmanship.

2. Focus

LeBoeuf also counsels resisting the impulse to be scattered in your efforts and interests: “Winners focus; losers spray.” And goals that are clearly written down are easier to keep in focus.

3. Do Whatever Is Necessary to Meet Your Goal

People who earn their millions are able not only to focus but persevere in the pursuit of their goals. One single mom entrepreneur, Melissa Clark-Reynolds, started her first business, a health and safety consultancy, when she had a young son. En route to her goal of being a millionaire by age 35, Clarke-Reynolds and her son ate lots of pizza, did homework late at night and often slept at the office. She is now a chief executive mentor for Empower New Zealand, a global business consulting firm headquartered in London.

4. Take Calculated Risks

You have to take strategic risks to earn and grow money. And a little rebelliousness seems to help too. One interesting study found a majority of male millionaire entrepreneurs had been in trouble with school authorities or the police during their adolescence.

5. Be Generous

And why doesn’t it surprise us that millionaires are often very generous? Sometimes it’s for the tax breaks, obviously, but often it’s not. One Jewish Swiss millionaire, for instance, flew to Israel to give $5,000 in cash to a waiter at a Jerusalem café who foiled a Palestinian suicide bombing. Among the most generous of millionaires are those from North America, who are, according to a Merrill Lynch Cap-Gemini report, two to five times more likely to give to causes they value than their European counterparts.

These five habits are a pretty good prescription for living happily even if you’re not a millionaire.

But LeBoeuf insists it’s not so unusual to be a millionaire. As of 2004, there were 8.2 million households with a net worth of more than $1 million. And are the folks in those households happy? Yes, says professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in the UK. After studying more than 9,000 people over eight years, Oswald concluded that people who come into money are happier. The happiest among them, he says, seem to be “highly educated, well-paid women who have jobs.”

And how much money does the professor say it takes to be happy? “About $1 million, give or take a little.”

These metros have the lowest rates of violent crime, workplace deaths, fatal crashes and natural disasters

After living five years in New York City and waiting tables while working part time as actors, Pamela Russell and her husband Todd were looking for a safer, cheaper place to put down roots–without giving up all the city perks that they so enjoyed in the Big Apple. Luckily for them, they chanced upon the Twin Cities.

“We drove into Minneapolis and fell in love almost instantly,” says Russell, now 38, who settled in Minneapolis with her husband and started a theater company–as well as a family of five kids–10 years ago.” Among the buzz and hum of Minneapolis, the biggest bonus of it all is that the crime rates are shockingly low. Sure, we lock our home at night, but we feel very safe living here.”

Minneapolis tops our list of America’s safest cities, and not just for its crime rate. In ranking the cities on our list, we looked at workplace fatalities, traffic-related deaths and natural disaster risk; the City of Lakes ranked in the top 10 of all four categories. It’s also one of America’s best places to live cheaply and offers easy access to some of the most scenic drives in the country.

The Milwaukee metro area, buoyed by the lowest natural disaster risk of the cities we considered, ranks second. The Portland, Ore.,metro, which boasts the lowest crime rate, places third. Boston and Seattle are tied for fourth. Both benefit from low traffic fatality rates–Boston’s is the lowest on our list, and Seattle’s is the eighth-lowest. This is largely because they boast two of the most user-friendly mass transit systems in the country. In addition to being environmentally friendly, these networks provide an alternative to driving while intoxicated.

“Some cities have transit systems that penetrate more of the area,” says Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. “The biggest factors in fatal crashes are alcohol impairment and speeding. So to the extent that communities do a good job of reducing alcohol impairment and speeding, that should show up in fatal crash rates.”
Behind the Numbers

To determine our list of America’s safest cities, we looked at the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas across four categories of danger. We considered 2008 workplace death rates from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; 2008 traffic death rates from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; and natural disaster risk, using rankings from green living site SustainLane.com. It devised its rankings by collecting historical data on hurricanes, major flooding, catastrophic hail, tornado super-outbreaks, and earthquakes from government agencies including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the United States Geological Survey, the Department of Homeland Security, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and private outfit Risk Management Solutions. We also looked at violent crime rates from the FBI’s 2008 uniform crime report. The violent crime category is composed of four offenses: murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assault. In cases where the FBI report included incomplete data on a given metro area, we used estimates from Sperling’s BestPlaces.
Seeking Shelter

While the strength of a metro’s mass transit in some cases influenced its traffic fatality rank, the types of industry located there largely affected each city’s workplace death rate. These tended to be lowest in areas like Seattle and San Jose that contain a profusion of technology and service jobs–or Detroit, where nearly one quarter of the workforce is unemployed. Dangerous jobs are more prevalent in industrial centers like Pittsburgh and Indianapolis, whose workplace death rates were five times higher than the safest, Minneapolis.

“Obviously there are some jobs that have a higher fatality rate than others,” says Matt Gunter, a researcher at the Bureau of Labor Statistics. “If there’s a concentration of that sort of job in a certain city, there’s probably going to be a higher fatality rate.”

Mother nature can knock down trees, flood houses and even destroy entire neighborhoods. To gauge which cities most feel her wrath, Sustain Lane collected data from observation posts at different areas within cities. It notes that the natural disasters observed generally affect the entire metro area and greater region in which they occur. SustainLane measured the likelihood of disaster as well as the extent of damage. Miami was rated as having the highest natural disaster risk.

“There is an issue of frequency vs. severity to take into consideration,” says Ken Ott, director of city rankings at SustainLane. “San Francisco and Oakland are due for a 100-year quake, but these only happen every 100 or so years, while Miami is in a frequent hurricane path.”

Miami’s natural disaster risk was part of another perfect storm–one composed entirely of statistics. America’s southernmost metropolis ranked among the six worst in all four categories we measured, earning it the lowest overall safety ranking on our list.

Top 5 America’s Safest Cities

5. Seattle, Wa. (tie)
Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, Wash.
Violent crime: 3 of 40
Workplace deaths: 2 of 40
Traffic deaths: 8 of 40
Natural disaster risk: 31 of 40

4. Boston, Mass.
Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, Mass.-N.H.
Violent crime: 10 of 40
Workplace deaths: 5 of 40
Traffic deaths: 1 of 40
Natural disaster risk: 28 of 40

3. Portland, Ore.
Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, Ore.-Wash.
Violent crime: 1 of 40
Workplace deaths: 10 of 40
Traffic deaths: 5 of 40
Natural disaster risk: 25 of 40

2. Milwaukee, Wis.
Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, Wis.
Violent crime: 24 of 40
Workplace deaths: 11 of 40
Traffic deaths: 4 of 40
Natural disaster risk: 1 of 40

1. Minneapolis, Minn.
Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI
Violent crime: 9 of 40
Workplace deaths: 1 of 40
Traffic deaths: 7 of 40
Natural disaster risk: 7 of 40

For those who value their freedom of expression as much as health, wealth, and prosperity, then Finland is the place to be, with an index ranking the Nordic nation the best in the world.

The 2009 Legatum Prosperity Index, published on Tuesday and compiled by the Legatum Institute, an independent policy, advocacy and advisory organization, ranked 104 countries which are home to 90 percent of the world’s population.

The index is based on a definition of prosperity that combines economic growth with the level of personal freedoms and democracy in a country as well as measures of happiness and quality of life.

With the exception of Switzerland, which came in at number 2, Nordic countries dominated the top 5 slots, with Sweden in third place followed by Denmark and Norway.

The top 10 were all also Western nations, with Australia (6th place) and Canada (7th place) both beating the United States, ranked 9th. Britain came in at number 12.

In Asia, Japan was the region’s highest ranked country at number 16, followed by Hong Kong (18th place) and Singapore (23rd place) and Taiwan (24th place).

Dr. William Inboden, senior vice president of the Legatum Institute, said the lower rankings for Asian nations were largely due to their weak scores for democracy and personal freedoms.

“Many Asian nations have good economic fundamentals, but the Index tells us that true prosperity requires more than just money,” Inboden said in a statement.

“Democratic institutions and personal freedom measures are letting some Asian nations down. Furthermore, countries which have low levels of economic stability, such as Cambodia, finish even further down in the overall rankings.”

Cambodia came in the 93rd slot while China, with its tight political controls, came in 75th despite booming economic growth.

And the world’s least prosperous country? According to the Legatum Index, it is Zimbabwe, with Sudan and Yemen close runners-up.