As a career coach and business consultant, it is my mission to help people from all backgrounds to find their dream job, and teach business owners how to unleash the untapped talents of their workers, to gain competitive advantage.

It’s a job that I love, and it took me twenty years to FIND. It requires me to always find the bright side of life, while I teach others how to turn life’s lemons into lemonade. I am always encouraging people to reinvent themselves, pursue lifelong learning, build a portfolio of transferable skills, and develop strong social and professional networks. In these times, I also push people to market themselves and develop a unique personal brand as a selling proposition.

I must admit that it has become extremely difficult to continue to encourage others, to have faith that things will improve. So many aspects of the Great American Enterprise are broken these days. For starters, our banks and financial institutions have been stealing from Americans and lying to us about it for so long, that it has become an accepted part of the Great American lie. And we allow it to continue.

Michael Douglas’s character Gordon Gekko in the movie “Wall Street” seems tame in comparison to the likes of today’s “leaders” at Adelphia, Tyco, Enron, Global Crossing, Bernie Madoff, Goldman Sachs, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, etc.

For 30 years we have seen our manufacturing and industrial base erode, as American companies embraced the self-destructive policy of outsourcing, off-shoring, downsizing, and re-engineering what were deemed to be non-essential business fucntions. We were going to become a service and technology driven economy. Or so we thought. Guess what? We have become a post-industrialized nation that doesn’t make anything anymore.

The Conference Board recently reported that America’s college educated workforce dropped from its #1 ranking out of 36 industrialized nations in math and science scores, to a mid-tier ranking of #12.

Our american small businesses have for decades been a key driving force behind American jobs creation. Small business owners no longer have the incentive or financial wherewithall to hire new employees.

One in four American workers can now be classified as independent, contract, consultants, and more americans than ever before are living paycheck to paycheck. Most of our states are dangerously close to becoming bankrupt, and we as a society numb ourselves with an overdsose of reality TV to cope with it all.

When did we get like this? Why are we allowing a college education to cost $200,000? Why do we let ourselves be misled by a two-party political system that has stopped serving our needs and interests?

Unofficial uemployment rates are between 15-20%, and jobs traditionally filled by high school and college students are being staffed by workers in their 30s and 40s.

This needs to stop. We need a “Wake Up in America” program for the 21st Century. Who will lead us?