While soaking in the summer sun and reading news articles on my phone a couple of weeks ago, something caught my eye. It wasn’t about the record breaking heat wave we were going through across the country, or Mitt Romney getting booed at the NAACP for stating he would repeal Obamacare if elected, it was Katie Holmes. Why you ask? Well if you don’t own a TV or care about celebrities, then you probably don’t know that Katie Holmes divorced actor Tom Cruise after five years of marriage. While people are stating different reasons for the split, many have started focusing on her career and how it may be affected after her divorce is final. Affected in a good way that is.

Reports near and far said she would be able to star in bigger budget films, and that the end of her relationship could be a whole new beginning for the star. She’s already nabbed a few new roles in movies coming out this year and next year, and she just seems more of the “It” girl in mainstream media. Now, I don’t follow Holmes’s career, but I do think that it’s strange for people to only become successful after everything else in their life falls apart. The same situation happened with Cruise’s last wife, Nicole Kidman. Post their divorce in 2001, Kidman blew up huge in her acting career, even going on to win an Academy Award for her role in The Hours just a year later. That’s a huge achievement for a woman who had to just put on a smile and wave while her superstar husband soaked up all the fame and notoriety. Women can be successful in their relationships, but also in their careers just as much as men can be if there is enough focus on it.

The idea of the career-orientated woman is something that was almost extinct just a couple of decades ago. In the past, women were often viewed as more domestic and less worried about their careers than men. Many institutions like the University of Michigan and the Bureau of Labor Statistics have put ladies in that very box with studies showing that women have been somewhat ‘forced’ into the role of a maid, having to do all the cleaning, cooking and more in a home. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2006, 84 percent of women spent time managing the home rather than their careers.

Just six years later things are looking up. More women are making big changes in almost everything including business, government, entertainment and sports.

In a study from the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), women of color (African American, Hispanic, Asian and Native American) make up 14.5 percent of the American workforce, and African American women are in the lead with 7.6 percent in the workforce.

Your goals and that gutsy mindset shouldn’t be skewed by your relationship, or the fact that you’re in a relationship. Sometimes we as women take on other goals and responsibilities in a relationship and when it’s over, we feel that we gave up or missed out on so much through too many sacrifices. It’s time to focus on ourselves and not bypass the goals we set for someone else so that their light can shine while ours only dims.

We hear the heartbreaking songs from Adele, and Mary J. about how love has scorned them and how they moved on. Their experiences turn into melodies, melodies into songs, and songs into success. But I digress here. Your career isn’t given a death sentence because you’re in a relationship, and at the same time, your work isn’t your life and your life isn’t work. But the more time you put into the things that you want, the more fulfilled you will feel (and the less resentful). Sadly, there aren’t too many people who feel this way.

In the June issue of The Atlantic, the cover read “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All.” The article was written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, current international affairs professor at Princeton, and she believes that women can’t be successful and have a stable marriage and regular life.  She left her job as the policy director for the State Department in Washington D.C. because trying to maintain her job got in the way of raising her 14-year-old son. Some questions that came to mind were, where was the balance in her relationships? Why wasn’t the spouse or father of her son helping? The article doesn’t answer these questions at all, but it does bring up the continued conversation on success in relationships and ultimately “having it all.” Does that mean that you have the perfect marriage, or perfect children? If so, is it really even possible to “have it all”?

Success is something that not just women, but men want to have. Balance, understanding and support in a relationship can mean all the difference in getting to your goal instead of pushing it back. You shouldn’t have to continuously put your hopes and goals on hold so your significant other can solely reach theirs. Why can’t you both be a success together?

What do you think? Do you believe that it’s impossible to be able to focus on a career in a relationship? Or is it better to be single and work towards your goals?

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When leading your own company, team or project, it’s important to have a vision and a plan to make that vision reality. Whether you’re trying to tackle acquiring that next client, increasing revenues, building a new product or expanding your consumer base, having a step-by-step strategy can ensure you nor your team is running blind and ineffectively.

A true visionary knows the importance of having a solid strategy and being transparent about the plan with those who will help implement it.

Entrepreneur Aaron Anders details a plan he and the co-founders of his company, Slingshot SEO, decided to implement after taking a step back to reevaluate their business to ensure further growth. They decided to put a 90-day deadline on getting the wheels turning. Take a cue from Anders and his colleagues to learn how you can be on the path to reaching your career and life goals.

Read about the 90-day Vision Plan at BlackEnterprise.com

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• Do Black Designers Skip Over Black Models to Gain White Customers?
• How She Made It: Maria Lee-Driver Discusses The Success of Her Skincare Line Oria’s O’Shay’s
• Entrepreneur Spotlight: Shafonne Myers, Founder and Owner of Pretty Pear Bride Magazine
• Behind the Click: Shellye Archambeau, CEO of MetricStream
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Sure, you can’t really define what a grown a** man is in plain, black and white terms. However, I’m sure we can all agree that it’s pretty easy to point out the traits that prove a man’s overall maturity level is on the low low. We hear brothas say it often: “What!? I’m a grown a** man!” But you don’t just talk the talk, you have to walk it. But before someone gets their briefs all tied up in a knot, as usual, this list only pertains to some men, not all. So with that (and with all due respect), let’s get this thing started.

PS, there will be one for women coming soon too, so don’t get too comfortable.

It’s a new year; waking up to work at the same unfulfilling job doesn’t have to be a reality for 2012. This year use these five steps to a more satisfying career to make 2012 the best year for professional development you’ve ever had.

Career Coach Kathy Caprino details on Forbes that the first step to a more satisfying career is to reconnect with early you. Take some time to remember what teenage and early adult you enjoyed and aspired to be. What was your passion, what skills and talents did you embody naturally? These early characteristics and passions are the essence of who you still are. If you are not using these skills in your career, then seek to find a career that utilizes what early you enjoyed.

Caprino next advises that you move away from what you hate. Certain job tasks in our adult life must be performed regardless of the job. But there are other skills that we hate that come with a specific job. Just because you may be good at statistics or public speaking or report analysis doesn’t mean you have to do it. Once you identify the tasks that you hate, find new career options that minimize working contact with these tasks.

The third tip is to always honor your personal values. After you have taken a moment to discover what it is you truly care about and value, search for opportunities that embrace those values. Be it helping others, transforming chaos into order, or creative design, a career that takes on what you value will lead to happiness.

The fourth step is to redefine your relationship with money. Financial security is the reason most of us take on a certain job. Once you assess your own relationship with money, take power away from the dollar and crown yourself the king or queen of your career decisions.

The last step is the most important: actively do something in the field or position you want! This isn’t accomplished by looking up jobs online or crying to everyone about how unhappy your job makes you. Try to actively take on the job you want by volunteering, interning, taking a course or shadowing a professional in your targeted area. Whatever you decide to do, try it and see how it fits.

It is also important to note that your perfect career doesn’t happen overnight. Taking on these steps will put you in the right direction, but patience is also the key to success.

Every woman has dreams, or goals she wants to accomplish. Far too often many of our wishes fail to materialize. You can go to school to learn how to do just about anything except getting exactly what you want out of life. While there’s always some element of learning as you go, it doesn’t hurt to have a sense of direction, like a compass that points to happiness. Alas, there is no magic compass to dream living.

But we can use a few life hacks to help get things in order. Getting “it” together is really all about organization. And having personal cheats to circumvent the flaws always working to trip you up – for example, it took me 25 years to realize I needed a pocket valet right by the door. It makes it so easy to dump my keys, wallet and cash somewhere I can’t miss when I’m on my way back out. I must be saving hours each week thanks to that little hack.

If you’re at all interested in getting closer to your dreams, a few easy tips, cheats and hacks will do you well. Here’s a few to get you started.

Yay for black excellence! Don’t you just love when you hear about celebrities receiving with college degrees or who go back to school? No? Okay, well, I do. There are so many musicians and actors that drop out of college, even high school, to follow their dreams. While that’s cool if it worked for that individual, bailing on your education is not really something that should be promoted or encouraged for the new generation. You need something to fall back on! That’s why I’m amped about this list of big names in entertainment that got their Ivy League on thanks to our friends over at Black Enterprise. Note, I said in “entertainment,” not only black folks with political aspirations try the big 8 institutions you know. You’ll be delighted by the names, and even a bit surprised: Did you know Sanaa Lathan went to Yale and got her degree in drama from there? BOSS.

To see the full list of folks who attended, attend or tried their hand at Ivy League education, click over to Blackenterprise.com.

As a kid I was always fascinated with time capsules. The past meeting the present was such a cool notion to me and if I were handy with a shovel and my dad allowed me to dig up the back yard I would have created my own. Instead, as a compromise, I wrote letters to myself and hid them for years in a piggy bank behind my bed.

During my annual trip home for Christmas I found one of my letters. It was five years old from the summer before I went off to college. In it I wrote about the way things were then: my relationship status, family members I’d lost, my anxieties about going to school and where I wanted to be in the next five years.

Finding and reading the letter, communicating with a younger version of myself was very insightful. It showed me who I was then, gave me an opportunity to see how I’d grown since and spelled out in my own handwriting what I still had left to achieve.

If you’re thinking about writing a letter to yourself, only you will know how to complete it; but in case you need help getting started, here are some elements/ideas you might want to include.

This time of year Twitter timeline’s everywhere are filled with statements about how 2011 is going to be different.  Fickle friends, exhausted environments, and rough relationships are all things that may get left behind as many prepare themselves for the change in year.  But New Year resolutions are pointless unless you truly change yourself, and that can only be done via some honest self-analysis and a true transformation of behavior and attitude.  Take a look at some ways you may be hurting your own chances at success:

The new year is coming soon, which means a clean slate for your goals and dreams.  Looking for something to “do” to start the new year off right?  Make a vision board!  Some people say that a vision board is a magnet for all the good things you want for yourself.  The idea is that you put your goals on the board and those things become a reality. To find out if that’s true, you’ll have to make one yourself and luckily, vision boards are fun and easy to create.

Join as I walk you through the construction of my vision board.

(Wall Street Journal) — South Africa defended itself against criticism about violent crime, disruptive labor strikes and lackluster organization ahead of the 2010 World Cup. Now the country is winning widespread praise after a successful tournament, boosting its ambitions to host other major sporting events. “It’s not the safest country and this was our problem,” said Franz Beckenbauer, a member of FIFA’s executive committee who was one of the people who acknowledged the challenges South Africa was facing in hosting the World Cup, which ended Sunday with Spain’s 1-0 defeat of the Netherlands. “But this organizing committee, with help from FIFA, has done a very good job,” said Mr. Beckenbauer, who won Cups as both a player and coach.

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