THE LEGAL NAVIGATOR FEBRUARY 2019
FROM THE DESK OF
Mike Bryan
I just completed a new report, titled Top 8 Misconceptions Ohioans Have About Using Veterans Benefits to Pay for Healthcare Costs. Here is the direct link to our website for your instant download:
www.swbwlawfirm.com/free-ohio-veterans- benefits-report
Many Ohioans do not know that this program is available to Veterans or widowed spouses of Veterans to help pay for home health care, assisted living, or nursing home costs. This report explains the qualifications needed to qualify for the program. You will find answers to questions like these: I have heard that in order to be eligible for Veterans Benefits I had to serve in a war zone. Is that true? I do not have an injury from my wartime service. I am therefore not eligible for benefits, right? I was told that I had too many assets and/or too much income. Isn’t there a way I can qualify?
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DEFINE ‘QUALIFIED’ Hiring for Hard Skills vs. Soft Skills
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What can I do about the new 3-year look-back period for VA Pension Benefits?
Hire for personality, train for skills. This advice is becoming a standard hiring practice across industries. Hiring managers put less emphasis on a candidate’s degree or past experience and focus more on who they are as a person. This change is likely due to the growing trend of companies prioritizing strong internal cultures. According to Forbes, 89 percent of hiring failures are due to poor culture fit. It’s wise for hiring managers to make culture fit a priority. New hires who don’t connect with their team or share the company’s values tend to stick around for only a short period. Considering it costs around $4,000 to hire a new employee, it makes sense for companies to invest in new hires who fit the company culture. However, it’s not always enough to hire someone just because their personality is aligned with your company. For a company to hire the best pool of applicants, the ideal candidates should have a balance of soft skills and hard skills.
By taking advantage of this program, Veterans or widowed spouses of Veterans can receive anywhere from $14,509 - $26,766 per year in tax-free income from the VA. Please feel free to download
this report or share this link with family or friends who might find this information useful. I will share an additional report with you next month!
-Mike Bryan
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... Cover story, continued
Soft Skills
be ranked above personality and culture fit. A candidate may come with a degree from a top school and a decade of experience, but that experience won’t make up for the problems that will arise if a new hire doesn’t click well with the rest of your team or isn’t eager to take care of your customers. When a job demands a set of hard skills, your strategy should be to hire for personality and skills. Does this mean it will be harder to find the right person for the position? Absolutely. And while it can be stressful to have an open position for a long time, it’s always worth waiting to find the right person. When hiring managers look only at academic background and technical prowess, they often overlook plenty of promising candidates who need only an opportunity to learn before they can excel. But it is perfectly reasonable to insist that candidates come to the table with certain skills needed to succeed in the position. Be sure your company is bringing in the right people by learning to balance soft skills and hard skills when evaluating candidates.
Here are some other examples of hard skills:
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Data analysis
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Copywriting Foreign languages
When someone says they “hire for personality,” what they really mean is that they are looking for candidates with certain soft skills. These are nontechnical skills that can’t be measured and aren’t easy to list on a resume. Here are some soft skills companies look for in new hires:
Any certification, degree, or license
Which Is More Important?
Depending on the position you’re trying to fill, you may have flexibility when it comes to hard skills. If a dental office is hiring a front desk receptionist, it’s important this person be organized, friendly, self-motivated, and have strong communication skills. They might not have experience at a dentist’s office or know how to use the software, but if they have the right soft skills, they can learn and adapt quickly to the environment. On the other hand, if you are hiring a computer programmer to run your website, you wouldn’t want to spend time teaching the person you hired how to code with HTML or CSS. The programmer you hire should come equipped with these skills.
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Empathy
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Communication
Organization
Flexibility
Creativity
Enthusiasm Work ethic
Team-orientation
Responsibility Compassion
Self-motivation
Attention to detail
Hard Skills
Hard skills are teachable abilities that can be learned through training or experience. Necessary hard skills will vary depending on what industry you work in. An accountant needs hard skills in QuickBooks and mathematics, while someone who works in online marketing will need to be proficient in social media outreach and SEO best practices.
Certain hard skills are essential to the job. That said, proficiency in hard skills should not
One for the Ages How Super Bowl XXXIV Made an Icon Out of a Grocery Store Clerk
late Steve McNair and the Titans had different plans. The Georgia Dome was rocking after two Eddie George touchdown runs, and a field goal brought the Titans level at 16–16, with just over two minutes of play remaining. In response, Warner dropped back and found receiver Isaac Bruce for a 73-yard touchdown, bringing the score to 23–16 with 1:54 left on the clock. But the Titans weren’t done fighting. Quickly moving the ball down the field, Titans quarterback Steve McNair found himself with a third and 5 inside the Rams 30-yard line with 22 seconds left. Scrambling around and fighting off two players trying to pull him down, McNair threw the ball to Kevin Dyson at the 10-yard line. A quick timeout left six seconds on the clock, and the Titans were one play away from tying the game. What proceeded was a play that will be forever known as “the tackle.”McNair found Dyson on a quick slant, and when he caught the ball at the 4-yard line, it appeared a touchdown was imminent. Suddenly, linebacker Mike Jones wrapped the receiver up at the hips. As he fell to the ground with the ball in his hand, Dyson extended his arm, but when he hit the AstroTurf, he was 1 yard short of the goal line. The Rams had pulled off the impossible, earning their first Super Bowl title ever.
Going into the 1999 NFL season, no one expected anything from the St. Louis Rams. When starting quarterback Trent Green went down with a gruesome knee injury in the preseason, ESPN The Magazine slated the Rams to be the worst team in the NFL that year. With few options, coach Vermeil named a virtually unknown player as his new starting quarterback, humbly stating in a press conference, “We will rally around Kurt Warner, and we’ll play good football.”
Five years before his start, 22-year-old Kurt Warner was stocking shelves at a Hy-Vee grocery store in Cedar Falls, Iowa, for $5.50 an hour. However, he had amassed a whopping 16 snaps in the NFL prior to taking the reins for the 1999 season, and what proceeded to transpire on the field was utter pandemonium, giving the Rams the nickname “The Greatest Show on Turf.” This improbable season and the resulting MVP award for Warner set the stage for one of the most dramatic games in Super Bowl history. After going up 16–0 against the Tennessee Titans in Super Bowl XXXIV, Warner and the Rams looked poised to coast on their way to the Lombardi Trophy, but the
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3 Tips to Prevent Raising a Picky Eater
When you’re trying to feed your child, keep them healthy, and prevent them from becoming one of those weird adults with the stunted palate of a 2-year-old, it may feel like you’re faced with an uphill climb. Research shows that fussy eating may be as linked to genetics as it is to upbringing, not to mention the tangle of other psychosocial factors that can fuel a child’s inscrutable food preferences. That said, there are ways to help your child foster a healthy relationship with food and encourage them to be adventurous eaters. 1. Keep your expectations in check. When a child first encounters a new food, they’re going to give it the side-eye. That’s natural. In fact, according to a 2003 study, it may take as many as 12 “exposures” to a new food for it to become familiar, much less something they want to eat. If you put too much pressure on them to eat every last bit of the new food, that particular food won’t fare well in their memories and you’ll have to fight those negative associations from then on. Instead, talk about the new food as you’re preparing it, involve your child in the preparation, and have them check it out on their own terms. Normalizing those Brussels sprouts is half the battle. 2. Avoid turning vegetables into chores. You might think that offering your child a reward in return for finishing their green beans is a good way to make sure your child gets their
nutrients, but it causes more problems than it’s worth. It just reinforces your child’s perception that the green beans are the “bad” food they have to choke down before getting to the good stuff. 3. Make a variety of dishes. The more monotonous your nightly menu is, the fewer new foods your child will be exposed to, and the harder it will become to introduce healthy newcomers to the table. If your kids like green beans, great, but don’t start serving green beans with every meal just because you know those are the only veggies they’ll eat. Keep it varied and fun, and your kid’s palate will follow. You shouldn’t force your kid to eat food they don’t want to eat, but you shouldn’t cater too closely to their fussy habits either. Present them with a wide variety of the healthy options you want them to eat, and let them discover the joys of taste and texture as they grow.
Take a Break!
TIRAMISU
Ingredients
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2 teaspoons dark rum 24 packaged ladyfingers 1/2 cup bittersweet chocolate shavings, for garnish
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6 egg yolks
3 tablespoons sugar
1 pound mascarpone cheese 1 1/2 cups strong espresso, cooled
Directions
ladyfingers at the bottom of a walled baking dish.
1. In a large mixing bowl, use a whisk to beat together egg yolks and sugar until thick and pale, about 5 minutes. 2. Add mascarpone cheese and beat until smooth. 3. Fold in 1 tablespoon of espresso. 4. In a small, shallow dish, combine remaining
5. Spread half of the
mascarpone mixture on top of the first layer of ladyfingers. Top with another layer of ladyfingers and another layer of mascarpone. 6. Cover and refrigerate 2–8 hours. 7. Remove from fridge, sprinkle with chocolate shavings, and serve.
espresso with rum. Dip each ladyfinger into mixture for 5 seconds. Place soaked
Inspired by Food Network
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INSIDE THIS ISSUE From the Desk of Mike PAGE 1 When Personality Isn’t Enough PAGE 1 The Most Iconic Super Bowl in NFL History PAGE 2 How to Raise Adventurous Eaters PAGE 3 Take a Break PAGE 3 Tiramisu PAGE 3 Prepare for an Adventure in Lapland PAGE 4
INTO THE ARCTIC CIRCLE Adventure in the Swedish Lapland
If you’re eager for a new adventure in 2019, you’ll surely find it in Swedish Lapland. With trail systems that take you into the Arctic Circle, the northernmost region of Sweden is home to national parks, glaciers, reindeer, the beguilingmidnight sun, and spectacular night skies. Though winters are cold, one benefit of traveling to the region in this season is to catch a glimpse of the night sky. The northern lights are visible from a few remote locations like Abisko National Park, one of the first established national parks in Sweden. Traveling to Abisko is an adventure in and of itself. From Stockholm, the fastest option is to take one of only two airlines that fly into Kiruna, then travel by train to Abisko. Despite the challenge of getting there, adventure- seeking visitors from around the world arrive each winter to experience the Arctic beauty. Winter attractions include ice skating, snowshoeing, and the Scandinavian sauna (this last one is a must any time of the year). Befriend a Scandinavian and youmight be treated to some pickled herring or even a princess cake, a raspberry-filled dessert covered inmarzipan. Scandinavians cherish their public lands, and the trail systems are well taken care of. Hikers and backpackers can enjoy the stunning beauty in both late spring and summer, as well as a chance to see the midnight sun. Because of its far-north location, Swedish Lapland receives close to 24 hours of sunlight from June through early August. Between the boulder fields, mountains, and stunning glacial lakes, hiking here is a treat.
While hiking, you may spot reindeer herds or lemmings (a small rodent similar to a hamster) racing around rocks. The Sami people have herded reindeer for thousands of years through this very land. In the summer, keep an eye out for blueberries, lingonberries, and the brightly colored cloudberries. Because of the Arctic climate, weather conditions can change quickly from sunshine to rain and heavy fog, so it’s best to dress in layers and bring wind and rain protection if you plan to venture into the backcountry. The fantastic scenery of Swedish Lapland awaits you, no matter when you decide to take your trip. What are you waiting for?
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