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#YourCareer : How Taking Control Of Time Will Make You Successful And Happier.

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We always hear people lecture us—usually our bosses and parents—that “time is money”. Time is an incredibly valuable finite resource. While you can get more money, we can’t create more time.  

Going into the new year and decade, it’s important to think about how you can maximize your time to fast-track your career. Just think about how quickly the last ten years flew by. When we reach the year 2030, you’d love to look back and relish all your amazing accomplishments. One of the best and smartest ways to achieve long-term success is to take active, thoughtful control of your time. Instead of squandering it mindlessly, you need to leverage time to your best advantage.

Most people lament that they are overwhelmed with work, responsibilities, family obligations and annoying chores. It doesn’t help matters that society makes it too easy for us to get distracted from our goals. Social media sucks us into scrolling endlessly through our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram feeds, binge watching shows and movies on Netflix and engaging in other time-wasting activities.

You should develop a cost-benefit analysis of how you spend your time. If you can earn more money doing what you do best—your job and profession—compared to spending a lot of time doing tasks yourself, than it’s prudent to outsource the chores. This includes things like fixing leaky plumbing, electrical work, food shopping and house cleaning. The time spent on these tasks takes away precious time that you could be enhancing your career or spending it with your family. The chores should be delegated to others. The time spent on your career will return massive dividends.

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You also need to consider the dollar value of your time. Think of how much each minute, hour and day is worth to you. Contemplate what activities would result in furthering your career. For instance, if you are an attorney and bill out hourly rates ranging from $200 to $500, it’s a waste of your time, energy and money to mow your own lawn, shovel snow from your sidewalks and clean your home.  Put a price tag on your time and things will become more clear.

At first blush, this sounds arrogant and elitist. After digesting the concept, it’s simply practical. A landscaper may charge you about $50 bucks a month to take care of your lawn and a high school kid will happily take $30 dollars to shovel your driveway. While they are doing these chores, you can bill an extra few thousand dollars. You also avoid blowing out your back, slipping on the ice and doing a poor job on pruning the shrubs. You’re far better off allocating projects out to others and using the time to grow your career.

It’s also important to say ‘no’ to people. There are so many daily requests made of us at work and socially that takes up too much time without any benefits or upside. It seems harsh to do, but you need to protect your time from the intrusions of others. The more you allow people to consume your time and energy, the less you have to devote toward your career and life. This does not entail being mean or rude. When a friend asks you to help them move, you’re better off chipping in for a professional mover than schlep a couch and bed up five floors of a winding, narrow staircase.

According to Harvard Business School professor, Ashley Whillans, its smart and prudent to spend money to eliminate the stresses of repetitive chores. Your money buys you the precious commodity of time. Whillans emphasizes the happiness that is derived from the time taken back by not having to engage in certain tasks that you don’t like and are not good at.

In a TED Talk, Whillans says that “using money to buy ourselves out of negative experiences,” such as mundane and monotonous housekeeping and laundry is essential to de-stressing. She takes the concept further by asserting that it’s worth paying more money in rent or a home purchase closer to work as the time saved in commuting is invaluable. Her research shows that “buying time” leads to greater happiness and cuts down on the daily stress of life.

The concept may make some people feel guilty and uncomfortable. We’re always told to save money and do things ourselves. There is a little discomfort with paying people to deliver our  food, fold our laundry, drive us places and do all the unpleasant tasks. Instead, Whillans says to focus on all the value you have with the extra time saved, which will lead to greater happiness.

By taking control of time, it will make you more successful in your career and happier in your life.

 

Forbes.com | December 26, 2019  | Jack Kelly 

Your Career: Recent Study Shows Early Career Setbacks Are Key To Long Term Success.

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It is logical to deduct that success early on in a career is an indicator of future success, but a new study from Northwestern Kellogg School of Management found the opposite: an early career setback is a better indicator of future success than early achievement.

Scientists who nearly received a significant grant from the National Institutes of Health ultimately published more work than those who barely received the grant. Dr. Dashun Wang, an associate professor of management and organizations at the Kellogg School and a co-author of the study told the Kellogg Insight that in the long run, “the losers ended up being better.”

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Their conclusion is counter-intuitive and contradicts everything we are taught as a culture: that success breeds success. Entrepreneurs and creatives have claimed for a long time that failure is the foundation of their success. Stephen King wrote in his book On Writing, “The nail in my wall would no longer support the weight of the rejection slips impaled upon it. I replaced the nail with a spike and kept on writing.”

The spike was evidence of his effort. J.K. Rowling gave a commencement address at Harvard in 2008 titled, The Fringe Benefits Of Failure And The Importance Of The Imagination. She said, “Rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.” Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos often discusses how failure is the key to innovation, and how there is no innovation without failure. In his 2016 letter to shareholders he wrote, “Failure comes part and parcel with invention. It’s not optional. We understand that and believe in failing early and iterating until we get it right.” The difference is now this theory is backed by scientific research. If you take Cialis according to the individual dosage, this will eliminate the negative consequences. The substance will work even if you take a small amount of alcohol in parallel. It is only important to remember that alcoholic beverages can depress the sexual system, so you should not abuse them. For more information about the drug, see https://tadalafilhome.com.

The authors of the study eliminated all other variables that could have impacted this progression, like partnering with influential collaborators, changing to more prestigious institutions, changing research topics or moving into a “hot” field of research, but those variables were still not enough to account for the ultimate gap in success between the “near miss” scientists and the scientists that barely received the grant.

With no clear external variable that could have impacted the scientists’ success, the team’s analysis indicates that the failure may have motivated the “near miss” scientists to improve. Kellogg strategy professor and study co-author Benjamin F. Jones told the Kellogg Insight, “The advice to persevere is common,” he says. “But the idea that you take something valuable from the loss—and are better for it—is surprising and inspiring.”

 

Forbes.com | December 22, 2019 | Frances Bridges 

The Two(2) Things Your Boss Must Do To Set You Up For Success. A Must Read !

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Years ago, back when I was teaching high school and college students, one of my mentors told me that the teacher made the difference in the classroom. She told me that instructors had to own the success and failure of their students. I agreed, and now—after years of hiring and supervising staff and leading teams—I help executives and supervisors understand that they make the difference in their organizations. They make all the difference (for success and failure) with their teams and employees.

It is the responsibility of your supervisor—the person you call your boss—to set the stage for organizational and operational success and create an environment for you and your colleagues to do your best work. Supervisors are the difference between success and failure, between high morale and low, between engagement and apathy and between a thriving culture and a toxic one.

Every supervisor—the good and the bad—impacts organizational, operational, team and employee success, but the worst ones have a negative impact because they fail to prioritize their employees’ needs. However, if you work for a supervisor who consistently does these two things, you are being set up for success and will likely have a great work experience.

Your boss must define what success looks like.

Supervisors who don’t distinguish high performers may very well end up rewarding the poor ones, and this is a key factor in toxic organizations.

If your boss doesn’t define what success looks like, he is doing way more than undermining overall organizational success. He is indeed sabotaging your ability to succeed as a contributing member of the team and, quite possibly, setting you up to fail. Defining success is a key responsibility for effective supervisors, and when they can’t or won’t define it, you can bet your bottom dollar they aren’t going to work to help you achieve it either.

Why it’s critically important for effective supervisors to define success:

Today In: Leadership
  • When success is defined, it can also be recognized and rewarded. But when it isn’t defined, you can put in all kinds of work and produce major deliverables and still not be adequately recognized or rewarded for your high performance.
  • When success is defined, employees understand how to become high performers. They become more engaged in goal accomplishment and better able to position themselves for a promotion and secure merit bonuses and raises.
  • When success is defined, it’s a sign that the organization likely has a transparent performance management program that it takes seriously, and it’s also a good sign that due diligence is taken to ensure employees understand the performance process and receive effective coaching throughout the entire year.
  • When success is defined, a culture of accountability—as opposed to a culture of toxicity—can be created because there is less chaos about roles and expectations, and there is less confusion about performance expectations.
  • When success is defined, it forces or prompts a review of the overall organizational or operational strategy to ensure alignment between performance expectations and strategy. Also, more attention gets paid to position descriptions to eliminate discrepancies that could lead to conflicts with goal achievement or create ambiguity among various roles.

If your boss doesn’t define what success looks like, he really can’t set proper standards for performance or accountability. As a result, everyone’s performance—the high and low performers—just ends up getting treated equally. Employee morale decreases, and over time, the culture could become toxic as well.

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Your boss must provide resources and remove obstacles.

Supervisors who can’t be bothered to prioritize their employees’ needs should never expect their employees to prioritize the organization’s needs.

If your boss doesn’t provide the resources you need to effectively do your job, he is undermining your ability to succeed. And, if he doesn’t remove obstacles that impede performance, he hinders trust and makes it difficult for employees to thrive. Next to the need to define success, supervisors have an absolute responsibility to listen—and respond—to employee needs. It is the supervisor’s job to leverage his influence and leadership on behalf of employee success. If employees don’t have the resources they need to perform at high levels, the organization will suffer, and everyone will eventually feel it.

Why it’s critically important for effective supervisors to provide resources and remove obstacles.

  • When resources are provided and obstacles are removed, employees have what they need to do their jobs well and deliver meaningful results. Also, workplace obstacles are minimized or eliminated. Obstacles such as conflicting policies that impede the customer experience get modified or removed. Obstacles such as broken communication flow, process redundancies, duplication of effort and procedural gaps get dealt with.
  • When resources are provided and obstacles are removed, employees can focus on making themselves, their team members, their bosses and their organizations look good instead of fighting to be heard or spending unnecessary time complaining about what’s getting in their way.
  • When resources are provided and obstacles are removed, employees feel heard, appreciated, respected and valued. As a result, they become truly engaged on what matters to their bosses. This leads to organizational leaders getting more input and deeper levels of investment from employees.
  • When resources are provided and obstacles are removed, employees are free to use their talents to think, experiment, create and innovate in a way that will elevate operations and help to achieve strategic goals. Change management efforts and disruption issues have less of a negative impact on organizational performance and profits.
  • When resources are provided and obstacles are removed, supervisors with a tendency to micromanage employees feel less of a need to do so. Instead, they can focus more on the big picture. They can become better leaders and better change agents because they realize they can actually get out of the way and allow their employees to confidently shine.

If your boss doesn’t take the time to understand what resources you need and which obstacles are in your way, he is not making you a priority. Surely, as a consequence, you might start to question whether you need to make him a priority either.

Key takeaways

For supervisors

If your goal is be an effective leader and create a high-performance culture of accountability and trust, it is critically important that you define success, provide resources, remove obstacles and then get out of the way and let employees do their best work.

You can give the best office and holiday parties, but fail to do these things, and it won’t really matter. You can provide your employees with the best work schedules, but fail to do these things, and it won’t really matter. You can pay employees great salaries, and still it won’t really matter if you neglect to prioritize these things.

For employees

If your supervisor won’t make defining success a priority, he is showing you that you aren’t a priority. If you work for a boss who doesn’t provide clear performance expectations and a definitive understanding for what success looks like, he is setting you up to fail. If your boss consistently neglects to ask about what resources you need to do your job or what obstacles may be in your way, you might want to run like hell before he sets you up to fail.

One of the worst things you can do is just stay on the job hoping that your work product meets with your supervisor’s goals. That hope will quickly turn to disappointment after you have given all you can only to receive poor performance reviews, get overlooked for raises and promotions or find yourself treated no better than any poor performer who does half the work as you do for twice the pay.

Author:  Terina Allen Contributor  Careers   I cover careers, professional advancement and leadership development.

 

Forbes.com | December 12, 2019

 

#CareerAdvice : 7 #Skills You Will Need To Survive And Thrive In This Frighteningly Fast-Changing World. Got Kids? #MustRead !

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In the last couple of weeks, I have written about some very somber topics. A study conducted by Third Way concluded that many college graduates earn the same as high school graduates, but are left heavily burdened by tuition debt of over $100,000. Wells Fargo projected that robots will displace 200,000 bank employees within the next 10 years. I have also covered General Electric—once the greatest example of American capitalism—freezing pensions and being accused of fraud. HSBC, the large global bank, announced 10,000 layoffs, in addition to the 60,000 jobs that have already been eliminated on Wall Street. The unbridled adoption of artificial intelligence may result in millions of job losses and require massive retraining for those impacted and U.S. income inequality is at its highest level in 50 years.

Read the paper, watch the news, go online to Twitter or Facebook and you’ll be assaulted by vitriol, anger and pessimism. It’s clear that many people are despondent over the current state of affairs in America. Although, on average, we live a lifestyle unimaginable to past generations, we feel that the good days are behind us. There is a palpable sense of doom and gloom.

If you look back at America’s history, this feeling of hopelessness and fear of the future is common. We’ve been through some difficult times and have always found a way to dig ourselves out, improve and move forward. Amazingly, every time a seismic shift, catastrophic-seeming event or frightening change occurs and seems like it would be the end of us, we’re able to figure out solutions and keep advancing.

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What Skill Sets do You have to be ‘Sharpened’ ?

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Currently, we are collectively dealing with the impact of rapid changes including globalization, technological advances and a different type of economy and job market. It feels to many that this is utter turmoil and chaos. It’s easy to get discouraged and feel overwhelmed. While that’s understandable, in this new, evolving economy and job market, you need to become mentally and emotionally strong. You must learn how to possess the ability to adapt, survive and thrive. There is no time for self pity. It’s a time for action.

Here is what you need to do to succeed in this newly changing world.

  1. Learn to code, write and speak well. You don’t have to be a tech engineer, but it will be helpful to know some coding. It’s predicted that many jobs will require this skill in the near term and future. The ability to write well and speak intelligently and communicate clearly and efficiently with people is prized by major corporations. These skills will greatly enhance your marketability.
  2. Develop a thick, impenetrable skin. We are in—and will continue to be in—a time of rapid change. The days of working at one company for the entire duration of our careers is over. Corporate pensions are a thing of the past. You need to rely upon yourself and navigate your own path. The odds are high that you will have a number of different careers over your lifespan. Within those careers, you will switch jobs, get laid off and sometimes get stuck in part-time gigs. If you are timid and afraid, the world will devour you. You will need to teach yourself to be strong, unafraid and not intimidated by what the future brings.
  3. Tune out the politics and noise. So much time is wasted arguing with strangers on Twitter and Facebook. I’m unaware of anyone who has ever said, “Thank you! That’s a great point. You have completely changed my mind on this topic!” Arguing or even just reading or being in the presence of people who live to fight, yell and point fingers is a waste of time. Concentrate your time and efforts on productive pursuits.
  4. Read voraciously and keep learning. Most of us graduate school and stop learning. It’s like your friend who listened to a certain type of music in high school and never tried hearing other genres, as he’s stuck in a time warp. To remain competitive, you have to keep up with all of the developments within your field, as well as new trends that may impact your career. By constantly learning, you’ll be ahead of the crowd that chooses to remain static.
  5. Save your money. There will be times when you are in between jobs or earning less money than you did in the past. The mistake most people make is to live beyond their means. If they earn $1, they spend $3—believing that there will always be a steady flow of cash. For every dollar earned, save as much as possible. Having funds for a rainy day makes all the difference in the world. As your funds grow, you’ll have a second income stream. It’ll also afford you the flexibility to select jobs on their long-term growth potential, as opposed to being forced to take a job because you need the money right now.
  6. Embrace the change. You can’t stop the tide from rolling in. Things change and you will need to be malleable and move with the flow. Instead of being resistant and ignoring your new reality, think of how you can profit and benefit from new circumstances. With change comes opportunities—if your eyes are open to it. How many times in your life has a bad thing happened, but because of it, you ended up in a better place? This occurs all the time! There is always opportunity, but you have to be receptive, bold and ready to seize the chance to succeed.
  7. Rugged individualism is a uniquely American characteristic, in which we are  self-reliant, wary of taking aid from others and skeptical of government assistance. Think of the cowboys in Western films. They lived their lives on their own terms. Nowhere outside of the U.S. is as easy to start a business than in this great nation. It’s also viewed as okay if you fail. We have the ability to reinvent ourselves, start over, take chances, fall on our faces and get back up again. There is a great feeling of taking the reins of your life and building something great for yourself and your family. We have fought and won world wars, been the first to put someone on the moon, freed ourselves from tyranny, helped liberate the world from Nazis, built incredible companies and have all the intelligence and information in our hands on a handheld device. There is absolutely nothing that can stop us from succeeding.
Author: Jack Kelly

I am a CEO, founder, and executive recruiter at one of the oldest and largest global search firms in my area of expertise, and have personally placed thousands of profes…

 

        Forbes.com | October 9, 2019 

#Leadership : #ConflictResolution -Why you should Stop Avoiding #Conflict in the #Workplace

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I was recently hired to help a group of doctors work through their issues and get their business back on a growth trajectory. They aren’t talking much. They’re barely making eye contact. After only a few hours, it’s clear to me what’s wrong. I share my diagnosis: “You need more conflict.”

It’s the last thing they expect me to say. They’re already in agony dealing with the smallest decisions. Each meeting is an excruciating cocktail of trepidation, anger, guilt, and frustration. How could they possibly need more conflict?

What they don’t realize is that they’re mired in all those negative emotions because they’re unwilling to work through them. As long as they avoid the topics that are creating anger, guilt, and frustration, they’re stuck with them. There are many topics that they haven’t discussed for years. They’ve tried every way to go around the contentious issues, but now they need to go through them.

THE IMPORTANCE OF CONFLICT

The doctors are not the only ones who avoid conflict. Most of us have been raised to think of conflict as a bad thing. Conventional wisdom holds that conflict is bad for productivity and corrosive to trust and engagement. But that view is totally at odds with how an organization works.

Conflict isn’t bad for organizations: it’s fundamental to them. After all, you need to be able to work through opposing sides of an issue and come to a resolution in the best interest of customers, shareholders, and customers–whether you’re on the shop floor or the boardroom. Conflict is part of strategic planning, resource allocation, product design, talent management, and just about everything else that should happen in an organization.

Unfortunately, most humans don’t embrace conflicts. Rather, we avoid, postpone, evade, duck, dodge, and defer them. The result is conflict debt.

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CONFLICT DEBT

Conflict debt is the sum of all the contentious issues that we need to address to move forward, but remain undiscussed and unresolved. It can be as simple as withholding the feedback that would allow your colleague to do a better job, and as profound as continually deferring a strategic decision while getting further and further behind the competition.

The doctors I worked with are in conflict debt. Each time they avoid the discussions, debates, and disagreements that they need to have to get their business growing again, they sink further in. Think of it like financial debt–when you use credit to buy things you otherwise can’t afford. You want something, maybe even need it, but you don’t have the cash at the time, so you use credit. You rationalize to yourself that you will pay it off as soon as you get your next paycheck, but if you’re like 65% of American credit card holders, you carry that balance over from month to month. The debt mounts, and over time, it gets harder and harder to get out just from under it.

THREE UNPRODUCTIVE WAYS PEOPLE DEAL WITH CONFLICT DEBT

As with financial debt, conflict debt starts innocently. An issue comes up that’s a little too hot to handle, so you defer it. You promise yourself that you’ll revisit it when things are less busy, or when cooler heads prevail. You buy yourself time and space. But days pass, and no spontaneous resolution materializes. Instead, the issue becomes more contentious. Suddenly, you’re in conflict debt.

You’re feeling anxious, and you find yourself steering clear of your colleagues to avoid having to confront the issue. (Have you ever taken the long way around the office so you don’t run into a disgruntled coworker?) You’re feeling frustrated at the lack of progress, not to mention a little guilty for your role in the stalemate. Conflict debt weighs you down.

Avoiding the issue is only one path to conflict debt. Another is to avoid the opposition. In this case, you broach the topic but exclude people who might disagree or cause tension, surrounding yourself with those who agree with you. You focus on how friendly and productive the discussion is, deluding yourself that your solutions are going to fly with the people who you strategically disinvited. But pretending the opposition isn’t there won’t make it disappear. It will resurface when your opponents kill your plan or, worse, leave it to fail.

There’s a third way to get into conflict debt–avoid the friction. Even if you discuss the difficult subject, there’s still room to get yourself into trouble if you veer safely away from the distressing parts of the discussion. When you make it clear (either intentionally or inadvertently) that nothing antagonistic should taint your conversation, you start to rack up conflict debt. I see this all the time when, just as the discussion gets perilously close to the crux of the matter, someone suggests they “take it offline” to avoid having to deal with the conflict. Everyone smiles and pretends that they’ll actually come back to it at some point–when in reality, they’ve just stifled dissent.

Are you avoiding the conflicts that your organization requires you to work through? If so, you are setting your organization, your team, and yourself up for trouble. When you’re unwilling to work through uncomfortable situations, you stretching your resources thin, stifling innovation, and allowing risks to go unnoticed. On your team, the aversion to prickly conversations forces strong performers to compensate for weak ones and mature people to put up with immature ones. At an individual level, you’re probably burning out from the stress.

When your conflict debt gets too high, it becomes overwhelming. You’re exhausted by the thought of trying to pay it off. You’ve destroyed your credit rating with your boss and your coworkers by letting these issues go unresolved for so long. But don’t give up–there are many things you can do to get out from under your conflict debt. That starts with embracing, and not avoiding, conflict in the first place.

This article is adapted from The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Based on Track. It is reprinted with permission from Page Two.

Your #Career : #CareerAdvice – 15 #Books That #TopCEOs Think Everyone Should #Read ….So if you Want to Enjoy your #Vacation Time and Stay on Top of the Hustle, we’ve Built your Summer #ReadingList with Recommendations from our #TopCEOs of 2018.

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Think spending the summer lying on the beach with a book is unproductive? Think again. Successful leaders such as Warren Buffett and Mark Cuban dedicate hours each day to reading.

So if you want to enjoy your vacation time and stay on top of the hustle, we’ve built your summer reading list with recommendations from our Top CEOs of 2018.

1. “The Speed of Trust: The One That Changes Everything” by Stephen Covey

Those who are perfectionists often struggle with micromanagement tendencies — when you have a clear vision for something, it’s hard to not want to take the reins at all times. But this often slows the whole team down, and ends up being more harmful than helpful, Stephen Covey argues. In the quick and competitive atmosphere of the start-up world, trusting your team is paramount.

Eric S. Yuan, CEO of Zoom Video Communications, counts “The Speed of Trust” among his favorite books.

“The big thing I learned from this book is that especially for start-up companies, speed is everything. You’re competing with the legacy companies and quite often you have to make tough, critical decisions… how to build a company at full speed at the same time without creating major problems is the challenge. But if trust is already there, it is very easy,” Yuan said. “If I trust you, I know your intentions are good. Even if you tell me, ‘Eric, this is a huge mistake. Can you fix that’ I trust you and I can make the fix.”

 

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2. “Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company” by Andy Grove

Authored by Andy Grove, founder and former CEO of Intel, this book gives guidance to leaders facing sudden change in their companies — and shares how these moments can actually be some of the most valuable opportunities available to a company. Yuan counts this another favorite book of his.

“I’m very paranoid. I think in any start-up, no matter what, there is no room to say, ‘We’re okay now,’” Yuan said. “No, we’ve got to work harder. We need to always be paranoid and ready.”

3. “Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind” by Yuval Harari

In this New York Times’ bestseller, Yuval Harari manages to capture the story of the past 70,000 years of the human race. Beyond chronicling the history of our species, Harari’s book also implores readers to think about what it means to be human, and ask how we want to shape the future of the many generations to come.

This groundbreaking book is a favorite of Sanjit Biswas, CEO of Samsara — but he’s not alone. Fellow leaders Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have also endorsed the book.

4. “The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves” by Matt Ridley

Don’t listen to the naysayers and doomsdayers. According to nearly any metric — food availability, lifespan, income — now is the best time to be alive by a wide margin, Matt Ridley believes.  In this nonfiction book, Ridley touches on how the human tendencies of exchange and specialization have improved life for everyone over the past 100,000 years — and how they will continue to benefit mankind in the future.

Biswas cites this book as another of his favorites: “It’s interesting to zoom way out and realize how fortunate we are to live in modern times,” he said.

5. “The Fourth Industrial Revolution” by Klaus Schwab

We already know how much of an impact the steam engine, the telephone and the personal computer have had on the way humans work —but what is the next industrial revolution around the corner? According to Klaus Schwab, we’re smack-dab in the middle of it. Artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, quantum computing and more are transforming the way business is done in a completely unprecedented way.

Among this book’s fans is Bernard J. Tyson, Chairman and CEO of Kaiser Permanente, who said it has helped him stay up-to-date and ready for whatever comes next.

“I keep current by reading what very smart people are thinking about the future,” Tyson said.

6. “Devotion: An Epic Story of Heroism, Friendship, and Sacrifice” by Adam Makos

It might not be the first book you think of when it comes to professional development, but this work of historical fiction has lessons about leadership and collaboration in spades. Set in the midst of the Korean War and widespread segregation, “Devotion” recounts the friendship of aviator duo Tom Hudner and Jesse Brown, the first African American carrier pilot for the U.S. Navy.

“It’s a wonderful book about friendship, resilience and amazing courage,” said Michael Mahoney, CEO of Boston Scientific.

7. “Return on Integrity: The New Definition of ROI and Why Leaders Need to Know It” by John Blumberg

We live in a world where sacrificing morality in order to drive the bottom line is no longer profitable, said John Blumberg. In fact, integrity might just be the most valuable asset you have. In “Return on Integrity,” Blumberg explores the intersections between the core values of CEOs and leaders and the impact on their companies.

Lynne Doughtie, CEO of KPMG, describes it as “a powerful book that challenges you to reflect on the importance of personal core values.”

“When each of us really knows our personal core values, they’ll permeate the organizations we work for by strengthening our decision making and enhancing openness, collaboration and trust,” Doughtie said.

8. “The Art of Happiness” by the Dalai Lama and Dr. Howard Cutler

Penned by Dr. Howard Cutler and the Dalai Lama, the spiritual leader of Tibet, this seminal guide on happiness explores how to overcome loss and everyday anxieties in order to find your own personal nirvana.

Jeff Weiner, CEO of LinkedIn, credits the book with shaping his management philosophy.

“That’s where I learned the true definition of compassion and the difference between compassion and empathy and how important it is to aspire to live compassionately and manage compassionately,” Wiener told the Silicon Valley Business Journal.

9. “Being Digital” by Nicholas Negroponte

Although it was written over 20 years ago, “Being Digital” is still a classic on the future of digital technology. It dives deep into the successes and failures of technological innovations like the Internet, virtual reality, the CD-ROM and more.

Weiner recommends this book as well, and said it played a large part in helping him shape the online business plan for Warner Bros.

“One of the key points that Negroponte was making was everything that can be converted from an atom to a bit will be. So I looked around Warner Bros. and thought, well, that’s going to have some pretty serious implications for a studio and for media,” Wiener said in the same Silicon Valley Business Journal interview.

10. “The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness” by Michelle Alexander

In 2015, CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg created a digital book club in which he and other members read a new book every two weeks, then took to Facebook to discuss it. One of his picks was “The New Jim Crow,” a gripping critique by Michelle Alexander that pulls back the curtain on the crisis of mass incarceration in the United States.

“This social justice book outlines the many ways the US criminal justice system discriminates against minorities, disadvantages them and prevents everyone from having equal opportunity. I’ve been interested in learning about criminal justice reform for a while, and this book was highly recommended by several people I trust,” Zuckerberg said on his Facebook page.

 11. “The Art of War” by Sun Tzu

Written nearly 1,500 years ago, this Chinese military treatise revolutionized military strategy — and still makes an impact to this day. Sun Tzu’s lessons on strategy, planning and leadership are applicable not just on the battlefield, but also in the business world.

The book made so much of an impression on Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, that he wrote the foreword for the 2008 release “The Art of War—Spirituality for Conflict: Annotated & Explained.”

“Fundamentally, the book demonstrates how small armies can defeat larger ones,” Benioff said. “Ultimately, it is how salesforce.com took on the entire software industry.”

12. “The Boys in the Boat” by Daniel James Brown

Nobody expected a group of Washington boys descended from loggers, shipyard workers and farmers to beat elite rowing teams from the East Coast, let alone the world over, but that’s exactly what they did. In “The Boys in the Boat,” Brown tells the story of the U.S. men’s rowing team in the wake of the Great Depression and their ultimate triumph over the team playing for Nazi Germany.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella endorsed this book in an interview with Fast Company, calling it “a wonderful illustration of the importance of teamwork, which was a core part of my focus out of the gate as CEO.”

13. “Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance” by Angela Duckworth

Strike the word “talent” from your vocabulary — Angela Duckworth’s “Grit” shares that the power of persistence is the true driver of success. Duckworth knows a thing or two about success, having earned a MacArthur Genius Grant and serving as an advisor to “the White House, the World Bank, NBA and NFL teams, and Fortune 500 CEOs.”

One of the many CEOs who counts themselves as a fan of Duckworth’s is Brad Smith, CEO of Intuit

“It’s full of amazing, inspirational stories that show that anyone, regardless of I.Q., talent or background, can succeed if they have grit — a blend of passion and persistence,” Smith said in an interview with Lifehacker. “This book makes all of us underdogs feel like we’re just as capable as anybody else.”

14. “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap…and Others Don’t” by James Collins 

The world’s best companies don’t reach the top by settling for “good enough” — rather, a constant drive for excellence propels them forward. But what exactly separates a good company from a great one? In “Good to Great,” Collins defines these differences, and shares how to make the transition.

Richard Flint, CEO of Sky Betting & Gaming and the #1 Top CEO in the UK, recommends this book to those hoping to make the leap: “It contains some surprises on what makes good leaders and companies,” Flint said.

15. The Harry Potter Series by J.K. Rowling

Whoever said CEOs can’t enjoy a good fantasy novel (or seven) on occasion? Craig Donaldson, CEO of Metro Bank, endorses Rowling’s acclaimed series to every parent out there.

“Read all the Harry Potter books with your kids if you have children, because there is no better way to relax than reading with an eight-year-old!” Donaldson said.

 

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Your #Career : Tired Of Working So Hard Without #Success? Learn How #TopPerformers Do Less & Achieve More… Many Individuals Wake Up at a Certain Point in their Life, Only to Recognize that this Intensity of #Work hasn’t Been Beneficial at All.

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Thousands of professionals around the world long to be true experts in their fields, and to stand out through their experience, know-how and effort. Many of them attempt to do that by racking up hundreds of hours of extra time at work, thinking that if they work harder than their colleagues, and put in more effort, that they’re surely get ahead and achieve more.

But many of those same individuals wake up at a certain point in their life, only to recognize that this intensity of work hasn’t been beneficial at all – it hasn’t elevated them or catalyzed their growth, or even lead to greater success or reward. And it certainly hasn’t given them a greater quality of life, or a sense of deep meaning, purpose and true accomplishment that they’re longing for.

 So what are they doing wrong?

To learn more about how to work smarter, I caught up with Morten Hansen, author of the new book Great at Work: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. In the book, Hansen codifies the most actionable insights from his research into “Seven Smarter Work Practices” to show how we can work smarter instead of harder by selecting a few activities and applying intense targeted effort.

A management professor at University of California, Berkeley, Hansen is the coauthor with Jim Collins of the New York Times bestseller Great By Choice and of the highly acclaimed Collaboration. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School and INSEAD (France), Professor Hansen holds a PhD from Stanford Business School, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His academic research has won several prestigious awards, and he is ranked one of the world’s most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50. Hansen was also a manager at the Boston Consulting Group, where he advised corporate clients worldwide.

 His new book was named by Adam Grant as the 20 “new idea books” of 2018 on LinkedIn, and Washington Post’s On Leadership spotlighted it as a book to watch out for in 2018.

Here’s what Hansen shares:

Kathy Caprino: Why do we often equate more hours worked with better performance, and how is this detrimental to our productivity?

Morten Hansen: We know that we must put in at least a fair amount of time and effort to achieve a goal, so in a commonsensical way, we assume that if we simply work longer hours and pile on more effort, we’ll achieve even more. In other words, we assume that hours worked and performance increase in a linear fashion. But that’s not true. As my research with 5,000 managers and employees showed, if you work between 30 and 50 hours per week, adding more hours on the job lifts your performance.

But once you’re working between 50 and 65 hours per week, the benefit of adding additional hours drops off. And if you’re working 65 hours or more, overall performance declines as you pile on the hours (these are averages and numbers may vary according to job and industry). It’s like squeezing juice from an orange. At first, you get a lot of liquid. But as you continue to squeeze and your knuckles turn white, you extract a drop or two. Eventually, you reach the point where you’re squeezing as hard as you can, but producing no juice. You would have done better just to leave the well-squeezed orange alone.

The upshot: you need to work hard (say, about 50 hours a week), but beyond that you reap no real performance benefit from adding more hours. Unfortunately, the “work harder” mentality is deeply engrained in modern work cultures, affirmed by bosses, colleagues, and experts alike. As a result, managers and employees seldom question it.

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Caprino: Why do the highest achievers do less and “obsess” as you say?

Hansen: Doing less and “obsessing” allows you to avoid two traps that frequently snare people. First, there is the “spread too thin trap,” whereby you are doing so much that you can’t devote sufficient attention to doing any of your tasks well.

Secondly, increasing the scope of your activities leads to a “complexity” trap. Not only do you have to deal with each of these activities, but also with the interrelationships between them. Coordinating between activities requires mental exertion, rendering you less effective at each individual activity. Some studies have shown that switching between tasks can decrease your productivity by as much as 40%. In my study, 65% of people strongly or completely agreed that their organization was “very complex—many departments, policies, processes, and plans that require coordination.” The result is inferior performance.

Doing fewer things avoid these traps. Yet it also comes with a rather harsh requirement. You also have to obsess over the few activities you have chosen. Stellar quality requires both prolonged effort and a fanatic attention to detail. You simply can’t invest that kind of time and attention if you have too many work activities.

In my study, people who did less and obsessed far outperformed those who did less without putting in the extreme effort to excel. Overall, people who mastered “do less, then obsess” placed 25 percentage points higher in our performance ranking than those who didn’t embrace this practice.

Caprino: The idea of “work smart, not hard” has been around a long time. What’s different now?

Hansen: The phrase “work smarter, not harder” has been thrown around so much over the past decade that it has become a cliché. Who wants to “work dumb?” But many people do in fact work dumb, because they don’t know exactly how to work smart. And I don’t blame them, because it’s hard to obtain solid guidance.

When I first began my research on performance at work, I scanned for existing advice on how to work smarter, and the picture I arrived at was incoherent and overwhelming. Every author seemed to say something different. Prioritize. Delegate. Keep a calendar. Avoid distractions. Set clear goals. Execute better. Influence people. Inspire. Manage up. Manage down. Network. Tap into passion. Find a purpose. The list went on, over 100 pieces of advice. Few offered data to back up their contentions.

My study of 5,000 managers and employees is one of the first to provide an evidence-based, comprehensive understanding of what allows individuals to perform at work. It yields a simple and practical framework of seven “work smart” practices that any of us can use to work at our best. These practices are largely counter-intuitive.

For instance, to perform at your best, don’t simply collaborate more, as many people think. Select just a few, high-value collaborations, and make the most of them. Likewise, don’t just follow your passion. Instead, combine passion with a strong sense of purpose on the job (that way, you’ll energize yourself and maximize the intensity of your efforts for each hour you work).

Overall, I think of these seven practices as akin to Stephen Covey’s The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, updated to reflect the realities of work today, and backed by an unprecedented statistical analysis.

Caprino: So what have you learned about how top performers approach the job they are given?

Hansen: Most people who start in new roles adopt goals based on their job descriptions, and then start working toward those goals. The best in our study did something different. They started with an eye toward value, before they settled on goals. They redesigned their work, asking: “How can I create the most value in this role, for customers or others in the organization?” That may involve doing things that no one had thought of, or ditching conventional tasks of little value. Once they have redesigned work to maximize value, then and only then do they draft specific goals. First value, then goals.

Caprino: What have you found to be wrong with the popular idea that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill?

Hansen: The idea that it takes 10,000 hours of practice to master a skill is misleading.  One year of practice repeated in the same way for ten years doesn’t make perfect. Rather, a certain kind of practice makes perfect—what Professor Anders Ericsson and his colleagues have called “deliberate practice.”

Individuals who progress the most meticulously assess outcomes, solicit feedback based on known standards of excellence, and strive to master tiny flaws that the feedback has uncovered. This purposeful and informed way of practicing explains why some learn at a much faster rate than others.

 Deliberate practice has allowed people to achieve stellar results in pursuits like sports, music, chess, and spelling bees, so you would think that legions of employees in the working world would rely on this approach to master their job-specific skills. Yet most individuals don’t. Experts haven’t articulated how people can use a continuous learning technique like deliberate practice in their daily work. And most organizations aren’t geared to supporting such techniques.

As a result, people conduct meetings or give presentations or make sales pitches just as they’ve always done. They become “good enough,” but not great at work. As my study found, employees and managers who deploy a modified version of deliberate practice on the job — what I call the “learning loop” — performed better than those who don’t.

 Caprino: Finally, tell us what you believe about following your passion and why that’s wrong?

Hansen: “Follow your passion” really implies that you should let passion dictate what you do, regardless of other considerations. Otherwise, you’re not really following your passions. That approach, unfortunately, can lead people astray. As many a failed actor in Los Angeles will tell you, following your passion can lead to unemployment. But what’s the alternative? Ignoring your passion isn’t so great, either. It leads people to plod along, doing dull, empty work to earn a paycheck.

My study of 5,000 managers and employees turned up a third option, what I call “matching.” Some people pursue passion in navigating their careers, but they also manage to connect this passion with a clear sense of purpose on the job — they contribute, serve others, make a difference. They have matched passion with purpose.

My statistical analysis of 5,000 people shows that people who match passion with purpose perform much better, on average, than those who lack either purpose or passion or both.

The key therefore is to take steps to infuse your work with both passion and purpose, and in many cases, people can do that while remaining in their present organizations.

For more information, visit Morten Hansen and his new book Great at Work.

To build more success, visit Kathy Caprino’s Amazing Career Project training series and her new podcast Finding Brave. 

Forbes.com | January 30, 2018 | Kathy Caprino ,  WOMEN@FORBES

#Life : 25 Best Habits to Have in Life…If you are Committed to Happiness and Success, Work These into your Daily Routine.

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We are creatures of habit. Everything we think, say and do is a result of deep-seated habits etched into our minds through years and years of repitious behavior. Those very same habits either help to propel us forward or to hinder our progress in life. In fact, the state and quality of our lives right now is a direct reflection of our daily habits. 

free-road-bend

Habits are an undeniably powerful part of life. They’re an integral part of the underlying behavioral psychology that shapes the direction of our lives. They’re so integral that a study determined that approximately 45 percent of everything we do on a daily basis is driven by our habits.

Parting ways with our bad habits and replacing them with good habits is by no means a simple task. It takes commitment, willpower and an unwavering desire to overcome our seemingly natural tendencies to think, feel, speak and act in a certain way.

Related: 10 Bad Habits You Must Eliminate From Your Daily Routine

Clearly, for those absolutely committed to things like happiness and success, habits offer the pathway to enrichment in life. They’re also the tools we use to help automate our progress towards one end or another, assisting us with the achievement of our goals and the fulfilment of our dreams.

Still, for the most part, we’re often left in the dark. We’re unsure of ourselves or where to start on the road to developing good habits. What are the best habits to have in your life when you want to succeed or be happy? Are there some that usurp others, providing some secret magical recipe for achieving life’s loftiest goals?

What are the best habits to have in life?

While any list of habits concoted might seem subjective, there are, in fact, 25 particular habits that will not only help you to succeed, financially speaking, but will also keep you healthy, happy and fulfilled in life. Focus on these 25 habits, consistently making efforts to instill them into your daily routine, and in time, your progress and momentum towards your goals will skyrocket.

1. Wake up early.

The early morning hours are a time for peaceful reflection and ample productivity, where the world is still and asleep, allowing you to focus wholeheartedly on your long-term goals. Anyone who is serious about success in any measure knows that it’s important to wake up early.

Even if you’re not a morning person, use incremental changes in your daily routine to start waking up earlier and earlier. Begin by setting your alarm clock back by 15 minutes the first week, 15 minutes the next week and so on. Do this until you can wake up at least two hours earlier than you’re waking up now.

2. Gratitude.

We spend a great deal of time immersed in our problems. But problems are also a sign of life. The only time we’ll lack problems is when we’re six feet under. And if you want to shift your focus away from your problems, you have to be grateful for what you have. Yes, even for your problems.

Gratitude is the surest pathway to health, happiness and success. It shifts our attention towards what we have rather than what we don’t have. It’s the natural abundance of simple pleasures and opportunities that we’ve been afforded with and blessed with that we often take for granted.

 

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3. Smile.

Studies have confirmed that people who smile a genuine smile (also referred to as a Duchenne smile) are happier in life. This is one of the best habits for allowing you to find emotional, mental and spiritual peace-of-mind over time — simply by placing a smile on your face.

The physiology of our bodies dictates the psychology of our minds. When we frown or slouch or do any number of other things that convey a sense of depression and unhappiness, our mind takes those cues and runs with them. However, once we shift our outward appearance by consciously adjusting ourselves, our inward feelings follow.

4. Eat a healthy breakfast.

Breakfast is an important part of life. Yet, 31 million Americans skip breakfast every single day. And that saying you’ve heard your entire life about breakfast being the most important meal of the day? It’s 100 percent true. If you’re serious about success, eat a healthy breakfast every single morning.

This single habit doesn’t take much effort. Some planning is certainly required, and if you’re rushing out the door every morning with barely any time to spare, you might want to consider waking up earlier to ensure that you wield this habit in your own life.

5. Exercise.

One of the absolute best habits to have in life is to exercise every single day without fail. This isn’t about heavy weightlifting or running a marathon. This is about doing lightly strenuous activity to oxygenate your blood and boost the endorphins in your body.

Not only will you feel physically better when you start this habit, but you’ll also feel more motivated, have more mental clairty and be more emotionally sound. Exercise releases dopaminine, oxytocin and serotonin into the system, giving an almost euphoric effect without the usage of any drugs whatsoever.

Related: Richard Branson: To Be Successful, Take the Stairs

6. Drink water with lemon.

One habit that has monumental health benefits is to drink a large glass of water with lemon every single day. Lemons are a natural source of Vitamin C, but also possess other health benefits — such as helping with your digestion, boosting your immune system, along with cleansing and rehydrating your body.

The water itself is also an important way to flush any toxins from your system early on in the morning when you first arise. Ultimately, over time, this will also aid with things like weight loss, a reduction in any inflammations and an overall boost in energy.

7. Walk 10,000 steps.

Most people have heard about the benefits of walking at least 10,000 steps in a day. Yet, as a society, we tend to fall far short of that goal. One study, which provided shocking results of just how many steps we do take, compared that number to countries from around the world by studying participants from the U.S., Switzerland, Australia and Japan.

Americans, on average, take 5,117 steps a day. Compared to Australians, who take 9,695 steps per day, and residents of Switzerland, who take 9,650 steps per day, and those of Japan, who take 7,168 steps per day — we fall way short. Event still, this single habit is a great way to resolve our sedentary ways. Park further from the office or take the stairs when you can to help boost your daily steps.

8. Vitamins and minerals.

As a culture, we lack the necessary vitamins and minerals through our food intake. Processed and refined sugars, carbohydrates and other foods that are a staple of the American diet help to exacerbate this problem. We simply don’t get the proper nutrients our bodies need on a daily basis.

Find a good set of vitamins and minerals that you can take every day. It’s easy to ignore this healthy habit, but the feeling after weeks and months of doing this on a regular basis, is tremendous. That impact can help us to improve other areas of our lives by providing mental, emotional and physical clarity.

9. Effective time management.

An essential habit for succeeding at anything in life is effective time management. How well you manage the precious little time you have says a lot about what you can achieve. And considering that we all have the same amount of time in this world, how you leverage this resource will dictate your potential for success.

Find a good system for managing your time and implement it. This isn’t complex to do, but does require conscious and consistent effort. However, once this habit has been solidified into your daily routine, virtually anything is possible, and no goal will be too big to attain.

10. Daily goal setting.

Most people have goals. Whether it’s something to achieve in business or in life, we’re all moving in one intended direction or another. However, while long-term goals do give us direction, it’s the daily goals that we set that allow us to create short-term milestones that are integral to our success.

Long-term goals can seem overwhelming even in the best of times. But by implementing a daily goal-setting strategy, you can overcome some of the enormity associated with achieving big things in life by focusing on the one-day-at-time, short-term scenarios.

11. Inspire yourself.

It’s often difficult to stay motivated for any considerable amount of time. We get discouraged and dissuaded from our goals when things arise in life that send us on tangents and veer us off track. But one of the absolute best ways you can stay motivated in life is to inspire yourself on a daily basis.

Read, watch inspirational videos and get inspired by stories of otherswho have achieved their dreams. Anthony Robbins calls this your “hour of power,” but you can spend as much or as little time on this as you need. Inspiration is the pathway to achievement because what the mind can conceive, it can achieve.

12. Save and invest.

No good habit list is complete without one that calls for saving and investing. We often overlook the necessity to save for the future because we’re so busy living in the present moment. The truth is that most Americans have less than $1,000 saved up at any given moment.

But it’s not just about saving. You have to invest the money that you save, and do so wisely. The more attention you pay to this now, the more your life will be replete with financial success in the future. You should also be sure to have at least six months worth of savings in your account to stave off any potential financial calamity in the future.

Related: Why Entrepreneurs Need to Save and Invest Money

13. Budget and track expenses.

Benjamin Franklin once said, “Beware of little expenses, a small leak will sink a great ship.” It’s easy to lose sight of little expenses, but they add up, especially when we fail to budget. Be sure to manage all of your expenses, and sweat the small stuff, so to speak.

When it comes to sound financial habits, this is an important one to have, and one that will lend itself to your future financial success. The money saved on frivilous or extraneous expenses can be saved and invested for your future. Don’t ignore the future for sake of revelling in the present moment.

14. Learn something new.

Educate yourself, and learn something new every single day. Committ to learning and improving your life, whether it’s by acquiring new skills or enhancing the existing skills you already have. From foreign languages to software programs and apps, you should carve out a small amount of time every single day to dedicate to this habit.

Whether you decide to learn something new through an online course, an audiobook, a blog post, a video tutorial on YouTube, or even through TED Talks or other means, the importance of implementing this habit is paramount. Find something that’s worthwhile learning and do just a little bit of it every single day.

15. Organize.

Physical clutter results in a loss of focus. When our lives are disorganized and in a state of disarray, it’s hard to stay focused on our goals. Take the time to organize your home and office, and do just a little each day to enforce this habit. Take a single drawer and organize it, or organize a solitary corner of your home or even a cabinet in your office.

The importance of this habit is highlighted by a study in the Journal of Neuroscience titled, “Interactions of top-down and bottom-up mechanisms in human visual cortex,” which says “Multiple stimuli present in the visual field at the same time compete for neural representation by mutually suppressing their evoked activity throughout visual cortex.” In plain English — clutter lends itself to a major loss of focus.

16. Contribute to others.

In our quest to achieve and succeed, we often forget about others. We fail to contribute something of value to our fellow man, woman or child. This isn’t about donating money; this is about contributing your time, which is far more valuable than money. It also helps to shift your focus from a state of lack to a state of abundance.

We tend to spend too much of our time steeped in worry and anxiety. But, when you enlist the habit of contributing to others, you can easily alleviate your personal concerns, and even your problems, by realizing the necessity of helping others. In fact, it’s the people in this world that contribute the most value to others that end up achieving the greatest success.

17. Network.

Clearly, it’s not just about what you know in this world. In order to succeed, we need to reach out to others — who you know is extremely important. But networking isn’t just about dropping names; it’s about finding ways that you can help and add value to the lives of others.

The best networkers in the world are also some of the most successful individuals. But they didn’t focus entirely on themselves at the outset. They always looked for ways that they could help others without thinking about receiving something in return. That’s how the world’s best networkers are born.

18. Break through fears.

We spend a lot of time immersed in fear. Those doomsday what-if scenarios play out in our minds throughout the course of any given day. We’re so worried and nervous about the future that we forget to enjoy the present moment. It’s so ingrained in our minds to fear things that it stifles our progress.

Breaking through your fears is quite possibly one of the most important habits that you could develop. Get used to doing one thing that makes you feel uncomfortable each and every single day. Talk to a stranger, give someone a compliment, or tell someone the truth about something that makes you feel uncomfortable.

19. Take action.

Take action. It’s a cliche that we’ve all heard repeatedly, yet it’s something that many of us fail to do. In fact, we do just the opposite — we procrastinate. We fail to take action for whatever number of reasons, hindering our progress and ability to achieve any of the monumental goals we set for ourselves.

The best way to overcome procrastination is to use the 15-minute rule. Take whatever it is that you’ve been putting off for the longest, set a timer on your phone for 15 minutes, and only commit to doing it for that long. Why only 15 minutes? First, it breaks the cycle of inaction. Second, after 15 minutes, you’ve built some momentum, so you might just keep on going.

20. Follow a plan.

Having a plan is integral to every successful entrepreneur — and person — throughout history. Whatever it is that you want out of life, not only do you need long-term goals and daily goals to help conceive, but you need to follow an intricate and detailed plan that you create along the way.

Without a plan, we often fail to realize our goals. Without understanding how we’ll get from point A to point B, it’s hard to see the cliched forest through the trees. But when you stick to a plan and track your progress, making changes along the way, you can eventually reach your goals as long as you don’t give up.

Related: How to Improve Your Focus to Increase Your Effectiveness and Results

21. Enjoy “me” time.

One of the habits that most of us fail to implement in our lives is to enjoy some down time — or “me” time. Do one small thing that you love doing every single day. It’s not always about achievement and success. By doing one small thing that you love, you’re actually instilling peace of mind and re-focusing your center.

Whether you listen to your favorite music pumping through headphones, take a walk through the park, go for a drive along your favorite road, watch a movie, or anything else for that matter, be sure that you always carve out some time for yourself in the day.

22. Implement positive thinking.

Like attracts like. When we think negatively, harboring negative thoughts, we attract negative things into our lives. When we think positive, we attract positive things. It’s hard to stay positive all the time, and it’s often our natural tendency to think negatively about things.

However, positive thinking is one of the surest pathways to the achievement of your goals. Ignore the naysayers and the people who doubt your abilities, and pursue the things that you love, staying positive all the while. It’s purely a matter of momentum. Think positively for long enough, and good things begin happening.

23. Read.

Whether you read the newspaper, financial news, a novel, a non-fiction book, or anything else, find time to read something. Reading is an important habit to develop in life, and you shouldn’t rely on audiobooks or movies all the time. Good old-fashioned reading, the traditional non-screen way, does the trick.

Reading can help you uncover new worlds, ideas or ways of doing things that you might not have known about before. It’s also a great way to educate yourself or entertain yourself at any given moment.

24. Get ample rest.

Although it’s important to wake up early every day, it’s also imperative to get ample rest. Finding that delicate balance might be difficult, especially if you have kids, two jobs and other obligations. However, if you care enough about your physical well-being, along with your future success, you’ll focus on a minimum of six to eight hours of uninterrupted sleep every night.

If you have trouble falling asleep, be wary not to drink coffee or alcohol too close to your bedtime. Also, if you smoke, eat too much sugar, or ingest any other type of toxins throughout the day, you’ll find it difficult getting to bed at a decent hour. Cut those out of your routine so you can get some ample rest at night.

25. Journal your thoughts.

Journaling your thoughts is a great way to reflect on who you are and what you’ve been doing in life. Time can go by so quickly that we often forget the details of what we did even a few short months ago. Those details are often novel to recall as it adds clarity and purpose to our lives, reminding us of life’s lessons and joys.

Get in the habit of writing out your thoughts and journaling your experiences on a daily basis. Intertwine it with your goals, hopes and dreams for the future, writing out what you envision your life will look like down the road, then come back to read it later on to get a window into your mind at any point in your life. This is a powerful method for self-reflection, and also a great way to motivate and inspire yourself going forward into the future.

Getting started.

How many of the habits above have you already worked into your life? Are there bad habits that seem to continue holding you back from achieving any semblance of success and happiness? Bad habits can get in the way of our progress and quitting them is not easy by any means. However, it’s all a matter of momentum. It all boils down to small incremental steps that you can take day in and day out to help you build up the right repertoire of habits to help you achieve whatever your heart desires. The habits above are some of the best habits to have in life. How many of them will you agree and commit to taking on today?

 

Entrepreneur.com | December 2, 2016 | R. L. Adams

#Leadership : 10 Ways to Develop an Unshakable Belief in Yourself…What Does it Mean to have an Unshakable Belief in Yourself? It Means you Choose to have a Winning Attitude. You Force your Mind to See the Positive Opportunity in Every Experience, Negative or Positive.

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As you look at your core beliefs about yourself, you will see those beliefs reflected back to you in every area of life from finances, reputation, success and love. People with an unshakable belief in who they are focus their minds on opportunities, the bigger picture, patience, resilience, and achieving. They strive to feel deeply happy and satisfied in their lives. People with winning attitudes deeply believe everything they set their mind to is something they can achieve.

Free- Lock in Door

 

Below are their core beliefs:

1. Think positive.

Each of us has the power to choose and to direct our thoughts in any direction we want. Thinking optimistically keeps life flowing forward in the direction of our thoughts because our actions naturally follow our thoughts. For positive thinking to work we cannot passively think and expect miracles. We have to back our thinking with hard work, follow through and determination. We are all destined for success and can all get there if we believe we can. We have to put action behind our beliefs, and add a touch a patience to our perseverance. Many people become impatient when their positive thinking doesn’t immediately manifest success. That is because positive thinking, not backed by hard work, reduces positive thoughts to a wish.

2. Goal-digger.

To develop a winning attitude we must experience winning. For this reason we need to create agendas backed by achievable goals set with target dates for their achievement. My amazing business coach Dr. Dave White tells me we overestimate what we can achieve in a year, but largely underestimate what we can achieve in five years. In our sessions we goal set, explore, plan and achieve something each week. Small achievable goals motivate and inspire us towards our larger goals. Each goal achieved builds confidence and makes the journey towards success enjoyable.

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3. Be a ‘passionator’.

To be successful in all areas of life, we have to love what we do. Waking up to a career we feel no passion for will not provide well for us emotionally, even if it provides for us financially. The growth we can experience, personally and financially will be limited when we feel we are just going through the motions to make money. The greatest successes love what they do, and know that what they do spans larger than their own self-interest. It is when we see that what we do makes a positive, and significant difference in the lives of others that we most want to jump out of bed in the morning.

4. Gracious.

When we live with grace instead of entitlement we do not expect anyone to do the hard work for us. We do all we can to propel our success forward. We are not afraid of the hard work required of us to succeed. No one owes us anything. There is nothing more career crushing than an entitled person. They are poor relationship builders, self-centered, tend of bully and are some of the biggest complainers in the corporate world. We must have patience, be gracious, help others, and ask for help when we need it. We must commit to working hard, being thankful and accepting that things are often unfair. We accept if there are goals to be achieved, we must depend upon ourselves to get them done.

“The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” – Winston Churchill

5. Keep good company.

We are a direct reflection of the company we keep. Emotions and attitudes are contagious. For this reason we should make it a point to avoid, or largely decrease, the interactions we have with people who are jealous, overtly negative, defeatist or who gossip. We cannot get anywhere when we carry this type of an emotional infection. We must fill our lives with people who are confident, supportive, happy, optimistic, realistic, hardworking and motivated. This type of energy propels our movement forward.

Related: How a Healthy Lifestyle Can Give You an Advantage in Business

6. Grit.

Success is always about persistence, determination and the stubbornness to never give up. Setbacks and rejections are a part of any great endeavor, so we must stay driven and optimistic. Rejections and setbacks are what help us explore, grow, solve our problems and increase our knowledge to do better going forward. When we have a winning attitude we see that failures are opportunities, not insurmountable problems. They are springboards to further success and direct us to the places where we need growth and reinvention.

7. Believe in yourself.

We have to focus on developing and working on our unique strengths in order to develop a strong belief in ourselves. We have to step outside of what is familiar for the sole purpose of increasing our self-knowledge and personal development. There is not a perfect person out there, so we must remain humble and inspired to work on improving our shortcomings, while not punishing ourselves over them. We can learn ways to work with them, such as delegating out, rather than letting these aspects of ourselves bring us down down. We have to faith in who we are.

8. Be inspired.

Read. All the great successes read. It’s amazing the type of inspiration that can come from reading about other inspiring people. We must spend our time with people who inspire us, and model what they do in their lives in our own lives. Inspiration can be found from family members and loved ones. It is important to look for relationships which inspire us to be better; seek out coaches, therapists and teachers. We can also find a deep sense of inspiration through helping and serving others.

Related: 15 Wise Money Quotes From Millionaires and Billionaires

9. Good health.

Being in excellent physical condition generates a tremendous amount of positive energy. We are a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual being. If our physical body is not healthy it directly decreases our emotional, mental and spiritual health. When we are physically active our bodies produce the feel good chemicals which effectively medicate stress, anger or despair. For this reason we need to take care of our basic physical needs, not just because it is the source of true wealth, but because it generates us to carry a positive vibe about us.

10. Social support.

We live up or down to the expectations and/or beliefs others hold of us. Those people who express their belief and faith in us, our purpose and our agenda in this world serve to deeply motivate us to continue on our mission with a sense of purpose and passion. The faith and belief to come from others, whether that be our manager, our family, friends, our coach, or those we manage serve to keep us on our toes and move us deeply into our personal commitment to our careers.

The stronger we gear our thoughts and actions towards success, the more quickly we develop it. It isn’t about pretending bad times don’t exist. It is about focusing our minds on the opportunities which can come from our bad days. When we have an unshakable belief in ourselves we posses a deep knowing that we have what it takes to overcome and continue to achieve. Once we achieve consistent positive beliefs in ourselves, our potential exponentially increase. We learn that obstacles are the experiences we need to further train ourselves to grow, remain flexible and move forward with a deeper sense of knowledge. Winston Churchill said, “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity. The optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Entrepreneur.com | October 13, 2016 | Sherrie Campbell

 

#Leadership : 4 Mental Practices To Achieve Your Full Potential…Can you Begin to Live your Best Life Ever by Applying a Series of Simple Mental Techniques in your Day-to-Day Life ?

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Personally, I’ve been on an evolving journey when it comes to mindset strategies for success. In my twenties, I thought it was all hogwash and I just wanted to learn practical tactics—things to do. In my thirties, I began to realize the importance of slowing down and how the right psychology can lead to the right activities. Now in my forties, I’ve come to understand that the inner game is the true driving force to the outer game.

Book Visions at the Top

In Visions to the Top: A Millionaire’s Secret Formula to Productivity, Visualization and Meditation, Justin Ledford shares his methods for achieving success in every area of life. He explains how readers can tap into their dreams, and begin using them as the driving force for goal attainment. Himself no stranger to struggle, Ledford personally used techniques of intention, visualization, meditation, and planning to overcome many obstacles and to build several multimillion dollar businesses. Here are his top four practices.

The Power of Intention

People who achieve greatness in their lives don’t get there by chance–they know their purpose when they start their personal journey, and they kept that intention alive as they proceed. He writes:

“Precise intentions are like looking through binoculars. You must know what you are looking for, and in order to spot your target you have to have a general idea where it’s located. Even when you are looking straight at your target, in order to see more detail, you need to zoom in. That is what precise intention does, it locates and magnifies that which you want. If you are focused with laser precision on what you want, and are taking action to move towards it, you’ll get it.”

Ledford refers to a study by Dr. Masaru Emoto, which revealed that our words and thoughts impact every cell in our bodies. Words are very powerful, with the ability to effect our entire being in either a negative or positive fashion.

Whatever follows the word “I” will dictate our feelings and actions. Therefore, Ledford suggests that instead of saying weak comments like, “I don’t know if I can get this done”, start using empowering statements such, “I am committed to having the best month of my life.”

With a few decades of experience under my belt, I truly believe that our outer world is just a reflection of our inner world. We are where we are in life, because for the most part that’s exactly where we want to be.

Ledford advocates the use of Visualization–a practice which he believes helps to rewire the subconscious mind. While he presents an overview of the many different techniques for using mental imagery, Ledford suggests:

“By getting in the habit of tapping into where you will be one year from now and going to that spot through visualization, you will be rewiring your subconscious– increasing your belief in yourself and seeing your success as possible. Believing in your intentions, and taking the appropriate action towards attaining these goals will ensure that a world of opportunities open up–you will begin to meet the right people, and will find yourself being in the right place at the right time.”

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Meditation

Meditation has grown rapidly in recent years as more and more studies show that it can help reduce stress levels, lower blood pressure, strengthen your body’s immune system, improve cognitive functioning, increase productivity and stimulate creative thinking.

Ledford believes meditation is also a powerful strategy for success, allowing you to easily and effortlessly go after that which you seek. He suggests that when meditating, we should, “Bring an image of your dream or goal to mind so that it can be planted in the fertile soil of the subconscious, programming plans for you to achieve it.”

Stop Being Busy and Start Being Productive

Most people make the mistake of confusing busy work for being productive. While checking your emails, and listening to voicemails are important, they are not activities that directly impact your goals. In order to be successful, it is extremely important that you learn to prioritize.

Ledford recommends, as I do, that you should be identifying your daily Most Important Task (MIT), and tackling it first. This is the thing that will move you towards your goal, and is usually handled best in the morning when your energy levels are high. Doing so will provide you with a sense of accomplishment, which will then set the tone for the rest of the day.

He also suggests setting a timer to limit the time spent on a task, in order to further increase your productivity. For most of us, more time is not the answer, it’s about using the time we have more effectively. We tend to be more motivated when a task has a defined end point, and more focused when we know our time for completing something is limited.

The visualization and subconscious programming techniques laid out inVisions to the Top are simple, and accessible to anyone prepared to put in the work. They will go a long way to making sure your inner game is right, which will influence your outer behaviors and ultimate success.

Kevin Kruse is the author of 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management and “How Millionaires Plan Their Day: A 1-Page Plan (PDF).”

 

Forbes.com | July 25, 2016 | Kevin Kruse