Monday, October 16, 2017

What I've learned since moving to D.C. (some of which should be obvious): 0119

5901.  If we want more of what we want, we have to get rid of what we don’t want.  It’s the necessary, but sometimes painful process called “pruning;”
5902.  Sometimes our short-sighted attachment to what we have is what’s holding us back from growing;
5903.  Goals that lack clarity are merely wishes;
5904.  It’s better to set out ambitious, but realistic goals that include the target and some concrete ways to reach it (i.e., I am going to increase our sales this year by 10% by cold-calling a few prospective clients every workday);
5905.  Whatever are your key motivations, when you find yourself dragging your feet, stop to remind yourself why you wanted to do this in the first place.  Reconnecting with your why will (always) help;
5906.  To reach your goals, focus instead on the chunks or steps that you’ll need to get there;
5907.  Larger goals ought to challenge us, the steps toward getting to our goals should not.  These steps need to be inside our comfort zone and ought to require little or no courage to do.  The trick is to cut the giant into enough pieces that s/he is no longer menacing;
5908.  You should only have three main tasks per day.  To focus on three and only three, you have to filter your tasks and eliminate, automate or delegate everything that is outside your “desire zone.”  You can also have a small list of nonessential tasks that can be handled at the beginning or the end of the workday.  Your attitude toward these things should be “If I get to them, fine, and, if not, that’s okay, too;”
5909.  According to Dr. Gail Matthews, built-in accountability is one of two primary ingredients for goal success.  You need someone who will hold you accountable without succumbing to your excuses.  Their purpose in this context is not to shame you, but to remind you of the road you set out on and why getting over the finish line will be worth it;
5910.  You’re not truly proficient unless you’re able to deliver results in the role you were hired for or that you’ve convinced your organization to shift you into;
5911.  Let’s say you’re good at hitting a baseball.  That’s great, but it doesn’t mean you ought to quit your job and chase a career in the game.  Instead you might join an adult team and play on weeknights and in weekend tournaments;
5912.  Before you decide to change positions within your company or strike out on your own, ask yourself these 3 questions: 1.  What do I feel passionate about doing instead of my current work? 2.  Am I proficient at it? and 3.  How do I know that?  The last question is key.  “I just know” is not a good answer.  It all comes back to external validation.  Let’s say that while you are pursuing your aptitudes as hobbies, people see your talent and constantly encourage you to take it to the next level.  Let’s further foresee that you get serious interest from a talent scout or a record executive.  These would be examples of external validation of your proficiency at these disciplines.  When this happens, pay attention and, at least, consider moving your life into a whole new and more satisfying zone.  Because when you have both passion and proficiency, you can often get into what makes all of this possible: profits;
5913.  Every big picture that is ever created is created one brush stroke at a time;
5914.  How to become your spouse’s best friend: 1.  Make a list of what you would want in a best friend (i.e., Wanted: Best Friend; Prospective candidates will: 1.  Make me feel good about being me; 2.  Affirm my best qualities (especially when I am feeling insecure); 3.  Call out the best in me and hold me accountable to the best version of myself; 4.  Listen without judging or trying to fix me; 5.  Give me the benefit of the doubt; 6.  Extend grace to me when I am grumpy or having a bad day; 7.  Remember my birthday, favorite foods, music and art; 8.  Know my story and love me regardless; 9.  Spend time with me just because you enjoy my company; 10.  Speak well of me when I am not present; 11.  Serve me with a joyful spirit and without complaining; 12.  Speak the truth to me when no one else will; 13.  Never shame me, diminish me or make me feel small; 14.  Become excited about what I am excited about; and 15.  Celebrate my wins!); 2.  Now become that person for your spouse.  Psychologist John Gottman has spent years researching what makes some marriages flourish and others fall apart.  He found lasting relationships come down to friendship.  Couples who stay married make an intentional effort to connect, share interests and meet their spouse’s emotional needs; and 3.  Keep sowing the seeds until the relationship blossoms.  Friendships are like gardens; they must be cultivated.  The key is to be consistent and persistent without expectations.  There’s usually a reason to hope in almost any circumstance.  There’s a great deal of evidence showing the more someone receives or witnesses kindness, the more they will be kind themselves, which leads to upward spirals of love and generosity in a relationship.  It’s amazing what can happen when we assume the best and stay meaningfully engaged with our spouses;
5915.  Three triggers for suffering: 1.  Loss – When you focus on loss, you become convinced that a particular problem has caused or will cause you to lose something you value; 2.  Less – When you focus on the idea that you have less or will have less, you will suffer; and 3.  Never – When you focus on the idea or become consumed by a belief that you’ll never have something you value, such as love, joy, wealth or opportunity, you’re doomed to suffer, you’ll never be happy, you’ll never become the person you want to be;
5916.  The secret of living an extraordinary life is to take control of the mind since this alone will determine whether you live in a suffering state or a beautiful state;
5917.  Our lives are shaped not by our conditions, but by our decisions;
5918.  Are you committed to being happy no matter what happens to you?  Will you commit to enjoying life not only when everything goes your way, but also when everything goes against you, when injustice happens, when someone screws you over, when you lose something or someone you love or when nobody seems to understand or appreciate you?  Unless we make this definitive decision to stop suffering and live in a beautiful state, our survival minds will create suffering whenever our desires, expectations or preferences are not met;
5919.  The human brain is like a computer in that it does not believe what is true or what is false, but rather believes whatever you tell it most often.  In other words, we become the stories we tell ourselves.  You have to intentionally change that programming through repetition of what you think should matter most to you.  One form of self-persuasion is affirmations, but affirmations alone are not enough.  We need to set exciting goals and identify our key motivations for reaching them;
5920.  5 characteristics of weak leaders: 1.  Hesitating to take definitive action – One of the most important leadership qualities you can develop is practicing the art of the start.  Perfectionism is the mother of procrastination.  You’re never going to find the perfect time or the perfect circumstances or be totally prepared.  At some point, you have to kick into action; 2.  Complaining about insufficient resources – Leaders who do this never get very far.  You’re in place to deliver an outcome and your job is to figure out how to get the resources or make do without them.  The truth is that, as a leader, you never have enough resources.  You could always use more of one thing or another, but successful leaders figure out how to get the job done with whatever resources they have.  The one thing potentially unlimited is your imagination.  Ultimately, there is no such thing as insufficient resources; there are only un-resourceful people; 3.  Refusing to take responsibility – Great leaders don’t do this.  They are accountable for the results and accept full responsibility for the outcomes.  Once you accept responsibility, you can change the result.  You may not control the circumstances you’re in, but you do control your response.  Changing the result is as simple (or as hard) as changing your response; 4.  Abusing the privileges of leadership – Leadership is first and foremost a stewardship.  We never hold it for ourselves; we hold it on behalf of someone else.  If you’re in a position of leadership, it’s to serve.  You’re accountable.  If you abuse it, you’ll eventually lose it.  As a leader of a company, I look at potential actions and decisions as if a reporter or a private investigator was following you around.  How would the choices you make today appear if they were on the front page of The Wall Street Journal?  Our bad decisions have a funny way of coming to light and as a leader you need to live with that prospect in clear view; and 5.  Engaging in acts of insubordination – Criticizing your boss in public is never a good idea.  People in authority eventually find out and, when they do, don’t be surprised if you get fired.  If you disagree with your boss’s direction and feel deeply about it, then confront her/him in private or resign.  This really comes down a matter of integrity.  Even if your boss is incompetent, you have the duty to respect her/him.  If you can’t do that, you need to resign.  Speaking out publicly while you’re still employed is just not an option and it’s not very smart;
5921.  Don’t sweat the small stuff, and it’s all small stuff;
5922.  The undeniable reality is that how well you do in life and business depends not only on what you do and how you do it, but also on who is doing it with you or to you;
5923.  Three simple steps to ensure our peers drive us forward instead of hold us back: 1.  Study your energy bill.  Relationships can calm us down or stress us out.  The first thing we have to do is notice how our interactions impact us emotionally and even physically.  Who enhances your energy? Who sucks you dry?  Once we’re aware of how people are affecting us, we can start making informed choices about who we spend our time with; 2.  Pursue high-voltage relationships.  Try to bring positive energy into all of your interactions.  Intentionally stay close to people who do the same for you – in or out of the office.  Hang out with people, who help you grow intellectually, emotionally and spiritually; and 3.  Count the cost.  We can’t avoid all draining relationships.  Being a fruitful person, the kind of person who actually changes the world around you, means that you sometimes intentionally enter negative situations and work hard to transform them.  You are not afraid of problems or “problem people,” so you can’t, nor should you try to, avoid all negativity;
5924.  It’s also critical to know who the drains are in your life, why you’re spending time with them and what their impact is.  That “why” is important.  It means you’re fully aware of the reason for your relationship.  Some costs are worth it, but you need to count them nonetheless;
5925.  You can’t avoid all negativity, but you can do your best to change it;
5926.  Your goals may be sacred, but your strategy isn’t.  All that matters is whether or not it works.  If the answer is “no,” you should feel free (and compelled) to chuck it out the window and try something else;
5927.  A plan is still important.  You might be tempted to think creating a game plan to accomplish your goals is a waste of time.  Far from it.  After all, having a plan is what gets us in motion, moving toward our goals.  Without it, we would likely never get out of the gate.  Just remember to hold it loosely as obstacles arise;
5928.  Shifting gears from one strategy to the next presumes that you believe a better strategy exists, even if you don’t know what it is (yet).  Focus on staying out of a place of scarcity and in a place of abundance that says, “My best thinking and my best strategies have yet to be discovered.  There are always more ways to get there than I can see right now;”
5929.  Show your work.  If you’re leading a team, this is a critical final step.  You must explain your rationale for changing strategy to your team and you must enroll them in your vision.  This sets your team up for alignment with you and the willingness to follow where you lead, even if it’s disruptive in the short term.  As a leader, you must also be intentional about building a culture where flexibility, change and risk taking are affirmed, so when you display these traits, they are seen as positive and not negative;
5930.  Whenever you start to suffer, give yourself 90 seconds to stop it so that you can return to living in a beautiful state.  Gently breathe and slow things down.  Step out of the situation and start to distance yourself from all those stressful thoughts that your brain is generating.  When you slow down, you realize that you don’t have to believe these thoughts or identify with them;
5931.  What’s wrong is always available, but so is what’s right;
5932.  It doesn’t matter what you appreciate.  What matters is that by shifting your focus to appreciation, you slow down your survival mechanism;
5933.  To overcome fear, the best thing is to be overwhelmingly grateful;
5934.  Life is always happening for us not to us.  Even the most painful situations cause us to grow, to expand, to deepen or to care more.  There have been events in your life that you’d never want to go through again.  Yet when you look back on it 5 or 10 years later, you see the higher purpose in it all.  You see how life was actually working for you in that moment.  Even those moments of suffering turned out to be great triggers for growth;
5935.  Appreciation, enjoyment and love are nothing less than the antidotes to suffering.  It’s all about shifting your focus away from the illusion of loss, less or never and engaging your gratitude, appreciation and love for what you already have in your life.  Take all of your negative thoughts and all of your negative emotions, trade them for appreciation and your whole life changes in an instant;
5936.  A nap restores alertness.  The National Sleep Foundation recommends a short nap of twenty to thirty minutes “for improved alertness and performance without leaving you feeling groggy or interfering with nighttime sleep;”
5937.  A nap prevents burnout.  Taking a nap is like a system reboot.  It relieves stress and gives you a fresh start.  Research subjects, who nap, show greater emotional resilience and improved cognitive function.  Just thirty minutes can prevent the day’s wear and tear from frying your circuits;
5938.  A nap heightens sensory perception. According to Dr. Sara C. Mednick, author of Take a Nap, Change Your Life, napping can restore the sensitivity of sight, hearing and taste.  Napping also improves your creativity by relaxing your mind and allowing new associations to form in it;
5939.  A nap reduces the risk of heart disease.  According to a 2007 study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, those, who take a midday siesta at least three times a week, are 37 percent less likely to die of heart disease.  Working men are 64 percent less likely;
5940.  A nap makes you more productive.  The secret to becoming more productive is not managing your time; it’s managing your energy.  Numerous studies have shown workers becoming increasingly unproductive as the day wears on, but a 2002 Harvard University study demonstrated a thirty-minute nap boosted the performance of workers, returning their productivity to beginning-of-the-day levels;
5941.  Tips for napping (at work): 1.  Be consistent.  Try to nap at the same time every day.  This helps stabilize your circadian rhythms and maximize the benefits; 2.  Keep it short.  Avoid “sleep inertia,” that feeling of grogginess and disorientation that can come from awakening from a deep sleep.  Long naps can also negatively impact nighttime sleep.  Nap between twenty to thirty minutes tops.  Set an alarm on your phone to avoid oversleeping; 3.  Turn off the lights.  Light acts as a cue for our bodies.  Darkness communicates it is time to shut down or go into standby mode.  If you can’t turn off the lights, use a simple eye mask.  Turn the lights back up to full brightness when you wake up; 4.  Use a blanket.  When you sleep, your metabolism falls, your breathing rate slows and your body temperature drops slightly.  Though not imperative, you will usually be more comfortable if you use a light blanket when you nap; and 5.  Be discreet.  Getting caught napping at your desk is not a good way to earn respect.  In some old-school environments, it might even get you fired.  But most people get an hour for lunch.  Eat in half that time and then go snooze in your car, an unused conference room or even a closet;
5942.  Effective leadership is an inside-out job.  Talent is important and so is education and experience.  But in the end, it is our character that makes or breaks us;
5943.  Three forces that shape character: 1.  The input we consume.  Computer geeks are fond of saying, “garbage in, garbage out.”  The same is true with our inner life.  One of the best ways to grow is by reading books, listening to podcasts and other audio programs and attending conferences.  But the opposite is also true.  Watching endless hours of mindless television, viewing pornography or uncritically ingesting the worst of popular culture erodes character.  We must be attentive to the input we consume.  It affects us in deep and profound ways.  It is the raw material out of which our character is formed; 2.  The relationships we pursue.  Jim Rohn taught that “you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.”  We have to be more intentional about the people we choose to associate with.  If you want to lose weight, hang out with people who make good diet and exercise choices.  If you want a better marriage, socialize with people who have healthy ones.  If you want to make more money, associate with people who are successful.  Conversely, dissociate from people who reinforce your worst traits.  None of us can afford relationships that pull us down; and 3.  The habits we acquire.  These are simply the consistent ways we think, speak and act in different situations.  They are largely unconscious, which is what gives them their power both positively and negatively.  Good habits lead to good outcomes.  If we develop the habit of praising our spouse in public, it contributes to a healthy marriage.  If we develop the habit of positive thinking, it can help us cope with adversity.  If we make healthy food choices, it can increase our energy, improve our productivity and extend our lives.  But bad habits can have the opposite impact.  If you make a habit of complaining about your boss, it can come back to bite you.  That’s why we have to be intentional about building good habits and breaking ourselves out of bad ones;
5944.  Research indicates we gain significant satisfaction from making progress toward meaningful goals, so the more we grind without an endgame, the more our quality of life suffers;
5945.  Clone hiring creates lopsided organizations with major talent gaps.  Build your team with diverse talents and temperaments;
5946.  Fear is an unbelievable waste of emotional resources and productive time;
5947.  Apparently, you’re supposed to walk from heel to toe (i.e., your heel lands first and you roll onto the ball of your foot and then to your toes). . . . Who knew?
Walk heel to toe;
5948.  There’s a drink made from orchids (i.e., salep);
5949.  Salep with cinnamon tastes like peanut butter (to me);
5950.  Discomfort is a catalyst for growth.  It makes us yearn for something more.  It forces us to change, stretch and adapt;

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