Lucky Breaks Are Useless Unless You Already Know How To Work

What would you do for a million dollars?

 

If that kind of money was truly in your grasp, what would you -- legally, ethically, and morally, of course -- be willing to do? Think about it for a minute. Now hold that thought.

 

I once lost a bet (don't ask) and worked off part of the wager by standing on a high school football field feeding balls through a passing machine.

The winner of the bet is an NFL receiver. During the off-season he works out for five to seven hours a day. That morning he was doing hands drills: Instead of running pass routes he focused solely on catching balls under a variety of scenarios.

We started with him facing me. Then he stood sideways. Then he faced away and twisted back while I aimed at his head, then his lower back, then his legs.

 

Then he balanced on either leg. Then he got on his knees. Then he covered one eye. Then we set up soccer free kick dummies so he could move between them to simulate picking up the ball in traffic. Then he caught balls with one hand, first standing, then on one knee, then falling to the ground.

And that was just during the first hour. He caught balls in other positions for another hour while two high school players pulled him and pushed him and grabbed his arms.

Afterwards he gave each kid a signed jersey as a thank you. As we were packing up to go to the gym one of the boys said, "I bet you get really bored doing that every day."

"Yeah..." my friend replied.

"Man, I could never do that," the other boy said. Then he said, "Well, I don't know... maybe I could if I played in the NFL."

My friend turned and shook his head. "You've got that (stuff) backwards," he said. "I don't work that hard because I play on Sundays. I play on Sundays because I work that hard."

Most of us fall into the same trap. We think, "If I was in (my dream spot), then yeah... then I would work really hard."

Of course that mindset is backwards: You only get a shot at reaching your dreams if you first work incredibly hard. Average effort yields average skills. And average results.

What about you? If you are currently a lower- or mid-level employee, how much effort would you be willing to put in if you were the CEO? If you own a small business, how much effort would you be willing to put in if you owned a $50 million company? How hard would you be willing to work if you were, say, Richard Branson?

My guess is you would work a lot harder than you currently do -- because then the effort would seem worthwhile.

That's the problem with effort: Effort -- especially incredible effort -- rarely pays off sufficiently in the short term. The key is to turn the equation around: If you would be willing to work incredibly hard if you magically found yourself in your dream spot, start working that hard now.

 

First comes incredible effort -- then, maybe, someday, will come incredible payoff. I used a million dollars only as an example. Your dream may not involve fortune. Or fame. Or reaching the top of your chosen field. Your dream is your dream, and rightly so.

But if you want to reach your dream -- if you want to play football on your personal version of Sundays -- you have to start by catching a lot of balls. I can't promise you will ever reach the NFL of your field. But I can promise that if you don't start putting in the effort required to reach your individual dream you never will.

 

Stop thinking about what you would be willing to do if. What are all the things you need to do to make your personal if a reality?

 

That's the million dollar question -- and only you can answer it.

Read more: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130326114905-20017018-here-s-the-million-dollar-question#ixzz2QYFma500

8 Habits That Are Making Your Work Life Harder

If you get decent value from making to-do lists, you'll get huge returns—in productivity, in improved relationships, and in your personal well-being—from adding these items to your not to-do list:

Every day, make the commitment not to:

 

1. Check my phone while I'm talking to someone.

You've done it. You've played the, "Is that your phone? Oh, it must be mine," game. You've tried the you-think-sly-but-actually-really-obvious downwards glance. You've done the, "Wait, let me answer this text..." thing.

 

Maybe you didn't even say, "Wait." You just stopped talking, stopped paying attention, and did it.

Want to stand out? Want to be that person everyone loves because they make you feel, when they're talking to you, like you're the most important person in the world?

 

Stop checking your phone. It doesn't notice when you aren't paying attention.

Other people? They notice. And they care.

 

2. Multitask during a meeting.

The easiest way to be the smartest person in the room is to be the person who pays the most attention to the room.

 

You'll be amazed by what you can learn, both about the topic of the meeting and about the people in the meeting if you stop multitasking and start paying close attention. You'll flush out and understand hidden agendas, you'll spot opportunities to build bridges, and you'll find ways to make yourself indispensable to the people who matter.

 

It's easy, because you'll be the only one trying. And you'll be the only one succeeding on multiple levels.

 

3. Think about people who don't make any difference in my life.

Trust me: The inhabitants of planet Kardashian are okay without you.

But your family, your friends, your employees—all the people that really matter to you—are not. Give them your time and attention.

They're the ones who deserve it.

 

4. Use multiple notifications.

You don't need to know the instant you get an email. Or a text. Or a tweet. Or anything else that pops up on your phone or computer.

 

If something is important enough for you to do, it's important enough for you to do without interruptions. Focus totally on what you're doing. Then, on a schedule you set—instead of a schedule you let everyone else set--play prairie dog and pop your head up to see what's happening.

 

And then get right back to work. Focusing on what you are doing is a lot more important than focusing on other people might be doing. They can wait. You, and what is truly important to you, cannot.

 

5. Let the past dictate the future.

Mistakes are valuable. Learn from them. Then let them go.

 

Easier said than done? It all depends on your perspective. When something goes wrong, turn it into an opportunity to learn something you didn't know—especially about yourself.

 

When something goes wrong for someone else, turn it into an opportunity to be gracious, forgiving, and understanding.

 

The past is just training. The past should definitely inform but in no way define you—unless you let it.

 

6. Wait until I'm sure I will succeed.

You can never feel sure you will succeed at something new, but you can always feel sure you are committed to giving something your best. And you can always feel sure you will try again if you fail.

Stop waiting. You have a lot less to lose than you think, and everything to gain.

 

7. Talk behind someone's back.

If only because being the focus of gossip sucks. (And so do the people who gossip.)

If you've talked to more than one person about something Joe is doing, wouldn't everyone be better off if you stepped up and actually talked to Joe about it? And if it's "not your place" to talk to Joe, it's probably not your place to talk about Joe.

 

Spend your time on productive conversations. You'll get a lot more done—and you'll gain a lot more respect.

 

8. Say "yes" when I really mean "no."

Refusing a request from colleagues, customers, or even friends is really hard. But rarely does saying no go as badly as you expect. Most people will understand, and if they don't, should you care too much about what they think?

 

When you say no, at least you'll only feel bad for a few moments. When you say yes to something you really don't want to do you might feel bad for a long time—or at least as long as it takes you to do what you didn't want to do in the first place.

 

This story was originally published by Inc.

Read more: http://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/8-things-you-should-not-do-every-day.html#ixzz2QYEw3kxX

Why You Have Your Best Ideas In The Shower

“I’m not really a creative person”, always struck me as an odd sentence. Could it really be that some of us are born to be more creatively gifted than others?

If so, I thought at first, that’s definitely a downer. In school, what was considered “being creative”, like writing or drawing nice pictures was never my strength.

It bugged me for a while I have to say. For today, I finally decided to research and read up on the latest studies of creativity and the science behind it. The truth, which I was very happy to discover, is that any and everybody is creative. In fact, we are all extremely creative.

And the following science will hopefully prove it, in case you ever had any doubts about your own creativity. After all, creativity, at its very core, boils down to this:

“A creative idea will be defined simply as one that is both novel and useful (or influential) in a particular social setting.” – Alice Flaherty

This applies to every field Flaherty explains, including programming, business, mathematics together with the more traditional “creative” fields, such as music or drawing. And yet, there is still a very distinct process behind it:

Our brain on creativity: The example of free-style rap

So, what is actually active in our brain when we are doing something creatively? That’s always been extremely hard to track as creativity has always been considered a very vague activity. Until recently researchers Allen Braun and Siyuan Liu had a genius idea: Track the brain activity of rappers doing freestyle and turn it into a research study.

Free-style rap is a great example of a creative process that is both relatively easy to track and can be translated into lots of other areas. What they found was fascinating. When we are being creative, some of the everyday brain areas are completely deactivated, whilst others we don’t use in every day lives light up:

“Artists showed lower activity in part of their frontal lobes called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex during improvisation, and increased activity in another area, called the medial prefrontal cortex. The areas that were found to be ‘deactivated’ are associated with regulating other brain functions.”

To make it a bit more understandable:

“We think what we see is a relaxation of ‘executive functions’ to allow more natural de-focused attention and uncensored processes to occur that might be the hallmark of creativity,” says Braun.

So, the areas in our brain, that we use to make decisions is largely inactive. The “medial prefrontal cortex” area, which is responsible to learn association, context, events and emotional responses however was extremely active on the other hand. This graphic of brain activity probably describes it best:

The reason the above is so fascinating, is that for the first time, there was an activity, that was deeply creative and also fairly straightforward to measure. When I read through some other studies measuring brain activity, it never felt that the people were performing something actually creative.

 

 

So it makes a lot of sense to substitute free-style rapping for writing, drawing, solving programming problems and more mentions Braun. That’s why this example is so great. It is also similar to our brain activity whilst we sleep.

 

Why do we have great ideas in the shower then?

The fact that free-style rapping shows us a high level of creativity, still doesn’t explain why great ideas happen in the shower.

 

Alice Flaherty, one of the most renowned neuroscientists researching creativity has an answer for us. Another ingredient, that’s very important for us to be creative is dopamine: The more dopamine that is released, the more creative we are, she says:

“People vary in terms of their level of creative drive according to the activity of the dopamine pathways of the limbic system.”

This graphic shows beautifully how dopamine gets taken up by certain brain areas which then get increasingly active and trigger more creative wanderings:

Typical triggers for events, that make us feel great and relaxed and therefore give us an increased dopamine flow are taking a warm shower, exercising, driving home, etc. The chances of having great ideas then are a lot higher.

Still, that’s not all there is to it. Dopamine alone, which gets triggered in hundreds of events, where we aren’t very creative, can’t be the only reason. Another crucial factor is a distraction, says Harvard researcher Carson:

“In other words, a distraction may provide the break you need to disengage from a fixation on the ineffective solution.’’

Especially if you have thought long and hard all day about a problem, jumping into the shower can turn into what scientist call the “incubation period” for your ideas. The subconscious mind has been working extremely hard to solve the problems you face and now that you let your mind wander, it can surface and plant those ideas into your conscious mind.

Lastly, after you have received an influx in dopamine, can be easily distracted by an extremely habitual task like showering or cooking, a relaxed state of mind is absolutely important to be creative, says Jonah Lehrer:

“Why is a relaxed state of mind so important for creative insights? When our minds are at ease–when those alpha waves are rippling through the brain–we’re more likely to direct the spotlight of attention inward, toward that stream of remote associations emanating from the right hemisphere. In contrast, when we are diligently focused, our attention tends to be directed outward, toward the details of the problems we’re trying to solve. While this pattern of attention is necessary when solving problems analytically, it actually prevents us from detecting the connections that lead to insights. ‘That’s why so many insights happen during warm showers,’ Bhattacharya says. ‘For many people, it’s the most relaxing part of the day.’ It’s not until we’re being massaged by warm water, unable to check our e-mail, that we’re finally able to hear the quiet voices in the backs of our heads telling us about the insight. The answers have been their all along–we just weren’t listening.”

So this seems to be the magic combination: If you are in a relaxed state of mind, easy to distract and full of dopamine, your brain is most likely to give you your best, most creative ideas.

 

3 most successful ways to capture your creative spirit

From all the research I have read, this is the most important thing to take away I found: Every day, everyone of us is extremely creative. The trick is not to optimize for how to spark your creative spirit. The trick is to make sure you capture it, whenever it happens.

 

Instead of looking for better ways to brainstorm or otherwise come up with ideas, the key is to not let go of the tiny, fragile ones, once they enter our heads.

 

Here are some of the best ways that some of the most successful people manage to capture their ideas:

 

Keep a notebook with you at all times, even in the shower

This is by far, the most successful technique to capture more of your creativity every day: a simple notepad. What is extremely difficult, is to keep a notepad with you at all times. If even Richard Branson forgets ideas as quickly as they enter his head, how can we expect to be any different. For that exact reason writing everything down, even if doesn’t seem that important at the time is absolutely crucial says Drew Hansen:

“Don’t judge [your ideas] at this stage, either. There’s a reason they occurred to you this way.”

With that, the emphasis really lies on “all times”. It is easy to bring a notepad to the office or have it lying on our desk. Yet, that’s not when our most creative moments happen. Here are some of the areas where we typically forget to keep a notepad:

• In your car
• In the gym
• Whilst Running
• While grocery shopping
• In the shower

These are some of the most typical activities where our creative moments happen, capturing them then and there is absolutely crucial. As for the shower, don’t worry, I recently discovered Acqua notes as a great way to capture your ideas:

Plan disengagement and distraction: The outer – inner technique

Similar to what Shelly Carson from Harvard called “the incubation” period, I’m using a technique that has greatly helped me to capture this. I call it the “outer-inner” technique.

I generally start my day with the most important task for Buffer in the morning. Say this is a blogpost:

 

I will do all the research, jot down notes into my word editor and not worry at all about the actual blogpost. That is the first outer task. Then I have a few inner task follow. I will respond to emails, might have a brief chat with the team and do other tasks. Then, towards the end of my day, I get back to the second half of the outer task. I would sit down and then actually write the article, edit pieces and put into publishable form.

 

The amazing thing that happens is that even I don’t work on the blogpost during my inner tasks, my subconscious brain does. It will do all the work, and then gradually present the solutions to me when I get back to working on it later on.

 

Overwhelm your brain: Make the task really hard

Another very well researched technique is to overwhelm your brain. Have you ever started to work on a task, where you quickly realised was insanely hard and you will most likely fail solving it? Keep working on it says Robert Epstein.

 

If you are a programmer, try to solve something you’ve never attempted before and always thought you can only do a lot later in your career, as a writer, write a piece longer then you think you can write. Your brain will be put in a shock situation and naturally engage more of your creative area then it normally would. And although you might not succeed at the task at first, you will find that other tasks will come a lot easier through your increased brain activity then.

 

Quick last fact: “The left side of our brain manages creativity” myth

Ever since I went to elementary school, I was taught that “For creativity, use your left side of the brain!” Fortunately, that is not at all true:

“In the 1970s, based on studies of split-brain patients, the idea that the right hemisphere “controlled” creativity became very popular, especially in the public’s imagination. This model is now considered overly simplistic and outdated.”

Instead, creativity happens in multiple areas all across our brain, best aligned with the 3D model you can see above.

 

I tried to bust as many of the common myths around creativity above as possible and I’m sure there is lots more that you’ve discovered in the past! What are your best tips for working creatively? I’d love your thoughts in the comments.

Read more: http://blog.bufferapp.com/why-we-have-our-best-ideas-in-the-shower-the-science-of-creativity#ixzz2Q54RpmoM

15 Things Overachievers Do

Superachievers do things differently than the rest of us. They don't always have everything in common, but they have some underlying traits that they share. Below are a few characteristics that they are prone to have in common:

 

1. They use lists. High achievers organize their thinking with lists, they organize their time with lists, and when they want to spur their creativity, the best tool they have is to force themselves out of the comfort of their list.

 

2. They use pharmaceuticals. Adderall is de rigueur for the high-powered jobs in high-powered cities to the point that there is a shortage of available Adderall, (and a site to monitor the shortage). Pharmaceutical frenzy is nothing new for gen-yers who used prescription drugs to get a leg up on everything. New York magazine’s ode to Xanax lets you diagnose the type of overachiever you are with the type of pharmaceutical you like best.

 

3. They let doors shut all the time. Overachievers know their mom was lying when she said they could be anything. So it’s not that big a deal when they see doors shut. They pick a specialty, they give stuff up to get stuff, they know adult life is about making tough choices.

 

4. They talk about their weaknesses. Not in a stupid way, like, “I wish I could not be so perfect.” But in a real way, because every strength comes with weaknesses and we’re not good at everything. Overachievers know they aren’t being hired for their weakness, so they let people know that they see themselves clearly by talking about weaknesses.

 

5. They work for free. Internships that are (illegally) unpaid, startups that are not (yet) funded, speeches and blog posts that help you do the (unavoidable) work of building your brand. These are all acceptable paths to greatness, you just need to know when it’s okay to work for free.

 

6. They drop out of school. Most powerful people go to the same small group of schools. For all other schools, college is a ponzi scheme. Besides, today the top-tier schools are set up to favor homeschoolers over kids who go to conventional school. And don’t even get me started on grad school: it’s so bad for your career that you’ll have to leave it off your resume.

 

7. They get tons of coaching. High-performers get coaching—they pay for it themselves, and their companies pay for some as well, because corporations know that high-potential employees only get to full potential with coaching. Also, people who are on their way to the top ranks enlist mentors to help them get there. (What’s the difference between a mentor and a coach? The type of access you have.)

 

8. They get pregnant at 25. If they’re a woman, that is. It’s clear that only a very small, anomalous group of women can have a high-powered job when they have young kids. So women should make a plan to have kids early, and then they can position themselves for a high-powered job once their kids are all grown up.

 

9. They come out of the closet. If they’re gay. People who are openly gay at work do better than people who hide it. Probably because, people who hide that they’re gay cannot make true connections with people at work. The photographer Jeff Sheng has done amazing work around the importance of coming out. (Most recently, his Fearless project documents overachiever athletes coming out, and the photos in this post are from that project.)

 

10. They don’t talk about being well-rounded. Top performers are people who focused on something to get great at it. As kids, it means they stop learning to meet national standards because the standards create mediocre learners. And as adults it means you find a specialty so you remain employable.

 

11. They don’t get divorced. Sure, the divorce rate is really high. But not for rich, educated parents. (Example: divorce rate among Asian college graduates is around 1%.) Divorce decreases your resources by half. But more importantly, divorce selfishly messes up the kids’ lives, and overachiever parents want to raise overachiever kids.

 

12. They don’t write books. The book industry is dead. They have no control over distribution channels and they have no control over author publicity, so the value publishers add in the book business is pretty much zero. Amazon so completely dominates the book industry that Forbes declared that Amazon is now ripe for disruption—they are the publishing model to beat. So for now, if you have an idea, put it in a blog. Harvard Business Review says that people who are serious about ideas are blogging.

 

13. They don’t let themselves get fat. The Economist reports that obesity in the US is largely something that does not affect rich, educated people, (which is consistent with research that shows good-looking people make more money.)

 

14. They sell out. Usually I do a post at the end of the year that’s a list of the most popular posts of the year. But it’s so bad for SEO; I wanted to write something that would resonate even at the end of next year, too. So these are links to my favorite posts this year. Disguised. I didn’t get to this one, though: It’s the post with my favorite photo of 2012.

 

15. They steal stuff. Overachievers know they have tons of ideas so they don’t care if people steal some of theirs. Overachievers are more likely to bend the rules to make life easier for themselves. That’s why I stole the idea for this post from Thought Catalog.

Read more: http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2012/12/25/15-things-overachievers-do/#ixzz2Q53cFuaZ

Ease Your Stress By Using Simple Delegation Skills

Are you swamped? It’s easy these days to get overloaded since so many organizations are trimming back and focusing on doing more with less. That doesn’t mean you have to do it all. You might think you’re effective at juggling a ton of tasks, keeping your projects straight with a board full of sticky notes that cite status and completion data. But the truth is you’re probably not. And on top of that, if you’re doing it all what are your team members doing?

To be an effective team leader, it’s important you have strong delegation skills — not only to save your sanity, but to achieve the goals of the organization and help grow your team members’ skills. But you can’t jump on the delegation bandwagon without some proper planning no matter how much you have to do or you’ll end up with a disaster. Heed these guidelines for delegating properly and you’ll end up with less stress and plenty of successes under your belt.

First, let’s be clear what delegation means so we’re all on the same page. Wikipedia describes delegation as:

…the assignment of authority and responsibility to another person to carry out specific activities. However the person who delegated the work remains accountable for the outcome of the delegated work. Delegation empowers a subordinate to make decisions, i.e. it is a shift of decision-making authority from one organizational level to a lower one. Delegation, if properly done, is not abdication.

I agree with that definition except that delegation doesn’t always have to occur from a higher level employee to a lower level one. It can occur laterally or you can even delegate up a level — but those are topics for another day. Let’s get a good handle on the delegation skill before you tackle those.

There are some real advantages to delegating properly. The biggest benefit is that it frees up your time so you can spend it doing what you should be doing — leading your team. Also key is ensuring your team members are willing and able to take on tasks in your absence along with providing them with opportunities to stretch and grow.

Here’s what you need to do.

• Determine what to delegate — You can’t just grab something off your desk and give it to someone else to do. Take some time to define what you do. Start by making a list and then determine what you are willing to let go. You can delegate anything — easy tasks, tough tasks, tasks you hate to do, tasks that are better suited to other people.

• Pick the right team member for the job — Assess the skills and abilities of each team member. What are their strengths? Are they willing to grow? Do they have the time to take on a new task and be successful accomplishing it?

• Focus on outcomes, not steps – None of your team members will do a task exactly as you would. But that’s okay. What’s important is for you to define the end result in clear terms and then get out of the way.

• Delegate responsibility and authority – Clearly explain the scope and boundaries for the task. Ensure that you have identified the who, what, when and why behind the work that is to be done. Give the person the authority to make decisions and do what is necessary to be successful.

• Follow up – This is probably the most important step in successful delegation. Don’t just turn a team member loose with a new task. At the beginning set a follow up schedule so you can determine progress towards the goal and address any issues or road blocks that are getting in the way.

It may be tough at first to delegate tasks to others. You might have a tendency to want to micromanage by providing too much direction and review. It will be a delicate balancing act for you until you get used to it. But the benefits to you and your team members will be worth it.

What do you think? Have you tried making delegation an important part of your team leadership? Let’s talk about it.

Denise O'Berry

Denise O’Berry — aka the Team Doc — has been working with teams and team leadership in the public, non profit and private sectors for over twenty years.

2 Essential Rules You Should Keep In Mind When Resigning

You're preparing to leave your job, and it looks like you'll get a job offer any day now. When should you let your current employer know that you're going to leave, and how much notice should you give when you do?

You want to proceed carefully here. While it's an exciting time, there's potential for doing real harm if you misstep. There are two cardinal rules that govern when and how to tell your employer that you're resigning.

 

Cardinal Rule No. 1: Never Give Notice Until You Have Accepted a Formal Job Offer

Too many people give notice when they're "pretty sure" that an offer is coming their way, or when they've only received an informal offer. This can be a huge mistake, because offers fall through all the time. No matter how promising things look with a prospective employer, things can and do change. The company might have a hiring freeze, or a new manager might come in and cancel the position, or the company might hire an internal candidate at the last minute. And if that happens and you've already told your current boss that you're leaving, she's under no obligation to let you rescind that notice. Your current company may have already started moving forward with plans for filling your position, and you won't necessarily get it back.

 

What's more, not only should you never, ever count on an job offer until you actually have it, preferably in writing, but you shouldn't count on it until you've accepted it too. That's because it's possible that you won't be able to come to terms with the company on pay or benefits or start date, and your negotiations could fall apart. So you want to make sure not just that you have an offer, but that you've formally accepted that offer. Only then should you give notice at your current employer.

(The exception to this is if you have an excellent relationship with a boss who you know will take the news well and not push you out earlier than you're ready to leave. If you're lucky enough to be in that situation, you can feel safer giving your boss a heads up that you're thinking about leaving.)

 

Cardinal Rule No. 2: The Amount of Notice You Give

Most people know that professional convention requires them to give at least two weeks notice, but many people wonder about giving more. If circumstances allow you to give your company a more generous notice period, should you?

 

The answer depends 100 percent on how your manager and your company operate. How have they handled other employees who resign? Are people shown the door immediately? Pushed out earlier than they would have otherwise planned to leave? If so, it's safest to assume that the same may happen to you and give two weeks and nothing more. But if your employer has a track record of accommodating long notice periods, has been grateful to employees who provide long notice, and has generally shown that employees can feel safe being candid about their plans to leave, take your cues from that.

 

Of course, both of these rules would be unnecessary if employers handled departing employees differently. It's actually in employers' best interest to make it safe for employees to give longer notice periods, but too few of them do. As a result, employees need to make sure they protect themselves.

Read more: http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2013/04/01/how-much-notice-should-you-give-when-you-resign#ixzz2PEJSwzDV