You Need To Make Time To Dream Big

Life is busy. And chaotic. And frantic. And that’s with you being successful.  On your best day you’re dying. Getting pounded by a million unanswered questions and expectations.

The only way to get your soul back is to dream big dreams. That’s the only way to stay recharged and in control of your future.

When you dream, you burn a little bit brighter.

For a few moments when you dream you leave behind everything that weighs on your soul and you soar above the fray. You are free of the limitations of time and expectation and effort.

Everything you can imagine is possible. You are invincible and unbelievably brilliant.

And you need that. You need a break from the chaos and stress of your daily living. You need respite from the pressures of achieving your expectations. You need to make time to dream. It doesn’t replace hard work. It isn’t a substitute for learning, loving, or leading.

It’s irreplaceable in its own way.

A simple moment in time when you take comfort in knowing that your vision for you is big enough to change the world. Big enough to keep fighting for. So if you never stop to get motivated, you end up dying a slow death. You wither on the inside. Dry up. Waste away.

So dream on. Be vigilant with your dreams. Be violent in your conquest of them.
Make time to keep dreaming.


Read more: http://danwaldschmidt.com/2013/02/attitude/if-youre-not-dreaming-youre-dying#ixzz2L5PZ1rFs

Sheryl Sandberg's No. 1 Piece Of Advice For Women Is Spot On

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg once told Business Insider's Henry Blodget that the most important career decision women make is who they choose to marry.

For Julie Smolyansky, CEO of Lifeway Foods, that rings true. She has raised two daughters while leading the kefir company, and says having a supportive spouse has been one of the keys to her success.

Smolyansky says her husband is someone who "sees parenthood as a joint effort; we have alternative gender roles within our family, or kind of equal gender roles."

He's made it possible so that she can focus on building Lifeway's business and brand, and was able to double her company's sales during the recession. "We just need more role models for the new family, new gender roles," she says. "There's lots of evidence that shows the new stay-at-home-dad emerging in family life."

Everyone's watching Marissa Mayer, but Smolyansky says it's just one step in the right direction. "We only have 17 percent women sitting in Congress, which is making decisions, agendas, policy and setting budgets that affect all of us. If women make up 52 percent of the population, we need to be represented in every single aspect of society. And equally so, we need men making 50 percent of household decisions."

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/what-its-like-to-be-a-ceo-and-first-time-mother-2012-10#ixzz2Kz2kRQ2t

Why You Should Run Your Family Like A Business

Businesses don't have much of the sort of yelling and chaos that is sometimes seen in families, especially those with young children.

In a piece at The Wall Street Journal, Bruce Feiler describes the plight of the Starr family. The father, David, is a software engineer and his wife Eleanor takes care of their four children, one of whom has Asperger's Syndrome, and another who has ADHD.

 

Overwhelmed by their home life, they applied a software development technique David used in his work called "agile development" to their family. It's not something you would ordinarily think to apply to home life. The technique was first laid out in the Agile Manifesto in 2001, and it has spread beyond just software to become a general management technique. Tenets from the manifesto include:

 

Business people and developers must work together daily throughout the project.

The most efficient and effective method of conveying information to and within a development team is face-to-face conversation.

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.

 

For a family, that means something like a weekly 20-minute meeting to discuss what's working or isn't, and coming up with plans to change or adapt. The meetings adapt three questions from agile development, Feiler writes:

 

1) What went well in our family this week? 2) What didn't go well? 3) What will we agree to work on this week? Everyone offers answers, then we vote on two problem areas to focus on.

 

Starr told Feiler that "having weekly family meetings increased communication, improved productivity, lowered stress and made everyone much happier to be part of the family team." And when Feiler tried it with his wife, he writes that "the meetings transformed our relationships with our kids — and each other."

 

A second technique is creating a mission statement, a set of 10 values the family believes in. That focuses discussions on the things the family does right as opposed to problems, and is an easy way to discuss how to improve in the future.

 

Kids are as changeable as any business environment, and benefit from both structure and being able to participate. Though it sounds odd at first, when properly adapted, these techniques can work very well.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-apply-a-management-strategies-to-a-family-2013-2#ixzz2Kz18SsqT

9 Daily Habits That Will Make You Happier

Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making other people happy is the highest expression of success, but it's almost impossible to make others happy if you're not happy yourself.
With that in mind, here are nine small changes that you can make to your daily routine that, if you're like most people, will immediately increase the amount of happiness in your life:

1. Start each day with expectation.

If there's any big truth about life, it's that it usually lives up to (or down to) your expectations. Therefore, when you rise from bed, make your first thought: "something wonderful is going to happen today." Guess what? You're probably right.

2. Take time to plan and prioritize.

The most common source of stress is the perception that you've got too much work to do. Rather than obsess about it, pick one thing that, if you get it done today, will move you closer to your highest goal and purpose in life. Then do that first.

3. Give a gift to everyone you meet.

I'm not talking about a formal, wrapped-up present. Your gift can be your smile, a word of thanks or encouragement, a gesture of politeness, even a friendly nod. And never pass beggars without leaving them something. Peace of mind is worth the spare change.

4. Deflect partisan conversations.

Arguments about politics and religion never have a "right" answer but they definitely get people all riled up over things they can't control. When such topics surface, bow out by saying something like: "Thinking about that stuff makes my head hurt."

5. Assume people have good intentions.

Since you can't read minds, you don't really know the "why" behind the "what" that people do. Imputing evil motives to other people's weird behaviors adds extra misery to life, while assuming good intentions leaves you open to reconciliation.

6. Eat high quality food slowly.

Sometimes we can't avoid scarfing something quick to keep us up and running. Even so, at least once a day try to eat something really delicious, like a small chunk of fine cheese or an imported chocolate. Focus on it; taste it; savor it.

7. Let go of your results.

The big enemy of happiness is worry, which comes from focusing on events that are outside your control. Once you've taken action, there's usually nothing more you can do. Focus on the job at hand rather than some weird fantasy of what might happen.

8. Turn off "background" TV.

Many households leave their TVs on as "background noise" while they're doing other things. The entire point of broadcast TV is to make you dissatisfied with your life so that you'll buy more stuff. Why subliminally program yourself to be a mindless consumer?

9. End each day with gratitude.

Just before you go to bed, write down at least one wonderful thing that happened. It might be something as small as a making a child laugh or something as huge as a million dollar deal. Whatever it is, be grateful for that day because it will never come again.

Originally published at inc: SALES SOURCE | Geoffrey James

Nov 5, 2012

The 21 Worst Valentine's Day Ads Ever

If you're in need of a mood killer, show your significant other one of these awful Valentine's day ads.

Considering that the National Retail Federation predicts that Americans will spend up to $18.6 billion on Valentine's Day this year, it's only natural that companies will want to pull out all the stops for romantic promotions.
These are the Valentine's Day ads and promotions, however, that will have people wishing they were single.
As romantic as a Pizza Hut engagement package sounds, or the Bronx Zoo's campaign to get dudes to name cockroaches after their girlfriends, we'd rather pass on the promotions.
From insulting diamond ads that depict women as gold diggers to bizarre restaurant ads that depict forks fornicating, these are the worst Valentine's Day ads out there.


Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-21-worst-valentines-day-ads-ever-2013-2?op=1#ixzz2KfDUCiAV

6 Powerful Ways To Stand Out At Work

Great employees spend the majority of their time helping other people succeed: Their company, their employees, their customers and vendors and suppliers... the list goes on and on.

Great employees also spend some time helping themselves succeed, both for "selfish" reasons and because their success creates success for others.

 

To succeed you must stand out from the crowd. Here are six ways:

 

1. Be first with a purpose.

Lots of employees, managers, and business owners are the first to arrive each day. That's great, but what do you do with that time? Organize your thoughts? Get a jump on your email?

Instead of taking care of your stuff, do something visibly worthwhile for the company. Take care of unresolved problems from the day before. Set things up so it's easier for employees to hit the ground running when they come in. Chip away at an ongoing project others ignore.

Don't just be the one who turns on or off the lights – be the one who gets in early or stays late in order to get things done. Not only will your performance stand out, you'll also start to...

 

2. Be known for something specific.

Meeting standards, however lofty those standards may be, won't help you stand out.

So go above the norm. Be the leader known for turning around struggling employees. Be the owner who makes a few deliveries a week to personally check in with customers. Be the manager who consistently promotes from within. Be known as the employee who responds quicker, acts faster, or always follows up.

Pick a worthwhile mission, then excel at that mission. People will notice.

 

3. Create your own side project.

Excelling at an assigned project is expected. Excelling at a side project helps you stand out.

For example, years ago I decided to create a Web-based employee handbook my then-employer could put on the company Intranet. I worked on it at home on my own time. Some managers liked it but the HR manager didn’t so it died an inglorious death.

I was disappointed, but the company wasn't "out" anything, and soon after I was selected for a high visibility company-wide process improvement team because my little project made me "that guy."

The same applies for a business owner. Experiment on a new process or service with a particular customer in mind. The customer will appreciate how you tried, without being asked, to better meet their needs, and your business will become "that business."

 

4. Put your muscle where your mouth is.

Lots of people take verbal stands. Few take a stand and put effort behind their opinions.

Say you think a project has gone off the rails; instead of just pointing out its flaws so you can show everyone how smart you are, jump in and help fix it.

Everyone talks about problems. The people who help fix them stand out.

 

5. Show a little of your personal side.

Personal interests help other people to identify and remember you. That's a huge advantage for a new employee or a company competing in a crowded market.

Just make sure your personal interests don't overshadow professional accomplishments. Being "the guy who does triathlons" is fine, but being "the guy who is always training and traveling to triathlons so we can never reach him when we need him" is not.

Let people know a little about you; a few personal details add color and depth to your professional image.

6. Work harder than everyone else.

 

Nothing – nothing – is a substitute for hard work. Look around: How many people are working as hard as they can?

Very few.

The best way to stand out is to out-work everyone else.

It's also the easiest way, because you'll be the only one trying.

Read more: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130205133852-20017018-six-powerful-ways-to-stand-out-at-work?trk=mp-details-rr-rmpost#ixzz2KbuTGMFp

Perspective

I'm a busy mom and I feel like I complain a lot... Then there are days like today, when I stop for just a minute, look around and realize how Lucky I am. Thank you kids for letting me be your Mom. I know you'll never read this, but I need to say it anyway! I hope there are others who read this and give their kids a big hug, too.