Tag: self-improvement

Three underrated skills that everyone should learn

1. Sales.

Whether you like it or not, you’re involved in a sales pitch every day. In addition to trying to be sold by retailers, you’re also being sold/selling what you should eat for dinner, what movie you’re going to watch, what your plans should be for this weekend, etc. If you get good at selling, you’ll get what you want more often than not in life. The key is to not make it sound like a sales pitch. People like to buy. They get excited about buying. But they hate being sold.

2. Storytelling.

Good storytelling can capture imaginations, paint vivid pictures, express ideas that can’t be conveyed otherwise, and win people over. If you are a good storyteller, you’ll naturally draw people’s attention and they will be more likely to enjoy your company.

3. Carpentry.

To be a good carpenter, you generally have to have good forethought to see what repercussions there are for what you are about to do. It requires hands on skill. And, there is usually more math involved than most people think. Doing work with your hands accesses a different part of your brain than reading, writing, or listening, and is essential to becoming as well-rounded as possible.

Five attributes of a great leader

1. Courage. What leader has been great without also showing extreme courage? George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, Franklin Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr…none of them were perfect (nobody is). But what separates them even from other great leaders is their ability to choose to be courageous when it would be easier to lay down. To be courageous, you must first have a clear understanding of what your core values are and stick to them. When times get tough, you will have a decision to make. Do you stay true to what you say your values are? Or do you let the easier choice make your decision?

2. Confidence. To be a leader, you must display confidence. This is not to say that you will always be confident in your decisions. Nobody knows what the future holds or how your decisions will work out. But, you must not let the unknowns paralyze you from making a decision. Instead, take a reasonable time to do your due diligence – research what experts are saying, ask those whom you respect of their opinions, and inject your own common sense into the equation – then act on it! Be decisive and show confidence in your decision. If you’re not confident in yourself, how can you expect others to have confidence in you? Who wants to follow a leader who is meek and not confident in their actions?

It’s easy to look back and say, “I should have done this or that instead.” But the fact of the matter is, you have to make a decision which you feel is best with the information you have at that time. Once you get new information, you can make a different decision. But don’t beat yourself up for not knowing what was unknowable at the time. You will never have all of the answers, so don’t wait to act until you have them. Perfection is the enemy of progress. Done is better than perfect. Be confident and unapologetic in your decisions.

3. Poise. Leaders are poised. They are calm under pressure. They don’t panic. They don’t lose their cool. They do not point fingers or play the blame game. When things get tough, they buckle down. They figure out what the real issue is (not just attacking the surface problem, only for another related problem to pop up…they go deeper to try to get to the root cause and eliminate it). They figure out who needs to do what and when it needs to be completed. They can explain the importance of why it needs to be done and delegate it to others to complete. They might give guidance on how to accomplish it, but they don’t micromanage. Micromanaging kills autonomy and sabotages morale. Leaders understand that people want direction, but they want the freedom to do it their own way. Giving someone that freedom shows you respect them and believe in them enough to get the job done on their own terms.

4. Abundance mindset. Leaders have an abundance mindset, not a scarcity mindset. Instead of looking at others who are successful and being jealous of them, they see them and try to figure how they can emulate and expand upon their successes. Competition leads to innovation.

5. Discipline. Leaders are disciplined and gritty. They understand that in order to consistently produce the results they want, they have to put in focused effort day-in and day-out. True success – success that lasts – requires more than a “one and done” kind of approach. You can’t expect to be great if you never practice. You have to continuously work to be better, to become more efficient, to look for new ways of solving problems. When you don’t feel like doing something important, do it anyways. Find your discipline muscle and use it. And when things don’t go your way, be gritty enough to keep at it. You can allow yourself to be temporarily discouraged, but use that as fuel to overcome the obstacles you’re facing.

Ego – is it good or bad?

The unhealthy ego can be such a detriment to our lives. Everybody thinks that they’re better at “x” than those around them. For example, if you ask 100 people if they are above average, average, or below average at nearly any task they complete regularly (like driving a car), the majority of them will say they are above average.

The problem with an unhealthy ego is that it makes you inclined to place judgment on others. When you think you’re better than others, you tend to treat them differently. You are more likely to point out the window, casting blame, instead of looking in the mirror first. “It’s their fault…I didn’t do anything wrong.”

When you judge, it can help you temporarily feel better. But really, it separates you from others. It isolates you and makes you feel lonely. If the person who made the mistake is on your team, it can erode your team chemistry. And if they are someone you’re dealing with in a transaction, it can suddenly make the situation much more combative than it needs to be. Judging others (even if you don’t realize you’re doing it) is a short-term “fix” that does not serve you in the long run.

The ego is not all bad though. If you are without an ego, you may not have the confidence to branch out and try something new. You may not believe in yourself or your ability to complete a difficult task. You need to have an ego, but just don’t let it get out of control.

Try to have a healthy ego. A healthy ego should allow you to have belief in yourself – that you’re a capable, responsible, honest person who does things with integrity. Once your ego grows too large, you may notice that you believe that everything you do or say is right and that nobody should ever question you. No matter how much success you experience in life, make sure you keep others around you who will challenge your thoughts, beliefs, and actions. Do not be upset with them when they do this, otherwise you are subconsciously training them to not provide any feedback that doesn’t praise you.

What to think about when setting New Years resolutions

January 1st is here, which means many of you have already set (or will be looking to set) New Years resolutions. Resolutions get a bad reputation sometimes, but they shouldn’t. You should always strive to improve your life. What gets mocked though is how many yearly goals not only don’t get achieved, but are discarded/forgotten by the time February 1st rolls around.

So how do you avoid becoming a cliche by actually keeping your resolutions? Follow these 5 steps to have a greater chance at hitting your goals…

1. Figure out what your goal is in the 7 major categories of life. These categories are: family, relationships, physical, mental, spiritual, financial, and career.

2. After figuring out what your goals are, ask yourself when each goal should be realistically accomplished. Is it something that can actually be accomplished this year? Maybe it will only take 90 days or maybe it will take 3 years. Either way, if it’s important to you, don’t scrap the idea just because it doesn’t fit into a “yearly” goal timeline. Instead, break the goal down into milestones…in order to achieve Z, you need to get to Y by this date. But in order to achieve Y, you need to get to X by this date. Continue doing this until you have broken it down to what you need to do TODAY.

When each goal is broken down into manageable chunks of what needs to be done, always set a timeline for when you should hit each milestone as well (not just the overarching goal). This will let you know if you’re on track to hitting your yearly goal. If you reach a milestone date and haven’t achieved that milestone yet, it allows you to pivot early enough to still (hopefully) complete your big goal.

3. After figuring out what your goals (and milestones) are and when they can be realistically accomplished, the next thing you need is to have a powerful “why” behind them. Why are you resolving to achieve that thing? Why is that important to you? Will it make you feel better (intrinsic motivation) or is it to impress other people (extrinsic motivation)? Did you come up with it yourself or are you following along with what you think your spouse or your boss wants you to do?

You should be excited to get started, but as you begin to struggle, or when you don’t see results right away, you will be tempted to quit. The voice inside your head will begin to tell you that you didn’t really want that in the first place or that whatever your goal was isn’t really important. That’s just you giving yourself an out. But if you have a “why” behind the “what,” you will be more likely to keep at it when the times get tough. Your “why” should excite you and it should improve your life in some way.

4. Now that you know what your goal is, when you need to achieve it by, and why it is important to you, you need to figure out how you’re going to do it. Once again, it is best to figure this out by breaking it down.

First, you need to have a clearly defined time of day to work on your goals. Look at your goals daily and figure out the time you will work on your goal every single day. Will it be every morning when you wake up, as soon as you get off of work, or right before bed every night? Stay consistent with what time you work on your goals. Make this a habit!

Secondly, you’ll be more effective when you have a dedicated place to work on your goals. Where you will work on achieving your most important next action step for the day? Will your “sacred place” be at the gym, your office, a coffee shop, the basement, etc.? You need to define your work space. Especially now, with so many people working from home, you don’t want to blur the lines between when you’re supposed to be working and when you’re supposed to be spending quality time with your family. If you blur the lines, it will be too easy to not be truly focused on anything (making all aspects of your life suffer).

The last part of the “how” to achieve your goal is to understand what is the ONE thing you need to do today to get you closer to your milestone goal. I discussed this earlier when I mentioned breaking down each goal to the point of what you need to do TODAY to get you to where you need to be for the next milestone…What actions (leading measurements) are important to track every day that predict success for your achievement goals (lagging result)? What is the ONE thing you have to do that day to move you closer to achieving your next milestone? Remember, every journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step. You have to take small, consistent action to get to where you want to go.

5. Finally, you need to determine who can help you achieve your goals. This will probably take multiple people (probably at least one person for each goal). Is it a loved one who cares about that particular goal just as much as you do? Is it a friend or co-worker with a similar goal? Or maybe you find a group/community online to help encourage you when you’re down, but hold you accountable as well? No matter what the case, share your goals with others. Saying it out loud and writing it down means that you can’t hide it when you don’t achieve your goals. Take ownership of your goals, of your successes when you hit them, and of your failures if you don’t. The only person who can make you do this is you, but it always helps to have support along the way.

Keep these five things in mind when setting goals/resolutions. Of course, try to make them S.M.A.R.T.E.R. (specific, measurable, actionable, risky, time-keyed, exciting, and relevant) and, again, focus on WHY it is important to you. You need to have a deep intrinsic motivation to do something in order to keep pushing through the tough times.

Good luck and happy new year!

Mastery and challenge

What brings us happiness? A balance of mastery and challenge. This is a paradox as a life with only mastery and no challenge would be boring. Imagine playing a 3 year old in a game of checkers. You would always win and there would be no challenge. But a life with only challenges and no mastery would be equally, if not more, dreadful. It would be like constantly getting sand kicked in your face. And just when you’re about to get up again, someone shoves you down. A life of only challenges yet no mastery is not a life of happiness.

We need a balance between the two. With mastery brings a sense of accomplishment and of overcoming difficulties that not everyone is willing to attempt. But if you only stay within your comfort zone, in the domain which you have mastered, you will soon find yourself bored. And a bored mind is not optimized for maximum happiness. Instead, you need another challenge, something to take you out of your comfort zone, but a challenge that is still possible to overcome. And then the cycle continues, as anything that challenges you is inherently something you have not mastered yet.