Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Archives for December 2015

Top Blog Articles of 2015

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Here are this year’s most popular articles based on email- and feed-subscribership:

  1. Top Blog Articles of 2015 Reframe Your Thinking, Get Better Answers. By changing or adjusting your perception of an issue, you are likely to reevaluate your intentions and find alternative, acceptable solutions to your situations.
  2. How to Email Busy People. When you ask something of somebody, make it as convenient as possible for that person to respond to your request. Avoid imposing more busy work on already busy people.
  3. Seek Discipline, Not Motivation. People who actually get things done are those who find a way to work at whatever they are interested in even when they do not really feel like doing it. Focus on the ends rather than the means.
  4. When Delegating, Acknowledge Possible Errors. When delegating, empower your employees by letting them know that they aren’t expected to make optimal decisions every time and you’re not demanding perfection.
  5. The Opportunities in Customer Pain Points. Many innovative ideas are born of a reliable formula: prudent attention to customer pain points: customers are usually willing to pay a premium to have their frustrations with a product or a service resolved.
  6. Fear of Failure is an Obstacle to Growth. If you fear failure and limit your activities, you are acutely impeding the knowledge and wisdom that comes from opening yourselves up to the new and the unfamiliar.
  7. What Everybody Ought to Know about Writing Better Emails. Poorly written emails are a result of weaknesses in style and structure. Poor style is characterized by improper spelling and grammar, meandering and complex sentences and abstract, technical or indirect language. Poor structure refers to disparity between logical sentence order and the reader’s comprehension of those sentences.
  8. Coaching vs. Feedback. Coaching is about future behavior and feedback is about past (and current) behavior. Coaching is about assisting employees reach their goals for the future. Feedback is about helping employees understand what prevents them from reaching their current goals.
  9. The Truth Can Be Bitterer than a Sweet Illusion. Delaying action and putting off unpleasant confrontations will only make things harder. Especially when dealing with difficulties involving people, there is nothing more insidious than unresolved conflict and inaction.
  10. What Opportunities Are You Overlooking? What opportunities are you overlooking today that, months, years, or decades from now, you could come to regret with the perspective that comes with time or upon mature reflection?

And here are articles of yesteryear that continue to be popular:

  1. 25 Ways to Instantly Become a Better Boss. Bad management is not usually a result of bosses not knowing what to do to manage better. Rather, it stems largely from bosses not putting simple, conventional managerial skills into practice.
  2. How to Write Email Subject Lines that Persuade. By writing persuasive subject lines in emails, you can help your readers identify the importance of your message and the action you’re asking.
  3. Self-Assessment Quiz: How Stressed are You? The first step to overcome the causes and effects of stress is to acknowledge stress and become aware of its symptoms. By identifying a few telltale signs of stress, you can take steps to manage them.
  4. Maria Bartiromo’s “The 10 Laws of Enduring Success.” CNBC anchor and journalist Maria Bartiromo presents a longstanding blueprint of success as ten attitudes: self-awareness, foresight, ingenuity, audacity, integrity, flexibility, modesty, fortitude, tenacity of purpose, and resilience.
  5. 7 Easy Ways to Get More Done in Less Time. Divide and conquer. Fight procrastination. Put things in their place. Create checklists for all tasks. Start planning your day on the prior day. Pick up after yourself and clean your home and workspace. Maintain a ‘On-The-Go’ folder.

Inspirational Quotations #612

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If we examine our thoughts, we shall find them always occupied with the past and the future.
—Blaise Pascal (French Catholic Mathematician)

The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own, and God willingly favors such a confidence.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by each experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, “I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.” You must do the thing you think you cannot do.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

A chief is a man who assumes responsibility. He says, “I was beaten”. He does not say, “My men were beaten”. Thus speaks a real man.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (French Novelist, Aviator)

Reading is equivalent to thinking with someone else’s head instead of with one’s own.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

Self-education is, I firmly believe, the only kind of education there is.
—Isaac Asimov (Russian-born American Children’s Books Writer)

Poverty is a veil that obscures the face of greatness. An appeal is a mask covering the face of tribulation.
—Khalil Gibran (Lebanese-born American Philosopher)

As we grow in wisdom, we pardon more freely.
—Anne Louise Germaine de Stael

Our faith comes in moments… yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

What is the imagination? Only an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of the reason.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Books I Read in 2015 & Recommend

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In addition to a number of Rick Steves’ and Lonely Planet books for my summer-long travels across Europe, here are a few books that I read in 2015 and recommend.

  • Biography / Business: Brad Stone’s The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon is an engrossing chronicle of the obsessive hard-driving personality of its founder-CEO and the company that has played the pivotal role in the shift from brick-and-mortar retail to online retail.
  • 'Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul' by Howard Schultz, Joanne Gordon (ISBN 1609613821)Biography / Leadership: Starbucks founder Howard Schultz’s Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul is an interesting depiction of Starbucks’ turnaround after Schultz returned as CEO in 2008. Read Onward for a case study of the founder’s syndrome in action and a self-congratulatory portrait of a charismatic entrepreneur and brilliant corporate cheerleader. Read my summary.
  • Biography / Business: Ashlee Vance’s Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future is a biography of America’s current most audacious entrepreneur and Silicon Valley’s most prominent innovator. While the book details Musk’s bold leadership decisions, it also serves as a great reminder of how an extreme personality and intense success are not without their costs. Read my comments.
  • Decision-Making: Phil Rosenzweig’s Left Brain Right Stuff delineates distinct but complementary skills required for making winning decisions: logical analysis and calculation (left brain skills) and as well as the willingness to take risks, push boundaries, and go beyond what has been done before (right brain skills.)
  • 'Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!' by Richard Feynman, Ralph Leighton (ISBN 0393316041)Biographies / Mental Models: Physicist and Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman’s scientific curiosity knew no bounds. His academic life, acuity, life-philosophy, and ability to communicate science are inspirational to anyone pursuing his/her own life’s fulfillment. The following biographies capture his many scientific achievements, playfulness, varied interests and hobbies, and—perhaps most notably—his many eccentricities.
  • 'Sam Walton: Made In America' by Sam Walton (ISBN 0553562835)Biography / Business: Sam Walton’s bestseller autobiography Made in America is very educational, insightful, and stimulating. Walton inspired legions of other entrepreneurs who thrive on managing costs and prices to gain competitive advantage. Read about an important lesson from this book about cost and price as a competitive advantage.
  • Decision-Making: Suzy Welch’s 10-10-10 Rule advocates considering the potential positive and negative consequences of all decisions in the immediate present, the near term, and the distant future: or in 10 minutes, 10 months, and 10 years. Read my summary.
  • Biography / Mental Models: Walter Isaacson’s A Benjamin Franklin Reader is an excellent collection of the writings of Benjamin Franklin, one of America’s most beloved founding fathers. Franklin was a polymath renowned for his lifelong quest for self-improvement.
  • 'The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere' by Pico Iyer (ISBN 1476784728)Philosophy: Pico Iyer’s The Art of Stillness argues the importance of taking a timeout from busyness. Iyer contends, “In an age of speed … nothing could be more invigorating than going slow. In an age of distraction, nothing could feel more luxurious than paying attention.” Read my summary.
  • Biographies / Art / Philosophy: Steven Naifeh and Gregory Smith’s Van Gogh: The Life and Michael Howard’s Van Gogh: His Life & Works in 500 Images paint a vivid picture of the artistic genius and the troubled personal life of Vincent van Gogh. Ever Yours is an absorbing anthology of correspondence between Vincent and his brother Theo. Ever Yours sheds light on Vincent’s shifting moods, turbulent life, and philosophical evolution as an artist.
  • Management: Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson’s One Minute Manager is a best-selling introductory business book about goal-setting and giving feedback. Read my summary.
  • Biographies: Tenzing Norgay’s autobiography Man of Everest and Yves Malartic’s Tenzing of Everest portray the personal triumph of a poor and illiterate but ambitious, deeply religious explorer.

On a related note, read my article about reading hacks: How to Process that Pile of Books You Can’t Seem to Finish. Also see books I read in 2014 & recommend.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Books I Read in 2014 & Recommend
  2. Book Summary of Maria Bartiromo’s ‘The 10 Laws of Enduring Success’
  3. Book Summary of Nassim Taleb’s ‘Fooled by Randomness’
  4. Book Summary of Viktor Frankl’s ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’
  5. Crucible Experiences Can Transform Your Leadership Skills

Inspirational Quotations #611

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Sin writes histories, goodness is silent.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

The height of cultivation runs to simplicity. Halfway cultivation runs to ornamentation.
—Bruce Lee (Hong-Kong-born American Sportsperson)

Only a stomach that rarely feels hungry scorns common things.
—Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus) (Roman Poet)

He that lives upon hope will die fasting.
—Benjamin Franklin (American Political leader)

You cannot be friends upon any other terms than upon the terms of equality.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

There seems to be a kind of order in the universe, in the movement of the stars and the turning of the earth and the changing of the seasons, and even in the cycle of human life. But human life itself is almost pure chaos. Everyone takes his stance, asserts his own rights and feelings, mistaking the motives of others, and his own.
—Katherine Anne Porter (American Journalist)

Let death be daily before your eyes, and you will never entertain any abject thought, nor too eagerly covet anything.
—Epictetus (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

No man has ever risen to the real stature of spiritual manhood until he has found that it is finer to serve somebody else than it is to serve himself.
—Woodrow Wilson (American Head of State)

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

Some virtues are only seen in affliction and others only in prosperity.
—Joseph Addison (English Essayist)

Formal education will make you a living. Self-education will make you a fortune.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

How to Become a Broad-thinker: Principles and Methods

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Success depends on understanding basic principles as well as on developing and practicing workable methods.

  • Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, recently advised in his Reddit AMA, “It is important to view knowledge as sort of a semantic tree—make sure you understand the fundamental principles, i.e. the trunk and big branches, before you get into the leaves/details or there is nothing for them to hang on to.”
  • Harrington Emerson, a prominent management consultant and efficiency expert during the early 1900s, is understood to have said that the key to becoming a broad-thinker is to focus on the principles: “As to methods, there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.” (This quote is often incorrectly attributed to American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson.)

Principles are the fundamental set of philosophies, propositions, assumptions, laws, and rules concerning a topic, problem, or circumstances. The principles can teach you why something works the way it does.

Methods, on the other hand, are merely devices to apply those principles in a particular circumstance.

While principles are immutable, Emerson reminds us that there can be many methods to interpret and apply those principles.

Principles and Methods

Given the time-pressure induced by the hurried world of work, we are often so tempted to implement ready-made or handed-down methods that we forgo the necessary examination of underpinning principles.

By delving directly into methods, we can find some reliable direction and save a great deal of time, but we may be neglecting many factors that can affect the outcomes of our methods. These circumferential issues, second- and higher-order effects, and peripheral relationships may not be readily apparent at the outset. They will emanate only from a knowledge of the underlying principles.

Idea for Impact: To be an effective thinker, develop a broad understanding and appreciation of the principles before you develop or deploy methods.

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  2. Stuck on a Problem? Shift Your Perspective!
  3. How to Stimulate Group Creativity // Book Summary of Edward de Bono’s ‘Six Thinking Hats’
  4. Good Questions Encourage Creative Thinking
  5. This is Yoga for the Brain: Multidisciplinary Learning

Your To-Do List Isn’t a Wish List: Add to It Selectively

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Poor time management is often not about a packed schedule as much as it is about an indecisive, unorganized, undisciplined mind that struggles with task management.

One persistent problem in time management is how people go about managing their to-do list, whether it’s a paper list, on an app/software, or just a mental record.

Unwieldy Buildup of Tasks

People find it easy to add things to their to-do lists. They tend to say yes to almost everything that is asked of them—because right when they are asked for something, saying “yes” involves nothing more than adding one more item to their already lengthy to-do lists.

What’s more, people can’t seem to complete and cross-off more than half of their to-do lists. The buildup of tasks is never-ending; for every task they complete, they tend to add a few more.

Consequently, they end up with a large, ever-growing task-list, which they postpone from one day to the next. No wonder they constantly feel besieged by work and get disheartened that there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel.

Take Control of Your To-Do List

  • Be very conscious about your time.
  • Be very selective with what you add to your to-do list. As I mentioned in “the world’s shortest course in time management,” focus on things that you must do and avoid everything else. “An earnest purpose finds time, or makes it. It seizes on spare moments, and turns fragments to golden account,” said American Unitarian William Ellery Channing.
  • Learn to limit the demands on your time. Don’t say yes to everything that people ask of you.
  • Favor close-ended tasks over open-ended tasks. Break down complex tasks into smaller, bite-sized tasks that can be close-ended.
  • Associate everything on your to-do list with a date, time, and duration. Instead of adding a task to your to-do list, consider scheduling it on your calendar. Scheduling forces you to consider a task’s length and to confront how much time you actually have to devote to its completion.
  • Don’t tackle the tasks that you fancy instead of the ones you really need to do. Don’t focus on smaller, insignificant tasks on the pretext of making tangible progress quickly and in an attempt to avoid doing the significant projects.
  • Don’t wait for motivation to strike. Instead, discipline yourself and launch into action. As I mentioned in my article on the “10-Minute Dash” technique to overcome procrastination, action leads to motivation, which in turn leads to more action.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How to Turn Your Procrastination Time into Productive Time
  2. How to … Kickstart Your Day with Focus & Set a Daily Highlight to Stay on Track
  3. The Simple Life, The Good Life // Book Summary of Greg McKeown’s ‘Essentialism’
  4. Ask This One Question Every Morning to Find Your Focus
  5. How to Develop a Vision for Year 2020?

Inspirational Quotations #610

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If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.
—Clarence Darrow (American Lawyer)

Try to do to others as you would have them do to you, and do not be discouraged if they fail sometimes. It is much better that they should fail than that you should.
—Charles Dickens (English Novelist)

Do not be afraid of mistakes, providing you do not make the same one twice.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

The beginning and almost the end of all good law is that everyone shall work for their bread and receive good bread for their work.
—John Ruskin (English Art Critic)

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.
—Doug Larson

Share weight and woe, for misfortune falls with double force on him that stands alone.
—Baltasar Gracian

Our worries always come from our weaknesses.
—Joseph Joubert (French Essayist)

There are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it; and aspects change with attitudes… Could we change our attitude, we should not only see life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change in attitude.
—Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand-born British Author)

Our chief defect is that we are more given to talking about things than to doing them.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

Acceptance is the truest kinship with humanity.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

We sometimes think we hate flattery, when we only hate the manner in which we have been flattered.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Extrinsic Motivation Couldn’t Change Even Einstein

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“He that complies against his will is of his own opinion still,” wrote the English poet and satirist Samuel Butler (1613–1680) in Hudibras (Part iii. Canto iii. Line 547.)

Einstein Wouldn’t Quit Smoking

Consider the case of a rational person as great as Albert Einstein. Grandson Bernhard Caesar Einstein, himself a reputed physicist, recalled in 1998 that Grandpa Einstein’s two prized possessions were his violin and smoking pipe; his reliance on the latter “bordered on dependency.”

Despite deteriorating health, Albert Einstein couldn’t be motivated to quit smoking. His doctor tried but just couldn’t convince Einstein to give it up. To circumvent the doctor’s effort to stop him from smoking, Einstein would scour his neighborhood’s sidewalks to collect discarded cigarette butts to smoke in his pipe.

People Will Change Only if Intrinsically Motivated

People are who they are; they have their (intrinsic) motivations and will continue to live their way. Despite well-meaning intentions, you simply can’t change them or mold their minds into your way of thinking.

You may be frustrated by their reluctance to mend their ways, stop engaging in destructive behavior, or even realize that they’re throwing away their potential. But you just can’t force change down their throats if they aren’t intrinsically motivated. You can only express your opinions, offer help, and even persist. Beyond that, you can only hope they change. You can control your effort and create the conditions for success. Beyond that, the outcomes of your efforts to change are outside your span of control. Control your efforts, not the outcomes.

As I elaborated in a previous article, you will succeed in changing another person’s behavior only if you can translate the extrinsic motivation at your disposal to the elements of his/her intrinsic motivation.

Idea for Impact: Extrinsic motivation is pointless in itself

You can’t change people; they must want to change for themselves. In other words, they must be intrinsically motivated to change. Extrinsic motivation is, in itself, pointless.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. To Inspire, Translate Extrinsic Motivation to Intrinsic Motivation
  2. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  3. An Effective Question to Help Feel the Success Now
  4. Do You Really Need More Willpower?
  5. Seek Discipline, Not Motivation: Focus on the WHY

To Inspire, Translate Extrinsic Motivation to Intrinsic Motivation

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Motivation can be activated and manipulated in another person with the effect of altering his/her behavior and achieving shared objectives.

In a previous article, I have elaborated that motivation is derived from incentives (or disincentives) that are founded either externally or internally, through extrinsic or intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivations arise from within—for example, doing a task for its own sake. In contrast, extrinsic motivations propel you to seek external rewards or avoid threatened punishments.

Extrinsic Motivation Doesn’t Exist

One could argue that extrinsic motivation doesn’t exist—that all human behavior is motivated by intrinsic needs alone. In support of this viewpoint, Professor Steven Reiss of Ohio State University observes, “Extrinsic motivation does not exist as a separate and distinct form of motivation” and elaborates,

When I do something to get something else, ultimately I am seeking something of intrinsic value to me. Otherwise, I wouldn’t do it. I go to work to support my family, and I value my family intrinsically. Some seek wealth so others will respect them, and they value their status intrinsically. In a means-ends chain of behavior, the end is intrinsically motivating, and it is the source of motivation for the means. The motive for the means is the same as for the end; it is an error in logic to assume that means are motivated by a different kind of motivation (extrinsic motivation) than are ends (intrinsic motivation.)

Try to imagine a chain of purposive behaviors that do not ultimately lead to some intrinsically valued goal. You can’t do it because such a chain has nothing to motivate it and, thus, never occurs. All behavior is motivated by an intrinsically valued goal.

Only Intrinsic Motivation Exists

Extrinsic motivation is nothing but a trigger for intrinsic motivation. Suppose that I ask you to refrain from smoking for a week in return for a $100 cash reward. Originally, you do not intend to refrain from smoking for a week, even if you acknowledge that smoking is harmful. In other words, you have no intrinsic motivation to refrain from smoking for a week. Therefore, the $100 offer acts as an extrinsic motivator. Upon further analysis, recognize that even though the $100 appears to be an extrinsic motivator, it capitalizes on your intrinsic desire to take the $100 to perhaps enjoy an evening out, take a loved one to dinner, or buy yourself a present. The $100 thus acts on an element of your intrinsic motivation.

A Case Study: How Xiang Yu Motivated Troops during the Battle of Julu

Commander Xiang Yu Chu Dynasty In ancient China, during the Battle of Julu in 207 BCE, Commander Xiang Yu led 20,000 of his Chu Dynasty troops against the Qin Dynasty. Yu’s troops camped overnight on the banks of the Zhang River. When they woke up the next morning to prepare for their attacks, they were horrified to discover that the boats they had used to get there had been sunk. Not only that, but their cauldrons (cooking pots) had been crushed and all but three days’ worth of rations destroyed.

The Chu troops were infuriated when they learned that it was their commander, Yu, who had ordered the destruction of the boats, cauldrons, and supplies. Yu explained to his troops that this maneuver was to motivate them to mount a spirited attack on the enemies. They had no chance to retreat and were thus forced to achieve victory within three days. Otherwise, they would die trapped within the walls of an enemy city without supplies or any chance of escape. Despite being heavily outnumbered, Yu’s motivated troops defeated the 300,000-strong Qin army and scored a spectacular victory within three days.

Xiang Yu cleverly translated extrinsic motivational devices at his command (viz. lack of boats, cauldrons, and supplies) to instigate a powerful intrinsic motivator of survival and success in his troops.

Idea for Impact: To Motivate Another, Always Lever Elements of Intrinsic Motivation

When trying to motivate a person who lacks intrinsic motivation for a certain behavior, first understand what truly motivates that person—i.e. his/her other elements of intrinsic motivation. Then translate the levers of extrinsic motivation (rewards, salary raise, fame, recognition, punishment) at your disposal through one of the other’s elements of intrinsic motivation.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Extrinsic Motivation Couldn’t Change Even Einstein
  2. Don’t Push Employees to Change
  3. An Effective Question to Help Feel the Success Now
  4. Do You Really Need More Willpower?
  5. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around

Inspirational Quotations #609

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We are sure to be losers when we quarrel with ourselves; it is civil war.
—Charles Caleb Colton (English Angelic Priest)

Gray skies are just clouds passing over.
—Duke Ellington

My job is about the most fun thing I do, but I have a broad set of interests, going places, reading things, doing things.
—Bill Gates (American Businessperson)

The violence we do to ourselves in order to remain faithful to the one we love is hardly better than an act of infidelity.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

The person who tries to live alone will not succeed as a human being. His heart withers if it does not answer another heart. His mind shrinks away if he hears only the echoes of his own thoughts and finds no other inspiration.
—Pearl S. Buck (American Novelist)

A reward cannot be valued if it is not understood
—Phillip C. Grant

The end of man is action.
—Thomas Carlyle (Scottish Writer)

Between the optimist and the pessimist, the difference is droll. The optimist sees the doughnut; the pessimist the hole!
—McLandburgh Wilson

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

It is not a struggle merely of economic theories, or forms of government or of military power. At issue is the true nature of man. Either man is the creature whom the psalmist described as a little lower than the angels … or man is a soulless, animated machine to be enslaved, used and consumed by the state for its own glorification. It is, therefore, a struggle which goes to the roots of the human spirit, and its shadow falls across the long sweep of man’s destiny.
—Dwight D. Eisenhower (American Head of State)