Archives for May 2021

‘Follow Your Passion’ is Really Bad Career Advice

May 17, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

Wallace Stevens, one of the 20th century’s most celebrated poets, was a full-time insurance executive for The Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company. The son of a wealthy lawyer, Stevens attended Harvard, where he became recognized on campus as a prolific and multitalented writer. He moved to New York City to become a poet. His father was a lover of literature but was also prudent. He disapproved of Stevens’ literary aspirations and directed his son to cease writing and study the law.

Stevens eventually caved to his family’s pressure and went to New York University Law School. He practiced law at several New York firms for more than a decade before becoming an insurance lawyer and executive.

Stevens wrote most of his poetry on his daily two-mile walks to and from work: “I write best when I can concentrate, and do that best while walking.” He would take slips of paper in his pockets and jot down words. His secretary would type them up for him.

Despite the job demands, Stevens produced a fantastic body of imaginative work in his spare time. He won the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1955 for Collected Poems (1954.)

A Paycheck Comes First

Artists of all kinds have kept their jobs their entire lives. Among just the writers,

T. S. Eliot did some of his best work while employed at Lloyds Bank in London.
Two-time Poet Laureate Ted Kooser was also an insurance executive for much of his career. He would get up early, write poems for an hour and a half, and then go to work.
Pulitzer winner A. R. Ammons was a sales executive at his father-in-law’s scientific glass firm.
Richard Eberhart, another Pulitzer winner, worked at the Butcher Polish Company, his wife’s family’s floor wax business.
Poet Laureate James Dickey started his career at an advertising agency to “make some bucks.” A copywriter, he worked on the Coca-Cola and Lay’s Potato Chips accounts. He famously said, “I was selling my soul to the devil all day… and trying to buy it back at night.”
William Carlos Williams was a doctor in New Jersey practicing pediatrics and general medicine.
Novelist Henry Darger was a custodian at a Chicago hospital.
Harvey Pekar was a VA Hospital clerk in Cleveland. He held this job even after becoming famous. Until he retired in 2001, he declined all promotions.
Jules Verne was an agent de change (a broker) on the Paris Bourse. He woke up early each morning to write before going for the day’s work.
Novelist Jodi Picoult worked at an ad agency and a financial analyst, a textbook editor, and an eighth-grade teacher. She wrote her first novel when she was pregnant with her first daughter.

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Each of these authors had ambitions to be a writer but didn’t think they could earn a living at it initially. They started working as a means to an end. At the same time, they plodded away at writing, honing their craft, trying to appeal to readers, and refusing to stop trying because of their ambition and passion.

The boilerplate career advice “Do what you love and the money will follow” is aspirational but hardly practicable. Plenty of people are passionate about their craft, but few people can turn those passions into an actual paycheck.

Many people want to “do what they love” and specialize in, say, 17th-century Metaphysical poetry, get disheartened when there aren’t a lot of job positions available in that field, let alone that narrow area of expertise.

Pursue a passion but as a hobby. Work at it, and until you can find people who’ll like your work well enough to pay you for what you love to do, get a day job that’s acceptable and pays reasonably well. A steady professional income will take the pressure off. You’ll still be pursuing what you love, and, hopefully, someday, you can make a full career of it.

For now, though, let the money follow, if only from a different source.

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

To follow a passion, go get a day job. Think of it as your side gig. Then make time to cultivate your passions. When you’re good at something that people are likely to want, the money will come.

Despite the well-meaning counsel to follow your passion, the truth is, it’s easier to pursue your passion and achieve your dreams if you can afford to work free. Until then, seek the peace of mind that comes from being able to pay your bills and attaining financial stability.

Inspirational Quotations #893

May 16, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi

To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.
—Leonard Bernstein (American Composer, Conductor)

The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty.
—Mother Teresa (Roman Catholic Nun)

Man goes far away or near but God never goes far-off; he is always standing close at hand, and even if he cannot stay within he goes no further than the door.
—Meister Eckhart (German Christian Mystic)

If you trust before you try, you may repent before you die.
—Common Proverb

Read not books alone, but men, and amongst them chiefly thyself.—If thou find anything questionable there, use the commentary of a severe friend, rather than the gloss of a sweet-lipped flatterer; there is more profit in a distasteful truth than in deceitful sweetness.
—Francis Quarles (English Religious Poet)

I am conservative by temperament. I disapprove of criminal activity. I am very solidly and markedly on the side of authority. The truth is I would rather err on the side of too much authority than too little.
—James Ellroy (American Crime Fiction Writer)

None sigh deeper than those who have no troubles.
—Norwegian Proverb

To be a champ, you have to believe in yourself when nobody else will.
—Sugar Ray Robinson (American Boxer)

The key to growth is the introduction of higher dimensions of consciousness into our awareness.
—Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan (British Sufi Mystic)

Take time to deliberate, but when the time for action has arrived, stop thinking and go in.
—Napoleon I (Emperor of France)

The chains of marriage are so heavy that it takes two to bear them, and sometimes three.
—Alexandre Dumas fils (French Dramatist, Novelist)

At court, far from regarding ambition as a sin, people regard it as a virtue, or if it passes for a vice, then it is regarded as the vice of great souls, and the vices of great souls are preferred to the virtues of the simple and the small.
—Louis Bourdaloue (French Jesuit Preacher)

People will try to tell you that all the great opportunities have been snapped up. In reality, the world changes every second, blowing new opportunities in all directions, including yours.
—Ken Hakuta (American Inventor)

For my own part, I had rather suffer any inconvenience from having to work occasionally in chambers and kitchen … than witness the subservience in which the menial class is held in Europe.
—Harriet Martineau (English Sociologist)

To me it’s not the big things in life that thrill me as much as the small moments of beauty—rare and wondrous, a simple breeze after a hard workout—a kiss from God.
—Marie Chapian (American Christian Writer)

The Difference between Directive and Non-Directive Coaching

May 13, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

When coaching, many managers’first impulse is to jump into solution mode and fix problems by recommending solutions. The advice is often framed as, “I’ve seen this condition before, and you should do X. That’s what worked for me when I was working at company Y.”

The Directive Coaching Style is suitable when your employee doesn’t have the time, skills, temperament, or patience to resolve her problem.

The Non-Directive Coaching Style, in contrast, encourages the employee to think through her problem and develop her own solution. This coaching style takes more time but is usually more effective, especially if the situation is complicated.

Suppose the problem presents a skill or competence that the employee can learn. In that case, a good coach nurtures the employee by challenging her to mull over the situation objectively. Merely supplying the right solution is wasted if she doesn’t understand it or internalize it well enough.

The most effective coaches I know tend to dwell less on the “what’s to be done” and more on instilling the “how to think about.”

Idea for Impact: When offering advice, steer the thought process. Don’t dictate the outcome. Employees are more likely to be invested in the solutions they come up with.

More from Less // Book Summary of Richard Koch’s ’80/20 Principle’

May 10, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

The Italian sociologist Vilfredo Pareto (1848–1923) recorded a “maldistribution” between causes and effects in economic statistics. It’s an observable fact that a minority of reasons—nominally around 20%—tends to produce a majority—80%—of the results.

Most Effects Come from Relatively Few Causes

More than a century later, the Romanian-American quality control pioneer Joseph Juran (1904–2008) embraced Pareto’s notion and demonstrated that 80% of all manufacturing quality defects are caused by 20% of reasons. Juran urged managers to identify and address the “vital few” or the “critical few “—the small fraction of elements that account for this disproportionally large fraction of the effect.

This Pareto Law, 80/20 Rule of Thumb, Zipf’s Principle of Least Effort, Juran’s Law of the Vital Few, 80-20 Thinking—call it what you want—permeates every aspect of business and life. Now that you know about it, you’ll start seeing it everywhere.

A fifth of your customers accounts for four-fifths of your sales. 20% of your employees are responsible for the majority of your firm’s productivity. 20% of your stocks will be responsible for 80% of your future gains. You tend to favor 20% of your clothes and wear them 80% of the time. You spend 80% of your socializing time with 20% of your friends. 20% of the decisions you’ve made during your life have shaped 80% of your current life. 80 percent of the wealth tends to be concentrated with 20 percent of the families.

The Pareto principle is a state of nature (the way things happen) and a process (a way of thinking about problems.) The 20% are the sources of the most significant potential impact.

The Remarkable Variance of Contributors and Effects

Richard Koch’s 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less (1999) elaborates on using this seminal prioritization principle. “The 80/20 Principle asserts that a minority of causes, inputs, or effort usually leads to a majority of the results, outputs, or rewards. … The winners in any field have … found ways to make 20% of effort yield 80% of results.”

Koch explains ad nauseam that most of us work much too hard and produce much less in relation to what could be produced. If trying harder hasn’t worked, perhaps it’s time to try less.

Invest your time and effort more wisely. Don’t address the less significant elements. “Most things always appear more important than the few things that are actually more important.” Examine what you do of low value. In other words, eliminate or reduce the 80% of efforts that produce less-significant results.
Know when to stop. Once you’ve solved the 20% of the issue to deliver 80% of the impact, any further effort can only achieve diminishing returns.

Idea for Impact: In most areas of human activity, just 20% of things will be worthwhile.

Recommendation: Speed-read Richard Koch’s 80/20 Principle. It’s an excellent reminder that not all effort is equal, so it pays to focus on what matters most.

Embrace the “80-20” frame of mind in everything you do—at work and home. Unless you want to spend every waking hour working, it’s essential to learn how to focus your efforts on the most promising, impactful aspects of what needs to be done.

Realize that few things really matter in life, but they count a tremendous amount. These vital things may be challenging to discover and realize, but once you find these things that really matter, they give you immense power—the power that gives you more from less. Spend a disproportionate amount of time and energy making sure these decisions are made well, and you put yourself in the best position you can in the process.
If you want to improve your effectiveness at anything, focus only on what matters most. Be extraordinarily selective—spend time resourcefully on the few essentials that matter the most and little or no time on the massive trivia that engulfs most of your time.

Inspirational Quotations #892

May 9, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi

You cannot be fuelled by bitterness. It can eat you up but it cannot drive you.
—Benazir Bhutto (Pakistani Politician)

We are only activated by one desire—what we can do for the community and how we can help the nation strengthen itself.
—Stella Isaacs, Marchioness of Reading (English Humanitarian)

Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts.
—William Strunk, Jr. (American Writer)

Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It’s your combination sinners—your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards—who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.
—Thornton Wilder (American Novelist, Dramatist)

Not being boring is quite a challenge.
—Ian McEwan (British Novelist, Short-Story Writer)

For the nearer any one approaches to God, the more he is illuminated, and therefore the more clearly does he see the majesty and mercy of God.
—Bonaventure (Italian Christian Scholar)

There are a thousand thousand reasons to live this life, every one of them sufficient.
—Marilynne Robinson (Novelist, Essayist)

Like most other things not apparently useful to man, it has few friends, and the blind question “Why was it made?” goes on and on, with never a guess that first of all it might have been made for itself.
—John Muir (American Naturalist)

The sleep of kings is on an anthill.
—Pashto Proverb

If the misery of the poor be caused not by the laws of nature, but by our institutions, great is our sin.
—Charles Darwin (British Naturalist)

Even overweight cats instinctively know the rule: when fat, arrange yourself in slim poses.
—John Weitz (American Fashion Designer)

Read, every day, something no one else is reading. Think, every day, something no one else is thinking. Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do. It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
—Christopher Morley (American Novelist, Essayist)

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
—Hilaire Belloc (British Writer, Poet)

Human curiosity, the urge to know, is a powerful force and is perhaps the best secret weapon of all in the struggle to unravel the workings of the natural world.
—Aaron Klug (English Biophysicist)

Reflecting the values of the larger capitalistic society, there is no prestige whatsoever attached to actually working. Workers are invisible.
—Marge Piercy (American Poet)

Don’t Ruminate Endlessly

May 6, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Say you’re in the market for a laptop but just can’t bring yourself to pick out the right model. You’ve spent countless hours comparing different models, visiting various websites, reading reviews, exploring stores, and researching all the available features, even though you’re unlikely to use most of them. Draining indeed!

Too Much Choice Can Stress You Out

Choice may be a great “problem” to have. Books such as Barry Schwartz’s The Paradox of Choice (2004) and Sheena Iyengar’s The Art of Choosing (2011) have exposed how increased choice may be bad for you.

Sometimes, the only thing worse than never having a choice is always having to choose.

Overthinking can trip you up. You can get confused when you have too much information or overthink about what you should be doing. Behavioral scientists such as Schwartz and Iyengar call this phenomenon “choice paralysis.”

Combat your indecisive nature by limiting your search, say, by establishing a cut-off time. Tell yourself that you’ll look around for two hours and then you’ll buy the best laptop you’ve come across in that time.

Use opportunity cost as a filter. Don’t poke around the internet for a better deal on an airfare or follow an eBay auction if you’re saving less than, say, $15 per hour spent deal-hunting.

Idea for Impact: Choose to Reduce Choice. Simplify and Prioritize.

Overthinking everything can make everyday life a challenge. Unnecessary analysis costs time and money and causes psychological wear.

The benefits of forgoing further rumination and acting on available information often offset the from needing to do everything perfectly.

Choosing when to choose is important. Rethink which choices in your life really matter and focus your time and effort there. Life is all about values and priorities.
In decision-making, simple beats complex. Reject complexity and accept that you’ll be sure that you’ve made the right choice. Make a decision, and then change course if it ends up being horribly wrong. As Amazon founder Jeff Bezos has written in his 2016 letter to shareholders, “If you’re good at course correcting, being wrong may be less costly than you think.”

How to Turn Your Fears into Fuel

May 3, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Self-doubt is an Important Motivator

It doesn’t matter how successful creative people actually achieve. Feeling inadequate is a common malady in showbiz.

Barbra Streisand avoided live performance for 27 years.

Adele has said, “I’m scared of audiences. My nerves don’t really settle until I’m off stage.” Her concerts mean so much that she fears letting her audience down.

Kate Winslet has admitted, “Sometimes I wake up in the morning before going off to a shoot, and I think, I can’t do this; I’m a fraud. They’re going to fire me—all these things. I’m fat; I’m ugly.”

Otis Skinner, one of the great 19th-century matinee idols, once told his daughter Cornelia “Any actor who claims he is immune to stage fright is either lying or else he’s no actor.”

These superstars are not alone. Michael Gambon, Meryl Streep, Kenneth Branagh, Richard Burton, Fredric March, Andrea Bocelli, Ewan McGregor, Steven Osborne, Derek Jacobi, Stephen Fry, Eileen Atkins, Maureen Stapleton, Ian Holm, Renee Fleming, Carly Simon, Marilyn Monroe, Ellen Terry, Rod Stewart, and Peter Eyre—even actor-trainers such as Lee Strasberg and Konstantin Stanislavsky—have suffered from varying degrees of stage fear.

Fear is a universal problem.

Give voice to your fear self-doubt & take action

Many icons suffer from stage fear, often from the weight of expectation that their reputations place upon them. They throw up, feel paralyzed, or break into cold sweats. Adele once got so unnerved that she escaped from the fire exit at an Amsterdam concert venue.

Consider actor Laurence Olivier, who suffered stage fright even in his sixties when he was the world’s most revered stage performer. Even at the pinnacle of his fame, the National Theatre’s stage manager had to prod Olivier onstage every night.

Laurence Olivier suffered five years of agonizing dread following a press night in 1964, when he found his voice diminishing and the audience “beginning to go giddily round.” He developed strategies. When delivering his Othello soliloquies, he asked his Iago to stay in sight, fearing, “I might not be able to stay there in front of the audience by myself.” He asked actors not to look him in the eye: “For some reason, this made me feel that there was not quite so much loaded against me.” The venerable Sybil Thorndike gave him trenchant counsel: “Take drugs, darling, we do.”

As a sidebar, when Olivier made his stage debut playing Brutus at a choir school in London, Thorndike was in the audience. After seeing Olivier on stage for just five minutes, she turned to her husband. She declared, “But this is an actor—absolutely an actor. Born to it.”

Focus on what needs to be done & break the shell of fear and self-doubt

Some of our most admired icons experienced self-doubt—even Abraham Lincoln and Mahatma Gandhi. What distinguishes most successful people is that they engage their fear. They accept that diffidence and adrenalin rush are something that they must deal with.

Interestingly enough, it’s often the mature performer, not the novice, who’s most likely to succumb to a seizure of nerves. However, superstars know in their heart of hearts that fear of inadequacy isn’t shameful. It’s normal. It’s part of the profession. It’s human.

Successful people know how to turn anxiety into energy. They take steps to minimize adverse effects. Through action, they transform their fear into vitality. Fear becomes fuel. They refuse to let their fears get in the way of their goals and success. They overcome fear through the love of the work and channel the sense of the audience’s or constituency’s expectation and goodwill into their best performance.

Idea for Impact: Don’t Fear it, Embrace it.

It’s natural to feel apprehensive when embarking on any venture. Don’t drown in a sea of self-doubt.

Overconfidence can take the edge off the feeling that you need to work hard. It’s ironic that high self-confidence, so often advised as the cure for low achievement, can cause it.

Fear invites you to work harder on your methods, strategies, and skills. It’s undoubtedly more preferable than the alternative. High self-esteem and overconfidence can lead to complacency and no growth. As Nobel laureate Kazuo Ishiguro reminds in The Remains of the Day (1989,) “If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of.”

Focus on turning your fears into positive motivators to improve your work. Action transforms anxiety into energy. The “angels” want you to succeed.

Inspirational Quotations #891

May 2, 2021 By Nagesh Belludi

Luxury is a matter not of all the things you have, but all the things you can afford to do without.
—Pico Iyer (British-born Essayist, Novelist of Indian Origin)

People think that stories are shaped by people. In fact, it’s the other way around.
—Terry Pratchett (English Fantasy Writer)

The purpose of psychology is to give us a completely different idea of the things we know best.
—Paul Valery (French Critic, Poet)

A speech should not just be a sharing of information, but a sharing of yourself.
—Ralph Archbold (American Actor)

Mythology is an integral part of religion. It is as necessary for religion and national culture as the skin and the skeleton that preserve a fruit with its juice and its taste. Form is no less essential than substance. Mythology and holy figures are necessary for any great culture to rest on its stable spiritual foundation and function as a life-giving inspiration and guide.
—Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari (Indian Statesman, Author)

One of the greatest joys known to man is to take a flight into ignorance in search of knowledge.
—Robert Wilson Lynd (Irish Essayist, Critic)

We who officially value freedom of speech above life itself seem to have nothing to talk about but the weather.
—Barbara Ehrenreich (American Social Critic)

We all have a little weakness, which is very natural but rather misleading, for supposing that this epoch must be the end of the world because it will be the end of us. How future generations will get on without us is indeed, when we come to think of it, quite a puzzle. But I suppose they will get on somehow, and may possibly venture to revise our judgments as we have revised earlier judgments
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Strong political beliefs in either direction limit your ability to make rational decisions more than almost anything else.
—Morgan Housel (American Financial Journalist, Investor)

It is the critic’s duty to enter an artist’s individuality, to discover his intentions—intentions of which the artist himself is perhaps unconscious—so as to judge how far he has realized them, and then to determine what place he occupies in contemporary art.
—Sadakichi Hartmann (American Art Critic)

Consistently wise decisions can only be made by those whose wisdom is constantly challenged.
—Ted Sorensen (American Lawyer, Speechwriter)

Man is the measure of all things: of things which are, that they are, and of things which are not, that they are not.
—Protagoras (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Man is a creature of hope and invention, both of which belie the idea that things cannot be changed.
—Tom Clancy (American Spy Novelist)

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Archives for May 2021

One of Our Greatest Literary Stylists Was a Full-time Business Executive

A Paycheck Comes First

Disregard the Inspirational Mumbo Jumbo

Idea for Impact: Cultivate a Passion, But Don’t Expect to Make it a Career Right Away

Wondering what to read next?

Wondering what to read next?

Most Effects Come from Relatively Few Causes

The Remarkable Variance of Contributors and Effects

Idea for Impact: In most areas of human activity, just 20% of things will be worthwhile.

Wondering what to read next?

Too Much Choice Can Stress You Out

Idea for Impact: Choose to Reduce Choice. Simplify and Prioritize.

Wondering what to read next?

Self-doubt is an Important Motivator

Give voice to your fear self-doubt & take action

Focus on what needs to be done & break the shell of fear and self-doubt

Idea for Impact: Don’t Fear it, Embrace it.

Wondering what to read next?