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Ideas for Impact

Nagesh Belludi

Inspirational Quotations by Charles Kingsley (#636)

June 12, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Today marks the birthday of Charles Kingsley (1819–1875,) English writer and Anglican priest. Kingsley wrote numerous historical novels, including Hypatia (1853), Hereward the Wake (1865) and Westward Ho (1855).

'The Water-Babies' by Charles Kingsley (ISBN 0199645604) Kingsley is best remembered for his extremely popular children’s book The Water-Babies (1863,) written to teach unconditional love, redemption, and other Christian values. The Water-Babies is an allegorical fairytale of a 10-year-old, chimney-sweeping orphan named Tom. While clearing soot one day, Tom falls through a chimney into the room of a rich young girl named Ellie. Mistaken for a thief, Tom is chased out of town. Overwhelmed by exhaustion, he submits to thirst, tumbles into a stream, falls fast asleep, and drowns. Fairies turn him into a peculiar creature called a “water-baby.” In his new life, Tom meets various fairies, aquatic creatures, and other water-babies. He also encounters the vicious Mrs. Bedonbyasyoudid (a reference to Revelation 16:6 in the New Testament) and the motherly Mrs. Doasyouwouldbedoneby (a reference to the Golden Rule.) When he reaches the Other-End-of-Nowhere, he helps his vicious former master Mr. Grimes find repentance.

The Water-Babies was extremely popular when it was published, and it helped rally support for the 1840 Chimney Sweepers’ Regulation Act, which prohibited the use of child labor to climb into and clean chimneys.

However, The Water-Babies lost its popularity over time because of its insults against the Irish, Catholics, Jews, Americans, and the poor, even if Kingsley’s writing merely reflected many of the common prejudices of his time.

Inspirational Quotations by Charles Kingsley

What’s the use of doing a kindness, if you do it a day too late.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle will never know.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

If you wish to be miserable, think about yourself; about what you want, what you like, what respect people ought to pay you, what people think of you; and then to you nothing will be pure. You will spoil everything you touch; you will make sin and misery for yourself out of everything God sends you; you will be as wretched as you choose.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

What I want is, not to possess religion, but to have a religion that shall possess me.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Stick to the old truths and the old paths, and learn their divineness by sick beds, and in everyday work, and do not darken your mind with intellectual puzzles, which may breed disbelief, but can never breed vital religion or practical usefulness.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Do noble things, do not dream them all day long.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Feelings are like chemicals; the more you analyze them the worse they smell.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

If I am ever obscure in my expressions, do not fancy that therefore I am deep. If I were really deep, all the world would understand, though they might not appreciate. The perfectly popular style is the perfectly scientific one. To me an obscurity is a reason for suspecting a fallacy.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

Do today’s duty, fight today’s temptation; do not weaken and distract yourself by looking forward to things you cannot see, and could not understand if you saw them.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

The men whom I have seen succeed best in life always have been cheerful and hopeful men; who went about their business with a smile on their faces; and took the changes and chances of this mortal life like men; facing rough and smooth alike as it came.
—Charles Kingsley (English Clergyman)

“Young and Old”—A Poem by Charles Kingsley

Here’s a poem from Chapter II of Kingsley’s The Water-Babies. This poignant poem contrasts youth and old age. The first stanza promotes a productive youth. The second stanza hints at aging natural imagery and wishes that you be alongside the one that you cherished in your youth.

When all the world is young, lad,
And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,
And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,
And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, lad,
And every dog his day.

When all the world is old, lad,
And all the trees are brown;
And all the sport is stale, lad,
And all the wheels run down;
Creep home, and take your place there,
The spent and maimed among:
God grant you find one face there,
You loved when all was young.

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Presentations are Corrupting per Edward Tufte’s “The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint”

June 10, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Presentations are one of the most frequently used methods of communication in the modern workplace. However, Edward Tufte argues that they reduce the analytical timbre of communication. In other words, presentation slides lack the resolution to effectively convey context, “weaken verbal and spatial reasoning, and almost always corrupt statistical analysis.”

Tufte, an American statistician and academic, is renowned for his work The Visual Display of Quantitative Information, a bestselling text on data, statistics, graphics, visualization, and information.

'The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint' by Edward Tufte (ISBN 0961392169) In his cranky pamphlet The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, Tufte offers a sharp-tongued criticism of presentations as a communication format. He argues that we treat slides more as a medium for self-expression than as a medium to connect with our audiences. His most revealing examples of how presentations corrupt our elegance of expression are his critique of NASA’s slides from the Columbia shuttle disaster and a parody of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address condensed into a PowerPoint deck.

By forcibly condensing our ideas into bullet point-statements, phrases, and slides, Tufte contends that we break up narrative flow and flatten the information we’re trying to convey. In particular, he claims that presentations’ bullet points can’t signify logical relationships well and thus dilute the audiences’ thought process. The resulting message is watered down, lacks proper emphasis, and doesn’t communicate the context very effectively.

Tufte favors well-structured memos that convey ideas comprehensively, clearly, and meaningfully. In agreement, I’ll offer two articles next week about Procter & Gamble and Amazon’s use of these memos as a communication discipline.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. The More You Write, The Better You Become
  2. Why Amazon Banned PowerPoint
  3. Lessons from Procter & Gamble: ‘One-Page Memo’ to Sell an Idea
  4. Lessons from Amazon: ‘Mock Press Release’ Discipline to Sell an Idea
  5. Persuade Others to See Things Your Way: Use Aristotle’s Ethos, Logos, Pathos, and Timing

Filed Under: Effective Communication Tagged With: Persuasion, Presentations, Writing

To Become Time-Conscious, Always Ask, “Is It a Priority?”

June 7, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

As I wrote in my three-part series on time logging, time analyzing, and time budgeting, life is all about values and the relative priorities you attach to these values.

Priorities imply choice; you get to make a choice in almost everything you do. Every choice involves tradeoffs: when you choose to do something, it implies that you choose not do something else.

Before being sucked into doing anything, ask, “Is this the best use of my time?”

Another way to think about this is in terms of “opportunity cost.” Everything in life has an opportunity cost. Whenever you take up one opportunity, you forfeit another. When you choose to go to a movie with a friend, it means you aren’t going to the library to work on a research paper that’s due next week. When you choose to spend this month’s savings on new furniture, it means you can’t add to your retirement account. So, when making decisions about anything, keep opportunity costs in mind. Be aware of what you’re giving up.

One of the most important choices you make—often subconsciously—is how you use your time, which is your most important resource. Before doing anything, be aware of what you are giving up; decide whether the benefits are worth the time you’re investing in the task.

The Nagging “5-5-5” Questions

Poor time management often has less to do with your packed schedule than with your indecisive, unorganized, or undisciplined mind. To improve your life, stop wasting time on things that don’t matter. Have a little voice in your head that constantly nags you by asking the following “5-5-5” questions:

  • Is this a priority?
  • Will this matter in 5 days?
  • Will this matter in 5 months?
  • Will this matter in 5 years?

The “5-5-5” questions will prevent you from being caught up in little tasks and trivialities that aren’t truly important.

Idea for Impact: Be time conscious; constantly ask yourself, “Is this time-effective?”

According to my world’s shortest course on time management, “There are countless things you can do. There are numerous things you want to do. There are several things others expect you to do. There are many things you think you are supposed to do. However, there are only a few things that you must do. Focus on those and avoid the rest.”

As I mentioned in my article “don’t say ‘yes’ when you really want to say ‘no’,” don’t be vulnerable enough to be pulled along by forces that are beyond your control. Be accommodating when you can and assertive when you must. Be intentional about how you choose to use our time. Your life depends on it.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Personal Energy: How to Manage It and Get More Done // Summary of ‘The Power of Full Engagement’
  2. Get Your Priorities Straight
  3. How to … Nap at Work without Sleeping
  4. Warren Buffett’s Advice on How to Focus on Priorities and Subdue Distractions
  5. How to Prevent Employee Exhaustion

Filed Under: Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Balance, Task Management, Time Management

Inspirational Quotations #635

June 5, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Flattery is from the teeth out. Sincere appreciation is from the heart out.
—Dale Carnegie (American Author)

My reason is not framed to bend or stoop: my knees are.
—Michel de Montaigne (French Philosopher)

Opportunity is often difficult to recognize; we usually expect it to beckon us with beepers and billboards.
—William Arthur Ward (American Author)

The first attribute that characterizes the greater man from the moron is his thicker layer of inhibition.
—Martin H. Fischer

Is it not by love alone that we succeed in penetrating to the very essence of being?
—Igor Stravinsky (Russian-born American Composer)

Fear is the proof of a degenerate mind.
—Virgil (Roman Poet)

Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Action is a great restorer and builder of confidence. Inaction is not only the result, but the cause, of fear. Perhaps the action you take will be successful; perhaps different action or adjustments will have to follow. But any action is better than no action at all.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.
—Norman Vincent Peale (American Clergyman, Self-Help Author)

Ignore what a man desires, and you ignore the very source of his power.
—Walter Lippmann (American Journalist)

The act of acting morally is behaving as if everything we do matters.
—Gloria Steinem (American Feminist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

How to Stop Rambling

June 3, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

How to Stop Rambling Poster: Keep Rambling and Annoy All

Some people are natural ramblers. Others are prone to ramble when they feel impassioned about a topic and have a propensity for going off on tangents. Others tend to blather because they feel jumpy and insecure when asked to talk about something they don’t totally understand. Still others feel compelled to talk just to make themselves heard or when they don’t want to lose the floor.

Whatever the reason you may ramble, here are some ideas to help you be short and clearer in your conversations with others.

Follow the “Traffic Light Rule”

Career coach Marty Nemko offers a “Traffic Light” rule of thumb to keep conversations short:

  • During the first 30 seconds of an utterance, your light is green: your listener is probably paying attention.
  • During the second 30 seconds, your light is yellow—your listener may be starting to wish you’d finish.
  • After the one-minute mark, your light is red: Yes, there are rare times you should “run a red light:” when your listener is obviously fully engaged in your missive. But usually, when an utterance exceeds one minute, with each passing second, you increase the risk of boring your listener and having them think of you as a chatterbox, windbag, or blowhard.

How to be Concise and Retain your Audience’s Interest

If you have nothing to say, say nothing at all. Don’t skirt around the topic, “fake the funk,” or seem indecisive. Simply say, “I am not educated about this topic.” If you’re asked something you should know about but don’t, it’s acceptable to say, “I don’t know, let me get back to you.” Do your research and follow-up with the audience.

If you have lots to say about something,

  • First take a few moments to think about what you want to say and structure your answer. Pausing before you give an answer will make you look more thoughtful and intelligent than if you crudely blurt out an unstructured response as soon as a question is posed. If necessary, buy some time: “Give me a moment to gather my thoughts.”
  • Once you’ve thought of your answer, simply state it. Do not add new details as you speak. Stick to your planned details and structure; you will be able to provide a consistent, concise, and well-reasoned answer.
  • Avoid littering your conversation with irrelevant or trivial details. Often, it’s more important to be articulate than accurate. Keep your sentences brief and to the point. Don’t wander from your point.
  • If you have more to say than you can say in a minute or two, realize that even though your audience may be interested in listening to everything you have to say, their attention may quickly dissolve into disinterest. Limit yourself to a minute or two and use that brief time to provide the most important points or a summary. Then ask, “Would you like me to expand?”

Sometimes you can defer a question by saying, “I’d be interested in what others think about this.” However, you will look devious if you use this technique too often.

Prepare and rehearse. Before attending a meeting, event, or gathering, think about the likely topics people may want to converse with you about. Think about the message you want to get across and rehearse your responses.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Each Temperament Has Its Own Language
  2. Honest Commitments: Saying ‘No’ is Kindness
  3. Nice Ways to Say ‘No’
  4. What Jeeves Teaches About Passive Voice as a Tool of Tact
  5. A Trick to Help you Praise At Least Three People Every Day

Filed Under: Effective Communication Tagged With: Communication, Conversations, Interviewing

Anger Is Often Pointless

May 31, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Anger is often nothing more than an intense emotion caused by an apparent injustice. The destructive outcomes of anger are well known. When even a slight annoyance arises, it is capable of growing quickly and overwhelming your state of mind.

Anger results in (1) a loss of perspective and judgement, (2) impulsive and irrational behavior that is destructive to both yourself and others, and (3) loss of face, compassion, and social credibility.

Anger is often pointless, as the following Buddhist parable will illustrate.

Often, there’s no one to blame

Once upon a time, a farmer was paddling his boat upstream to deliver his produce to a distant village. It was a sultry day, so he was covered in sweat. He was in a great hurry to reach the village market.

Further on upstream, the farmer spotted another boat rapidly moving downstream toward his vessel. It looked as though this boat was going to hit him. In response, he paddled feverishly to move out of the way, but it didn’t seem to help. He yelled, “Hey, watch out!” The other boat seemed to approach him swiftly. The farmer shouted, “Hey, you’re going to hit me! Adjust your direction.” He got no response and continued to yell in vain.

As a last resort, the farmer stood up angrily waving his arms and shaking his fist. The other boat smashed right into him. He was hopping mad and cried out, “You imbecile! How could you hit my boat in the middle of this wide river? Couldn’t you hear me asking you to get out of my way? What is wrong with you?”

Then, all of a sudden, the farmer realized that the boat was empty; it had perhaps cut loose of its moorings and floated downstream with the current. He calmed down and realized that there was no one to blame but an empty boat and the river. His anger was purposeless.

Anger depletes energy and leads to loss of perspective and judgement

When you lose your inner peace, you expect that your anger can help you get even with the offending person or amend the vexing circumstances. However, responding with anger is illogical. The offending deed has already occurred, a fact your anger fails to negate. Also, your anger cannot thwart or diminish the perceived wrong.

In the New Testament, Ephesians 4:26–27 advise, “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

Free yourself from anger

There is no benefit to anger at all. All anger can beget is negative energy, which can aggravate an already volatile situation. Anger can also impede sound judgement and inhibit your ability to consider the negative consequences of your abrupt reactions.

The next time you’re angry, consider the following response:

  • Stop. Don’t respond immediately. Walk away from the situation that has instigated your anger.
  • Breathe deeply. Become fully aware of your state of mind. Assess what’s going on.
  • Calm down and compose yourself. Invoke mindfulness to appeal to your wisdom. Anger and other emotional arousals often stem from a lack of self-awareness or mindlessness, and can simmer down if you just wait long enough.
  • Consider the matter from other points of view. Ask if there could be other possible explanations for what happened.
  • Identify the reasons for your anger by asking three questions: (1) “Is this matter serious enough to get worked up about?” (2) “Is my anger necessary and warranted?” (3) “Will getting angry make a difference?”
  • Reflect about what response will be most effective. Try to develop a wise and measured course of action.

Idea for Impact: A low-anger life is a happier life

Patience is the definitive antidote to anger and aggression. With patience, you may not always be able to eliminate anger, but you can usually control it. Patience can build and fortify your intellectual and psychological resources.

As Proverbs 19:11 tells in the Hebrew Bible, “A person’s wisdom yields patience; it is to one’s glory to overlook an offense.” Ultimately, developing greater patience enhances your romantic, personal, professional, and casual relationships—as well as that all-important relationship: the one you have with yourself.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Change Your Perspective, Change Your Reactions
  2. Heaven and Hell: A Zen Parable on Self-Awareness
  3. Live as If You Are Already Looking Back on This Moment with Longing
  4. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  5. Anger is the Hardest of the Negative Emotions to Subdue

Filed Under: Health and Well-being, Living the Good Life, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Anger, Attitudes, Buddhism, Emotions, Mindfulness, Parables, Philosophy, Wisdom

Inspirational Quotations #634

May 29, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Don’t drown the man who taught you to swim.
—Common Proverb

If silence be good for the wise, how much better for fools.
—Common Proverb

Criticism of others is futile and if you indulge in it often you should be warned that it can be fatal to your career.
—Dale Carnegie (American Author)

It’s too late to shut the barn door after the horse has been stolen.
—Common Proverb

Let there be no doubt: as long as you continue to blame others instead of assuming your responsibilities, you will make no meaningful and enduring change for the better. What kind of people are we, if we don’t have the character to own up to our own shortcomings and responsibilities? To have and enjoy certain liberties requires us to hold each other and ourselves accountable for our actions.
—Gary Ryan Blair

He who would really benefit mankind must reach them through their work.
—Henry Ford (American Businessperson)

The purpose of life, after all, is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experiences.
—Eleanor Roosevelt (American First Lady)

When you see a worthy person, endeavor to emulate him. When you see an unworthy person, then examine your inner self.
—Confucius (Chinese Philosopher)

To achieve greatness one should live as if they will never die.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

You can set yourself up to be sick, or you can choose to stay well.
—Wayne Dyer (American Motivational Writer)

Anxiety about the future never profits; we feel no evil until it comes, and when we feel it, no counsel helps; wisdom is either too early or too late.
—Friedrich Ruckert

Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.
—Aristotle (Ancient Greek Philosopher)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

To Inspire, Pay Attention to People: The Hawthorne Effect

May 27, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi

The Hawthorne Experiments

Sociologist Elton Mayo’s Hawthorne Experiments marked a sea change in industrial and organizational psychology. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Mayo led this famous series of experiments on workers’ productivity at a Western Electric factory in the Chicago suburb of Hawthorne.

The experiments’ initial purpose was to study the effects of workers’ physical conditions on their productivity. The lighting in the work area for one group of workers was dramatically improved while another group’s lighting remained unchanged. The productivity of the workers with the better lighting increased.

The experimenters found similar productivity improvements when they improved other working conditions, viz., work hours, meal and rest breaks, etc. Surprisingly, the workers’ productivity increased even when the lights were dimmed again. In fact, even when everything about the workplace was restored to the way it was before the experiments had begun, the factory’s productivity was at its highest level.

Recognition and even simple acknowledgment can give people a boost

When Elton Mayo discussed his findings with the workers, he learned that the interest Mayo and his experimenters had shown in the workers made them feel more valued. They were accustomed to being ignored by management.

Mayo concluded that the workers’ productivity and morale had not improved because of the changes in physical conditions, but rather from a motivational effect—the workers felt encouraged when someone was actually concerned about their workplace conditions.

'The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation' by Elton Mayo (ISBN 0415436842) The Hawthorne Experiments understood the individual worker in a social context. The resulting insight was that employees’ performance was influenced not only by their own innate abilities but also by their work environment and the people they work with. Mayo wrote in The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, “The desire to stand well with one’s fellows, the so-called human instinct of association, easily outweighs the merely individual interest and the logic of reasoning upon which so many spurious principles of management are based.”

Over the decades, the methodology and conclusions of the Hawthorne experiments have been widely debated. Yet the key takeaway is profound: when managers pay attention to people, better morale and productivity ensue.

Idea for Impact: Employee engagement is the very heart of effective management

Inspire your employees by asking them how they are doing. Let them in on the plans for your organization, seek their opinions, recognize them, appreciate their work, and coach and give them feedback.

Even a little appreciation and praise can go a long way to boost employee morale. The desire for recognition is a basic human need; and managers can easily fulfill this need with the aim of bringing out the best in people.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Don’t Push Employees to Change
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  3. Eight Ways to Keep Your Star Employees Around
  4. Seven Real Reasons Employees Disengage and Leave
  5. Seven Easy Ways to Motivate Employees and Increase Productivity

Filed Under: Leading Teams, Managing People, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Coaching, Employee Development, Great Manager, Management, Mentoring, Motivation, Performance Management, Winning on the Job

A Guaranteed Formula for Success: Identify Your #1 Priority and Finish It First

May 24, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

Identify Your #1 Priority and Finish It First

“He who every morning plans the transactions of the day and follows out that plan carries a thread that will guide him through the labyrinth of the most busy life. The orderly arrangement of his time is a like a ray of life which darts itself through all his occupations. But where no plan is laid, where the disposal of time is surrendered merely to the chance of incident, chaos will soon reign.”
—Victor Hugo

“A Guaranteed Formula for Success”

A popular legend recalls a time management trick that efficiency expert Ivy Lee showed to Charles Michael Schwab (1862—1939,) the American steel magnate and President of Bethlehem Steel, then the second largest steel manufacturer in the United States.

Lee famously advised Charles Schwab and his managers to list and rank their top priorities every day, and work on tasks in the order of their importance as time allows, not proceeding until a task was completed. After implementing the suggestion, Charles Schwab famously said that Lee’s method for managing priorities had been the most profitable advice he had ever received and paid him $25,000.

When Charles Schwab was president of Bethlehem Steel, he confronted Ivy Lee, a management consultant, with an unusual challenge. “Show me a way to get more things done,” he demanded. “If it works, I will pay you anything within reason.”

Lee handed Schwab a piece of paper. “Write down the things you have to do tomorrow.”

When Schwab had completed the list, Lee said, “Now number these items in the order of their real importance.”

Schwab did, and Lee said, “The first thing tomorrow morning, start working on number one and stay with it until it’s completed. Then take number two, and don’t go any further until it’s finished or until you’ve done as much with it as you can. Then proceed to number three and so on. If you can’t complete everything on schedule, don’t worry. At least you will have taken care of the most important things before getting distracted by items of less importance.

“The secret is to do this daily. Evaluate the relative importance of the things you have to get done, establish priorities, record your plan of action, and stick to it. Do this every working day. After you have convinced yourself that this system has value, have your people try it. Test it as long as you like, and then send me a check for whatever you think the idea is worth.”

Mary Kay Ash Helped Her Beauty Consultants Juggle Spouse, Children, and Career

'You Can Have It All' by Mary Kay Ash (ISBN 0761501622) Mary Kay Ash, American beauty products entrepreneur and founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, had a variation to this technique. In You Can Have It All, she writes:

Each night, I put together my list for the following day. If I don’t get something on my list accomplished, it goes on the next day’s list. I put the hardest or most unappealing task at the top of the list. This way, I tackle the most difficult item first, and once it’s out of the way, I feel my day is off to a good start.

Mary Kay Ash taught her cosmetics sales consultants this technique of prioritizing their work and thus avoid being stretched too thin. Most of Mary Kay’s cosmetics sales consultants were women filling multiple roles as mother, wife, and businesswoman.

We try very hard to get our consultants to organize themselves. The best way I have found is a little pad of paper we issue called “The Six Most Important Things.” I teach consultants to write down the six most important things they have to do the next day every night before they go to bed. I suggest that people organize things by priority. First, put the thing they most don’t want to do at the top. Then write down the six most important things—not sixteen, because this is frustrating, but six.

Idea for Impact: Squeeze the Most out of Your Day

The best way to start your day is by accomplishing something instead of fiddling around with email or contemplating the day’s priorities. So, every evening, before you leave the office, write down the most important tasks you’ve got to get done the next day. Leave it on your desk along with any support material you need to work on it. This will help you get rolling first thing in the morning.

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Filed Under: Living the Good Life, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Discipline, Getting Things Done, Motivation, Parables, Procrastination, Simple Living, Task Management, Time Management, Winning on the Job

Inspirational Quotations #633

May 22, 2016 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Who dares do all that may become a man, and dares no more, he is a man indeed.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

Failure can be bought on easy terms; success must be paid for in advance.
—Cullen Hightower (American Humorist)

Forgive, forget. Bear with the faults of others as you would have them bear with yours. Be patient and understanding. Life is too short to be vengeful or malicious.
—Phillips Brooks (American Episcopal Clergyman)

When you ascend the hill of prosperity, may you not meet a friend.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

A ship at harbor is safe, but that’s not what the ship was built for.
—Unknown

Peace and friendship with all mankind is our wisest policy, and I wish we may be permitted to pursue it.
—Thomas Jefferson (American Head of State)

If you wish success in life, make perseverance your bosom friend, experience your wise counselor, caution your elder brother and hope your guardian genius.
—Joseph Addison (English Essayist)

Quarrels are the dowry which married folk bring one another.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (Roman Poet)

We believe that if men have the talent to invent new machines that put men out of work, they have the talent to put those men back to work.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
—Lou Holtz

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

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About: Nagesh Belludi [hire] is a St. Petersburg, Florida-based freethinker, investor, and leadership coach. He specializes in helping executives and companies ensure that the overall quality of their decision-making benefits isn’t compromised by a lack of a big-picture understanding.

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RECOMMENDED BOOK:
How to Talk to Anyone

How to Talk to Anyone: Leil Lowndes

Communication consultant Leil Lowndes discusses 92 tricks to become a better conversationalist and improve social relationships---body language, words to say, telephone techniques, social tactics.

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