Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Sharpening Your Skills

Don’t Over-Deliver

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Many tasks in the workplace could be done with total adequacy and barely more.

Don’t get fixated on ensuring that every task is entirely done, every email edited and re-edited to get the grammar right, or every spreadsheet is flawless. This is a pointless pursuit.

Sure, you don’t want to be a careless hammerhead. But don’t waste time sweating the little stuff. There comes the point where any changes you make to whatever it is you’re working on no longer makes it better but just different. Identifying the inflection point of diminishing returns is one of the hardest skills to learn and one of the most necessary.

Don’t agonize over tiny improvements in your work and thwart yourself from achieving the actual goal of doing the work.

Idea for Impact: Most acceptable outcomes correlate with “good enough,” not “perfection.” Being consistently excellent is essentially a matter of fierce discipline—doing the essential things well.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. Why Settle?
  3. The Costs of Perfectionism: A Case Study of A Two Michelin-Starred French Chef
  4. Small Steps, Big Revolutions: The Kaizen Way // Summary of Robert Maurer’s ‘One Small Step Can Change Your Life’
  5. The Simple Life, The Good Life // Book Summary of Greg McKeown’s ‘Essentialism’

Are You Ill-Prepared for Being Wrong?

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We spend so much of our lives being right that, I wonder if, we’re ill-prepared for being wrong.

Since childhood, we’ve been inured that being right is more acceptable than being wrong. Being wrong feels so unpleasant—repulsive even—that we instill a series of strategies to salvage ourselves when we are exposed as being wrong. We learn to trip from our forked tongues explanations, justifications, excuses, and blames for our errors and oversights.

What’s worse, we develop a deep-seated impulse to shirk responsibility and accountability for our actions. We become loath to change our beliefs or behaviors because change takes effort. We envisage change as a challenge to our identity. In the words of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, “People who are right a lot listen a lot, and they change their mind a lot. They wake up and re-analyze things and change their mind. If you don’t change your mind frequently, you’re going to be wrong a lot. People who are right a lot want to disconfirm their fundamental biases.”

Idea for Impact: What’s lost in all this is that being wrong is not only a central feature of being human. It’s one of the most potent ways of learning. Admitting we were wrong—and conceding we’ll be wrong again—can be so liberating and welcoming.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  2. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect
  3. How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt
  4. How To … Be More Confident in Your Choices
  5. 3 Ways to … Avoid Overthinking

3 Ways to … Shake Up Your Life

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There’s much comfort in sameness and certainty. Overhauling your life—whether it’s your home, job, or your relationship—can seem an impossible task. But three attitudes can get you started:

  1. Try saying ‘yes’ instead of ‘no.’ Significant changes aren’t without pain, but no good comes from hesitation and inaction. Act decidedly on an opportunity before it ceases to be one. If taking a giant leap is terrifying, take a few low-risk steps and watch your confidence grow. Over time, you’ll become more resilient, adaptable, and bolder.
  2. Think things through. If you’re unhappy with your life, hammer out exactly what you hope to achieve by facing your fear and ripping things up. What worries you controls you. Don’t allow your feelings to dictate your behavior—be clear about why you’re doing this and why it matters to you.
  3. Do something different that scares you—every day. Broaden your horizons. Travel to someplace you haven’t been to before. Try a new food or learn new skills. Try different paths to personal fulfillment. A spirit of constant self-challenge keeps you humble and open to new ideas that very well may be better than the ones you currently hold dear.

Idea for Impact: Sometimes, all it takes is a slight nudge in the right direction.

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  3. Looking for Important Skills to Develop?
  4. One of the Tests of Leadership is the Ability to Sniff out a Fire Quickly
  5. Rules Are Made to Be Broken // Summary of Francesca Gino’s ‘Rebel Talent’

3 Ways to … Stay Calm Under Immense Pressure

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Under intense pressure, our patterns of thought, judgment, and action can prove remarkably maladaptive. Here’s how to keep what’s already bad from worsening, stem the contingency, and take charge of dreadful circumstances.

  1. Be clear about what you need to do. Don’t over-optimize every variable. People who get stuff done under pressure precisely understand what they want. And they’re selective about when they push themselves to the max—only when the stakes are big enough and when the pressure is entirely justified.
  2. Do a threat assessment. Beware, pressure can narrow the cognitive map and blind you to become fixated on one line of thought. Keep an eye on all critical parameters and maintain awareness of the situation across the board.
  3. Put things into perspective. Reframe priorities and values. Stress is generally sourced in the feeling of not being in control, and tuning into the uncontrollable can intensify the pressure. Consider the situation objectively and ask what’s the worst that could happen. Have a plan ready, and focus on the task—not the outcome.

Idea for Impact: Mastery is a process. Practice simulated high-stress situations, just as pilots learn to handle panel instrument malfunctions on flight simulators.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Summary of Richard Carlson’s ‘Don’t Sweat The Small Stuff’
  2. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box
  3. Learn to Manage Your Negative Emotions and Yourself
  4. The More You Can Manage Your Emotions, the More Effective You’ll Be
  5. Expressive Writing Can Help You Heal

3 Ways to … Avoid Overthinking

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Overthinking and over-analyzing the causes and meaning of your thoughts can be tamed through greater self-awareness and mental disengagement.

  1. Set a time limit for your “thinking time,” then make yourself move on to something else or force your decision. Vent your worries to the world, but there’s a risk that you’ll end up even more confused if you keep asking everyone’s opinion. Most of the time, things aren’t as complicated as you perceive them.
  2. Pause and take a step back. Interrupt the thinking process or distract yourself by diverting your attention to something very different. Focused distraction can calm your mind and help you have a coherent view of the whole situation.
  3. Accept that uncertainty is part of this life, and you’ll never have all the facts or know what’s further down the road. Studies suggest we fear an unknown outcome more than a known bad one. Not everything you plan will work out, and that’s ok. It’s often better to set a clear course today and tackle problems that arise tomorrow.

Idea for Impact: Right-size your expectations. Overthinking comes from trying to control what you can’t control.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How To … Be More Confident in Your Choices
  2. Smart Folks are Most Susceptible to Overanalyzing and Overthinking
  3. Accidents Can Happen When You Least Expect Them: The Overconfidence Effect
  4. Situational Blindness, Fatal Consequences: Lessons from American Airlines 5342
  5. Presenting Facts Can Sometimes Backfire

Beware the Opportunity Cost of Meditating

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Many people claim to derive substantial benefits from mediation. Experiencing the present moment can help exclude the torrent of diverse thoughts and mind-wandering.

But sometimes, meditation may not be the most prudent use of your time, especially if you’re stressed.

Disruptive thoughts emerge when you sit down to meditate. Not engaging in them can be challenging if you aren’t an experienced meditator.

Unloading your mind precludes thinking and, in turn, making progress on your issues and dilemmas. Meditation increases the sense of time starvation. After your meditation session, your troubles are still there, only that now you have lesser time to solve them. And losing time is even palpable if you attend a meditation retreat for days or weeks.

Idea for Impact: Meditation is not a substitute for action. Sometimes you could benefit more from spending that time on more active approaches to deal with whatever’s stressing them out. Try journaling, thinking through what needs to be done, withdrawing to a secluded corner for focused work, chatting with friends and colleagues, or seeking counseling. As with meditation, these actions allow you to step back from your life to take a meta-view of whatever you want. That can reduce your stress and improve your approach to problems.

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  4. Stop Dieting, Start Savoring
  5. Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box

How to … Make a Memorable Elevator Speech

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With an elevator speech, you not only have a short time to elicit someone’s interest but also the added challenge of standing out from the crowd.

Your only goal should be to say something intriguing, memorable, and unique, prompting the prospect to lean in and invite, “Wait … do tell me more.”

I’ve listened to hundreds of elevator languages, and the few that continued out are the ones that sparked a conversation. Sameness and clichés are boring—everything sounds more or less the same. If, on the proverbial elevator, one must decide between ‘different’ or ‘better,’ one would choose ‘different.’ People remember ‘different.’

So, presenting yourself in the best possible light involves saying something snappy and ditching the details. Be concise and coherent, but not vague. Appear mysterious and confident, but not arrogant.

Idea for Impact: With an elevator speech, you’ll be forgotten if you aren’t unique and memorable. Rehearse your message well and be ready to perform it flawlessly at a moment’s notice.

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  5. Facts Alone Can’t Sell: Lessons from the Intel Pentium Integer Bug Disaster

How to … Prepare to Be Interviewed by The Media

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I’ve never stumbled upon a media guest who’s not been unhappy with the results of an on-camera interview. Most feel they looked nervous or uncertain, bumbled over their words or didn’t get across with clarity, or the interviewer focused on the wrong stuff.

  • Rehearse and practice. Prepare for your interview by dress-rehearsing through your talking points with a colleague. Record it, review the footage, and look at your articulation and body language. Do you appear calm, coherent, and confident?
  • Television draws attention to your posture, energy, and facial expression. Keep eye contact. Focus on the person asking the questions and not on the camera. The more your eyes move around, the less trustworthy you’ll appear. Align how you look with how you want to be perceived—dress in a dark suit to appear serious, roll your sleeves up to appear hard-working, and don a polo shirt if your message is fun and informal.
  • Know your message. Before the interview begins, decide on the three key points you want to get across and stick with them. Three is easy enough to remember. It’ll prevent you from getting caught up in the conversations in your head.
  • Figure out your story. Think through the essence of what it is you need to communicate. Get your facts straight. Think about what you are trying to get across and how you can make that story relevant and understandable to your audience.
  • Restrain yourself from thinking aloud. Keep your anecdotes short; don’t overestimate the fascination your audience will have with your personal life stories.
  • Avoid verbal fillers such as “um” and “ah” that can really hurt how you come across.
  • Allow yourself a second to collect your thoughts and structure your answer. Resist the temptation to think of additional details as you narrate the answer. You can provide a consistent and well-reasoned answer by sticking to the details and structure you had planned for. Be concise. Do not ramble on. Keep your soundbites short and your anecdotes simple.
  • Be prepared to be interrupted and sidetracked. If you have nothing to say about something, say nothing. Better still, if you know what you’ll be interviewed for, have something substantial to say about it and say it regardless of the questions you’re asked. Use transitional phrases such as “I think the real question is …,” “What’s important here is,” or “Let me draw attention to” and redirect the conversation if necessary.

If you’re in a position that requires you to speak to the media often, take a course or get a coach who can train you on becoming an effective spokesperson. An excellent resource is Media Training Bible (2012) by media trainer Brad Phillips.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. Here’s a Tactic to Sell Change: As a Natural Progression
  4. Lessons from JFK’s Inspiration Moon Landing Speeches
  5. How to … Make a Memorable Elevator Speech

Hooked on Feeling Needed?

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If, like many people, you just can’t say ‘no,’ consider if you’re hooked on feeling needed.

Take a hard, long look at yourself and examine if you unwittingly encourage—even need—people to come to you for every little thing.

Do you find affirmation in feeling needed? Do you try to do too much for others? Faced with an unpleasant task, do you look to turn our attention elsewhere? Do others’ interruptions offer reasons to do what you needn’t do and excuses to avoid doing what you’re supposed to do?

Idea for Impact: The greatest gift you can give those who need you is carving out time for your own critical tasks so you can be available when they really need you.

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  2. What Most People Get Wrong About Focus
  3. When Giving Up Can Be Good for You
  4. Don’t Say “Yes” When You Really Want to Say “No”
  5. Everything in Life Has an Opportunity Cost

When Someone Misuses Your Gift

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A gift is only a gift if it’s a joy to receive. It’s not an imposition about relevance.

A gift that inspires you may be a bad choice for the recipient. (I once received a gift certificate for an upscale steakhouse and got the phone promptly slammed on when I called to inquire about vegan dining options.) Or the recipient may think you’re using gifts to buy their affection or assert your preferences.

It’s understandable to feel disappointed when your gift isn’t used as you intended. Try to get over it. You gave the gift out of choice, and now you have no control over how the recipient uses the gift.

Getting your gift misused doesn’t mean they’re rejecting you. It just means that you have dissimilar tastes and preferences—a trait that most relationships should weather.

If you perceive you’ve hurt the recipient’s feelings, apologize and retract the gift in favor of something more appealing to the recipient.

Idea for Impact: Gift without expectations. And don’t expect to get it right always with your gift choices.

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  3. Stop Getting Caught in Other People’s Drama
  4. Ever Wonder Why People Resist Gifts? // Reactance Theory
  5. How to … Gracefully Exit a Conversation at a Party