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Right Attitudes

Ideas for Impact

Inspirational Quotations #728

March 18, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi

Kind words may be short… but their echoes are endless.
—Mother Teresa (Albanian Catholic Humanitarian)

Faith which does not doubt is dead faith.
—Miguel de Unamuno (Spanish Essayist)

Speech is power: speech is to persuade, to convert, to compel. It is to bring another out of his bad sense into your good sense.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Nothing truly can be termed my own, but what I make my own by using well; those deeds of charity which we have done, shall stay forever with us; and that wealth which we have so bestowed, we only keep; the other is not ours.
—Conyers Middleton (English Clergyman)

Who is the wisest man? He who neither knows or wishes for anything else than what happens.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

When you plant lettuce, if it does not grow well, you don’t blame the lettuce. You look into the reasons it is not doing well. It may need fertilizer, or more water, or less sun. You never blame the lettuce. Yet if we have problems with our friends or our family, we blame the other person. But if we know how to take care of them, they will grow well, like lettuce. Blaming has no positive effect at all, nor does trying to persuade using reason and arguments. That is my experience. No blame, no reasoning, no argument, just understanding. If you understand, and you show that you understand, you can love, and the situation will change.
—Thich Nhat Hanh (Vietnamese Buddhist Religious Leader)

He that is overcautious will accomplish but very little.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

The most common commodity in this country is unrealized potential.
—Calvin Coolidge (American Head of State)

He that opposes his own judgment against the consent of the times ought to be backed with unanswerable truths; and he that has truth on his side is a fool, as well as a coward, if he is afraid to own it because of other men’s opinions.
—Daniel Defoe (English Writer)

He who would be well taken care of must take care of himself.
—William Graham Sumner (American Polymath)

Dislodging a green nut from it’s shell is almost impossible, but let it dry and the lightest tap will do it.
—Ramakrishna Paramahamsa (Indian Hindu Philosopher)

All meaningful and lasting change starts first in your imagination and then works its way out. Imagination is more important than knowledge. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Literature is a luxury; fiction is a necessity.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

What Your Messy Desk Says About You

March 13, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Appearances are Important

Your office and desk must seem organized. A messy office or a cluttered desk can not only impede your space and cramp your style, but also affect how your peers and superiors perceive you.

Clutter can drag you down, sap your energy, and reduce your efficiency. However, if clutter is your style, you should have every right to work the way you like to work.

A messy desk isn’t a professional flaw, but clutter may reflect of your competence. Untidiness can give an impression that your job may be too much for you to handle, or that you can’t get your thoughts and information organized.

How to Conquer Your Paperwork Crisis

As opposed to sorting through everything in your drawers, desktop, and filing systems, consider removing the whole lot somewhere else and only allowing the important things back.

  • 'The Organized Executive' by Stephanie Winston (ISBN 0446676969) Stephanie Winston, author of The Organized Executive, famously wrote that each clutter represents a decision not made. In this bestselling book, she recommends the “TRAF” system, a precursor to the “Inbox Zero” discipline that I’ve previously discussed on this blog. TRAF is an acronym for the four decisions you must make on each piece of paper that arrives at your desk. You can Toss it away, Refer or delegate it to someone else, Act on it, or File it if it absolutely deserves to be achieved. Don’t keep anything merely for reasons of habit or for sentimental reasons.
  • Don’t start tomorrow with today’s mess. Spending ten minutes at the end of your workday gearing your desk up for the next day can help you stay organized.

After you’ve taken steps to reorganize your office, sustain your system. Look for ways to further streamline and fine-tune your organization framework.

Idea for Impact: Don’t Let Clutter Spin Out of Control and Affect Other’s Perceptions

Taking too much time to organize can be just as ineffective—don’t end up spending so much time organizing that you don’t have the time to do anything else. (This is one of the shortcomings of David Allen’s Getting This Done system.) Learn to put things away as soon as you’re done working on them.

Being organized not only means less time wasted looking for things, but also rewards you with a greater sense of control and a favorable professional image.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Dear Hoarder, Learn to Let Go
  2. Thinking Straight in the Age of Overload // Book Summary of Daniel Levitin’s ‘The Organized Mind’
  3. Zeigarnik Effect: How Incomplete Tasks Trigger Stress
  4. Everything in Life Has an Opportunity Cost
  5. Elevate Timing from Art to Science // Book Summary of Daniel Pink’s ‘When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing’

Filed Under: Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Biases, Books, Clutter, Decision-Making, Discipline, Motivation, Procrastination, Simple Living, Stress

Inspirational Quotations #727

March 11, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi

Good thoughts are no better than good dreams, unless they be executed!
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Philosopher)

Don’t abuse your friends and expect them to consider it criticism.
—E. W. Howe (American Novelist)

The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite.
—Arthur Schopenhauer (German Philosopher)

There is nothing of which every man is so afraid, as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.
—Soren Kierkegaard (Danish Philosopher, Theologian)

Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.
—Winston Churchill (British Head of State)

A torn jacket is soon mended; but hard words bruise the heart of a child.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (American Poet)

Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.
—Erica Jong (American Novelist)

Circumstances are the rulers of the weak; they are but the instruments of the wise.
—Samuel Lover (Irish Songwriter)

Trust not him that hath once broken faith; he who betrayed thee once, will betray thee again.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

The ability to recognize that the winds have shifted and to take appropriate action before you wreck your boat is crucial to the future of an enterprise.
—Andrew Grove (Hungarian-born American Businessperson)

It is not the amount of trade that makes the man poor or rich, but honest working and dealing.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

Society is no comfort to one not sociable.
—William Shakespeare (British Playwright)

A dream is your creative vision for your life in the future. A goal is what specifically you intend to make happen. Dreams and goals should be just out of your present reach but not out of sight. Dreams and goals are coming attractions in your life.
—Joseph Campbell

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.
—Warren Buffett (American Investor)

Human nature is so constituted that is we take absolutely no notice of anger or abuse, the person indulging in it will soon weary of it and stop.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Not everything that is more difficult is more meritorious.
—Thomas Aquinas (Italian Catholic Priest)

Reflect upon the defects of your character: thoroughly realize their evils and the transient pleasures they give you, and firmly will that you shall try your best not to yield to them the next time.
—Helena Blavatsky (Ukrainian-born American Theosophist)

He who goes no further than bare justice, stops at the beginning of virtue.
—Hugh Blair (Scottish Clergyman)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Here’s How to Improve Your Conversational Skills

March 8, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

A year and a half ago, I wrote a popular article titled, “Stop asking, ‘What do you do for a living?'” The crux of my argument was,

Chatting with somebody in socializing situations should be less about discerning the details of the other’s life to size up the other’s socioeconomic status, and more about building a bit of familiarity to initiate stimulating conversations about topics of mutual interest.

A recent Harvard Business Review blog article on networking argues that the ‘what do you do?’ question may not be the best way to build rapport with someone else.

Research findings from the world of network science and psychology suggests that we tend to prefer and seek out relationships where there is more than one context for connecting with the other person. Sociologists refer to these as multiplex ties, connections where there is an overlap of roles or affiliations from a different social context. … We may prefer relationships with multiplex ties because research suggests that relationships built on multiplex ties tend to be richer, more trusting, and longer lasting.

The article gives examples of open-ended questions that could elicit non-work-related answers.

  • What excites you right now?
  • What are you looking forward to?
  • What’s the best thing that happened to you this year?
  • Where did you grow up?
  • What do you do for fun?
  • Who is your favorite superhero?
  • Is there a charitable cause you support?
  • What’s the most important thing I should know about you?

These inquiries could be helpful once you have a conversation going—they don’t make good initial questions. I’ve found it helpful to start with simple questions (“how do you know the hosts” or “is this your first time in this city”) and wait for personal details to flow into the conversation naturally.

Another practice I’ve found helpful is to ask to be introduced. Request your host to mention common interests when you are introduced to a new person in the gathering.

Susan RoAne’s How to Work a Room and Do I Say Next? provide great guidelines on how to make your business and personal conversations more effective.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Witty Comebacks and Smart Responses for Nosy People
  2. Avoid Trigger Words: Own Your Words with Grace and Care
  3. Don’t Be Interesting—Be Interested!
  4. You Always Have to Say ‘Good’
  5. How to … Gracefully Exit a Conversation at a Party

Filed Under: Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Conversations, Etiquette, Getting Along, Humility, Likeability, Networking, Social Life, Social Skills

Inspirational Quotations #726

March 4, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi

In reading the lives of great men, I found that the first victory they won was over themselves … self-discipline with all of them came first.
—Harry S. Truman (American Head of State)

When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.
—Sydney Smith (English Anglican Writer)

Solitude has a healing consoler, friend, companion: it is work.
—Berthold Auerbach (German Jewish Poet)

What men call knowledge, is the reasoned acceptance of false appearances. Wisdom looks behind the veil and sees.
—Sri Aurobindo (Indian Yogi, Nationalist)

Character is the result of hundreds and hundreds of choices you make that gradually turn who you are, at any given moment, into who you want to be.
—Jim Rohn (American Entrepreneur)

When life takes the wind out of your sails, it is to test you at the oars.
—Robert Brault

Show me a completely contented person and I’ll show you a failure.
—Thomas Edison (American Inventor)

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.
—Denis Waitley (American Motivational Speaker)

A good character is the best tombstone. Those who loved you, and were helped by you, will remember you when forget-me-nots are withered. Carve your name on hearts, and not on marble.
—Charles Spurgeon (British Baptist Preacher)

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.
—C. S. Lewis (Irish-born British Children’s Books Writer)

Whatever bad awaits, don’t let it spoil the present moment.
—Marty Nemko (American Career Coach, Author)

If your heart acquires strength, you will be able to remove blemishes from others without thinking evil of them.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Education is the progressive realization of our ignorance.
—Albert Einstein (German-born Theoretical Physicist)

Money is always on its way somewhere. What you do with it while it is in your keeping and the direction you send it in say much about you. Your treatment of and respect for money, how you make it, and how you spend it, reflect your character.
—Gary Ryan Blair

Man’s mind stretched by a new idea, never goes back to its original dimensions.
—Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (American Physician)

Character is much easier kept than recovered.
—Thomas Paine (American Nationalist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Lessons from Peter Drucker: Quit What You Suck At

March 1, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi 1 Comment

The essence of leadership is risk- and opportunity-assessment and resource allocation. It follows that one of the persistent responsibilities of leadership is to mull over each individual and organizational endeavor and investigate, “Do we produce results that are meaningful and profitable enough for us to justify investing our resources to this purpose?”

Jack Welch’s Strategy for General Electric: #1 or #2 Businesses Only

When Jack Welch became CEO of General Electric (GE) in 1981, he set out to make GE “the world’s most competitive enterprise.” However, the company was a hodgepodge of many businesses—some unrelated or irrelevant, several unprofitable, and a few at the brink of failure.

Management pioneer Peter Drucker famously advised Welch to ask of each constituent of the GE business portfolio he now presided over, “If you weren’t already this business, would you enter it today? And, if the answer is no, what are you going to do about it?”

Welch’s responded with his legendary dictum that every GE division be—or become—the leading or the runner-up business in its respective industry, or plan to exit it completely.

Welch argued that in many markets, the number three, four, five, or six players suffered the most during cyclical downturns. On the contrary, number one or number two businesses could protect their market share by way of aggressive pricing approaches or by developing new products. Welch’s approach portended the emergence of oligopolies in many industries.

The resultant strategic focus eventually led to an immense restructuring of GE. Welch sold or discontinued dozens of divisions—including computers and time-shares. Over the next decade, he cut nearly one in four jobs at GE, warranting the nickname “Neutron Jack.”

By year 2000, GE had reached dominance or near dominance in most of its business markets across the globe.

Peter Drucker on Strategic Reprioritization

'Post-Capitalist Society' by Peter Drucker (ISBN 0887306616) Explaining this method of strategic reprioritization, Drucker wrote in Post-Capitalist Society (1993,)

To turn around any institution—whether a business, a labor union, a university, a hospital, or a government—requires always the same three steps:

  1. Abandonment of the things that do not work, the things that have never worked; the things that have outlived their usefulness and their capacity to contribute;
  2. Concentration on the things that do work, the things that produce results, the things that improve the organization’s capacity to perform; and
  3. Analysis of the half successes, half failures. A turnaround requires abandoning whatever does not perform and doing more of whatever does perform.

'Five Most Important Questions' by Peter Drucker (ISBN 0470227567) Drucker further elaborated on abandonment as the keystone for strategic reprioritization in his Five Most Important Questions (2015,)

To abandon anything is always bitterly resisted. People in any organization are always attached to the obsolete—the things that should have worked but did not, the things that once were productive and no longer are. They are most attached to what in an earlier book I called “investments in managerial ego.” Yet abandonment comes first. Until that has been accomplished, little else gets done. The acrimonious and emotional debate over what to abandon holds everybody in its grip. Abandoning anything is thus difficult, but only for a fairly short spell. Rebirth can begin once the dead are buried; six months later, everybody wonders, “Why did it take us so long?”

Idea for Impact: Assess What Endeavors Must Be Intensified or Abandoned

Don’t do—or continue to do—something just because it’s been a tradition, custom, or habit. Strengthen, abandon, or stay on. Align your efforts with your mission, your values, and the results you want to achieve.

If you abandon something important mistakenly, you can quickly pick up where you left off.

Invest your precious resources where the returns are rich.

Figure out what’s vital and stay focused, even if you have to cut your losses (read about sunk costs.)

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Let Go of Sunk Costs
  2. Why Major Projects Fail: Summary of Bent Flyvbjerg’s Book ‘How Big Things Get Done’
  3. The Tyranny of Previous Success: How John Donahoe’s Tech Playbook Made Nike Uncool
  4. Hofstadter’s Law: Why Everything Takes Longer Than Anticipated
  5. Warren Buffett’s Advice on How to Focus on Priorities and Subdue Distractions

Filed Under: Business Stories, Leadership, Leading Teams, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Biases, Decision-Making, Discipline, Jack Welch, Leadership, Leadership Lessons, Management, Peter Drucker, Strategy, Targets, Time Management, Wisdom

What Airline Disasters Teach About Cognitive Impairment and Decision-Making Under Stress

February 27, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

Airline disasters often make great case studies on how a series of insignificant errors can build up into catastrophes.

As the following two case studies will illuminate, unanticipated pressures can force your mind to quickly shift to a panic-like state. As it searches frenetically for a way out of a problem, your mind can disrupt your ability to take account of all accessible evidence and attend rationally to the situation in its entirety.

Stress Can Blind You and Limit Your Ability to See the Bigger Picture: A Case Study on Eastern Airlines Flight 401

Eastern Airlines Flight 401 crashed on December 29, 1972, killing 101 people.

As Flight 401 began its approach into the Miami International Airport, first officer Albert Stockstill lowered the landing gear. But the landing gear indicator, a green light to verify that the nose gear was correctly locked in the “down” position, did not switch on. (This was later verified to be caused by a burned-out light bulb. Regardless of the indicator, the landing gear could have been manually lowered and verified.)

The flight deck got thrown into a disarray. The flight’s captain, Bob Loft, sent flight engineer Don Repo to the avionics bay underneath the flight deck to verify through a small porthole if the landing gear was actually down. Loft simultaneously directed Stockstill to put the aircraft on autopilot. Then, when Loft unintentionally leaned against the aircraft’s yoke to speak to Repo, the autopilot mistakably switched to a wrong setting that did not hold the aircraft’s altitude.

The aircraft began to descend so gradually that it could not be perceived by the crew. With the flight engineer down in the avionics bay, the captain and the first officer were so preoccupied with the malfunction of the landing gear indicator that they failed to pay attention to the altitude-warning signal from the engineer’s instrument panel.

Additionally, given that the aircraft was flying over the dark terrain of the Everglades in nighttime, no ground lights or other visual cues signaled that the aircraft was gradually descending. When Stockstill eventually became aware of the aircraft’s altitude, it was too late to recover the aircraft from crashing.

In summary, the cause of the Flight 401’s crash was not the nose landing gear, but the crew’s negligence and inattention to a bigger problem triggered by a false alarm.

Stress Can Blind You into Focusing Just on What You Think is Happening: A Case Study on United Airlines Flight 173

United Airlines Flight 173 crashed on December 28, 1978, in comparable circumstances.

When Flight 173’s pilots lowered the landing gear upon approach to the Portland International Airport, the aircraft experienced an abnormal vibration and yaw motion. In addition, the pilots observed that an indicator light did not show that the landing gear was lowered successfully. In reality, the landing gear was down and locked in position.

With the intention of troubleshooting the landing gear problem, the pilots entered a holding pattern. For the next hour, they tried to diagnose the landing gear glitch and prepare for a probable emergency landing. During this time, however, none of the pilots monitored the fuel levels.

When the landing gear problem was first suspected, the aircraft had abundant reserve fuel—even for a diversion or other contingencies. But, all through the hour-long holding procedure, the landing gear was down and the flaps were set to 15 degrees in anticipation of a landing. This significantly increased the aircraft’s fuel burn rate. With fuel exhaustion to all four engines, the aircraft crashed.

To sum up, Flight 173’s crew got preoccupied with the landing gear’s malfunction and harried preparations for an emergency landing. As a result of their inattention, the pilots failed to keep tabs on the fuel state and crashed the aircraft.

Stress Can Derail Your Train of Thought

Under pressure, your mind will digress from its rational model of thinking.

The emotional excitement from fear, anxiety, time-pressure, and stress can lead to a phenomenon known as “narrowing of the cognitive map.” This tunnel vision can restrict your field of mindful attention and impair your ability for adequate discernment.

Situational close-mindedness can constrict your across-the-board awareness of the situation and force you overlook alternative lines of thought.

Idea for Impact: To combat cognitive impairment under stress, use checklists and standard operating procedures, as well as increased training on situational awareness, crisis communication, and emergency management, as the aviation industry did in response to the aforementioned incidents.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. How Stress Impairs Your Problem-Solving Capabilities: Case Study of TransAsia Flight 235
  2. Lessons from the World’s Worst Aviation Disaster // Book Summary of ‘The Collision on Tenerife’
  3. Lessons from the Princeton Seminary Experiment: People in a Rush are Less Likely to Help Others (and Themselves)
  4. “Fly the Aircraft First”
  5. Under Pressure, The Narrowing Cognitive Map: Lessons from the Tragedy of Singapore Airlines Flight 6

Filed Under: Business Stories, Mental Models, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Anxiety, Aviation, Decision-Making, Emotions, Mindfulness, Problem Solving, Risk, Stress, Thinking Tools, Thought Process, Worry

Inspirational Quotations #725

February 25, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi

A person well satisfied with themselves is seldom satisfied with others, and others, rarely are with them.
—Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Sorrow is mere rust of the soul; activity will cleanse and brighten it.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind.
—Oliver Goldsmith (Irish Author)

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world—that is the myth of the atomic age—as in being able to remake ourselves.
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (Indian Hindu Political leader)

Wise to resolve, patient to perform.
—Friedrich Schiller (German Poet)

Miracles seldom occur in the lives of those who do not consider them possible.
—Neale Donald Walsch (American Spiritual Writer)

Leadership is not magnetic personality–that can just as well be a glib tongue. It is not making friends and influencing people—that is flattery. Leadership is lifting a person’s vision to higher sights, the raising of a person’s performance to a higher standard, the building of a personality beyond its normal limitations.
—Peter Drucker (Austrian-born Management Consultant)

No man is great enough or wise enough for any of us to surrender our destiny to. The only way in which anyone can lead us is to restore to us the belief in our own guidance.
—Henry Miller (American Novelist)

There is no fire like passion, there is no shark like hatred, there is no snare like folly, there is no torrent like greed.
—The Dhammapada (Buddhist Anthology of Verses)

The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
—Cicero (Roman Philosopher)

The result of the educative process is capacity for further education.
—John Dewey (American Philosopher)

Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition.
—Jacques Barzun (French-born American Historian)

Tough times never last, but tough people do.
—Robert H. Schuller

Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others.
—Ambrose Bierce (American Editor)

Actions speak louder than words.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

And above all things, never think that you’re not good enough yourself. A man should never think that. My belief is that in life people will take you at your own reckoning.
—Anthony Trollope (English Novelist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotations #724

February 18, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi

Whoever said, “It’s not whether you win or lose that counts,” probably lost.
—Martina Navratilova (Czech-born American Sportsperson)

The first duty to children is to make them happy.—If you have not made them so, you have wronged them.—No other good they may get can make up for that.
—Charles Buxton

The horse fed too freely with oats oft becomes unruly.
—The Talmud (Sacred Text of the Jewish Faith)

A man may imagine things that are false, but he can only understand things that are true, for if the things be false, the apprehension of them is not understanding.
—Isaac Newton (English Physicist)

We are more sociable, and get on better with people by the heart than the intellect.
—Jean de La Bruyere

We live in a wonderful world that is full of beauty, charm and adventure. There is no end to the adventures that we can have if only we seek them with our eyes open.
—Jawaharlal Nehru (Indian Head of State)

The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing that stands in the way. Some see nature all ridicule and deformity … and some scarce see nature at all. But to the eyes of the man of imagination, nature is imagination itself.
—William Blake (English Poet)

The intensity of your desire governs the power with which the force is directed.
—John D. MacDonald (American Novelist)

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
—G. K. Chesterton (English Journalist)

If you do not wish a thing heard, do not say it.
—John M. Ford (American Novelist)

When men yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.
—Thomas Paine (American Nationalist)

Instruction does much, but encouragement does everything.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (German Poet)

I have the greatest of all riches: that of not desiring them.
—Eleonora Duse

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labors in any great or laudable undertaking has his fatigues first supported by hope and afterward rewarded by joy.
—Samuel Johnson (British Essayist)

We are always too busy for our children; we never give them the time or interest they deserve. We lavish gifts upon them; but the most precious gift, our personal association, which means so much to them, we give grudgingly.
—Mark Twain (American Humorist)

Filed Under: Inspirational Quotations

Writing Clearly and Concisely

February 13, 2018 By Nagesh Belludi Leave a Comment

In my judgment, most books should be booklets, most booklets essays, most essays articles, most articles paragraphs, and most paragraphs should be statements.

It is far more important to write well than most folks realize. Writing not only communicates ideas, it also generates them—in the minds of both the author and the reader.

Effective Writing is a Lifelong Pursuit

One of my 2018 goals is to peruse two classic texts on writing clearly and concisely: William Strunk and E.B. White’s The Elements of Style (1918) and William Zinsser’s On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction (1980.)

'The Elements of Style' by Strunk & White (ISBN 1940177480) Strunk and White affirm that brevity is the essence of good writing in these three sentences:

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. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell.

Succinctness, simplicity, and humanity are also dominant objectives in William Zinsser’s On Writing Well.

Look for the clutter in your writing and prune it ruthlessly. Be grateful for everything you can throw away. Re-examine each sentence you put on paper. Is every word doing new work? Can any thought be expressed with more economy? Is anything pompous or pretentious or faddish? Are you hanging on to something useless just because you think it’s beautiful? Simplify, simplify.

'On Writing Well' by William Zinsser (ISBN 0060891548) On Writing Well is a celebrated guide to concise, unmistakable, and well-crafted writing. The book has sold several million copies worldwide, and is a required reading at many a university course.

Good writing doesn’t come naturally, though most people seem to think it does … Writing is hard work. A clear sentence is no accident. Very few sentences come out right the first time, or even the third time. Remember this in moments of despair. If you find that writing is hard, it’s because it is hard.

Zinsser’s central premise is that good writing is the result of hard work, not inborn talent. The book’s particular strength is in Zinsser’s selection of paragraphs by great writers, and his instruction on how to learn from those writers: “Writing is learned by imitation. If anyone asked me how I learned to write, I’d say I learned by reading the men and women who were doing the kind of writing I wanted to do and trying to figure out how they did it.”

On Writing Well is a must-read for anyone who writes and desires to his or her prose. Read Derek Sivers’ helpful synopsis of the book.

Wondering what to read next?

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  3. The Truth about Being a Young Entrepreneur
  4. Beware of Advice from the Superstars
  5. Book Summary of Oprah Winfrey’s ‘The Path Made Clear’

Filed Under: Career Development, Effective Communication, Sharpening Your Skills Tagged With: Books, Geting Ahead, Learning, Personal Growth, Role Models

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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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Taking Advice

Taking Advice: Dan Ciampa

Executive coach Dan Ciampa offers an excellent framework on the advice network you need on strategic, operational, political, and personal elements of your work and life.

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