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A Grateful Heart, A Happy Heart // Book Summary of Janice Kaplan’s ‘The Gratitude Diaries’

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At one dismal New Year’s Eve party, veteran author and journalist Janice Kaplan heard a woman gripe and grumble. While reflecting on this experience, Kaplan realized that she herself had much to be grateful for, but frequently wasn’t. She resolved to “spend the coming year seeing the sunshine instead of the clouds.”

That self-declaration was the genesis of an inspiring yearlong experiment in living gratefully and concluding that being thankful really does offer a conduit to happiness.

'The Gratitude Diaries' by Janice Kaplan (ISBN 1101984147) Kaplan recounts her transformation “from grumpy to grateful” in her book The Gratitude Diaries: How a Year Looking on the Bright Side Can Transform Your Life (2015.)

Throughout the year, Kaplan maintained a gratitude journal and wrote down three things that she was thankful for each day. She also decided to “find one area to focus on each month—whether husband, family, friends, or work—and become my own social scientist. I wanted to see what happened when I developed an attitude of gratitude.”

Here are a few highlights from The Gratitude Diaries:

  • Kaplan started her yearlong gratitude experiment by appraising her marriage and recognized all over again what a good man her husband was. “When you expect everything, it’s hard to be grateful for anything. So I decided that now was the time to put aside impossible expectations and start appreciating [my] husband.” After she expressed appreciation to her startled husband, “the warm feelings between us [grew] stronger than ever…. Gratitude was making us both a lot happier.”
  • Discussing the importance of not overlooking one’s blessings, Kaplan writes, “We get used to something—whether a husband, a house, or a shiny new car—and then forget why it seemed so special in the first place.”
  • One month, Kaplan instituted a “no-complaining zone.” Writing about the need to emphasize life’s positives over its negatives, Kaplan mentions, “If you can change something that’s making you unhappy, go ahead and change it. But if it’s done, gone, or inevitable, what greater gift can you give yourself than gratitude for whatever life did bring?”
  • Kaplan discusses the story of her heartfelt and earnest reconciliation with her sister. This meaningful experience was the beginning a “new friendship” and had both women “appreciating the good in the moment rather than fussing about the past.”
  • Kaplan concludes, “gratitude lodged deeper and deeper into my heart and soul…. Gratitude affected how I looked at every event that happened. Being positive and looking for the good had become second nature—and that made me much happier.” And, “by living gratefully, I’d had the happiest twelve months I could remember.”

'The Gratitude Diaries' by Janice Kaplan

Recommended: Speed Read. Janice Kaplan’s The Gratitude Diaries confirms that gratitude truly is an attitude—how you feel has less to do with events that occur in your life and more to do with your attitudes. Kaplan’s experiment substantiates that keeping a gratitude journal boosts your sense of wellbeing. With interviews on gratefulness with psychologists, friends, and other thankful people, The Gratitude Diaries encourages you to pause, take stock of your blessings, and be grateful for what you have in life in order to make life more pleasant, gratifying, and peaceful.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Kindness: A Debt You Can Only Pass On
  2. Treating Triumph and Disaster Just the Same // Book Summary of Pema Chödrön’s ‘The Wisdom of No Escape’
  3. Gratitude Can Hold You Back
  4. Confucius on Dealing with People
  5. No Duty is More Pressing Than That of Gratitude: My Regret of Missing the Chance to Thank Prof. Sathya

Inspirational Quotations #659

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One who gains strength by overcoming obstacles possesses the only strength which can overcome adversity.
—Albert Schweitzer (French Theologian)

The excesses of love soon pass, but its insufficiencies torment us forever.
—Mignon McLaughlin (American Journalist)

Get mad, then get over it.
—Colin Powell (American Military Leader)

The simplest things are often the truest.
—Richard Bach (American Novelist)

The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie—deliberate, contrived, and dishonest—but the myth—persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.
—John F. Kennedy (American Head of State)

A pat on the back is only a few vertebrae removed from a kick in the pants, but is miles ahead in results.
—Ella Wheeler Wilcox (American Poet)

Do the truth ye know, and you shall learn the truth you need to know.
—George MacDonald (Scottish Christian Author)

Unless you are willing to drench yourself in your work beyond the capacity of the average man, you are just not cut out for positions at the top.
—James Cash Penney (American Entrepreneur)

In the final analysis, the questions of why bad things happen to good people transmutes itself into some very different questions, no longer asking why something happened, but asking how we will respond, what we intend to do now that it happened.
—Harold Kushner (American Jewish Religious Leader)

You must have the devil in you to succeed in the arts.
—Voltaire (French Philosopher)

From the deepest desires often come the deadliest hate.
—Socrates (Anceient Greek Philosopher)

Hope is a light diet, but very stimulating.
—Honore de Balzac (French Novelist)

It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it.
—Anais Nin (French-American Essayist)

The Art of Taking Action: Use The Two Minute “Do-it-Now” Rule

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The Art of Taking Action: Use The Two Minute Do-it-Now Rule

Many tasks that people tend to procrastinate on aren’t really difficult to do. People have the ability, energy, and time to undertake such tasks, but just aren’t disciplined enough to not dodge starting them for one reason or another.

One particular habit that robs people of time is putting all their tasks on a to-do list, prioritizing the list, and then tackling the tasks by priority. But it’s often wiser to skip the to-do list and simply do many tasks immediately. This constitutes the Two Minute Do-it-Now Rule, a discipline popularized by David Allen in his bestselling time management book, Getting Things Done. This rule directs you to act immediately on a contemplated task if it can be completed in less than two minutes.

  • You’ll not only save the time it takes to put the task on your to-do list, but also prevent the buildup of tasks hanging over your head.
  • By limiting the time you’re allocating to get the task done, you can finish it more efficiently and avoid being perfectionistic about it. (See my previous article on Parkinson’s Law, which states that work tends to expand to fill up the time you give it.)
  • You’ll avoid procrastination by getting the task done straightaway and not letting it fall through the cracks. Therefore, this technique has the added advantage of making you appear responsive.

Idea for Impact: Don’t put a task on your to-do list if you can get it done within two minutes. You’ll be surprised at how many tasks you tend to put off that you could get done in two minutes or less.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Five Ways … You Could Stop Procrastinating
  2. How to Avoid the Sunday Night Blues
  3. How to (Finally!) Stop Procrastinating, Just Do It
  4. How to … Make Work Less Boring
  5. How to Turn Your Procrastination Time into Productive Time

How to Conquer Cynicism at Your Workplace

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Enthusiasm rubs off on others

A few weeks ago, I met a friend at Chick-fil-A. When it was my turn to order, I told the woman taking our orders that I am vegetarian and couldn’t eat much of the offerings on her menu. The woman asked me, “How about a milkshake? I make the best strawberry milkshake!” I could not misjudge her sincerity and pride. It’s not often that one is asked anything like that at any service-business, let alone at a fast food chain restaurant.

In a world of work that’s so rampant with cynicism, there’s nothing more refreshing than encountering employees who are engaged, cheerful, and take pride in what they do.

In the same vein, in The HP Way (see my summary & review), author David Packard and co-founder recalls an engaged worker at Hewlett-Packard:

I recall the time, many years ago, when I was walking around a machine shop, accompanied by the shop’s manager. We stopped briefly to watch a machinist making a polished plastic mold die. He had spent a long time polishing it and was taking a final cut at it. Without thinking, I reached down and wiped it with my finger. The machinist said, “Get your finger off my die!” The manager quickly asked him, “Do you know who this is?” To which the machinist replied, “I don’t care!” He was right and I told him so. He had an important job and was proud of his work.

How to conquer cynicism and negativity in a workplace

Cynicism is an upshot of distrust in the workplace. Cynics have misgivings about their managers’ and leaders’ motives. Cynics are further aggravated by the comparatively lofty salaries commanded by corporate leaders. The once-presumed social contract between employers and employees has dissolved, and cynics believe that given the chance, their employers will exploit their contributions.

The damage of cynicism is evident in lower levels of commitment, distrust, blame, criticism, politicking, divisiveness, pessimism, negativity, and sarcasm. Moreover, cynicism worsens with employees’ age and tenure.

Here’s how to conquer cynicism:

  • Firstly, don’t be cynical yourself. If you display even a hint of pessimism, you’re likely to feed into your team’s cynicism, especially if you’re a manager.
  • Try to love—at least show some passion—what you do and whom you work with. Passion for your work brings a remarkable sense of meaning and attracts opportunities for growth.
  • Recognize that people bring their entire selves to their jobs; they don’t turn off their hearts and souls when they come to work. Today’s demanding and competitive workplace requires of employees not only stamina to work exceptionally hard but also their hearts-and-minds’ commitment to bring creativity and insight to their efforts.
  • Care for people and understand what drives them. Money is not as powerful a motivator for most people than when they truly don’t have enough of it. Beyond a threshold, people are more motivated at work by the opportunity to learn, grow in responsibilities, contribute to a cause, and get recognition for their achievements.
  • Encourage two-way flow of information, identify and change stress-provoking work patterns, clarify their roles, convey clear and concise objectives, coach and give regular feedback.

Idea for Impact: Employees who are engaged are more productive. Determine what makes your employees most engaged in their work. Ask what parts of their jobs they like the best and what you could do to decrease their job pressures. Engage them by tapping into their natural talents and strengths.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Never Criticize Little, Trivial Faults
  2. Why Your Employees Don’t Trust You—and What to Do About it
  3. The Jerk Dilemma: The Double-Edged Sword of a ‘No Jerks Here’ Policy
  4. How to … Lead Without Driving Everyone Mad
  5. The Boss’s Balancing Act: Too Close vs. Too Distant

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Louis Stevenson (#658)

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Today marks the birthday of Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–94,) the Scottish adventurer and author of novels, short stories, essays, and travel literature.

Stevenson is best known for his novels Treasure Island (1883,) Kidnapped (1886) and Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1886.) and his collection of poetry A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885.)

Stevenson suffered from a lung disease from a very early age. When he couldn’t sleep at night, his nurse stayed up with him and told him stories of ghosts, monsters, and pirates. He studied law but never practiced it. Instead, he traveled and wrote books about his experiences.

'Treasure Island' by Robert Louis Stevenson (ISBN 1505297400) One rainy summer afternoon, Stevenson painted a map of an imaginary island to amuse his stepson. This and the pirate stories he frequently told his stepson inspired the idea for his first great adventure novel, Treasure Island (1883.) Subsequently, he wrote Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1885) in just three days. Those two novels made Stevenson rich and famous.

For the rest of his life, Stevenson traveled continuously in search of a suitable climate to improve his health. He suffered from ill health all through adulthood and did much of his writing from his sickbed. Stevenson and his wife tried living in Switzerland, Scotland, France, England, and America. They eventually settled in Apia, the capital of Samoa, where the locals christened him “Tusitala” (teller of tales.)

When Stevenson died from cerebral hemorrhage at age 44, he was buried at a spot on Mount Vaea overlooking the Pacific Ocean. His gravestone was inscribed with his poem “Requiem”:

Under the wide and starry sky,

Dig the grave and let me lie.

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

This be the verse you grave for me:

Here he lies where he longed to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

Inspirational Quotations by Robert Louis Stevenson

You cannot run away from a weakness. You must sometimes fight it out or perish; and if that be so, why not now, and where you stand?
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life’s plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A man finds he has been wrong at every stage of his career, only to deduce the astonishing conclusion that he is at last entirely right.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

We are all travelers in the wilderness of the world, and the best that we can find in our travels is an honest friend.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The cruelest lies are often told in silence. A man may have sat in a room for hours and not opened his mouth, and yet come out of that room a disloyal friend or a vile calumniator.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

There is only one difference between a long life and a good dinner: that, in the dinner, the sweets come last.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Marriage is one long conversation, checkered by disputes.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

An aim in life is the only fortune worth finding; and it is not to be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

It is the mark of a good action that it appears inevitable, in retrospect.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The existence of a man is so small a thing to take, so mighty a thing to employ.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A generous prayer is never presented in vain; the petition may be refused, but the petitioner is always, I believe, rewarded by some gracious visitation.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To know what you prefer, instead of humbly saying “Amen” to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to keep your soul alive.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Our business in this world is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A friend is a present you give to yourself.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

All sorts of allowances are made for the illusions of youth; and none, or almost none, for the disenchantments of age.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Youth is wholly experimental.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Don’t write merely to be understood. Write so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be the gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though another candle had been lighted.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, nor a friend to know me; all I ask, the heavens above, and the road below me.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Money alone is only a mean; it presupposes a man to use it. The rich man can go where he pleases, but perhaps please himself nowhere. He can buy a library or visit the whole world, but perhaps has neither patience to read nor intelligence to see…. The purse may be full and the heart empty. He may have gained the world and lost himself; and with all his wealth around him … he may live as blank a life as any tattered ditcher.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Talk is by far the most accessible of pleasures. It costs nothing in money, it is all profit, it completes our education, founds and fosters our friendships, and can be enjoyed at any age and in almost any state of health.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

It is a golden maxim to cultivate the garden for the nose, and the eyes will take care of themselves.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To hold the same views at forty as we held at twenty is to have been stupefied for a score of years, and take rank, not as a prophet, but as an unteachable brat, well birched and none the wiser.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

To be wholly devoted to some intellectual exercise is to have succeeded in life.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Our affections and beliefs are wiser than we; the best that is in us is better than we can understand; for it is grounded beyond experience, and guides us, blindfold but safe, from one age on to another.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

The price we have to pay for money is sometimes liberty.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

Anyone can carry his burden, however hard, until nightfall. Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day. Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, till the sun goes down. And this is all that life really means.
—Robert Louis Stevenson (Scottish Novelist)

David Ogilvy on Russian Nesting Dolls and Building a Company of Giants

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In the Company of Giants

Ogilvy & Mather founder and creative genius David Ogilvy (1911–1999) designed some of the world’s most successful and iconic marketing campaigns, including the legendary Man in the Hathaway Shirt advertisement.

Ogilvy left a rich legacy of ideas in his books. Confessions of an Advertising Man and Ogilvy on Advertising describe how he approached his creative life and aimed for greatness rather than settling for second best.

David Ogilvy on Hiring Smart

'Ogilvy on Advertising' by David Ogilvy (ISBN 039472903X) In the preface of an Ogilvy & Mather recruiting brochure, Ogilvy explained the high creative standards and attitudes he expected of his employees:

We are looking for gentlemen with ideas in their heads and fire in their bellies. If you join Ogilvy & Mather, we shall teach you everything we know about advertising. We shall pay you well, and do our damnedest to make you succeed. If you show promise, we shall load responsibility on you—fast. Life in our agency can be very exciting. You will never be bored. It’s tough, but it’s fun.

Ogilvy directed his recruiters to seek out highflyers, “Hot creative people don’t come around looking for jobs; they have to be rooted out like truffles by trained pigs. Do our trained pigs do any rooting? I don’t think so.”

Recruiting brilliant people is a kind of brilliance in itself

In his bestselling Ogilvy on Advertising, Ogilvy described how recruiting smart people was the key to transforming his advertising agency into a global advertising, marketing and public relations giant. He wrote,

When someone is made the head of an office in the Ogilvy & Mather chain, I send him a Matrioshka doll from Gorky. If he has the curiosity to open it, and keep opening it until he comes to the inside of the smallest doll, he finds this message:

“If each of us hires people who are smaller than we are, we shall become a company of dwarfs. But if each of us hires people who are bigger than we are, we shall become a company of giants.”

Entrepreneurship guru Guy Kawasaki echoed the importance of hiring smarter people and recalled in Reality Check that, when he worked at Apple in 1984, “In the Macintosh Division, we had a saying, ‘A players hire A players; B players hire C players’—meaning that great people hire great people. On the other hand, mediocre people hire candidates who are not as good as they are, so they can feel superior to them. If you start down this slippery slope, you’ll soon end up with Z players; this is called the Bozo Explosion.”

The best managers hire employees with superior intellect—and revel in it

Managers are typically judged not on their personal output but on how well they’ve hired, coached, and motivated their people—individually and collectively.

A wise manager hires employees who are smarter, more creative, and more talented than the manager is. The new employees’ talents will improve the entire team’s performance and reputation—even the manager’s.

In contrast, a mediocre manager feels threatened by underlings who seem more intelligent than the manager is. Mediocre managers tend to hire down—they fear that a superior employee could make the manager look inferior and perhaps hold back their career progress.

Idea for Impact: People make or break businesses; so hire people who are smarter than you are.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. General Electric’s Jack Welch Identifies Four Types of Managers
  2. How to Manage Overqualified Employees
  3. Why Hiring Self-Leaders is the Best Strategy
  4. Fire Fast—It’s Heartless to Hang on to Bad Employees
  5. How to Hire People Who Are Smarter Than You Are

Cope with Anxiety and Stop Obsessive Worrying by Creating a Worry Box

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Most worry is ultimately fruitless

Worries and concerns trouble us all. We waste valuable time worrying about things. As the American motivational author Leo Buscaglia once wrote, “Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”

In a previous article, I suggested a mindfulness exercise to help you realize the temporal nature of worry. I also emphasized that most of your anticipated adversities will never occur.

Despite the transitional nature of anxiety and worry, mental anguishes can overwhelm your mind. Sometimes these negative emotions can spill over and seep into the fabric of your day.

Obsessive anxiety and worry can wreak havoc on your body. Stress from worrying about life’s many “what ifs” can actually manifest in physical and medical problems, if you let them. For instance, say you are troubled about an upcoming exam in your least favorite course at college. Your worrying could become so compulsive that your apprehensions about the exam could interfere with whatever else is going on in your life. If unchecked, your worry could manifest in higher acid levels in your stomach. Then, you may start worrying about developing stomach problems if you don’t stop worrying. Your worries thus snowball and consume even more of your time.

Writing about your anxieties and worries can help you cope with current concerns

An effective way to stop agonizing and let go of troubling thoughts is to keep a “worry box.”

  1. Find a box and designate it as your worry box. Keep it in a handy location. (A “worry journal” may be just as effective.)
  2. Whenever you feel drowned in worries or have anxious thoughts circulating ceaselessly in your mind, take a piece of paper and jot down each worry as it arises. Write down as much about your worries as you feel like writing.
  3. Drop your note into the worry box. Try to imagine mentally letting go of your concerns. Turn your attention to other matters.
  4. Every so often, empty your worry box and throw away your worry notes without looking at them. If you want, you could read them—you will be surprised to see how many of your worries feel unfounded in hindsight, but were in fact seriously troubling in the immediate storms of distress.

Idea for Impact: Maintaining a “worry box” to deposit your anxieties and worries can help you break free from them and prevent them from disrupting your life.

Wondering what to read next?

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  2. The Power of Negative Thinking
  3. Get Everything Out of Your Head
  4. This May Be the Most Potent Cure for Melancholy
  5. The Law of Petty Irritations

Inspirational Quotations by Zig Ziglar (#657)

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Today marks the birthday of Zig Ziglar (1926–2012,) American motivational consultant. This prolific author and public speaker was renowned for his energy, optimism, and plain-spoken style. His recipe “The Ziglar Way” blended homespun wit, sound-bite positivity, and Christian faith to urge people to appreciate the bright side of life.

Born Hilary Hinton Ziglar in rural Mississippi, Ziglar considered his devout mother the foremost influence on his life. Her mental repository of adages (e.g., “The person who won’t stand for something will fall for anything”) influenced many of Ziglar’s faith-filled metaphors and proverbs.

'Developing the Qualities of Success' by Zig Ziglar (ISBN 0812975707) Ziglar initially worked as a salesman and later as a sales-trainer. He switched careers after becoming enthralled with the ability of self-help lecturers to influence others. His first book, Biscuits, Fleas, and Pump Handles (1974, later titled See You at the Top) advised readers to reexamine their lives with a “checkup from the neck up” and to abandon their “stinkin’ thinkin’.”

Seminars such as “Success Rallies” and “Born to Win” and over thirty books attracted millions of devoted followers to Ziglar’s advice on personal growth, faith, moral strength, character, leadership, and sales. His bestselling books include See You at the Top (1975,) Secrets of Closing the Sale (1982,) Top Performance (1986,) Success for Dummies (1998,) Selling 101 (2003,) and an autobiography (2004.)

Inspirational Quotations by Zig Ziglar

Winning is not everything, but the effort to win is.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There’s often no way you can look into the game of life and determine whether or not you’ll get that big break tomorrow or whether it will take another week, month, year or even longer. But it will come!
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The foundation stones for a balanced success are honesty, character, integrity, faith, love and loyalty.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you learn from defeat, you haven’t really lost.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When we do more than we are paid to do, eventually we will be paid more for what we do.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can’t hit a target you cannot see, and you cannot see a target you do not have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

There are no traffic jams on the extra mile.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You cannot tailor-make the situations in life but you can tailor-make the attitudes to fit those situations.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Of all the “attitudes” we can acquire, surely the attitude of gratitude is the most important and by far the most life-changing.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Obstacles are the things we see when we take our eyes off our goals.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Man was designed for accomplishment, engineered for success, and endowed with the seeds of greatness.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The only way to coast is downhill.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is like a ladder, and no one has ever climbed a ladder with their hands in their pockets.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who build hope into their own lives and who share hope with others become powerful people.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The price of success is much lower than the price of failure.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You build a successful career, regardless of your field of endeavor, by the dozens of little things you do on and off the job.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The most practical, beautiful, workable philosophy in the world won’t work—if you won’t.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking won’t let you do anything but it will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Success is the maximum utilization of the ability that you have.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Be firm on principle but flexible on method.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It’s your aptitude, not just your attitude that determines your ultimate altitude.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

The door to a balanced success opens widest on the hinges of hope and encouragement.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When your image improves, your performance improves.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You are free to choose, but the choices you make today will determine what you will have, be and do in the tomorrow of your life.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If God would have wanted us to live in a permissive society He would have given us Ten Suggestions and not Ten Commandments.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

When you forgive somebody else you accept the responsibility for your own future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You can have everything in life you want if you’ll just help enough other people get what they want.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

For every sale you miss because you’re too enthusiastic, you will miss a hundred because you’re not enthusiastic enough.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

People who have good relationships at home are more effective in the marketplace.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Many people spend more time in planning the wedding than they do in planning the marriage.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Money isn’t the most important thing in life, but it’s reasonably close to oxygen on the “gotta have it” scale.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Motivation is the fuel necessary to keep the human engine running.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

We all need a daily check up from the neck up to avoid stinkin’ thinkin’ which ultimately leads to hardening of the attitudes.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Positive thinking will let you do everything better than negative thinking will.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Our children are our only hope for the future, but we are their only hope for their present and their future.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

What comes out of your mouth is determined by what goes into your mind.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

Failure is a detour, not a dead-end street.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

It was character that got us out of bed, commitment that moved us into action, and discipline that enabled us to follow through.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

If you want to reach a goal, you must ‘see the reaching’ in your own mind before you actually arrive at your goal.
—Zig Ziglar (American Author)

You Can’t Know Everything

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“Have intellectual humility. Acknowledging what you don’t know is the dawning of wisdom.”
— Charlie Munger

You Can't Know Everything, So Embrace Uncertainty In the course of life, some of the most dangerous circumstances to be in are when you think you’re the smartest person in the room. Smarts without humility can get you into trouble because hubris leads to intellectual arrogance and a blatant disregard for opinions and judgments that are contrary to the ones you already hold.

Recognizing that you can’t know everything and that you will never know everything must not prevent you from acting. Rather, you must embrace uncertainty and take into account the possibility that you could be wrong.

Embrace Uncertainty

Risk is what is left behind after you think you’ve thought of everything you currently can. Risk embraces all those matters that are unaccounted for—everything that you need to protect yourself from.

Intelligence transforms into wisdom only when you recognize that, despite your confidence in the present circumstances, you cannot predict how things will play out in the future. You will not be able to make an optimal decision every time.

The conduct of life is not a perfect science. Rather, it is an art that necessitates acknowledging and dealing with imperfect information. Be willing to act on imperfect information and uncertainty. Set a clear course today and tackle problems that arise tomorrow. Learn to adapt more flexibly to developing situations.

Idea for Impact: The wisest people I know are the ones who acknowledge that they don’t know everything and put strategies in place to shield themselves from their own ignorance. Make risk analysis and risk reduction one of the primary goals of your intellectual processes.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. It’s Probably Not as Bad as You Think
  2. A Bit of Insecurity Can Help You Be Your Best Self
  3. How to Embrace Uncertainty and Leave Room for Doubt
  4. No One Has a Monopoly on Truth
  5. Nothing Deserves Certainty

How to Leave Work at Work

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Employees are expected to be 100% on

There was once a time when people went to work, clocked in, put in their hours, clocked out, and forgot all about work until the next day. They fully disconnected from work and took real vacations. They maintained a healthy separation between their work time and their personal time.

Alas, those good times are long gone. Today’s challenging and competitive workplace demands of people not only their stamina to work exceptionally hard but also their hearts-and-minds’ commitment to bring creativity and insight to their efforts.

The pressure to constantly prove themselves is also exacerbated by how modern society judges people by their professional and financial successes—what they do, what they’ve accomplished, and how quickly they’ve accomplished it.

People are expected to be 100% on, take work home, and check in during their vacations. The upshot is that many people have real trouble turning work off. Work-related thoughts encroach upon their off-work hours. Some even lose sleep or wake up in the middle of the night thinking about their work.

Don’t bring work home in your head

  • Get a Life. Have a life to go to after you leave work. Develop a rich social life. Invest more time in your relationships. Get involved in absorbing activities, events, and hobbies. Schedule fun activities—you’ll have something to look forward to at the end of your workday.
  • Organize your workday. Structure your schedule to prevent hustling through work towards the end of the day. Be realistic about what you want to accomplish. In the middle of the afternoon, review the tasks ahead. Prioritize, reorganize, and pace yourself to wind down your workday. Do not answer phone calls or email during the last hour.
  • Organize and prioritize your next day’s schedule before you leave your office. Clean off your desk at the end of each day. This not only brings about a feeling of order and completion, but also helps you tune down and free up your mind.
  • Create a buffer between work and home. Stop by a gym, go shopping, or visit a friend. After you get home, change clothes, go for a walk, or do something relaxing to mark the transition and create a relaxed mindset for the evening.
  • Vent if necessary. Ask your loved ones to give you a few minutes to “let it out.” Expect them to just listen and be non-judgmental.
  • Don’t bring work home. Leave your briefcase, laptop, reports, and work-related reading at your desk.
  • Disconnect. Modern technology makes it easier for you to stay connected, but also makes it more difficult than ever to leave work at work. Leave your laptop at work. Turn off email and instant messaging on your phone. Resist the temptation to check your email on the family computer. Don’t visit the business center at the hotel when you’re on vacation.
  • Delegate and cross-train your staff to handle some of your responsibilities while you’re away.
  • Stop checking in with the office, especially when you’re on vacation. Your team will get along fine without you around. Crises will get managed, production will continue, customers will continue to be satisfied, and you’ll still have your job when you return. Let your team know how to find you in a dire emergency, but ask them not to bother you with the inconsequential stuff.

Idea for Impact: Don’t let work take over your life. Establish boundaries.

Don’t let your work run you. Don’t take work home literally (in your bag/briefcase or on your laptop) or figuratively (in your head). Enjoy your downtime.

Learn to disconnect from work unreservedly and spend time with your family. Play with the kids. Quality time with your loved ones is often more rewarding than your time at work. And perhaps by doing less work, you may end up loving your job more.

Wondering what to read next?

  1. Why You Can’t Relax on Your Next Vacation
  2. How to … Tame Your Calendar Before It Tames You
  3. Busyness is a Lack of Priorities
  4. Do Your Team a Favor: Take a Vacation
  5. The Never-Ending Office vs. Remote Work Debate