background preloader

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeown

The Disciplined Pursuit of Less - Greg McKeown
by Greg McKeown | 10:00 AM August 8, 2012 Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful? One important explanation is due to what I call “the clarity paradox,” which can be summed up in four predictable phases: Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success. Curiously, and overstating the point in order to make it, success is a catalyst for failure. We can see this in companies that were once darlings of Wall Street, but later collapsed. Here’s a more personal example: For years, Enric Sala was a professor at the prestigious Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. What can we do to avoid the clarity paradox and continue our upward momentum? First, use more extreme criteria. By applying tougher criteria we can tap into our brain’s sophisticated search engine. Second, ask “What is essential?” Conducting a life audit. Third, beware of the endowment effect. Related:  phil5

davidstegall: The Four Leadership Traits of Highly Collaborative Leaders ht Collaboration taps in to a broader pool of ideas. It maximizes the talents and abilities of your people. An inclusive culture is more flexible and adaptable. People are highly motivated, work harder and are more creative. However, collaboration isn’t something you can put on. For it to work you have to believe in it. If a leader believes that everything rises and falls on their talent and ability, and resources are for their sole use, collaboration is DOA. Ron Ricci and Carl Wiese report in The Collaboration Imperative, that there are four leadership traits of highly collaborative leaders: They focus on authentic leadership and eschew passive aggressiveness. Most lives are lived by default Jamie lives in a large city in the midwest. He’s a copywriter for an advertising firm, and he’s good at it. He’s also good at thinking of reasons why he ought to be happy with his life. He has health insurance, and now savings. A lot of his friends have neither. On most of those Fridays, including this one, instead of taking the train back to his suburban side-by-side, he walks to a downtown pub to meet his friends. Jamie’s girlfriend Linda typically arrives on his third beer. There was never a day Jamie sat down and decided to be a copywriter living in the midwest. His friends are from his old job. Jamie isn’t unhappy. In two months he and Linda are going to Cuba for ten days. A few weeks ago I asked everyone reading to share their biggest problem in life in the comment section. The first thing is that everyone has considerable problems. Making a major change in just one of these areas will necessarily make a major change in the feel and quality of your day-to-day life.

How to Go Viral (The Art of Going Viral with Psychology) The web is a busy place… it’s become tough to get noticed I think that’s why so many folks have become obsessed with the idea of “viral” content. When something takes off, it’s fun to watch… but are there any commonalities between those things that seem to take-over the internet for a short while? There’s got to be… right? Luckily, you no longer have to guess, because today, I have the research that will show you. How To Push People’s Buttons I’ve just finished re-reading the book Buzz Marketing, authored by a guy named Mark Hughes. Mark was known as the VP of marketing for Half.com back in the day, and was famous for… get this, convincing the town of Halfway, Oregon to rename itself Half.com! Yes, he got a town to agree to name itself after a website. Apparently, this guy knows a thing or two about creating buzz! In his book, he outlines the six buttons he’s found in his marketing research and experience that always seem to get people fired up, when presented in the right way. Ready? 1.) Yowza!

Stephen R. Covey » Blog Archive » The Leader Formula: The 4 things that make a good leader. Each week we will be asking Dr. Covey to comment on common questions. This week we ask: what makes a great leader? Q: What makes a great leader? A: My definition of leadership is communicating to people their worth and potential so clearly that they are inspired to see it in themselves. Q: You often say that leadership is a choice not a position. A: Because of the definition I use for leadership, the ability to become such a leader is a choice that any person can make; any parent or grandparent, any teacher, any coach, any co-worker, and friend. “How many of you had someone in your life that communicated your worth and potential so clearly that it profoundly influenced your life?” Inevitably over half the people raise their hands. Q: Is there a formula for becoming such a leader? A: I believe there is a formula. The first is to inspire trust. The world is vastly different today and ever-changing.

How much does it cost to be you? Now that I’ve installed snow tires, my car has only four things wrong with it. The passenger-side lock is misbehaving since someone tried to screwdriver it open this summer. The throttle sticks for a moment when the automatic transmission shifts to second gear. The heat takes twenty minutes to come on, and the suspension is creaking now. I don’t know how much each will cost, but I figure if I’m lucky I can fix one item with each of my next four paychecks, if I tighten in other areas. This is a pretty normal financial position for me. Parkinson’s Law is mostly responsible for this. Every time that happens, your financial situation doesn’t really change, even as you climb through tax brackets. That ample feeling comes, al least partly, from space. Space is an interesting asset in that it doesn’t actually cost money. There’s a stark difference in quality of life between walking around with a feeling of abundance, and walking around with a feeling of scarcity. This is the American Dream.

How to Email Busy People (and Not Be Annoying) If you want to get in touch with influential people (aka: BUSY people), you need to know how to email them. Despite the buzz around social media, far more people use email to communicate than any other online medium1, and business today still gets done over email, not through tweets. Today, I’m going to show you the elements of the PERFECT outreach email, and how you email busy people the right way in order to make things happen. You’ll also get exact scripts and email screenshots to journalists that landed me big features (worth 200,000+ hits). That said, let’s dig in! Why This is Important to Know Knowing how to write outreach emails might seem like a “no-brainer” or maybe even an unnecessary skill to have, but I can assure you the opposite, on both accounts. If you’re serious about networking and building your platform/personal brand, you MUST know how to email important people, and important people are busy people. Avoiding the Dreaded Trash Bin (“Bin-bound” Outreach) 1.) 2.) 3.) 1.) a.)

How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? - Leadership Training from MindTools What's your key area for improvement? © iStockphoto/hidesy Who do you consider to be a good leader? Maybe it's a politician, a famous businessperson, or a religious figure. Or maybe it's someone you know personally – like your boss, a teacher, or a friend. You can find people in leadership roles almost everywhere you look. However, simply having the responsibilities of a leader doesn't necessarily make a person an effective leader. So, how can you do this? You can start by analyzing your performance in specific areas of leadership. How Good Are Your Leadership Skills? Instructions For each statement, click the button in the column that best describes you. Your last quiz results are shown. You last completed this quiz on , at . Questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 still need to be answered! There are many leadership skills and competencies that, when combined and applied, go toward making you an effective leader. Personal Characteristics (Questions 2, 8) Key Points

How to Drop Out August 2012 Update When I wrote the original essay, my lifestyle happened to be close to the popular myth of dropping out, which was lucky because it attracted more readers, but unlucky because that myth is unrealistic and distracting. I still get emails from people who are excited to ask how I live in a cabin in the woods, or live with no money, things I never claimed to do. My goal may have been to separate myself from society, but only because that seemed like the best way to serve my deeper goal: giant blocks of time when there's nothing I'm supposed to be doing. Now I'm moving toward that goal as more of an insider. October 2008 Update "How To Drop Out" has been my most popular piece of writing for more than four years. 1. Seriously, it's good to live differently, to take uncommon paths, to minimize your dependence on a society gone astray. 2. 3. Now, that doesn't mean you should accept all gifts. 4. 5. What I recommend instead is to separate your money from your love. 6. 7. 8. 9.

The danger of starting at the top When making a b2b sale, the instinct is always to get into the CEO's office. If you can just get her to hear your pitch, to understand the value, to see why she should buy from or lease from or partner with or even buy you... that's the holy grail. What do you think happens after that mythical meeting? She asks her team. And when the team is in the dark, you've not only blown your best shot, but you never get another chance at it. The alternative is to start in the middle. Starting in the middle doesn't mean you're rushing around trying to close any sale with any bureaucrat stupid enough to take a meeting with you (or that you're stupid enough to go to, thinking that a sale is going to happen.) No, starting in the middle is more marketing than sales. You don't get this reputation as an incidental byproduct of showing up.

kolb's learning styles, experiential learning theory, kolb's learning styles inventory and diagram We have some very exciting plans for Businessballs. Later this month, we will be launching a new visual identity, refreshing the design of the site and adding lots of new functionality to enhance your learning experience. Phase 2 will include badges, learning plans linked to accredited competency frameworks, wikis (for collaborative content development) and new content from international thought leaders and academics. The site will continue to follow our ethos of free work and life learning, and the redevelopment and ongoing management will be delivered by our partner Accipio. If you are interested in contributing content or your view on where we should take businessballs next, please email ask@businessballs.com. David Kolb's learning styles model and experiential learning theory (ELT) Having developed the model over many years prior, David Kolb published his learning styles model in 1984. Accordingly - especially if you are working with young people - use systems and methods with care.

Hacker 'elf' Pavlik Connects the Moneyless World Hacker elf Pavlik, 30, has been living moneyless and stateless for the past four years. But despite his choice to abstain from the money-driven rat race of the global economic system, he lives up to his nickname: "elf" works tirelessly. Not for money, but to satisfy his passion to impact the world and change it in a positive way. The last time Pavlik and I met on Google hangout, for instance, he hadn’t left the apartment he’s been staying at for four days. It was three in the morning in Berlin, and he was neck-deep in the OuiShare website, putting the final touches on the webpage for the OuiShare Fest in Paris that’s planned for May. If the term “hacker” conjures images of anonymous criminals who break into computer systems to stall and mess things up, Pavlik obliterates these negative connotations. “It’s all about autonomy and equality and access to information,” said Pavlik. Pavlik has had a knack for computers ever since he was 15 years old, growing up in Gdansk, Poland.

Related: