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THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING 10.03.2022 13:11:30

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

We live in unprecedented time where not only we have access to information, we have access to education. With millions of programs, courses, continuing education or supplementary certifications, we have a sea of opportunities to choose from. So long as we would like to learn, new knowledge is just a click away. Question comes – what and why. The gift of learning those 10 skills will just keep on giving. Learn them now, you’ll thank yourself later.

  1. Speaking up

Get very comfortable with public speaking. Nowadays in order to get ahead, we need to be able to speak up whether in front of a live or virtual audience. That one skill will not only last you a lifetime but it could be an asset or a liability depending on how good you are at it. Whether we realize it or not, we have opportunities for speaking up multiple times every day. Sometimes we do so without even realizing it, others – we are playing out the words over and over in our heads and we never build up the courage to say something. Exactly those are the moments that define us though. But actually, the better we are at public speaking, the less we’ll be thinking about making that leap and the more about the message we’re communicating across.

  1. Being honest with yourself

Positive self-talk is great but we ought to have our feet firmly on the ground at the same time because it is just as easy the wind of change aimed to boost our motivation to just sweep up our sense of reality. We not only need to know ourselves, we need to know our competition as lifelong learning is not just our little secret. We need to acquire new skills, apply it, reinvent ourselves, be creative and always know what the others are doing to get ahead. Almost nobody is discovering the hot water these days, they’re just formulating their take on the problems and we need to do exactly the same. So knowing what we know, knowing what we don’t know is essential but knowing our industry is crucial.

  1. Having confidence

In many ways, one of the key factors to legendary success is having great confidence. Oftentimes it is not about the product, service, natural ability, intelligence, skills etc but namely that interior bravery.

Deconstructing the idea of confidence or courage, we will discover that it’s almost like we have unlimited power to make the decisions necessary to make things happen. In this world is not so much about the strategy in our business or our abilities in life as it is about the confidence we possess. So when we really take a minute to ponder that idea, we’ll realize that in the moments when we’re confident we see opportunities as opposed to issues; a stepping stone where others see a brick wall.

Confidence is not a personality trait but rather a skill, a muscle – the more you train, the better you become. Hence wiring in confidence on a fundamental level, developing it, practicing it daily ensures we’d do the ‘epic’ in our professional and the ‘outstanding’ in personal lives. Confidence is the ability to move from thought to action and that makes all the difference.

  1. Listening

Nelson Mandela across the world is the single universal example of a great leader. He shares that his father may have set him on that path – as a tribal chief, he consistently demonstrated respect and humility towards all counsel participants. Easier said than done most of the time, especially nowadays where board rooms are designed for power sitting and we believe that holding time-efficient meetings justifies discussions where the problem and solutions are presented at the same time for a mere boost of authorities’ ego. “Bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.” as R. Sharma so elegantly puts it. And so not the listening but the speaking after everyone else has spoken makes a great leader. One that would ensure that everyone is heard and had a chance to participate but also to understand why is someone thinking the way they think, what is their why, rather than simply considering their point of view.  Practicing being the last to speak, to have everyone's thoughts before he renders his opinion is exactly what Mandela did.

  1. Managing your time

Everyday through media, social media, entertainment, television, frenzy and noise we are numbing down ideas. We have traded effectiveness for busyness. Everyday and all day we are hustling, we are so busy, we don’t have time to accurately measure and express just how busy we are. But here’s a myth buster – busyness ≠ effectiveness. Taking a moment here to challenge if we’re really effective or are we just cluttered with all kinds of things that are simply demanding, draining and preventing us from being our best selves. Scientific research shows that the average person spends only 20% of their time on things that they are really gifted at, passionate about and that could produce quality results for them and the other 80% of the time people are just busy in areas they cannot make a dent in, areas we’re not good at but have to do to survive.

Knowing that, what do you think would happen if we allow ourselves to switch that ratio around? What if we allocate only 20% of our scarce resource to the things we have to do and 80% of that time on the things we are excited, created, destined to do. When that thought really sinks in, it stops us in our tracks – we are so careful managing all tangible resources in our life (our money, car, house) and so careless with the intangible (our thoughts, feelings and emotions), even more so with the irreplaceable and scare one - our time.

We invest and develop in all kinds of areas from finance management to car maintenance to body care, and so little is focused on our mind and how we allocate our time. It takes time to be creative, to focus your energy and passion to craft your why, to deliver value.

  1. No more whining

Some have installed ‘No meeting Thursdays’ in an attempt to declutter and free up an overbearing schedule that suffocates them. What if we apply that same idea to whining?! ‘No whining Tuesdays’ What do you think? On Tuesdays there shall be no whining, no criticizing, no complaining, no judging, no putting down of any sort. Now some may need a penalty boost – that’s what ‘1 lv. complaint jars’ are for, you pay a lev every time you slip; others may need a change in perspective – if you see your glass as half empty, pour it into a smaller glass and just stop whining! The great thing about that is that we’ll have a chance to amount all the complaining that is actually going on or in other words all the time gone in lost opportunities for solutions because we have been grouchy.

So let’s try to do things a little different by asking ourselves how we contribute to the problem and focus on alternatives and solutions as that is a way better use for our energy and resourcefulness.

  1. Staying in the present moment

Happiness lives in the present. Drifting to the past where nothing can be changed or drifting to the future where nothing can be controlled could only fuel our worry and anxiety. Staying in the present moment is where we have the power to take action, be in control and truly experience the freedom of conscious choices. ‘’No man steps in the same river twice for he is not the same man and it is not the same river” goes the famous saying and so we’ll never experience the same things we did before, nor will we be able to anticipate everything that is about to happen for us in the future.

A positive phycology professor, Martin Seligman, has studied happiness for decades and one of the most interesting ideas discussed is that 40% of our happiness levels are preset by genetics. Amazingly 60% of our happiness levels are completely and entirely in our control. Professor Seligman discovered that some of the people that have had the worst things happen to them are actually the happiest, most grateful people in the world. And we don’t add the word ‘grateful’ lightly.

That and developing, practicing and embodying the mindset that life happens for us rather than to us have tremendous power to fundamentally transform us. Happiness comes down to our thoughts and mindset, to our attitude and perception and remarkably, all of that is in our control. It all comes down to simple techniques such as catching our thoughts wandering as the moment we do that – we are awake and presented with a decision – what do we want our thoughts to be. And so now that we’re ‘awake’, we need to adopt a mindful practice such as looking for something that you can savor and that’ll immediately ground you in the present moment. Namely savoring – being thankful, appreciative, awake is so simple, yet so powerful as it means slowing down and really experiencing every moment, allowing yourself to re-connect with your senses and truly live life.

  1. Consistency

Success is not a destination, it’s a journey. And so getting ahead is not so much about the goals we achieve as it is about who we become along the way. As how someone does anything, is how they do everything. The human brain has the need to simplify and label things – events, behaviors, people and so we generalize, omit or change certain aspects in order to stay consistent with the label. Paradoxically that label is a simplified observation of whatever we focus on. If someone is successful, that is because that person has consistently achieved success and so his failure would be treated as accidental just as the success of a failure would be considered just luck.

In the area of overnight success, achievement and power that the media offers to us, we often forget to look for the lessons learned and the long journey of persistency and hard work that led to that single moment under the spotlight. Whether it is a product, a service or our own skill set that is being offered – having high quality but inconsistently will always be disregarded for consistency of quality that might not necessarily display peak states.

  1. Knowing your body

Where focus goes, energy flows. So making the important things in life a priority and knowing our do’s and don’ts when it comes to functioning properly ensures we are absolutely owning our moments and the decisions that lead to them. Our body is our temple and so caring for it in that way ensures days full of energy, focus, power, clarity and creativity.

We spend some much time acquiring information about our surroundings or specific areas where we develop our competencies but how much time do we spend studying ourselves. And here we mean much more than the popular personalities test. Is our sleep and rest pattern synchronized with our chronotype (as per sleep research)? Is our eating or snacking habits based on our metabolic type? How about the type of food and drink intake? Dare we ask about the exercise routine?

Yeah, we know, it’s somewhat overwhelming taking into consideration the dynamics of all of the above as well. It is similar to the dynamic marketplace and the ever-changing demands in our professional lives, yet we strive to skillfully navigate that field while we have turned on the autopilot at “home”.

Being tired, dehydrated, moody, lacking energy or ability to focus, experiencing headaches or pains of any sorts are just part of life right? We’re adults and that happens, no biggie. Well, would you do the same with your car, bicycle or worse – your cell. If its performance was slagging, memory was full, calls were dropping – you had it for two years, it happens right. Yeah, we didn’t think so either. So why do we do it to ourselves?

And because no knowledge turns into results without a specific goal, set one right now – for every professional development area you are working on right now, pick one related to your physiology. It could be sleep, it could be eating, it could be exercise. Your body will thank you for it!

  1. Empathy

Like it or not women are able to, biologically and neurologically, access that more effortlessly. No wonder women leaders have been more successful navigating the difficult and uncertain events of the human crisis. It is more than the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, it is about competitive advantage in a highly digitalized market. The future of work is humane and possessing empathy is not only valuable, it cannot be automated. Being the social animals that we are, that skill allows for a sincere connection, quality communication and valuable relationships.

Better yet, extending that to developing our Emotional intelligence, learning to self-regulate as well as effectively navigate while interacting with others will ultimately allow us to successfully self- and relationship manage – now that’s invaluable.

Here are the simplest starting point while building more EQ into your life - three things you must ask yourself before saying anything:

  1. Does this need to be said?                          
  2. Does this need to be said by me?
  3. Does this need to be said by me, now?

It is simple, yet powerful as it gives us a minute to rationalize, evaluate and anticipate.

There are many more tactics, methods and practices, the root of them all is to acknowledge that emotions have an impact on our behavior. And that we can learn to understand and manage that impact.

 

So…Where would you start?

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Articles

Articles

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

Preparing for the future of work, learning those skills will only keep on paying back going forward. Preparing for the future of work, learning those skills will only keep on paying back going forward. 2022-03-10T13:12:54+02:00 THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING

<p>We live in unprecedented time where not only we have access to information, we have access to education. With millions of programs, courses, continuing education or supplementary certifications, we have a sea of opportunities to choose from. So long as we would like to learn, new knowledge is just a click away. Question comes &ndash; what and why. The gift of learning those 10 skills will just keep on giving. Learn them now, you&rsquo;ll thank yourself later.</p> <ol> <li>Speaking up</li> </ol> <p>Get very comfortable with public speaking. Nowadays in order to get ahead, we need to be able to speak up whether in front of a live or virtual audience. That one skill will not only last you a lifetime but it could be an asset or a liability depending on how good you are at it. Whether we realize it or not, we have opportunities for speaking up multiple times every day. Sometimes we do so without even realizing it, others &ndash; we are playing out the words over and over in our heads and we never build up the courage to say something. Exactly those are the moments that define us though. But actually, the better we are at public speaking, the less we&rsquo;ll be thinking about making that leap and the more about the message we&rsquo;re communicating across.</p> <ol start="2"> <li>Being honest with yourself</li> </ol> <p>Positive self-talk is great but we ought to have our feet firmly on the ground at the same time because it is just as easy the wind of change aimed to boost our motivation to just sweep up our sense of reality. We not only need to know ourselves, we need to know our competition as lifelong learning is not just our little secret. We need to acquire new skills, apply it, reinvent ourselves, be creative and always know what the others are doing to get ahead. Almost nobody is discovering the hot water these days, they&rsquo;re just formulating their take on the problems and we need to do exactly the same. So knowing what we know, knowing what we don&rsquo;t know is essential but knowing our industry is crucial.</p> <ol start="3"> <li>Having confidence</li> </ol> <p>In many ways, one of the key factors to legendary success is having great confidence. Oftentimes it is not about the product, service, natural ability, intelligence, skills etc but namely that interior bravery.</p> <p>Deconstructing the idea of confidence or courage, we will discover that it&rsquo;s almost like we have unlimited power to make the decisions necessary to make things happen. In this world is not so much about the strategy in our business or our abilities in life as it is about the confidence we possess. So when we really take a minute to ponder that idea, we&rsquo;ll realize that in the moments when we&rsquo;re confident we see opportunities as opposed to issues; a stepping stone where others see a brick wall.</p> <p>Confidence is not a personality trait but rather a skill, a muscle &ndash; the more you train, the better you become. Hence wiring in confidence on a fundamental level, developing it, practicing it daily ensures we&rsquo;d do the &lsquo;epic&rsquo; in our professional and the &lsquo;outstanding&rsquo; in personal lives. Confidence is the ability to move from thought to action and that makes all the difference.</p> <ol start="4"> <li>Listening</li> </ol> <p>Nelson Mandela across the world is the single universal example of a great leader. He shares that his father may have set him on that path &ndash; as a tribal chief, he consistently demonstrated respect and humility towards all counsel participants. Easier said than done most of the time, especially nowadays where board rooms are designed for power sitting and we believe that holding time-efficient meetings justifies discussions where the problem and solutions are presented at the same time for a mere boost of authorities&rsquo; ego. &ldquo;Bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.&rdquo; as R. Sharma so elegantly puts it. And so not the listening but the speaking after everyone else has spoken makes a great leader. One that would ensure that everyone is heard and had a chance to participate but also to understand why is someone thinking the way they think, what is their why, rather than simply considering their point of view.&nbsp; Practicing being the last to speak, to have everyone's thoughts before he renders his opinion is exactly what Mandela did.</p> <ol start="5"> <li>Managing your time</li> </ol> <p>Everyday through media, social media, entertainment, television, frenzy and noise we are numbing down ideas. We have traded effectiveness for busyness. Everyday and all day we are hustling, we are so busy, we don&rsquo;t have time to accurately measure and express just how busy we are. But here&rsquo;s a myth buster &ndash; busyness &ne; effectiveness. Taking a moment here to challenge if we&rsquo;re really effective or are we just cluttered with all kinds of things that are simply demanding, draining and preventing us from being our best selves. Scientific research shows that the average person spends only 20% of their time on things that they are really gifted at, passionate about and that could produce quality results for them and the other 80% of the time people are just busy in areas they cannot make a dent in, areas we&rsquo;re not good at but have to do to survive.</p> <p>Knowing that, what do you think would happen if we allow ourselves to switch that ratio around? What if we allocate only 20% of our scarce resource to the things we have to do and 80% of that time on the things we are excited, created, destined to do. When that thought really sinks in, it stops us in our tracks &ndash; we are so careful managing all tangible resources in our life (our money, car, house) and so careless with the intangible (our thoughts, feelings and emotions), even more so with the irreplaceable and scare one - our time.</p> <p>We invest and develop in all kinds of areas from finance management to car maintenance to body care, and so little is focused on our mind and how we allocate our time. It takes time to be creative, to focus your energy and passion to craft your why, to deliver value.</p> <ol start="6"> <li>No more whining</li> </ol> <p>Some have installed &lsquo;No meeting Thursdays&rsquo; in an attempt to declutter and free up an overbearing schedule that suffocates them. What if we apply that same idea to whining?! &lsquo;No whining Tuesdays&rsquo; What do you think? On Tuesdays there shall be no whining, no criticizing, no complaining, no judging, no putting down of any sort. Now some may need a penalty boost &ndash; that&rsquo;s what &lsquo;1 lv. complaint jars&rsquo; are for, you pay a lev every time you slip; others may need a change in perspective &ndash; if you see your glass as half empty, pour it into a smaller glass and just stop whining! The great thing about that is that we&rsquo;ll have a chance to amount all the complaining that is actually going on or in other words all the time gone in lost opportunities for solutions because we have been grouchy.</p> <p>So let&rsquo;s try to do things a little different by asking ourselves how we contribute to the problem and focus on alternatives and solutions as that is a way better use for our energy and resourcefulness.</p> <ol start="7"> <li>Staying in the present moment</li> </ol> <p>Happiness lives in the present. Drifting to the past where nothing can be changed or drifting to the future where nothing can be controlled could only fuel our worry and anxiety. Staying in the present moment is where we have the power to take action, be in control and truly experience the freedom of conscious choices. &lsquo;&rsquo;No man steps in the same river twice for he is not the same man and it is not the same river&rdquo; goes the famous saying and so we&rsquo;ll never experience the same things we did before, nor will we be able to anticipate everything that is about to happen for us in the future.</p> <p>A positive phycology professor, Martin Seligman, has studied happiness for decades and one of the most interesting ideas discussed is that 40% of our happiness levels are preset by genetics. Amazingly 60% of our happiness levels are completely and entirely in our control. Professor Seligman discovered that some of the people that have had the worst things happen to them are actually the happiest, most grateful people in the world. And we don&rsquo;t add the word &lsquo;grateful&rsquo; lightly.</p> <p>That and developing, practicing and embodying the mindset that life happens for us rather than to us have tremendous power to fundamentally transform us. Happiness comes down to our thoughts and mindset, to our attitude and perception and remarkably, all of that is in our control. It all comes down to simple techniques such as catching our thoughts wandering as the moment we do that &ndash; we are awake and presented with a decision &ndash; what do we want our thoughts to be. And so now that we&rsquo;re &lsquo;awake&rsquo;, we need to adopt a mindful practice such as looking for something that you can savor and that&rsquo;ll immediately ground you in the present moment. Namely savoring &ndash; being thankful, appreciative, awake is so simple, yet so powerful as it means slowing down and really experiencing every moment, allowing yourself to re-connect with your senses and truly live life.</p> <ol start="8"> <li>Consistency</li> </ol> <p>Success is not a destination, it&rsquo;s a journey. And so getting ahead is not so much about the goals we achieve as it is about who we become along the way. As how someone does anything, is how they do everything. The human brain has the need to simplify and label things &ndash; events, behaviors, people and so we generalize, omit or change certain aspects in order to stay consistent with the label. Paradoxically that label is a simplified observation of whatever we focus on. If someone is successful, that is because that person has consistently achieved success and so his failure would be treated as accidental just as the success of a failure would be considered just luck.</p> <p>In the area of overnight success, achievement and power that the media offers to us, we often forget to look for the lessons learned and the long journey of persistency and hard work that led to that single moment under the spotlight. Whether it is a product, a service or our own skill set that is being offered &ndash; having high quality but inconsistently will always be disregarded for consistency of quality that might not necessarily display peak states.</p> <ol start="9"> <li>Knowing your body</li> </ol> <p>Where focus goes, energy flows. So making the important things in life a priority and knowing our do&rsquo;s and don&rsquo;ts when it comes to functioning properly ensures we are absolutely owning our moments and the decisions that lead to them. Our body is our temple and so caring for it in that way ensures days full of energy, focus, power, clarity and creativity.</p> <p>We spend some much time acquiring information about our surroundings or specific areas where we develop our competencies but how much time do we spend studying ourselves. And here we mean much more than the popular personalities test. Is our sleep and rest pattern synchronized with our chronotype (as per sleep research)? Is our eating or snacking habits based on our metabolic type? How about the type of food and drink intake? Dare we ask about the exercise routine?</p> <p>Yeah, we know, it&rsquo;s somewhat overwhelming taking into consideration the dynamics of all of the above as well. It is similar to the dynamic marketplace and the ever-changing demands in our professional lives, yet we strive to skillfully navigate that field while we have turned on the autopilot at &ldquo;home&rdquo;.</p> <p>Being tired, dehydrated, moody, lacking energy or ability to focus, experiencing headaches or pains of any sorts are just part of life right? We&rsquo;re adults and that happens, no biggie. Well, would you do the same with your car, bicycle or worse &ndash; your cell. If its performance was slagging, memory was full, calls were dropping &ndash; you had it for two years, it happens right. Yeah, we didn&rsquo;t think so either. So why do we do it to ourselves?</p> <p>And because no knowledge turns into results without a specific goal, set one right now &ndash; for every professional development area you are working on right now, pick one related to your physiology. It could be sleep, it could be eating, it could be exercise. Your body will thank you for it!</p> <ol start="10"> <li>Empathy</li> </ol> <p>Like it or not women are able to, biologically and neurologically, access that more effortlessly. No wonder women leaders have been more successful navigating the difficult and uncertain events of the human crisis. It is more than the ability to understand and share the feelings of others, it is about competitive advantage in a highly digitalized market. The future of work is humane and possessing empathy is not only valuable, it cannot be automated. Being the social animals that we are, that skill allows for a sincere connection, quality communication and valuable relationships.</p> <p>Better yet, extending that to developing our Emotional intelligence, learning to self-regulate as well as effectively navigate while interacting with others will ultimately allow us to successfully self- and relationship manage &ndash; now that&rsquo;s invaluable.</p> <p>Here are the simplest starting point while building more EQ into your life - three things you must ask yourself before saying anything:</p> <ol> <li>Does this need to be said? &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;</li> <li>Does this need to be said by me?</li> <li>Does this need to be said by me, now?</li> </ol> <p>It is simple, yet powerful as it gives us a minute to rationalize, evaluate and anticipate.</p> <p>There are many more tactics, methods and practices, the root of them all is to acknowledge that emotions have an impact on our behavior. And that we can learn to understand and manage that impact.</p> <p>&nbsp;</p> <p>So&hellip;Where would you start?</p>

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