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      "memo": "Good morning @wcy. We hope that you don't mind this little memo as we would love to bring your attention to small PASSIVE INCOME opportunity here on Steemit. Allow us to share with you link to our new delegation program. Perhaps you will find it worth your time and hopefully you will decide that our efforts bring value to Steemit and are worth your support. We would also greatly appreciate if you could RESTEEM this post and help us bring more traffic. Link: // https://steemit.com/hive-175254/@ph-support/check-out-our-passive-income-delegation-program-run-by-project-hope"
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      "permlink": "attention-is-a-habit-you-can-develop",
      "title": "Attention Is a Habit You Can Develop",
      "body": "> When you let your attention slide for a bit, don't think you will get back a grip on it whenever you wish - instead, bear in mind that because of today's mistake everything that follows will be necessarily worse….Is it possible to be free from error? Not by any means, but it is possible to be a person always stretching to avoid error. For we must be content to at least escape a few mistakes by never letting our attention slide. - Epictetus, Discourses, 4.12.1; 19\n\n\n![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdTKJqWwqBDhaNCoWL3g9FFaAE7dTU6QiLkBp3vbpdA67/image.png)\nPhoto by Paolo Bendandi on Unsplash\n\n---\n\nAbove is the passage for April 21 from The Daily Stoic, written by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman. From our smartphone notifications, instant entertainment, and evolution of communication (going from snail mail to telegraphs, to phone calls, to text messages, and then to email / slack channels), our attention spans are shorter than ever. One of my high school teachers said that to get our attention span, we take our age and add 12 and that, in minutes, is how long we can focus on something before moving to something else. But as I get older, I don't feel like I have a better attention span. Heck, I think my attention span has become smaller and smaller as I got older. \n\nI shouldn't have to say all the benefits of having control over your attention, but here it is anyway: \n* Fewer mistakes\n* More mindfulness over the present moment\n* Greater critical thinking\n* Better relationships with family and friends\n* Less re-work or review needed (i.e., if you are only paying half attention to things)\n* Greater productivity \n\nI think I can make a case that we all need to develop our attention spans. But how? Here are five things I do every day to help me develop a greater attention span. \n\n### Meditation\n\nMeditation improves attention spans. It seems crazy to take time out of your day to focus on nothing. But what about all the work I have piled up? All the emails I have to respond to? All the chores that are not getting done around the house? \n\nBut the time is well worth it, believe me. \n\nYou know how when you're working, and everything seems on fire? An email comes in from the boss to get something done. You have blinking chat messages from people expecting a response from you. You need to re-fill your coffee but realize you're 5 minutes late to a meeting. Besides doing the most urgent things right away, I take the time, when I can, to relax and meditate. Even if it's only 5 minutes, it's my way of focusing on myself. \n\nI can't explain why this happens or how, but meditating 5 minutes every day has helped me be more mindful of what I am doing at any hour. Before, I might find myself drifting to my smartphone even though there are no notifications and then minutes or hours pass and I'm still on my smartphone. But now with my daily meditation practice, I manage to catch myself when I'm on my smartphone realizing that I'm procrastinating on a task. \n\n### Watching kids play\n\nI'm not saying to go to your local playground and be a creep. Better is to, when it's safe, volunteer your time to watch your friend's kids. Watching kids play for hours with nothing but a toy and their imagination makes you wonder: how did your attention span degrade over the years? \n\nI remember when I was young, I would play with Lego for hours. I would sit with a box of Lego, imagine all the things I could build, and then experiment to see whether I could actually build what I imagined. Or my brother and I would go to the park and run around for hours. \n\nWith kids, there isn't the worry of the past and the mistakes that have been made. There isn't the anxiety about the future and what it will bring. Only the present moment and the toy in front of them. Watching or playing with kids helps bring you to the moment. \n\n### Doing strenuous exercise\n\nEvery time I have been injured at the gym, and it's been a few times, it was because I was not paying attention. I might be doing a bench press, think about something I missed at work, and then sprain a wrist. Or I might be running, not focused on putting my foot in front of one another, and then suddenly trip over my own feet. My biggest worry is running at a fast clip, then suddenly tripping and falling onto my face. \n\nWhen you are lifting heavy weights or pushing yourself to the limit, you have to pay attention, otherwise, you risk getting injured or you won't be able to push yourself past your personal bests. It's one thing to pass the time running by listening to music. It's another thing to pass the time running while talking to someone on the headset. \n\n### Playing focus music\n\nOne trick I like to play on myself is to play focused music: this is usually music without lyrics, or it could be binaural beats (which you can find on YouTube). I tell myself that when the music is playing, I am focused and productive. And then any time I get distracted or move to something else, I stop the music. The music is my 'trick' of priming my mind to be productive and to stay focused. And every time I hear the music, my mind knows to get into that state. \n\nFor example, I use the [Forest app](https://medium.com/r/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.forestapp.cc%2F) - there's no way of pausing the session so I either stay through with it or I have to give up, even with one minute left, and lose a tree. When you have something to lose, even if it is a digital tree, it means something. \n\n### Write it down\n\nWhen I think of increasing my attention span, another way to do that is to reduce the distractions I have. One way I do that is any time I get distracted by something, I write it down as a 'to do' for later. \n\nLet's say I'm working on a report for my boss. As I'm writing the report, I might realize I need to cut the grass in the backyard, so I will write the task down. Previously, I would realize I need to cut the grass and then store it in my brain, but my thoughts would keep coming back to cutting the grass as if my brain was trying to say \"don't forget!\" Or if I'm writing the report, and I get the urge to check social media, I will write that down.\n\nThere's comfort and satisfaction from my mind that because I have written it down, it will get done later. And so my mind doesn't keep telling me \"check social media\" or \"cut the grass\" because it knows it has already been saved somewhere. It's the beauty of the GTD system popularized by David Allen. And it can help you increase your attention span. \n\n---\n\nIn summary, there are five ways you can increase your attention span with a small investment in time and energy: \n* Meditation\n* Spending time with young kids\n* Playing focus music \n* Intense exercises\n* Noting and saving all 'distractions' \n\nHow do you build up your 'attention muscle'? What small things do you do to help?",
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      "permlink": "the-three-types-of-questions-to-help-you-be-more-creative-and-unleash-new-ideas",
      "title": "The Three Types of Questions to Help You Be More Creative and Unleash New Ideas",
      "body": "When I first joined consulting, I had tremendous imposter syndrome. Who was I, a recent graduate, to tell Executives how to change their strategies or improve their technology? So I would sit in meetings, take notes and remain silent throughout, for fear of saying something dumb, or worse, suggesting something and lose reputational value for the firm. \n\nOh if I could turn back time, I would take a different approach. \n\nA good consultant knows what to say. I've been in several meetings where the client asks tough questions, and I have seen consultants ahem weasel out of the answer through careful wording and language. I am sure I used the same tricks when I was talking to clients. \n\nA great consultant, however, knows what to ask. And that's the key difference between a good consultant and a great one. Great consultants ask the right questions and make sure that the client is thinking about the right things. Heck, it was even a motto at one of the firms I worked at - the better the question, the better the answer, yet I never saw any training or focus on what questions to ask, how to ask them, etc. \n\nSo what would my approach be if I could go back to my early days in consulting? Knowing what questions to ask, which is what I want to share with you today. \n\nReading A More Beautiful Question by Warren Berger, the author suggested an interesting framework to ask breakthrough questions. That framework is: \n* Why\n* What if\n* How\n\n![image.png](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVNmaDiKMsGNFivGRgon78YSFdTW7kJBDRgowqMvxpqx1/image.png)\n\nPhoto by Efe Kurnaz on Unsplash\n\n---\n\n### Asking 'Why' questions\n\nSome men see things as they are, and say why. I dream of things that never were, and say why not. - Robert Kennedy \n\nLouis C.K. has a bit where his daughter starts asking him 'why' questions. It starts innocent enough, but as his daughter keeps asking him why, he goes deeper and deeper into philosophical answers and then gets increasingly frustrated at his level of incompetence in being able to answer the question. \n\nAs children, we had an innate curiosity. My takeaway in this first framework level is to embrace your child's mind. Ask why five times. Even if you think you know something, ask anyway. \n\nThe story of Netflix started when Reed Hastings was charged late fees. He asked himself \"why am I being charged late fees in this day and age?\" The story of Airbnb started when the founders wondered \"why can't we set up some air mattresses and rent out space to people coming into town?\" \n\n### Asking 'What if' questions\n\nYou can't be overwhelmed by the what-ifs, or you'll miss out on the best part. ― Rebekah Crane\n\nThe next stage of the framework is asking 'what if' questions. Asking 'why' questions is the starting point for a pain point or an opportunity. Asking 'what if' questions is the next stage: you brainstorm fresh ideas to address the pain point identified. \n\nReed Hastings asked himself \"what if movie rentals was like a health club with a monthly membership fee?\" Warby Parker asked themselves \"what if we cut out the middlemen and sold glasses online direct to consumer?\" \n\n### Asking 'How' questions\n\nIt is not how one thinks. Indeed, it is how one executes that.― Ehsan Sehgal\n\nFinally, the last set of questions is really uncovering the execution. How can we make the idea a reality? What are we going to do to address those pain points? \n\nIf Netflix charged a monthly membership fee, how would that work? Would we charge late fees? Is it cost-effective to let members keep movies and DVDs as long as they wanted? \n\nIf we asked people to rent their homes out to strangers, how would that work? How could we make sure strangers feel safe living in other people's homes? How could we make sure that other people feel safe renting their homes out to strangers? \n\n---\n\nLet me recap and advise my younger self as a consultant. \n\n* You don't need to know what to say during a meeting, but a good start would be to know what questions to ask. Good consultants know what to say. Great consultants know what to ask. \n* Before getting to the good stuff (how we actually do things), first, start with why. Why are things this way? Why don't we do things differently? \n* Next, before you land on what to do, brainstorm different things you could do. What if we did it this way? What if we eliminated the fees completely? What if we had to think like a bank instead of a school? \n* Finally, after understanding the why, and landing on a what-if idea, figure out the how. How can we eliminate fees without interrupting our revenues? How can we position ourselves more like a bank instead of a traditional school?",
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      "title": "Life Lessons and Wisdom From James Clear, the Expert on Building Habits",
      "body": "It felt like James Clear, author of the NY Times #1 best-selling Atomic Habits, burst onto the scene in 2018. One day, I heard about this book called Atomic Habits and read it wondering what the hype about this book was about. It turns out it was incredible and the many takeaways from Atomic Habits were the seeds of my book Essential Habits (though I can honestly say my book focuses on specific actions rather than how to build and keep habits).\n\nJames has been writing and speaking on habits for many, many years now, and when you are focused on a particular subject for that long, you can’t help but be an expert in that domain. He also shares a newsletter called 3–2–1 where he shares quotes and nuggets of wisdom (yes, it’s worth subscribing to). I thought I’d look at his top 10 tweets from 2020 and provide some additional thoughts and takeaways on the tweets.\n\n![0_QwUsPStWqv9MUBJO.jfif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmV2QYKgwreUHxv3WQajNoFwFGFa1L7DbWm49QuzDWuug1/0_QwUsPStWqv9MUBJO.jfif)\nPhoto by Scott Evans on Unsplash\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Entrepreneur’s mind.<br>Athlete’s body.<br>Artist’s soul.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1297189305023107072?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 22, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nIn a short tweet, James outlines how you should be thinking about your mind, body and soul. One of the connections I made was to Edward de Bono’s Six Thinking Hats. Edward talks about the idea of putting on a specific ‘hat’ when going into a meeting because, in meetings, people are often in a circle looking and opposing one another, rather than looking all in the same direction to move ahead. Putting on a hat helps everyone to look in the same direction.\n\nIn the same way, have an entrepreneur’s mind (i.e., thinking about creative ways to solve problems, find customers, create products or services to address people’s needs), an athlete’s body (an athlete trains every day for years for what can sometimes be one or a few performances), and an artist’s soul (what kind of art are you creating and what message are you sharing with your art?).\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">When you choose who to follow on Twitter, you are choosing your future thoughts.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1312386219599433729?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 3, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nI am like James Altucher — I don’t like to consume any news or media. Whatever social media you use (Twitter, Instagram, etc.), whoever you decide to follow will dictate what you take in daily, and whatever you take into your mind shapes the thoughts you have.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Working on a problem reduces the fear of it. <br><br>It’s hard to fear a problem when you are making progress on it—even if progress is imperfect and slow.<br><br>Action relieves anxiety.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1300167771427401728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">August 30, 2020</a></blockquote>\n\nHow many times have you had a problem in your life whereby taking action helped you relieve your anxiety? I would say in my life probably 100% of the time. I remember coworkers asking me what I do when I get stressed about work, and my answer was that I get down to the nitty-gritty of it and work on whatever is stressing me out. I didn’t articulate it as well as James did, but action relieves anxiety as he says.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">We often avoid taking action because we think &quot;I need to learn more,&quot; but the best way to learn is often by taking action.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1308857494983323650?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 23, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nThere are two types of ‘actions’ we could be doing. One is ‘being in motion’ and the other is ‘taking action’. When you are learning, you are reading books, watching videos, taking courses, and you are in motion, but you aren’t taking action. You will never know what it is really like until you experiment and take action. Are thousands or millions of reviews going to tell you what a restaurant is like better than trying out the restaurant in person?\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">It took me...<br><br>200+ articles before I got a book deal.<br>250+ articles before I got major media coverage (NYT).<br>100+ interviews before my book hit the bestseller list.<br><br>You need a lot of shots on goal. Not everything will work, but some of it will. <br><br>Keep shooting.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1326664341186355200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 11, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nWhat you see as ‘instant best-seller’ results from a lot of work behind the scenes. There’s no such thing these days as instant success.\nUnfortunately, the shortcut to success is the long way: a lot of shots on goal.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Lack of confidence kills more dreams than lack of ability.<br><br>Talent matters—especially at elite levels—but people talk themselves out of giving their best effort long before talent becomes the limiting factor.<br><br>You&#39;re capable of more than you know. Don&#39;t be your own bottleneck.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1281333911486967809?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 9, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nLack of confidence might be the reason you are ‘in motion’ rather than ‘taking action’. When anybody starts in anything and becomes a success, they likely were in the same spot you were in: naive, didn’t know what they didn’t know, no real expertise. Think Elon Musk and Tesla or SpaceX. Think Warren Buffett and investing. Think Richard Branson and airplanes. The one thing they all have in common? They all took action and improved as they went along.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What looks like talent is often careful preparation.<br><br>What looks like skill is often persistent revision.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1284296430920667137?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">July 18, 2020</a></blockquote>\n\nMy piano teacher said that one goal of practicing piano was to make playing look easy. The harder a song looks to play, the less practice that pianist had. Anytime I see anyone doing anything that looks ‘easy’, it means hundreds or even thousands of hours went into practicing (a beautiful drive in golf, a consistent three-pointer, a well-timed stand-up routine).\n\nI don’t like to admit this, but I have some ‘skill’ in PowerPoint coming from a background in consulting. Except what people don’t know is I spent many hours refining and improving slides, even after they were long approved by my bosses or clients. I always look at each slide with a blank slate and think “how can I improve this slide?”\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Be “selectively ignorant.”<br><br>Ignore topics that drain your attention.<br><br>Unfollow people that drain your energy.<br><br>Abandon projects that drain your time.<br><br>Do not keep up with it all. The more selectively ignorant you become, the more broadly knowledgable you can be.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1265836919902154752?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">May 28, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nSimilar to the news diet that James Altucher recommends, don’t consume anything (media, news, hanging out with negative people) that drains your energy, time or attention. I know it’s easy to say and harder to put into practice, but there are easy ways to reduce your consumption: unsubscribe from Netflix, don’t have news apps on your phone, unfollow people that don’t bring positivity to your life or that complain a lot, stop hanging out with friends that don’t have your best interests at heart.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Not taking things personally is a superpower.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1216077828854292480?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 11, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nAlthough I never thought of it before, not taking things personally is certainly a superpower.\nWhen I think about all the times I have taken things personally, my energy is always drained thinking about what the other person meant, what the consequences are, how I can get revenge, what I can do to prove them wrong, etc. When you take things personally, it’s because your ego is getting in the way, and as Ryan Holiday says, the ego is the enemy.\n\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">There are 3 primary drivers of results in life:<br><br>1) Your luck (randomness).<br>2) Your strategy (choices).<br>3) Your actions (habits).<br><br>Only 2 of the 3 are under your control.<br><br>But if you master those 2, you can improve the odds that luck will work for you rather than against you.</p>&mdash; James Clear (@JamesClear) <a href=\"https://twitter.com/JamesClear/status/1217644408641712129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">January 16, 2020</a></blockquote> \n\nA beautiful way of restating the philosophy of stoicism: control what you can, don’t focus on anything you can’t control.\nA key skill to have is to recognize and focus on what you can control (your actions, your behaviour, your mindset, your habits) and do not focus on what you cannot control (other people’s behaviours, randomness, the weather, how people feel about you).",
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      "title": "Tim Ferriss' Mental Models and Heuristics That Help Him Make Better Decisions",
      "body": "Tim Ferriss recently released a video about how to make better decisions. While you can watch it on YouTube, I summarized his key points below and have added a few of my own. I'm certainly not in the league of Tim Ferriss, but the other mental models and heuristics can help you make better decisions (and they don't cost you anything so why not give them a try too?).\n\n\n![0_SlP4DDArRnU8U2uv.jfif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmUrXxx3fZFvBquzB2x4GHLYsfWb7MbCojTyf7EBhTNj5i/0_SlP4DDArRnU8U2uv.jfif)\nPhoto by Jens Lelie on Unsplash\n\n---\n\nTim talks about the following heuristics/mental models:\n* Don't spend energy on reversible decisions\n* Conducting a risk/benefit analysis \n* Whole-body yes\n* Helpful and unhelpful intuition\n\n---\n\n### Don't spend energy on reversible/fixable decisions \n\nWhat kind of toilet paper should I buy? Should I rent this AirBnB or another? Should I purchase this now or shop around on Amazon? \n\nMany of these decisions are easily reversible. If you don't like the toilet paper or what you buy at the store, you can refund it. Renting an Airbnb is not easily reversible, but if you rent a bad Airbnb, you can complain, get your money back, and rent another AirBnB. \n\nThe time and energy you do have should be spent on big decisions that are not easily reversible. Whether or not you should marry someone. Do you move to a new city for a job opportunity you are not sure of? Do you rent or put an offer in for a condo? These are not easily reversible or fixable if you make a bad decision, so you will want to spend the time and energy analyzing and making a better decision. \n\n### Risk/benefit analysis\n\nIn Tim's experience, a risk and benefit analysis is better than a pro and cons list. Why? Because a pro and cons list does not give you a sense of what your downsides are in the decision. Imagine you are trying to decide on purchasing $50,000 worth of bitcoin. The con is you could lose money. But the risk is you could lose $50,000 the next day. \nTim conducts risk/benefit analyses with the idea of understanding downsides and whether they are capped or not. So for example, a small investment in bitcoin ($1,000) can potentially have a huge upside, and if bitcoin falls to $0, that means Tim has only really lost $1,000 (and a bit of time). \n\nThere are many decisions with potentially high upside and capped downside in life, and those are the decisions you always want to make if you are comfortable with the capped downside. Decisions with a high upside and no downside should obviously be a no-brainer. \n\n###Whole-body yes\n\nThe whole-body yes is similar to Derek Siver's Hell Yeah or No article. My notes from his book of the same name are also useful in understanding this concept. \n\nEssentially, the whole-body yes is about the yeses or the nos that come from your head (rational), heart (emotional), and gut (instinctual). To make a 'yes' decision, all three parts of your body should also be a yes. Tim reverses this to make it easier. If there's a no anywhere (and he describes it as contractions or tightness or an uncomfortable feeling), i.e., there's a no in your head, or heart, or gut, then it's a no from Tim. \n\n### Knowing the difference between helpful and unhelpful intuition \n\nTim describes two types of intuition - one is helpful and the other is unhelpful. \n\nHelpful intuition is the one where after analyzing all the data, getting the yes from your whole-body, and knowing the risk-benefit analysis, you get the sense that you should make the decision, even though something (even a small thing) might be pointing towards a no. Your intuition is your way of telling you you may have missed something that could blow the decision way in favour of the positive. It might be saying yes to an opportunity, even though you don't think you have the time or energy for it. Or saying yes to a blind date despite having gone on hundreds of terrible dates. \n\nUnhelpful intuition is one where you use your intuition to rationalize the decision you have already decided on. You use your intuition as a way of grouping together unknown analyses, thoughts, and feelings, and give yourself a reason to make a decision you likely have already made. \n\nOne way to know the difference is how much time and analysis you have spent on the decision. Usually, the more time and analysis you have done, the less unhelpful intuition you will have. \n\n---\n\nAs I mentioned at the beginning, here are a few more heuristics and mental models I believe can help you make better decisions.\n\n### For complex decisions, never jump to the first (or third) idea\n\nAfter working for a while at your company, your boss tells you there are promotions and opportunities in another city. Except you have already bought a home and have a partner and kids in your current city. You think the decision is between you commuting or moving your family over to the new city. But there are alternatives if you just stopped to think about them. One alternative is negotiating a remote work opportunity and only flying to the other city one or two days out of the week. Another alternative is leveraging the promotion and opportunity to get a better job at a competitor. \n\nBy not jumping to the first or third idea, you give yourself time to develop alternatives that may be even better than the ideas you first came up with. \n\n### Identify the worst-case outcome of making a decision, and then figure out a way, if that happened, to deal with the bad outcome\n\nAlso known as Tim Ferriss' fear exercise, for any complex decision you make, you can think of the worst outcome that might result if everything was against you.\nFor example, imagine you are trying to decide on starting a business. The worst outcome might be that you lose all of your initial money, and have to refinance your home or assets. But you also recognize that you can get your old job back, pay the bills, and get back on your feet if that happened. \nWhat you think might be the worst-case outcome of decisions are really not as terrible as you make it in your mind. \n\n### How would your decision change if you thought back to this decision ten years later? \nIn my latest published book, Strategies for Long Term Success, I talk about the idea of the long-term view and how it applies to the habits you do every day. If you look forward ten years later, some things are always going to be important no matter what job you have, or what you are doing: family, your health, finances, mental well-being, to name a few. So if those things aren't going to change, then the habits that you build today should focus on those things (exercise, investing, meditation, eating healthy, spending time with your kids). \nHave a complex decision that you are trying to make? If it were ten years later, and you were looking back at this decision, what would you have wished you made? Or in other words, what decision would you wished you had made to minimize regret? \n\nNow, between a job opportunity in a big city, and a better job opportunity, but in a smaller city, you may look back and regret taking the job because of the lifestyle you will end up having. Or that you should have taken the better job in the smaller city because your finances would be in much better shape than taking a so-so job in a bigger city. \n\n> You and only you, are responsible for making your life choices and decisions - Robert Kiyosaki",
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      "permlink": "how-the-practice-of-running-every-day-can-help-your-writing",
      "title": "How The Practice of Running Every Day Can Help Your Writing",
      "body": "On the surface, Haruki Murakami’s What I talk about when I talk about running seems to be about running. Haruki runs on average, 26 miles every week, and has set a goal to run a marathon every year since the age of 33. And most of his book chronicles his training, journey, thoughts and experiences as he prepares for the New York Marathon (and his training for a triathlon). But as I re-read this book this past weekend, I realized there are many parallels between running and writing, and much to learn from the acclaimed Japanese novelist in his book.\n\n![1_xMKvhEli7KP-MBeh9K6rWg.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmTTai4UU47trJm511wTZDDoU31chpEza2eiGB1RuTtvQw/1_xMKvhEli7KP-MBeh9K6rWg.jpeg)\n\nThese parallels include:\n* ‘Winning’ at running (finite vs. infinite games)\n* Ultramarathons (pushing yourself)\n* Running and walking (rules)\n* Finding the positives (small wins)\n* The evolution of fitness (the concept of flow)\n* Swimming coach (being a beginner and unlearning bad habits)\n\nLet’s explore their implications to writing, shall we?\n\n### ‘Winning’ at running (finite vs. infinite games)\n\nMaybe Haruki was competitive when he was younger, but at his age (40s/50s), he does not consider himself a competitive runner. If you are competitive, that’s great, but know that time is not on your side — as you age, there are younger, faster, and stronger runners coming all the time.\n\nInstead, Haruki runs for his health. He runs so that he can run every day. He doesn’t run in marathons or races to be the best (though he does try to beat his PRs), he runs for the health benefits and runs in a way so he can keep on running every day.\n\nThink about your writing for a second. Are you writing so you can get a viral hit? Or are you writing so you can improve your craft and focus on your writing practice? With the first, you can win, but you will likely ‘lose’ a lot of the time (other writers will have more viral hits, be more popular, get better book deals, etc. — and there’s no way for you to control or affect that). With the second, you will always win, as long as you keep on writing.\n\nIn essence, this is about playing finite vs. infinite games. With running, Haruki runs so that he can run every day. With writing, you can focus on your writing practice because really that’s the only thing you can control.\n\n### Ultramarathons (pushing yourself to the limit)\n\nJust to see if he can do it, Haruki participated in an ultramarathon. While it was a grind, he did it. A funny thing happened after Haruki participated in the ultramarathon — he never wanted to run again. But that feeling goes away after a few days, his body recovers, and he gets back to running every day again.\n\nI think there are two takeaways for me as it applies to writing. One is to experiment with how much you write. In this case, if you normally write a thousand words, see what it feels like to write two thousand or five thousand words. Double or triple your typical out. You want to see IF you can do it, but sometimes, pushing yourself past your limit can be an interesting experiment in itself to see how you deal with it and what you come up with.\n\nThe second takeaway is that Haruki has the same feeling I have every day I write. After every book, I’ve published (and I’ve self-published seven books), I feel like I don’t have another book in me. And then a few days pass, I think about the books I have written, and get back into writing another book. If you get that feeling from writing books, articles, essays, etc., take a short break and I think that feeling will go away.\n\n### Running and walking (rules)\n\nHaruki has a rule when he runs marathons: never walk. He can stop to tie his shoe or take a break. But he will never slow down to a run. He says it himself that if he breaks this rule, he will break other rules and that is not a slippery slope he wants to start on.\n\nSteve Kamb, the founder of Nerd Fitness, has a nice ‘hack’ for getting out of things you don’t want to do, like drinking alcohol or going out to clubs. All you have to say to the other person is “Sorry, I have a rule that I don’t …” People usually do not question you and then you aren’t bothered about it again.\n\nWhat I like about setting rules is it is a lot easier to follow rules and guidelines than it is to have a wide-open free-for-all. Setting the rule is a way for telling your body or mind to stick with something painful, and to minimize the decisions you have to make (of which, there are bad decisions you could take).\n\nFor example, some of my writing rules include:\n* Write without editing\n* Read the article out loud to check for spelling and grammatical mistakes\n* Hit ‘publish’ when an article is good enough, not perfect\n\nThese rules make it easier for me to write and publish articles.\n\n### Finding the positives (small wins)\n\nHaruki likes running in Boston because he runs along the river where there are many pretty blondes with ponytails running as well. I found that funny, but I liked the greater message here: find the small wins in the things you do. For him and running, it’s about seeing attractive females running (as a writer, he spends most of his day indoors and he is married so he would not otherwise see these attractive females anywhere else).\n\nYou can apply the same principle to writing. Find your small wins. Did a reader leave a comment? Applaud for your article? Did you get a new follower or subscriber? Congratulate yourself on those small wins. Without those small wins, writing for a long time becomes a drudgery. I’ve had several existential moments questioning why I write, who my writing is for, what my end goal is for writing, etc. and keeping in mind all of the small wins I have had help motivate me to continue writing.\n\n### The evolution of fitness (the concept of flow)\n\nIn the book, Haruki talks about how he has started to train for triathlons, which add a biking and swimming component to his already established running practice. My guess at Haruki’s motivation for completing a triathlon is he wants to challenge himself. As he runs, he gets in better shape, but with triathlons, he can not only challenge himself further but also practice and challenge himself with different skills (i.e., biking and swimming).\n\nWith writing, it’s essential to challenge yourself with different types of writing assignments. For me, that’s writing every day (and experimenting with different forms of writing), and then also writing a book at the same time (which is like writing every day, though with an overall narrative or theme in mind).\n\nBecause I write every day, I like to run experiments. Sometimes, I’ll use a Q&A format for my articles. Sometimes, I’ll add more stories or research. Other times, I’ll explore different types of resources (YouTube videos, books, other articles) and analyze the takeaways from those other resources. And sometimes, I will experiment with vulnerability, and how much I share about my life. Each of these experiments helps me learn what resonates with readers and what areas I could explore with my writing.\n\n### Swimming coach (being a beginner and unlearning bad habits)\n\nWhen Haruki was training for the triathlon, he felt his swimming was not optimal. He knew how to swim, but he realized there were a lot of things wrong with his form that could be tweaked. He tried to find swimming coaches, but the problem with some of the coaches was they were good at teaching a new swimmer how to swim, but they were not good at teaching swimmers with ingrained habits how to change or tweak the bad habits. Finally, his wife recommended a swim coach that was able to make adjustments to his bad form. For example, Haruki had problems with rotations when swimming. So his coach asked Haruki to do drills that strangely, were not focused on rotations at all. But as he unlearned his bad habits through the drills, and started to piece together what he learned into swimming, he found that his form improved.\n\nAlthough I consider myself a writer, I don’t consider myself a good writer. I am continually taking writing courses, reading books, and learning how to improve my writing. Even though I have self-published seven books, I don’t consider knowing it all. Before embarking on the next book, I revisit the many writing courses and books I have in my repertoire.\nAnd since I’ve written for several years, I certainly have many bad habits and make mistakes other beginner writers would not make. I use ‘that’ too many times. I use three words when two will do. It’s hard and repetitive work to unlearn my bad habits, and that’s what I tell myself: keep at it, and one day, it will magically happen. It’s like stretching: stretch every day, and one day, you will find a magical breakthrough.\n\n### Final thoughts\n* In the end, what does running have to do with writing? A lot, apparently. But you can also replace ‘running’ with whatever practice you have: weight training, reading, painting, walking, etc. Here are the principles I’ve taken away about the writing craft:\n* Focus on your craft. Improve every day. Get it out (publish, sell on the market) before it is ready. Get feedback. Improve more.\n* Experiment. Take risks. Try new things.\n* Don’t worry about the results or outcomes. Concentrate on what you can control.\n* Celebrate the small wins and use them to motivate and push yourself.",
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      "body": "In his book *Born For This*, the author Chris Guillebeau talks about a strategy to develop a plan to quit his job in one year — and to do that every year. While he talks about this commitment to starting a side hustle, being an entrepreneur, and supporting yourself through other means, I want to look at it from the perspective of helping your career.\n\n![0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRKJ76mV2KaXEmoo72xm5DM85YzvFAk717c1BoyVPXaqe/0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jpeg)\nPhoto by Mark Duffel on Unsplash\n\nThe strategy, if you are not aware, is to develop a one-year plan for you to create an asset for yourself (a side hustle, a business, freelancing, etc.) and then to quit your job in one year. At the one year checkpoint, you take a look at your original plan, and where you are now, and then you evaluate whether you are ready or if you need more time (and update your plan accordingly). Here is the key to the plan: once you commit to staying on in your job to ‘buy’ yourself more time, you don’t complain, you don’t talk about how much you hate your boss or your work, and you don’t use passive-aggressive tactics to make it harder on your coworkers. Once you commit, you do the best job you can and then evaluate again at the next checkpoint.\n\nHere is why I think making a one-year commitment can help your career:\n\n### Reduces negativity\n\nYou may have friends that have done something similar, though without the one-year plan. They talk all the time about how they hate their bosses. They talk about how they are working on their side hustles to get out of the chains of their full-time job. They talk about how if they just won the lotto, they would quit and never look back. But then you see them day after day, still hating their job, but continuing to work.\nAgain, once you commit to your plan, you are all-in.\n\n### Forces review\n\nIf you work for someone, you likely have some form of regular performance review, whether annual, quarterly or another frequency. This is different than a performance review in that it isn’t an assessment of your abilities or work you have done, but an assessment of where you want to be in the future.\nIf you don’t have a plan for where you want to be, it’s difficult to figure out whether you got there, and what you need to do to reach your goals.\n\n### Provides you a timeline\n\nHigh-intensity interval training is brutal. But, maybe this is my experience, knowing how long you have to go, and when you can stop makes it easier to work out harder.\n\nIf your trainer tells you to go full-speed and will tell you when to stop, you are going to hold back not knowing how long you will have to go for because you want to save energy for the full workout. But if the trainer tells you to go full-speed on a workout, and then tells you that you only need to do it for 30 seconds, you can gauge your energy and push hard accordingly, knowing it is only for 30 seconds.\n\nIn the same way, knowing you need to do a job you don’t love for a certain amount of time helps you to do that job and envision a finish line.\n\n### Gives you logical factors for deciding\n\nPart of the reason you or your coworkers talk about how they hate their job and want to quit, and then show up the next day, and the next day to work, is that you and your coworker’s mental states differ from one day to the next. One day, you have the worst boss, you’re on an awful project, you are working with underhanded coworkers trying to sabotage your efforts, and you feel like quitting after the worst day ever. The next day, you rationalize your way back into your job, saying that it is good money, have significant benefits you can’t get at another job, that your boss has some good points, and your coworkers are trying to give you a challenge.\n\nHaving a one-year plan helps make it clear why you should quit. Those factors make it clear even if after one-year, your job transforms and you love it (though of course, the decision is ultimately up to you). But one year later, as you start to rationalize why you should stay on, you look at the specific things you wrote one year ago and ask yourself, are these true?\n\nQuestions like:\n* Do I have a side hustle, asset, or business that I can use to generate money?\n* Can it replace 50% of my full-time income?\n* Am I still learning new skills, taking on new challenges, or meeting new people that can help my career?\n\n### Final thought\n\nCreating a one-year quitting plan shouldn’t be made public. It’s something you create for yourself to either get you out of a job you don’t want to work or to force yourself to take a hard look at where you are and where you want to be (and then whether you want to stay in the job you are in).\n\nWhen I’ve used it in my career, it’s reduced negativity, helped push me forward and made projects and jobs that were miserable, more tolerable.\n\nCan creating a one-year quitting plan help your career?\n\n---\n\nHey, do you like what I write? I have a newsletter where I share book notes, my best articles, and other resources to help improve your life. [Sign up](www.wangyip.ca) and get it free every two weeks.",
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      "body": "In his book *Born For This*, the author Chris Guillebeau talks about a strategy to develop a plan to quit his job in one year — and to do that every year. While he talks about this commitment to starting a side hustle, being an entrepreneur, and supporting yourself through other means, I want to look at it from the perspective of helping your career.\n\n![0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRKJ76mV2KaXEmoo72xm5DM85YzvFAk717c1BoyVPXaqe/0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jpeg)\nPhoto by Mark Duffel on Unsplash\n\nThe strategy, if you are not aware, is to develop a one-year plan for you to create an asset for yourself (a side hustle, a business, freelancing, etc.) and then to quit your job in one year. At the one year checkpoint, you take a look at your original plan, and where you are now, and then you evaluate whether you are ready or if you need more time (and update your plan accordingly). Here is the key to the plan: once you commit to staying on in your job to ‘buy’ yourself more time, you don’t complain, you don’t talk about how much you hate your boss or your work, and you don’t use passive-aggressive tactics to make it harder on your coworkers. Once you commit, you do the best job you can and then evaluate again at the next checkpoint.\n\nHere is why I think making a one-year commitment can help your career:\n\n### Reduces negativity\n\nYou may have friends that have done something similar, though without the one-year plan. They talk all the time about how they hate their bosses. They talk about how they are working on their side hustles to get out of the chains of their full-time job. They talk about how if they just won the lotto, they would quit and never look back. But then you see them day after day, still hating their job, but continuing to work.\nAgain, once you commit to your plan, you are all-in.\n\n### Forces review\n\nIf you work for someone, you likely have some form of regular performance review, whether annual, quarterly or another frequency. This is different than a performance review in that it isn’t an assessment of your abilities or work you have done, but an assessment of where you want to be in the future.\nIf you don’t have a plan for where you want to be, it’s difficult to figure out whether you got there, and what you need to do to reach your goals.\n\n### Provides you a timeline\n\nHigh-intensity interval training is brutal. But, maybe this is my experience, knowing how long you have to go, and when you can stop makes it easier to work out harder.\n\nIf your trainer tells you to go full-speed and will tell you when to stop, you are going to hold back not knowing how long you will have to go for because you want to save energy for the full workout. But if the trainer tells you to go full-speed on a workout, and then tells you that you only need to do it for 30 seconds, you can gauge your energy and push hard accordingly, knowing it is only for 30 seconds.\n\nIn the same way, knowing you need to do a job you don’t love for a certain amount of time helps you to do that job and envision a finish line.\n\n### Gives you logical factors for deciding\n\nPart of the reason you or your coworkers talk about how they hate their job and want to quit, and then show up the next day, and the next day to work, is that you and your coworker’s mental states differ from one day to the next. One day, you have the worst boss, you’re on an awful project, you are working with underhanded coworkers trying to sabotage your efforts, and you feel like quitting after the worst day ever. The next day, you rationalize your way back into your job, saying that it is good money, have significant benefits you can’t get at another job, that your boss has some good points, and your coworkers are trying to give you a challenge.\n\nHaving a one-year plan helps make it clear why you should quit. Those factors make it clear even if after one-year, your job transforms and you love it (though of course, the decision is ultimately up to you). But one year later, as you start to rationalize why you should stay on, you look at the specific things you wrote one year ago and ask yourself, are these true?\n\nQuestions like:\n* Do I have a side hustle, asset, or business that I can use to generate money?\n* Can it replace 50% of my full-time income?\n* Am I still learning new skills, taking on new challenges, or meeting new people that can help my career?\n\n### Final thought\n\nCreating a one-year quitting plan shouldn’t be made public. It’s something you create for yourself to either get you out of a job you don’t want to work or to force yourself to take a hard look at where you are and where you want to be (and then whether you want to stay in the job you are in).\n\nWhen I’ve used it in my career, it’s reduced negativity, helped push me forward and made projects and jobs that were miserable, more tolerable.\n\nCan creating a one-year quitting plan help your career?\n\n---\n\nHey, do you like what I write? I have a newsletter where I share book notes, my best articles, and other resources to help improve your life. [Sign up](www.wangyip.ca) and get it free every two weeks.",
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      "body": "If anybody asked me what my superpower was, I would say it is digesting a lot of information and translating it into something digestible. It’s a skill that served me well in management consulting, where we often do a lot of analysis and research to cull together recommendations and strategies for clients. After management consulting, I applied the skill to the numerous books I read every month, providing insights and takeaways in a [bi-weekly email newsletter](www.wangyip.ca).\n\n![0_09dxtvqTAszsIUYL.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmZ58MHWRpY4UDWhFdDH7UHAjyj1jLEGz1tM2o9PtsGN6Q/0_09dxtvqTAszsIUYL.jpeg)\nPhoto by Austin Distel on Unsplash\n\nThe result of applying the skill to hundreds of books, podcasts, online courses, articles, and other resources? My book, [Essential Habits](www.tiny.cc/essentialhabits).\n\nEssential Habits is a book borne out of my interest in getting at specific takeaways from books. A few years ago, my very smart friend and I saw the release of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink at a bookstore. We both knew about the previous books he published and I was excited about Blink, his newest book. But my friend opened up the book, read a few pages, and then went to the middle of the book, read a few more pages, and then concluded the book was not worth his time or money. I asked him how he knew. He told me he read a few pages, got the specific takeaway, which was that we often make intuitive decisions based on a few seconds of understanding a situation and that intuitive decision is oftentimes better than taking the time to understand everything about the situation before coming to a decision, and then when he went to the middle of the book, it was Malcolm talking about the same thing, but with a different story or observation. I don’t mind reading books like this, but as a reader of many non-fiction books, I want to get the specific takeaway of a book without having to read a few hundred pages of stories, anecdotes, and graphs to conclude I should meditate every day. Or that regular exercise is healthy for me.\n\nBut after reflecting on my experience of writing Essential Habits, and reading a lot more books in the meantime, I’ve realized something interesting: there are two contrasting ways I get value out of the books I read.\n\n### Read for tactics\n\nReading for tactics is the way I read books to get the material for Essential Habits. Essential Habits is my attempt at hacking away at the marble and giving you David. I give you what’s essential, though obviously from my perspective, and try to distill hundreds of resources into specific takeaways for readers to incorporate into their lives right away. Want to know the specific morning routine Hal Elrod recommends in his book, The Miracle Mornings? That’s one chapter of my book. Interested in what Tim Ferriss and others recommend as night time routines to wind down for the night and get the best night’s rest you can? That’s another chapter.\n\nReading for tactics is a great way to come up with specific actions you can take to immediately change your situation. Have an upcoming salary negotiation with your boss? There are lots of great negotiation books to help you prepare and execute.\n\nBut one challenge with reading for tactics is something I found in my book when I wrote about diets and food. In the book, I advocated for intermittent fasting — I wasn’t an expert, but I had seen enough experts I respected advocate for IF that I thought it had only benefits and no downside. But after my book came out, I had many friends tell and send me articles stating that IF does nothing for weight loss. And I’m sure if I looked, there would be articles out there and experts saying IF isn’t for everyone.\n\nA similar topic? Exercise. In the book, I stated that High-Intensity Interval Training was the best. And again, I had many friends tell me other exercises are better.\n\nWhen you read for tactics, the tactics can change based on what’s hot, trending, and ongoing research and studies.\n\n### Read for principles\n\nAlthough I partially cover it in my book and you can glean it from the material, I do not explicitly outline the principles I uncovered during my research. Principles are different from tactics in the sense that principles do not change on a whim.\n\nIf you want to run a cash-flow positive business, your revenue has to be greater than your expenses. Sure, there are a lot of tactics you can use to increase your revenue (increase sales, increase prices, etc.) or decrease your expenses (fire people, volume discounts, etc.), but the principle of revenue > expenses will always remain.\n\nHow do you read for principles? Here is what I do:\n\n* **Read old books.** How else will you know if this topic has been covered before? And how else will you know if someone rehashed the topic and made it popular again (i.e., Ryan Holiday and stoicism)? The Lindy Effect is the idea that the older something is, the longer it is likely to be around in the future. In other words, this is why Dale Carnegie’s book How to win friends and influence people continues to be popular — it has been around and popular for many decades, and so will continue to be around and popular for many more decades. How do you know what old books to read? Look for highly-rated books published at least two decades ago. If you are like me, you’ve read a lot of the modern self-help books and you might think, as I naively did, that the old books aren’t as relevant as the newer books, but you (and I) would be wrong.\n* **Read a lot of books.** You may already be reading a lot of books, but the trick is to read a lot of books on the same topic. If you are interested in the principles for exercise, read about kettlebells, interval training, cardio, running, weight training, and more. If you are interested in the principles for selling, read Zig Ziglar, Brian Tracy, Jeffrey Gitomer, Napoleon Hill, Joe Girard, and others.\n* **Look for agreements, but more importantly, look for disagreements.** Principles will appear as a result of agreements between thinkers. For example, there is nobody I have read that says you can be healthy by having junk food or processed foods as part of your regular diet. Now what you eat, and how often you eat are the tactics because those change depending on what’s popular at the time, what your friends or coworkers try out and tell you, etc., but the principle of eating quality whole foods is there.\n* **Use tactics as a way to test principles.** Each principle you develop is a hypothesis — it does not become a ‘theory’ until you have tested it many times over and learned from each experiment. Just because I say eating quality whole foods is better for you, and it makes sense in theory, doesn’t mean that becomes a principle for you. With the hypothesis in mind, you can test the principle through specific short term tactics. Maybe you try eating junk food for a week and seeing how you feel. Or eating processed foods once a day.\n* **Test and refine principles.** When I was researching the health section of Essential Habits, one principle I believed in was weight lifting. I saw there were numerous benefits of lifting weights and little to no drawbacks. But as I read more books on health and exercise, I realized that weight lifting is for specific individuals, with specific goals. A much better principle, to me, is being active, whether that’s sports, running, walking your dog, or other activities.\n\n### Final thoughts\n\nTo be a more critical reader, you have to marry the two of reading for tactics and reading for principles. Tactics are the experiments you conduct in your life, the actions you take from the books you read. Over time, you learn which tactics work for you and which do not, based on your circumstances (time, energy, willpower, discipline, etc.). As you learn which tactics work for you and learn tactics from a variety of sources, you start to formulate principles — known truths that form the foundation for the tactics you know will benefit you the most.",
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      "title": "7 Underrated Quotes That Helped Me Rethink My Career in 2021",
      "body": "Recently, I signed up for a [Career Mastery Virtual Summit](https://careermasterykickstart.com/) (it’s free! Sign up if you are interested) and received a supporting playbook that asked 25 world-class experts to share their top advice to be more successful in 2021. Although the whole playbook is worth reading, I found several quotes, in particular, to be impactful to my life and I wanted to share those quotes and the specific takeaways I will be using in 2021 to be more successful.\n\n![0_g0Rsl4pxi7vZsw34.jpeg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmdsqM4wKQEUsBLQ8JXjw3CVRL8dq9QJppQ4qFgK6wE2oN/0_g0Rsl4pxi7vZsw34.jpeg)\nPhoto by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash\n\n### Find your community — David Burkus\n\nDavid Burkus is a bestselling author and keynote speaker.\n\nDavid talks about finding those individuals that are already where you want to be. If you want to be a successful entrepreneur, join a mastermind of entrepreneurs. If you want to be a successful author, join a community of authors. You might not be able to participate or contribute, but for now, be a sponge. Absorb what they read. Find out what conferences they attend. All you have to do is invest yourself in the community.\n\n*Takeaway:* What community do you want to be a part of? What do you want to achieve in 2021?\n\n### Put your strengths to work — James Brook\n\nJames Brook is a Leadership Consultant, Organizational Psychologist, Executive Coach, and Founder of Plexus Leadership.\n\nMost successful people achieve their goals by maximizing their strengths, rather than trying to make up for their weaknesses. You can’t be the best person you can be if you are constantly focusing on your weaknesses when you could be focusing on your strengths.\n\n*Takeaway:* What are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? How can you delegate or hire away your weaknesses so you can focus on your strengths?\n\n### Be curious — Karen Wickre\n\nKaren Wickre is the Founder of KVOX Media.\n\nKaren’s advice for 2021 — be curious.\n\n*Takeaway:* It seems overly simple, but I think the two words can be unpacked many times. It’s about being open to opportunities. Asking questions. Diving deep into things you have interests in, but may not be immediately relevant or on the surface, worth your time.\n\n### Choose how you respond — Kim Scott\n\nKim Scott is the Co-Founder of Radical Candor and author.\n\nYou can respond to setbacks and failures in different ways, but there are two that are most important.\nOne, you can tell yourself that you are the victim, the person with the bad luck, and the one who always gets the short end of the stick. Or two, you can tell yourself you have a grand opportunity here, you have something to prove, and you have the chance to frame this in a positive way.\n\n*Takeaway:* You can choose how to respond to everything in your life. And you should (I hope), choose to respond in a positive way.\n\n### Help somebody every day — Lisa Rangel\n\nLisa Rangel is the Founder of Chameleon Resumes.\n\nWhen you help somebody every day, it makes it easier to ask for help from them when the time comes. Not that you should go into this as a way to move your own agenda forward. Helping somebody makes you feel good. It helps you see what challenges others are facing. It helps you stay connected to others.\n\n*Takeaway:* I have seen many individuals sending a note on LinkedIn offering help to anyone that needs it. My approach will be to focus on friends and coworkers and ask them if there’s anything they need help with. Help them. And then do not ask for anything in return.\n\n### Be a better storyteller — Paul Smith\n\nPaul Smith is a World-Leading Expert in Business Storytelling and author.\n\nPeople make decisions using emotions. And the best way to appeal to those emotions is through stories. So when you can tell better stories, you can be a better persuader (and a better leader).\n\nHow do you become a better storyteller?\n* Find compelling stories\n* Rehearse them using proven storytelling techniques\n* Practice them on others\n\n*Takeaway:* Luckily, I have Paul’s book Lead with Stories, but the takeaway for me here is to always be on the lookout for compelling stories that you can share with others to help you with your cause, whether it’s to affect a decision or to clearly outline the benefits of a specific project.\n\n### Always keep learning — Tanveer Naseer\n\nTanveer Naseer is a Leadership keynote speaker and award-winning writer.\n\nLearning doesn’t have to be limited to school or course work. 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      "title": "How 2020 Changed My Spending Habits",
      "body": "2020 was tough for a lot of us. For me, it meant getting laid off, trying to maintain two mortgages, while trying to support my partner and myself through several additional expenses.\n\nNormally, I don't purchase extravagant things, but I try not to worry so much about money when I had a full-time income and my condo is rented out. I make sure the money coming in is more than the money coming out, and I save and invest as much as I can.\n\n\n![0_p_6UJXfWiQapcq3N.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmVBoyhKADQoQ1TN7wM916M9UxnPrenaCftim9kN2RTSge/0_p_6UJXfWiQapcq3N.jpg)\n\n\nBut without a full-time income, I had to take a hard look at what I was buying and make sure I was not buying anything discretionary. It made me change my spending habits in three ways, and I'm going to carry that forward with me into 2021, even though there may be light at the end of the tunnel.\n\n### Spend less\n\nSpending less was the first thing I did when I had to tighten my expenses. It wasn't about buying in bulk or purchasing generic brands of products in grocery stores either; it was my discretionary purchases: books that I wanted to read, electronic gadgets I thought I needed in my life, ordering takeout from restaurants, etc. I put a stop on all these purchases and I found that I really did not need any of them.\n\n### Spend slowly\n\nThe Minimalist podcast had a great episode on the rule of 30 for spending. The rule of 30 is this: any time you want to purchase something over $30, wait for 30 days. If you still need it after that time, buy it. But what ends up happening most of the time is that after 30 days, you forget about whatever you wanted to buy.\n\nBefore following the rule of 30, I would make big purchases, often without thinking about them or doing enough research. But waiting the 30 days, I would look at reviews, talk to friends and coworkers, peruse discussion forums, and really think about whether I wanted it, and whether I would use it enough to justify the purchase.\n\n### Spend consciously\n\nOn a recent podcast of Three Books, Neil Pasricha talks to Roger Martin, one of the foremost management thinkers in the world. Roger talked about how we should all think about how we spend our dollars.\n\nFor example, I love buying from Amazon. Free shipping. One-click ordering. Cheap prices. But any money I spend on Amazon ends up helping Amazon dominate the market further. And monopolies (if Amazon continually gains market share) aren't always a good thing - businesses operate differently as a monopoly.\n\nConsider another story I heard from someone famous (sorry, I can't recall who it is). That famous person and their friend went to a local store to purchase bottled water. They found at the local store (owned by a family), that the bottled water was more expensive than purchasing at Wal-Mart or a big chain store. The famous person asked their friend, \"why are we purchasing from here when we can purchase cheaper bottled water from Wal-Mart?\" Their friend replied that COVID was going to be tough on everyone, and this local store, and the family that owned it, would need the help. Purchasing the more expensive bottled water helps the local store stay in business. Purchasing from big chain stores helps the big chain stores push out smaller stores.\n\nThe lesson? Distribute the money you spend on a variety of stores. Don't always spend on one store or site.\n\n### Final thought\n\n2021 may very well be the year we come out of COVID, but 2020 was formative to my spending habits. Even when things go back to 'normal', I'll still be spending less, spending slowly, and spending consciously.",
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      "author": "wcy",
      "permlink": "one-trick-to-generate-better-discussions-at-meetings",
      "title": "One Trick to Generate Better Discussions at Meetings",
      "body": "In *Exactly What to Say* by Phil M. Jones, Phil covers the exact phrases that you can use to help influence, persuade, and cajole people into action. Whether you are selling something, generating a discussion at a meeting, trying to convince your boss about a certain path, Phil gives you the exact words to say and why they work.\n\n![0_GlH2oEODgX4mngxj.jpg](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmNi2PPKs9VETQuxApbRnm8YxJ86vvxBzsh2UNAtej2XhA/0_GlH2oEODgX4mngxj.jpg)\n\nOne such phrase is one I have been using at meetings and workshops to generate better discussions. Before I tell you the phrase, let me ask you if you have the following challenges:\n* You show some fantastic slides at work, expecting to hear comments but get crickets back\n* You ask if there are any questions at the end of your presentation, and get head shakes from participants\n* You are teaching a co-worker about a new process. You think you have clearly explained it, but in the end, your co-worker has a blank stare and doesn’t have anything to say to you.\n\nI have experienced all of these things and let me tell you, it’s a little unsettling to get silence whenever you want input from others.\n\n### The trick\n\nYou probably ask this simple question at the end of a presentation or talk: ‘do you have any questions for me?’ The question seems innocent enough. It’s a question you have probably heard your boss and your boss’ boss ask others. \n\nExcept it’s the wrong question to ask.\n\nWhy?\n\nBecause every time you ask the question, the automatic response is ‘no’. Think about it the next time someone asks you if you have any questions — your automatic response is likely ‘no’. Even if you have questions, it’s a lot easier saying ‘no’ because it doesn’t invite any follow-up questions or additional effort on your end. And it lets the speaker off the hook.\n\nSo instead, ask this question: ‘what questions do you have for me?’\n\nWhen you ask this question, you presume people have questions for you. They can still say they don’t have any questions for you, but if they had any questions, they are more likely to ask them. Just like anything in life, there are no guarantees, but this simple phrase change has helped generate more discussions, questions, and comments at my meetings.\n\n### Final thought\n\nThis trick doesn’t just work for questions. It works for many of the other questions you have at work too:\n* ‘Do you have any comments on this document?’ becomes ‘How would you improve this document?’\n* ‘Do you have any suggestions for how I can facilitate better meetings?’ becomes ‘What feedback do you have for how I can run better meetings?’\n* ‘Do you know who I can talk to for X?’ becomes ‘Who is the best person to talk to for X?’\n\nGood salesman have been doing this for years. Rather than ask whether you like the color of the car you are buying or not, they will ask ‘which color?’, presuming you already have purchased the car and just need to decide on the color. Be like a salesman, and ask leading questions to give you better responses.",
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      "permlink": "why-committing-to-quitting-your-job-every-year-will-help-your-career",
      "title": "Why committing to quitting your job every year will help your career",
      "body": "In his book Born For This, the author Chris Guillebeau talks about a strategy to develop a plan to quit his job in one year - and to do that every year. While he talks about this commitment in the context of starting a side hustle, being an entrepreneur, and supporting yourself through other means, I want to take a look at it from the perspective of helping your career.\n\nThe strategy, if you are not aware, is to develop a one-year plan for you to create an asset for yourself (a side hustle, a business, freelancing, etc.) and then to quit your job in one year. At the one year checkpoint, you take a look at your original plan, and where you are now, and then you evaluate whether you are ready or if you need more time (and update your plan accordingly). Here is the key to the plan: once you commit to staying on in your job to 'buy' yourself more time, you don't complain, you don't talk about how much you hate your boss or your work, and you don't use passive-aggressive tactics to make it harder on your coworkers. Once you commit, you do the best job you can and then evaluate again at the next checkpoint.\n\n![0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jfif](https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmaWcYJcgTaFESmSz81dof6aY98grrMXfCaT6sr44VBzJ2/0_5B9FfF2M1EGzNggd.jfif)\n\nHere is why I think making a one-year commitment can help your career:\n\n### Reduces negativity\n\nYou may have friends that have done something similar, though without the one-year plan. They talk all the time about how they hate their bosses. They talk about how they are working on their side hustles to get out of the chains of their full-time job. They talk about how if they just won the lotto, they would quit and never look back. But then you see them day after day, still hating their job, but continuing to work.\n\nAgain, once you commit to your plan, you are all-in.\n### Forces review\n\nIf you work for someone, you likely have some form of regular performance review, whether annual, quarterly or another frequency. This is different than a performance review in that it isn't an assessment of your abilities or work you have done, but an assessment of where you want to be in the future.\n\nIf you don't have a plan for where you want to be, it's difficult to figure out whether you got there, and what you need to do to reach your goals.\n\n#### Provides you a timeline\n\nHigh-intensity interval training is brutal. But, maybe this is my experience, knowing how long you have to go, and when you can stop makes it easier to work out harder.\n\nIf your trainer tells you to go full-speed and will tell you when to stop, you are going to hold back not knowing how long you will have to go for because you want to save energy for the full workout. But if the trainer tells you to go full-speed on a workout, and then tells you that you only need to do it for 30 seconds, you can gauge your energy and push hard accordingly, knowing it is only for 30 seconds.\n\nIn the same way, knowing you need to do a job you don't necessarily love for a certain amount of time helps you to do that job and envision a finish line.\n\n### Gives you clear factors for making a decision\n\nPart of the reason why you or your coworkers talk about how they hate their job, and want to quit, and then show up the next day, and the next day to work, is that you and your coworker's mental states are different from one day to the next. \n\nOne day, you have the worst boss, you're on an awful project, you are working with underhanded coworkers trying to sabotage your efforts, and you feel like quitting after the worst day ever. The next day, you rationalize your way back into your job, saying that it is good money, have great benefits you can't get at another job, that your boss has some good points, and your coworkers are trying to give you a challenge.\n\nHaving a one-year plan helps make it clear why you should quit. Those factors make it clear even if after one-year, your job transforms and you love it (though of course, the decision is ultimately up to you). But one year later, as you start to rationalize why you should stay on, you take a look at the specific things you wrote down one year ago and ask yourself, are these true?\n\nQuestions like:\n* Do I have a side hustle, asset, or business that I can use to generate money?\n* Can it replace 50% of my full-time income?\n* Am I still learning new skills, taking on new challenges, or meeting new people that can help my career?\n\n### Final thought\n\nCreating a one-year quitting plan shouldn't be made public. It's something you create for yourself to either get you out of a job you don't want to work or to force yourself to take a hard look at where you are and where you want to be (and then whether or not you want to stay in the job you are in).\n\nWhen I've used it in my career, it's reduced negativity, helped push me forward and made projects and jobs that were miserable, more tolerable.\n\nCan creating a one-year quitting plan help your career?",
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