The Least Known Secret of Success
Daydreaming is the least understood brain activity and yet it’s the most powerful source of success, according to research psychologists in the US, Europe, China and Japan. This cross-cultural finding that creativity and productivity blossom from daydreaming is especially interesting, because it is almost universally discouraged.
For most of us, the priority at school and …
What Successful People Know About Anger
Anger evolved from the eruption of terror that early man experienced when he encountered a saber tooth tiger, at least that’s the current neuroscience on it. Actually, the latest thinking on all emotions is that they stem from our most primitive response mechanism. That is: every emotion has the potential to stimulate approach behaviors (fight) …
Three Ridiculously Easy Tips to Defeat Perfectionism
If you are like most of us, you are doing more with less. Most businesses take pride in the ever increasing productivity of workers. Bosses often pile on too much work to too few people. Solo-entrepreneurs over-commit themselves. And, pretty much everyone is sleep-deprived, caffeine and sugar-high, or otherwise brain drained by the habits we …
Reframing What’s Wrong to Make It Right
President Obama is currently on the stump advocating two things. First, he wants a raise in the minimum wage. Second, he wants women to receive equal pay for equal work. These have been decades long intractable issues. I believe that language has played a big part in their failure to gain traction. Perhaps reframing these …
How To Handle The Unexpected Agony in Life
Death. Divorce. Moving. Illness. Losing a job. You probably know the list of things you might need to survive, because life inevitably changes and deals you losses along with the wins. Agony often accompanies loss, because your sense of yourself is shattered. Agony rushes in when you lose your sense of safety, stability, hopefulness, peace-of-mind, …
Introvert’s Dilemma: Charge or Recharge?
Some of my favorite people are introverts. Like me, introverts need a good bit of alone time, which my staff calls my “cone time.” About half the time my nature cries out what Greta Garbo famously drawled (if Germans can drawl), “I want to be alone.” I like cone time, but I can go a …
Are Millennials Doomed to Wear Ear Buds Forever?
Apparently Millennials are working in three types of offices now. None of them serves the career goals of Millennials, or those who sit among them. One type of office is a giant open bin where everyone up to and including the CEO sits around tables, with ear buds inserted to drown out the noise from …
Bullying in the Workplace: Fear, Loathing and Lawsuits
In sociology, you learn that all small groups function similarly and that includes the opportunistic behavior of bullying. This learning is one of many reasons I encourage students to get something more than a vocational education, since simply studying finance, engineering or another skill-based major leaves you without the requisite knowledge for understanding behavior at …
Hoarders At Work: Get Help Before It’s Too Late
When you have to separate a very talented person from your company, it hurts. As my partner often repeated, “Nice beats genius every time.” That means playing nice – whatever else you do, make sure you fit into the culture and connect with people at work in a polite and congenial way. Respect for others …
Why Your Boss is a Jerk
Your boss is a jerk, right? It’s pretty likely you’ve told someone this or you’ve at least thought it. In an informal survey of people I’ve met in my seminars, on planes and at dinner parties over the last 20 years: out of four workers I’ve met has repeated the same refrain: “My boss is …