Master Your Emotional Health and Master Your Life

Emotional mastery is the key to living a life that you direct. The capacity to have absolute direct power over what you feel in every single moment—no matter what happens around you—is one of the most important skill sets you can have.

There are three forces in the world that determine what you feel. These forces are called the Triad. Together, these three patterns create any—and every—emotional state.

Whatever you feel, you’re not feeling it because you have to feel it. You’re feeling it because you’ve chosen from the Triad. In order to master your emotions and consciously choose the emotions you want to live in, you need to understand these three forces and how to use them to your advantage.

#1: Physiology

Emotion is created by motion. Whatever you’re feeling right now is directly related to how you’re using your body. If you slump your shoulders and lean your head forward, you’ll move toward a state of depression. However, the next time you find yourself in a negative state, stand up, throw your shoulders back and take a few deep breaths. You’ll find that you’re able to put yourself in a resourceful state. From this state, you can make stronger decisions and enjoy a sense of certainty that will keep you calm in the face of uncertainty.

#2: Language

Language comes in many forms, one of which includes the questions you ask yourself, either aloud or inside your head. If you ask, “Why does this always have to happen to me?” you’ll create a much different set of emotions than if you asked, “How can I benefit from this?” or “Where’s the gift in this?” or “What’s humorous about this?”

The language patterns you run play a significant role in the meaning you give a situation—and the emotion that situation creates in you. When you feel negative emotions taking over, look at the language surrounding your situation. How can you shift it to create a more empowering state?

#3: Focus

Where focus goes, energy flows. And where energy flows, whatever you’re focusing on grows. In other words, your life is controlled by what you focus on. That’s why you need to focus on where you want to go, not on what you fear. When you next find yourself in a state of uncertainty, resist your fear. Shift your focus toward where you want to go and your actions will take you in that direction.

Understanding—and influencing—your Triad is the first step toward emotional mastery. When you can influence your emotions using the Triad, you can choose to spend more time in positive, resourceful emotional states. From these states, you’ll make the decisions that will help you reach your highest potential and enjoy your life in every moment.

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Master Your Mindset with Help from Jeffery Combs

Jeffery Combs Advice for Entrepreneurs

1. How Entrepreneurs can cut through the noise and find the right information for them

Many people practice SHELP-Help. Meaning their shelves are filled with self help books, they have podcast downloads, seminar information and they become “seminar goers” and not “active producers”. They hire a coach for a particular situation and they ring up their credit card debt, living in liability debt thinking it’s actually an asset when it’s not. It’s an asset when it’s applied, it’s a liability when it’s procrastinated on.

How do you know when you have found the right information?

You know, when you know. If you keep getting ready to get ready, waiting for that perfect mythical magical moment you’ll never live your dreams, you’ll live in a wish tip toeing quietly through life arriving at your grave safely having lived the greatest of pain, the pain of regret.

You have to have a business or business model. If you aren’t sytemized, organized, methodical and detailed conscious, there is a high probability you’ll be either be overwhelmed or you’ll procrastinate and be eventually disappointed.

Most people never apply what they learn, they keep looking for more technical know how.

How to create a business, comes from your vision. It comes from your inner know how, it doesn’t come from your technical knowing. It comes from your inner knowing, your being and that’s where so many people miss the mark. They try and learn more “know how” and they never access their own intuitive trust and inner knowing.

2. How to train your inner ear to focus more on what is mean and not said

You have to get out of your head, you have to stop living in your left brain analytic egoic mind. You have to learn to do less and be more, and many people try and do and they get overwhelmed before they try and then they procrastinate. You have to live in the moment, in the present. That doesn’t mean you don’t goal set but you have to learn how to goal get, how to achieve, how to produce, how to create results, how to live in the solution. You can’t continue to live in the problem, looking for the answers, looking for the next seminar speaker, the next event, the next rally.

It’s never out in front of you it’s always within you, and the more you look inside, in your inner knowing, in your trust, your innate ability to be grounded, but if you continue to be separate then you will never be “one with”. When you are one with, there’s no separation between you and the outcome or you and the results. But when you get attached to the outcome and you are overwhelmed in anxiety then you are separate from rather than one with.

“Be inspired, stay inspired and never quit!” – Jeffery Combs

3. How to simplify your overcomplicated life

First of all if you are complicated you are going to be unorganised, if you are unorganised you are going to be overwhelmed, if you are overwhelmed your body is in a constant state of fight or flight. There’s no joy, there’s no peace, there’s no love, and most importantly your energetic vibrational state is going to be in fight or flight or anxiety when you are in that kind of situation.

When you are relaxed and in the moment and what you do is simple, what you can do is duplicate it, through auto suggestion, autonomically, automatically, repetition and experience, you can become who you are.

If you are complicated and overwhelmed, you are not systematic, you are winging it and your brain never really relaxes. It never really creates a brain chemistry or alpha or delta state where it’s a lot longer wave where you are a lot more relaxed, you’re present, you’re here, you’re now. You’re in the solution and you’re not consumed with the problem. When you dwell on the problem you will manifest more of them to fulfil a biochemical craving and you will become addicted to disappointment.

4. The most common patterns in performance that are found in successful people

Successful people do the same thing over and over with very little fan fare. They can produce without recognition, they’re not seeking approval.

Here’s where most people miss the mark: If I put the word success on the board that is what most people seek, they want success. But if I put the word skills on the white board, very few people focus on that. They focus on success, not skills.

The most successful people are highly skilled and they have great habits. What most people want is instant gratification because they have entitlement issues. They feel entitled to success but they’re not willing to pay the price. They experience friction or the laws of gravity, take a drop and then they feel panicked and overwhelmed. They look at their credit card statements and then they’re not really happy with where they are, and they say “I’m not where I should be”, not really realising that they haven’t paid the price.

Successful people operate off the skill process, they learn the skills of their vocation.

If you don’t master your emotional state and master the skills of the vocation you’ll always be average and you’ll keep bouncing from situation for situation looking for that perfect magical moment, rather than realising that you are the moment and it’s your skills that are going to lead you to the land of promise.

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Who Inspires Tony Robbins?

Tony Robbins says there was no one to mentor him growing up, and he credits books for starting to show him the way. Throughout his life, however, he has partnered with or learned from several people from a wide array of disciplines.

Here are the six people on his tribute list:

First and foremost is early mentor Jim Rohn, an Idaho farm boy and Sears clerk who made it big as a motivational speaker and author. He presented seminars all over the country for 40 years, was a millionaire by age 31 and wrote 17 books. Robbins met Rohn when Rohn was about 50, and he just 17. “He was a beautiful man,” Robbins says, who taught him “happiness and success in life are not the result of what we have, but rather of how we live and what we do with the things we have makes the biggest difference in the quality of life.”

In the 1970s, John Grinder co-created “neuro-linguistic programming” (NLP), a communication approach that combines a person’s neurological processes and behavioural patterns that its founders believe can be changed to achieve specific goals. Robbins says he became partners with Grinder soon after meeting him, and NLP is how he “learned to do things like wipe out a phobia.”

Robbins started out actually coaching Peter Guber, the chairman of Mandalay Pictures (most recent films, The Kids Are All Right,Soul Surfer and Bernie, with hits including Rain Man, Batman, The Color Purple, Midnight Express and many more). Guber also owns the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Dodgers and is chairman of Dick Clark Productions. Robbins says, “I’ve known him for 25 years—we mentor each other—there is not a more creative human being I know.”

Robbins is also an unabashed fan of casino magnate Steve Wynn, whom he describes as “one of the smartest, most passionate persons you would ever meet—with the highest standards. He is a force of nature.”

Robbins also cites Mark Benioff, CEO and founder of SalesForce.com, as a mentor. Salesforce.com is a cloud computing company Benioff started in 1999, and Robbins says it has been cited as the “most innovative company in the world” by Forbes four years in a row. “He came to my seminar, and he said his ‘sales force would not exist without Tony Robbins.’ He is a genius at innovation.”

Finally, Robbins points to Paul Tudor Jones, founder of Tudor Investment Corporation, as a great influence. With a net worth in the $4 billion range and ranked by Forbes as the 108th richest American, Tudor Jones is a financial mastermind. He also created the Robin Hood Foundation. Robbins says, “I learned from him how to win, no matter what happens.”

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6 Ways To Make Sure Fear Isn’t Making Your Choices For You

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Fear is a human emotion that comes pre-downloaded with our software. We are all afraid — with the exception of, say, Liam Neeson (who seems damn near fearless). Fear makes many seemingly innocuous decisions for us, as humans.

The tricky thing about fear is that it can be so elusive, we don’t even perceive it as such. All too often, fear disguises itself as pragmatism. Fear is a skilled ventriloquist capable of reaching up your keister and controlling how you act.

We’re discomforted by the prospect of a burglar breaking into our homes, so we take appropriate measures to prevent that from happening, which results in a sense of practicality.

But, let’s say you want to ask your boss for a raise or start a conversation with someone to whom you’ve never spoken before? Is itpractical to take measures to avoid these potentially discomforting situations? Perhaps not.

But, habit-forming creatures as we are, we can make ourselves believe that avoiding any and all fear is the sensible thing to do.

So, how do you know what’s what? Are you saying “no” because you want to, or is fear working you like a sock puppet?

Learn to observe your mind.

Train yourself to be aware each time you’re faced with a decision. It can be as trivial as choosing a condiment for your sandwich or changing lanes on the highway. We often make these decisions without being fully aware we are doing them.

Can you remember each time you decided to sit down on a chair today? If you can get better at noticing how often you make decisions, you’ll be able to approach them from a distance and with clarity.

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Are you afraid?

Is this decision scary? Are you frightened of what may happen if you decide upon it? If the answer is yes, good! You’ve been able to identify it instead of getting caught up in it. Think of it like you’re labeling a package with the proper packing slip: ‘Okay, there’s fear here.’

Now what? Spend some time with it. Notice what fear does to you. It might give you a headache, make you nauseous or make you upset. And then, put all of those feelings on a shelf somewhere and ask yourself the mother of all questions…

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What do you really want?

You know the answer to this one. You always do. Asking other people, “What do you think I should do?” will almost always fail you. Even if the answer is “I don’t know,” you can eventually arrive at an answer by paying attention to yourself.

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Decide when it’s time to decide.

At a certain point, you’ll need to choose. Should you move to another state? Should you say hello to her? It’s so easy to get caught up in a cycle of “If I do this, then this might happen, but if I do the other thing, then this other – oh wait! What if I do THAT?”

Just as it was important to recognize you were faced with a tough choice, it is equally important to realize when the decision process no longer has value. Overanalyzing is like a hamster wheel from hell. Try to relax.

Sometimes, you’ll have to decline opportunities. You can’t say yes to everything; you cannot please everyone. Some things are not meant to be, and sometimes, it isn’t the right time.

This doesn’t mean you are succumbing to fear. However, there are special moments during which we experience a flux of conflicting and complicated emotions.

Maybe you want something so badly that it terrifies you and you feel paralyzed. Maybe you’re afraid of both options? Here’s a great rule of thumb: If what you desperately want happens to overlap with what you’re afraid of…

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Go for it.

Fear can be a good sign and a bad sign; it just depends where you want to stand as you look at it. If you get good enough at riding fear, it can be exhilaratingly fun, and the only way to get good at it is by saying YES in the blind every now and then. The more attention you give to fear, the more power it has.

The best way to approach anything of which you are fearful is to train yourself to recognize when the noise starts: ‘I’m not good enough to succeed at that. I don’t know how. I’d feel safer if I didn’t.’ Only once you notice fear started talking will you be able to shut it up.

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Accept how it comes to pass.

Give yourself a break. Life can be rude and unapologetic. You’ll almost never go about everything perfectly.

Coping skills take practice and not every decision includes a risk. But, the more you train yourself to accept the outcome, however trivial it may be, the happier you’ll be.

Let go of things and observe casually from a distance, like an astronaut peering down at Earth from her space shuttle.

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7 Things Successful People Have in Common

If you like to say that successful people “have it made,” please stop. Most people are leading a life that’s a direct result of their decisions, thoughts and behaviour. This is why some are successful and some or not. It’s has nothing to do with luck. We are where we are, because of who we are. This is why if you are not where you want to be in life, you will have to change something.

7 Things Successful People Have In Common

1. They are dreamers. Successful people are big dreamers.  They set big dreams, big goals.  Unlike ordinary people who dream of getting a promotion or finding a better job, succesful people dream about changing the world.

Don’t be afraid to dream big, you can do it. Don’t limit yourself, you can be successful if you want to be. The line between successful people and unsuccessful people is a very thin one. Crossing it is easy, when you have the right mindset.

2. They are willing to fail. Successful people know that success doesn’t come easy and that they are bound to fail along the journey.  Do you know how many times Thomas Edison failed before inventing the light bulb? 1000.. Failing 1000 times and he still didn’t quit. Why? Because he was willing to fail and he was learning something from each and every failure. He knew that failure is the stepping stone to success. As long as you learn your lessons when you make a mistake you are moving forward.

3. They know that they make their own luck. Successful people know that luck is the good fortune we determine for ourselves.  The harder you work, the luckier you get. You won’t randomly get  lucky and successful people know that. They will do at least one thing every single day to put themselves in a better position to get lucky.

4. They  set real goals that they can accomplish. Successful people make an entire to do list each morning when they wake up. This allows them to map out what needs to be done first, second and so on.  Their goals are very focused, big yet obtainable and are aligned to their strenghts.

5.  They are disciplined. The most important trait of successful people is that they are very strict with themselves. They do not procrastinate like many of us. They are focused and determined to do what they have decided. They stick to their decisions and are disciplined with their activities. They follow their schedule very stringently and avoid distractions.

6. They are constantly in the proccess of learning. They know the more knowledge they have, the further they can go. They read, they try to obtain a new skill. They never stop learning, no matter their age. There is always something to learn in that vast world. That’s why I am challenging you  to read atleast 30 minutes a day.

7. They are seeing the big picture.The problems you’re facing today seem a lot bigger than they really are. If you’re stressing out about something right now, ask yourself, “Will this be a big deal next week/month/year?” Stop seeing every day as an isolated event but rather a mere piece of the jig-saw puzzle that is your life. All of the pieces might not be perfect. Some of them might even be discolored, torn, and rotten. But the quality of each singular piece is irrelevant. The important thing is the completed puzzle that is your life.

Make these habits second nature, and success will be certain to follow.

What do you think is the most important habit of successful people? Or you think that success is something that only few chosen lucky ones achieve?

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80/20 Life - Get More from Less

We’ve all surely heard of the 80/20 Principle, or Pareto’s Law as it’s more formally known. It goes something like this:

80% of the results come from 20% of the effort.

It’s often thrown around in business as nothing more than a buzzword. Few actually do a full 80/20 analysis of their business and almost no one I’ve come across has applied the same to their life as a whole. Other than two people that is: Richard Kock and Tim Ferriss–and the people who have since followed in their footsteps (me included). The 80/20 Principle is the source material for what Tim wrote in The 4-Hour Work Week. It took me reading it a couple times to grasp the simplicity and life-altering implications of the principle. The time saved and gained will blow your mind.

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The amazing thing is that the studies in this book show the principle working in just about every possible scenario. Of course it’s not always 80/20. Sometimes 90/10 or 95/5 or even 70/30. But the point is it works–without fail.

Richard’s purpose was to explain this ancient principle in a way that would inspire action and application to every part of life. When applied to work, productivity will go through the roof, but when applied to your life outside of work, happiness and fulfillment do just the same. All it takes is a shift in thinking. Try the following for a few weeks and the time in your life will never be the same.

5 ways to apply the 80/20 Principle to enhance your life:

1. Do the 20% of your work that leads to 80% of your results: Track all the time you spend on projects each hour of each day for a week. How many of these things were necessary? How many got you closer to your goals? How many were a waste of time? How many could someone else have done? Pick the 20% of your tasks that yield 80% of the results and outsource or simply discontinue the rest. Wondering what to do with your remaining time? Enjoy life. I outsourced a significant portion of my work to two very reliable virtual assistants in India starting in 2006. Ravi and Vikash now do that 70 or 80% for me. At $3-5/hour it is very hard to beat. Check out eLance.com if you’re looking to out source. Search “Virtual Assistant”. Once you start outsourcing, you’ll never go back.

2. Locate the 20% of your customers who drive 80% of your profits: Find your top 20% customers (by profit, not revenue) and fire the rest. Yes, fire them. The goal is not to work your life away. It is to make a good living to enjoy your life. If you must work more, then list out the characteristics of your 20% customers and go out and find more of them. You will not believe how liberating it can be to fire a customer who’s been a real pain in the ass.

3. Prioritize the 20% of your friends who provide 80% of your support and enjoyment: If you apply 80/20 to your relationships you will surely find that a few people in your life provide the majority of your support, excitement, laughter and feelings of connection. On the other side, there is likely another 20% group of people who account for most your sleepless nights, tears, anger and frustration. If you don’t want to feel this way, stop spending time around your bottom 20. Fire them and work on duplicating your top 20. This may sound a little callous, but it’s not. It’s practical. The quality of our life comes down to the quality of the people and experiences that fill it.

4. Fill your life with the 20% of your experiences that provide 80% of your happiness: As humans, our two biggest priorities are to move towards pleasure and away from pain. As mentioned above, find the few people, things, places and experiences that provide 80% of your happiness, fulfillment, pleasure and excitement. Also find the things that cause you to feel the majority of your negative emotions. Focus your time on the top 20% and avoid the bottom 20% like the plague.

5. Do the 20% of your workouts that lead to 80% of your physical gains: The majority of fitness results come from a small portion of most workouts. 80% of the muscle is built in the last 20% of the reps. Crossfit is a great example. The workouts are 7-14 minutes long on average but they provide more physical benefit than most hour-long workouts. Spending more time on something is not always a good thing. If you believe your workouts must take an hour then you’ll likely miss a lot more of them. What if they only took 7 minutes, but that seven minutes really tested your limits? You’re likely to show up a lot more often.

I know this sounds simple. But few people stop to actually do it.  It is truly possible to spend the majority of your time doing the things that you love. The only way to get there is taking Pareto’s 80/20 principle seriously. It will make all the difference.

Do not let more than 3 months go by without performing a full 80/20 breakdown of all areas of your life (especially your personal life). It will only take a couple hours and those hours will likely save days before you know it… 80/20 in action yet again.

Somewhere along the path of life, most of us were taught to associate fulfillment and worth with the number of hours spent–thinking the more the better. This has lead many of us to working aimlessly just to say we filled the day. This IS NOT the goal. The goal is be fulfilled, happy, efficient, effective and more than anything else, to enjoy life. Happiness is a daily right. It is not something we need to work our ass off for years to finally achieve. That is what Pareto stumbled on all these years ago. I encourage you to do the same.

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Reach Your Goals Through Daily Habits

We’ve all faced the disappointment and guilt that comes from setting a goal and giving up on it after a couple of weeks. Sustaining motivation for a long-term goal is hard to achieve, and yet the best goals can usually only be accomplished in a few months or even years.

Here’s the solution: Focus instead on creating a new habit that will lead to achieving your goal.

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Want to run a marathon? First create the habit of running every day. Want to get out of debt and start saving? Create the habit of brown bagging it to work, or watching DVDs instead of going to the movies, or whatever change will lead to saving money for you.

By focusing not on what you have to achieve over the course of the next year, but instead on what you are doing each day, you are focusing on something achievable. That little daily change will add up to a huge change, over time … and you’ll be surprised at how far you’ve come in no time. Little grains of sand can add up to a mountain over time.

I used this philosophy of habit changes to run a marathon, to change my diet and lose weight, to write a novel, to quit smoking, to become organized and productive, to double my income, reduce my debt and start saving, and to begin training for an Olympic triathlon this year. It works, if you focus on changing habits.

Now, changing your habits isn’t easy — I won’t lie to you — but it’s achievable, especially if you start small. Don’t try to change the world with your first habit change … take baby steps at first. I started by just trying to run a mile — and by the end of the year, I could run more than 20 miles.

How do you change your habits? Focus on one habit at a time, and follow these steps:

1. Positive changes. If you’re trying to change a negative habit (quit smoking), replace it with a positive habit (running for stress relief, for example).
2. Take on a 30-day challenge. Tell yourself that you’re going to do this habit every day, at the same time every day, for 30 straight days without fail. Once you’re past that 30-day mark, the habit will become much easier. If you fail, do not beat yourself up. Start again on a new 30-day challenge. Practice until you succeed.
3. Commit yourself completely. Don’t just tell yourself that you might or should do this. Tell the world that DEFINITELY will do this. Put yourself into this 100 percent. Tell everyone you know. Email them. Put it on your blog. Post it up at your home and work place. This positive public pressure will help motivate you.
4. Set up rewards. It’s best to reward yourself often the first week, and then reward yourself every week for that first month. Make sure these are good rewards, that will help motivate you to stay on track.
5. Plan to beat your urges. It’s best to start out by monitoring your urges, so you become more aware of them. Track them for a couple days, putting a tally mark in a small notebook every time you get an urge. Write out a plan, before you get the urges, with strategies to beat them. We all have urges to quit — how will you overcome it? What helps me most are deep breathing and drinking water. You can get through an urge — it will pass.
6. Track and report your progress. Keep a log or journal or chart so that you can see your progress over time. I used a running log for my marathon training, and a quit meter when I quit smoking. It’s very motivating to see how far you’ve come. Also, if you can join an online group and report your progress each day, or email family and friends on your progress, that will help motivate you.

Most important of all: Always stay positive. I learned the habit of monitoring my thoughts, and if I saw any negative thoughts (“I want to stop!”) I would squash it like a little bug, and replace it with a positive thought (“I can do this!”). It works amazingly. This is the best tip ever. If you think negative thoughts, you will definitely fail. But if you always think positive, you will definitely succeed.

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13 Fatal Mistakes You’re Making At Work Today

Is what you’re doing at work today really the best thing for both your company and for you? Spare a few moments to gain some work perspective. You might discover you’re making some fatal mistakes, or even thirteen of them.

Not Understanding the Company’s Goals

It’s everyone’s responsibility to understand the most critical goals for their company. Even if you weren’t told what’s most important, it doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t figure it out. The more disconnected you are from these goals, the more you’ll be task managed. Doing what you’re told isn’t enough; we have to do what most needs to get done.

Not Making Yourself Instrumental

Ask yourself: “If I was fired tomorrow, would my company suffer any major disruption or difficulty?” Be honest. If the answer is “No!” then you’re setting yourself up to be replaced. You’re likely either not excelling at your role, or you’re working on the wrong objectives. Job security means having responsibility for something important, and doing it exceptionally well.

Being Yourself

No one is the best professional they can be. One trick to perform better is to emulate the habits of your professional heroes: how would Steve Jobs stay productive, how does Mark Cuban make decisions, how does Marissa Mayer handle phone calls, how does Magic Johnson conduct meetings, and how do they dress? By playing the part of your mentors, you’ll settle into your own optimal work style, and become the best version of yourself.

Not Taking Enough Breaks

The single biggest cost to businesses may be the “sitting-dead”: burnt-out employees achieving a fraction of their potential. I always hated seeing my team goofing around, but I realised how important breaks are later on in my career. Now I’d much rather have team members go on as-many-as-needed energising breaks (outside the office) throughout the day, but then be 110% engaged and working until the job gets done. Over-worked zombies infect everyone else, and leave you with an office of aimless employees.

Putting Limits on Yourself

We almost never accomplish more than we can imagine for ourselves. Many people are fond of telling us what we can’t do, and sometimes these voices become our own limiting self-talk. This doubt becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Go into work every day with the attitude you can get anything done. Be something more tomorrow than the something less you were yesterday. The only limit of your potential is your imagination and effort.

Forgetting the Customer

People as important as your children, spouse, siblings and parents are spending their hard-earned money on your products or services. How much of your workday do you spend thinking about, talking to, or interacting with your customers? Probably not enough. Businesses that are disengaged from their customers tend to die untimely deaths. Lead your day with a customer-centric focus and you’ll never go wrong.

Not Acting Like the Boss

I often encouraged my team members to come into work, and imagine you’re the CEO. What’s the mindset you’d need if you were the leader and how would you act? That’s the same sense of urgency and ownership you need to have a daily basis to excel in whatever your job function entails.

Assuming No One is Judging Your Performance

People are always talking about how you stack up as a team member. You’re not fooling anyone; your managers and co-workers know what kind of job you’re doing. Just because you haven’t gotten any critical feedback lately, doesn’t mean people think you’re doing a good job. Your own standards should be much higher than everyone else; judge your own performance daily and assume everyone else is as well. (Tip: ask for written quarterly performance reviews, even if it isn’t company policy.)

Not Being Likable

Ideally, all work environments would be pure meritocracies. But we’re social organisms. People like working with people they like to be around. You get ahead, in part, by getting along. Consider this scenario: Company management needs to do cutbacks. Given a choice between two relatively equal performers, guess which one gets the axe: the temperamental teammate or the affable employee?

Taking It Too Personally

So much time and energy is wasted being upset. When faced with a conflict or critical feedback, our first instinct should be to ask: “How I can improve?” Trust the intentions of the person giving the feedback. Quite often it’s not a personal condemnation; they’re hopefully thinking about how to achieve the best outcome. You may disagree with their conclusion or approach, but there’s always valuable feedback on how we can improve in any conflict or critique.

Not Staying on Top of Your Industry

Dedicate half an hour each day to reading about the latest news and trends about your industry, whether you’re in tech or fashion or furniture. This will keep you current on the changes coming so you can bring new ideas and perspectives. As Stephen Covey teaches: Sharpen the Saw.

Forgetting the One Most Important Thing

What’s the one most important thing you can to accomplish today, this week, or this month to move the business forward most. Write it down each day and hold yourself accountable to accomplishing that endeavour above all else. Too often we devote our energy to mundane tasks like checking email or meetings that falsely let us feel productive. We can get many things wrong, and still be doing a great job, if we get the most important things done right.

Relying on Career Employment

Career employment no longer exists for many of us. You always have the skill set to get the next job. Ask yourself: “If I got fired today, would I be able to find a comparable or better job within three months?” If the answer is no, you’re sorely unprepared for this modern economy. In Reid Hoffman’s new book, “The Alliance,” he makes the case for a new loyalty pact between employer and employee. The employer can count on a commitment from the employee of up to four years, and the employee can count on the employer to provide the opportunity and training to help them find their next better career opportunity. Don’t let yourself get caught unprepared for your next voluntary or involuntary career move.

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