by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 20 seconds. 
TODAY’S IDEA: How should you focus your time and energy?
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
Why do lion tamers hold a stool with the legs extended towards the face of the animal? Because the lion tries to keep up with all four legs of the stool at once and, unsure on what leg to focus, it loses concentration and freezes. “Divided focus always works against you,” says John C. Maxwell, leadership guru.
In The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader, Maxwell states that priorities and concentration are the keys to having the focus required to be a truly effective leader. “A leader who knows his priorities but lacks concentration knows what to do but never gets it done. If he has concentration but no priorities, he has excellence without progress. But when he harnesses both, he has the potential to achieve great things.”
Maxwell sets out a few guidelines to focus our time and energy for maximum results:
Focus 70 percent on strengths. “To be successful, focus on your strengths and develop them. That’s where you should pour your time, energy and resources.” And he quotes Peter Drucker, management guru, as saying, “Nobody ever commented, for example, that the great violinist Jascha Heifetz probably couldn’t play the trumpet very well.”
Focus 25 percent on new things. “Growth equals change. If you want to get better, you have to keep changing and improving… If you dedicate time to new things related to areas of strength, then you’ll grow as a leader.”
Focus 5 percent on areas of weakness. “Nobody can entirely avoid working in areas of weakness. The key is to minimize it as much as possible, and leaders can do it by delegating” …or outsourcing, or finding a way for someone else to do it faster and better than they could.
These guidelines are great if all is well and you have your priorities clear. But what happens when you’ve lost focus and minor things are consuming your time? To get back on track, Maxwell suggests doing the following:
- Work on yourself. You are your greatest asset or detriment.
- Work at your priorities. You will have to fight for them.
- Work in your strengths. You can reach your potential.
- Work with your contemporaries. You can’t be effective alone.
“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” – Anonymous
ACTION
TODAY: Make a list of three of your strengths and three of your weaknesses. How much time do you devote to them? Are you in alignment with the 70-25-5 guidelines above?
FUTURE: Plan to divide your working time as close as possible to the 70-25-5 guidelines above. Give it a try. Test and test some more to see what works for you.
Know someone who could use help to align his priorities and concentration? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Goals, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Tools
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 58 seconds. 
TODAY’S IDEA: Taking care of yourself is part of your job
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
M. J. Ryan, leading expert on change and human fulfillment, says that she’s lost count of the number of her high-achieving clients who recognize that self-care is something that they keep putting off. She recalls a specific story of a female executive who said, “I’ve got my life really nailed… The kids are great, my work is going well. The only thing is that I’m not taking very good care of myself. Exercise has gone out the window, I’m eating lots of junk, and my sleep isn’t so great either.”
We all know that we should take care of ourselves, so why do we put it off for a later time that never comes? The reasons are as varied as each individual, and we simply chalk it off to being busy. Ultra busy. And we make work and others’ needs our priorities, while putting ourselves last (usually in the if-there-is-a-25th-hour-in-the-day-category-I’ll-get-to-it…category).
This reminds me of a quote by Deepak Chopra that says, “If you don’t take care of your health today, you will be forced to take care of your illness tomorrow.”
While the quote jolted me the first time I heard it because of its ominous nature, I think there is much truth in it. Yet I prefer Ryan’s response to this problem, “No one ever told you, but taking care of yourself is part of your job. It’s not optional. Because to succeed at work, you need high ongoing mental, emotional, and physical energy to do your best. If you keep ignoring self-care, eventually you’ll perform at a subpar level. […] When you understand that taking care of yourself is really part of your job, you see it as the business priority it is. So make a schedule of self-care and stick to it.”
I love this approach since it’s a very logical way to see and practice self-care. As Ryan further says, this method is designed it to “give high-achieving folks like you permission to take the time to focus on themselves.”
ACTION
TODAY: Do one thing about self-care that you’ve been putting off.
FUTURE: Schedule in your calendar the times that you will use for self-care. Stick to them!
Know someone who needs to take care of his or herself? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Productivity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 27 seconds. 
TODAY’S IDEA: 5 kinds of restorative breaks
— From WHEN: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing by Dan Pink
One of my favorite authors is Dan Pink (Drive, To Sell is Human, A Whole New Mind, and other books), so I was ecstatic when I heard that he was going to be in New York (he lives in Washington, D.C.). I went to an event organized by Grand Central Tech and had the joy of meeting Pink and hearing him talk about his latest book, WHEN: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing.
In his very charming style, Pink regaled us with the many stories, insights and research findings included in his book. Needless to say I got a copy, which I immediately started reading!
One of the things that he said during his talk is that we need to take more breaks. It specifically struck me the way he stated it: “professionals take breaks, amateurs don’t.” What he meant was that all of us who think that taking a break during the day is going to slow us down (I’m the first one here and so guilty of this—you can find me many times eating lunch at my desk to try to respond to a few more emails …) are not accomplishing as much as the professionals who have tested and proven to themselves that breaks are restorative to our mood and performance, replenish our energy and make us more productive.
But what kind of break should we take? In his book, Pink offers five kinds of restorative breaks:
- Micro-breaks. “A replenishing break need not be lengthy. Even breaks that last a minute or less—what researchers call micro-breaks—can pay dividends.” You might want to consider giving your eyes a break from the computer screen every 20 min and focusing on something 20 feet away for 20 seconds (this is called the 20-20-20 rule). Or consider getting a very small water battle so that when it runs out frequently you can get up to refill it and that way you move, hydrate and take a micro-break. Or you can stand up and shake arms and legs, rotate your core and then sit down again.
- Moving breaks. Since our lifestyle/work is quite sedentary, “build more movement into your breaks.” You can take a 5-min walk every hour, do office yoga poses at your desk, or sneak in a few push-ups.
- Nature breaks. “Study after study has shown the replenishing effects of nature. What’s more, people consistently underestimate how much better nature makes them feel.” Walk in nature (say, a park) if you can, or simply go outside (if your place of work has a little green space with trees or lawn and a bench, “sit there instead of inside.” Remember the quote by Ramon Inmon: if you are seeking creative ideas, go out walking. Angels whisper to a man when he goes for a walk.”
- Social breaks. “Don’t go it alone. At least not always. Social breaks are effective, especially when you decide the who and how.” Pink suggests calling someone and catching up for five or ten minutes, plan to walk regularly with some colleagues that you like, or don’t schedule it at all if your calendar won’t allow for it. “Buy someone a coffee one day this week. Bring it to her. Sit and talk about something other than work for five minutes.”
- Mental gear-shifting breaks. “Our brains suffer fatigue just as much as our bodies do.” Pink recommends giving our brain a break by trying meditation (doesn’t have to be long, 3 minutes will do), controlled breathing (45 seconds) or lighten up by watching a funny video or listening to a funny podcast, etc.
ACTION
TODAY: Stop reading this now and go take a restorative break! 🙂
FUTURE: Build breaks into your schedule. As you saw, they don’t have to be lengthy, they just need to be powerful enough to take your mind off from what you are doing. Breaks also provide the bridge between a finished task and the beginning of the next. Build the habit of incorporating breaks into your schedule and soon you’ll be working like a pro!
Know someone who needs to take a break?Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 48 seconds. 
TODAY’S IDEA: The Hour of Power
— From The Art Of Less Doing: One Entrepreneur’s Formula for a Beautiful Life by Ari Meisel (read 2 chapters for free)
Ari Meisel, is an entrepreneur, author, CEO, real estate developer, green building consultant, and productivity expert according to Wikipedia. But he is much more than that: he is a driven, solution-finder, and goal-achieving entrepreneur extraordinaire who turned his life and his health around, and overcame the insurmountable (here’s his TED Talk). He managed to cure himself from Crohn’s disease—which is deemed incurable—and he turned the lessons he learned, especially in areas of mindset and productivity, into a replicable process that anyone can follow. When he was very sick, there were days in which he could not work for more than one hour, so he had to find a way to get things done in an ultra efficient way.
In The Art of Less Doing, he talks about the hour of power: “every day, each one of us has roughly a ninety-minute period of peak productivity. This peak period is when you are able to produce your best work, but it is also the time frame within which you can most easily get into a work mode. […] If you identify that time, respect it and use it effectively to focus, you should be able to be two hundred times more effective than during any other time of the day.”
The hour of power is different for each one of us. For some may be at 4 am and for others 4 pm; or it may come at 10 am or 8 pm. Regardless of when your hour of power is, schedule it and keep it distraction-free so that you can fully immerse in it and achieve flow. (Flow: definition, TED Talk.)
But what about when it’s not your peak time?
“Just as we all have an hour of power in our days, we also all have a brain-dead part of the day.” Meisel quotes David Allen, the author of the famous productivity book Getting Things Done who has a “brain-dead” list of activities that you can accomplish when you’ve exhausted your mental capacity to function at a high level.” Chores that don’t require too much brainpower, such as doing laundry, folding clothes washing dishes, and a myriad of other personal and professional things can be achieved even when we’re not at our best. The important thing is to acknowledge that none of us are on all the time, but that we can still make the most out of every period of time, whether it’s a peak or a valley.
“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.” – Benjamin Franklin
ACTION
TODAY: Look at the way in which you work today and how your mind and body feel: are you easily distracted or are you in flow? This is a great start for finding out when your hour of power is.
FUTURE: Continue to monitor your mind and body at regular intervals throughout a week. This will help you further pinpoint your hour of power as well as your “brain-dead” times. Schedule your hour of power accordingly and honor it fully. You’ll be glad you did once you start seeing the results of your newly added productivity streaks.
Know someone who needs help to find their hour of power? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Planning, Productivity, Resources, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 47 seconds. 
TODAY’S IDEA: Leadership skills from Sam Walton
— From Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies by Derek Lidow
Derek Lidow, is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. He was the CEO of a USD $2-billion public company, and left because he saw a need in the market. In truly entrepreneurial fashion, he decided to fulfill that need, founded iSuppli (a leading market research firm), grew it successfully and sold it for $100 million. Today he gives back by teaching, mentoring and writing. In his latest book, Building on Bedrock, he shares his insights on what it takes to be an entrepreneur with detailed stories—warts and all—of well-known and not-so-well-known entrepreneurs to illustrate the who, what, when, where, how much and why of their successes and failures.
One of the known leaders that he focuses on throughout the book is Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart. Lidow analyzes 5 core skills that Walton had—and that every leader must have—in order to accomplish their goals. We can all learn so much from this!
- Self-awareness. “Sam always listened and watched to see what could be improved… as soon as he realized he had a gap, he acquired and practiced the requisite skills. Self-awareness is itself a skill, not something you’re born with. You can learn it—learn how to identify your capabilities and your personal modes of learning and self-improvement.”
- Relationship building. “Sam was highly skilled at building relationships—creating strong, shared objectives with others. It’s a skill that you can learn and master, whether you are an extrovert or an introvert. […] Sam most likely mastered relationship building by deliberately practicing with people to whom he wanted to get closer. When he set a goal of getting to know somebody, he accomplished it and then figured out how he could do it better the next time.”
- Motivating others. As most leaders, Sam was charismatic. Contrary to popular belief that this is an inborn trait, Lidow says, “the ability to motivate other people is a skill that you can learn and practice. Sam’s technique is classic: he made people feel good about themselves in the context of doing something important [whether for Walmart, church, a sports team, etc.]… You can imagine him saying something like, ‘it’s amazing how well you penetrated the defense in last night’s game; what’s your new technique?’ People on the receiving end not only feel good about themselves, but also want to rise to the occasion again.”
- Leading change. Lidow states that most change is confusing because it’s usually poorly envisioned and poorly aligned, and I would add to that poorly communicated. However, in the case of Sam Walton, he was constantly changing things to improve them. “The associates and managers of Walmart expected change, embraced change and viewed change as positive… because Sam explicitly let them know why each change was important, what was expected, and how they could benefit from it. […] Not that there weren’t surprises or mistakes, or disappointments, but Sam’s weekly meetings meant that adjustments and mitigations were made quickly.” By having weekly meetings, outlining the changes to be made, and receiving feedback and suggestions on what went well, what didn’t, and what needed improvement, Sam was continually engaging in intentional and deliberate practice and, thus, honed in his change leadership skills that way.
- Enterprise basics. “This too,” says Lidow, “is a learned skill, not one you’re born with… [Sam] created simple routines (i.e., processes) that made repetitive tasks… as productive as possible, so he and the organization could focus on relentlessly implementing improvements (i.e., projects). He diligently created a culture of people who loved to undertake projects and use processes to make customers happy…” While this last skill may seem to apply solely to entrepreneurs, I would respectfully disagree: I think finding ways to operate effectively, productively and using our time wisely is the best that we can do for ourselves, our workplace and all our efforts.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about how you apply these 5 leadership skills from Sam Walton on a daily basis. Rate yourself and figure where you need help. Figure out how/where/what kind of help you will get.
FUTURE: One of the most important things as a leader is to develop your relationships: practice deliberately. Set up a goal to meet and get to know one or more people, and then go about doing so. I’m excited for you—let me know how it goes!
Know someone who could use some help to sharpen their leadership skills? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 15 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Cultivate generosity
— From The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow by John C. Maxwell
John C. Maxwell, one of the foremost experts and authors in Leadership says, “Nothing speaks to others more loudly or serves them better than generosity from a leader. True generosity isn’t an occasional event. It comes from the heart and permeates every aspect of a leader’s life, touching his time, money, talents, and possessions. Effective leaders, the kind that people want to follow, don’t gather things just for themselves; they do it in order to give to others.”
Maxwell offers 5 points to keep in mind for cultivating the quality of generosity in our lives:
- Be grateful for whatever you have. “It’s hard for a person to be generous when he is not satisfied with what he has. Generosity rises out of contentment, and that doesn’t come with acquiring more.” The idea behind this is that if we’re not happy with little, we won’t be with a lot; and this projects into our giving: if we’re not generous with little, we won’t be either with a lot.
- Put people first. “The measure of a leader is not the number of people who serve him, but the number of people he serves.” This is beautiful because it turns the widely circulated concept of leadership on its head by putting others first.
- Don’t allow the desire for possessions to control you. In our culture of consumerism, “if you want to be in charge of your heart, don’t allow possessions to take charge of you.”
- Regard money as a resource. In here, Maxwell quotes E. Stanley Jones as saying, “money is a wonderful servant but a terrible master.” The way to put money to work as our servant “is to hold it loosely—and be generous with it to accomplish things of value.”
- Develop the habit of giving. “The only way to maintain an attitude of generosity is to make it your habit to give—your time, attention, money, and resources… If you’re enslaved by greed, you cannot lead.” Maxwell quotes writer John Bunyan who drives this point home by saying, “You have not lived today until you have done something for someone who can never repay you.”
I’ll leave you with this wonderful quote as food for thought:
“No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” – Calvin Coolidge, U.S. President
ACTION
TODAY: Think of your 3 Ts: Time, Talent and Treasure (money and other valuable resources). Where are you giving of each? Where are you adding value to others? Are you being as generous as you can? Note that generosity starts with you, and you have to make sure that you are ok in order to be able to give to others. It’s similar to the instructions on board a plane: if the oxygen mask drops from the ceiling put it on yourself first, and then assist others. That’s the only way in which you can truly help. With this in mind, how are you generating value and being generous to yourself first, in a way that will enable you to give to others in a meaningful way?
FUTURE: If you’re not already there, get involved in something that will outlive you: a cause that you really care about. This way you’ll be able to channel your generosity for creating and adding value to others. Also, keep in mind that the best and most valuable thing that you can give is yourself. If you’re at a point in your leadership where you can do this and mentor others, that’s fabulous. If you’re not there yet, why not do the inverse? Get mentored so that you can learn how to do it, and pay it forward when you are ready.
Be generous and please share this post with someone who will benefit from reading it! You can share it via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you. 🙂
