by Helena Escalante | Celebration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 24 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Celebrate wins, big and small
— From: The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive by Brendon Burchard
EntreGurus is celebrating 100 posts today, wooooooo-hoooooooo!!
You’re invited! Details for the virtual party at the end of this post.
This lead me to pick the concept of celebration as a fitting topic for today’s idea.
In The Charge, high performance coach, speaker and author Brendon Burchard, talks about activating 10 drives of human emotion and happiness. As a bonus, he includes an 11th drive, which is that of celebration.
Celebration, Burchard says, “is a distinctly human desire that makes all our efforts and struggles and hard-fought gains… so worthwhile. It’s a drive that unites us when we see an athlete exert his or her best, when our teams at work meet the impossible deadline, when we witness a hero emerge from the inferno, when our children demonstrate character and aid others, when we, ourselves, having slogged through our own insecurities, doubts and dilemmas, suddenly emerge ahead and clean and pure, astounding those around us an even ourselves. [The drive to celebrate is] activated only in witness of our best efforts and character, and… when we’ve committed to and achieved something worthwhile, something meaningful, something in service to something larger than we.”
Most of us celebrate milestones and big wins, but what about small ones? How about our daily or weekly victories that, when compounded, lead to the big wins?
Burchard also has a video where he talks, precisely, about this. He provides 3 steps to help us take pride and joy in what we do and not take it for granted, or, even worse, diminish its importance for being small steps.
- Create a reflection schedule. It’s important to set a time in your calendar every week to think about the wins for that week. Ask, “What did I do well this week? What did I achieve this week? What went well this week? What good things happened that I didn’t even anticipate? How can I feel good about something that happened this week? What happened that brought me joy or fulfillment or a sense of accomplishment or even just made me feel more connected?” It’s important to build your sense of self-confidence so that you can be ok with larger wins down the line: “we have to integrate our accomplishments and achievements into our identity to feel stronger.”
- Allow yourself to feel the win. Get a better connection with your internal world. Think about your win: “you have to relive it, and feel it, and integrate it if it’s really going to generate confidence for you… When you’re doing your reflection schedule or even at the end of each day… just allow that heartfelt, deep connection of satisfaction or engagement that comes with recognizing yourself.”
- Share the win. Enjoy and be proud of what you’ve accomplished and share it with enthusiasm! When we do this “we feel better about life, we feel more engaged.” Sharing is not bragging, and you should not minimize what you’ve done: “you’re never going to get far in life by minimizing yourself.”
This last point reminds me of one of my favorite quotes by Marianne Williamson from her book A Return to Love:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? …Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do… And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
ACTION
TODAY: Come to my virtual party to celebrate your wins! See time and details below.
FUTURE: Set aside time in your calendar for a weekly reflection schedule. Celebrate your weekly wins and give yourself credit for what you do. Share with someone who loves you, who will be proud of you, and who will cheer for your success. And share with me too, I’m cheering for you and would love to hear and celebrate your wins!
In light of the above, I am happy to share with much enthusiasm EntreGurus’ wins during its first 100 days of life:
VIRTUAL PARTY TO CELEBRATE WINS: Now that you’ve heard EntreGurus’ wins, I want to hear yours and connect with you! So that we can chat and celebrate together, I’m having a virtual party via video conference, today, April 27, 2018 from 12:00 – 2:00 pm U.S. Eastern Time (GMT-4: here’s a time converter). Come and go as your schedule allows, all you need to do is click on this zoom link to join. I’ll be there the whole time and would love to connect with as many of you as can make it to the party. There’s much to celebrate and be thankful for!
I am absolutely grateful and very honored that you let me share ideas with you on a daily basis. It’s been a most joyous ride so far and I look forward to many more hundreds of days together. Cheers! 🙂
by Helena Escalante | Collaboration, Creativity, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity
Estimated reading time: 1 minutes, 0 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Bake a bigger pie
— From: Habit Changers: 81 Game-Changing Mantras to Mindfully Realize Your Goals by M. J. Ryan
Today’s idea is brief, but very insightful. It comes from the book Habit Changers, by M.J. Ryan, where she shares this concept from Guy Kawasaki, renowned entrepreneur and author of 13 business books.
Baking a bigger pie is “a great metaphor for the art of collaboration. Many people think that collaborating simply means agreeing with others, but in reality it’s the process of jointly coming up with previously unthought-of solutions that expand the pie to satisfy everyone. It requires open and honest communication and a focus on creative and novel solutions.”
Whenever you are stuck, instead of “splitting the difference” or having to compromise on a result that leaves everyone wanting, simply ask: “how can we build a bigger pie?” Creating the habit of asking this will result in bigger and better ideas for the benefit of all involved.
ACTION
TODAY & FUTURE: When you find yourself stuck, ask, ask, and ask again, “how can we build a bigger pie?” You’ll be surprised at the possibilities that this opens!
Know someone who needs to build a bigger pie? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thank you!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Collaboration, Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Running effective meetings
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
Today is the 114th day since the beginning of the New Year. Q1 has ended, which means this is about the time when we’re having tons of meetings to analyze, compare, strategize and move forward. But whether it’s for this reason or any other, do we really need to meet?
In Common Sense Leadership, Roger Fulton says, “too many otherwise productive hours are spent in long, boring, marginally productive meetings.” He suggests looking at the alternatives:
“Don’t conduct a meeting if a memo will do.
Don’t send a memo if a phone call [or an email] will do.
If there’s information to disseminate, maybe [the best way is indeed] face-to-face. Out where the action is! Among your people.
However, if you must have meetings, they should always:
- Start on time.
- Have a definite agenda.
- End as quickly as possible.
Get everyone back to what they do best: working!”
Think about meeting time in a different light: a 1-hour meeting where 5 people convene is really a 5-hour meeting if you look at the man-hours invested to make it happen. Is that the best use of everyone’s time? Is the “investment” on the outcome of the meeting worth 5 hours? Or are there other ways to communicate in order to free up that time and dedicate it to something more productive? And what if your meeting runs longer than anticipated?
Look at meetings as an investment and create a budget for them. For instance, if you have 3 meetings every week, assign a budget of 1.5 hours total. You can spend those 90 minutes in meetings, any way you want (e.g. 45 min in one meeting, 30 min in another and 15 minutes on the third one). Once you run out of meeting minutes, do not meet again until the following week. I will assure you that your meetings will quickly start running on time and will not go over your budget.
ACTION
TODAY: Do you have any meetings today? Take some time to think how can you achieve the same results while cutting down the time and making them more efficient? Is it possible to do a video chat instead of a meeting and save travel time for all involved? Is it possible to send an email instead? Is it possible to assign 1-2 min talking turns, so that attendees don’t ramble on forever? How about having the meeting standing up? How about taking turns on attending the meeting? Today you attend and share notes with a colleague, next week your colleague attends and shares notes with you. Test some of these ways today: even if no one else knows, test them on yourself, and once you know they work, then start sharing them with your meeting group. They will thank you! And please share those ideas with me, I’m always looking at ways to become more effective and productive!
FUTURE: Create a time budget for your meetings and stick to it. What is your return on the time you are investing (ROI)? Is it worth your time or do you need to cut down some more? Keep expanding on the many options from the action above. Do some brainwriting on how to make your meetings über-effective and achieve the results you want in less time. Test, test, and then test your ideas some more until you can find a way that suits you and your needs.
Know someone whose meetings run way too long? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Creativity, Growth, Habits, Mindset, Opportunity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes, 5 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Where do baby (carrots) come from?
— From Hunch: Turn Your Everyday Insights Into The Next Big Thing by Bernadette Jiwa
Richard Branson, the founder of Virgin Group, has been quoted as saying, “Opportunities are like buses – there’s always another one coming!”
And Bernadette Jiwa, business and brand strategist, as well as a fantastic author of many books, echoes Branson’s thought: “every day is filled with opportunities, either seized or missed, ours for the taking if only we can learn to listen for them. Every breakthrough idea starts not with knowing for sure but by understanding why it might be important to try.”
Jiwa goes on to say that we are all able to generate insights to see those opportunities and make the most out of them. Being insightful is not dependent on being special or having resources, innate gifts, special circumstances or any other advantage; on the contrary, anyone can develop killer hunches.
But how?
By cultivating curiosity, empathy and imagination “we become more attuned to opportunities that would otherwise go unnoticed. A hunch happens at the intersection of all three qualities:
- Curiosity
Interest + Attention: Learn to see problems and discern which ones are worth solving.
- Empathy
Worldview + Understanding: Understand how it feels to be the person with the problem.
- Imagination
Context + Experience: Build on what is already understood in order to connect ideas and describe new possibilities for the future.”
Here’s an example of an opportunity that Jiwa calls a case study in imagination: baby carrots. Spoiler alert: there’s nothing baby about them. (If you’re heartbroken by this realization, read on, the story of how they came about is remarkable and will make you smile!).
Mike Yurosek was a concerned farmer: from his yield of 2,500 tons of carrots per day, he’d have to cull 400 tons because “they weren’t ‘pretty’ enough to be sold in grocery stores. Carrots that were misshapen, broken or bent couldn’t be packed for selling.”
One day, he had an idea: he cut the ugly carrots into uniformly shaped 2-inch pieces, and then sent them to a packing plant to be peeled. The edges were smoothed out in the process right before bagging. Ta-daaaaa: “the bagged baby carrot was born.”
Yurosek sent the bags of baby carrots to a supermarket in Los Angeles. “The next day [the supermarket] called and requested that he send them only baby carrots. […] The baby carrots were not only popular with customers; they were also a terrific earner for store owners. […] While other farmers focused on perfecting production techniques in order to minimize waste, Mike reimagined the problem by thinking creatively about what it was that customers wanted, boosting carrot sales by 35 percent and transforming the industry.”
Now every time you see baby carrots you’ll think about this story!
ACTION
TODAY: Take a project you are working on and make a list of things that need improvement or that don’t work well. Then brainwrite for possibilities to solve those issues. Let your curiosity, empathy and imagination flow. What did you come up with?
FUTURE: Whenever you come across something that frustrates you, let that be the fuel to reimagine the good or service in a new, improved light. By doing this, you will be developing and strengthening your curiosity, empathy, and imagination muscles. Take the time and make a game out of it. How many things can you change to make it better? How can you redesign it from scratch to take away the flaws? How can you use it for other purpose? How can you add additional features? How can you strip it to the bare minimum? Your answers will surprise you. Keep asking, keep reimagining.
Know someone who loves baby carrots? Or someone who needs to develop their imagination? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Goals, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset, Opportunity, Productivity, Tools
Estimated reading time: 4 minutes, 32 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Selective quitting
— From Born For This: How to Find the Work You Were Meant to Do by Chris Guillebeau (Here’s a book review I wrote and here’s my interview with Chris at the New York Public Library.)
A quote that is frequently attributed to Einstein is, “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” In Born for This, Chris Guillebeau makes the case that “most of us are smart enough to realize that if we try something new and it doesn’t work we can’t just keep doing the same thing and expect different results.” When this happens, we quit and move on, but the key word here is new.
What happens when it’s not new? Guillebeau continues, “the greater problem comes when we’ve become conditioned to success according to a certain method or plan of action. When something works for a while and then it stops working, that’s when it’s tough to change. We don’t keep attempting the same thing over and over because we’re stupid, and it’s not because we don’t know any better. It’s just that we love the familiar and change is hard.”
What to do?
We must go after the right opportunities and selectively quit projects or courses of action that are not in our best interest. But “knowing when to give up and when to keep going can feel like an unachievable superpower,” says Guillebeau. Fortunately, he offers four strategies you can put to work whenever you find yourself in this situation.
1. When the stakes are low, make changes or give up quickly. The best time to make a change is earlier in the project, when the stakes are low and, preferably, when the investment of time, effort, money, etc., has not been as significant as closer to the end (but more on this in point 3 below).
2. Fight your FOMO. FOMO, or Fear Of Missing Out “is a very human and natural human emotion, it can be dangerous if it prevents you from quitting when it’s long past time to give up. After all, if you want to be successful, you can’t live your life out of fear.”
3. Ignore sunk costs as much as possible. The term sunk costs is used in accounting and finance to mean “a cost that an entity has incurred, and which it can no longer recover by any means. Sunk costs should not be considered when making the decision to continue investing in an ongoing project, since these costs cannot be recovered.” (Source: AccountingTools.com) But the fact that this term is used in finance doesn’t mean that it doesn’t apply to us if we are not in the field. Why do we keep watching a really bad movie and hoping that it gets better, when the logical thing would be to stop watching or leave the theatre? Because we have invested our time (and perhaps our money) in it, and we’d like to see if we can somehow make the most out of that investment. Why don’t we get rid of things that clutter our homes and offices? Because feel bad about getting rid of them when we think of all the money and other resources that we’ve spent on acquiring them. Why do some people keep working at a job they don’t enjoy? Because they’ve spent years at the company. When you take sunk costs into consideration you become chained to a false commitment, and this prevents you from choosing better options. Do not take into account sunk costs when making a decision.
4. When the stakes are high, ask yourself two questions. The questions are very simple, but don’t let that fool you, the answers will give you much clarity:
- Is it working?
- Do you still enjoy it?
The answers should come to you quickly and intuitively. If both answers are yes, then keep going. If both answers are no, then quit. The tricky part comes when the answers are different: when it’s working but you don’t enjoy it, or it’s not working but you do enjoy it. In either case a change is needed to get you to where you want to be. Here’s a brief diagram of what the questions and answers look like:
- Is it working? → Yes → Do you still enjoy it?→ Yes → Keep going
- Is it working? → Yes → Do you still enjoy it? → No → Change something
- Is it working? → No → Do you still enjoy it? → Yes → Change something
- Is it working? → No → Do you still enjoy it? → No→ Give up
And while giving up or quitting has a bad connotation and we don’t want to think of ourselves as quitters, just remember that by quitting something you’re not giving up on you. On the contrary, you are giving yourself the opportunity to fully chase those goals and dreams that you want to achieve.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about one project or commitment that you have going on and that is spreading yourself too thin. Apply the four strategies above and figure out whether it merits continuing or not.
FUTURE: Adopt these four strategies for figuring out what you want to keep and what you need to give up. Once you take on additional projects, make a point of evaluating your progress every so often by running your projects through these strategies. This way you’ll ensure you’re involved with projects/actions that are moving you forward, instead of weighing you down.
Know someone who needs to selectively quit a thing or two? Please share this post with them via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
by Helena Escalante | Accountability, Growth, Habits, Leadership, Mindset
Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 55 seconds.
TODAY’S IDEA: Leading by example
— From Common Sense Leadership: A Handbook for Success as a Leader by Roger Fulton
Actions speak louder than words. Nowhere do we see a clearer case of this as in children who do as parents do, not as parents say (!). This gives way to the do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do phrase that usually comes from an exasperated parent…
🙂 All joking aside, what about in the business world? What should we pay more attention to: the actions or the words of our leaders?
Roger Fulton, in his book Common Sense Leadership, shares the following:
“One Fortune 500 executive told his people, ‘You may do anything you see me doing.’
Subordinates will emulate, consciously or subconsciously, their bosses.
If you are forward-thinking, innovative and progressive, then your department will move consistently forward.
True leaders are also willing to roll up their shirt sleeves and do whatever is necessary to make a project succeed. Their commitment and dedication in such a situation sets the example for all of their people.
True leaders are excellent role models.”
Truth is, no matter our age and no matter the setting, actions indeed speak louder than words. We seem to have a radar to detect the word-action disparity when it exists. And because we know others are watching, we must be congruent in word and deed.
“The example of good men is visible philosophy.” – English proverb.
ACTION
TODAY: Think about what you do and what you say in your business. Are your words congruent with your deeds? If not, why not? Ask yourself why five times (or as many as needed) to get to the bottom of it. Once you find the real reason why, address it and change it so that you can speak and act in a way that sets an example for others to follow.
FUTURE: Take inventory of the things you do and say in the different areas of your life. Where are you being incongruent? Don’t judge yourself harshly, we all do it at some point or another. The important thing is to detect it and find the reason why we do it. Ask why five times or keep asking until you find the real reason behind it. Once you know why there is a disparity, you can change it and lead by example.
Know someone whose words are not congruent with his/her actions? Please share this post via email, Facebook or Twitter, thanks!
