First Sun Blog Archives - Page 158 of 235 - First Sun Consulting, LLC | Outplacement Services and Career Transition Firm

#Life : The 4 Attributes You Must Develop to Achieve Everything You Want in Life…Everyone wants Success. But are You Willing to Change?

August 19, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Without change, there can be no growth. And in order to get what you’ve never had, you must become someone you’ve never been. Before you go into the woods, you’ll need a map. Rest assured others have forged the route before you. Their experiences can help guide you to your own best you.

Live forward by making a life plan.

With “Living Forward: A Proven Plan To Stop Drifting And Get The Life You Want,” authors Michael Hyatt and Daniel Harkavy help you begin to become the architect of your own life. Most of us make plans for everything — vacations, dinner, our children’s school functions. But rarely does a person make a life plan. If I asked you to summarize your life plan, could you tell me? Probably not.

If you finally want to live with more intention and purpose in your life or become an entrepreneur now and not later, then your extraordinary life is on the other side of your life-planning design process.

“Living Forward” offers solid advice in several key areas:

Understanding why you need a plan (because as humans, we drift and get distracted).
Learning how to create your life plan beginning with the end in mind (answering, “What legacy do you want to leave behind?”).
Making it happen (triaging your calendar and scheduling your priorities).

Many of us see change as threatening. Some even regard it as the destroyer of what is familiar and comfortable rather than the creator of what is new and exciting. Unfortunately, comfort is the enemy of excellence.

“For the timid, change is frightening, for the comfortable, change is threatening, but for the confident, change is opportunity,” motivational speaker Nido Qubein writes in “Stairway to Success: The Complete Blueprint for Personal and Professional Achievement.”

Decide what you’ll do with your current opportunity. In order to grow and achieve new heights in your life, you must make a commitment to change. Focus your attention on growing in areas that will add personal and professional value. Don’t let your comfort zone kill the excellence within your reach. Make your life plan today.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Distill your thoughts and actions to 4 key attributes.

New York Times best-selling author Brendon Burchard believes there are four cornerstones to achievement. In “The Charge: Activating the 10 Human Drives That Make You Feel Alive,” he writes that if you truly want to succeed in your career, you must develop four attributes: desire, direction, discipline and distraction radar.

Desire. You have to really want it. Your new endeavor should make you feel alive — it might even keep you up at night. Your desire to develop greater KSAs (knowledge, skills and abilities) will lead to you becoming a better person in the process. The challenges you encounter will test your boundaries, forcing growth.

Direction. Desire is one thing, but you need to harness it by learning to stretch your competency. You must be willing to educate yourself in new ways. You might take a class or attend a seminar, read a new biography, participate in a webinar, ask for help or seek out mentors. Learn how others have achieved a goal, model it, and mimic their strategies while you carve out your own path. Be a student of life. Continue to read and expose yourself to new ideas. Never stop learning.

Discipline. Success is within your reach if you’re willing to be more consistent than ever before. You must establish habits and repeat them every day until they are second nature. Ask yourself, “What discipline could I consistently follow to get me where I want to be in my career?” Don’t think of discipline in a negative way. Think of discipline as the joyous pursuit of your dreams.

Distraction Radar. You inevitably will be distracted from your goals. Many things compete for your time — emails, phone calls, social media, television and the list goes on. The world will toss its agenda in front of you. You have to be savvy enough to recognize distractions and move them out of your way. Listen to those moments your distraction radar sounds a warning and take away these interruptions’ power to sap your time and energy.

To begin thinking more intentionally about these four attributes, ask yourself a few pointed questions tomorrow morning:

What do I desire today?
What direction will I take today?
In which area will I be disciplined today?
To which distractions will I not succumb today?

Plan how you’ll deal with resistance to change.

In order to continually implement these four attributes, you need a system — a framework — to which you continually return when you fall off the motivational wagon. It’s resistance at work, and it happens to the best of us. In Steven Pressfield’s book “The War of Art,” he puts it quite bluntly.

“Resistance’s goal is not to wound or disable,” Pressfield writes. “Resistance aims to kill. Its target is the epicenter of our being: our genius, our soul, the unique priceless gift we were put on earth to give and that no one else has but us. Resistance means business. When we fight it, we are in a war to the death.”

Start each day focused and productive.

How you wake up and start each day is vital to your levels of success in every area of your life. Author Hal Elrod makes a compelling case in “The Morning Miracle: The Not-So-Obvious Secret Guaranteed to Transform Your Life (Before 8AM).” He writes that “Focused, productive, successful mornings generate focused, productive, successful days — which inevitably create a successful life — in the same way that unfocused, unproductive and mediocre mornings generate unfocused, unproductive and mediocre days and ultimately a mediocre quality of life. By simply changing the way you wake up in the morning, you can transform any area of your life, faster than you ever thought possible.”

Aren’t you excited by those words? I know I am. Remember, when you start changing your habits, you are changing who you are becoming. It’s by far the greatest determinant in your quality of life now and in the future. Still, most people avoid change. This will not be you. This is your time to banish self-limiting thoughts and share your gifts with the world.

S.A.V.E. yourself from an unfulfilled life.

The framework that helped Hal Elrod can help you. He identifies six practices as Life S.A.V.E.R.S. Each letter signifies meaning.

The first “S” is for silence. Elrod starts his day silently to reduce stress and anxiety. During his silence, Elrod likes to meditate, pray, reflect, do some deep breathing and concentrate on gratitude.

“A” is for Affirmations. Elrod challenges readers to identify five simple outcomes that create personalized affirmations:

What you really want (program your mind with beliefs, attitudes and behaviors that are vital to you being able to reach Level 10 success).
Why you want it (when you are clear about your deepest whys, you will gain an unstoppable purpose).
Whom you commit to being, in order to create your new reality (life gets better only when you do).
What you commit to do to attain it (write down an action step or steps and stick to your list).
Which inspirational quotes and philosophies you’ll read to influence your thoughts (my favorite motivational speakers are Jim Rohn and Zig Ziglar).

“V” is for Visualization, a tool most successful athletes use. I like to call it intentional daydreaming. Visualization enables you to see a future you want. When you do it often enough, you’ll look for ways to make that future your reality. Visualization can be a powerful aid to overcoming self-limiting habits such as procrastination. It helps you find the willpower to take necessary actions and achieve your goals.

“E” is for Exercise. Author and thought leader Robin Sharma said, “If you don’t make time for exercise, you’ll probably have to make time for illness.” Get moving. You might never feel like working out, but remember that emotion follows motion. Once you start moving, you’ll feel good you did it.

“R” is for Reading. It’s said that “A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” You must develop a love for reading — or at least remember the previous point about emotion following motion.

The last “S” is for Scribing — another word for journaling. When I get something out of my head and onto paper, I see it more clearly. Journaling can help you gain mental clarity as you reread your own thoughts in black and white.

Devote six minutes each morning.

You might think all this will take too much time to do each morning. Do you have at least six minutes to spare? Then you have enough time. Just take one minute for each.

Minute 1: Wake up and say a prayer of gratitude.
Minute 2: Repeat your affirmations to help tap into your unlimited potential.
Minute 3: Visualize yourself smiling and laughing with a loved one.
Minute 4: Write down a reason you have to be grateful today.
Minute 5: Read a page or two in a personal or professional development book.
Minute 6: Run in place for 60 seconds.

Realize it takes daily discipline to form new habits.

“Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments,” Charles Duhigg writes in “The Power of Habit.” That bridge must be crossed daily. Habits are behaviors you repeat regularly and most often, subconsciously. As Duhigg puts it, “People do not decide their future, they decide their habits and their habits decide their future.” The key is consistency.

Elrod agrees. He believes it takes at least 30 days to solidify a habit. You might feel discomfort or even some pain in the first 20 days. The transformation comes in the last phase, when the new habit becomes a part of your identity. It transcends the space between something you’re trying and who you are becoming, leading you to associate pleasure with your new habit.

Days 1 to 10 are Phase One: Unbearable.
Days 11-20 are Phase Two: Uncomfortable.
Days 21-30 are Phase Three: Unstoppable.

To achieve real, meaningful change, you must first design your life and then emulate the four attributes every morning. The first step begins with dedicating yourself to this new purpose.

Will you commit?

Entrepreneur.com | August 17, 2016 | Meiko Patton

#Leadership : How to Get the Best from your Employees without Burning them Out…What is it that Drives Employees to Lose Faith in their Employers, Lose Motivation in their Careers, and Drives them Away from your Company and to Another?

August 18, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

We all want to maximize productivity within our businesses, large or small, yet the techniques of the past are rarely sufficient for a modern workforce. More and more, I’m finding that the personal touch goes a long way toward employee productivity, as well as morale and retention.

What is it that drives employees to lose faith in their employers, lose motivation in their careers, and drives them away from your company and to another?

I find that it’s often a combination of bureaucracy and stress. To minimize both, you need to identify what it is that your employees reject, and figure out a way to fix the issue.

1. Minimize the red tape

One of the most frustrating walls an employee encounters is requiring permission to do their job, time and time again.

Yes, there are security reasons for some measures. But often, old policies from petty managers trying to hoard power have led to “the way things have always been done” inertia, which keeps bad rules in place.

Just like in marketing with conversion rates, minimizing the number of obstacles between employee and desired outcome will increase productivity.

2. Be liberal with non-financial benefits

I completely understand that many businesses operate on tight margins. Your best employees deserve raises and bonuses, but when the budget doesn’t allow it, you have to do something.

Why not offer a bit more paid time off or allow the occasional work-from-home day? Sometimes it can be as simple as setting up a room for the occasional sanctioned, on-the-job nap.

Personally, I’d much rather have an employee feel safe nodding off for half an hour than having them doze at their computer getting barely anything done for half their shift.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

3. Ditch the performance review

Or, rather, make sure they’re relevant if you have one. Performance reviews are a source of stress even for good employees — check out impostor syndrome — and they’re often just filed away and never referenced again.

Unless your reviews are both accurate and used regularly, they’re probably doing more harm than good.

Frankly, I think official performance reviews are an antiquated relic from the ghost of management past. If you’re paying attention and have a working relationship with your employees, you’ll be able to tell how they’re performing.

More importantly, if you’re open and they can come to you with problems they face, you can help stave off the issues that drive down their morale. Half of the reason for a negative performance review is toiling under strict conditions that limit an employee’s ability to work in the first place.

4. Establish a way to report and address problems

Part of this comes from fostering a culture of gentle management. I’m not saying you need to make friends with all of your employees, but you should be approachable and attentive when they have something to say.

If the problem is a business system, consider why it’s causing an obstacle to productivity and look into alternatives. If it’s not something you can change, at least consult with the employee about why that’s the case.

One circumstance that may come up is when an employee is the problem. Sometimes a new hire just isn’t working out, and their coworkers are better positioned to see it than you.

You don’t need to set up an anonymous tip line for bad behavior, but you can accept employee advice when a developer tells you the new guy is consistently breaking things and barely doing their job.

5. Trust your employees to do what they do best

Ideally, you will avoid the above situation by hiring a competent, intelligent team. The number-one thing you can do is stay out of their way and let them do their thing. Eliminating red tape and bureaucracy is one part of it, but another is being more of a facilitator than a dictator.

Provide guidance and advice. Establish goals and plans. Don’t micromanage their hours and set unrealistic deadlines. If they need more resources, help them obtain them or explain why the restrictions exist. Keep them in the loop and aware of what’s going on in the bigger picture, so they know what they’re working toward.

The ideal situation is one of trust, awareness, and facilitation. The days where management is a harsh gatekeeper of information and resources are gone. We live in a world where your best employees will be more than happy to jump ship unless you give them a reason to stick with you.

Sometimes, yes, that’s going to be money, and yes, you’re going to lose some good employees when your budgets are tight. You’d be surprised, however, just how many good people are willing to stick around when you simply have a pleasant place to work.

James Parsons is a content marketing influencer, entrepreneur, and writer. He writes for large publishers including Entrepreneur, Inc., and The Huffington Post. You can reach contact him on his website or on his Twitter profile.

Businessinsider.com | August 18, 2016 | James Parsons

#Leadership : 3 Tough Habits You Must Drop to Succeed…Your Success or Failure to Create and Scale a Business will Come Down to the Kind of Habits you Incorporate Into your Daily Life.

August 18, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Follow the habits of highly successful entrepreneurs, and there’s a good chance you will become one too. Strong personal habits that might positively impact a business include: healthy eating and working out, saving money and tithing.

Strong work habits might include a regular cold-calling regimen, weekly networking and delegating. There are hundreds of personal and professional habits that make for a great business, but unfortunately there are a few bad habits that are so ingrained within most entrepreneurs that they die hard.

Here are the three difficult habits to kick that may be ruining your business.

1. You pay attention to the stories, not the facts.

Two weeks ago, you told your top salesperson that her performance numbers are off a bit, and she needs to work on getting her numbers up.

Since then, she hasn’t attended your weekly sales meetings. The story you tell yourself in your head is that she is angry, and she is probably seeking employment elsewhere. You’re telling yourself that she doesn’t care about your meetings anymore.

This is a story, and there’s a good chance it is not accurate.

The facts of this situation are that you told her she needs to increase performance, and she has missed two sales meetings. It’s very easy to confuse the stories we tell ourselves with the actual facts of the situation.

Stories create emotions, which cause us to react, and those reactions are based on conclusions drawn from typically false inferences. Being an effective leader will require you to break the storytelling habit that’s happening in your head. Instead, separate the facts from the stories, and make decisions based on what you know for sure.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. You only believe what you believe.

For the most part, what you believe about anything has been firmly implanted in you by others throughout your lifetime.

Building a business requires you to innovate, which means you must question every belief you have.

Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh didn’t believe that people would never buy shoes over the Internet because they couldn’t try them on, and thus Zappos was built.

Steve Jobs didn’t believe that a phone could just be a phone. He believed it could be a computer, a camera and a music player. One of the hardest habits to break is believing what you’ve been groomed to believe your entire life. If you can break this habit, there’s no telling where your business will go next.

3. You ignore criticism.

It takes a very healthy ego to build an empire. To have a Virgin-sized business you need to believe that you can be, do and have anything that you put your mind to.

That being said, one of the hardest habits to break is believing you are better than you are. When an employee or customer tells you that your product, your service or your attitude sucks, it’s easy to revert to old habits, and defend the honor of this amazing business you have built.

You have 500 great customer reviews, and one that is glaringly terrible. It’s easy to write-off that one bad review in your head, but if you can break the habit of ignoring criticism, there’s a good chance that there’s more to learn in that one bad review than in the other 500 good ones combined.

Entrepreneur.com | August 18, 2016 | Stacey Alcorn

Your #Career : How to Recover from a Bad Job Interview…If you’re Like most People, you’ve Left a Job Interview or Two with that Sinking Feeling in the Pit of your Stomach. You Just Knew you Didn’t Get the Job from the Way Things went During the Interview.

August 18, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

If you have ever been in a situation where the interview turned into a runaway train, there are still some things you can do to recover. With some practice, you’ll be able to save your interview from going south.

Here are a few tips for how to salvage a job interview gone terribly wrong.

Problem: Your hands are shaking and you can’t stop sweating.

Solution: Take a few deep breaths

Nothing can ruin an interview faster than sweaty palms and a bad case of the shakes. One reason you may not be performing well during the interview is because you might be letting your nerves overwhelm you. Job interviews can be incredibly stressful, so it’s not surprising if you feel a bit anxious during your meeting. If you feel yourself getting anxious and jittery, take a few deep breaths so you can calm yourself down. It’s hard to stay focused and relaxed if you can barely catch your breath due to nerves. Once you breathe deeply, you’ll feel calmer and able to think clearly enough to answer the interviewer’s questions.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Problem: You only catch half of the question because you’re planning what to say next.

Solution: Ask the interviewer to repeat the question and then try to stay present.

Don’t start to answer the question in your head before your interviewer is even finished asking her question. You’ll not only make yourself more nervous but also lose track of the conversation. Concentration is key during a job interview. It’s easy to focus so intently on how you will answer a question that you miss what is being said. Take time to relax and listen to what the interviewer is saying to you. The best way to save face is to say that you want to make sure you answer the question thoroughly, so you’d like her to repeat the question one more time. If the interviewer feels you weren’t listening, that will be a strike against you. Try your best to play it off and then stay present from then on. If you need help staying focused, repeat the question back to yourself (in your head, of course) before answering.

Problem: You bombed the job interview.

Solution: Send a follow-up note.

What if you did all of the mistakes mentioned above? (You were a nervous wreck, you rambled through most of your answers, and you didn’t catch half of the questions.) We’ll be honest with you: Your chances of getting the job are quite slim. However, don’t give up hope. You may come across an exceptionally forgiving hiring manager.

If you completely bombed the interview, your best bet is to send a follow-up note. Thank the interviewer for his or her time and then briefly answer the questions you had trouble with. Who knows, the interviewer may have a change of heart and take your updated answers into consideration. Following up shows not only that you’re interested in the job but also that you’re aware of and willing to work on your flaws. Just keep your fingers crossed and look for other jobs until you hear back.

Follow Sheiresa on Twitter and Facebook.

CheatSheet.com | August 18, 2016 | Sheiresa Ngo

#Leadership : Ask Yourself These Five Questions Before Making Any Major Decisions…Asking these Pointed Questions will Illuminate your Choice and its Implications in a Totally Different Way.

August 17, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

The most important decisions, whether in work or in life, never really seem to fall in the black or white. They linger in the gray, where they can remain for a dangerously long time. The journalist Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, “A man who procrastinates in his choosing will inevitably have his choice made for him by circumstance.”

Instead of letting circumstance make your next vital decision, Joseph L. Badaracco, the John Shad professor of business ethics at Harvard Business School, believes that the answer will reveal itself after answering five important questions.

As Badaracco writes in the Harvard Business Review:

Where do these questions come from? Over many centuries and across many cultures, they have emerged as men and women with serious responsibilities have struggled with difficult problems. They express the insights of the most penetrating minds and compassionate spirits of human history. I have relied on them for years, in teaching MBA candidates and counseling executives, and I believe that they can help you, your team, and your organization navigate the grayest of gray areas.

1. WHAT ARE THE NET, NET CONSEQUENCES OF ALL MY OPTIONS?

The first step in making any important decision, suggests Badaracco, is to objectively analyze all of the possibilities, and consider their real-world outcomes. He explains that this process needs to be distinguished from a cost-benefit analysis, and shouldn’t be limited to outcomes that can be measured or counted. After all, if numbers and data could solve this query, they wouldn’t be in the gray zone in the first place.

“Your job is to put aside your initial assumption about what you should do, gather a group of trusted advisers and experts, and ask yourself and them, ‘What could we do? And who will be hurt or helped, short-term and long-term, by each option?” writes Badaracco.

While this task is more difficult than it seems, it’s a strategy that chess players learn to master. The game requires players to look at the board and reimagine how it will shift based on theirs and their opponent’s decisions.

“You’re constantly looking two, three, four moves ahead,” entrepreneur and former star of the youth chess circuit Justin Moore once told Fast Company. “If you do this move, what’s the countermove? What are all the countermoves? And then for all of those, what are all of my potential countermoves? Chess is constantly teaching you to think about what comes next, and what comes after that, and what the repercussions could be,” Moore explained.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. WHAT ARE MY CORE OBLIGATIONS?

Whether it’s your boss, your shareholders, or your children, the decisions we make in life will often affect those around us, and we must consider our obligations to each stakeholder, says Badaracco. He adds that we will often be tempted to only consider immediate stakeholders, most likely the ones that sign our paychecks, but big decisions require us to consider the deeper responsibility of our actions.

“How can you figure out specifically what these duties oblige you to do in a particular situation?” he writes.

By relying on what philosophers call your ‘moral imagination.’ That involves stepping out of your comfort zone, recognizing your biases and blind spots, and putting yourself in the shoes of all key stakeholders, especially the most vulnerable ones.

3. WHAT WILL WORK IN THE WORLD AS IT IS?

This question requires us to consider the contextual circumstances of our decisions in a realistic way, the way the world really exists today, rather than the way we would like it to.

“After considering consequences and duties, you need to think about practicalities: Of the possible solutions to your problem, which is most likely to work? Which is most resilient? And how resilient and flexible are you?” writes Badaracco. “To answer those questions, you need to map the force field of power around you: Who wants what and how hard and successfully each person can fight for his aims.”

4. WHO ARE WE?

This self-reflective question, explains Badaracco, forces us to consider how our decisions shape the person or organization we really are, and not the one we want or imagine ourselves to be. By acknowledging that such decisions shape our sense of self, he believes that an understanding of the self is vital in the decision-making process.

“This question asks you to step back and think about your decision in terms of relationships, values, and norms,” he writes. “What really matters to your team, company, community, culture? How can you act in a way that reflects and expresses those belief systems? If they conflict, which should take precedence?”

To help arrive at this answer, Badaracco suggests thinking about the decision as a chapter in a person or company’s history, and how that chapter would fit into the overall narrative. “Of all the paths you might choose in this gray area, which would best express what your organization stands for?” he writes.

5. WHAT CAN I LIVE WITH?

Good judgment, Badaracco writes, is as much about understanding and analyzing the situation as it is about staying true to our values and ideals. Ultimately, the big decisions force us to determine what matters most and what matters least.

“How will you figure out what you can live with?” asks Badaracco. “End your conversations with others, close the door, mute the electronics, and stop to reflect. Imagine yourself explaining your decision to a close friend or a mentor—someone you trust and respect deeply. Would you feel comfortable? How would that person react?”

via: Harvard Business Review

FastCompany.com | August 15, 2016 | JARED LINDZON 08.15.16 5:00 AM

Your #Career : That 9-to-5 Job You Hate Isn’t As Safe As You Think…Most People haven’t Jumped into the Crazy, Be-Your-Own-Boss World of Entrepreneurship Because they’re Tied to an Anchor: the Job they Think is Safe and Steady.

August 17, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

That same “safe” day job keeps people’s side hustles in the category of fun projects that never reach their full potential. In reality, it’s probably a good thing. Diving right into the deep end of the work-for-yourself pool isn’t right for everyone.

Realize you’re already taking risks.

Being your own boss is risky, and there are no guarantees. Some people can’t handle the stressors that go with the territory. But as scary and risky as it is to launch your own business, odds are you’re taking bigger risks right now by counting on your 9-to-5. Your supposedly steady gig can change or end at any time, likely for any number of reasons. If you don’t have a side project to earn money and ramp up into full-time work, the anxiety around starting your own company pales in comparison to what you’ll feel if a pink slip comes your way.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Make time to build something that really matters.

Many people want to do more than their day job. They want to launch an app, start doing some consulting work, build a tech startup or take on an entirely new challenge. When I talk to people about starting a side business, the biggest objection I hear is they don’t have time to dedicate to it right now.

Not enough time? They don’t have one or two hours a week? Everybody has a spare hour a week. But some people rather would be all or nothing, apparently. Here’s some breaking news: A day contains 24 hours for everyone. Successful people, millionaires and CEOs don’t get extra time in their days. They just are far better at prioritizing the time they have.

Invest in yourself and your future.

Let’s assume you buy into the idea you can spare an hour or two a week to work on your dream project. What’s the downside to dedicating that time? Honestly, not much. Yes, you’ll be down a couple of hours each week. But you’ll gain knowledge and experience to put you a whole new level above those around you.

Invest some time and money into the possibility of the upside. It can be nothing short of life-altering. What if your app takes off and starts making you serious money? Or your startup gets thousands of users a week? Imagine waking up one day with the unbelievable freedom to do whatever you want or being the boss everyone looks up to. An app on the side can change your life.

The potential upside is the reason you need to do more than just go to work every day at some job you hate — while someone else gets rich. Figure out how you want to live the rest of your life and do whatever it takes to get there. The over-inflated risk of reallocating a few bucks and one or two hours a week is no excuse to waste away with no backup plan for the worst-case scenario.

Entrepreneur.com | August 17, 2016 | Steve Eakin

#Leadership : 7 Incredible Things That Happen Once You Learn To Enjoy Being Alone…Everyone Benefits from Solitude. Take the Opportunity this Week to Spend Some Time Alone.

August 16, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

We live in a world of constant contact—a place that’s losing sight of the importance of being alone. Offices are abandoning cubicles in favor of shared desks and wide-open common spaces, and rather than sitting at their desks working independently, school children are placed in groups. It seems that a never-ending “ping” has become our culture’s omnipresent background noise, instantly informing us of every text, tweet, and notification. Even something as mundane as cooking dinner has become worthy of social sharing.

One result of all this social connection is that many of us rarely have any time alone. While we’re told that this connectivity is a good thing and that being around other people is necessary for a fulfilled life, you can certainly have too much of a good thing.

“All men’s misfortunes spring from their hatred of being alone.” – Jean de la Bruyere

A study of 600 computer programmers at 92 companies found that while productivity levels were relatively stable within each company, they varied greatly from one company to the next. The more productive companies had one thing in common: they ditched the ultra-hip open office in favor of private work spaces that granted freedom from interruptions. Of the top performers, 62% said they had adequate privacy at work, while only 19% of the worst performers shared that opinion. And, among the low performers, 76% said they were often unnecessarily interrupted.

Solitude isn’t just a professional plus; it’s also good for your mental and emotional well-being. To get the most out of life, you must learn to enjoy spending time alone. The benefits of solitude are too numerous to catalog, but here are some of the best.

1. You recuperate and recharge. All of us—even the hopeless extroverts among us—need time to recuperate and recharge. There’s nothing like spending time alone to make this happen. The peace, quiet, and mental solitude you experience when you’re by yourself are essential to recovering from the stresses of daily living.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. You can do what you want. As fun as it is to spend time with other people, it inevitably leads to compromise. You’re constantly modifying your ideas to accommodate other people’s desires and opinions. Being alone frees you up to do exactly what you want when you want. You can throw on whatever you feel like wearing, eat what you feel like eating, and work on projects that are meaningful to you.

3. You learn to trust yourself. Freedom is more than doing what you want; it’s the ability to trust your gut and to think clearly, without any pressure or outside influence. Being alone helps you form a clear understanding of who you are, what you know, and what’s right for you. It teaches you to trust yourself. When around others, even when you don’t realize it, you monitor people’s reactions in order to gauge the appropriateness of your own feelings and actions. When you’re alone, it’s all on you. You develop your own ideas and opinions, without having them watered down by what anyone else thinks. Once you learn to enjoy being alone, you’ll discover what you’re truly capable of, without the constraints of other people’s thinking.

4. It increases your emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is your ability to recognize and understand emotions in yourself and others and your ability to use this awareness to manage your behavior and relationships. TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that 90% of top performers are high in EQ. Self-awareness is the foundation of emotional intelligence, and you can’t increase your EQ without it. Since self-awareness requires understanding your emotions and how you react to various people and situations, this necessitates careful self-reflection, and self-reflection happens best when you’re alone.

5. It boosts your self-esteem. Enjoying your own company is a huge confidence booster. If you’re bored and restless when you’re by yourself, it’s easy to start thinking that you’re boring or that you need other people around to enjoy yourself. Learning to enjoy time alone boosts your self-esteem by confirming that you are enough.

6. You appreciate other people more. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. Time alone lets you see people in a whole new light, and it helps you to develop a renewed sense of gratitude for who they are and what they do.

7. You get more done. It’s said that “more hands make light work,” and while that might be true when it comes to raking leaves, it’s a completely different story with cognitive tasks. Even the effectiveness of brainstorming is more myth than reality. Researchers from Texas A&M found that group brainstorming hinders productivity due to “cognitive fixation.” Cognitive fixation is the tendency for people working in groups to get stuck on other people’s ideas, reducing their ability to come up with anything new, and the bigger the group, the more fixated everyone becomes. Spending time alone not only eliminates distractions but also ensures that you don’t have trouble with “too many cooks.”

Bringing It All Together

Everyone benefits from solitude. Take the opportunity this week to spend some time alone.

What does spending time alone do for you? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

Forbes.com | August 16, 2016 | Travis Bradberry

Your #Career : 4 Ways To Prepare For Inevitable Career Disruption…Disruptive Change is Inevitable. It Doesn’t Have to Be Destructive. Choosing Change Before Immobilizing Obsolescence Knocks on your Door is Within your Control.

August 16, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

“I Never Saw it Coming” is the All-Too Common Lament of Companies and Leaders Blindsided by Technological and Competitive Disruptions that Leave them Immobilized. Take digital music. iTunes, Spotify, and Pandora obliterated the global commercial music industry. Office and manufacturing automation is eliminating jobs by the thousands. Artificial Intelligence will render roles like accountants, lawyers, stock brokers, and other knowledge-based workers far less useful. Driverless cars are imminent. What do all of these disruptions have in common? Despite being foreseeable, those most affected by them likely concluded, “Oh, that would never happen!” You may well be someone staunchly avoiding the disruption coming right at you.

I spoke with Jay Samit, author of the provocative and richly insightful book, “Disrupt You!” to learn more about how those who thrive and prosper through disruptive times differ from those that get annihilated by it. Samit says, “You will have your career disrupted. So you have to either proactively turn the impending change into something more enjoyable and fulfilling, or you sit in fear of the inevitable day when the hatchet comes your way and then not know what to do. People who prosper find the spark inside them to change their lives and turn potential catastrophes into career triumphs.”

Disrupt You! is chock full of wisdom from Samit’s multi-decade career in the entertainment world. It’s also full of rich explorations of individual, organizational, and industry-wide sea-changes that disrupted many aspects of life and history.

Reflecting on the deteriorating health in organizations within industries ripe for disruption, Samit notes, “Sadly, people have given up hope for positive change. They work just enough to get a paycheck because the system has driven out individuality. They work enough not to get fired, but not enough to actually care. Self-preservation is the first rule. They duck and cover, hoping someone else gets cut.” Samit advocates for individuals taking control of their destiny before disruption broadsides their career and derails an otherwise promising future. Here are four ways to prepare for disruption to your career or your company, rather than avoiding the inevitable with denial or wishful thinking.

1- Identify and be honest about the tapes playing in your head. Says Samit, “In our childhood, well-meaning parents tell you what you can’t do or become. So people who gave up on their dreams want you to give up on yours. They want you not to live through the heartaches they believe they avoided.” Many people live under the false assumption that we are hard-wired to be certain ways. Tapes that play in our head unconsciously shaping behavior, known as operative narratives, that tell us, “You’re stupid,” or “It’s too late for you” or “Others are better” or “If you try, you’ll fail.” And they trigger a fearful, risk-avoidant impulse that leads us to believe that homeostasis is safer than change. Samit says, “It’s like a big horse tied to a white plastic lawn chair. It’s so conditioned to think it can’t move from that place, he doesn’t bother to learn that if he just starts walking, the chair will go with him.” Be honest about the messages playing in your head that could be holding you back from needed actions that may require the discomfort of taking a risk.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2-Confront denial head on. Stop and ask yourself what assumptions may be preventing you from stepping out into a different future . The more certain you are of something, the more you should find disconfirming data to refute it. Are you in an industry, company, or job that is ripe for disruption? Are you struggling to keep up with advances in technology? Do you cling to methods and processes that are more than 5-8 years old? Have you dismissed something that arrived into your field as just “a passing fad?” What are yourationalizing? Tenure in executive jobs is in a freefall, and most come stamped with an expiration date. To be sure, truthfully looking at shifting ground raises uncertainty and anxiety. But think about the alternatives if your assumptions prove wrong. Says Samit, “When you see the collapse of an otherwise successful career, it means that a signal was missed somewhere along the way.” When asked when the best time to change is, Samit always replies, “The second best time to change is right now. The best time was a year ago.”

2- Replace habits with learning. Being forced to is typically the most common reason behind why people change. When people have no choice, suddenly change isn’t so painful. But predictable routines make change that much harder. Samit suggest, “Habits allow us to accomplish more because then we don’t have to think about all our decisions. But that doesn’t mean we develop good habits. It’s just that routine makes us more productive. Dismantling those routines is a painful prospect.” Breaking free of routine requires reflection and learning new routines. We must be intentional about choosing to give up familiar things and investing the energy to learn unfamiliar things. Samit believes, “There’s no difference between the literate and the illiterate if you don’t read. You have to seek out knowledge. Lifelong learning has become the ‘new normal’ for individuals and organizations. If you want something you’ve never had, you have to do something you’ve never done.”

3- Solicit honest feedback Success is another significant barrier to change. Once you have mastered a skillset, and been reinforced and rewarded for a unique application of that skillset, you’re not likely going to be the first to acknowledge that skillset is headed for obsolescence. If you don’t have a regular source of honest feedback about your skills, what it’s like to work with you, what you could improve, and how you better optimize your strengths, then get one. Nothing helps calibrate reality than the honest perceptions of those who work closest to you . Samit reflects, “One of the greatest downfalls of otherwise promising entrepreneurs is that they are ‘ruined by praise, but saved by criticism.’ They fall so in love with their own ideas and become unable to separate their identity from what they create, that no one can tell them when their baby is ugly.” Leaders who go uncalibrated for too long lose touch with the raw truth of how others experience them. So they convince themselves “all is well” and are shocked when their career derails for behaviors and skill shortages that could have easily been rectified with honest feedback.

Disruptive change is inevitable. It doesn’t have to be destructive. Choosing change before immobilizing obsolescence knocks on your door is within your control. “We are all born into an imperfect world filled with opportunities for improvements,” says Samit. “I grew up in row housing in Philadelphia. If you’d told me many of my friends would be self-made billionaires who had nothing more special than anyone else, I’d have never believed you. For some, improvement comes from working to create a more just society or build products that make life better for customers. We get one time through life. Why would you not want to make the absolute most of this amazing adventure that you could?”

Forbes.com | August 16, 2016 | Ron Carucci , CONTRIBUTOR

#Leadership : An Introvert’s Guide To Leadership…As Humans, We Often have a Tendency to Mistake Loudness for Confidence, and Aggression for Strength. As such, Extroverts Often have an Easier Time Rising to the Top of an Organization.

August 15, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

I think a lot of people assume I’m an extrovert because I’m relatively visible in my role at BodeTree and enjoy engaging with people across the board. The truth, however, is that I’m more naturally inclined towards introverted tendencies. I’m more than comfortable keeping to myself and cherish the time I dedicate to quiet introspection.

As humans, we often have a tendency to mistake loudness for confidence, and aggression for strength. As such, extroverts often have an easier time rising to the top of an organization. Once at the top, however, I’ve found that the traits and behaviors most often associated with introverts are the ones that separate successful leaders from failures.

The key for introverted leaders, then, is to take the things they’re naturally good at – deep thinking, empathy, and the ability to listen – and augment those skills with a strategic dose of extroversion. If you’re able to strike the right balance, you’ll develop a leadership style that is uniquely suited for the modern workplace.

Listen and empathize

Leaders who are self-aware and introverted are typically better equipped to listen and empathize with the people with whom they interact. This ability, of course, is an invaluable skill in the modern workplace.

Throughout my six years as CEO, I’ve found that there is almost always more to a story than meets the eye. It’s tempting and, frankly, much easier to take a given problem at face value and hammer home a simple solution. For example, a convenient response to a team member’s underperformance is to say that they simply need to “buck up and do the job.”

However, this approach can easily lead to a tense culture and high turnover. Instead, it’s better to listen and empathize with the individuals in question. Many times, issues like underperformance stem from a lack of communication, unclear goals, or scenarios outside of a person’s control. While this isn’t always the case, good leaders explore all options before jumping to such a conclusion.

Think deeply but act with purpose

We’ve all encountered individuals in the workplace who speak first and think later. These types of people can be difficult to work with because they don’t respect the nuance and details of the situation at hand and act from a position of force.

When these people find their way into leadership positions, the team they’re working with often loses respect as a result of their behavior. This, in turn, leads to a disastrous cycle of frustration, poor results, and turnover.

Introverted leaders, on the other hand, can thrive where these individuals fail. Rather than speak first and think second, introverted leaders tend to think deeply about a given scenario before taking action. In contemplating the intricacies of a situation first, introverts are better equipped to communicate with their team and drive positive results.

The key, however, is to find a way to act with purpose once all aspects of the situation have been considered. A tendency towards introversion is not an excuse to be passive. Leaders must be able to think deeply but take action when the time comes.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

Remember that a light touch can move mountains

Rather than hammer people until they produce an expected outcome, introverted leaders bring an array of tools and approaches tailored to the situation at hand, enabling them to find the right path forward for everyone.

If you’ve ever read Aesop’s fables, you’ve probably encountered the parable of the sun and the wind. In it, the sun and the wind enter into a competition to see who is the strongest. They decide to see who can make a passing traveler remove his cloak.

The harder the wind blew, the tighter the man held onto his cloak in an attempt to keep warm. However, when the sun shone, the traveler got hot and simply removed the cloak. The moral of the story, of course, is that sometimes a lighter touch is more effective than forceful blustering.

The same thing applies to introverted leaders. When you’re a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. Leaders who can think deeply and act intelligently, however, can find the unique and often less abrasive ways to get the outcomes they desire.

Find your balance

Nothing in life is as cut and dried as we would like. Introverts and extroverts don’t exist in separate, well-defined buckets. Instead, they sit on a spectrum that is unique for everyone.

Introverts possess the skills and traits that are found in the best leaders. However, these cannot exist in a vacuum. To find success, introverts must learn to augment their natural abilities with the ability to drive change and move mountains.

Chris Myers is the Cofounder and CEO of BodeTree a web application designed to help financial institutions better interact with their small business clients.

Forbes.com | August 15, 2016 |

Chris Myers ,

CONTRIBUTOR

I write about my journey as a first-time CEO and startup founder.

#Leadership : The Self-Driven Manager’s Guide to Leadership…I’ve often Found that Self-Driven People make Good Leaders. After all, They usually are Harder on Themselves than anyone Else Could Ever Be, Which Drives them Towards Success.

August 15, 2016/in First Sun Blog/by First Sun Team

Because of this, they act as their own accountability partners and they rarely need to be pushed. They also are not afraid of hard work; perfection must be reached, regardless of the hours. While self-drivers possess many qualities that help them climb the management ladder, they also might struggle when leading people who operate from different motivators.

Here are three keys for self-driven leaders to remember:

1. There is no such thing as perfect.

For the self-driven leader, it’s not uncommon for them to demand perfection from themselves. The target is a benchmark that is impossibly lofty, but as a high achiever, you sometimes manage to reach it. The problem is when you try to hold your team to the same stringent standards as you do for yourself. People are never perfect. To err is human.

When perfectionists expect their teams to approach goals with the same degree of precision, the employees are doomed to never meet expectations. Not only that, this type of leader will tend to get annoyed by even the most inconsequential imperfections, causing enormous frustration.

Does this mean that lowering expectations is the answer? Not necessarily. It’s a combination of choosing what to focus on and looking past stylistic differences. The perfectionist by definition wants everything to be just right. This can result in focusing too much attention towards what isn’t going right — even if it is not a key result area of your business. While you should not ignore an important constraint, ask yourself if it’s really where your attention should be concentrated. If not, focusing on the bigger picture can help you steer your team in the right direction.

Shifting emphasis away from the minor imperfections also can give your team more leeway to operate within their own style preferences versus strictly adopting yours. This can be tremendously valuable in not only getting the most out of each individual team member, but also in the discovery of better approaches you otherwise might not have pursued.

Like this Article ? Share It ! You now can easily enjoy/follow/share Today our Award Winning Articles/Blogs with Now Over 2.5 Million Growing Participates Worldwide in our various Social Media formats below:

FSC LinkedIn Network: (Over 15K+ Members & Growing !) www.linkedin.com/in/frankfsc/en

Facebook: (over 12K) http://www.facebook.com/pages/First-Sun-Consulting-LLC-Outplacement-Services/213542315355343?sk=wall

Google+: (over 800K)https://plus.google.com/115673713231115398101/posts?hl=en
Twitter: Follow us @ firstsunllc

educate/collaborate/network….Look forward to your Participation !

Continue of article:

2. Your drivers may differ from your team’s.

One aspect self-driven leaders often share is that they know exactly where they want to go and are in a hurry to get there. Whether it’s a big promotion, an income target or a juicy assignment — your motivators are clear and compelling. While this surely works for you, it’s very likely your team is going to be comprised of individuals with lots of other drivers. Great leaders don’t operate under a one style fits all model. They get to know the team first and work with each individual to put together a mutually beneficial plan.

3. Others may need your ability to push yourself.

One of the reasons some people rise up the ranks faster than others is because they are naturally able to grasp concepts quickly and apply them without much supervision. These individuals are able to produce prodigious results, whether their leader is exceptional or not. They are successful and have been promoted in many ways because they can operate largely in a self-sufficient manner. Through years of experience, these individuals have learned how to motivate themselves.

Upon being asked to lead others, these individuals can become frustrated that their teams do not have the same skill sets. This should not be mistaken for either a lack of effort or disinterest. It’s more likely they need someone to help hold them accountable. They require the occasional nudge, pat on the back or kick in the rear. Gradually, they can reach a level of greater self-sufficiency, but it needs to be coached, learned and practiced.

The best leaders have the ability to relate to each member of their team, regardless of their diversity. Remembering that every member is unique — and allowing for such differences — can help determine whether you become a great versus good organization.

Entrepreneur.com | August 15, 2016 | Marty Fukuda