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Your #Career : 15 Surprising #Negotiating Tricks to Boost your #Salary ..In Face-to-Face Negotiations, a Study Out of Imperial College London Research Finds That the More Powerful Person Will Usually Win Out.

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Whether you’re Asking for a Raise or Negotiating your Salary at a New Job, One Thing Stays Consistent: It’s Nerve-racking.   But it’s also necessary. An analysis by Salary.com suggests that not negotiating could potentially cost you more than a million dollars over the course of your career. Not that knowing that makes it any easier.

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You can do better.

We combed through research to collect some of the simplest — and most surprising — strategies that help lead you to what you want.

Max Nisen contributed to an earlier version of this article.

 

Always use precise numbers in offers and counter-offers.

Always use precise numbers in offers and counter-offers.

REUTERS/Vasily Fedosenko

Throwing out your target salary as $103,500 seems a little bit silly — doesn’t $100,000 tell pretty much the same story? — but research from Columbia Business School suggests that using precise numbers makes a more powerful anchor in negotiations.

According to Malia Mason, the author of the study, kicking off a negotiation with exact-sounding numbers leads the other party to think that you’ve done research to arrive at those particular digits — and that, in turn, makes them think you’re likely correct.

But…

 …It’s better to suggest a salary range rather than a single number.
...It's better to suggest a salary range rather than a single number.

statigr.am/laurenvrussie

Using precise numbers doesn’t mean using single precise numbers. In a separate study, Mason and her Columbia Business School colleague Daniel Ames found that presenting a salary range — including and above your desired target — is the best way to get results.

In the past, organizational psychologists thought a range would work against you — wouldn’t people just fixate on the lower number? — but Ames and Mason found that’s not the case.

Presenting a range works for two reasons, they say: It gives your boss information about what you’re actually asking for, and it makes you seem polite and reasonable — which means you’re less likely to get hit with a hard-line counteroffer.

 

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Open with something personal, and your negotiating partner will respond in kind.

Open with something personal, and your negotiating partner will respond in kind.

China Photos/Getty Images

In an experiment where Kellogg and Stanford students negotiated by email, those who shared unrelated personal details over the course of the negotiation — hobbies, hometowns, etc. — ended up getting significantly better results than those who kept things to name, email, and the dry monetary details.

Opening up a bit sends a signal that you’re trustworthy, according to Wharton professor Adam Grant in a LinkedIn post, and makes it more likely that they’ll reciprocate.

Think of the negotiation as a competition.

Think of the negotiation as a competition.

Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

In most salary negotiations, you’re going after something that the other party doesn’t particularly want to give you. That makes it a competition, and viewing it such leads to better results, according to research from George Mason Professor Michelle Marks and Temple Professor Crystal Harold.

The team looked at five different negotiation strategies: accommodating, avoiding, collaborating, competing, and compromising. And — spoiler alert — compromising was not the best strategy.

Instead, Marks and Harold found that people who use competitive or collaborative strategies — employing “open discussion of issues and perspectives” — ended up with higher salaries than those who were “accommodating” or “compromising.”

Women might consider employing their ‘feminine charms’ — very, very strategically.

Women might consider employing their 'feminine charms' — very, very strategically.

Flickr/BigAl

According to a study from Berkeley professor Laura Kray, using “feminine charm” — a balance of friendly and flirtatious behavior — can substantially increase gains from a negotiation. It’s a “strategic behavior aimed at making the person you are negotiating with feel good in order to get them to agree to your goals,” she told The Independent.

It’s an adaptive strategy that helps our general cultural discomfort with aggressive women. But — as there always is — there’s a caveat: a little bit of feminine charm can work for you, but if you’re seen as too overtly flirtatious, you’re less likely to be trusted by your coworkers, the study suggested.

Don’t go face to face until you have to.

Don't go face to face until you have to.

Alan Cleaver via Flickr

Generally, if you’re the one asking for a higher salary, you are not the one in the position of power — the person who is hiring you or determining your raise is in control. They have to agree to the number in the end, and they usually have more power over your career and work environment at the organization.

In face-to-face negotiations, a study out of Imperial College London research finds that the more powerful person will usually win out. People think differently when they’re apart, and power hierarchies matter less from a distance. If you’re negotiating with your boss, you have a better chance when negotiations are conducted by email.

If you’re meeting in person, make steady eye contact.

If you're meeting in person, make steady eye contact.

Business Insider

Not every negotiator resorts to deception. But it’s often in their interest to hide how excited they about a candidate — and how willing they might actually be to bump up their offer.

According to a study from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the most effective ways to keep people honest is to make steady eye contact.

Put any concerns you have on the table all at once.

Put any concerns you have on the table all at once.

Julia La Roche for Business Insider

When getting an offer, many people want to seem happy, and avoid looking too needy or disappointed. They might bring up a concern or two, but gloss over other issues that — inevitably — end up coming up later.

That drives hiring managers crazy, according to Harvard professor Deepak Malhotra. The best strategy is to reveal all of your concerns at once, and note which ones are most important, so you can work through them together.

Make the first offer.

Make the first offer.

AP

Conventional wisdom is that you should wait for the other party to make the initial offer in order to get more information to act on. The problem with that thinking, though, says Wharton professor Adam Grant in a LinkedIn post, is that it’s wrong.

In reality, it’s much better to make the first offer because you get to set the “anchor,” the figure that affects the trajectory of the negotiation. People who make very high first offers end up with a much better result.

The first offer pulls the other person in its direction, and it’s difficult to adjust the other way.

Get them to talk about themselves.

Get them to talk about themselves.

Flickr/DellInc

While you clearly want to make an assertive case for your position, it might be wiser to open negotiations with a little chit-chat — especially if you can get your negotiating partner to talk about themselves.

According to Harvard neuroscientist Diana Tamir, the author of a recent study on the neurological effects of talking about yourself, it can trigger the same sensations of pleasure as food or money.

But…

…Chatting works better if you’re a man.

...Chatting works better if you're a man.

bimurch/Flickr

Unfortunately for female negotiators, another study — this one by led by researcher Brooke Ann Shaughnessy, of Technische U. München, in Germany — opening with small talk only works if you’re a man.

The researchers found that chatting before diving in leads men to get “more favorable final offers.” But the study found that small talk didn’t do anything for women (though it also didn’t do any harm, and it’s possible that women could also get results if they were really, really, really good small talkers, the researchers say).

That’s likely because of long-standing gender stereotypes: Going into a negotiation, men are traditionally seen as aggressive, and friendly small talk can be disarming — and get you what you want.

 

Rank your priorities, and share them.

Rank your priorities, and share them.

flickr/jkbrooks85

“In a job offer negotiation, for example, you might say that salary is most important to you, followed by location, and then vacation time and signing bonus,” Wharton Professor Adam Grant writes in a LinkedIn post. “Research shows that rank-ordering is a powerful way to help your counterparts understand your interests without giving away too much information.”

Then follow up by asking them for their priorities, and look for mutually beneficial trade offs on the most important issues.

Which brings us to…

Strike a ‘power pose’ before you get started.

Strike a 'power pose' before you get started.

flickr/poptech

According to research from Harvard Business School Professor Amy Cuddy, adopting a “power pose” with legs widely spaced and hands on hips (channel Wonder Woman) can actually alter body chemistry, making you feel measurably more powerful and willing to take (and stick to) risks.

It boosts testosterone, which increases confidence, and it also reduces the stress hormone cortisol. Just what you need before a negotiation.

Be a little unpredictable.

Be a little unpredictable.

Scott Olson/Getty Images

The default for negotiations is a relatively level and less emotional approach, an attempt to be as rational as possible. But injecting some passion and unpredictability can create an advantage.

A study from Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinsky found that emotional inconsistency from negotiators leads to greater concessions from the other party because they feel less in control of the situation.

Expressing anger, alternating between anger and happiness, and alternating between anger and disappointment all yielded bigger concessions.

Consider tears (but tread carefully!).

Consider tears (but tread carefully!).

Flickr/Crimfants

Going into a high-pressure negotiating situation, it makes sense to try to stay on an even keel: you’re controlled, you’re balanced, you’re in charge of your emotions.

But a recent study from ESSEC, the University of Michigan, the University of Paris, and EMLYON, found that in certain situations, expressing sadness — and even tears  — can apparently make you more likely to get what you want from the negotiation.

If your negotiating partner sees you as “low power,” if they anticipate continued interactions with you, and if they see your relationship as collaborative, then it’s possible that what Science Alert calls a “warranted display of pathos” could — maybe — get you what you your raise.

But even if it’s true, it’s very very very risky (do you really want to be seen as low power forever?). In the long run, it seems likely you’d be better off with a power pose, a well-chosen salary range, and a competitive spirit.

 

Businessinsider.com | July 20, 2015 | Rachel Sugar

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-negotiate-a-higher-salary?op=1#ixzz3gSheVcoY

#Leadership : Is Capitalism Ending?…The End of Capitalism Has Begun. The Creative Economy—is Emerging.

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“Without us Noticing, We are Entering the Post-Capitalist Era,” writes Paul Mason in The Guardian in an article entitled  The End of Capitalism Has Begun. “At the heart of further change to come,” he continues, “is information technology, new ways of working and the sharing economy. The old ways will take a long while to disappear, but it’s time to be utopian.”

"W.E.F. Britten - The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson - The Lotos-Eaters" by William Edward Frank Britten (1848–1916)Adam Cuerden (restoration) - The Early Poems of Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Edited with a Critical Introduction, Commentaries and Notes, together with the Various Readings, a Transcript of the Poems Temporarily and Finally Suppressed and a Bibliography by John Churton Collins. With ten illustrations in Photogravure by W. E. F. Britten. Methuen & Co. 36 Essex Street W. C. London, 1901. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:W.E.F._Britten_-_The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson_-_The_Lotos-Eaters.jpg#/media/File:W.E.F._Britten_-_The_Early_Poems_of_Alfred,_Lord_Tennyson_-_The_Lotos-Eaters.jpg

Image Wikipedia “W.E.F. Britten – The Lotos-Eaters” by Alfred, Lord Tennyson,

Readers of this column will note some similarities between Martin’s article and the case that I have been making that a new economy—the Creative Economy—is emerging.

I find much to agree with in Mason’s article, including:

  • The 20th Century way of running organizations is dying and new ways of working are emerging.
  • New technology facilitates and requires the change.
  • The change goes beyond technology. Technology has helped create a new route forward. But the change also requires a change in mindset to take full advantage of the technology.
  • “We have blurred the edges between work and free time,” says Mason. Many of us now expect work to provide meaning and offer opportunities for genuine human flourishing.
  • The transition to the Creative Economy has already started. The future is already here, as William Gibson observed: it’s just very unevenly distributed. But the old ways may take a long while to disappear.

All of that makes sense. The areas where I have problems with Mason’s article are the following:

The “sharing economy” is not a business? Martin offers a romantic picture of the sharing economy. “We’re seeing the spontaneous rise of collaborative production” he writes. “Goods, services and organizations are appearing that no longer respond to the dictates of the market.” Not so. Airbnb and Zipcar are still market-driven phenomena. If they don’t satisfy customers, they will go out of business, just as surely as their predecessors.

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In fact, the “sharing economy” is a misnomer. Airbnb is a rental platform: homeowners aren’t sharing their homes out of love for their fell0w-man: they are renting them to customers for money with the help of Airbnb. It’s a business, not pure good-heartedness. There are buyers and sellers and money changes hands. This part of the new economy needs to shed its aura of “dealngs based on brotherly love” and call itself what it really is: “the rental economy” or “the access economy.”

We have less need to work? Information technology has not, as Martin suggests, “reduced the need for work.” Work is needed for a variety of reasons beyond putting food on the table—human dignity, community, reciprocity and the creation of meaning in people’s lives.

Unemployment is ultimately degrading and soul-destroying. The fact that the economy as a whole could theoretically produce enough food for the entire world doesn’t mean that it makes sense for much of the population to go on permanent vacation. An economy where a large part of society comprises Lotos-eaters living in dreamful ease is neither economically realistic nor socially desirable.

Google prevents access to public information? “The giant tech companies,” writes Martin, “are based on the capture and privatization of all socially produced information, such firms are constructing a fragile corporate edifice at odds with the most basic need of humanity, which is to use ideas freely.” On the contrary, firms like Google enable unprecedented free access to all the public ideas that have ever been created. Mason’s article has this back-to-front. What Google is capturing in private is private information about the users, which is, and should remain, private.

Is Wikipedia displacing firms like Apple? Mason writes that “The biggest information product in the world – Wikipedia – is made by volunteers for free, abolishing the encyclopedia business and depriving the advertising industry of an estimated $3bn a year in revenue.” This is true, but so what? Martin implies that cooperatives like Wikipedia will displace existing private sector firms.

This is improbable. Wikipedia doesn’t challenge the hegemony of tech companies like Google and Apple. It emulates them. Wikipedia is in fact a public sector version of Apple’s ecosystem of App developers. Both function in the same manner–vast numbers of individuals pursuing a goal that they believe is worthwhile. Apple captures a profit from it while Wikipedia has opted not to. The model works in both private and public sector. The exemplars are complementary, not in competition.

Global firms are doomed? “Almost unnoticed,” writes Mason, “in the niches and hollows of the market system, whole swaths of economic life are beginning to move to a different rhythm. Parallel currencies, time banks, cooperatives and self-managed spaces have proliferated, barely noticed by the economics profession.”

While it is true that mainstream economics has paid scant attention to the Creative Economy, it is unrealistic to think that niche products and services will put Google out of business. The niche products are sometimes valuable but so is Google. Google is useful precisely because it offers me information from around the world, not just from my little village. The Creative Economy includes both: large global platforms that are valuable because they are global and tiny niche initiatives that meet a narrow local need. It’s not either-or. It’s both and.

“A new kind of human being?” The emergence of the new economy is not, as Martin suggests, being shaped by “the emergence of a new kind of human being.” The Creative Economy is emerging because of economics: it makes more money than the Traditional Economy. Certainly new mindsets and new ways of understanding and interacting with the world are required to successfully manage it. But “a new kind of human being”? That is neither realistic nor necessary.

What we are looking at is not the end of capitalism, but rather the next phase of its evolution. The world that is emerging is still a market-driven phenomenon that is recognizable as capitalism.

Describing the shift towards the Creative Economy with a haze of warm and fuzzy utopianism not only falsely characterizes the positive changes that are under way. It risks deferring their eventual acceptance.

The Creative Economy is indeed potentially better—better for those doing the work, better for those for whom the work is done, better for the organizations orchestrating the work and ultimately better for society as a whole. It has no need of of fake PR.

Forbes.com | July 20, 2015 | Steve Denning 

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#Leadership : John Sculley Talks About Mentors, Failure, Reasons To Join A Startup — But Not The Future Of Soda

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What do You Do When your Back is Against the Wall & You Have to Either Pivot or Fail? How do you get somebody to feel passionate about what you believe in and get them to join you and be part of your team? These are really challenging questions which you don’t necessarily get at business school and aren’t the types of things you get working inside of a large corporation.

Former Pepsi president and Apple CEO, John Sculley, talks about his life as an entrepreneur and the present and future of business.

Former Pepsi president and Apple CEO, John Sculley, 76, talks about his life as an entrepreneur, and the present and future of business.

John Sculley is best known for his successes at Pepsi and his dramatic tenure at Apple, including the battle that jettisoned Steve Jobs from the ground-breaking tech firm. But Sculley’s post-Apple career has been focused squarely on helping build new businesses and mentoring younger entrepreneurs. His latest book and video series – Moonshot! – looks at how business founders plan for success as they attempt to transform industries.

Karsten Strauss: You spent much of your career in the corporate world, how did you first learn about entrepreneurship?

John Sculley: I had not heard about entrepreneurship until I got to Silicon Valley back in 1982. As I started to understand it I realized it was very similar to the most fun experience that I had ever had working with Pepsi, which was starting Pepsi’s international snackfood business around the world.

I had a small team and we said we weren’t going to spend much money until we were profitable so we would always travel economy class, we’d get the cheapest tickets, we’d stay at the cheapest hotels. We brought in refurbished equipment from the U.S. We had to learn how to start up in countries where no one even knew what snack foods were back in the early 1970s.

 

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Strauss: Tell us about a business that you helped build.

Sculley: I’m a cofounder of a company called Zeta Interactive. We’re one of the largest private marketing cloud companies in the world. We don’t give out our revenue but I’ll just say its north of $200 million and we’re very profitable and growing incredibly fast. We have 350 million profiled names that we do very sophisticated data science mathematic predictive algorithms for that enable our clients to be able to acquire customers, build customer loyalty and monetize customers.

Strauss: What did you learn from the Zeta experience?

Sculley: It taught me how important the role of a mentor is. My cofounder is a man named David Steinberg. David and I had a previous company together called Inphonic, which we built to a $1.6 billion company on the NASDAQ stock exchange and this was a follow-up company that David and I founded. I’ve been David Steinberg’s mentor for 18 years. One thing that makes a mentorship work is high level of trust between the parties. A mentor does not make decisions, a mentor does not run anything; the founder or CEO runs the business.

Strauss: Despite your mentorship, Inphonic was forced to file for bankruptcy and David Steinberg resigned as CEO. What happened?

Sculley: The wireless operators started to squeeze the rebates which they gave to resellers and David restructured the agreement with his large resellers where he wanted to take the revenue as recurring revenue – in the online world, recurring revenue is always considered more valuable – which was perfectly legal.

But the mistake that was made – and he’ll tell you it was his mistake but it was as much his chief financial officer’s, who did a bad analysis – was that they misjudged the implication on cash flow. By turning it into recurring revenue, it meant that he was going to defer when the revenue was recognized and the cash came in. So instead of, say, AT&T paying them a rebate at the sale of the phone, AT&T was paying a smaller amount than they had before, but they paid over a number of months. The result was he got squeezed on cash. He went out and raised cash to try and fill the gap but he wasn’t able to raise enough cash to fill the gap and the company spiraled into bankruptcy.

The only person who stuck with him, who was on his board and invested in his previous company, was me. I continued to be his mentor. I agreed to found the next company with him, which is Zeta Interactive.

Strauss: But you Left the Inphonic board before the end. Why?

Sculley: Nobody wants to be on the board of a company going bankrupt. It’s pretty simple. I was still a close friend of his and when Inphonic finally did file for bankruptcy, I said, “What do you learn from this experience?” I’ve had failures too. We all learn from failures.

Strauss: Do you think you could have offered better advice as a mentor?

Sculley: I wasn’t management, I wasn’t inside the operations of the company; I was a board member. Board members look at the reports that are presented to them. Like I said, this was not a great day for the CFO.

Strauss: What do you bring to the table as a mentor?

Sculley: I’m a marketing person who has lived in technology for 32 years so I have domain experience in consumer marketing and in technology. Especially the technologies that we use today, which are big data analytics – which is what Zeta Interactive does – and it’s also incredibly important in anything to do with mobile health and the consumerization of healthcare.

Forbes: How do you start a mentorship relationship?

Sculley: It starts with a set of principles and the most important one is I only work with people I like, and they obviously in turn have to like me. If you can’t start with a relationship first, it doesn’t make any difference what the business is. That’s different than the way most private equity or growth equity firms look at investing in business; they don’t start with friendship.

Strauss: Is there a trick to dealing with entrepreneurs?

Sculley: Entrepreneurs are, by nature, high risk takers. They have strong opinions, they are passionate about what they do, they will often tell you that the reason they work for themselves is because they couldn’t work for anybody else—it’s just not in their makeup.

Entrepreneurs make business such a high priority in their own personal lives. It’s very different than professional managers who may be there for making a lot of money over five or six years of hard work. Corporate leaders tend to want to fit into what a company is doing; entrepreneurs are there because they want to break the rules.

Strauss: Is a there a single strand of wisdom all successful entrepreneurs preach?

Sculley: The really big insights of learning don’t come from even your best successes, they come from the mistakes you make. When you make big mistakes you think about them a lot because as an entrepreneur when you make a mistake it could be life or death for your company.

Entrepreneurs are also driven by a noble cause and I first learned that working with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates. I’d never heard of the idea of a noble cause until I showed up at Apple because I came from the world of cola wars and competition so everything was about beating the other guy. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates weren’t talking about beating the other guy, they were talking about creating an entirely new industry.

Strauss: But Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were very competitive people.

Sculley: Bill Gates’ and Steve Jobs’ overarching motivation was a noble cause. In the conversations we had together, we never talked about making money. They were great competitors and they would argue, but that came later—first it was the noble cause.
Strauss: Do you ever get sick of being asked about Steve Jobs?

Sculley: I understand that the world is fascinated by him and he made some incredible contributions. He was a genius. He created products and industries that changed the world. I’m one of the few people who knew him incredibly well, worked closely with him when he was very young.

Strauss: Do you think Steve Jobs would have evolved into the CEO that he ultimately became had he not left Apple?

Sculley: Those were growing years for Steve Jobs. No one ever questioned that he was brilliant, but he made mistakes there and NeXT failed. He was learning from those experiences and the reality was that by the time he came back to Apple in the late 1990s he was an incredibly different person.

Every entrepreneur that has been successful that I know well will tell you that they learned the most from their mistakes. Steve, when he was very young – even before I joined Apple – was asked to step down from the Lisa group because he was considered a troublemaker; just as he was asked years later to step down from the Macintosh group.

Strauss: Entrepreneurs often try to power through the tough times. How do you know when to accept failure?

Sculley: Sometimes the way you give up is you run out of money, and that happens to a lot of entrepreneurs, unfortunately. A mentor doesn’t make decisions but a mentor can be a reality checkpoint. If there’s a really good, trusting relationship between the entrepreneur and the mentor, if the entrepreneur is failing he’ll turn to the mentor and say, “so, what’s your advice?”

It doesn’t mean that the entrepreneur has to follow the advice of the mentor but it’s useful for an entrepreneur to get advice that isn’t just yessing the entrepreneur.

Strauss: Who were some mentors that made an impact on your life?

Sculley: I didn’t really have mentors but I had a terrific couple of bosses at Pepsico when I was there. But I wouldn’t call it a mentor relationship because they were bosses and I came up through the traditional, hierarchical organization. One of the reasons I wanted to become a mentor was because I wish I’d had a mentor when I was in Silicon Valley.

Strauss: What impact do you think a mentor’s guidance would have had on you?

Sculley: There would have been a lot of decisions for which I would have loved to have had a mentor there to get their perspective. When I was very much opposed to licensing the Mac software, I actually got pushed out of Apple because there were others who did want to license it. I thought it was a terrible mistake and I wish I’d had a mentor to bounce that thinking off of and maybe I would have been able to convince people, which I wasn’t able to do.

Strauss: Do you think your communication was an issue in that situation?

Sculley: You can always get help on how you see things and how you tell other people about what you see. Those are the types of things I do as a mentor for the people I mentor. I’m doing for them exactly the things I think would have been valuable to me when I was in their role. I try to say “if I were in their shoes, what would I want a mentor to give me their opinion on?”

Strauss: What would you do if you were just coming out of college today?

Sculley: I would try to get into a startup company or I would try to join one of the many incubators or accelerators, because the opportunity to learn from other people in entrepreneurial companies is just incredibly valuable. I think it’s even more valuable than going to business school because you’re learning about the things entrepreneurs have to know.

What do you do when your back is against the wall and you have to either pivot or fail? How do you get somebody to feel passionate about what you believe in and get them to join you and be part of your team? These are really challenging questions which you don’t necessarily get at business school and aren’t the types of things you get working inside of a large corporation.

Strauss: Do you think the soda business will survive?

Sculley: I’ll pass on that question.

Follow me on Twitter @KarstenStrauss

#Leadership : 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do…Mental Strength isn’t Often Reflected in What you Do. It’s Usually Seen in What you Don’t Do.

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In her book, “13 Things Mentally Strong People Don’t Do,” author Amy Morin writes that developing mental strength is a “three-pronged approach.”  It’s about controlling your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.

Things Mentally Strong People Dont Do

Here are 13 things mentally strong people do not do, according to Morin:

1. They don’t waste time feeling sorry for themselves.

“Feeling sorry for yourself is self-destructive,” she writes. “Indulging in self-pity hinders living a full life.”

It wastes time, creates negative emotions, and hurts your relationships.

The key is to “affirm the good in the world, and you will begin to appreciate what you have,” Morin writes. The goal is to swap self-pity with gratitude.

 

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2. They don’t give away their power.

People give away their power when they lack physical and emotional boundaries, Morin writes. You need to stand up for yourself and draw the line when necessary.

If other people are in control of your actions, they define your success and self-worth. It’s important that you keep track of your goals and work towards them.

Morin uses Oprah Winfrey as an example of someone with a strong grip on their power. Winfrey grew up dealing with poverty and sexual abuse, but “she chose to define who she was going to be in life by not giving away her power,” she says.

3. They don’t shy away from change.

There are five stages of change, Morin writes: pre-contemplation, contemplation, preparation, action, and maintenance.

Following through with each of the five steps is crucial. Making changes can be frightening, but shying away from them prevents growth. “The longer you wait, the harder it gets,” she says, and “other people will outgrow you.”

4. They don’t focus on things they can’t control.

Things Mentally Strong People Dont DoWilliam MorrowTake back your power, embrace change, face your fears, and train your brain for happiness and success.

“It feels so safe to have everything under control, but thinking we have the power to always pull the strings can become problematic,” Morin writes.

Trying to be in control of everything is likely a response to anxiety. “Rather than focusing on managing your anxiety, you try controlling your environment,” she says.

Shifting your focus off the things you can’t control can create increased happiness, less stress, better relationships, new opportunities, and more success, Morin writes.

5. They don’t worry about pleasing everyone.

Oftentimes, we judge ourselves by considering what other people think of us, which is the opposite of mental toughness.

Morin lists four facts about constantly trying to be a people-pleaser: It’s a waste of time; people-pleasers are easily manipulated; it’s OK for others to feel angry or disappointed; and you can’t please everyone.

Dropping your people-pleasing mindset will make you stronger and more self-confident.

6. They don’t fear taking calculated risks.

People are often afraid to take risks, whether it’s financial, physical, emotional, social, or business-related, Morin writes. But it comes down to knowledge.

“A lack of knowledge about how to calculate risk leads to increased fear,” Morin writes.

To better analyze a risk, ask yourself the following questions:

  • What are the potential costs?risk takerFlickr/Mikko Koponen
  • What are the potential benefits?
  • How will this help me achieve my goal?
  • What are the alternatives?
  • How good would it be if the best-case scenario came true?
  • What is the worst thing that could happen, and how could I reduce the risk it will occur?
  • How bad would it be if the worst-case scenario did come true?
  • How much will this decision matter in five years?

7. They don’t dwell on the past.

The past is in the past. There’s no way to change what happened, and “dwelling can be self-destructive, preventing you from enjoying the present and planning for the future,” Morin writes. It doesn’t solve anything and can lead to depression, she writes.

There can be a benefit to thinking about the past, though. Reflecting on the lessons learned, considering the facts rather than the emotions, and looking at a situation from a new perspective can be helpful, she says.

8. They don’t make the same mistakes over and over.

Reflecting can ensure you don’t repeat your mistakes. It’s important to study what went wrong, what you could have done better, and how to do it differently next time, Morin writes.

Mentally strong people accept responsibility for the mistake and create a thoughtful, written plan to avoid making the same mistake in the future.

9. They don’t resent other people’s success.

Resentment is like anger that remains hidden and bottled up, Morin writes.

Focusing on another person’s success will not pave the way to your own, since it distracts you from your path, Morin writes. Even if you become successful, you may never be content if you’re always focusing on others. You may also overlook your talents and abandon your values and relationships, she says.

10. They don’t give up after the first failure.

Dr. SeussDana~man via FlickrTheodor Giesel.

Success isn’t immediate, and failure is almost always an obstacle you will have to overcome. “Take, for example, Theodor Giesel — also known as Dr. Seuss — whose first book was rejected by more than 20 publishers,” Morin writes. And now Dr. Seuss is a household name.

Thinking that failure is unacceptable or that it means you aren’t good enough does not reflect mental strength. In fact, “bouncing back after failure will make you stronger,” Morin writes.

11. They don’t fear alone time.

“Creating time to be alone with your thoughts can be a powerful experience, instrumental in helping you reach your goals,” Morin writes. Becoming mentally strong “requires you to take time out from the busyness of daily life to focus on growth.”

Here are some of the benefits of solitude Morin lists in her book:

  • Solitude at the office can increase productivity.
  • Alone time may increase your empathy.
  • Spending time alone sparks creativity.
  • Solitary skills are good for mental health.
  • Solitude offers restoration.

12. They don’t feel the world owes them anything.

It’s easy to get angry at the world for your failures or lack of success, but the truth is no one is entitled to anything. It must be earned.

“Life isn’t meant to be fair,” Morin writes. If some people experience more happiness or success than others, “that’s life — but it doesn’t mean you’re owed anything if you were dealt a bad hand.”

The key is to focus on your efforts, accept criticism, acknowledge your flaws, and don’t keep score, Morin writes. Comparing yourself to others will only set you up for disappointment if you don’t receive what you think you’re owed, she says.

13. They don’t expect immediate results.

“A willingness to develop realistic expectations and an understanding that success doesn’t happen overnight is necessary if you want to reach your full potential,” Morin writes.

Mentally weak people are often impatient. They overestimate their abilities and underestimate how long change takes, she says, so they expect immediate results.

It’s important to “keep your eyes on the prize” and relentlessly work towards your long-term goals. There will be failures along the way, but if you measure your progress and look at the big picture, success will become attainable.

 

Businessinsider.com | July 16, 2015 | 

 http://www.businessinsider.com/things-mentally-strong-people-dont-do-2015-7#ixzz3gLVgWOGP

Your #Career : 19 Terrible #LinkedIn Mistakes you’re Making…There Are Some Things you Just Shouldn’t Do on LinkedIn.

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Kim Brown is an Assistant Director for Syracuse University’s Career Services Department. She spends a good portion of her day looking over LinkedIn profiles for job seekers and students.

LinkedIn coffee

She makes sure candidates are putting their best foot forward on LinkedIn.  Here are the most common mistakes Brown sees job seekers make on LinkedIn.

Your profile is full of typos

Your profile is full of typos

John Lillis

Brown says she’s spotted typos in company names, job titles, and even in the user’s name.

Unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t have a built-in spell checker, but your browser might. Safari, Chrome, and Firefox underline misspellings in red. Bottom line, whatever you use: Be as careful on LinkedIn as you would be with a paper resume.

 

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You have no picture in your profile

You have no picture in your profile

LinkedIn

Adding a picture to your LinkedIn profile can make a world of difference to a recruiter. Studies have shown that LinkedIn profiles with pictures are much more likely to get clicked on than those without.

LinkedIn says you’re 14 times more likely to be viewed if you have a photo.

You have a profile picture, but it’s a photo of you and your significant other (or worse)

You have a profile picture, but it's a photo of you and your significant other (or worse)

Filckr / Huw Thomas

Do not get LinkedIn and Facebook confused, says Brown.

Facebook is for personal pictures, LinkedIn is for professional ones.

Brown recalls one student who came to her, frustrated because he couldn’t find a job. When she checked out his LinkedIn, she saw that he had chosen a photo of himself doing The Chicken Dance at a wedding. Oof.

Stereotypical, duck-faced selfies are another big no-no that Brown’s started noticing more often.

She also says she sees a lot of people link to their Facebook profiles from their LinkedIn pages. Don’t do this. It’s best to keep the two profiles separate.

 

You don’t have a background photo or any other visuals either

You don't have a background photo or any other visuals either

LinkedIn

You can now add a background photo to make your profile stick out, too. You should pick something that matches your brand, Brown says — for example, hers is of the SU campus — and make sure that your file is big enough that it doesn’t end up looking stretched and pixelated.

LinkedIn also allows you to upload all sorts of rich media — like documents, photos, links, videos, and presentations — to your profile, and if you don’t take advantage of that you’re missing out.

“Your LinkedIn isn’t just words anymore,” Brown says. “You should really be paying attention to the visuals you can add to your profile.”

 

You haven’t put any thought into your profile headline

You haven't put any thought into your profile headline

LinkedIn

Brown says she sees a lot of people simply put “Student at X University” as their lead LinkedIn headline. She also sees a lot of professionals who are looking for jobs with old titles as headlines.

You have a lot of room to be descriptive in this area of your profile!

“If you’re a job seeker and you have a [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][vague or outdated] title, I have no idea you’re looking for work,” says Brown.

So, it’s better for a student to write that they’re an “Advertising major at Syracuse University who has experience with nonprofit work” or for a job seeker to write, “Experienced advertising professional looking for a opportunities in the med-tech space.” Her official job title comes in the “Experience” section of her profile.

Even people with concrete job titles should use the headline space to give more detail about what they do and are passionate about. Brown’s headline, for example, reads “I help SU students and alumni to craft their career stories | Connector | Speaker | LinkedIn Trainer | CNY Promoter.”

Never, never write “unemployed” — highlight what you’re looking for, instead. 

 

Very Important: You’re not reaching out to people through LinkedIn Groups 

You're not reaching out to people through LinkedIn Groups

LinkedIn can be a great tool for networking, but messaging a complete stranger can be awkward. Try finding people who are in a group you share in common. This helps break the ice, says Brown.

For example, if you’re a Syracuse University alumnus, message a fellow Syracuse person from the Alumni Network before sending a blind InMail.

But pick and choose your recipient carefully: You’re only allowed to send 15 messages a month to other group members.

 

You’re not personalizing LinkedIn connection requests

You're not personalizing LinkedIn connection requests

LinkedIn

When you connect to someone for the first time on LinkedIn, don’t just use the generic message option, “I’d like to add you to my professional network on LinkedIn.”

Take a few moments to write something personalized, says Brown. It will make the recipient more open to your request and the message feel less spammy.

Also, never lie about how you know the person. Lying is almost a guaranteed way to kill your chances at connecting.

You’re “connecting” with people from LinkedIn on your phone

You're "connecting" with people from LinkedIn on your phone

LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s now has a whole suite of useful apps. The flagship lets you connect to people with a click—but you can’t customize the message.

“People will say to me, ‘Well, I didn’t personalize my message because I couldn’t on my phone,'” says Brown. “It’s not an excuse. Get on your computer and connect that way.”

Wiggle room: The nice thing about connecting via smartphone is that you can do it immediately after meeting someone, in which case a message isn’t as important.

You also run a greater risk of typos on your phone though.

You haven’t created a unique LinkedIn URL

You haven't created a unique LinkedIn URL

LinkedIn

“The head of business development for a big company contacted me, and he had his LinkedIn profile link in his signature,” says Brown. “It was [Joe]-[Smith]-8346974. Who would think [all those numbers] look okay? It looks terrible. Definitely customize your URL.”

To customize your LinkedIn URL, press the “Edit Profile” button. Click the gear symbol next to your URL, which will take you to a separate page where a “Your public profile URL” box will let you change the link. Try to get as close to your first and last name as possible. Avoid cutesy nicknames or usernames.

You never bothered to fill out a summary

You never bothered to fill out a summary

LinkedIn

Filling out the summary portion of your LinkedIn profile is crucial if you want to pop up in search results.

“The summary is the most important part,” says Brown. “Having search terms and key words in your summary that are related to the job you’re doing or want to do is going to make you more likely to be found by the recruiters and hiring managers who are searching LinkedIn for talent.”

You don’t “stalk responsibly” or take advantage of it when someone’s checking *you* out

You don't "stalk responsibly" or take advantage of it when someone's checking *you* out

LinkedIn

Any LinkedIn user can see who’s viewed their profile recently, but if you limit your public profile settings, less of your information will be revealed to the person you’ve checked out on LinkedIn. The trade-off: You won’t see as many details about who’s visiting your profile, either.

Getting insights can be super valuable, so being public is a plus. Just stalk responsibly.

“If you’re job seeking and you’re looking at the same person’s profile 59 times in a two-week period, you should probably make yourself anonymous,” says Brown. “Don’t be creepy.”

If you’ve noticed someone checking out your profile in a field or at a company that interests you, though, it can’t hurt to message them to start a dialogue.

 

You haven’t broken your profile out into sections

You haven't broken your profile out into sections

LinkedIn

It’s not just about your summary and work experience: You can add volunteering experiences, organizations you’re part of, honors you’ve received, projects you’ve worked on, and more to your LinkedIn.

A lot of profiles are just one long block of text, but breaking it into different parts makes it easier for people to scan and for you to highlight certain parts that you think are particularly important.

“Don’t be afraid to play around with the order of the sections,” Brown says.

For example, if you’re a recent grad and your course work is more valuable than any of your previous jobs, drag the “projects” section above the “experience” section.

You list “skills” that LinkedIn doesn’t recognize

You list "skills" that LinkedIn doesn't recognize

LinkedIn

Adding a bunch of skills to your profile is a good way to easily flaunt your chops and make yourself more searchable, but if you write something obscure that LinkedIn doesn’t recognize, it doesn’t do you much good.

When you start typing a skill on your LinkedIn profile, make sure it appears in the dropdown menu. If it doesn’t, it may be spelled wrong, or it’s not a frequently searched item, which won’t help your resume get found by recruiters.

Stick to the thousands of skills LinkedIn already has in the system and your profile will pop up more often in search results. You can also allow people to “endorse”

You don’t have (credible) recommendations

You don't have (credible) recommendations

LinkedIn

Brown says it’s important to have recommendations on your LinkedIn profile. But not just any old recommendation—it should come from someone who’s reputable and it should speak to your specific qualifications.

“A lot of times recommendations are really generic,” says Brown. “Such as, ‘Alyson would be an amazing asset to your company because she is a hard worker and a wonderful addition to our office.’ Well, great. How about something more detailed, like about that time you worked on a specific project together?”

Make sure the recommendation someone writes for you isn’t applicable to every other candidate.

Getting these recommendations may require asking for them. Navigate to the “Privacy and Settings” tab, then to “Profile,” and you will see a link for “Manage my recommendations.” That section will prompt you to send a message to a boss or coworker.

You’re not posting photos, posts, or work-centric updates

You're not posting photos, posts, or work-centric updates

LinkedIn

Don’t fill out your profile and then forget about LinkedIn. Radio silence on your feed is bad news.

More than ever before, the site makes it easy to keep your network up-to-date on what’s going on in your professional world through updates, photos, posts, and comments.

“Make it a point to once a week do something,” Brown advises. “Share an update with your network. Put up a photo of an event that you attended. Comment on someone’s post. You want to show up in the network feed, and the way you show up is by doing those things.”

You can solidify yourself as an expert on a topic by publishing posts, too, which often get thousands of views from professionals across LinkedIn.

You’re not engaging with your network

You're not engaging with your network

LinkedIn

“The ‘Keep in touch’ section is a lazy networker’s dream,” Brown says.

Under the “Connections” tab, LinkedIn makes it dead simple to find little ways to connect with people in your network. You can see congratulate someone on a work anniversary, new job, or switching cities.

There’s no excuse to feel overwhelmed by the prospect of maintaining a relationship.

You haven’t left yourself helpful little reminders or scheduled reconnection nudges

You haven't left yourself helpful little reminders or scheduled reconnection nudges

LinkedIn

Every time you connect with someone new on LinkedIn, you should get into the habit of feeling out information in the “Relationship” tab that will appear on their profile.

You can add notes about their interests, info about how you met, and even reminders to reach out to them again in a week, a month, or on a recurring cycle.

“Don’t worry, it’s only visible to you,” Brown says.

You’re not exporting all your contacts

You're not exporting all your contacts

LinkedIn

Want to make it easy to take your LinkedIn conversations off the site, or make sure that you’ll still have access to your contacts if you lose access to your account?

You can export all of your contacts into an Excel file with their name, job title, and email.

Go to the main Connections tab, press the gear symbol in the right-hand corner, and then click “Export LinkedIn Connections” under “Advanced Settings.”

Viola! There are a bunch of different file formats you can use when exporting

“This is one of the biggest ‘a-ha’ moments that everybody has when I teach LinkedIn classes,” Brown says.

BONUS: You’re not using advanced search tools when hunting for a job

BONUS: You're not using advanced search tools when hunting for a job

This one may seem a little obvious, but if you use the advanced search tab, you’re much more likely to turn up relevant career opportunities than if you just conduct broad queries.

Instead of just searching by the name of the company or person, you can search by keyword, industry, location, and more.

You can also save searches, save jobs you’re interested in, and even apply, right through the site.

You’re not taking advantage of the “Find alumni” option

You're not taking advantage of the "Find alumni" option

LinkedIn

Recently, LinkedIn has really amped up the way it lets you find people who went to your university.

You can see all the people who attended your college who studied a certain major or were in your year. You can even search for a specific company, and see all the alumni who worked there. This is great for networking, reconnecting, or planning reunions.

“You can use it for a ton, a ton of different purposes,” Brown says. “It’s like an in-depth yearbook.”

Businessinsider.com | July 17, 2015 | 

 

 [/fusion_builder_column][/fusion_builder_row][/fusion_builder_container]

#Leadership : The Most Paralyzing Blocks That Successful People Have Overcome To Be Happy In Their Work…Below Are the 6 Core Blocks that Successful Professionals Have Overcome to Be Happy & Well-Rewarded in their Work.

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Literally Every Single Client of Mine in the Past 10 Years Who is Stuck in an Unhappy Career is Struggling with at Least One of the 6 Common Blocks to Progress. On the flip side, the highly successful and happy professionals I work with who find joy, reward, and passion in their work have overcome these blocks, either intentionally or organically.

burnout

This week, I had a career consultation with a client that hit me right between the eyes. While I’ve delivered hundreds of laser-focused consulting sessions in the past, in this one, it was clear in literally 10 minutes why this individual had struggled for 20 years in her work as an attorney, and what she needed to do to change that. A powerful realization emerged for both of us – that how she internally conceived of, and viewed her work with divorce had been triggering significant pain and emotional trauma from her childhood.

 

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I’m seeing more clearly than ever that the way people speak and write about their work, the way they frame it and emotionally relate to it reveals exactly what’s in the way of their moving forward to a happier life. And from their responses to my Career Path Self-Assessmentsurvey (a specially-designed set of questions I wished someone had asked me when I was just starting out and that all professionals need to answer), they reveal striking clues about the pain, negative internal messaging and emotional struggles from the past that are now hampering their ability to move forward to craft a joyful livelihood.

Literally every single client of mine in the past 10 years who is stuck in an unhappy career is struggling with at least one of the six common blocks to progress. On the flip side, the highly successful and happy professionals I work with who find joy, reward, and passion in their work have overcome these blocks, either intentionally or organically.

I believe that it’s an inevitable part of our human condition to have developed subconscious mindsets, beliefs and blocks that will somehow, at some point, thwart and undermine our happiness and success unless we work to uncover and resolve them. I’ve faced all six of these blocks myself in my 30 years of professional life, and can attest to how damaging they are.

Below are the six core blocks that successful professionals have overcome to be happy and well-rewarded in their work. And these six blocks keep others stuck in career misery, confusion and paralysis.

Block 1: The outcomes you are striving for are, in some core way, conflicting with what you believe is good, right and true.

You simply can’t succeed if you’re in a tangle about the outcomes you’re focused on achieving in your work.

Years ago in my corporate life, I found that the marketing work I was doing felt very wrong to me. I was promoting products that I felt had no real meaning or benefit to customers, and our sweepstakes promotions were attracting people desperate to win big money because they couldn’t pay their bills. They didn’t want our products; they wanted to win money (I’d listen in to our telemarketing calls for the sweepstakes promotions and my heart would break). In the end, I hated the outcomes I was paid to achieve.

You will not achieve success (emotional, financial, professional or otherwise) if you can’t get behind the outcomes you’re bringing about in your work. Shift your work focus so that you’re proud of and fully behind the outcomes you’re striving for, advertising and promoting.

Ask yourself: What are the critical outcomes my work currently focuses on? Now…how excited and supportive am I, really, about these outcomes?

 

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Block 2: Your shaken confidence and faltering self-esteem have impaired your ability to see that you’re worth great money and respect in the workplace.

How well you’re doing professionally is inextricably linked to your relationship with and feelings about money and self-worth. If you feel, for instance, that you need to keep your service prices down to the bare minimum (where you’re not earning anything) because you aren’t sure what you’re worth (or you think that charging a lot is “bad”), you’ll most likely fail in your business.

There are ways to be of service to every budget, certainly, but you need to build a smart, flexible, multi-tiered business model that allows you to serve both those with and without access to money. You can do that many different ways including offering high-quality free materials and low-cost products as well as higher-cost services and programs. But in the end, you’ll go broke if you think that charging good money is a bad thing or that you’re not worthy anything to anyone.

In another example, as you’re going out in the world interviewing and applying for jobs, if you subconsciously doubt that you are worthy of being well-paid, you never will get the offers and recognition you deserve.

There are many ways to earn great money doing soulful, mission-driven work, but again, you need to be clear about your beliefs around what you “should” be earning and charging and how you feel about being wealthy or well-paid. If you have any shame about charging well, then you’ll need to heal to issues around self-confidence and self-esteem, and gain more clarity about the great skills and talents you have to offer.

Ask yourself: What do I feel I truly deserve in terms of compensation for my work? How do I feel about being well-compensated, even wealthy, doing this work? What holds me back from earning more?

Block 3: You persistently doubt that you are smart, talented or experienced enough to succeed at what you want.

My goodness, I’d be a millionaire if I had a dime for every person I’ve worked with who doubts the power and usefulness of her smarts, experience and abilities. Thousands of people I’ve worked with have suffered from some degree of “unworthiness” (and I have too). If you’re feeling that you really don’t have the talent, brains, expertise or experience to be valuable in the direction you long to, you’ll have to address this block proactively. You need to look first at where you got the idea you’re “nothing” or not enough, and secondly, you need a realistic assessment of what’s required to succeed in the field or direction you wish to pursue.

If you need additional experience or training, then go out and get it. Find a way. If you’re solid right where you are (with no need for more training or experience), stop yourself from your chronic put downs and from thinking you don’t have what it takes. Fake it until you become it (see Amy Cuddy’s powerful Ted talk for more on this). If you don’t know if you need more training or experience, do some exploratory online and in-person research with people, recruiters and hiring managers in the field and figure it out once and for all.

Ask yourself: Do I believe I have the talent and expertise (and worthiness) to be a tremendous success at what I long to do? If not, what step can I take today?

Block 4: You were culturally trained and taught that it’s not right or good to shine too brightly or stand out.

No matter what field or function you’re in today, you have to be able to broadcast in powerful, engaging ways what you’re great at (your “superpower”), and you have to do it both online and in person. You need other people to help you succeed and thrive, and to engage others, you need to talk about what you do incredibly well (and everyone has something that they’re amazing at). Become more comfortable sharing what excites and enthralls you, and stimulating others by your passion and your mission. If that’s too challenging, get some support to overcome this resistance.

Start by reading my book Breakdown, Breakthrough and Peggy Klaus’s book Brag!: The Art of Tooting Your Own Horn Without Blowing It, and take steps to begin speaking and sharing about yourself and your work in engaging and compelling ways.

Ask yourself: Was I raised or conditioned to think that shining my light too brightly was garish, arrogant, unseemly or not humble enough? Was I shamed by my family when I shone too brightly? Was there someone else in my family I was told not to outshine?

Block 5: You have been taught that following your passion is a huge mistake – you believe it will hurt you or you’ll end up broke or miserable if you do.

The people who are the most successful and joyful (and empowered) in life have followed their passions, values, integrity and interests to a very high degree. They know what they’re made of, and they aren’t afraid to pursue an “unsure” path because they understand that the happiest lives are about being of use and making a difference in ways that matter. They know how they uniquely contribute and they won’t be stopped in delivering those contributions. Because of their indifference to the “sure” path, they are risk tolerant and have found great joy and security within themselves.

On the other hand, there are thousands of people who were taught and trained by their parents that following their passions for work would be a disaster – crazy, irresponsible and stupid. Many of these folks were potentially well-meaning authority figures who wanted security for their children. Sadly, their dogged insistence that “following your passion will lead to failure” generated a very negative result. These parents stripped their adult children of the ability to think for themselves, and live by their own beliefs, values, and standards, independently and confidently.

What to do? Complete my Career Path Self-Assessment and brainstorm every day for a full week about what you would pursue if money, time, support, etc. were no object. What would you research, explore and try on, and what new directions would you identify as desirable? Identify the visions you could, in actuality, commit to bringing into reality. And determine the activities that you’re passionate about that should remain as hobbies vs. endeavors you wish to explore making at a living in. If you don’t know, start talking to people doing work you’re interested in, and shadow folks engaged in what you think you want to do. Try on the professional identity. When you do, you’ll learn quickly if it’s for you.

Ask yourself: Do you believe that following your passion for your work will end badly? Who taught you that and what was their motivation and agenda?

Block 6: You think you must chuck everything and leave your old career totally behind to be happy.

This is the most misguided belief of all. You don’t necessarily have to leave your old identity and your old work completely behind to have a happier life. More often, it’s a pivot or a tweak – in direction, focus, outcomes, those you’re helping, and how you’re operating in the world – that will bring the most fulfillment, not chucking everything and completely starting over. In fact, the pain you’re feeling won’t go away if you just run – it will follow you wherever you go unless you learn how to BE different – and see things differently — in the world.

Take the time this month to brainstorm ways you can draw on what you’ve already learned, done and achieved. Identify 3 new directions that could potentially marry up and make great use of everything you are already, and everything you’ve learned and done. Understand who you are and the great skills, talents and abilities you already possess, and find new ways to leverage those.

If any of these blocks resonate with you, there’s work to be done. Don’t waste another minute being blocked and stymied in doing your best, most joyful and rewarding work.

For more about how to transform your career, visit The Amazing Career Project online course, Breakdown, Breakthrough and kathycaprino.com.

Forbes.com | July 16, 2015 | Kathy Caprino

Your #Career : Is It Ever OK To Accept A Job Offer And Continue To #Interview?…Picture this Job Search Conundrum: a Job Seeker has Multiple Hot Leads in Play. One of Them Extends an Offer.

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It’s Solid but Not Ideal, So the Job Seeker Tries to Hurry the Other Leads Into Additional Offers While Buying More Time to Respond to the First Offer. Eventually, that decision deadline can be pushed no further, and the other leads, while still interested, are not in a position to decide just yet.

  • Should you turn down the first offer, keep interviewing and run the risk that you don’t get anything else?
  • Should you accept the first offer and stop your search, forever wondering if you should have held out for something better?
  • Or do you accept the first offer, continue discussions with other companies, and take something else if a better offer comes? Is it ever OK to accept a job offer and continue to interview?

manage-irrational-employees

In general, it is a terrible idea to accept an offer and continue to interview.

While most work agreements are employment-at-will so you can quit at any time, you don’t want to be someone who quits shortly after accepting an offer. You do want your word to mean something.

In addition, being new to any job requires transition time. If you accept a role but haven’t 100% let go of the prospect of something “better” coming along, then you’re not really giving your new employer your full attention. During the inevitable awkwardness of adjusting to the new role, work environment and culture, you are not giving your best effort, and you may be too distracted to integrate fully. Your half-hearted acceptance is thus the start of a downward spiral.

Finally, it’s a small, small world. Confidentiality is paramount in the hiring process, but so many people are involved that you can’t lock things down 100%. If your new employer finds out you didn’t break off ties with previous prospects, this breach of trust could derail your stint right from the start, if not cause your new employer to cut ties immediately.

 

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That said, there are legitimate reasons why you still might interview even after accepting another job.

You can get closure on the other opportunities. You see your options fully play out, since clearly this new employer is not exactly right. You might even feel better about your new employer, if the other opportunities don’t end up as you expected.

You will have to manage the confidentiality very closely – when exactly are you going to complete these other interviews? If another offer does come through and you want to accept that, you need to make as little disruption for your new employer as possible – helping them secure your replacement, or helping with messaging around your premature departure. Keep in mind that your positive gestures may be rebuffed entirely – the risk of burning bridges when you renege on an acceptance or quit shortly after starting a job is high.

So proceed with caution, whatever you decide to do.

If you turn down an offer for other imminent, but still uncertain prospects, this is the time to really step up your search, including generating brand new leads. Seemingly imminent offers have a nasty habit of disappearing. If the other offers don’t pan out, having newer leads can distract you from regretting to accept that first offer.

If you decide to accept a job that is less than ideal and stop interviewing elsewhere, then don’t drive yourself crazy with what-if scenarios. It’s easy to convince yourself that some other offer would have been better, but that’s just fantasy. Embrace the new role you do have and make a go of it. Pour your energies into doing an amazing job and into changing over time the factors of the job you were less than ideal when you accepted.

If you accept the job but continue to interview, manage your risks in the immediate term as you sort out all the different options. In the longer-term, manage your career more proactively. You felt the need to accept an offer that is less-than-ideal. Why? If you felt you had no other alternatives, shore up your network, your job search technique, and your financial foundation so you increase your capacity to think and act long-term. If you needed to get out of your current company, take a hard look about what didn’t work before and make a plan to correct any shortcomings because the problems you had before might follow you to your new employer.

Did you accept a job before your job search fully played out? What happened?

Caroline Ceniza-Levine is co-founder of SixFigureStart® career coaching. She has worked with executives from American Express, Citigroup, Condé Nast, Gilt, Goldman Sachs, Google, McKinsey, and other leading firms. She’s also a stand-up comic, so she’s not your typical coach. Connect with Caroline on Google+.
Forbes.com | July 14, 2015

Your #Career : 7 Ways To Deal With Today’s Long Job Hiring Process…If you’re Looking for a Job, You Might have Sensed that it Seems to be Taking Longer to Snag an Offer Than in the Past. You’re Right.

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A Recent Study from the Employment Site Glassdoor.com Found that the Average Interview Process in the U.S. is Now 22.9 Days, Nearly Double the 12.6 Days in 2010.  It’s a maddening shift that’s only added stress for job hunters. I’ll provide tips on how to deal with this new reality in a moment, but first it’s important to understand what’s driving this change.

Interviewer3

On the surface, the trend towards longer hiring cycles seems counterintuitive. After all, as the war for talent has been heating up, you’d expect employers to act faster, not slower, to lock-in the best candidates. The unemployment rate just hit a seven-year low (at 5.3%) and the CareerBuilder jobs site says 49% of employers plan to hire full-time, permanent employees in the second half of 2015, up from 47% last year.

So what gives?

According to Glassdoor Chief Economist Andrew Chamberlain, there are several reasons why the interview process is taking longer these days.

“Overall, the interview process has become longer largely due to the fact that more employers are requiring more comprehensive interview processes,” Chamberlain told me via email. “For job candidates, that basically means more hoops and hurdles they may have to jump through.”

Screening methods such as group presentations, IQ tests, personality tests and drug tests have gained in popularity, each lengthening the hiring timeline.

Chamberlain also noted that there’s been a marked change in the composition of the workplace in recent years, with a shift away from low-skilled, routine jobs and towards higher-skilled positions requiring more sophisticated skills. Hiring specialized and technical workers requires a more careful — that is, longer — vetting process.

Of course, hiring timelines vary according to job type and industry. Glassdoor says hiring decisions for entry-level jobs like retail sales clerks take less than a week, while the process for senior-level execs typically drags on for two months or more. If you’re a law enforcement candidate, you’d better have a holster full of patience: the average hiring time for police officers clocks in at a painfully slow 128 days.

Glassdoor says neither age, gender or education affect hiring time, though.

7 Tips for Job Seekers

Its report leaves little doubt that you should expect your job search to last awhile. Given that reality, here are seven ways to better manage the wait and, with any luck, cut the time it takes for you to get hired:

1.  Do your homework about the employer’s hiring process.Learn what you can before you apply. This will help you tamp down expectations.

Many companies now post information about their particular hiring process on the career page of their websites; some even offer online chats for prospective applicants.  You can also research the interview process by reading employer reviews on sites like Glassdoor.com or Indeed.com as well as by speaking with friends who work at your target employers.

 

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2. Ask about “next steps” at the end of each interview. Find out if more interviews will be needed — and if so, roughly how many, how soon they’ll occur and how they’ll be done (group, individual, phone, etc.). Ask the employer if you’ll need to provide any additional information such as references. Or, if appropriate, whether you’ll need to schedule drug testing. The more proactive you are about handling needed tasks early on, the less chance of delays happening on the back end.

3.  Do what you can to nudge the process along. While you can’t do much to control the employer’s internal decision-making process, there are a few ways to bolster your standing and help speed up a potential offer.

For one, send a compelling thank-you note that clearly explains why you’re the best person for the job. It’s not only the polite thing to do; the note will provide a reminder that you’re a savvy candidate who might get snatched up by a competitor if the employer doesn’t act quickly.

If you know someone who works for the employer, ask him or her to put in a good word for you. As I’ve written before, a strong internal reference is one of the most effective ways to best the competition.

Of course, it’s wise not to appear too eager. There’s a fine line between good follow-up and looking desperate. So demonstrate your interest by touching base at the agreed upon checkpoints, but resist the temptation to check in every time you get anxious.

4. Don’t read too much into employer promises. Even if you’re told “We’ll definitely have a decision by next week” or “You’re one of our top two candidates,” take such comments with a grain of salt.

Employers’ plans change. A hundred things that have nothing to do with you can delay the decision: The hiring manager goes on vacation; an internal project suddenly requires attention; the company becomes the target of a takeover.

It’s fine to take a moment to relish any encouraging comments, but then plow full steam ahead with the job search.

5. Adjust your expectations (and advise your significant others to do the same). Reset your mental time clock and plan on the process lasting two or three times longer than the employer indicates. If it finishes sooner, great. But in the meantime, you’ll have an easier time managing your anxiety during the wait.

6. Keep your job application pipeline full. When you only have one prospect, you’ll obsess over it day and night. The best way to keep your sanity during a long interview wait is by generating a steady flow of new opportunities.

Even if your dream job seems within reach, keep searching, keep networking and keep applying. That way, you’ll feel like you’re making progress and you may uncover other interesting job openings in the process.

7. Snag a competitive offer. Nothing speeds up the hiring process faster than letting employers know you have another job offer. Just like dating, you’ll appear way more attractive to potential suitors once they know others are seriously interested.

Of course, there are risks involved with this strategy, so use it wisely. Once you tell an employer there’s a competing offer, you start the clock ticking. That’s why this approach can backfire if the employer’s lengthy interview timeline can’t be easily shortened. Also, some employers might resent being pressured into making a decision before they’re ready.

But when presented in a non-threatening and professional manner, having a bird in hand is one of the best ways to force the employer’shand — and maybe even get a higher starting salary to boot.

Nancy Collamer, M.S., is a career coach, speaker and author of Second-Act Careers: 50+ Ways to Profit From Your Passions During Semi-Retirement and a contributor to Next Avenue. Her website is MyLifestyleCareer.com; on Twitter she is @NancyCollamer.

Forbes.com | July 14, 2015 | Next Avenue 

#Leadership : Top Signs Your Colleague Is An Empty Suit…Is your Manager, Employee, or CoWorker an Empty Suit? And How Would you Know If They Were? Here are Some Tell Tale Signs You are Working with an Empty Suit.

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Unfortunately, They Lack Knowledge of What They are Doing in Their Work Role. In the Worst Cases the Empty Suit Can’t Manage to Explain the Goals of the Department. In a weak attempt to do so will say something similar to one or more of the following:

The Office

There is nothing wrong with dressing well for the office, but the problem comes when it’s all style and no substance. Expensive suits from Hugo Boss or Armani are no substitute for business acumen. Women and men are each just as guilty in this. Such people could be found in any company from the largest like Apple AAPL -0.1% andMicrosoft MSFT +0.28% to small entrepreneurial offices. Nowhere is immune from this scourge, unless you work alone.

Here are some tell tale signs you are working with an empty suit.

1. Thinks fine clothing is a substitute for brains. They might dress in clothing they perceive as superior and frequently demean your appearance with snooty comments.

For instance: “OMG, why are you wearing those single buckle monk strap shoes, that’s so last season.”

Unfortunately, they lack knowledge of what they are doing in their work role. In the worst cases the empty suit can’t manage to explain the goals of the department. In a weak attempt to do so will say something similar to one or more of the following:

“You know, we do awesome things.”
“We’re the glue that holds the company together.”
“Optimize processes for better efficiency.”
“We’re like the people people.”
“It’s like we forward the empowerment goals of the company.”

 

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2. Talks primarily in platitudes. For instance, in response to “why aren’t any of the computers in the department working today?” says one of the following:

“These things happen.”
“It is what it is.”
“I can see that being a problem.”
“It’s nobody’s fault.”
“It’s a pity.”
3. Parrots the company line even to the extent of unwittingly sounding foolish to others.

On Monday, says: “Oh yes we are committed to providing our employees with the best training in the industry.”

On Tuesday, says: “No we can’t possibly spend money on training because we have to cut costs.”

When confronted about the obvious dichotomy will say one of the following to deflect:

“Not my decision.”
“We are all together in this.”
“My hands are tied on that one.”
“It’s the same everywhere else.”
“I’m doing what my boss told me to do.”
4. Never takes responsibility for errors. For instance, fails to purchase the necessary beverages for the office party, despite multiple requests from the boss to do so. In defense, says one or more of the following:

“I agree we could have done better.”
“Things take time.”
“These things happen.”
“We can’t always get it right”
“I don’t recall being asked.”
Note the lack of “I screwed up” or anything else taking personal responsibility.

 

5. Shows no original thought. Just when you think your empty suit colleague might have provided an insightful suggestion, you actually realize that you’ve heard it before. Where? Likely one of the following:
You made the same suggestion last week (now its being passed off as new.)
It’s recycled from the CEO’s group webcast.
Your colleague suggested it yesterday. The “suit” now takes ownership after ridiculing the idea previously.
The idea has failed many times but the empty suit is too dumb to understand.
The suit saw the idea watching reruns of Seinfeld; thinks no one will notice.
By now you should have identified if there are any empty suits in your work group. If it’s your boss there is no alternative than to find a new job or else suffer in silence as the empty suit leads your department down the road to well deserved obscurity.

If it’s one of your coworkers then be sure not to work on any teams with them if you can help it. And if you are lucky enough to have no empty suits in your team then pray that it stays that way.

In the meantime, don’t forget to plug your brain in as you put on your business clothes.

Simon Constable is a New York-based writer.

 

Forbes.com | July 14, 2015 | Simon Constable 

#Leadership : The Daily Habits of 35 People at the Top of Their Game…Nearly 3 Dozen Successful Leaders Share the Rituals they Say Help them Succeed in Business & Life.

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When it Comes to Achieving Success, Actions Speak Louder than Words, Connections or Opportunities. Think about the importance of your daily habits, for example. Do you run five miles every morning because you value being fit and healthy? Or is it your regular routine to watch three hours of television every night because you feel the need to escape? Without a doubt what you achieve in life depends on your actions. Take it from 35 founders, entrepreneurs and executives who have achieved great things and credit simple daily rituals for helping them do it. Here are their quotes on what helps them get more out of business and life.

1. Hold back-to-back meetings in one location.

If I must have multiple meetings throughout a day, I often aim to set them back-to-back in one location. This way, I maintain efficiency and focus throughout the meetings, setting the pace according to the agenda and maximum time allotted [fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”][while] knowing we must get straight to the points at hand since the next meeting is impending. Additionally, placing these meetings back to back enables me to maintain a clear frame of mind during the times before and after the block of meetings, since I am freed from the constant self-reminders to be punctual to the next meeting.

– Tiffany Pham, founder and CEO of MOGUL, an award-winning technology platform for women.

2. Read voraciously.

My first job at Warner Bros. was preparing a daily press packet without internet. I had to read everything physically, clip pertinent articles, copy and distribute them to execs. This job taught me the power that one garners by knowing everything that’s going on in business and the world — who’s doing well and might be a candidate for a sale of a popular Warner Bros. TV series or movie and who is in trouble and might be a candidate and need a hit TV series or movie. One needs to be able to converse with other executives intelligently about their business.

–Eric Frankel, founder and CEO of AdGreetz, a cloud-based SaaS platform that empowers brands such as Intel, NBC and Toyota to deploy relevant, personalized video messages that build stronger customer relationships and increase engagement, activation and revenue.

3. Constantly triage your to-do list.

“The role of the CEO is really to keep the team focused on the most important topics, and it’s important that you do the same for yourself.”

–Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of EnergySage, a solar-marketplace company that recently secured a $1.5 million Series A round of funding and announced a partnership with Green America.

 

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4. Unsubscribe mercilessly.

I get a lot of unwanted email from folks who’ve subscribed me to lists that are irrelevant to me. I combat this clutter daily and find it’s a useful way of removing one distraction from my day.

–Apu Gupta, CEO of Curalate, a platform for marketing with images that works with 650 brands, reaching millions of consumers a day.

5. Block time on your calendar according to tasks.

It is so easy to fall into daily distractions, forcing you to play catch up the next day. This cycle can go on forever. Time blocking keeps me on track. I schedule a time frame where I am responding to emails, and then the next hour is blocked for meetings, etc.

–Jayna Cooke, CEO of EVENTup, an online marketplace for event venues that has listed more than 15,000 venues and attracts more than one million consumers a month.

6. Connect with your passion.

Every week I check in and participate with the product and technology teams. Even as the company has grown, I have forced myself to make time to stay connected. As an engineer, I personally enjoy participating in the technology challenges and love to learn about the solutions our team comes up with. Not only does it keep me up-to-date on latest ideas, but it also gives the team an opportunity to see the bigger picture and ask “why?” Not all startup CEO/founders are technologists, but each CEO has a passion. Staying connected with your passion will keep you engaged, even when your job evolves into bigger strategic thinking. Sometimes you have to let yourself have fun with the things you love.

–Alex Muller, CEO of GPShopper, a developer of mobile apps with a focus on the retail industry and annual revenue growth of 50 to 70 percent.

7. Limit the time spent on email every day.

It’s easy to get caught up answering emails all day and feeling like work is being done but by the end of the day realize that no progress has been made on strategically pushing the business forward. You just spent the whole day fighting fires and solving immediate problems but the to-do list remain the same as the day prior. Email can also be a bit of disruption given that it comes in in random intervals and thus can take focus away from projects and work that requires a continuous block of time and thinking. As a result, it is really important to invest blocks on time on email every day also block off times where email is not checked. I do not let email become the “default” work item because it eventually [becomes an] insidious kind of semi-procrastination.

–William Hsu, co-managing partner of Los Angeles-based VC Mucker Capital, which was ranked as the number two accelerator in the U.S. by Seed Accelerators Ranking, a joint study by MIT and Rice University.

8. Spend one hour outside every day.

As a digital-only company, almost all of my time is spent in an office in front of a computer. This is why I make it a rule to be outside for at least one hour a day. Be it walking my dog, riding my bike or just sitting at a patio with friends, I find being outside as a form of meditation. No matter if it’s broken into 20-minute chunks or late at night, the fresh air helps me relax, release any stress and restart my mind for the next challenge.

–Alex Matjanec, CEO of MyBankTracker, a Brooklyn-based personal finance and banking hub, which helps more than 1.5 million visitors a month make smarter banking decisions.

9. Use technology for Personal Relationship Management (PRM).

Every CEO has a to-do list or actions that they need to accomplish daily. While we have many strategic objectives and initiatives that we work on, one daily habit is to target relationships to accelerate or organizations progress. These include clients, partners, internal team members and board members. I weekly schedule an agenda of engagement with each of these relationships via a PRM tool, CallPlease which allows for real-time daily prioritization of these relationship interactions. I leverage the mobile CallPlease app on my iPhone and since it is a team-based system my executive admin can also support these interactions via a web console through its workflow.

–Kris Snyder, CEO of Vox Mobile, a Cleveland-based enterprise mobility solution provider with annual growth which trends above 30 percent, a recent funding round closing at $6.7 million, and consistent inclusion in Gartner’s MMS Magic Quadrant. Snyder is also the founder of the Global Enterprise Mobility Alliance (GEMA).

10. Prioritize key employee objectives.

I know that even my best employees have a range of focus and performance. In addition to motivating them through traditional recognition methods I’ve found that letting them know that their personal objectives are important to me earns their best efforts and loyalty. In the past this has included sponsoring night classes not directly related to their job and helping an employee secure a book deal with a major publisher.

–James Roche, CEO of Houseplans.com, a San Francisco-based stock home design site which has grown 25% year over year.

11. Focus on two to three things a day.

I can’t multi-task. It creates too much chaos.

–Tim Eisenhauer, president of San Diego software provider Axero Solutions, a profitable bootstrapped company with hundreds of customers playing in the crowded enterprise software market with huge venture-backed competitors.

12. Have a family dinner.

We may be co-founders, but we are also mom and dad to three daughters. No matter how hectic running a fast-growing startup is, we make sure to shut off the cell phones and have a family dinner with our girls. While many CEOs are still going strong at 6 p.m., we’re passing the green beans and focusing on what matters most to us — our family. What’s most amazing is how many of our business and marketing ideas have come from our twin 8-year-olds and our 11-year-old right at the dinner table.

–Scott and Missy Tannen, founders of Boll & Branch, a New York based company with a line of accessibly priced luxury bed linens which launched in January 2014 with first-year revenue topping $2 million and more than a $10 million run rate in its second year in business.

13. Get home on time.

I try and be religious about the time I leave my house in the morning for work and the time I get back. It helps balance things and ensures I am present, both physically and mentally, with my family.

–Jeff Braverman, CEO of snack and candy store Nuts.com which has grown revenue to $35 million, up from $1.5 million in 2002.

14. Exercise every day.

I try to run every day and science now shows a positive correlation between running and creativity. It has helped me maintain a sense of balance, it grounds me, and offers an outlet on my most stressful days, and allows me to lean into risk and uncertainty. What I find is that many people, especially executives, take the workouts off the calendar when they get busy or are dealing with a particularly stressful time in their careers or lives. It should be opposite. The more stressed out you may feel the more important it is to carve that time for workouts that nourish not only your body but your soul as well.

–Julie Smolyansky, CEO of Lifeway Foods which has grown gross sales to $130.2 million.

15. Every morning read 20 to 30 unsolved customer support tickets.

I think proactively knowing about customer problems can really help you build a long-term intuition about the important things you need to get right when you build your company. And it helps you build empathy with the people that ultimately have to do the hard work of working through those customer problems.

–Suhail Doshi, CEO of Mixpanel, an analytics platform for mobile and web which helps companies gain insights into user activity and leverage this data to build better products. Mixpanel now tracks 50 billion actions people take in applications per month.

16. Check KPIs first thing in the morning.

As an organization grows, it’s easy to let a little distance get between the CEO and the day to day. By checking KPIs first thing in the morning, I already know the answer tohow we’ve been performing and can immediately move on to the why. I’m in a better position to ask my team important questions, and we can all work more efficiently and effectively.

–Michael Ortner, CEO of Capterra, a web service that has helped companies such as Coca-Cola, Walmart and The Home Depot find and purchase business software.

17. Be unpredictable.

Successful people predict trends but they are original and innovative. Have your own workflow, stick with it or break the rules, but try to stay ahead of others by gettting away of patterns.

–Serban Enache, CEO of global stock photo site Dreamstime.com, which has been used by more than 11 million users since its launch in 2000.

18. Always ask why.

So much of work becomes too focused on the what–the plan we’re writing, the project we’re trying to complete on time, the deadline we missed. We don’t ask “why” enough and it’s the best way to get context for the stuff we’re trying to get done. I’ve found asking it of myself is as important as asking it of the people I work with. It’s critical to staying grounded in what’s most important. I try to keep asking why until I can’t go any deeper. Then get going.

–Jay Simons, president of software company Atlassian which offers team collaboration products including JIRA, Confluence, Bitbucket, and HipChat which are collectively used by more than 48,000 companies worldwide.

19. Allow enough unscheduled time during the day to think, react or write.

This enables me to gets things done on the same day instead of allowing the guilt pile to build up. I keep blocks on my schedule to avoid over-scheduling each day… I am significantly more productive when I am not forced to multitask. Studies have shown that multitasking leads to inefficiency. By creating pockets of time in which I can work alone, I am able to accomplish tasks on the same day and also leave time for collaboration.

–Dr. Walter S. Scott, founder, executive vice president and chief technical officer of satellite imagery company DigitalGlobe, which provides images and geospatial content to U.S. government defense and intelligence agencies, international governments, every major online mapping platform such as Google and other commercial customers.

20. Exude positivity.

I’ve made it a habit to be a positive, enthusiastic source within my company. Even in the morning “hi” or “welcome” has huge ripple effects across the organization at scale. It seems so simple, but has the power to make employees feel valued and appreciated.

–Kris Duggan, CEO of BetterWorks, an employee-related goals platform that recently closed a $15.5 million Series A round and is more than doubling active users every quarter.

21. Prioritize a daily to-do list.

I’m a zero-inbox CEO. Occasionally I don’t get there, but each night I give it my all to power through via all available gmail shortcuts and give folks the responses they need as quickly and efficiently as possible. I hate feeling like a delay on my response might prevent Omada employees from quickly progressing their work.

–Sean Duffy, CEO of Omada Health, a digital-therapeutics company that was selected by Fast Company as one of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.”

22. Talk to people.

This is often described as “managing by wandering around” but don’t under-value it. Having random conversations with different people across the organization will really help you keep your ear to the ground on what is really happening. Be respectful and don’t interrupt people who are working but catching someone making a coffee in the kitchen, give them a big smile and learn a bit about their day in a friendly, non-creepy way. You will easily stay on top of the pulse of the organization.

–Jonathan Cogley, CEO and founder of IT security company Thycotic which ranks at the 2,671 on the Inc. 5000 list of the fastest growing companies in 2014, up 760 spots from 2013.

23. Prepare budgets by initiatives and expected outcomes rather than by functions.

Thinking about spending this way keeps me focused on how each dollar contributes to building the company.

–Mike Zivin, cofounder and CEO of Whittl, an online appointment booking platform for neighborhood businesses, which recently raised a $3.3 million series A round with backing from GrubHub co-founder Mike Evans as well as GrubHub’s first VC, Origin Ventures in Chicago.

24. Get coached.

Olympic athletes have coaches — so should CEOs. I have had a coach for years, Ed Batista, who I work with at least biweekly to recognize and improve my weaknesses.

–Douglas Merrill, former CIO of Google and now CEO of ZestFinance, a big-data startup that uses more than 100,000 data points about an individual to figure out if he or she will pay back a loan.

25. Keep a close eye on the competition.

I use the first 15 minutes of each day to read competitive web sites and any press they might be receiving. Knowing what our competition is doing or thinking is critical to our ability to both win and keep business.

–Darin LeGrange, CEO of Aldera, a company that provides health plans (insurers) with the back-office technology that handles billing, claims processing, coverages, and more.

26. Get moving.

I am a huge believer in walking, and in moving around in general. At the very least, I make sure to get up from my chair every hour, and walk the office. Not only does this get the blood flowing, it helps me see what the team is working on and helps spur the spontaneous discussions that lead to new ideas and innovations. I also love to do walking meetings. Instead of going into a conference room, we’ll walk around our neighborhood, a mix of businesses and beautiful old houses and apartment buildings. I find this brings out more natural and authentic discussions, and keeps people in the moment – you can’t mentally check out like you can if you’re sitting at a table.

–David Kalt, founder and CEO of Reverb, a marketplace for musical instruments and gear that has raised about $5 million in funding and expects to do $130 million in transactions this year, up from $40 million last year.

27. Read the news about your industry first thing in the morning.

“The first thing I do once out of bed is read 15 to 30 minutes religiously. I jot down anything interesting for rumination vis a vis healthcare [such as] Netflix’s god mode, or Jaguar’s brainwave tracker. It’s amazing how many dots you can connect by just reading.”

–Ahmed Albaiti, founder and CEO of Medullan, a digital health innovation company that works with payers, providers, and pharma on patient engagement.

28. Adjust your perspective.

Every Tuesday at noon San Francisco administrators test the emergency alarm system, which I now use as a marker for a notable time in each week. Every Tuesday at Noon, I deliberately try to “let go of all things negative, retain all things positive, and march forward to a better week, and a better you!” Though this started as a personal habit, it’s become a company-wide event, across multiple time zones.

–Neha Sampat, CEO of digital tech solutions provider Built.io, which powers innovation at the intersection of enterprise mobility and the Internet of Things (IoT) for startups and Fortune 500 companies. Sampat also co-founded KurbKarma, was named a “San Francisco Business Times 40 under 40″ honoree, as well as one of “50 Women in Tech Dominating Silicon Valley” in 2015.

29. Get to inbox zero.

“Anything that’s not actionable immediately, I get out of my inbox. This frees me up to think and focus on the tasks that I know will take up most of my time, like building a team of amazing people who are smart, thoughtful and motivated who are trying to achieve something. That is the number 1 most important thing in building a company as I truly believe a company is only as good as what is made up of. ”

–Rick Morrison, CEO of Comprehend Systems, which works with big names in the life-sciences industry, such as Boston Scientific, Astellas, and AstraZeneca, modernizing and improving the quality in their clinical process through cloud-based tech.

30. Make a daily “top three” to-do list.

As CEO, my to-do list is never ending, so it’s important for me to prioritize. Typically, I’ll make a daily list of the three most important things I need to get done that day. It really helps to make my day more manageable. As a morning person, I tend to complete those activities before noon, which then gives me time to address other urgent items that come up during the day.

–Ratmir Timashev, CEO of Veeam, a data center backup company founded in 2006 which now employs more than 1,500 employees around the world and brings in hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue, with its sights on reaching $1 billion in revenue in the next five years.

31. Get up to speed with direct reports first thing.

Informally, I call each of my direct reports between 7 to 8 a.m. daily to catch up and get updates on various parts of the business.

–Michael MacDonald, CEO of nutrition and weight-loss company Medifast.

32. Plan your work and work your plan.

I think Evander Holyfield said that. But anyhow, I use [the project management app]Trello to manage my day-to-day. It’s color-coded between Hiring, Investor, Legal, Sales/Marketing/Press, Product, Admin, and JFDI. Every Sunday night, I get my week prepped by looking at my calendar and my Trello board. Then, every morning, I take a quick look at the Trello board and mentally prep myself for the day.

–Jason van den Brand, co-founder and CEO of online mortgage refinancing startupLenda, which graduated from Silicon Valley-based 500 Startups last year. Since then, the company raised its first round of funding, has been growing 40 percent month over month since December, and recently passed the $40 million mark in loans financed through the platform.

33. Keep a short to-do list.

I keep my to-do list short. Every morning I write down the three most important things I need to do that day to move the needle forward. This helps me to make sure I’m playing more offense than defense. It’s so easy to get bogged down in email and other people’s to-do lists that when you look up at the end of the day you realize you didn’t make any progress on the things that are most important. Keeping my to-do list forces me to prioritize and do just the things that are most important.

–Ethan Austin, founder of the online fundraising website Give Forward, which has raised more than $150 million and hosts 20,000 active fundraisers at any given time.

34. Take time to reflect.

As a CEO, you can’t be afraid of the decisions you make. But it’s just as dangerous to have full confidence in your decisions. Every day I reflect back on the effects of my decisions that day and how I can improve upon them in the future.

– John Yung, CEO of cloud application management platform Appcara which is used by customers including Sysorex, AIS, HP Cloud Services and Intermedia.

35. Be consistent and proactive.

I was an avid bodybuilder back in my college days and to succeed you had to be religiously consistent day after day with diet, nutrition and training. I applied the same in business. It takes time to create great products and a stable business so I’ve learned to succeed you have to remain consistent especially when you truly believe in something. It’s a two-edged sword that if not tamed can also have negative ramifications, so I also try to be proactive to know when to change angles when the need arises.

– Payman Taei, is CEO and founder of Visme a DIY online tool that has empowered over 200,000 businesses and non-profits create better presentations and infographics. He is also the founder ofHindSite Interactive an award-winning web agency that helps companies improve their online presence with effective websites.

What daily habits help you achieve more in business and life?

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.
Image: Getty Images
Inc.com | July 13, 2015 | 

BY CHRISTINA DESMARAIS

Contributor, Inc.com

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