Getting Criticized: How To Make It Work For You
“They have a right to censure that have a heart to help.” – William Penn (Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693) You know when it’s coming. Your boss or colleague sits you down and says, “You know how much I admire you, but …” or “Please don’t think of this as…
Concentrate Like A Brain Surgeon
“You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” – Mark Twain Start melting away the fog of depression … Triple your productivity at work … And get better results every time you exercise. What’s more, sharpen your reflexes, sleep better, and strengthen your immune system…
The Birth of Christ
“I will hold Christmas in my heart and try to keep it all the year.” – Charles Dickens (From the Gospel According to St. Luke, The Holy Bible, King James Version) “And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus, that all…
How To Give 103%
“Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.” – Bertrand Russell (Mysticism and Logic, 1917) We have all been to meetings where someone asks for “more than 100%.” Thanks to TH for this…
Get Your Email Habits In Order
“It is in self-limitation that a master first shows himself.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (Natur und Kunst) You know the ETR rule on e-mail: Unless you are in the very unusual situation of being responsible for hourly deadlines (in which case you probably need to work your way up…
What Is Your Valuable Skill? Are You A Master At It?
In all human endeavors, there are four levels of accomplishment: 1. Incompetence Regardless of how smart or gifted you are, to learn a new skill you must go through a period of not knowing — of taking the baby steps and stumbling. This is the very necessary stage of incompetence.…
A Lesson Everyone Needs To Learn To Become A Success In Any Field
“The honest man must be a perpetual renegade, the life of an honest man a perpetual infidelity. For the man who wishes to remain faithful to truth must make himself perpetually unfaithful to all the continual, successive, indefatigable renascent errors.” – Charles Peguy DF, a friend and colleague, wrote me…
The Myth Of Positive Thinking
“In the arena of human life, the honours and rewards fall to those who show their good qualities in action.” – Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics, 4th century B.C.) One of the most popular myths about success is the power of positive thinking. The idea, in a nutshell, is that you can…
The Myth Of Excellence, Or “What Are You, Anyway”
“The question should be, ‘Is it worth trying do?’ not ‘Can it be done?’” – Allard Lowenstein (The New York Times Book Review, November 7, 1993) Many years ago — before you were born, perhaps — JSN (my at-the-time boss and later-on partner) gave me an insight into business that…
Banish Your Workday Distractions
“We’re all muddlers. The thing is to see when one’s got to stop muddling.” – Iris Murdoch (A Word Child, 1975) We’ve talked about why you need to (a) do mostly, if not only, important tasks and (b) focus on doing them well. We’ve examined the foolishness of multitasking and…
How To Gain Power By Being Mysterious
“No man, for any considerable period, can wear one face to himself, and another to the multitude, without finally getting bewildered as to which may be the true.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne (The Scarlet Letter, 1850) In his Oracles, the 17th century Spanish writer and Jesuit priest Baltasar Gracian advises readers…
Five Useful Principles of Persuasion
“Flattery’ll get you anywhere.” – Jane Russell (in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, 1953) While salesmen and business leaders have developed and refined the skills of persuasion in their daily working lives, experimental psychologists have been studying it from the outside — trying to figure out what the principles are that can…