Stop Worrying about Your Weaknesses - Peter Bregman. It's 11 pm. Do you know where your power button is? (Repost) I've decided to repost this in honour of Isabel, our pug, who experienced several hours of "off leash" time yesterday - meaning she escaped and we had no idea of where she was last night. We called the Oakville Humane Society immediately and let them know she was missing. They called this morning saying they had her.
A special thanks to the kind neighbour who found Isabel and called them. _______________________________________________________ I blame this post on our dog. She does however know that her food dish was empty at 6:00 this morning, and that if she had thumbs, she could probably have let herself out. So I had time to think this morning while waiting for the dog to do her business. A recent tweet pointed to a CNN Health article that states Sleep deprivation as bad as alcohol impairment, study suggests. Supporting this is a most excellent book by Dr. "OK! One more article... But staring at the screen before bed could leave you lying awake. The Skill that Matters Most - Tony Schwartz. By Tony Schwartz | 8:00 AM September 13, 2011 Self control is the ability to say no, in the face of temptation, and to take sustained action, despite the difficulty of a given challenge.
At its heart, self-control requires the ability to delay gratification. More commonly, it’s called discipline, or will. Without self-control, we can’t accomplish almost anything of enduring value. And we rarely pay much attention to it. Over the past decade, I’ve built a company, The Energy Project, which is devoted to helping people and organizations improve sustainable performance, in large part by more systematically exercising self-control. Over the years, we’ve learned that nearly everything people tend to believe about self-control is wrong. Energy is the fuel for self-control. Roy Baumeister has been studying self-control for more than two decades and he has just published a terrific new book, Willpower, written with John Tierney, which summarizes his conclusions. Why You Need to Make Your Life More Automatic - Tony Schwartz.
By Tony Schwartz | 9:48 AM March 6, 2012 Why is it that three prominent books published just during the past several months focused on the subject of willpower? The first answer is that neuroscience has finally begun to open a window into the complex way our brains respond to temptation and what it takes to successfully exercise choice. Second, a raft of recent studies have shown that the capacity for self-control — even more than genetic endowment or material advantage — fuels a range of positive outcomes in life, including more stable relationships, higher paying and more satisfying work, more resilience in the face of setbacks, better health, and greater happiness.
Finally, these books — Willpower, The Willpower Instinct, and The Power of Habit — are a response to an increasingly evident need. Demand in our lives is truly outpacing our capacity. Each of these books provides compelling studies and fascinating stories that illustrate the challenges we face in exercising more self-control. Make Serendipity Work for You - Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan.
By Mark de Rond, Adrian Moorhouse, and Matt Rogan | 8:22 AM February 25, 2011 Serendipity has been voted one of the most popular words in the English language. It is also one of the hardest to translate. Conversationally, it is used as tantamount to luck, providence or chance. It has brought us Aspirin, the Pill, insulin, Viagra, penicillin, antihistamines and the smallpox vaccine, Scotchgard, Teflon, Velcro, Nylon, Ivory Soap, the Post-It note, and the technology behind the HP Inkjet printer. All the above discoveries were serendipitous, yet much less lucky than popularly believed.
Horace Walpole, in 1754, retold an exciting old Arab tale . The princes did far more than make chance observations. So how might serendipity help us refine our understanding of innovation? 1. If serendipity is a capability, then how is it developed, protected and sustained? Mark de Rond is a Cambridge University-based ethnographer. Nine Things Successful People Do Differently - Heidi Grant Halvorson. Learn more about the science of success with Heidi Grant Halvorson’s HBR Single, based on this blog post.
Why have you been so successful in reaching some of your goals, but not others? If you aren’t sure, you are far from alone in your confusion. It turns out that even brilliant, highly accomplished people are pretty lousy when it comes to understanding why they succeed or fail. The intuitive answer — that you are born predisposed to certain talents and lacking in others — is really just one small piece of the puzzle.
In fact, decades of research on achievement suggests that successful people reach their goals not simply because of who they are, but more often because of what they do. 1. To seize the moment, decide when and where you will take each action you want to take, in advance. 3. Fortunately, decades of research suggest that the belief in fixed ability is completely wrong — abilities of all kinds are profoundly malleable. 7. 8. 9. Two Lists You Should Look at Every Morning - Peter Bregman.
By Peter Bregman | 11:00 AM May 27, 2009 I was late for my meeting with the CEO of a technology company and I was emailing him from my iPhone as I walked onto the elevator in his company’s office building. I stayed focused on the screen as I rode to the sixth floor. I was still typing with my thumbs when the elevator doors opened and I walked out without looking up. Then I heard a voice behind me, “Wrong floor.” I looked back at the man who was holding the door open for me to get back in; it was the CEO, a big smile on his face. He had been in the elevator with me the whole time. The world is moving fast and it’s only getting faster. So we try to speed up to match the pace of the action around us. But that’s a mistake. Never before has it been so important to say “No.” It’s hard to do because maybe, just maybe, that next piece of information will be the key to our success.
Now is a good time to pause, prioritize, and focus. Some people already have the first list.