And why knowing the three types will be a game-changer for you
When I first joined consulting, I had tremendous imposter syndrome. Who was I, a recent graduate, to tell Executives how to change their strategies or improve their technology? So I would sit in meetings, take notes and remain silent throughout, for fear of saying something dumb, or worse, suggesting something and lose reputational value for the firm.
Oh, if I could turn back time, I would take a different approach.
A good consultant knows what to say. I’ve been in several meetings where the client asks tough questions, and I have seen consultants ahem weasel out of the answer through…
It helps to relieve stress, increase my positivity, and maintain my sanity
5 minutes isn’t a lot of time. But it is enough time for an activity I like to do when I’m stressed out. It was born out of late nights working on client deliverables as a consultant. It helped me maintain my positivity when I had to go to work on the weekends. When I could feel myself going insane from the work I had to do, I daresay it helped to reset my sanity.
The activity
The activity is writing three things I am grateful for. What? How would…
Three small things you might be doing that is losing you money
In a conversation with my mentor, I was surprised when I was telling her about my typical day, she told me I was losing money.
What?
No money was coming out of my wallet. I wasn’t shopping or spending money. The assets I had were not losing value. Nobody was stealing money from me. So what the heck was happening?
When she explained to me why I realized what was happening.
Time is money. And any time I am spending on things that are not important was, in essence, me losing money. …
Advice and lessons from Richard Carlson, author of Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
I remember one conversation I had so cringe-worthy, I can’t believe I am typing this out. It was with my good friend and his girlfriend. I don’t remember how we got into the topic, but we were talking about money and salary. All I remember saying was “you can’t earn more money, but you can always save more money”. My friend disagreed, but his girlfriend agreed with me so I won two to one.
Even after I said it, I thought, “what was I thinking?” Of course, you can earn more money. In fact, I think 99% of the time…
Five universal productivity principles to get stuff done
David Allen is the best-selling author of Getting Things Done, which provides a system for stress-free productivity. Whether you subscribe to the GTD (Get Things Done) system or not (and I’m trying the system myself to see if it works for me), I think there are certain principles you can use for any productivity system. So even if the GTD system doesn’t work for me, I’ll still keep the following principles in mind:
- Your mind is for having ideas, not holding them
- Finish something simple
- If it takes 2 minutes or less, do it now
- Identify the next action
- Review…
Reversible decisions, risk/benefit analysis, the whole body yes, and helpful and unhelpful intuition
Tim Ferriss recently released a video about how to make better decisions. While you can watch it on YouTube, I summarized his key points below and have added a few of my own. I’m certainly not in the league of Tim Ferriss, but the other mental models and heuristics can help you make better decisions (and they don’t cost you anything so why not give them a try too?).
Tim talks about the following heuristics/mental models:
- Don’t spend energy on reversible decisions
- Conducting a risk/benefit analysis
- Whole-body yes
- Helpful and unhelpful intuition
Don’t spend energy on reversible/fixable decisions
What kind of toilet paper should I buy…
Because all the things that are bothering you in the relationship are really the small stuff
The one thing I like about books is that you can learn from someone else’s successes and failures. Here, I wanted to hear what Richard and his partner Kristine had to say about maintaining and improving a relationship.
Don’t sweat the small stuff in love builds off of Richard Carlson’s bestsellers “don’t sweat the small stuff” and explores love. There are 90+ tips based on Richard and Kristine’s relationship that has helped them be close to one another. Here are the tips that surprised me the most:
Turn up the heat
There are two ways to heat a house. One way is to look…
Advice on tackling fear, being selective with what you take into your mind, stoicism, and a superpower anyone can develop
It felt like James Clear, author of the NY Times #1 best-selling Atomic Habits, burst onto the scene in 2018. One day, I heard about this book called Atomic Habits and read it wondering what the hype about this book was about. It turns out it was incredible and the many takeaways from Atomic Habits were the seeds of my book Essential Habits (though I can honestly say my book focuses on specific actions rather than how to build and keep habits).
James has been writing and speaking on habits for many, many years now, and when you are focused…
Asking good questions is better than having all the answers
When I first joined Deloitte and EY, both relied on an interesting system for coaching and guiding employees. They assigned every employee a buddy — someone at the same level you could ask questions to help orient you to the work and the work environment. They also assigned every employee a counsellor — someone at a higher level that worked with you on the performance plan and would negotiate promotions with the partners.
When I first worked with my counsellor, I was amazed at the answers they provided to all the questions I asked. No matter what my question was…
Mistakes and lessons from my youth that you can learn from
In another article, I wrote about the five small things you might be doing that could be sabotaging your success.
In this article, I will be exploring five more things you might be doing that could sabotage your success. This is a letter to my past self, it’s a reflection on the mistakes I made when I was younger and although on the surface, these things aren’t negative, only later did I realize they had a slow but significant impact on my growth and success.
Trying to focus on too many things
“Concentrate all your thoughts upon the work at hand. The sun’s rays do not burn…
