I ask myself this every day. Today, my answer is “I was able to help 2 clients.” I love helping others. It’s not just about making money…

When I work hard at something and fail, I have a choice.

Be in despair, cry, and give up.

Change the word “failure” to “experiment”. Study the experiment from every angle. Learn from it.

Learning equals improvement.

1% improvement a day means you improve 38 times in a year.

1% more despair a day means in a year you become 1/30 of the person you once were.

That’s your choice.

Thanks for Your Wisdom James Altucher

What if instead of saying ‘I HAVE to’ we said ‘I CHOOSE to’ – would what we do be different? I dare you to you ask this about your business as well as your personal life.

By Amy Porterfield

If you’re considering leaving your nine-to-five but aren’t sure it’s the right move, here are 3 signs Porterfield suggests considering.

1. You’re Being Underpaid

“Being underpaid is a huge trigger for, ‘I am done,’” she says. “I need to move on. You can certainly ask for a raise, she says. But if they say no,  You’ve got to think about a plan B.”

Porterfield tells the story of a former student, a pharmacist, who was training a recent hire. “When she realized this guy who she trained was making more money than she was and she had been there for many, many years,” she says, “That was it for her.”

2. You Feel Invisible or Undervalued

“Sometimes people feel invisible in their nine-to-five jobs,” says Porterfield. “They have ideas, they bring them to the table and no one pays attention. That can be a sign that there won’t be an opportunity for growth where you are.”

“If you feel invisible or undervalued in your job and you know your ideas aren’t even getting the attention they deserve,” Porterfield says, start looking for a gig where leadership is open to hearing what you have to say.”

3. You Don’t Want Your Boss’s Job

Sometimes realizing it’s time to go is about recognizing that your company does not offer the kind of ladder you would like to climb.

If you feel like, “I don’t want that kind of job. I want to make more money. I want to do something more creative. I’m not excited about that,” says Porterfield, right there that should tell you growth in that business is not a good fit for you.”

Thanks for sharing this wisdom Gili Malinsky

When Mark Cuban was in his 30s, running the tech company that would eventually make him a billionaire, he was laser-focused on productivity and results.

These days, he regrets it. “I wish somebody would have told me to be nicer,” said Cuban, 64, when asked what advice he’d give his younger self. “Because I was always go, go, go Ready, fire, aim. Let’s go. Let’s go faster, faster.”

At first, Cuban’s hustle-forward outlook tanked the company’s morale and performance, he said: “Sometimes it took my partner Todd telling me, ‘Look, you’re scaring some people, [and] they’re typically going to [quit] and you can’t get mad.’”

The business may not have grown so much — and Cuban might not be a billionaire — if he hadn’t learned the “underrated” skill of being nice.

“I went through my own metamorphosis, if you will. Early on in my career,” he said. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do business with me when I was in my 20s [and 30s].”

“So I had to change, and I did, and it really paid off,” he added.

Kindness is a valuable leadership trait. Workers have “four universal needs” when it comes to their bosses: trust, compassion, stability and hope.

Employees become more engaged in their work, leading to higher productivity, lower staff turnover and overall monetary gain.

“It not only affects employees themselves. It has a downstream impact on the business,” Duffy said.

“For a while, there was this idea that we are treating people well, and we are going to get beaten by a competitor that is more aggressive,” Zimmer said. “There was a misunderstanding about those values [not being] tied to building a great business, which they are.”

Thanks Ashton Linnell for sharing this wisdom

Simple and effective, but according to Steve Jobs,
most people never do it.

Steve Jobs may have left this earth, but Apple’s co-founder and tech genius continues to have an impact that will transcend future generations. In an old video interview, Jobs shared a story that illustrates an uncommon trait found in the most successful people. Here’s an excerpt:

I called up Bill Hewlett [co-founder of Hewlett-Packard] when I was 12 years old. ‘Hi, I’m Steve Jobs. I’m 12 years old. I’m a student in high school. I want to build a frequency counter, and I was wondering if you have any spare parts I could have.’ He laughed, and he gave me the spare parts, and he gave me a job that summer at Hewlett-Packard … and I was in heaven.

Don’t feel bad if you missed the key to success in that story. It’s easy to miss. Luckily, Jobs spells it out in the video a bit later:

“Most people never pick up the phone and call. Most people never ask, and that’s what separates the people who do things from the people who just dream about them.”

Ask and it Shall be Given

Without that experience at HP, would Jobs have gone on to accomplish what he did? Perhaps — we’ll never know. But we know for sure that a single phone call greatly impacted his life. It taught one of the greatest entrepreneurs of this — or any — generation to be willing to ask for something he wanted.

The same can be said about workplaces where people fear asking for help. In so many businesses today, fear keeps people from being open to asking for what they want and seeking help from their peers and colleagues. According to social psychologist Heidi Grant, 75 percent to 90 percent of all help co-workers give to one another starts with making an ask.

The question is, does your environment foster the freedom and safety for employees to do this? Most people are willing to help, and according to research, 90 percent of giving in the workplace is in direct response to people asking for help. But the fact of the matter remains that most people don’t ask for what they need; it is not being reinforced by their managers and the executives above them. Therefore, unfortunately, most of the time, nothing happens.

The Giver-Requester

Sociologist Wayne Baker from the University of Michigan wrote a book called All You Have to Do Is Ask: How to Master the Most Important Skill for Success. In his research, Baker found that the “Giver-Requester” — a person who helps frequently and also asks for help frequently — is the most well-regarded and also the most productive at work.

As managers and leaders, the key is to foster an environment to liberate people to be both givers and requesters — frequently asking for help among their peers and networks and being a giver of help to those in their circle of influence.

Being a giver-requester has many career benefits as well. Baker’s research found that they:

• Are promoted more quickly and at a younger age
• Are paid better
• Are knowledgeable and trusted by their colleagues
• Are known for having great reputations

When the most successful people want something, they’re willing to ask for it. If a 12-year-old Steve Jobs could do it, so can you.

Thanks Marcel Schwantes for your Wisdom

The 64-year-old investor, serial entrepreneur and owner of the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks says the strategy helped him accumulate his own wealth — a net worth of $4.6 billion, according to Forbes. He recently broke down his rules for GQ, noting that while they’re meant to help you earn cash, they’re really about being able to “control your own destiny.”

“If you want to be a millionaire, you can do it, but there’s a couple things you have to be able to accomplish,” Cuban said.

1. His first rule: “Find something you can be good at. Then, be great at it.”

To do that, you’ll probably need to study your subject relentlessly. Counterintuitively, you may also need to “cross-train” your brain by studying other topics of interest, too. Research published by the Association for Psychological Science last year noted that what separates Nobel Prize winners from national-level winners is often multidisciplinary experience.

Similarly, the research found that competitive athletes had “greater sustainability of long-term excellence” if they played more than one sport as a child. Those athletes didn’t immediately excel at their preferred sport, but showed a more consistent route to eventual mastery over time, the authors added.

2. Cuban’s second rule is “know how to sell.” His own sales career started early: At age 12, he sold trash bags door-to-door to earn money for new sneakers, he said.

The billionaire has previously given out advice on how to succeed at sales — by showing people how you can help them in the first couple of seconds of your pitch.

“Selling isn’t about convincing, it’s about helping,” Cuban told the School of Hard Knocks in a TikTok. “When you understand what people need and want, you put yourself in a position to help them,” he said. “Then you make good things happen, close deals and that’s how you create companies.”

3. The third rule: “Be curious and always learning,” Cuban said.

Having a “lifetime learning mentality” correlates with both objective and subjective success — from the number of promotions you get to how happy you are in your job — according to a 2020 study from University of Waterloo finance and education researchers.

Lifelong learners can even save their employers money in the long run, study co-author Judene Pretti told UWaterloo’s “Alumni Know” podcastin April.

“As technology continues to move at the rapid pace it is, employers need their employees to … undertake learning and development to stay on top of what the latest technologies are,” Pretti said. “It isn’t a matter of needing to replace workforce. Instead, develop and grow the existing workforce.”

4. Lastly, Cuban’s fourth rule is his longest — and perhaps his most important, especially for aspiring entrepreneurs.

“When you walk into a room, you [need to] know your s–t better than anyone else in the room,” he said. “That’s when it’s time to start a company. Then, you can start to control your own destiny.”

Knowledge, of course, doesn’t guarantee success. Before Cuban started his first company, he quit or was fired from three consecutive jobs and slept on the floor of a three-bedroom apartment he shared with five roommates, he wrote in Forbes in 2013.

He touched on a similar subject in his 2011 book “How to Win at the Sport of Business,” writing that it “doesn’t matter how many times” you fail. “You only have to be right once” to be “set for life,” he added.

That lesson may be why Cuban seems confident enough in his four rules to stake his own livelihood on it. Even if he lost everything, he’d build himself back into a millionaire again, he told NPR’s “How I Built This” podcast in 2016.

“I would get a job as a bartender at night, and a sales job during the day, and I would start working,” Cuban said. Could I become a multi-millionaire again? I have no doubt.”

Thanks for your Wisdom Megan Sauer

The first time I realized that technology has a downside was in 2015. Like almost everybody else, I had a smartphone and thought it was improving my productivity.

By that time, I was already using a smartphone for several years. In the beginning, I only used my device when I needed it—to make calls, send messages, navigate with Google Maps, check the weather forecast, and answer emails when I was on the road.

But gradually, I went from “using my phone when I need it” to “using my phone all the time.”

And that, my friend, is dangerous. Why?

Well, if you don’t watch it, your phone will control you, instead of the other way around. Remember that the purpose of a smartphone, or technology in general, is to SERVE us — not to control our lives.

How do I know technology is using me? And it’s no longer the other way around?

Let me ask you a few questions:

• • Do you grab your phone first thing in the morning?
  • Do you “check” your social media apps multiple times a day?
  • Do you sometimes think, “WHAT? Did I really spend 2 hours on Instagram?” (replace Instagram with your app/site of choice; YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, and so forth)
  • Do you use your phone on the toilet?
  • Do you listen to podcasts all day long?
  • Do you get bored when you’re alone?

If you answered “yes” to any one of those questions, you’re getting used by technology way more than you think. And yes, that does sound disgusting. Nobody wants to be used.

But shouldn’t technology make us more productive?

Yes, it still makes us more productive. Even with its downsides, technology has made the world a better place. I’m not going to argue with that. But like all good things, there is a point of diminishing returns.

The point of diminishing returns is when technology starts to take over our lives. At that point, you’re no longer in control. And that’s when it has a negative impact on your life.

Everybody knows that drinking too much will turn you into an alcoholic. But nobody says the same thing about using technology.

It’s not helpful to check your phone 200 times a day. You’re not being productive when you’re watching random YouTube videos for 3 hours a day. And so forth.

I’m getting tired of being used by technology. How do I stop it?

Increasingly more people are aware of the problems that technology causes. At some point, we all get tired of being connected 24 hours a day. Our brains can’t handle that kind of pressure.

I recently read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport. I also interviewed him on my podcast about removing digital distractions from our lives. If you want to change your behavior, it’s better to change your whole lifestyle at once. He writes:

“In my experience, gradually changing your habits one at a time doesn’t work well — the engineered attraction of the attention economy, combined with the friction of convenience, will diminish your inertia until you backslide toward where you started. I recommend instead a rapid transformation—something that occurs in a short period of time and is executed with enough conviction that the results are likely to stick. I call the particular rapid process I have in mind the digital declutter.”

I’ve experienced the same. When you make small changes, it’s easy to fall back to your old behavior. In the past, I’ve done something similar to Cal Newport’s digital declutter process.

And after reading his book, I did the same thing again. I got rid of ALL distracting technology and apps. I also stopped consuming content, except for reading books. One of the things that I regularly do is to block distracting sites on my computer when I work.

I use an app called SelfControl for Mac (FocusMe is the Windows alternative). But I only turned the app on when I was doing focused work like writing. But during the digital declutter, I turned on the app the whole day.

Within days, I felt more focused. The goal of the digital declutter process is to rebuild your digital life from scratch. And after three weeks, I felt more in control of my digital behavior again.

Digital declutter makes us more aware

Nobody is saying you should remove technology from your life forever. See this as starting with a clean slate. I regularly ask myself: What technology actually improves my life?

Let’s be honest. You can learn a lot from listening to podcasts. The same is true for many YouTube videos. Plus, having email on your phone makes life a lot easier when you’re traveling since you don’t have to bring a laptop.

That’s why I still use technology—and appreciate that it’s here. The thing is that every time I go to such a digital declutter process, I’m more aware of how I USE technology.

The truth is that we’re all adapting to modern day life. And because everything moves so fast, WE need to move fast as well. But if we don’t take the time to process everything and ask ourselves “What’s the purpose of this piece of technology?” We risk getting lost in a digital world that can eat you up alive.

So before you pop out your phone to move on to the next article, podcast, video, or social network, ask yourself: What’s the use?

Think more about the WHY behind everything. That’s the only way we can live a purposeful life.

Thanks Darius Foroux for your Wisdom

If you’re thinking of changing careers in 2022, here’s what you need to know.

Picture by Mary Taylor

Changing careers is a big decision. This is especially true if you feel like you lack sufficient experience in your new field. However, if you’re feeling completely wiped out from your current job, and wrestling with symptoms of burnout, now might be an ideal moment to consider a new job or a career switch. After all, lots of other people are feeling the same way: A staggering 4.4 million workers left their jobs in September 2021.

As Shelley Zalis, chief executive of the Female Quotient, says, “Life is precious. Too precious to spend time in a job you hate where you feel undervalued, underpaid, and uninspired. […] It’s no longer the impressive title, corner office, or big bonus, but having more flexibility to pursue our passions and be present with our families.”

Here a few tips if you’re ready to take a leap and change careers in 2022:

1. Get comfortable with risk

Times of great upheaval can be opportune moments to learn something new about yourself. But if you’re about to take a big leap into a completely new field, you also should also get realistic about the risk involved.

As Fast Company contributor and author of The Long Game: How To Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World, Dorie Clark, advises, consider this as an opportunity for self-discovery, which will help you make better decisions going forward.

Ask yourself some guiding questions like:

• What is your level of comfort with taking risks?
• How do you react and respond to confronting an unknown that may work (or not) in your favor?
• Are you holding on desperately to your current job simply because you fear a lack of stability?

2. Reach out to connectors

If you’re new in an industry, you may find yourself reaching out cold to a hiring manager without someone who can vouch for you. To guarantee a higher level of success, it’s smart to get in touch with a connector.

In other words, ensure that you’re making time to contact and network with people in your desired industry. If networking feels uncouth and slimy, try to re-frame it in your own head as an exchange of resources. As Fast Company contributor Dina Smith describes it: “Think of networking as an opportunity to give, rather than to get. … There’s always something you can extend to others, and you probably have more to offer than you realize.”

Consider networking to be another advantageous skill that will help you land solidly in your dream field. Remember the next person you talk to could be the person who helps you land your big break.

3. Overcome feeling stuck

According to an August 2021 survey, workers said they stay in unsatisfying jobs or industries due to low confidence and/or the challenge of breaking out of a career rut.

If you find yourself saying to yourself, “I’m not what they’re looking for” or “Why would they hire someone like me?” Shake yourself out of these confidence-depleting statements now. One way to overcome these feelings is by asking yourself what sort of progress or life fulfillment you could achieve by remaining at your current role.

If the motivation you’re craving to do great work includes a new job, with better working conditions and flexibility to maintain the life you built during the pandemic, then let these values guide you to take action. Don’t let the uncertain side of yourself dissuade you from trying something new, forming a plan, and going for it.

4. Show that you have the right skills

You may not have the exact set of skills necessary to start mid-level in a new industry—you are new at this BUT that doesn’t mean you have nothing to offer. Demonstrate to a hiring manager what skills can transfer from your history of work. In a recent LinkedIn Learning report, a leading skill of 2021 was “resilience,” followed by other general skills such as “communication across distributed teams” and “emotional intelligence.” Show them that you have these soft skills that can make you an asset, no matter what industry or team you’re joining.

This isn’t to say you should ignore signs you’re not qualified for a position when looking for new opportunities; instead, you should work on being an adaptable candidate for a job. Take in the obstacles and assess how you will tackle each. Fast Company contributor Tomas Chamurro-Premuzic describes the importance of demonstrating that you are “curious, confident, [and] concerned about improving.”

5. Review how financially ready you are

It takes a lot of guts to jump head-first into the unknown, but it also can be challenging financially. “If you have enough money in savings, you may be able to quit without a job lined up,” says Vicki Salmei, a career expert from Monster. “Or you may want to hang on to your current job and look for another job in your spare time.”

Salemi also recommends keeping in mind other expenses that may pop up if you quit, such as healthcare, or education costs. Be prudent with how much financial risk you can handle—including what your decision will mean for those who rely on you for support.

Thanks for your Wisdom Diana Shi