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It sounds simple, even obvious, but it’s something most of us avoid. If we play the piano, play golf or speak French, it’s because we like it. We’ve often achieved a level of competency that makes us feel good about ourselves. But what we don’t do is intentionally look for ways that we’re failing and hammer away at those flaws until they’re gone, then search for more ways we’re messing up. But almost two decades of research shows that’s exactly what distinguishes the merely good from the great.
The difference between mediocrity and success is often found in the ability to focus. Focus affords its practitioner uncommon levels of intensity and discipline, which often lead to extraordinary accomplishment. 
Creativity and innovation spike for many in later life. In his study of artists, University of Chicago economist David Galenson has shown that genius clusters into two categories. Conceptual geniuses tend to do their best work while young, producing breakthrough ideas early in their careers. But experimental geniuses, by contrast, need a long period of time to reach their peak, moving forward by trial and error, slowly accumulating the elements that will be integrated into their fully realized work. Nearly 45% of all daily behaviors are based on habit. Is how your company functions truly the best course of action or did practices develop simply because that’s the way things have always been done? 
Scientifically, happiness is a choice. It is a choice about where your brain will devote its finite resources as you process the world. If you scan for the negative first, your brain literally has no resources left over to see the things you are grateful for or the meaning embedded in your work. But if you scan the world for the positive, you start to reap an amazing advantage. 
How we communicate turns out to be the most important predictor of team success, and as important as all other factors combined, including intelligence, personality, skill, and content of discussions. The old adage that it's not what you say, but how you say it, turns out to be mathematically correct. 
Successful people are successful for many reasons--they look at mistakes or failures as opportunities to learn. People who fear failure rarely have such learning opportunities. And very often, even if they do, the fear of failure completely paralyzes them. 
In a world that never stops changing, great leaders never stop learning. Today, the challenge for leaders at every level is to develop a unique point of view about the future and help your organization get there before anyone else does. Which is why a defining challenge of leadership is whether you can answer a question that is as simple as it is powerful: Are you learning as fast as the world is changing? 
Perhaps we need to add brainstorming sessions to the scrap heap of plausible business techniques that actually don't work that well, along with focus groups and group job interviews. For some things, nothing works except solitude. 
When your calendar is already overflowing at the office, what do you say when your boss asks you to take on yet another project? 
You probably don’t want to admit it but you love distractions. In fact, just like monkeys, you get a shot of dopamine every time something pulls you in another direction. Why do you think you check your email so much? Want to be more productive and get your focus back? The best critical thinkers practice eight particular habits when processing information, solving problems, and reaching decisions: 
Lucky and unlucky breaks happen to everyone--it's how you capitalize on them makes all the difference in your results. Jim Collins calls it "Return on Luck"(ROL). "...one form of wisdom is the ability to judge when to let luck disrupt our plans. Not all time in life is equal. The question is, when the unequal moment comes, do we recognize it, or just let it slip? But, just as important, do we have the fanatic, obsessive discipline to keep marching, to push the opportunity to the extreme, to make the most of the chances we’re given? Getting a high ROL requires throwing yourself at the luck event with ferocious intensity, disrupting your life and not letting up. Bill Gates didn’t just get a lucky break and cash in his chips. He kept pushing, driving, working — and sustained that effort for more than two decades. That’s not luck — that’s return on luck." "A new study finds that people who think they can learn from their mistakes have a different brain reaction to mistakes than people who think intelligence is fixed...Studies have found that people who think intelligence is malleable say things like, “When the going gets tough, I put in more effort” or “If I make a mistake, I try to learn and figure it out.” On the other hand, people who think that they can’t get smarter will not take opportunities to learn from their mistakes." |
Is power that thing assigned by others? Is it about getting top grades in the right school, and having the right titles and rank at work? Is it about being born to the right parents, into the right gender, in the right country? Are you more powerful if you are on the top org chart, or less powerful if you're at the bottom of the ladder? Do these external assignments define any of us as more or less powerful?
Or is power something that each of us manifests by knowing our purpose, applying it to what we create, and using that to define how we see ourselves in the world? 
Why is it that between 25% and 50% of people report feeling overwhelmed or burned out at work? It's not just the number of hours we're working, but also the fact that we spend too many continuous hours juggling too many things at the same time. 
As traditional notions of prestige are fast losing relevancy, we should all focus more on creating real value. If you're lucky enough to have attended a great college or worked for a top company, you have an obligation to turn these affiliations into accomplishments. If you're not one of the privileged few, you're no longer at a disadvantage. Stand tall, because it's mastering the process of consistently delivering results that will truly distinguish you in the end. 
Research shows that consistently working more than 40 hours a week is simply unproductive, but getting yourself to actually go home on time may be more difficult psychologically than you imagine. For many of us, there's actually a strong correlation between how busy we are and how important we feel. 
Talent is not a birthright. Long term, focused, practice powered by the energy of passion and love of the process leads to amazing transformations. The bumbling beginner becomes the exalted expert. The trapped and depressed become the liberated and empowered. So why do we so easily buy into the limiting mythical idea about talent being nothing but a birthright?
There are two big reasons and the first has to do with our most basic fear – the fear of being rejected. The first word most of us learn is no. And from an early age we are programmed to get our rewards by performing as close to flawlessly as possible all of the time. Our outcomes become everything. We will go to extraordinary lengths, like giving our lives away to meaningless jobs that we could do in our sleep after a day of training, just to get a yes and a paternal pat on the back from an external source. So to avoid rejection we absolve ourselves of being responsible for our own creativity by agreeing with the myth.
And the other reason we are frozen by the myth of talent is the talented people themselves. The highly talented do not get our attention until their skill level is so high that no trace can be found of the bewildered beginner they surely have been. Their highly evolved skills do seem to come out of nowhere like a magical byproduct of the magical birthright we have been told about.
It sounds simple, even obvious, but it’s something most of us avoid. If we play the piano, play golf or speak French, it’s because we like it. We’ve often achieved a level of competency that makes us feel good about ourselves. But what we don’t do is intentionally look for ways that we’re failing and hammer away at those flaws until they’re gone, then search for more ways we’re messing up. But almost two decades of research shows that’s exactly what distinguishes the merely good from the great.
In the 21st-century economy, everyone is going to have to find a little something extra to stand out in their field of employment. 
It's easy to talk about your job with lots of people, except your boss. We talk to our employer differently than almost anybody else, and for some very good reasons--reasons that keep groceries coming and careers advancing. 
Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in. But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption. And the most spectacularly creative people in many fields are often introverted. 
Feel like a failure? Good. Check out why you should stop feeling bad about your mistakes, and start using them to be more successful. "Not playing the political game is often seen as a good thing, even a badge of honor. Some managers see it as proof of their integrity. They are going to succeed because of job performance alone. They couldn't be more wrong. Research finds that a person's political skills are key to building a successful career—for the good of both themselves and their company. When talented executives combine a knowledge of what their company needs with an ability to get things done, everyone benefits. Conversely, when a promising career falters because of poor political skills, companies have to spend time and money finding a replacement, and performance suffers in the meantime." "We Americans have a terrible habit of distilling the stories of our great men and women into simplified and boring soundbites of success--Walt Disney invented Mickey Mouse! Steve Jobs invented the iPad!--while ignoring the long, crooked, difficult, brave roads they took to realize that success. We like to believe that success is what defines the American spirit, but the truth is the opposite: Failure is what defines the people who achieve greatness." |
