A Beautiful Method to Find Peace of Mind |
How many times have you gotten upset because someone wasn’t doing their job, because your child isn’t behaving, because your partner or friend isn’t living up to his or her end of the bargain? |
How many times have you been irritated when someone doesn’t do things the way you’re used to? Or when you’ve planned something carefully and things didn’t go as you’d hoped? |
This kind of anger and irritation happens to all of us — it’s part of the human experience. |
One thing that irritates me is when people talk during a movie. Or cut me off in traffic. Or don’t wash their dishes after eating. Actually, I have a lot of these little annoyances — don’t we all? |
And it isn’t always easy to find peace when you’ve become upset or irritated. |
See, the cause of our stress, anger and irritation is that things don’t go the way we like, the way we expect them to. Think of how many times this has been true for you. |
And so the solution is simple: expect things to go wrong, expect things to be different than we hoped or planned, expect the unexpected to happen. And accept it.
One quick example: on our recent trip to Japan, I told my kids to expect things to go wrong — they always do on a trip. I told them, “See it as part of the adventure.” |
And this worked like a charm. When we inevitably took the wrong train on a foreign-language subway system, or when it rained on the day we went to Disney Sea, or when we took three trains and walked 10 blocks only to find the National Children’s Castle closed on Mondays … they said, “It’s part of the adventure!” And it was all OK — we didn’t get too bothered. |
So when the nice glass you bought inevitably falls and breaks, someday, you might get upset. But not if you see the glass as already broken, from the day you get it. You know it’ll break someday, so from the beginning, see it as already broken. Be a time-traveler, or someone with time-traveling vision, and see the future of this glass, from this moment until it inevitably breaks. |
And when it breaks, you won’t be upset or sad — because it was already broken, from the day you got it. And you’ll realize that every moment you have with it is precious. |
Expect your child to mess up — all children do. And don’t get so upset when they mess up, when they don’t do what they’re “supposed” to do … because they’re supposed to mess up. |
Expect your partner to be less than perfect. |
Expect your friend to not show up sometimes. |
Expect things to go not according to plan. |
Expect people to be rude sometimes. |
Expect coworkers not to come through sometimes. |
Expect roommates not to wash their dishes or pick up their clothes, sometimes. |
Expect the glass to break. |
You won’t change these inevitable facts — they will happen, eventually. And if you expect it to happen — even see it as already happening, before it happens — you won’t get so upset. |
You won’t overreact. You’ll respond appropriately, but not overreact. You can talk to the person about their behavior, and ask them kindly to consider your feelings when they do this … but you won’t get overly emotional and blow things out of proportion. |
You’ll smile, and think, “I expected that to happen. The glass was already broken. And I accept that.” |
You’ll have peace of mind. And that, my friends, is a welcome surprise.
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10 Tips for Hiring an A-Team |
Don’t be afraid to hire people who are smarter than you.
That is harder to do than to say. You need a lot of innate confidence to do this. Hiring someone for a technical competency that you lack is easy. Hiring someone who will challenge your thinking on every level and may later go on to build a business much more successful than yours is harder. |
Hire athletes.
They have energy, know how to endure pain to get results, and like to win. |
Focus hard on building a win/win compensation plan.
That is, a win for the company and a win for the employee. This is also hard to do right. Even good compensation plans get gamed, which is why Buffet’s advice about integrity is so critical. Be generous… but also demanding (see #5). |
Take the time you need.
Hiring is your most important job. Take the time to interview a lot of candidates; cast a wide net. Spend a lot of face-to-face time with the candidates on your short list. Do real reference checks, ideally face to face. Meet their family and friends socially. As a side benefit, interviewing a ton of smart people is a great way to learn more about your market. |
Be demanding.
Find people who want to achieve ambitious goals, spend time setting metrics, and then hold them accountable to them. |
Be honest and transparent.
You cannot expect integrity from others unless you show it yourself. And you can’t fake it either, not with members of an A-Team. They will be too smart for B.S. |
Establish techniques and tests specific to the position.
What is useful for a developer is not useful for a salesperson, and vice versa. |
Get a second opinion.
This second opinion could come from someone internal (another manager) or someone external (an advisor). Assume that recruiters have a vested interest in closing, so take what they say with a grain of salt. |
Don’t just “fill a position.”
That is not a meaningful milestone. It may allow you to check that box, but it will create 10 more boxes to check if you get it wrong. Don’t be afraid to delay until you get the best possible person.Read more at www.readwriteweb.com |
Breathe.
Breathing can transform your life.
If you feel stressed out and overwhelmed, breathe. It will calm you and release the tensions.
If you are worried about something coming up, or caught up in something that already happened, breathe. It will bring you back to the present.
If you are discouraged and have forgotten your purpose in life, breathe. It will remind you about how precious life is, and that each breath in this life is a gift you need to appreciate. Make the most of this gift. |
If you have too many tasks to do, or are scattered during your workday, breathe. It will help bring you into focus, to concentrate on the most important task you need to be focusing on right now.
If you are spending time with someone you love, breathe. It will allow you to be present with that person, rather than thinking about work or other things you need to do.
If you are exercising, breathe. It will help you enjoy the exercise, and therefore stick with it for longer.
If you are moving too fast, breathe. It will remind you to slow down, and enjoy life more.
So breathe. And enjoy each moment of this life. They’re too fleeting and few to waste. Read more at zenhabits.net |
Notiz an mich: Lesen! How to Be an Effective CEO |
First-time entrepreneurs are usually also first-time CEOs. When you look at your first business card that says CEO, don’t forget that it is not necessarily telling the truth. You earn the title of CEO through your actions and your results. You still have your training wheels on. |
Fortunately, there is probably more advice available on how to be an effective CEO than on almost any other subject. This chapter gives you a quick guide, but do invest the time to read the classics, particularly: |
| “The Effective Executive,” by Peter Drucker, |
| “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” by Stephen Covey. |
These are timeless classics. Their authors do not attempt to create any modern theory or expound on any particular business or market trend. The books work because they are based on observation. The authors observed effective people to find out what they did right. |
Peter Drucker’s “Effective Executive” was written in 1966. It is a slim tome and easy to read, even if the language is a bit dated. Drucker focuses on how to allocate time, because you can get more of almost any resource except time. His advice to find time for uninterrupted work is particularly relevant to today’s multi-tasking world. He is also very clear about the need to allocate enough time for people. If you need an hour with someone, don’t think you are being efficient by rushing through the meeting in 15 minutes. |
CEOs allocate resources. The first resource they need to allocate is their own time. |
One popular book today is “Now, Discover Your Strengths,” by Marcus Buckingham. Drucker was a big proponent of accentuating a person’s strengths rather than managing their weaknesses. |
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People |
“The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People,” first published in 1989, is a self-help book written by Stephen R. Covey. It has sold over 15 million copies. Drucker observes the following habits in effective people: |
Habit 1: Be proactive.
Change starts from within. Most people react to external forces. To lead effectively, you have to overcome that natural tendency. |
Habit 2: Begin with the end in mind.
You cannot lead unless you know where you want to get to. |
Habit 3: Put first things first.
This is similar to what Drucker recommends. You need to have a very clear view of what is important, so that you know what to spend time on. Note that this often means leaving your comfort zone by acting on tasks that you don’t naturally like or feel competent in performing. |
Habit 4: Think win/win.
Seek agreement and relationships that are mutually beneficial. In cases in which a win/win deal cannot be achieved, accept that agreeing on “no deal” may be the best alternative. In developing an organizational culture, be sure to reward win/win behavior among employees, and avoid inadvertently rewarding win/lose behavior. |
Habit 5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.
First seek to understand the other person, and only then try to be understood. Stephen Covey presents this habit as the most important principle of inter-personal relations. Effective listening is not simply echoing what the other person has said through the lens of your own experience. Rather, it is putting yourself in the mindset of the other person, listening empathetically for both feeling and meaning. |
Habit 6: Synergize.
Through trustful communication, find ways to leverage individual differences to create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Through mutual trust and understanding, people can often solve conflicts and find better solutions than would have been obtained through either person’s own solution. |
Habit 7: Sharpen the saw.
Take time out from production to build production capacity through personal renewal of the physical, mental, social/emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Maintain a balance among these dimensions. |
Three Things a CEO Has to Do Well |
This is all you need to do as a CEO: |
| Set direction and milestones (resisting the tempting distraction of juicy diversification). The ability to clearly say, “No, we are not doing that,” is very important. |
| Allocate resources (both financial and human, starting with your time). |
| Hire and fire the top team (we have devoted a separate chapter to hiring an A-Team because this is much harder to say than do). |
Making the Transition from Entrepreneur to CEO |
Your average entrepreneur would probably say, “Yeah, right!” if told that they have to do only three things. The reality of a startup is that you usually have to do a bit of everything. You have to be product manager, if not the actual coder and designer. You become the chief marketing officer, chief financial officer, chief of just about anything that needs to get done. |
This, of course, is unsustainable. You have to work out a transition plan that allows you to hire people to take over all the jobs that you currently do except the three CEO jobs. |
Here are five tips for managing that transition: |
| Record how much time you spend on these tasks. Understand the process. You cannot hire for, outsource, or automate a task unless you understand it yourself. Look at this “chief of everything” phase as your chance to learn. |
| Recognize the reality that you are not an expert in these tasks. So K.I.S.S. |
| Understand the difference between “core” and “context” in your business. Core is what you have to do really well and do in-house. Everything else you can and should outsource. |
| Hire, outsource, and automate in proportion to the growth of your business. If you can manage five clients with everything else you are doing, and your two-year plan calls for 20 clients, hire someone who knows how to win and manage 20 clients (not someone who managed 1,000 clients at their last job). When you finally get the resources, there is a huge temptation to over-engineer. |
| Pay particular attention to hiring someone to do the one job that you love and could continue doing very competently (whether that is coding, design, marketing, sales, or finance). Holding on to this one job, your comfort zone, is hugely tempting. But it is a huge mistake that will prevent you from becoming an effective CEO.Read more at www.readwriteweb.com |
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