The Idiot Bank Robber’s Guide to Achieving Your Goals

Posted on March 23, 2011 by Avish

Here’s one from the “what we can learn from stupid criminals” file…

A guy walks into a bank in China (I know, it sounds like a strange joke setup, but it’s not).

He pulls out something like a hammer or club, and begins banging away at the glass that separates customers from tellers.

Apparently, this is some kind of safety/bullet proof glass because he hammers away at it for about three minutes straight. He whacks the glass about 198 times. (Persistent? Yes. Intelligent? No.)

Finally, he creates a hole big enough for him to climb through. Sort of. It’s a tiny hole he has to squeeze through, and it takes him about thirty seconds just to do it. Keep in mind the alarm has been going off since he first started trying to break the glass.

I am proud to say that I have never robbed a bank, but if Point Break taught us anything, it’s that when you are robbing a bank, speed counts for everything.

When time is critical, you never go for the vault...

Our budding John Dillinger takes about a minute to find some cash (humorously, the first four drawers he checks have nothing worth stealing. Brilliant.) He then tries to climb back through the hole, but he only gets as far as putting one leg through before the police show up.  The best part about this is that he stands there for about thirty seconds while the police have their guns pointed at him, and then slowly turns to leave. The police grab his leg to prevent his escape.

Somehow the dude manages to escape the policeman’s grasp, and then walks out a back door.

Did you get that?

He walked out a back door.

WHY DIDN’T HE WALK OUT THE BACK DOOR IN THE FIRST PLACE???

*sigh*

The video ends there, but I am sure he was caught. Probably when he went to the police station to report an aggravated assault by a police officer during a bank robbery.

If there was ever a prime candidate for a defendant to plead “Not Guilty By Reason of Stupidity,” this is it.

You can watch the video for yourself. It would make an excellent training video on what not to do:

We should be thankful that criminals are this stupid; it makes them much easier to catch…

As is usually the case when observing someone else’s stupidity, I think there are lessons we, as normal, intelligent, non-criminal professionals can walk away with. Here are three that you can apply the next time you set out to achieve a goal:

Preparation Counts

If you have a plan to rob a bank by breaking the glass with a hammer, perhaps you should do a little research and find out how feasible that plan is…

I know China is not the most Google friendly place in the world, but it can’t be that hard to figure out what the glass in banks is made of.

A little research and prep would have saved this guy a lot of effort (and most likely, a long jail sentence)

Lesson #1 for you, the non-criminal: Don’t rob banks.

Lesson #2 for you, the non-criminal: Before you tackle a new project, goal, dream, or  business venture, do a little research. Get your ducks in a row, and get an idea as to whether you have a chance at success.

Improvising is Essential

I may be a little biased here, since improvising is my thing. I wrote a book on it, speak on it, and have a website filled with videos on how you can apply improv games to business and life.

I have a passion for it because it’s important. Not everything is going to go as planned, and sometimes you need to switch gears. Don’t you think that after your 30th whack at the glass with little progress, you might think, “hey, maybe I should switch tactics?”

Lesson #1 for you, the non-criminal: Don’t rob banks.

Lesson #2 for you, the non-criminal: Accept that the best laid plans may go wrong. Have a clear goal, but be sure to notice when your path to that goal hits a roadblock, and then use your creativity to come up with a different and better path to it. (Click here to get a free MP3 on how to think quick…)

Knowing When to Let Go is Critical

Sometimes you gotta know when to fold ‘em…

Maybe to this guy, in that moment, robbing the bank seemed like a really good idea. I’m assuming that beforehand, he envisioned himself shattering the glass after two or three hits, climbing over and emptying the tellers’ drawers, and then getting out of there in under two minutes.

Once the initial part of his plan failed (shattering the glass quickly), he should have reevaluated. Reevaluated and gotten the heck out of there.

Instead, he kept going, not changing tactics and not moving on. As a result, he (probably) got caught and arrested.

Lesson #1 for you, the non-criminal: Don’t rob banks.

Lesson #2 for you, the non-criminal: Be willing to look at a goal and say, “it’s time to let this go.” You can waste a lot of time, money, and energy, pursuing a goal that no longer makes any sense.

I am not suggesting you give up at the first sign of trouble (unless that trouble happens t be shatter proof glass during a bank robbery), but periodically take a look at what you are striving for and ask yourself, “Is this what I really want?”

The next time you think about robbing a bank, remember our idiot bank robber friend.

And the next time you start down a path towards pursuing a goal, think of him again. Then do your prep work and be willing to improvise or even let go if you have to. It will make your life a whole lot easier, and it will drastically improve your chances of success…

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharAre you planning an event and looking for a great speaker to add humor and energy? Then visit Avish’s Motivational Humorist page now!
 

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Monday Motivation: The #1 Top Motivating Factor…

Posted on March 21, 2011 by Avish

Quick question: What motivates people more, the carrot or the stick?

Turns out, the answer is neither.

My friend Bill O’Hanlon pointed me to an article on the Harvard Business Review (HBR) on What Really Motivates Workers

The article points to one survey and one study:

  • Survey: HBR asked “600 managers from dozens of companies to rank the impact on employee motivation and emotions of five workplace factors commonly considered significant: recognition, incentives, interpersonal support, support for making progress, and clear goals.”
  • Study: HBR conducted a “multiyear study tracking the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivation levels of hundreds of knowledge workers in a wide variety of settings,”

The number one result on the manger survey (i.e. the one they believed to be the most important when it comes to motivating employees): “Recognition for good work (either public or private)”

The item that the managers ranked as least impactful on employee motivation? “Support for making progress.”

Guess what came out as the number one factor that actually influenced employee motivation in the other study?

Wait for it…

Wait for it…

You see where this is going yet?

Yup, you got it:

The number one top motivator of performance is progress.

Number one on the list of employee motivators, number five of five on the list of things managers believe motivates their employees.

Folks, you can not make this stuff up.

If you examine your own moods and motivation levels, this should come as no shock. I know that sometimes I have days where within about an hour I will have posted a blog post, booked a speaking gig, opened a new lead, and cleared three little annoying things off my day. Even if I do nothing else those days, I feel pretty good. On other days, I do a lot of work, but it feels like little progress is made. At the end of those days, no matter how long or hard I worked, I feel like I wasted a day.

Before we get to what you can take away from this, let’s look at a couple of disclaimers:

  • As was the main premise of my It’s Ok to Check Email First Thing in the Morning post, everyone is different. You have to find what works best for you and your people
  • The employee study was of “knowledge workers,” who are,”are individuals who are valued for their ability to act and communicate with knowledge within a specific subject area.” The results may be different in other areas such as retail, or manufacturing.
  • One study doesn’t necessarily prove anything conclusively, but the results are worth considering.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s take a look at how you can use this yourself:

As a Manager

According to Bill O’Hanlon, “recognition” did come up as number two on the list of what motivates employees, so don’t stop doing that.

However, as a manager, make it a top priority to:

  1. Make sure your people are making consistent progress
  2. Make it easy for them to keep making progress by giving them the support and resources they need while keeping irrelevant demands off their plates

This sounds obvious, right? Like something a manager should be doing anyway? Sadly, it’s obvious in theory but often overlooked in practice.

You’ve probably been on the receiving end of this; you’re fired up to work on something, but then a manager, director, or executive above you does one of a few things:

  • Becomes grossly indecisive and leaves you hanging while you wait for them to decide.
  • Keeps changing goals and strategies so you are constantly throwing away hours, days, or even weeks worth of work.
  • Drags their feet on securing a resource, answering questions, or holding key meetings, which prevents you from taking the next step.
  • Ignores the progress that you are making, and instead focuses only on the final goal, the things you have not yet done, or on vague metrics that have never been clarified.

To keep your people motivated, create attainable goals and incremental milestones, give them the tools they need to move forward, reward their progress, and then get out of their way.

For Yourself

Set yourself up for success by creating a system where you see frequent and consistent progress.

Just apply the same rules that managers should apply to others to yourself:

  • Stop waffling and stressing out and make decisions
  • Pick a goal and strategy and stick with it (for a little while, at least) so you can see progress being made
  • For long term goals, set incremental milestones that demonstrate your progress
  • Try to do something every day, no matter how tiny, to move you forward towards your big picture goals
  • Reframe how you look at things. Start seeing progress even in the things that feel like a waste. For example, some days I spend hours working on a blog post that I ultimately end up not using. That feels like a waste, but I try to think of it as “creative progress.” (Clearing out the creative junk to leave room for the good stuff to come out).
  • On the other hand, be wary of confusing activity and progress. Sometimes we pat ourselves on the back for doing a lot because it feels like progress. That kind of delusion may make you feel better, but it’s a poor substitute for the real thing and won’t have the impact that real progress will.
  • Notice and celebrate your progress and “little wins”

As always, the most important thing you can do is observe and figure out what works for you. You might be best motivated by daily progress, weekly progress, or progress by some random interval. Figure it out and use what works for you.

Spend the next week paying attention to when your motivation is high and low. Then, try setting up some “progress milestones” to keep you and your team on track, even if those milestones are tiny steps forward. You may be surprised at just how much your motivation grows!

(Completely tangential and self promotional note: If you are a professional speaker, or aspire to get paid to speak in the near future, I am going to be doing a coaching program with Bill and Fred Gleeck where we will take a small group of people and work with them to become better speakers, get bookings, and make more money. Stay tuned (and subscribe to either my blog or email list to get informed when we launch!)

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharWould you like Avish to work with your managers and leaders to help them get the most out of their teams? Then visit Avish’s Speaking Page now!

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It’s Ok to Check Email First Thing in the Morning

Posted on March 15, 2011 by Avish

“Don’t check email first thing in the morning!”

If you have read a time management book or taken a productivity course in the last ten years or so, you have probably heard this advice.

Heck, this piece if advice is so ubiquitous that time management expert Julie Morgenstern re-released her best-selling, “Making Work Work” book under the new title, “Never Check Email in the Morning!”

Enter little old me. You know what I do every day, first thing in the morning? Yup, I check my email.

Clearly, this must make me the least productive man on earth, right? Wrong.

Don’t get me wrong; my productivity has some issues, but those issues have very little to do with the fact that I check email first thing in the morning. More on that in a moment…

The logic behind not checking email first thing in the morning is that if you do, you get immediately swept up in a cascade of people clamoring for your attention, and this pulls you away from the long term projects and truly important work that will grow your business and further your career.

Ok, I can see that. But here’s the problem: “Not checking email in the morning,” is a tactic. And it is a tactic that does not apply universally to all people. It didn’t to me…

For me, email was not a productivity killer for two reasons

  1. Most of my emails are good things. Speaking inquiries, product sales notifications, letters from friends, etc. All things that make me feel good, not stressed or overwhelmed
  2. My emails are usually not urgent. I rarely find myself in a situation where I receive an email that I need to immediately respond to. Most can wait a few hours, or even a few days.

All told, I am easily able to check my email in the morning, go through it pretty quickly, and set aside a few that need responding too later in the day (or email right then if they are quick). Then I can close out and move on to other things.

This did not make me super productive though. I had another, much bigger productivity problem: internet surfing.

Yes, I’ll admit it: I like surfing the internet. I like reading funny stuff, pop culture sites, news updates, informative articles, blogs on a variety of subjects, etc.

It’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but I am able to waste a lot of time. I had a routine where I would visit Digg.com and click through all the interesting articles. Then I would check out three or four of my favorite sites and read everything new and interesting there. By the time I was done with visiting all those sites (and clicking through the various internal links) enough time would have passed that I could go back to see what new stuff was on Digg. It was not uncommon for me to pass an hour just surfing around various sites

Some days I would waste an entire morning with this process, squeezing in maybe 30 minutes real work amongst the procrastination. I’m not proud of this, I’m just being honest with you…

That was my productivity killer, not email. This year I am undergoing a process to create new habits that will eliminate this problem (You can read about it in my Resolution #1: No More Resolutions! post).

I have to say, the plan is going quite well! I am getting more done during the morning than I ever have before. It’s not completely where I want it to be yet, but it’s waaaaay better than it was.

I am not telling you this as a way to convince you that, “Email is not the problem! Surfing is the problem!”

No, I am trying convince you that in order to maximize your own productivity, you need to find your own productivity sticking points and then take steps to remove them.

“Not checking email in the morning” is a tactic. The strategy is, “Focus on high priority activities first, before you get sucked in to low priority activities that consume your day.”

The tactic may or may not work for you. If email hijacks your day, then sure, employ the “no checking email” tactic. But I know quite a few people who would ruin their day – or even get fired – if they didn’t check their email when they got to work.

Strategies have a much greater chance of being universal. Then again, maybe not. If your most productive and creative time is right after lunch, or at 5PM, or after midnight, then you might be much better off doing low priority stuff like email first thing in the morning. You have to figure out what works best for you.

In my experience, people crave tactics. They want to know what to do and how to do it, and they often don’t care about the why at all. Unfortunately, tactics without strategies (i.e. “whats and hows” without “whys”) can lead you down a suboptimal – or even detrimental – path.

Don’t follow a plan simply because some expert says something like, “the key to being productive is to never check email in the morning.”

Think. Think about your style, your personality, your strengths and weaknesses. Then develop plans that leverage those strengths and minimize those weaknesses

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharDo you want help improving your productivity and accelerating your results? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!
 

Posted in Business Advice | 6 Comments

Monday Motivation: Irrational and Inexact Can Still Be Useful

Posted on March 14, 2011 by Avish

Happy Pi Day!

Yes, today is Pi Day. Why is that? Because pi is approximately 3.14, and today is March 14th, which can be represented as 3/14 (or 3-14, or even 3.14). Get it?

Don’t feel bad if you didn’t. When someone told me last week that today would be Pi Day, I thought they meant “Pie Day,” and I was very much looking forward to eating nothing but pies all day long. Hmm, you know, there’s nothing stopping me from implementing that plan anyway…

If you have forgotten (or never knew) what pi is, it is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter. If you don’t know what that means, you can learn more than probably want by reading Wikipedia’s Pi entry.

Here’s an interesting fact about pi: It is an irrational and inexact number. (I could make a lot of metaphorical jokes here – “Pi is irrational and inexact – like ___” but those would probably get me into a lot of trouble with many different people. So let’s just leave it at that and move on…)

By mathematical definition, irrational means that it “cannot be expressed as a fraction a/b, where a and b are integers, with b non-zero, and is therefore not a rational number.”

This means that pi never terminates and never repeats. It starts with 3.14, but it goes on for an infinite number of decimal places. (Lu Chao, a 24 year old grad student from China, is the Guinness-recognized world record holder for pi memorization. He recited pi to 67,890 decimal places without an error. When asked why he did it, he said, “to get women.”)

Hmm, perhaps Lu Chao was on to something...

(Pi is also a transcendental number, which makes it sound like it likes to hop in its VW Minibus and head out to California to chant and meditate. What it actually means is that “it is not a root of a non-constant polynomial equation with rational coefficients.” And if you understand that you are officially my smartest blog reader. Stop reading my blog and go do something useful like inventing cold fusion or finding a way to keep the “Real Housewives of Anything” off my TV.)

Because it never repeats and never terminates, we can’t know exactly what the value of pi is. However, our “best” guess is close enough that pi is widely used in math, science, and engineering. Without pi, you would be reading this off a piece if papyrus while living in thatched hut, getting ready to hop on your horse to ride over to the next town. It’s a remarkably ubiquitous mathematical constant.

Basically, pi is irrational and inexact, but it is still incredibly useful.

The Takeaway

I think we all can learn a little lesson from pi.

Too many times people wait around, trying to gather all the facts. Trying to figure out every angle. Trying to guess and plan for every potential outcome.

That is a recipe for paralysis and inaction. Sure, you want to gather plenty of data, do your research, and get your ducks in a row. And in some areas (say, doing your taxes) you’ll need to be pretty exact.

However, there are many areas in life where this level of precision is unnecessary and impractical. Some things you just can’t know with 100% certainty. And some things are not going to make sense to you, but they still might work.

You’ll really see this in anything that involves other people. Making rational sense of others’ behavior and trying to figure out exactly what they have done and will do can be overwhelming. Don’t drive yourself crazy trying!

Gather a reasonable amount of data, create a best guess, and take action and move forward. Even if you’re wrong, you’ll get more feedback on how to fix your approach than you would have if you had just sat around and kept analyzing the situation.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go cook myself up a pecan pi to celebrate this incredibly nerdy holiday…

Pi Paraphernalia

You pi nerds may appreciate some of the nifty Pi related products on Amazon:

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharAre you planning an event and looking for a great speaker to add humor and energy? Then visit Avish’s Motivational Humorist page now!

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How Doing the Dishes Can Increase Your Productivity

Posted on March 11, 2011 by Avish

If I were to say to you, “the key to increasing your productivity is to wash more dishes,” you would probably look at me like I was a crazy person. Unless you are a professional dishwasher, in case you would just nod your head in agreement.

But I’m not crazy (at least, not because of this). In fact, if you give it a try, you may find that washing the dishes (and other similar activities) may be the key to boosting your productivity too…

I have always hated washing dishes. Hated it. I just assumed it was one of those annoying things in life you’d have to put up with, like rush hour traffic, and people who use the word “literally” when they don’t mean “literally” at all. (See: “Are You Literally an Idiot?”)

Lately, however, I have found myself doing the dishes with much more zest (don’t worry, this is not going to be a post about learning to find contentment in mundane tasks; I’m not that Zen…yet). While I can’t say that I love doing the dishes, I have gained an appreciation for the ancillary benefits of engaging in the task.

I was recently listening to an audio program on being productive and getting more done. I wasn’t getting too much out of it and almost turned it off when the presenter dropped a piece of advice that whacked me in the head and made me take notice.

She was talking about the importance of taking breaks. Now I have known for a long time that taking short breaks (of say 10 minutes) is an important way to maximize your productivity. However, I often found that my 10 minute breaks would stretch to 20 or 30 minutes (or even more), and, once the break was over, I usually didn’t feel energized to get back to work.

The presenter then said, “Breaks are about mental recharge, and not necessarily leisure.”

Interesting.

To this point, my breaks were always “leisure” based. For example, I would usually spend my “break” reading my favorite websites. After ten minutes I was supposed to go back to work, but I would often get sucked into the “internet vortex.” You know that place, where one article links to another, which links to another, and before you know it you are eagerly reading articles about who would win in a fight, a tiger or a lion (most experts agree that the tiger would win).

When it was time to get back to work, I felt less energized, not more. Clearly, my breaks weren’t working.

The speaker then went on to talk about how, for her, doing the dishes is on of the best “break activities” that she does. While no one would consider doing the dishes to be leisure, it was excellent for mental recharge.

This stood out to me, because this year, in an attempt to keep a cleaner apartment, I have taken to doing short bursts of household chores during my breaks. I did find that when I spent one of my breaks doing dishes that:

  1. My breaks were shorter (a ten minute break was pretty close to ten minutes)
  2. I felt much more prepared and recharged to get back to work

Before listening to the program I assumed that these two things were happening because of an overall internal motivation I had developed for 2011. After hearing the program, I suspected that it was the activity itself that made the difference.

This was a fairly big paradigm shift for me; leisure doesn’t equal recharge!

If leisure doesn’t lead to recharge, then what does? To quote the presenter: “Mental recharge activities are usually repetitive, manual, productive, not something you’d ever get paid for, and usually everyday activities.”

Wow. That completely changed my approach to how I take breaks during the day.

For the longest time (most of my life, frankly) I had assumed that to truly “recharge” I needed to zone out and do something mindless and leisurely, like watching TV or surfing to some of my favorite websites. Turns out, that wasn’t helping at all.

I now spend more of my breaks away from the computer, doing physical things (things I would normally consider “boring,” like doing the dishes).

Take a look at your own day and the ways in which you take breaks or attempt to “recharge.” It’s quite possible that not only are you not recharging, but you may even be lowering your productivity with the very things you think are helping!

Based on the speaker’s advice and my own experience, here are some tactical things to think about to help you create breaks that energize you and help you get more done in less time every day:

  • Get away from the computer. If you, like so many people, spend most of your day in front of a computer, take your break completely away from the screen. Of course, if you don’t spend your day in front of a screen, then you need to break out of whatever environment you are regularly in. Shift environments to give your mind a chance to recharge.
  • Take regular, frequent, breaks. Fifty minutes of work followed by a ten minute break works well for me. Or, take a break when you are about to switch from one task to the next. Or, if you managed to work in a flow stat, once you come out of it, take a break.  Your exact frequency will depend on your work, environment, and supervisor.
  • Test and analyze. There is no one universal activity that will be the perfect break for everyone. Try a variety of things and observe which ones leave you the most recharged to get back to work.
  • Think recharge, not leisure. Redefine both
    1. What you traditionally think of as a break
    2. What the goal of your break is.

    The goal is not to just “get away from your work,” but rather to be able to return to your work with greater focus and energy. That simple reframe may make all the difference in the types of activities you engage in on your break time.

If you are reading this and don’t work from home, you may be thinking, “hey that’s great for you, but I can’t just get up to wash some dishes in the middle of the day! I work in an office, and I have a boss who watches what I do!”

Fair enough. But here are some things you can try:

  • Take a short walk. Outside, around the office, up and down the stairs, wherever. While you may be tempted to walk with others, I would propose that you would get more mental recharge walking alone for ten minutes.
  • Stretch. If you have an office, use the floor. If not, do some stretching in your chair. Just turn away from the computer screen so you’re not tempted to stay engaged to your work. Not only will you recharge your mind, but your lower back will thank you.
  • Knit. Not my thing, but I know some people love it and find it very relaxing. You might be to do it at your desk for a few minutes with no one noticing.
  • Read. This doesn’t have the physical aspect to it, but I find that moving away from my computer and reading something unrelated for ten minutes is a nice way to refocus.
  • Clean. If you keep your desk at all like I did in my corporate days, it could probably use regular cleaning, organizing, and de-cluttering. No one should begrudge you for spending a few minutes straightening up.
  • Volunteer. No, I am not suggesting you make “volunteering” an activity you do every break. However, many larger organizations have committees that are always looking for help. Join one of those, and you might be able to do mindless committee work during your work day.

Most importantly, find something that works for you. Try different things, and see which ones leave you the most energized to get back to work. You may be very surprised – the things you always considered “obvious” break activities (talking to a co-worker, playing Solitaire or Bejeweled, surfing the net, etc.) may be the things that recharge you the least!

The simplest test is to ask yourself, “After this break, how do I feel?” If the answer is, “great, and ready to get back to work,” then you’ve found yourself a keeper. If not, then you may want to keep looking.

Remember, the point of a break is not to “take a break,” the goal is to recharge you to do more and better work!

Share Your Ideas: What are your favorite break activities that truly recharge you? Share in the comments below!

 

Posted in Business Advice | 2 Comments

Ranting About Success: Interview with David Newman

Posted on March 9, 2011 by Avish

Below is the first in what I hope will be a series of audio posts titled, “Ranting About Success!” In the series, I will chat with different people about their views on how to succeed, and how to not do stupid things, and what we can learn from the stupid things they have done, etc. If the first interview is any measure, it should be a very fun and very informative series.

First up, I interview David Newman, founder and head of Red Arrow, an expert agency that connects corporations and associations with experts, consultant, and speakers that they want to bring in to make their organization look like a rock star. Awesome!

You can listen or download the audio here:

Avish “Rants About Success” with David Newman

David and I talk about all sorts of interesting things, including:

  • Why you should “Get Serious, Get Help, or Get Out” (and what those all mean!)
  • The idea of letting go of the way you think you are going to find success
  • The danger of thinking you have it all figured out
  • Questioning whether you still want your dream
  • The stupidity of jumping in without a game-plan
  • The problems with “emotional impulsiveness”
  • How to use a personal mantra to stay on track
  • Why David gets annoyed by people who are “waiting for the economy to come back”
  • The importance of not being a bad-mouthed sad-sack moron
  • Why you shouldn’t say, “I’m not going to participate in the recession”
  • Being able to succeed in the landscape you’re given
  • And more!

If you enjoy this interview, please leave a comment with your suggestions for future interview topics!

 

Posted in Audio, Business Advice, Motivation & Success | 13 Comments

6 Ways to Not Suck as a Presenter

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Avish

Wow. Just wow.

I recently sat through an awful presentation. It was just….awful…

It was at a one hour class on gluten free living. My girlfriend is gluten free, so I went with her to learn more about it for myself.

The class, thankfully, was free, but I soon discovered that quite often you do, in fact, get what you pay for…

To put in context, after we left, my girlfriend turned to me and said, “that was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. Wasn’t that the worst thing you’ve ever seen?”

To be fair, I’ve seen a lot of presentations over the years, which means I’ve seen a lot of bad ones. I can’t say this was the worst, but it was up there. At least we got water and a small bite of pizza at the end…

Rather than leave (which, when there are only ten people there and you are on the opposite side of the room from a closed door, can be a bit awkward) or just completely space out, I decided to take some notes about why I felt it was a horrible presentation, and what any presenter can learn from it

Below are six of the biggest mistakes I noted, along with instructions on how you can avoid making those mistakes yourself. These tips apply whether you are a professional speaker, speak as part of your job, or just do presentations to small group for marketing or educational purposes.

1) Telling too Many, “I’m Awesome” Stories

If I had a bag of Doritos for every time this woman launched into some story about what amazing results she or her one of her patients had, I would be able to make the weirdest prom dress ever.

Your audience absolutely wants to know about your successes. They are hoping to learn from you. But you must be very careful with your use of stories that scream “look at how awesome I am!” because you’ll start to sound like an egotistical jackass and alienate the audience.

Look at me and all my money and how awesome I am!

(Note: telling a story about how awesome someone else did after or because of your intervention is the same thing as telling a story about how awesome you are.)

You’re ok telling one, maybe two tales of your awesomeness. After that, the audience will think, “ok, we get it, move on.” It also never hurts to say, “I’m not saying this to brag, but rather to show you how you can ___,” Then fill in the blank. If you can’t fill in the blank, drop the story because it doesn’t help the audience and is pure ego.

Unless you are speaking purely as an entertainer or humorist, your stories are there to support your points. And your points should be set up to provide action steps for your audience to take. If you tell a story that can not be tied to a clear point and/or action step, then you’re not speaking; you’re bragging.

2) Spending Too Long on the Problem

This was a one hour class. Five minutes were spent distributing and eating the pizza samples. Fifty minutes were spent on why gluten is the worst food product since Soylent Green.

“Soylent Green…has GLUTEN!!!”

I’m not kidding. By the end of her talk I feel that if I was given a choice between a piece of bread and a jar of gluten free arsenic, I would be better off drinking the arsenic.

To recap the timing: This was a 60 minute class. 50 minutes were spent on the problem. 5 minutes were spent on sampling.  That left only five minutes to talk about solutions, action items, and “to-dos.”

Education is important, but your audience is going to mostly care about what they can do differently to be happier, more successful, or better off. If you spend more than twenty-five percent of your time (at most – ten percent is probably enough) focusing on the problem, you’re not speaking, you’re preaching.

3) Including No Action Items

Over the course of one hour, I can’t say there was a moment where the speaker said, “Here’s what you should do.” Other than, “stop eating gluten,” there were no calls to action.

Um, yeah, I don't know what you should do my info...figure it out for yourself

I wasn’t looking for earth shattering advice, but how about something as simple as, “here are three gluten-free things you can eat for breakfast instead of cereal,” or, “when buying groceries, here are the specific things you can look for on the label to see if it has gluten.”

She even at one point said, “I don’t have a problem traveling,” but didn’t go on to give any of her tips for how to successfully travel while living gluten free. Crazy.

With few exceptions, the goal of any presentation is to get the audience to do something different or new. If you don’t give them some specific what’s and how’s, then you have done them a disservice. If you do this, you’re not speaking, you’re pontificating.

4) Having No Structure Whatsoever

The more I speak and see others speak, the more I appreciate the need for a solid structure. Throughout the class, I had no idea where this woman was going. She just babbled on and on. At one point she even went off on a tangent about the injustices of our legal system (don’t ask, because I couldn’t adequately explain it to you. It had something to do with a Laotian man losing thirty pounds after being unjustly incarcerated…).

Wait, where are we and where are we going??

Speech structure is easy, but many people blow it. Just have a beginning, have an end, sub-divide the rest of your time into points, and then periodically let the audience know where you are and where you are going.

(For more info, read this post: How to Quickly Put Together a Great Speech)

Follow a simple structure and you’ll keep your audience engaged. Don’t do that and you’re not speaking, you’re rambling.

5) Passing off Opinions as Fact

I realize I am about to walk into dangerous territory here, and I want to be clear: my goal is not to get into the “is gluten dangerous or not?” argument.  I have seen the benefits of gluten free living in enough people to accept that gluten has its issues. I 100% believe that some (maybe many more than we know) people are intolerant, allergic, or have full on Celiac disease.

Your opinions are fine and good, but at the end of the day 2+2=4

However, there’s a difference between opinions you and I form based on our experiences and hard data based on controlled research and studies.

The instructor’s blatant disregard for the scientific method was mind numbingly deplorable. I’ve heard the Trix Rabbit make more cogent arguments while trying to explain that Trix is not only for kids, but also for rabbits, hares, and the occasional pika.

At one point she said, and I quote literally here, “all skin problems are gluten.”

Really? All skin problems? Every last one of them?

This was just one in a long line of gross assumptions and misleading statements she passed off as fact.

There were two big mistakes she made, which you, if you ever speak to a group, should avoid:

  1. Not understanding the difference between correlation and causation – Just because two things seem related, doesn’t mean that one caused the other. She repeatedly pointed out, with great glee, how every time a patient came in with any problem, she would ask them about their diet and they would all say they ate bread and cereal. This was her proof that all of her patients’ problems stemmed from gluten. I felt like pointing out to her that all her patients probably slept at night, and drank a glass of water at some point during the day too. That doesn’t mean those things caused all their problems.
  2. Not understanding the difference between anecdotal evidence and data – Every bit of proof the speaker provided to support her points was based on her own experiences, whether from living gluten free herself or working with her patients. Nothing wrong with that, but when you pass off your personal experiences as hard data, well, that’s a problem.

I want to stress again that I am not arguing against gluten-free living. However, when you base your arguments on poor logic and faulty assumptions, you not only don’t make your case, you actually weaken it.

Speaking to groups is awesome, but it comes with a responsibility. First and foremost is the responsibility to not lie to, mislead, or hoodwink your audience.

If you want to use anecdotal evidence, great, just make it clear that’s what you’re doing. If you want espouse your opinions without presenting hard data, fine, just be clear that this is what you believe.  If you don’t, you’re not speaking, you’re lying.

6) Focusing on Personal Mission Instead of the Audience’s Needs

Here’s a harsh truth for you: your audience doesn’t really care about your personal mission to change the world.

Sure, if you’re giving a TED talk or keynoting a symposium on your topic, then people may be interested in your global mission. But if you are speaking to a small group of people about how to improve their health and energy, well I’m guessing they don’t much care.

Yell it as loud as you want, people still won't care

Many, many times this speaker talked about the dietary problems in the world, and how mothers in Africa are miscarrying, and how people in China are now getting obese, all due to gluten. Clearly she had a passion for this stuff.

Unfortunately, while her stories may have pulled at the audience’s heartstrings, I feel pretty confident saying that no one there really cared. The class wasn’t advertised as, “gluten’s impact around the world.” The title was, “Gluten Free: Losing Weight & Loving Life.”

I would bet real money that the attendees were mostly interested in learning:

  1. What gluten free eating was
  2. How it could help them lose weight
  3. How living gluten free could help them “love life.”
  4. Whether gluten free living would make their various digestive issues go away

Notice how “health trends on the other side of the ocean” is not on this list.

Your greatest success as a speaker will come when you touch upon the primary concerns of your audience. If you have a world changing life mission good for you! You can even talk about it if you:

  1. Keep it brief
  2. Tie it back to the audience’s self interest

If you don’t do those two things, you’re not speaking; you’re proselytizing.

In Conclusion

As bad as I thought this presentation was, I do applaud the instructor for two things:

  1. She clearly had a passion for her message and a deep desire to help people get better
  2. She was out there doing something, spreading her message.

I hope you have the same level of passion for something and that you get out there and do something about it.

If you do, and if you use speaking as one of your methods, than please, review the six tips above to make sure your message gets heard, appreciated, and spread. If you don’t, you’re not speaking, you’re just babbling…

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharDo you want help making sure your next presentation (and every one after that) doesn’t suck? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!

Posted in Lists, Talk Gooder | 5 Comments

Monday Motivation – Work Insanely Hard, Right at the Beginning

Posted on March 7, 2011 by Avish

Does the idea of working “insanely hard” sound fun to you? Probably not. It didn’t to me. But I wish it did, because working insanely hard is a vital piece to the “success puzzle.”

You may not be aware of this, but in college, I was studying to be a computer engineer (yes, an Indian guy getting a computer engineering degree. It would only be more stereotypical if I periodically busted out into song and dance to express my deepest emotions)

One year I signed up for a class that sounded interesting, but had a professor who had received some reviews for being tough and assigning a lot of work (“tough” and “a lot of work” were not two things that I was looking for in my college classes. “Interesting,” and “Light enough to allow me to do the many other things I enjoyed,” were high my list, but they were very tough to find…). The first day of class, the professor explained his educational theory:

“In a lot of classes, you will start slow, then work really hard for a bit, then slack off, then work hard, then slack, and so on. In this class, you’ll work insanely hard up front, but then things will get easier over time and you can kind of coast.”

He drew a comparison to a space shuttle launch. The initial take off burns a tremendous amount of fuel, but once it’s in space, it just floats. His theory was to have us burn that much energy up front, as opposed to doing repeated take-offs and landings over the semester.

Two weeks later, I was no longer enrolled in that class…

Yup, the whole, “work insanely hard” right at the beginning thing wasn’t doing it for me. In retrospect, this was a shame because it was a class around a topic that, at the time, I seriously thought would have been a potential career choice (“Avish Parashar, Software Engineer.” It almost happened)

In further retrospect though, it’s not that big of a shame because I am pretty sure I would much rather be doing what I do now (speaking, training, and writing) than being a “software engineer.”

In further, further retrospect though, it is shame, because I missed out on learning an incredibly valuable lesson that would have helped me over the years, regardless of the field or industry I was in:

There is tremendous value in working insanely hard, right at the beginning.

“Insanely hard” is not a precise term, and may scare you off. But the point is, many people drop their goals because they are unwilling to point in the crazy hard work up front, before the rewards start setting in. The people who do push through that discomfort end up enjoying success and reaching heights that others only dream of.

Here are a few benefits of working insanely hard, right at the beginning:

  1. Be the First to Market – I’m guessing that over the course of your life so far, you have seen companies come out with a product of service and said to yourself, “Damn! I thought of that two years ago!” I myself, along with a friend, started working on an Evite style website two years before Evite came out. But “started working on” doesn’t count for much. Work hard right at the beginning, get it done, and get your idea out before the next guy.
  2. Leverage Your Motivation – Your motivation tends to be the highest right at the  start of a new project. Take advantage of that and got a ton done right away! Save moderation for later, once the initial motivation has started to wane.
  3. Push Past Resistance – On the flip side of motivation is resistance. As you prepare to start something new, a little voice in your head may tell you to, “this is stupid, why are you wasting your time with this? It’s too hard!” By jumping in and working insanely hard right at the beginning, you smack resistance in the face and show yourself, “yes, I can do this!”
  4. Create Commitment – I have attempted to write a novel many times over my life. The moderation approach led me to working 30-60 minutes a night, a few nights a week. Every time I employed this plan, I eventually lost momentum and the project withered and eventually died. Since I hadn’t done that much work yet, I wasn’t all that committed. On the other hand, last November I participated in National Novel Writing Month, where the goal was to write 50,000 words in one month. I successfully did that, and let me tell you, after committing that many hours and that many words to the page, there was no way I was just going to let it wither and die. I am continuing to work on the novel, even though the contest is over. That insane work, right at the start, created commitment.
  5. Separation – Think of it this way: hard work is a barrier to keep other people from achieving truly magnificent things. If it was easy, every one would do it and it would be devalued. To separate yourself from the pack, you have to work insanely hard. As I heard someone once say, “Success is easy; just be willing to do the things that other people aren’t willing to do.”

Here are some situations where a lot of hard work, right up front, pays off big time in the long run:

  • Building habits. As I talk about in my, Resolution #1: No More Resolutions!,  post, habit building involves burning a lot of energy up front to reap long term benefits. Once the habit is installed, you enjoy the result of the habit forever.
  • Getting a degree or certification. Put in a lot of time, energy, and (potentially) money now, and you’ll gain long term benefits by being more qualified for higher paying jobs.
  • Learning a new skill. Once you learn it, it’s yours forever. I am jealous of my friends who were forced to learn how to type growing up. I never did, and, while I type at an ok speed, I am still limited by my “three finger style” of typing.
  • Writing a book, recording an audio, creating a product – Obviously not for everyone, but once you have created something, it’s created forever. Writing my book, Improvise to Success! took time and effort, but I finished it four years ago and have been able to see financial and marketing gains from it ever since with almost no additional effort.

Anything worth doing is going to involve hard work and sacrifice. Usually that work and sacrifice will happen at the beginning, before you see any rewards. Work hard during this stage, even insanely hard, to push through and finish what you need to finish. Once it’s done you will be able to coast . Well, maybe you won’t coast, but thing will be easier and you will enjoy rewards that most others never see.

Questions: What areas in your life are you employing a “coast-burn-coast” model? How can you focus yourself to put in hard, consistent work right now, up front, to reap long term rewards?

Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharDo you need help figuring out what you need to work insanelt hard on, how to do it, and staying on track? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!

Posted in Business Advice, Motivation & Success | Tagged | Leave a comment

How to Build a New Habit – 6 Lessons from the Trenches

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Avish

Could you imagine what life would be like if you automatically did the things that led to success and if doing those things was easier than not doing them? That’s what should happen when you build a solid set of habits, and that is the path I have laid out for myself.

At the beginning of this year, I outlined my plan to build a set of habits for myself, rather than achieving goals. Each habit would be worked on for eight weeks to get it properly “installed,” and then I would move on to the next habit.

For a detailed look at the plan, you can read the post here:

Resolution #1: No More Resolutions!

Eight weeks have gone by, which means habit number 1 is done! I wanted to share my experience of building habit #1 with you in case:

  1. You were following the same habit plan I outlined in the original post. Or…
  2. You want to try it for yourself now

The first habit was to eliminate morning procrastination by having three specific tasks I completed before I went into my usual, “procrastination routine.” The three tasks were:

  1. Write 1,000 words of fiction
  2. Write 2,000 words of non-fiction
  3. Complete three marketing activities, not matter how small or big each one was.

I was pretty confident that building this habit would have a huge impact on my productivity, business results, and personal satisfaction.

I’m proud to say that I followed the plan very closely, and have made a lot of progress. More importantly, for you, is that I learned quite a few things that may help you as you work to build your own habits:

1) Habits are Tough Things to Build

It's not always easy, but it's worth it

 

Colloquial wisdom says that it takes 21 days to build a habit. Colloquial wisdom is kind of wrong…

The 21 day benchmark was from the work of Maxwell Martz about 50 years ago, and wasn’t really about building a new habit. I came across another article that references a study that seems a little more current and on point:

How Long to Form a Habit?

Not surprisingly, the study concludes that the length of a time it takes to build a habit is related to the difficulty of the activity. The examples in the study ranged from 18 to 254 days.

Yup, some of the habit took over eight months to install.

For me, after eight weeks, I feel I am much farther along towards making my morning work routine habitual, but it’s not quite there yet.

A habit, if you define it as I do, has two critical qualities:

  1. It’s harder to not do than to do
  2. It happens automatically, without thinking.

Number one is easier to attain than number two. I feel I am at a point where if I don’t do my morning work routine I feel edgy. However, what remains to be seen is if that’s because it’s becoming a habit or because I made a public commitment to do it. I assume it is some combination of the two, but as I continue on, I believe it will be more and more habit based.

The second quality is the real goal: where you just do the activity without thinking. I still need to think about what I need to do, and then make a very conscious decision to start my morning writing. So it’s not a habit in that sense. Yet.

What You Can Do With This: If you undertake a habit building plan of your own, don’t expect instant results. And don’t get discouraged if it doesn’t still feel automatic after 21 days, 60 days, or more. It takes time, and the more complicated the habit, the longer it will take.

2) The Process is Worth It

Set your plan up so you stay happy, even if you don't build a habit

What if you try this plan and don’t build a habit? Was it all a waste of time? Not at all…

After two months, I may not have a full-on habit, but I will say that my morning productivity has been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay higher than it was before. I have written tremendous amount, and a I got a lot done.

As I look at the remaining five habits I plan on building, I can honestly say that if I spend eight weeks on them and they don’t become new habits, the effort will still have been worth it. Progress will have been made. Habit or no, the time spent will not be a waste.

What You Can Do With This: As you consider your habit building plan, try to set up your activities so that even if you don’t build a habit, you will still have made good use of your time. This will make it easier to stay on track and to move on to the next habit even if the first one doesn’t stick.

3) The Gradual Progression Method is Brilliant

Ok, maybe not that brilliant, but brilliant nonetheless...

A huge component of the program I am following is that you start out extremely small, and then increase a little but each week. You don’t jump in on day one of week one and try to do your full habit.

In my case, week one involved writing 125 words of fiction, 250 words of non-fiction, and doing one simple marketing activity each day. Each week I increased those numbers a little bit. By week 8 I hit my “1,000 fiction, 2,000 non-fiction, and 3 marketing activities” goal.

This worked incredibly well. The first two weeks seemed excruciatingly slow at times. I would finish my entire morning habit plan in about 30 minutes. However, by gradually increasing my commitment, I never felt overwhelmed.

Sure, by the time I got to week eight I felt like I had a lot of writing to do, but since it was only a small increase over the week before, it wasn’t a problem.

I am pretty confident that if I started out on day one and said, “ok, you’re going to write 3,000 words and take three marketing activities every day,” I would have given up by day four…

What You Can Do With This: If you want to undertake a large change in your life, and the “Massive Action/Cold Turkey” approaches have failed for you, I highly recommend that you give the gradual progression method a try.

4) The Gradual Progression Method Also Has Its Limitations

I'll admit it, I didn't have a good picture for this point, so I used one of Megashark eating the Golden gate Bridge, because, why not?

There is a limitation to the gradual progression plan: Since you increase a little each week over eight weeks, you only spend one week fully implementing your habit. For me, I only spent one week writing the full amount I had laid out for myself.

Clearly, one week isn’t enough time to install a new habit.

So, while I spent eight weeks building the habit of “morning productivity,” I only spent one week building the full habit of writing 3,000 words and doing three marketing activities.

For the remaining five habits, my plan is to continue the gradual progression, but to reach my final goal by the end of week five or six. That will give me two to three weeks of not increasing at all, but rather simply practicing at my end goal.

What You Can Do With This: Play around with your progression and find what works best for you. Find the balance in your gradual progression where your weekly increase is enough for you to reach your end goal with a couple of weeks to spare, but small enough that it doesn’t seem overwhelming.

5) Ding Happens

Ding!

I am happy to say that in eight weeks, there were only five days that I missed implementing my habit plan. Two of those were planned in advance (I wasn’t working because a friend was visiting or I was travelling for a vacation day). Two were because I got caught out of town due to snow and didn’t have my work stuff with me. Only one day was missed simply because I fell into an old bad habit of procrastination.

Still, those three unplanned days, two for snow and one just because I’m me, made me feel down and guilty. The back-to-back snow days were a Wednesday and Thursday. It was incredibly tempting to me to just bag the plan for that Friday and “pick up again on Monday.”

Bad idea.

The key to habit building is to do it as consistently as possible. Setbacks will of course occur (Ding Happens!), but what’s important is how well you deal with those setbacks.

If you feel guilty, get mad at life for throwing you off, and then decide to quite (temporarily or permanently), then you are simply letting life push you around.

A better approach is to accept the fact that Ding Happens, things don’t always go as planned, and you’re not perfect. Then, forgive yourself for the missed day and get right back to it the next day.

An occasional misstep on the path to habit building isn’t a problem. The problem occurs when one misstep leads to two, which leads to three, which leads to a pattern that ends in giving up.

What You Can Do With This: Resolve now to not beat yourself up when you misstep. If you’re human, you will. Remind yourself to simply accept it, learn from it, and keep following your plan.

6) Reevaluation is Important

If you don't periodically reevaluate your actions, you may one day end up as a sad hobo clown. Be careful, and don't say I didn't warn you...

I will say this: Now that I have spent some time doing a tremendous amount of writing, I am not sure that the habit I set out for myself is optimal.

Don’t get me wrong; I love the output, and I still believe in the benefits of writing a tremendous amount every day.

The only problem is that writing that many new words takes time, and there are other things to do all day. Which means that while I am writing a lot, I have little time left over to edit, format, and post articles. I am currently sitting on 15-20 drafts that are anywhere from 60-9% complete!

Now that I’ve fulfilled my eight week commitment, I am going to reevaluate. Perhaps I will lower the total word count but add in an editing component. Or perhaps I will stick to the plan four days a week and devote one day to nothing but finishing up articles.

What You Can Do With This: The theoretical plan you lay out before you start may prove to be sub-optimal once you actually start implementing it. For the sake of self-discipline, stick out the first eight weeks as you originally planned (unless you are 100% sure that it makes no sense to continue). Once that time is past, however, take a look at whether the new habit is fully serving you or whether you need to change it.

In Conclusion

Everyone is different. I’m hoping I can decrease your learning curve by sharing some of the lessons I have learned so far. However, the only way you will figure this out it to try it for yourself, and figure out what works best for you.

I strongly encourage you to try to build one new habit over the next eight weeks. It is an incredibly powerful way to create a foundation that will lead to long term gains with less struggle and stress. And who doesn’t want that…?

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharWant help creating your habits and making 2011 absolutely rock? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!

Posted in Business Advice, Ding!, Lists, Motivation & Success | Tagged | Leave a comment

The Shattered Glass Syndrome: A Simple Way to Reduce Stress and Drama in Your Life

Posted on March 2, 2011 by Avish

(Photo by quinn.anya)

Sometimes the seeming simplest of actions can have far reaching and unfortunate consequences. If you want to reduce the stress, struggle, and drama in your life, I would suggest you develop the ability to look multiple steps ahead and see these problems before they arise.

I was reminded of this just this morning, when I went ahead and created a stupid problem for myself…

There I was, minding my own business, preparing my breakfast.

I needed a plate, and there happened to be one sitting right there in my drying rack. There were a few other things in the rack, including a large pan I had used for dinner the night before, but they should have been unaffected by me removing the plate.

Or so I thought…

It seems that pulling the plate out of the rack kicked of a series of rather unfortunate events.

First, the plate dislodged the pan, which fell over the side of the rack onto the counter.

Oh no.

There was a glass bottle of olive oil on that part of the counter, which the pan fell onto and then slowly, every so slowly, knocked over.

Oh no!

The bottle was ok, but the position of the bottle forced the pan to slide forward, towards the edge of the calendar. At this time, there happened to be three wine glasses on that part of the counter.

Oh no!

The pan knocks over the first two glasses, which remain intact. However, it shoves the third glass just hard enough to knock it off the edge of the counter. I see the glass, in true action movie slow motion fashion, tumble end over end towards the linoleum floor.

OoooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhNnnnnnnnnnnnooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Then it happens: CRASH!

Oh.

No.

No.

No!

NO!

Yes, the wine glass hits the floor and shatters into what seems like a million pieces. It is amazing how much spread a wine glass dropped from about three feet up creates when it shatters.

I spent the next fifteen minutes sweeping, vacuuming, and gingerly walking around my kitchen, cleaning the mess up.

Note: I think I got it all, but I am not 100% sure. If you happen to be barefoot in my apartment in the next 24 hours do two things:

  1. Walk very carefully near the kitchen
  2. Ask yourself, “Why am I barefoot in Avish’s apartment? Why am I in Avish’s apartment at all?” As far as I know, I have not invited you over this evening. Which is not to say that I wouldn’t enjoy an uninvited house guest. But I digress…

Once I finished cursing out:

  • The pan, for having the audacity to not only fall, but to knock other things over too.
  • The universe for letting this happen.
  • Isaac Newton for discovering gravity.

I calmed down and took some responsibility for what happened. This was all my fault because I made one simple mistake:

I didn’t pay attention to the chain reaction of events that pulling the first plate out of the drying rack would create.

Pulling out the plate was a simple action. However, it had far reaching (relatively) and annoying (very) consequences.

As I sat amongst hundreds of pieces of broken glass, contemplating the best way to get my barefoot self across the floor and over to the vacuum1, I realized there was an important lesson to be learned here. One that goes beyond falling pans and shattered glass:

People who lead well, reduce drama in their lives, and head off problems before they occur do so by being able to see multiple levels of the consequences of their actions and then adjusting their approach appropriately.

People who consistently create and compound the issues in their lives are much more likely to look only at the immediate consequences of their action. They often fail to look at the long term effects or the “consequences of the consequences.”

It’s the simple difference between thinking:

  • If I take this action, consequence A will happen, or…
  • If I take this action, consequence A will happen, which will lead to consequence B, which will lead to C, which will lead to….well, you get the picture.

For example, if you are a manager and you use anger to dress down your employees, the immediate consequence might be that they do what you say. Excellent, and if you take your thought process no farther, this will seem like a perfectly good plan.

However, if you think a few steps ahead, you’ll realize that, yes, they’ll do what you say. But that will lead to resentment and anger. Which will lead to gossip and bad-mouthing. Which could lead them to:

  • Perform just well enough to not get fired, but not well enough to help the business grow or make you look good. Or…
  • Quit, leaving you temporarily shorthanded and with the unpleasant task and expense of filling the position and training the new hire. Or…
  • Go over your head and report you to your supervisor, which could land you in hot water.
  • Surreptitiously record you and then post the video on YouTube, leading to you, when the video goes viral, winning the moniker of “World’s Most Jackassiest Boss.”

This is just one example. You can apply the same mentality to most situations, both personal and professional.

The next time you are faced with a decision, imagine a wine glass shattering on the floor and remind yourself to think beyond just the immediate consequences. You just might safe yourself a lot of headache and drama.

1 For those of you concerned about how I escaped, rest easy. There was a dust pan in close reach of where I was in the kitchen. I cleaned my way across the floor…

***
Motivational Humorist Avish ParasharDo you want help doing something great? Then sign up for some Smart Ass Mentoring now!

Posted in Business Advice, Motivation & Success | 2 Comments