Yasim's Blog

First, welcome to the club. Checkbox 1: Was This Really My True North? Sometimes things fail. Why? Because you may not have cared enough. The fact is, highly capable people are often driven to success standards that are extrinsically measured — e.g. they provide external credentialization — but have little in common with what they truly wanted to accomplish. If you are working without meaning in a role, task, or job, your missing drive will make it harder for you to succeed. If you are conducting a post-mortem of a failure, ask yourself, Was I truly self-motivated to succeed, or was someone (or something) else driving me to succeed? If you were following your authentic "true north" — a goal, purpose, or calling you know you were born to follow — it makes sense to evaluate how and why things went awry. Checkbox 2: Was My Own Standard Reasonable? Failure has much to do with internal expectations. If things don't go your way when you're launching a new strategy, or pitch...

Here are ten big ideas from Abby Marks-Beale’s 10 Days to Faster Reading … #1. Linear Reading is Inefficient – You Don’t Have to Read Every Word to Extract Value from Non-Fiction Material The purpose of non-fiction reading is not to read every word on every page – it’s to extract useful information from the material. Growing up, most of us learned to read by starting with the first word on the first page, then continuing to read until we get to the last word on the last page. Unless you’ve learned structured non-fiction reading techniques, you probably still read this way, even though it’s extremely inefficient. Efficient reading is non-linear – a series of quick skims, skipping around, referencing, and note-taking. The purpose is not 100% eye-coverage of the text: it’s to extract all of the useful information that’s relevant to what you want to do. It’s easy to get hung up on “reading the book” as turning pages until there are no more pages to turn. Once you get comfortable with th...

When someone tells you that you need to "manage up," what he or she is really saying is that you need to stretch yourself . You need to go above and beyond the tasks assigned to you so that you can enhance your manager's work , says Rosanne Badowski, co-author of "Managing Up: How to Forge an Effective Relationship With Those Above You." "Doing what you can to make your manager's job easier will not only help them do their job, but you will be considered a valuable asset to your manager and to your organization," she says. "You want to be described as indispensable." By mastering the "managing up" concept, you can help others recognize your value within the organization. "It will give you an advantage when you are being considered for greater job responsibilities," says Ms. Badowski . "It will help in your career advancement, and it gives you an edge over the competition when you are being considered for promotio...

How Important Are Your Goals? No matter what goals you are working toward in life, you must have a strong investment in achieving them. If your goals aren't important to you and you've got nothing to lose by quitting, you probably won’t summon enough motivation to get it done. Occasionally it is possible to push yourself to do something even if it’s not that important to you, but most often that’s because you’re trying to avoid a negative consequence, not because you feel inspired about taking action. However, when we’re talking about powerful motivation to change your life, if you don’t have a strong vested interest in the end result, you just WON’T do it - period! Think about the last time you set a goal, like losing weight or quitting smoking. If you were not absolutely 100% committed when you got started, you likely didn't stay with it very long. You may have been fired up at the beginning, like most people are when they set a goal. But as time went on you either ...

Pool workouts help you build fitness, strength, and flexibility—without risking injury. Like most runners, I'd rather look at lane lines on a track than in a pool. But 20 years ago, beset by recurring leg injuries, I took to the water in order to minimize the pounding. But I don't just count laps; I also "run." And what I've discovered is that when it comes to fitness, recovery, and feeling good, an hour in the pool is worth as much as an hour on the roads. The resistance of water offers a cooling workout that taxes the body enough to maintain cardiovascular and muscular-skeletal fitness, while its buoyancy and zero-impact environment aids in recovery and injury prevention. A study published in the Journal of Sports Medicine and Physical Fitness compared groups that did pool running with those that did tread-mill running and found virtually equal VO2 max values (aerobic capacity) . Another study by California State University Northridge found that when runners coo...

How not to ruin your next career move New research suggests many top business executives make elementary mistakes when searching for new jobs Harvard Business Review report identifies five common mistakes Executives often leave for money and overestimate their own abilities Got a job offer or thinking of making a career move in 2010? You would be wise to do your homework to avoid ruining your next move, new research suggests. A report published in this month's Harvard Business Review suggests that even high-ranking executives make elementary mistakes when searching for a new role. In researching "Five Ways to Bungle a Job Change", authors Boris Groysberg and Robin Abrahams interviewed 400 executive research consultants, 500 high level executives and the heads of Human Resources at 15 multinational companies. "It all kept coming down to the same thing," Robin Abrahams, research associate at Harvard Business School, told CNN. "Five mistakes came out consiste...