My Best Mistake: Quitting My Dream Job!

Found this article and thought of a few people I have met during my time working in this business!

Everyone thought it was a huge mistake when I quit my first post-college job after only two weeks.

The reason was that from high school forward, I’d had a single career goal: I wanted to be a psychologist who worked with children. My family didn’t have a lot of money, which meant that I had to work my way through school and take on a lot of debt. So it was a big deal when I graduated and was lucky enough to find a job in that field. I could slowly pay off my loans, while doing what I’d always wanted.

But it was also 1995, and suddenly there was this new thing called the Internet. I had seen it and fallen completely in love with it. The technology was so exciting that I knew I had to try working in the field.

This kind of thing happens to a lot of people. Your life gets momentum in one direction, and everyone starts thinking of you as someone who does X. Your dad sold cars; so you’re going to sell cars. You got an MFA in creative writing, so you have to be a poet. You got a law degree, so you have to join a law firm. It can be extremely difficult to step out of that path and do something different.

But sometimes you have to take that risk and endure the criticism you’re going to hear—especially if you’re young and something really grabs your attention. I’d wanted to be a psychologist like some kids want to be firemen or baseball players. So it shocked everyone when I suddenly decided to shift gears and work in technology. I still remember my boss telling me it was the biggest mistake I’d ever make.

As it happens, I did ok with the new direction. I quickly got a job in the field and founded my first company not long after.

One last point. Just because you take up a new dream doesn’t mean you have to shelve the other completely. In fact, if you really love something, it may come back to you. Recently, I was in a room with an official from the Special Olympics, and I told him this story. He invited me to volunteer with the organization, and I jumped at the chance.

So perhaps the most important thing to remember about giving up your big dream is that you may not be giving it up at all.

Financial Planning Tips

Hey Everyone! I found some great financial planning tips that I wanted to share with you all. Starting you career can be a challenge financially so I hope this can give you an advantage!

Learn Self Control
If you're lucky, your parents taught you this skill when you were a kid. If not, keep in mind that the sooner you learn the fine art of delaying gratification, the sooner you'll find it easy to keep your finances in order. Although you can effortlessly purchase an item on credit the minute you want it, it's better to wait until you've actually saved up the money. Do you really want to pay interest on a pair of jeans or a box of cereal? 
If you make a habit of putting all your purchases on credit cards, regardless of whether you can pay your bill in full at the end of the month, you might still be paying for those items in 10 years. If you want to keep your credit cards for the convenience factor or the rewards they offer, make sure to always pay your balance in full when the bill arrives, and don't carry more cards than you can keep track of.

Take Control of Your Own Financial Future 
If you don't learn to manage your own money, other people will find ways to (mis)manage it for you. Some of these people may be ill-intentioned, like unscrupulous commission-based financial planners. Others may be well-meaning, but may not know what they're doing, like Grandma Betty who really wants you to buy a house even though you can only afford a treacherous adjustable-rate mortgage.

Instead of relying on others for advice, take charge and read a few basic books on personal finance. Once you're armed with personal finance knowledge, don't let anyone catch you off guard - whether it's a significant other that slowly siphons your bank account or friends who want you to go out and blow tons of money with them every weekend. Understanding how money works is the first step toward making your money work for you.

Know Where Your Money Goes 
Once you've gone through a few personal finance books, you'll realize how important it is to make sure your expenses aren't exceeding your income. The best way to do this is by budgeting. Once you see how your morning java adds up over the course of a month, you'll realize that making small, manageable changes in your everyday expenses can have just as big of an impact on your financial situation as getting a raise. In addition, keeping your recurring monthly expenses as low as possible will also save you big bucks over time. If you don't waste your money on a posh apartment now, you might be able to afford a nice condo or a house before you know it.

Know what healthy spending looks like
Most of us were never taught what healthy spending looks like. My favorite rule of thumb comes from (Sen.) Elizabeth Warren's book written with her daughter, Amelia Warren Tyagi, called "All Your Worth: The Ultimate Lifetime Money Plan." The rule of thumb: 50/30/20. The idea is 50% of your take-home pay goes to needs, 30% to wants, 20% to savings. Keep that rule of thumb in mind and a young person can avoid so many classic financial mistakes.

Secrets to Habit Change

The Willpower Books of 2012

Weak willpower muscles? These books will pump you up!

by Meg Selig in Changepower

While 2012 is still visible in the rear-view mirror, let’s take a look at a trio of books about will power published, and/or publicized, in 2012. If you feel poor in willpower, you will get rich quick from perusing these three engaging and helpful books. Bulleted tips will help you decide which one(s) might be useful for your personal willpower challenge.

The phrase “willpower challenge” is from Dr. Kelly McGonigal. McGonigal, a fellow PT blogger, has written The Willpower Instinct: How Self-Control Works, Why It Matters, and What You Can Do to Get More of It.  McGonigal teaches a 10-week course, “The Science of Willpower,” at Stanford University; her 10-chapter book mirrors that course, complete with willpower experiments and chapter summaries. McGonigal combines a deep grounding in the willpower research with a compassionate and light-hearted take on our struggles with ourselves as we strive to reach goals that matter. The three skills that, in her view, serve as the foundation of willpower are: (1) self-awareness; (2) self-care; and (3) remembering the goals or values that matter most to you.

Takeaway tips from The Willpower Instinct:

• The “willpower instinct,” aka, “self-control,” evolved so that we could all cooperate, control our baser impulses, and refrain from shouting, “I hate you,” at an annoying colleague. So you DO have willpower!
• It takes self-awareness to change a habit. Alcohol, sleep-deprivation, distraction, and stress are enemies of willpower because they make us less self-aware and more prone to impulsiveness.
• To train the part of your brain that’s in charge of willpower, take care of yourself in healthy ways, such as exercising, taking brain breaks, talking to supportive people, eating better, and practicing mindfulness.  
• Remind yourself that you are using your willpower to get something you want.
• When you slip up, self-compassion will help more than self-criticism, shame, and guilt.

If you wish you could take a fun and helpful class about willpower, read this book. Wish granted!

Super-researcher Roy Baumeister, with science writer John Tierney, has co-authored Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.  Baumeister’s research is the source of the much-discussed idea that willpower is a limited resource.  According to this theory, willpower is like a muscle which tires with over-use. Willpower, decision-making, and being nice when you don’t want to all drain the same cognitive pool in the short run.  But in the long run, practicing willpower, like exercising your muscles regularly, will strengthen it.

One practical benefit of this view of willpower is that it helps you set priorities. If you only have so much willpower energy on a given day, how do you want to spend that energy? Once you decide, you can budget your willpower and spend it where you need it the most.

Takeaway tips from Willpower:

• Willpower and IQ are the two best predictors of success in life.  Since you can’t do much about IQ, strengthen your willpower.
• Willpower is like a muscle.  Exercise it, and it will get stronger.  But be aware that, like a muscle, it will get fatigued if over-used.
• Using willpower, making decisions, and dealing with difficult people all drain the same reservoir of self-control.  Avoid hard decisions when energy is low.
• Arrange your life to minimize the need for willpower. Remove temptations. Save willpower for challenging situations.
• The first step to self-control is to set a goal; the second step is to monitor your progress along the way. 
• The best use of self-control is to form habits that you can eventually do automatically—without willpower.

Baumeister and Tierney’s willpower insights are embedded in riveting stories of personal transformation.  Unputdownable!

The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg, is now a habitual resident on the New York Times best-seller list. Duhigg also stresses that the best way to strengthen willpower is to make it into a habit. To do this, know the habit loop—the cues that trigger your habit, your resulting habit routine, and the rewards you get from your habit.  Duhigg argues that you can change a habit successfully by keeping the cues and rewards the same, while changing the routine. This model seems too simple to me, in part because it ignores the "why" of a person's habit change, but Duhigg’s talent for story-telling makes his argument very persuasive. 

Takeaway tips from The Power of Habit:

• If you change one critical habit pattern—a “keystone habit”—you may be able to transform other related habits. Example: The decision to exercise regularly may trigger positive changes in eating routines, spending patterns, and productivity. 
• To save your willpower, create habits that allow your brain to work on automatic pilot. 
• Fight a bad habit by replacing an old routine with a new one.  
• Organizations and businesses can deliberately create routines that nourish good habits.  For example, Starbucks employees are trained to respond calmly to complaining customers, using a method dubbed, appropriately enough, the LATTE method: Listen to the customer; Acknowledge the complaint; Take action by solving the problem; Thank them; and Explain why the problem occurred.

I had never thought of recommending a job at Starbucks as an anger management technique, but after reading the success story of a young man in one of Duhigg’s anecdotes, I now will! 

I love books which are both worthwhile AND entertaining, and these three books all fit that bill admirably. I’ve bought them all for my “willpower collection," and I recommend them all to you.

Now, off to get--or give--a LATTE!

Charisma & Charismatic Leadership

What Is Charisma and Charismatic Leadership?

Is charisma born or made? What makes leaders charismatic?

Many of history’s most effective leaders are labeled charismatic. Yet, there is a great deal of controversy about whether charisma is made or born, and if charismatic leaders are actually effective. A while back, I was interviewed as part of a celebration of the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. Many of the most frequently asked questions about charismatic leadership were part of that interview.

Question: Martin Luther King Jr., Gandhi, and Winston Churchill were known as dynamic, charismatic and inspirational leaders. What particular traits or qualities did someone like MLK possess that allowed him to lead and inspire so many people?
Charismatic leaders are essentially very skilled communicators – individuals who are both verbally eloquent, but also able to communicate to followers on a deep, emotional level. They are able to articulate a compelling or captivating vision, and are able to arouse strong emotions in followers.

Question: Is charisma something that you are born with – you either have it or you don’t? Do you think most leaders, politicians and inspirational figures have charisma and is it that particular quality which makes them stand out?
Charisma is really a process – an interaction between the qualities of the charismatic leader, the followers and their needs and identification with the leader, and the situation that calls out for a charismatic leader, such as a need for change or a crisis. But when it comes to the charismatic qualities of leaders, the emphasis is on how they communicate to followers and whether they are able to gain followers’ trust, and influence and persuade them to follow.
Most politicians, particularly on the national scene, have developed their ability to communicate effectively – to make speeches, “work the room” with potential donors and supporters, etc. So many seasoned politicians have a lot of “personal charisma.”

Question: What are several important characteristics that you believe every leader should possess?
A model that I think represents the very best leaders, and research bears this out, is transformational leadership. You can think of transformational leadership as going beyond charisma, because two of the components of transformational leadership deal with charisma. They are:
Idealized Influence, the first component, is the leader’s ability to be a positive (and moral) role model for followers. The transformational leader also “walks the talk,” and is on the “front line” working with followers (think MLK Jr.), or leaders who sacrifice along with their followers. In business, the charismatic/transformational leader sometimes serves as the “face” of the company or the movement (think Steve Jobs).
Inspirational Motivation is the second quality of transformational leaders and it is what charismatic leaders are noted for: their ability to inspire and motivate followers to perform at high levels, and to be committed to the organization or the cause.
The other two elements of transformational leadership are: Intellectual Stimulation – challenging followers to be creative and think outside of the box – and Individualized Consideration – being responsive to the feelings and developmental needs of followers.
Transformational leaders are charismatic, but they are also noted for leading high performing groups and teams, and developing followers’ leadership capacity, as much as helping the group or organization to change and innovate.

Question: What are some behaviors or traits that might derail a leader/politician’s career or stand in their path to success?
The biggest thing that can derail a leader is arrogance, and a lack of concern or responsiveness to followers and constituents. We have seen how politicians’ and CEOs’ arrogance – thinking they are above the law, and committing ethical violations lead to their demise. Also, a leader needs to succeed more often than not, and learn from mistakes and setbacks.

Question: Are leaders born or made, in your opinion?
This isn’t something that requires my opinion, because this question has been well researched. Twin studies by Richard Arvey and his colleagues have estimated that leadership is about 2/3 “made” and 1/3 “born.” This makes sense, though, if we see much of leadership as a set of learned skills and competencies: ability to communicate, strategize, problem solve, etc. These take time to develop.
This question would have broad implications for leadership, for if it were all (or mostly) born, then our efforts should be directed toward identifying and selecting leaders, and we would be wasting our time on leader development programs. But, the research suggests that putting resources into leader development makes sense, and recent meta-analyses of these programs suggest that, in general, they work and lead to positive gains

by Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D. in Cutting-Edge Leadership

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