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Mindfulness is paying attention to what’s happening in the present moment. So if you’re aware that your mind is wandering, you’re halfway to a successful mindfulness practice. The other half of mindfulness is gently returning your attention back to the here and now. But this doesn’t mean you have to yank your misbehaving mind back to reality. Instead, think of it as a compassionate return to consciousness. Picture a feather on the ground, lifted up by a gust of wind and then floating back down to rest on the pavement. Wandering. Awareness. Return.
Via The Learning Factor
While it can be difficult to become a great leader and to achieve great things, practicing great leadership is actually quite easy. There is a tendency to overcomplicate or overthink what leadership is, but actually, leadership can be very simple. I have worked with teams all over the world, from dozens of cultures, and from different generations, Baby Boomers to Millennials, and I have found that if you provide these four simple things your team will appreciate you, follow you, and achieve great results.
Via The Learning Factor
Think about the workplace 10 years ago: The first iPhone wouldn’t be released until July 2007. There probably wasn’t “an app for that.” Open floor plans hadn’t yet become a privacy-busting phenomenon. And people weren’t obsessed with “the cloud.” Certainly, smart devices, cloud-based platforms, and the way we work have been transformed over the past decade. We’re changing jobs more often—now, more often because we want to. And the breakneck speed of technology is once again transforming the way we will work.
Via The Learning Factor
I can remember just a year ago when, by chance, I found myself having a conversation with a woman affiliated with the United Nations. I began to open up to her about my vision for reimagining higher education. I recognized there wasn’t anything logical about why she should be interested in my idea. I didn’t have much to show for it like a fancy website, sponsors or a big social media presence, but I did have one thing that set me apart—passion. I was able to convey my “why” behind my project, the burning need I felt for the education system to expand its horizons to prepare students for nontraditional career paths. She was immediately enrolled, and on the spot she invited me to present my idea to the UN in 3 weeks.
Via The Learning Factor
Job hunting takes different forms at different times in your life. Did you take a new job six months ago that isn’t working out, and are you ready to fire up your search all over again? That’s fine, just don’t use the same resume and cover letter. Since you’re hitting the job market so soon after getting out of it, you’ll need to change up your approach. It cuts the other way, too; your job search will be different if you’ve spent a long time at one company and start looking again for the first time in years. How employers see you depends a lot on how long or short your job tenure has been.
Via The Learning Factor
When I look back on my 20s, I see two different versions of myself. The first five years were dominated by feelings of insecurity and anxiety. I was living a life I did not want, and I wasn't confident enough to stop it. Then, in the second half of my 20s, I learned to embrace my purpose and began living the life I wanted -- the life of an entrepreneur. One thing is clear: The success I've experienced while launching and growing SkyBell would not have been possible with my old mindset. Now at age 32, I can clearly see my shift from a negative mindset to a success mindset was caused by my developing more confidence. When you feel confident, the whole world seems to belong to you. You suddenly surround yourself with other successful and confident people, and both opportunities and success come your way with ease. Here are 10 ways you can develop the mindset shared by the most confident people.
Via The Learning Factor, Mark E. Deschaine, PhD
One side effect of working at top software companies is the constant threat of attrition. People are highly valued and highly compensated, but there are always companies that will pay more. Engineers are regularly contacted by headhunters and by recruiters at other top companies trying to lure them away. If successful, this pays the new company double-dividends: it increases the hiring company's staff while depleting their competitor.
Via The Learning Factor
Life isn’t linear. No matter how well thought out your plans, they’ll eventually collide with a reality you didn’t plan on. Learning to "lean into the curves" when life doesn’t unfold as you’d hoped will help spare you untold stress, bounce back faster and emerge better off. Here’s five ways to do just that.
Via The Learning Factor
Visionary leadership and great management achieves the best results. Seems obvious right? Then why do so many companies get it wrong, especially during times of needed change? There are core fundamental differences between leadership and management that apply to any team or organization, but the focus of this article is to explore the strengths of each as they apply to leading organizational change. Generally speaking, management is a set of systems and processes designed for organizing, budgeting, staffing and problem solving to achieve the desired results of an organization. Leadership defines the vision, mission and what the "win" looks like in the future. It inspires the team to embody the beliefs and behaviors necessary to take the actions needed to achieve those results. The most successful transformations occur when strong visionary leadership converges with great management. Both are required to define a clear path, plan accordingly and see the mission plan through to fulfillment.
Via The Learning Factor
The term "coaching" has been trending as a corporate buzzword for some time now. We're all familiar with athletics coaches. But when someone advises us to find a coach to learn a new skill or solve... - Coaches Don’t Set the Agenda - Coaches Focus on the Future - Coaches Listen - Coaches Ask Questions - Coaches are Action-Oriented - Coaches Give Responsibility
Via Gust MEES
It's no secret that many people avoid feedback like it's a plague. The more frequent the feedback, the easier it is to learn and improve.
Via Les Howard, Gust MEES, David Hain
Inspiring greatness is all about leading by example. The best leaders have these habits in common.
Via Gust MEES
Do you have what it takes to be a leader in the businesses of the future? Plenty of companies are worried that the pool might not be big enough to pick from in the future, so check out this infographic by NowSourcing to see if you’ve got the right stuff to succeed.
Via Gust MEES
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In a national report released today, two out of three adults surveyed said they want to spend time with people who aren’t their age, while three in four wish there were more opportunities to get to know different age groups. Why, then, aren’t there more intergenerational programs and initiatives?
Via The Learning Factor
How should teams of experts working on knowledge-intensive projects be structured? Should they be hierarchical? Or will flexible, self-organized groups perform better? Teams often struggle with how to get the most value from the members’ expertise, to minimize conflict, to integrate their diverse expertise, and to leverage it during all phases of a project. The traditional approach is to put the person with the most experience and expertise in charge — for example, a head coach or a chief programmer. The assumption is that this person has the expertise to make the best decisions about how to allocate tasks and responsibilities. Teams that adopt this model feature a rigid hierarchy, whereby final decisions are centralized through this single, formally designated individual.
Via The Learning Factor
Each morning from 8:30 to 9:05 AM at our company’s headquarters, in San Francisco, we serve free breakfast to every employee. And I’m not talking about stale muffins and dry bagels. Today I ate a sloppy joe, cheesy scrambled eggs, home fries, crispy bacon, and sausage links. Healthy, I know. Tomorrow, I’m definitely going to grab a yogurt and some fruit. And don’t forget all the vegetarian, vegan, and gluten-free options. After all, this is California. I know what you’re thinking. Free food is the cost of admission to the Silicon Valley tech scene. Our startup, Pivotal, calls the South of Market (SOMA) neighborhood home, alongside companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Adobe, Slack, Salesforce, and Uber. So, of course, Pivotal serves free, catered meals. It’s just expected.
Via The Learning Factor
I'm a big fan of Microsoft's Satya Nadella. Since taking over as CEO just three years ago, he's used a combination of effective leadership and brilliant business moves to return the tech company to relevance. In a recent interview with Business Insider, Nadella credits Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck's best-selling book, Mindset, as the inspiration for the culture he's trying to build at Microsoft.
Via The Learning Factor
Let's call this call this curator friend Cynthia. Cynthia wrote back, “Two other curators worked with me on this (and may join us!), so I can’t take full credit.” She asked that I instead reference her with the significantly less exciting descriptor, “one of the curators of this exhibition." She was understandably hesitant to get all the credit and wanted to make clear that there were other people involved with the exhibition. While accurate, the new version was far less descriptive and complimentary than what I’d suggested. Feel familiar? The balancing act women navigate surrounding self promotion can be exhausting.
Via The Learning Factor
One in four American adults went to a healthcare provider for neck and back pain, according to a 2016 Gallup study. In addition, the report found 65% of adults sought care for neck and back pain at some point in their lives. When you factor in how many adults are hunched over computer desks, sitting for extended periods of time at work and bending their neck to read mobile devices, these statistics aren’t so surprising. Just about everyone has been told to “stand up straight” at some point in their lives—and it turns out that mom was right. Posture is a key element to good health. It is right up there with eating healthy, getting enough sleep and exercising. Bad posture can lead to back, neck and jaw pain, breathing difficulty, balance issues and joint problems. A recent study also found that good posture can improve your mental wellbeing.
Via The Learning Factor
Lately I’ve been spending more of my time and energy on freelance work because sometimes running a startup can be hard on the personal bank account. I’ve been lucky to be able to set aside time to take on that work and look for more, but it’s been a huge learning process. Balancing freelance and startup work can make life kind of crazy. And since I do remote work I’m often scheduling meetings and conversations across several time zones. I’m loving being busy though and am learning so much. One of the things I’ve learned is to make sure I take the time to have quiet, slow moments throughout my day. It helps me appreciate each day more. Here's how I do it:
Via The Learning Factor
Ever zone out while someone is talking? Of course. We all do. The average human has an eight-second attention span. With electronic distractions competing for your time and an abundance of responsibilities at work, it makes listening attentively to someone else speak pretty difficult. “We are living in a time when it’s more challenging to be consistently aware and intentional because so many things are demanding our attention. Our brains haven’t caught up to the technology that’s feeding them,” says Scott Eblin, author of Overworked and Overwhelmed: The Mindfulness Alternative. “The impact of this leaves people in a chronic condition of fight or flight.”
Via The Learning Factor
Leadership isn’t learned in any textbook. It is born in the trenches where results are achieved, conflict occurs, people engage and pain is experienced. Every day is different. Each day teaches you something new. My schooling as a leader covered more than 12,000 days; here are five key lessons they taught me.
Via Marc Wachtfogel, Ph.D.
Science confirms that our ability to inspire, empower and actualize our potential has never been greater; remember this, empower it, use it! Neuroscience confirms that we can rewrite default patterns of thinking, communicating and doing; we can build new emotional set-points that take us forward faster and better while also enhancing our ability to focus, ideate, learn and relearn. Learn more: - http://www.scoop.it/t/21st-century-learning-and-teaching/?tag=LeaderShip
Via Gust MEES, Don Cloud, Trish Sadar
If you want a glimpse of the future of technology and its impact on society, study how younger generations interact with one another today. While everyone is talking about Millennials these days, there’s another, potential more disruptive generation behind them…Generation Z.
Via Bobby Dillard
In addition to traits of superior leadership in any discipline, such as integrity and responsibility, here are ten characteristics that are particular to excellent community leaders.
Via Gust MEES, David Hain
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You can practice this super-simple meditation throughout the day.
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