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Category: Inspiration

The power of sadness

Life can throw curveballs. Disappointments can destroy the strongest resolve, even the most focused among us shaken by a series of bad luck and failure. Like fire, heartache can spread.

Yet too often it is easy (and in the most difficult darkness, completely forgivable) to forget the positive, creative power of sadness and grief.

Instead of trying to distinguish or contain this anguish, use it. Find the cause worth caring about. Solve impossible problems. Turn fury and rage into calculable action and make your tears count for something.

Selling and cold calls

Call 1: The worst.
Call 5: Still pretty bad.
Call 10: You care less if someone says no.
Call 12: Someone might be interested.
Call 15: You make a sale.
Call 16: You make another sale.
Call 17: You feel pretty great until someone else says no.
Call 18: You feel bad but make another call anyway.
Call 22: The person asks you to call back next week.
Call 24: Sale.
Call 25: You begin to realize the yes/no/maybe answers have nothing to do with you.
Call 30: Your pitch is better. You can clearly talk about the benefits your product/service provides.
Call 35: If someone says no, it doesn’t ruin your day.
Call 37: Sale.
Call 40: When someone says no, you refine your pitch.
Call 48: Sale.
Call 50: When someone says no, you recognize that person wasn’t the right fit for your product/service.
Call 52: Sale.
Call 53: Sale.
Call 54: The no response is no longer a Big Deal, and you keep going.
Call 55: Sale.
Call 56: Maybe. Appointment set.
Call 57: Sale.
Call 58: Sale.

The first calls are always the hardest. Keep going.

Your job description

It’s likely you interviewed for a specific set of tasks and duties, and that these same expectations were reviewed after you took the job. You may notice, however, that the longer you spend in the position, the more you observe inefficiencies — perhaps even inequalities — in your workplace.
“It’s not my job,” is a feeble excuse for standing by when you could be stepping up. Caring often isn’t written explicitly on your contract, but caring is exactly what you should do if you want the next salary bump…and if you want to be a better human.

4 ways to turn delegation into an art form

1. No one can do it like you

Before delegating assignments or tasks, accept the fact the work will not be exactly as you would have done it. This could end up in your favor (a new perspective, an interesting idea, a better method) or drive you crazy (inconsistencies, mistakes, imperfections). Only after you relinquish control will you be able to move forward with your projects.

2. Divvy mindfully

Spending time analyzing your workload and deciding who can take on responsibilities will save you headache and effort in the long run. Work that doesn’t require specific knowledge or experience can be easily handed off; complex projects that require expertise may require up-front training in order to be completed successfully. Be sure to pass the right work onto the right people.

3. Clear communication

Before any hours are clocked, take time to set expectations and discuss the goals at hand. Maintain open lines of communication throughout project completion and be sure directions are easy to understand and follow.

4. Provide leeway

Trusting colleagues and staff instills confidence. When employees feel valued, they are more likely to make smart, strong choices. When you delegate, you display trust in someone else’s capabilities and skills. Micromanaging, however, cuts off autonomy and discourages creative thinking. Allow room for ambition and insight; you may be pleasantly surprised with the results.

What does ease look like?

What does an “easy life” mean to you? What would you have time for? Do you see friends more often? Are you able to create, read, play? Do you eat differently, sleep better, take different care of your body? Are you more patient, relaxed, or kind?

Ease.

Dream about a life that feels like swimming through air. Meditate on it.

Then act.

Get rid of unnecessary stuff. Clean your house, clean your schedule, clean your body and mind. Slow down. Focus on one thing at a time (making lists can help with this). Wake up earlier and give yourself an extra twenty minutes to get to the office. Surround yourself with beauty: place freshly cut flowers on your desk, change your desktop photo, take morning walks, look up at the stars.

Inviting ease into your life opens the door to expansiveness, creativity, wonder, magic — and the unexpected. No, you won’t stop encountering difficult situations or irksome people, and your schedule won’t magically empty (you’ll have to do some work to clear out what is taking you away from your priorities). But you’ll start to move through life in a different way, and people will respond.

What does ease mean to you? Tweet me at @redheadlefthand.

My father was an immigrant

My father was an immigrant. He came to America to play soccer (that he did, and that he still does). My mother and he are from two completely different worlds, but they had me, an only child who landed somewhere in the middle. Pieces of them are tucked into the pockets of me: passion and reserve, impulse and calculation, art and measurement.
In school I was ridiculed for not being the “right religion” and was publicly humiliated for referring to this same school as a Nazi School. Even then, my father and my mother taught me to be kind, to keep good humor, and to stand up for myself and for those who didn’t have the courage or ability. I have devoted my life to helping people, people who work hard and risk much to call America home. I have watched dreams met and exceeded with joy and tears, and other dreams — well, dreams that were too heavy to take flight.
I have been The Foreigner, the noticeable outsider, and have felt small cuts of blatant stares and hurtful remarks (and other injustices I won’t detail here) that add up when you are not The Majority. I can only imagine how fractional my experiences must be when compared to those who flee wars, who watch loved ones die, who don’t make their own decisions to leave their homeland but are forced — by governments, by threats, by the hope of a better life for their children — to enter unwelcoming communities.
I do not have the precise words to express how heavy my heart has been the past few days. I have watched, again as an outsider, combing Twitter for updates and news sites for photos that might portray a situation far different from the reality I fear.
I want my country to be one of opportunity, receptivity, inclusion, honesty, acceptance, communication and peace. I am grateful for all those who are standing up for what is right, who are lending their voices to those who feel silenced, and who stubbornly refuse to give in. For that’s what we must do, today and always: stubbornly refuse to give in.