People want more. More money, more people, more time. Corporate life consists of people who throw more people at a problem. Mostly without realising this can make things worse. Or alternatively, this mindset can be complicit in promoting activities that do not need doing in the first place. More money. Buying TV ads that no one watches because we did it last year and we need to do something otherwise what are we getting paid for? More time. Consistently insisting on ever increasing meeting lengths rather than looking to cut out the unnecessary peacocking of Dave the over confident and uninformed account manager or the dithering of Deborah the delayer of decisions. More time needed leads to more people needed. More people needed leads to more fixed cost. More fixed cost leads to more reliance on hitting forecast. Things are not always good - you can do more than you think with less. But when you try to do less with more, that’s when the "restructuring" and the layoffs begin. Unfortunately, like a government bailout or the collapse of a public service, it is those that made the organisation fragile in the first place the ones that usually escape unharmed. You are not employed to only get results in perfect circumstances. Cut the unnecessary and do more with what you already have. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog If you got promoted, what do you think your colleagues would think? Do you think they would be happy for you or pissed off. Do you think that would motivate them, seeing one of their own moving up, or make them want to leave, ‘why has that guy got promoted over me?’ What type of tactics do you want to employ? Who do you want to be? What culture do you want in your organisation? The answer to these is it does not really matter as long as you are happy with yourself. If you want to win at all costs, then probably no one will remember how you got there after a while and you will still have the title to show for it. You will be able to post-rationalise that that’s what it takes to be the greatest, or some other rhetoric. But you will remember. And so will the people around you at the time. Plus, just because you got what you think you wanted does not mean you will be happy with the result or the journey on the way there. But there is another route. A route of really caring for others. A route of lifting other up along with you. A route of widening the “old boys club” to be more inclusive. A route of self-awareness rather than simply cutting out those who disagree with you. Both work. One might take longer than the other. But which are you going to enjoy more in the long run? Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Any "profession" is rule-based and exam based. Therefore, can be better done by a computer or someone with the same rules that will work for less money than you. Since the industrial revolution, jobs have gone to machinery, robotics and assembly lines of the cheapest paid worker. Why would it not? There is literally no value in the alternative. The good advice then was to get a profession and education was the way out and the way up. Now the same thing is happening to office workers. Automation, machine learning, the internet. All much cheaper, more efficient and more effective than humans. But only humans who phone it in, who do the bare minimum, that despise interaction. Choose a job that is eminently human. Connection, caring, innovation. Those are the jobs for life now, not accountants or traders or production line operators. The world is changing. And you can either be on the right or wrong side of it. Whilst others are drinking in the middle of the day bemoaning the government, you could be starting a business, learning to sell, building a network. Remember there is money to be made when the market drops. Circumstance does not matter if you win either way. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog PowerPoint decks are only useful for the unprepared to communicate with the disinterested. Anyone who knows what they're talking about does not need an aid. And anyone interested in listening needs the speaker to come alive, not the slides. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Your state is the most important thing to get under control. If you are thinking of horrible things all the time, guess what you will find in life? Work on your mindset, the rest will follow. Try to not complain for a month. Switch your watch or armband to the wrong wrist when you catch yourself complaining. See what happens… Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Being centred in gratitude is a great way to get perspective and be happier. Entitlement is often used in modern language as a bad thing. In that people who think they are entitled to things do not wish to put in the work to get them. However, if you are in the mindset that you are going nowhere, then gratitude might make you feel better about it but it will not make you change. Flipping a little entitlement on in your brain may be the trigger you need. Between gratitude and entitlement emerges self-belief. Still wanting for more, to strive to become better all the time. Knowing you are better than your current situation and being prepared to work yourself out of it. At some point, there will be a breaking point between your current situation for which you are grateful, and a new opportunity to grow and better yourself. So, don’t use gratefulness as an excuse not to move forward. And don’t use entitlement as an excuse that you should get everything you want without working to better yourself. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog There is the adage that you are the average of the five people closest to you. In writings about how to be “successful”, the advice is usually then to cut out the losers and get closer to people that are more successful than you. If you have a truly toxic influence on your life then I agree, best to distance yourself from them. I have had to do this myself, but in hindsight, I realise that it was my problem rather than theirs. However, the ruthless culling of true friends based on their success is not something that should be encouraged. Ask yourself, are they really holding you back, or is it just you? Remember, you don’t have to listen to what other people say. If you cannot distance yourself from negativity and criticism then you are probably not going to have the spoils of the “successful” that can. Also, remember that you are one of the five too. How much are you trying to pull the others up? Those that have been there for you in the hard times. As Gary Vee says, there are two ways to build the biggest skyscraper in town. Afford this thinking to your nearest and dearest before you bulldoze everything around you. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog I think people gravitate towards wanting to help others because other people’s problems are always much clearer to fix than our own. If only we had the clarity of thought and the simplicity of action that we can afford others. The consultant, the self-help guru, the armchair critic. Before you take their advice, seek what have they actually built themselves. Find those who have not just told others what to do, but are actually practitioners of their craft. These are the people to follow. Because of the internet, they are more accessible than ever. And, because of the internet, they are also harder to find than ever, in amongst a sea of charlatans and snake oil salesmen, if you start looking in the wrong place. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Life is full of paradoxes. When young you have lots of time and not much money. At some point, that will switch and the opposite will be true. During that transition, your mentality will need to switch with it. When young, say yes to everything to be successful. Then say no to almost everything to be successful. Finding the right side of the paradox is the secret no one can tell you. It must come with hunger, experience, self-esteem and humility. Often paradoxes themselves. That is the beauty of this big game we are all playing. Enjoy it while you figure it out. It is the only way. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
What would you do with an extra hour per day? More from the Blog Why wait for someone else to change things you don’t like? If something bothers you, then use this trigger to go into action mode. Find a solution and implement a fix. What if there is no good solution available? Great. You just got your next business idea. Now go start. Fed up of meeting hell? Our iPhone app can help. Find out more.
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