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2022Happiness

97 – Abandon the Time Traps

by Jill

https://www.oliverburkeman.com/

We Lost Control Early – From an early age, with school lessons and chores, we learn about managing time, which ends up being a trap for us later. 

Holiday vs. Vacation – Holidays are better than vacations because everyone is off. People can spend time with their loved ones. They also keep work from piling up since everyone is out of the office. Holidays are more relaxing, and people are happier too. 

Getting True Rest – Learn to rest in a truly relaxing way. Have hobbies that have no purpose and no end game or goal. Try for hobbies that allow you to enjoy your time. 

Paying Attention – Attention is the first step to genuine appreciation. If we aren’t paying attention to the people or the incredible experiences around us, we are not enjoying everything life offers us. 

Stop Looking for the Unobtainable – Stop trying to accomplish things that are either too hard, too many tasks, too much multitasking, or something outside our abilities. If we spend time doing these tasks, we are not doing the tasks that are important to us or things we could get done. 

Relieve Stress – Having too many tasks or things we cannot get done and get stressed. So what do you do to relieve stress? Are you playing mindless games or taking on additional tasks hoping to distract you from what you should be doing. By having proper rest and preventing yourself from getting that stressed, you can also avoid the bad habits you picked up to relieve stress. 

Get Achievable Goals – Reduce the number of goals and start practicing incrementalism which means breaking your tasks into small steps. 

Do Your Purpose – Ensure your tasks align with the functions you should be doing because they get you close to your purpose. This is what you are meant to do, that you are good at, and helps the world. For example, focusing on talent might mean you can accomplish the task but might not be happy. Following your dreams might mean you aren’t good at what you hope to do. But the purpose is that perfect combination of skill, desire, and benefit. 

Abandon Hope in the Trap – Give up on the hope you can do it all or get done the things you shouldn’t get done. Forget the idea that if only you were more organized, or if you were more organized or had more apps, you could do it all. You can’t, and the sooner you realize it and give up, the sooner you can move on to your real purpose. 

Challenge

Come up with a list of the very things not that you feel like you should be doing? Don’t list the tasks you feel that you must do. Instead, make sure it is your purpose and the thing that will move the world. But what’s that one thing that if you were doing it, you would change the world and your life, and you would do so in a way that makes you extraordinarily liberated and happy.

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2022Goals

96 – Our Damaging Concept of Time

by Jill

Take a look at how we see time could be damaging our goals and happiness. The most important resources we have is time and attention. Get those back!

Four Thousand Weeks

We Try to Pack It All In – We think we can be more efficient with our time. We believe we can pack in everything if we are only more efficient. 

We Used to be Tasked Oriented – In history, we had very little access to an exact time, and it primarily didn’t help people because they were task-oriented and had to complete tasks and not just finish and start work at times. So for most of human existence, all time was just for us to survive. 

Now It is a Conveyer Belt – It feels like time flies off the end of a conveyor belt and that we can never keep up. It makes us frustrated and stressed. 

We Have to Make Hard Choices – To get over this stress and competition for our time and attention. We must make hard decisions and learn to say no. 

We Distract Ourselves Because of Time Stress – When the stress gets worse, we start to distract ourselves with silly games and other timewasters. 

Is Tech to Blame? Tech allows us to record and organize tasks, will enable us never to drop any task, and reminds us to do it all. We think with this efficiency. We can do it all. We should drop tasks and pare down the list. Tech is not to blame. Our harmful use of task lists is to blame, and if we used the tool only to track the critical tasks we should do, tech would be a powerful tool. 

Ruthlessly Eliminate and Say ‘No” – To get to a place where you can use your time better and reduce your stress, distractions, and feeling overwhelmed, pick the things that should be done and start cutting tasks. 

Time and Attention are the Most Important

The Shortness of Life – Seneca suggested that everyone was wasting their lives on silly stuff like politics and parties. Instead, do the things that matter. 

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2022Goals

95 – Ending the Lies

by Jill

Lying to yourself will stall every goal or dream you have, and it must stop now. You aren’t fine. You don’t suck or lost or too old or unskilled. Learn how to identify and combat lies. Face the truth and reach for the right solutions. 

Invent a Story – This is an elaborate lie that involves a story with intrigue. People think the more details they put into a lie. The more people will believe them. So, we tell stories about why we can’t get what we want in elaborate stories with sweeping histories and bleak futures. 

The Blatant Lie – This is a lie that is so clearly a lie without any sense of self-respect. You flat out lie. Did you do the dishes? Yes! That is not true!

The White Lie – This is a tiny lie and perhaps is the most damaging. We say a slight untruth to spare our feelings or make ourselves feel better. You didn’t do your goals today, but it’s fine. You will undoubtedly do it tomorrow. You know you won’t, but this white lie helps you not get upset at yourself and causes no impact on tomorrow. 

The Brash Lie – This preposterous lie is just bizarre and boastful and is meant to cheer you up or make you feel better without good reason. You don’t exercise because you don’t need it! You get plenty of motion in daily efforts! This isn’t true and is just an excuse. 

Lie of Omission – This lie is about omitting information that would prove this to be a lie. For example, tell yourself you need to work the weekend, and your project will be fine. You aren’t exposing yourself because you are constantly behind, and you have too much on your plate. A weekend will not fix your problem. Instead, you need to take your projects and cut out many tasks. 

How to Tell if You Are Lying – Do you shift your seat or have nervous habits while telling yourself these lies? Do you sweat or feel jittery while telling yourself something? Do you feel like you repeat it repeatedly and embellish it as if to convince yourself? Can you look at yourself, find the mirror and see it written all over your face? You are probably lying to yourself, and it must stop!

Why Do We Lie? – We lie to spare our feelings, so we don’t feel bad about our lack of action. We try to get ourselves out of doing something we do not wish to do. We entertain ourselves with a lie, so we don’t have to face facts. 

How Do We Stop Lying? You stop lying by taking steps to prevent and never lie again. The more we do it, the better we get at it, and the more we lie. Once we start taking steps to stop, it will be easier to face the truth, tell it, and hear it. When you catch yourself in a lie, immediately stop, even if you must yell STOP out loud or in your head. Then, catch yourself not lying and facing the truth, and praise your step forward. 

Challenge

Take the lies you wrote down last week and categorize them. Do you have a type of lie you like to rely on? List a few contrary opinions to this lie and identify why it is untrue. Think about why you told yourself the life. What are a few ways you can counteract the lie with the truth?

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2022Goals

94 – Lies We Tell Ourselves

by Jill

It’s bad enough to lie, but it stops us from achieving our dreams when we tell ourselves lies. We can’t fix what we won’t be honest about.

I Will Never Get My Goals – You will never get your goals if you keep telling yourself that you can’t get them. If the plans are reasonable, you should be able to work towards your goal. 

I Will Never Be Good at This – You will never get good if you keep telling yourself this! Getting good at something possible is about intelligent and targeted practice. 

I am Not Lucky – People who feel unlucky have an external locus of control. Fate is against them, and they have control over what they can get in life. Thomas Jefferson said I’m a great believer in luck, and the harder I work, the more I have of it.

I Have No Time – Of course, you have time, at least a little. We all do things for stress relief but isn’t there sometimes you can carve out?

I was Not Born with Advantages – Having advantages is a significant step up and helpful. But if you have no advantages, you can still get there. It will take work and a great plan, but you can get your goal. 

I Am Not Perfect – And you do not have to be either. Your strengths and faults allow you to be successful. So you do not need perfect. But instead, you need your unique perspective. 

Everything Stinks – Everything can’t stink! It is a blanket way of getting out of any goal, hope, or dream. It is the lie that blanks out everything. Some things stink, some are fine, and some are great. If you believe this lie, you need perspective on how many things are going your way. 

This Thing is Preventing Success – Hurdles in life can mean you might not be able to reach goals as fast as you wish, but you can get there. The idea is that you must mitigate the hurdles and reduce their impact. They might give you a better perspective and make your projects better. 

I Need Something First – You might feel you need something special to achieve your goals, and indeed some things help. But that doesn’t mean you can’t get what you want without those things. There are always ways around the hurdles.

Why Bother? – You might tell yourself that you won’t get what you want. You could tell yourself what you want doesn’t matter. But what you do does matter and what you want is essential. Even if it doesn’t work the way you hope, you will always get value. 

I Need More Information – It can feel like more information will help, another book, another class, or one more week of research. That is procrastination. More time can teach you something new, but you can start now. You know what to do next. Do it. 

I Must Attain Perfect Success – You may feel to do your goals, you must be perfect at what you are trying to do. You might feel you lack enough perfection to succeed, but everyone has flaws. No one is perfect. Keep going. This is a big lie. 

I Will Start Tomorrow – Nope! You won’t! There will be a new excuse tomorrow. Start now. 

I’m Fine – Are you fine, or are you telling yourself this because it lets you off the hook with your dreams? Are you saying this because it is a way to dismiss your need for something new? Stop saying this terrible lie. 

I am Entitled – The world owes you new and better things! Others have this goal and haven’t worked as hard as you! This lie makes you decide you don’t need to work for your goals; when they fail, it isn’t your fault. 

I Can’t Be Unique – There are a lot of best practices and pathways to achieving goals. You might feel like you must follow these systems to get your goal all the time and not add your uniqueness to the project. But it will be your uniqueness that makes the project better. The world is not made for cookie-cutter plans or people. 

Challenge

Start writing down five lies that you tell yourself frequently. Write them down. Are you the worst? No, you’re not the worst. Is it too late for you? Nope, it’s not too late either. But start writing them down and coming up with why those items are lies.

Transcript

[Music] Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. This is Jill. Have you ever wondered how lying to yourself is damaging to everything you do? That’s what we’ll talk about today. [Music] We must kill the lives we believe before they kill our ability to live life to its full. Nikki Hardy

Today we’re going to talk about the lies we tell ourselves, and it’s one of the most damaging things we do to just destroy our goals. Because if we lie to ourselves and we don’t tell ourselves what’s honestly going on, or how we’re honestly feeling about something, we can never really fix it. Imagine if you had some kind of a store where all the employees were lying to the owner and never telling that owner what’s going wrong, what’s happening. owner can never fix those things. It’s the same thing for us. We can never fix what we can’t identify and if we lie to ourselves about what’s really wrong we never get there. So the first episode we’re going to talk about what lies we tell ourselves and then in the next episode we’re going to talk a little bit about why we lie and what we can do about it. The lies we tell ourselves is gonna be a big long list of the different lies we tell ourselves and what can we tell ourselves instead so that we can get past them? I can never get my goals It’s just never going to happen and that’s not true It’s true if you keep saying that to yourself, but if you start to actually look at the problem Look at the situation Then you might be able to get those things you might be able to create a plan You may be able to take small steps and get to that place where you can do it This is where a bit of honesty takes place Because if you’re saying I want to be a quarterback in the NFL or I want to be the captain of my soccer team Maybe that won’t happen Maybe that requires something that you don’t have and so maybe you do actually have to look at a more realistic goal And so maybe you can never be a thing But maybe you could do something that’s pretty darn close or something that is really in line with what you want. I I always wanted to be an astronaut. And at some point, I was told by my dad, I have terrible eyesight. And because of that, I could never become an astronaut in the program. And so instead, I found other ways to do it. I was in honors astronomy. I did a lot of research inside of astronomy. And even now I’m thinking about doing some podcasting about citizen science, about how we can observe the world around us and learn to appreciate things like astronomy better. I’m no good at X. And that may be true. It may be something that you’re not good at, but most things, not everything, you can get pretty darn good at it by just taking a class, starting out small, doing a lot of practice. It’s not the 10,000 hour rule when it comes to practice to get good at something. It’s about strategically placing practices in your path, about doing the next thing that will make you better, about getting a good plan or a good program or a good class. And maybe you’re not going to be perfect at something, but chances are in most things, you can get pretty good at things just by taking some steps towards it. “I’m not lucky” or “That person got it because they’re lucky “and I’m not lucky.” And both of those statements aren’t necessarily true. Luck is one of those things that when you work harder, when you come up with a plan, when you start taking small steps towards that progress, amazingly, you start getting luckier. And luck tends to be what they call an attribution error. We tend to think of things in our lives as caused by something. They’re either caused by me, internal attribution, or it’s caused by other people, external attribution. But if I’m lucky or I’m unlucky, that’s an external attribution. And we have a lot more power in our own lives than we think we do. If you start throwing everything up as fate or throwing everything into luck, you may not feel like you can get what you want because you’ve just tossed it out to the universe. And there’s no such thing. Other people who got what they got, sure, maybe they were born in a better family, born in a better economic situation. You have hurdles, there’s no doubt, but that’s not luck. And there are ways to get past those hurdles if you keep going, if you just start. And that means that you’re gonna have to be a little bit better, you’re gonna have to have a pretty good plan, but you can get there. I have no time. Boy, that’s the lie I love to tell myself the most. I have no time. I have this busy job. I have a podcast. I have a lot of things to do. But I bet that if I started writing down all those times where I just wasted time, I would find a lot of time there. I’d find time where I’m just playing a game, watching TV, or doing something silly like sorting a drawer that doesn’t need to be sorted. I’d probably find time. Now, it’s not to say that I don’t need downtime. Everybody needs downtime. And so if playing a game helps gel your mind, gives you a little bit of relaxation, helps you de-stress a little bit, absolutely do it. But there’s a point too, where you could stop and start getting something done towards your plan. Next slide. I was born in a place or a time or with parents that I can’t just do X. I can’t get there. And this gets a lot of people in place because they look at people who are wealthier or they look at people who had supportive parents and they say, “Well, if I had parents “like that person has parents, “I could have done all these things. “But because I don’t, I’m just stuck.” You’re just gonna have to do more work, have a better plan. It might take you a little bit longer than other people who had more advantages than you, but it’s doable and you can get there. I’ve made too many mistakes or its counterpart, it’s too late. I’m too old. I should have tried this in college. I should have practiced this back here or back then or when I was single or when I was married, too late. And that is a big lie because it’s never too late to start working on the things you dream about. It might’ve been easier again a decade ago, but they always say that line, When is it best to plant a tree? 10 years ago. When’s the second best time to plant a tree? Today. If you couldn’t get there 10 years ago, you had stuff 10 years ago. If you interviewed you who’s from 10 years ago, you’d probably have a bunch of reasons then too. So the best thing you can do is just start now. I’m too dumb. I have to be perfect. I should be better. My brain’s just not in it. I’m really not good at these types of things. And this lie is interesting because, you know, I’ll tell you that most people think that they’re not very good at things in general. Everyone gets to where they’re at through a process. I think it was Abraham Lincoln who lost 35 elections before he became a senator. There are people who failed and failed and failed again. There are people who were imperfect, who had speech impediments. You had Beethoven who was deaf. People have impairments or they have things that they’re just not perfect and they get there anyway. Again, takes a little bit more work and a little bit more planning, but you don’t have to be perfect. And you probably aren’t broken in the ways you think you are broken. Maybe you’re not great at some things, but no one’s entirely lost in a particular thing. Everything stinks. Yep, that’s right. I can’t do things because everything in my life stinks. And I have seen people who believe that. And it’s unfortunate when they do, because first of all, it is absolutely not true. If this other thing was out of my life, I could do the things I wanted to do. That might be a person, that might be a job. If I just had a different job, my life would be better. If I just had a better boyfriend, my life would be a lot better. And the truth is, is that you can get to the things you want even if you have these hurdles in your way. Chances are these horrible things aren’t so horrible. And it’s just an excuse for not getting what you want. There’s always time, there’s always resources where you can do the things that you need to do and get them done. And then the opposite is true. If I just had this thing in my life, I could do this. I just had a boyfriend. I just had a supportive spouse. I just had a job I loved. I could get there and I could do those things. And the truth of it is, if you’re making up excuses now, chances are, if you had those things, you would make up excuses then too. The problem is, is not the fact that we have or we don’t have. The problem is, is that we tell ourselves these lies in the best of times, in the worst of times. We do it all the time. And so even if you had that perfect thing or you got rid of that horrible thing, there’d be another thing. And the problem is the excuses and not the thing. The lies that you’re telling yourself are actually the thing that is causing you to miss out on some of the goals that are achievable in your life. Why bother? I can’t get it. I won’t do it. It won’t be great. I won’t like it. I’ll probably hate it if I got it. Why bother? And again, it’s another lie that you’re telling yourself. And it’s true. So let’s say you were thinking about starting a new business and then you think, why bother? I’ll probably be terrible at it. No one will come to my store. No one will buy my art. None of those things will happen. And then you decide not to bother. The reason that you should bother and the reason you should fight this particular lie is because it may be that whatever it is you’re going to try might not be successful. but there’s a couple of things that is true about it. The process of you doing it is gonna teach you a valuable lesson. And then if you were to start a store or you were to start an art gallery on Etsy, you’d learn something and you would learn how to do it better the next time. The other thing might be true is that you might find something that is related to what you’re trying to do on the pathway of getting there. And so once you start down this path of looking towards your goal, working on your Etsy shop, starting a business downtown, you might find, yep, it’s right, I did not end up liking that thing. But you know what I found out? I really like doing this other thing. And so maybe you’ll actually find your next big passion in life because you went down this path. So it’s never why bother. It’s always worth the small experiment to try to see if you can get what you wanna get and to figure out what you learned along the way. I just need to read one more book. And that’s me too. Boy, if I could just read one more dieting book, if I could look at one more exercise book, if I could just learn one more thing, I’m sure I will eat better the next day. And the truth of it is, I’ve read a lot of books, I’ve learned a lot of things, I’ve taken a lot of classes, and you know what? When I don’t wanna lose weight, I don’t lose weight. It doesn’t matter whether I read another book, chances are you know What the next step in your goal is You could read another book and it might teach you some things But the point of it is is that you could start today with the knowledge you have right now and do some good Move towards your goal. Of course read a book if you want to read a book But you can start right now without reading one more book. I Must have total success or this will be a failure And the truth of it is that total success or the perfect ideal of what we wanted is Not the opposite of failure If we try something new maybe we’ll have a partial success and it’ll be pretty darn good Maybe we won’t have success at all, but we’ll learn something amazing about how to do it better the next time There is no such thing as failure unless you give up that’s failure But not succeeding in a goal is a step towards your goal. It’s just a rocky road It’s just up and down but Having some failures or not getting what you want on your initial try is not a failure unless you stop entirely. I Will start tomorrow. Nope, you won’t start tomorrow start right now. Just start I’m fine. Are you fine? Is that a lie? You’re telling yourself? I don’t need those things in my life because I’m fine. I remember someone told me they didn’t need another job because they’re perfectly fine the way they are. And I thought, well, you need a little bit more money. You wish you had a job you like better and you wish you had a job that had better benefits. That doesn’t sound like you’re fine. That sounds like you have some good solid reasons about why you should move on and get a better job. I’m entitled the world owes me and boy that is a nasty lie We tell ourselves that the world owes you something because if you believe that’s true You won’t work hard. He won’t work towards what you get I remember once my dad lost his job and when I asked him what he was doing to get another job Primarily out of curiosity because I was just a kid and I didn’t know he said well I I fought for this country in the military. I’ve worked all these jobs. Now it’s time for them to give back to me.” And I said, “Well, who’s them?” And it was pretty much the world. The world owed him. The world owed him a better job. And so that meant that he didn’t have to look for a new job. He was going to sit there and pout on the couch until… “Hi there, sir. We have a brand new job. It’s here on the silver platter. Please, I hope you take it. Anytime you feel entitled to something, it just means that you don’t believe you have to work toward something. I can’t be different. I have to be like everyone else who has done this. And the truth of the matter is, is yes, over the course of years, a lot of times people figure out ways of losing weight, getting in shape, getting a better job, working on a new business, starting a podcast. There’s all these best practices that are out there. But in order for it to be successful in your life, you’re going to have to give it a branding of your own. You’re going to have to make it a you thing and somehow take what you have in your experience and what you have to offer and make it different. If you’re going to start a hardware store and it’s going to be like every other hardware store on the planet, it might not be successful. Even if that’s the exact way every hardware store is, exactly like this. When you make a hardware store that looks a little bit like you, you’ll come up with creative ideas of how to make that hardware store the best hardware store possible. And it’ll be something that will be successful because you brought you to this fight and it made it something that’s special that you did that no one else could do. So my challenge to you is to start writing down five lies that you tell yourself frequently. Write them down. Are you the worst? No, you’re not the worst. Is it too late for you? Nope, it’s not too late either. But start writing them down and coming up with why those items are in fact lies. So now this is the part where we would have our fun entertainment advice of the week. But I’ll tell you what, I started getting pulled down from social media because of the quotes inside of the podcast coming in from movies and television shows.

And so I think I’m going to have to stop doing the fun entertainment advice of the week. In thinking about it, I decided what I will do instead is have some episodes of this podcast that will talk about fun entertainment advice and actually go into a little bit more depth about. funny situations where people got themselves stuck, or some interesting ways people found to get themselves unstuck. But I will try to do some more entertainment advice as entire episodes instead of just a quick one minute fun thing. So thank you very much everyone. I appreciate the fact you’re listening. Please remember that you can email me at [email protected]. I’m always happy to answer questions or cover a topic you’re interested in hearing. And then you can also tell your friends that they can stop lying to themselves and start achieving what they’re hoping to achieve by taking small steps. (upbeat music) you

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2022Work

93 – Make Everyone Happier at Work

by Jill

https://www.buymeacoffee.com/smallstepspod

Make Your Personality More Appealing – After examining your personality, see how you can make it work more smoothly.

Build on Strengths – Instead of trying to dig yourself out of the holes created by your weaknesses, build up your strengths. Let your team help make your talents complete. If you need to work on weaknesses, then just understand it will take a lot of work and make you uncomfortable for a while. 

Personality Backup Style – when people get stressed, the dominant, assertive style takes over. If a person has a more assertive style, they can become argumentative or a tyrant. If they have less, they can get -quiet or give up. They can even go the opposite way, and the driver can just give up and walk away. 

Observe, Plan, Act, and Monitor – Check the relationships around you and see how you relate. How could you do better? Then come up with a plan and check how you are doing. 

We Can’t See Thoughts – Remember that you can observe behaviors but can’t see inside another person’s head. You don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. Look to see how we can use behaviors without reading their minds. 

Respect, Communication, Manners – Always remember that respecting others and having manners and good communication goes a long way to making teams and relationships work. 

Challenge

Take your quadrant, take some of the people around you and try to guess what quadrant they’re in, and see how you have clobbered each other in the past. For example, have you been passive-aggressive and just refused to answer the question? Do you not talk at all? Or do you talk so much and fast, you’re talking over everybody? Try to figure out how the pluses and minuses of the people on the team are helping or hurting the relationships with each other. And then see if there are ways to be more flexible so that we can work together better as a team.

Links

https://hcleadershipessentials.com/blogs/leadership/the-people-styles-model-for-gaining-selfawareness-as-a-leader

Transcript

Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. This is Jill. Have you ever wondered how you can take your style at work and turn it into an advantage and do great things? That’s what we’ll talk about today.

Making a difference in your work is not about productivity. It’s about people. you focus on others and connect with them, you can work together to accomplish great things. John C. Maxwell. T

Today we’re going to talk about a book, People’s Styles at Work and Beyond. So in the last podcast we talked about identifying some of our styles at work. Last time we broke down our styles into more assertive, less assertive, and more responsive, less responsive. And then by breaking people down into those four quadrants, we got the less responsive, less assertive analytical, the less responsive, more assertive driver, the less assertive, more responsive amiable, more assertive, more responsive expressive people. And we talked about some of the character traits that are associated with those and how we really need all four people in management, in not management to make our workplace better. We have to note that all of them have strengths and if the people really go with their strengths and use their strengths it’ll be beneficial to them, it’ll be beneficial to the company and the job they do, it’ll be beneficial to their customers. And so we have to take all those gifts those people have and really work on them and it’s a true benefit to themselves and everyone around them. And some of the styles that they see in those people, analytical people have a lot of logic, they’re very detail-oriented, they’re very dedicated to getting everything right, and they can be a little bit of a stern person, but that helps to keep projects on target. The driver is very quick to make decisions, they’re very good with details and making sure the details are practical, they can work by themselves, they’re very honest and they get things done. I know people in my work that are drivers and they are amazing at really getting the thing that needs to get done, done. Aimable people are team players, they’re supportive, they’re very good at dealing with situations where people are fighting or not getting along and trying to come to a good settlement in that. They’re very patient with other people, and they also tend to be very loyal to the company. And people like that are great. I will say offhand that when I see people like that at work, I will say that a lot of times people don’t notice them. They don’t notice the contribution that they’re making at work, and they’re forgotten. And sometimes those people are the most loyal people you have in your company. People will come and go but amyville people will stick to you and stick to doing a dedicated job to you day in and day out the expressive people are Really charmers. They’re the people who like to have fun. They can go with the flow Like I said when times come or something doesn’t quite go right at a conference I’m the person who gets up and tries to make it work and i’m not worried about being self-conscious I’m up there telling jokes and being silly and making things happen. And I try to be very exciting and energetic. I try to bring that out when it needs to come out. So public speaking is really good. I love public speaking. I do a lot of it, but at least before the pandemic. And they’re good spokespeople for the things that you’re trying to get done. You want to make sure that if you have someone being the face of your company, the expressive people are really good at it. They suggest that when you’re looking at your style and trying to figure out how to either build on your strengths and take advantages of the things you’re good at or try to add to your style so that it works better with other people, is first of all, look, observe, try to see how it is you’re actually dealing with other people. That’s really what worked for me in sort of of adapting my own style. I noticed I could run over people. Sometimes I talk so fast, I could talk over what they’re saying. And so for me, I observed that I could be a little bit too energetic, too expressive, and really by observing how I was interacting with other people, I was able to adapt that. Then they say that you’re supposed to do practice, which means how can you actually act? Now that you’ve observed some of your personality, now that you’ve actually taken into account some of the things that are going right and some of the things that are going wrong, what can you do to change your actions so that it better fits within the team personality? And in reality, we hope that when people get jobs, they are drawn to the types of tasks or the types of jobs that are really great for them, which I think when you can get there is really amazing. And so it’s worth taking some time so that you can see what you can do to be better at your strengths. So some ideas you can take in the book are some ways of strengths and weaknesses. And I always believe that strength and weaknesses are two sides of a coin. You get one because you have the other. It is not sometimes where you could say, well, if you could be more independent, but also collaborate with people more. Sometimes those are on opposite sides of the piece. Maybe Jill, if you could quiet down a little bit, but still be a people person. Huh, not sure how that works. So sometimes you get one because the other side of that coin is the weakness. And so you have people who are candid, can also be abrasive. You have sometimes people who are very good at getting things done, can sometimes really run over other people and not take their view into account. Sometimes you have people who are visionaries, not very practical, and they don’t get things that are realistic in place. So you have to take a look at the fact that when you’re looking at some of your strengths, there’s a opposite side of the coin, which is the weakness. And if you can identify some of those, that’ll help you. They bring up a quote by the Gallup organization, which is the team that is responsible for the book, Strength Finders 2.0. Quote, “You will excel only by maximizing your strengths and never by fixing your weaknesses. You only get anywhere leaning into the things that you’re great at.” I mentioned this before. I think it’s because I spent decades trying to fix all my weaknesses. I was trying to be like this person at work or be like that person at work and emulate their actions and their details. And in fact, I’ve had managers when I told them that I was trying to emulate a particular person, they would say, “Great, I think that’s good advice.” But I never really got anywhere until I just started looking at being the best Jill possible. How can I go into the things that I’m great at? I don’t think that that’s a write-off to say, “Well, my weaknesses are just my weaknesses, and you’re all just gonna have to live with them because I’m working on my strengths.” You do have to take down those weaknesses you have and try to mitigate them, try to make them less of a weakness. The reason that they talk about in Gallup about how you have to really focus on your strengths is it is so hard to change personalities and it takes a great deal of time, effort, emotional interrupt, because your brain wants to work in a certain way and you’re telling it to stop working in this way. It is distracting. It crushes your productivity when you’re working on Overcoming flaws. It’s one of those things that’s going to take you being on top of it almost for the rest of your life So they said it’s important that before you decide that you’re going to try to overcome a weakness That you take into account how much time it’s going to take how much effort it’s going to take and how much I think Is it’s going to interrupt your brain Acknowledge that sometimes when you look at your weaknesses, there’s a cost there to doing things in a different way that is outside your normal flow. And you’ll have to take into account whether that particular item is important enough for you to do. And the other thing to keep in mind is a lot of times we work as teams, which means something that is a strength of mine, maybe a weakness in other people, and something that is a strength in my teammates might be a weakness in me. And so a good manager, a good team lead will bring us together and make sure that we’re working where our strengths are and we’re avoiding those things that are not exactly our strengths. So I have a great manager at work and he does a fantastic job. And the vice president above me, she’s amazing too. And they all work very hard to make sure each of the people on their teams is doing the thing that they’re very good at. that they like doing and that they’ll be great at getting them done. They say that there is a personality backup style and the backup style is something that when we get stressed or angry or we’re put into a corner that we don’t want to be in, that we back into this and sometimes we’ll react in a way that is not very productive and not very team building. and we have to watch out that we don’t get into those situations or that we react in those ways. So an analytical person might actually start avoiding their work because they can’t get enough details down to make sure that it’s perfect to make sure that it’s exactly what they want to do. If they were going to be starting a podcast, they may never get to doing the podcast because it can never be good enough. I can never figure out enough details before getting it done. The driver can become what they call autocratic, meaning they’re going to rule. They’re going to be a tyrant on these jobs and these tasks and these projects, and they’re just going to trounce all over everybody. They may get the project done, but it may not be as good as if they brought in other opinions and it might really burn many of the relationships they have with the people around them. The amiable person will just give in. They’ll give up. They’ll lose their voice. They won’t say the thing that’s on their mind. And they may have an opinion that’s important, that actually means something to the team or means something to the customer. If you take like a software company and the amiable person recognizes that by doing a particular aspect of the software in a certain way, it is not how the people in the real world do it. And if the software developers are a little bit more strong or more assertive than they are, they’ll say, “Nope, it’s the way we need to get this done.” And the Ameable person might be like, “Okay, that’s all right.” But it’s not okay because if this feature comes out and it’s not useful to the customer, that Ameable person lost a chance to make their software better, to make their company better. The expressive person might just start attacking. Remember, they’re high energy, high enthusiasm, and a lot of words come out of their mouth in very fast ways. And so when they attack, it is like getting hit hard from all sides. And it can be a bit blinding to other people. So it’s important for the expressive person not to start attacking others. These are automatic reactions that we have from our gut. And what we have to do is take a step back and make sure we’re not doing the automatic reaction. We’re thinking about our reaction and what it’s going to do to our teamwork, our structure in our company, maybe even our jobs. If we go around attacking people or if we go around and just give up on everything, we might not be in those jobs for very long. And so what we have to do is make sure that first of all, we don’t fall into any of these backup styles, but they also say that sometimes there’s a secondary backup style, which means that the person is going to do the opposite end of their assertiveness continuum. Meaning that if they were attacking before, now they’re just giving up. Or maybe if they were autocratic before, they’re just gonna avoid the project altogether because they can’t get anything done on it anyway. So they may switch to the other assertiveness level. But what we, again, we wanna make sure we do is we stay away from the automatic behaviors and try to derail anything that’s gonna break our team apart. So they said the best thing we can do in order to keep these backup styles at bay is to first of all, make sure that we never get into that stressed area where now suddenly we’re starting to react. But if you can keep your stress levels from going overboard before that happens, that’s probably the better way to go. The second skill that you’ll need to do is to identify the different kinds of things that happen that trigger you and that make you react in the way you don’t want to react. Is it personal attacks? Is it someone taking on your work? Are you someone so sensitive that someone gives you constructive criticism on any task you do? You take it the wrong way? Try to figure out what it is that’s making you so angry or so upset that you have to use those backup tactics. And the best thing too, then is to take time out. Next thing is make sure that you avoid decisions or anything that’s big impact. Don’t rage quit your job. Don’t immediately just say something again that will, that relationship permanently damage. Make sure that you take into account that other person and their feelings and try to avoid anything, avoid any decisions or actions that’s really going to come down to it. They said that the problem with all these styles is, quote, “When people of a different style don’t get along, the problem isn’t incompatibility. The problem is usually inflexibility.” And so that means it’s not so much that we’re different people. It means that we’re not willing to back down on our style at all. We’re not really willing to adapt so that we can get along with other people better. We’re being inflexible, and we’re not trying to make that other person feel more comforted, work within their own style better, or for us to work as a team better. We’re really not doing that well at all. And so the important thing is that we take all our strengths and we work on them so that we can improve our relationship. And so what can you change? What aspect of your personality or style can you change that would make you get along with people better? And in the end, they said it’s important for us to realize that we don’t wanna manipulate other people, we don’t wanna back down either. But the goal of this is flexibility, meaning that we need to know what it is we need to adapt a little bit so that we can work better with the other people on our teams that are different than us. So they said the first step in working together better with other people is first of all to observe, how are you doing? How are you working with other people on that team? Are you doing pretty well? Are you overriding that person a little too much or are they overrunning you? Or is that person never speaking up and never really talking? Have they checked out of the situation? And step two is to make sure that you plan for how these behaviors or how these things are going to go into effect. Can we assign different tasks? Can we change the plan up a little bit so that we’re leaning into the things that we’re good at and avoiding the things that we’re bad at and avoiding situations where we get on each other’s nerves so that we can do better. Maybe the person like me, who’s louder, talks faster, can do a little bit better listening, can do a little bit better being quiet, and maybe not talking quite so fast. I’ve been trying that on the podcast for months now and I don’t know that it’s getting better. Step three is to implement, And that means how you take the plan for making sure that your behaviors are working better and actually do them, turn them into action. And then the last step is, they said to evaluate and take a look and see how you’re doing on trying to correct or be flexible about some of your behaviors. Are your communications going better? Are people not getting overrun? Are the quiet people starting to talk? Are the loud people starting to listen? and see how you’re doing when it comes to your new plan to make your relationship on your team or on your projects better. Some steps that you have to look at afterwards is to monitor it, make sure everything’s going right, keep at it, and keep making sure that the struggles that you’re having with that other person is in fact getting better. After you’re having a conversation or a meeting, do a little bit of critiquing, a little bit of analysis. What went well? Where do people come out and talk about good things? Where could have been better? Maybe if we had done something a little bit different, we could have gotten some of the people out of their shell a little bit to give their opinion. Make sure you’re looking at other people. Make sure you’re not missing something big. Sometimes it’s easy when you have boisterous people, ’cause a lot of times they will argue and bicker and fight. It’s the quiet people that suddenly stop talking. And so it’s harder to notice when they’re struggling on a team because they practically disappear from a project. How can we make them not disappear? They may have amazing viewpoints that’s not getting built in to this particular project at all. They say it’s important that we understand that things that are inside of people, we can’t observe them. We don’t know what’s going on inside. If a person has checked out of our project, we don’t know if it’s because they’re angry or they’re bored, or they’re just not interested in this project, or they didn’t get enough sleep last night and they’re just really tired. You can’t mind read, you can’t build into that other person what you think is going on. You just know the outward behavior. They’re being quiet. They’re constantly attacking everything. All you can do is look at those outside behaviors and then try to figure out what we can do to get around that. Or maybe it’s just a bad day to meet. If this person’s attacking everyone, but they don’t typically do that, maybe it’s best that we meet next week and see if we can do a little bit better job when people are feeling a little bit better about what’s going on. And he said that you can even put people on a grid, draw out that quadrant and put people’s names where you think they may lie on that grid so that you can understand your team and be more respectful of everyone. Make sure that you see them as individuals and that you communicate in such a way that’ll make sense. In the end, they suggest that manners and respect and communication is everything. Because if we don’t have those things, we’ll never get into a good team relationship, regardless of personalities. We will always be at odds with each other if we don’t do at least that. So my challenge to you is now to take your quadrant, take some of the people around you and try to guess what quadrant they’re in and see how in the past you have clobbered each other. Have you been a passive aggressive and just refuse to answer the question? Do you not talk at all? Or do you talk so much and so fast you’re talking over everybody? Try to figure out how the pluses and minuses the people on the team are helping or hurting the relationships with each other and then see if there’s ways that we can be more flexible so that we can work together better as a team. And the fun entertainment advice of the week comes from the movie Steve Jobs. You were saying things about the Apple II and the way you were treating the team. Boss, you get a free pass for life. I gotta get back on stage. We got like two minutes of rehearsal time left. Do you understand how condescending that just was? Maybe you don’t. I don’t want to see you get dragged off on a plane at Plastic Handcuff. I get a free pass for life from you. You give out the pass… You give them to me. You’re gonna have a stroke, little buddy. What did you do? What did you do? Why has Lisa not heard of me? Man, how many fourth graders have heard of you? You can’t write code. You’re not an engineer. You’re not a designer. You can’t put a hammer to a nail. I built the circuit board. The graphical interface was stolen from Xerox PARC. Jeff Raskin was the leader of the Mac team before you threw him off his own project. Everything, someone else designed the box. So how come ten times in a day, I read Steve Jobs as a genius? What do you do? I play the orchestra. And you’re a good musician. You sit right there. You’re the best in your role. I always like using Steve Jobs as an example in a lot of these podcasts because he is such a strong personality type. Is there the company that became Apple without the people around him including Steve Wozniak who was a completely different kind of human being. We need other people in order to make our products and our work great. Alright everyone, thanks so much. I hope you have a great week. Please remember to tell a friend and subscribe, because we can do great at work by taking small steps. [BLANK_AUDIO]

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2022Work

92 – Identify Your Work Style

by Jill

Learn more about your work style and the work styles of others. The model can help you learn how to do better with your team.

Peoples Styles at Work by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton

Don’t Pigeonhole Others – It is OK to look at other people’s personalities but not pigeonhole them or decide that they are exactly like them. 

Model Behavior to be Predictive – Using a model of behavior is helpful to work with others in a better way. 

The Style Grid – The grid is less or more Assertive and less or more Responsive. More Responsive and More Assertive is type Expressive. They are open and enthusiastic, and energetic. If they feel stressed, they can attack others. More Responsive and Less Assertive is the Amiable type. They are friendly and the people who hold a team together. When they get stressed, they give in. The third type is Analytical, who is less Responsive and Less Assertive, and they love data and getting things right. When they get stressed, they avoid things. The last type is less Responsive and more Assertive and is called Drivers. They love to get things done correctly. When stressed, they start to rule over things and people without getting their input. 

Who Are You? – It is a great idea to determine which type you are and ensure you can use your type to the best ability. You should also think about what others think you are. They may not be the same. Determine what others on the team are and plot them on a grid. 

Challenge

Look at these categories and try to list a few of the pros and cons that this particular style has for you.

Links

Transcript

[Music] Have you ever wondered how differences with people at work can make things better or make things worse? That’s what we’ll talk about today. [Music] Who am I and what, if anything, can I do about it? Aldous Huxley. Today we’re going to talk about a book, People’s Styles at Work and Beyond, Making Bad Relationships Good and Good Relationships Better, by Robert Bolton and Dorothy Grover Bolton. Work is hard enough, but then when you mix up all the relationships involved in work, that’s where it gets really difficult or interesting or better. And how can you make those relationships with people better? I have worked in the past with people who are amazingly sensitive about the things that they do and not open to change really. I had a person, and this was funny, on her first day of work came in and basically tore apart all the different pieces of work I’d been working on for almost a decade, reorganized them, redid them. Okay, that’s fine. It could have used some improvement. But I don’t think she realized that that was a good bulk of the things that I had been working on and really took pride in at my job. She had a different vision. It was now her area. That’s fine. But the funny thing about it was, as steamed as I was, because I think our personalities clashed from time to time, another person later came into that same office and did the same thing to her. A1 tried to just change everything. The new person was just trying to come up with good ideas, just trying to help things out a little bit, but didn’t realize the amount of time and effort and heart and soul she had put into that project. And so sometimes we all have the same vision. You know, my company, it’s helping customers. We are a very customer-focused company. But how we do it and the personality traits we bring to the job are really important. We talked in episode 7 about the book Strength Finders 2.0 by Tom Rath and that book was about driving out what your particular strengths are. It wasn’t a personality test as much as it was trying to figure out what you’re really good at and trying to build on that. In this particular book, this is more about your work style or how you like to display your work, how you like to act in your work job. And I thought it was interesting because sometimes those relationships at work are the hardest thing to get right. We can have a job we like, we can do a great job at our job, but then suddenly we’re finding that we’re butting heads with someone who shares the same goal we do, helping customers, but just has a little bit of a different way of expressing how they do their job. The bottom line of the book is is that people are different. They have different ways of manifesting their personality, different ways that they interact with people, and different responses to tasks that they have to do. Are they really just into analysis or are they about the people and communicating? And that difference can really make a difference to how we do on the job. And they said that if we don’t get along at the job, We’ll have a difficult time working with other people. We won’t be able to get the things done that we hope to get done or convince people when we have something we believe is urgent, that it is urgent, and just fail at communication in general. We will get on each other’s nerves, kind of like what I was talking about with the relationship I had with that person who first came into my office. We got along in the end, but it took work, and it took some understanding for us to come to a place where we were friends and really enjoyed each other’s company by just understanding how we are different from each other. And these differences in our styles really help us to understand each other if we can categorize them a little bit better. The book warns against trying to pigeonhole people into a corner, oh, that person’s just difficult, or this person is just this or that. And the reason we want to categorize people according to the book is so that we can better relate to them and maybe also better predict what they’re going to do in response to our work. And they call this a model. In the end, we’re trying to build a model for people. And models aren’t perfect. Models are meant to be a simplified reduction of the real thing. So when we put people into models, we’re really sort of reducing them to the core of how they work. The purpose, they believe, is that it will help us interpret and observe people better, understand exactly where they’re coming from, and work with them in a better way. So in this book, they say, quote, “A people style is a cluster of habitual, assertive, “and responsive behaviors that have a pervasive “and enduring influence on one’s action.” Meaning this is long-term. This is kind of how we act. It’s not acting in a bad way to a bad situation, or it’s not really having a one-off occurrence. You know, maybe if we have this really bad situation and we flip out, and that’s not what pervasive is. This means just day in and day out, we’re acting in a certain way. So we have styles, that’s how we act. Behavior is how we actually do things, what we do to get things done. And in the end, these behaviors will help us understand each other. They give a quote from a federal judge that says, “A man’s life, like a piece of tapestry, is made up of many strands, which, interwoven, makes a pattern. To single one out and look at it alone not only destroys the whole, but gives the strand itself a false value.” So that means that when we’re looking at these models these people. We can’t just reduce people. “Oh, that person is just angry.” No, they’re much more complicated than that. A person isn’t just a thing. They’re the tapestry. And so this model at least tries to give us a hint at how this person does at work. They also go on in the book later to mention how the person will do in marriage and with children and other situations. But the part we’re going to talk about is the part where they’re talking about work specifically. It’s up to you then to think about how other areas of your life are affected by this and maybe even read the book and take some advice about how you can help those other areas when dealing with other people. They think that in the end it is hard for us to change behaviors or styles and it’ll be again pervasive meaning it’ll go over many years and And what they say, quote, is you’d be wise to accept and celebrate it. And that’s important. I’m a firm believer in taking the things that we’re good at, taking the things that we enjoy and that we have strengths in and building on that, fixing a little of the things that we’re weak at, but really going in and looking at how we can celebrate the gifts we’ve been given, the strengths we have in order to make us better. So the first thing that they look at, and this is going to be a cross section, is assertiveness, which is either less assertive or more assertive. And this just means how forceful or directive you may be as a person. And they give some test questions to kind of help you sort out exactly where you are. But basically, this person will use more forceful ways to get their goals. And And people who are less forceful will not necessarily be less directed than the other person, they just may use different techniques than force to get their goals. So it’s certainly not an assertive versus submissive. They say that some ways that you can tell what a more assertive person looks like is they gesture a lot. They have good eye contact. They move more and with more energy. They’re more direct, they speak louder, they speak faster, and they also make decisions more rapidly and they’re more confrontational. What’s funny is if you have listened to this podcast more than a few times, you know, I talk way too fast. I do talk too fast, I’m trying to work on it. The next category, which is our up and down, is responsiveness. And that’s going to be how aware they are of their own emotions, they say, and how are they with emotions from other people? It’s not necessarily that the person feels or doesn’t feel. I have met some very stoic individuals, silent, and you wouldn’t have guessed they had a single emotion in their body, but there’s a phrase, “Still waters run deep,” which means there’s a lot more to the inside of a person than what most people realize. A lot of people who you might think are not very emotional or not very tied to their emotion, are like big gooey chocolate chip cookies. They’re crunchy on the outside, but all soft and gooey on the inside. They just don’t put it out there for everyone to see. So they said a more responsive person expresses emotions freely. They’re talkative in a more emotional way. They like small talk. They like reaching out and talking to people. And they’re also very worried about how their own actions or actions of the company are going to impact other people. I like some of the characteristics. It says, prefers working with others compared to being alone, dresses more casually. Boy, that’s me right there. I just love dressing casually and I love being with other people. It’s my two favorite things. Also, they mentioned that they’re less structured in their use of time and they’re a lot more open to being with other people when they have the ability to be alone. So now that we have the less assertive, more assertive, less responsive, more responsive, they break those characteristics into four quadrants. The person who’s less assertive, less responsive is analytical. The person who is less responsive, but more assertive is the driver. The person who is less assertive, but more responsive, is amiable. And the person who is more assertive, more responsive, is expressive. And the thing they say to remember is that there is no bad character here. They all have their pros and cons. And placed in the right job or the right task, they will thrive. What do you think you are? You probably have a pretty good idea of what you are. You can look at this book and read a little bit more about it and decide better about what you are But here’s the other question. Who do other people think you are and that’s what I think is really interesting. I believe That I’m expressive I tend to be a little bit more assertive and a little bit more responsive if something goes wrong in a conference I’m the person on the stage immediately trying to tell jokes Keep people interested and make sure that everyone’s doing well and is really happy I am all over the place at conferences and in meetings trying to make people more Comfortable or take whatever action it is. They need to do over the course of years I find that being expressive all the time Can really wear people out if you’re always all over the place if you’re always very directive You’re always, you know looking people in the eye and being very Emotional or being very open with things people can get worn out about that And so I have really learned to tamp that down and maybe use these in a little bit better way And so I bet you that if you ask some people around me or work people, they’d probably put me in the amiable category But for the most part I range somewhere in that expressive and amiable range most of the time So it may be you’re not coming off Quite in the same way you probably are inside your own skin and that might be because you learn lessons over the years that taught you to take some of the negative aspects of your personality or your style and Bend them a little bit more to being open for other people Just talking about the different characteristics. They say that drivers are quick They’re quick to act and do things and walk and they are delegating and they are getting things done and making it happen at work sometimes the problem with them is that they may not listen to other people or If they’re driving action and there’s something wrong that is preventing action Sometimes they don’t stop to make sure that those actions are getting cured before they go on They like to set goals that are realistic, but also very high They want to get things done and that’s the most important thing Then the expressive people those are the responsive but also assertive people they tend to like bright colors and be loud and flourishing and Be visionaries and take those bold moves and look at the castles in the air boy that wraps up me in the 20s I was always having these huge visions and these huge plans and all these things I was going to do without really an idea of how I was going to get them done. And again, that’s me now Moderating my style a bit so that I can actually get things done. I can actually Not be so many castles in the air, but look at maybe a solid cabin on the ground something I could actually accomplish that is worth doing that is realistic and Be a little bit less in that expressive style just because I’ve learned over the years I could do better says that they can get bored quickly boy. That’s me right there and They can be impulsive at times quote from their book says from someone who is in this category First I dive into a pool and then I look to see if there’s water in it Boy, you want to talk about what I was in my 20s. That’s it right there. The AMEO people are very People-oriented they’re very easygoing. They like working with people and they have good relationships with people They’re really the person who brings teams together a lot of times They’re getting a lot of the tasks done because they’re trying to help out They’re trying to be a team player and so the book says that they’re the unsung heroes of a lot of team tasks that have to get done and The problem is it says that if the amiable people if they don’t stop and take time and actually stand up for something say something is important, they will lose credibility with the people around them. And as someone who’s tried to sort of migrate towards the more amiable person, I can tell you that’s true. And the last category are the analyticals. They are the perfectionists. They want to analyze everything, they want to get everything right, they don’t want to work on hunches, they don’t want to work on the best guess, they want the data correct. And they will make people do things over again if they feel that their standards aren’t being met. And that can be great for a project. It can make a project fantastic, but it also can strangle a project so no one can get anything done. And sometimes it may mean that they may not come out with a decision. They may be waiting for more data, for a better situation, to make it more perfect, to keep going. And that means that the thing that they’re trying to do may never get done because they’re always looking for more data, more analysis, or a better way of doing something. And at some point you got to get something done and you have to get your projects done at work, even if they’re not going to be perfect. So this is going to be the first part of our podcast. We talked about how we have these different personality styles and a little bit of the characteristics of them. On the next episode, we’re going to talk a little bit about what can we do now that we know what our style is, how can we use them, and how can we actually help build those relationships with other people at our work so that we make them stronger and we get along with people who are quite different than us. So my challenge to you is to look at these categories. Try to list a few of your pros and cons that this particular style has for you. And then next week we’ll talk about what we can do about them. And our fun entertainment advice of the week comes from Office Space. Would you walk us through a typical day for you? Yeah. Great. Well, I generally come in at least 15 minutes late. I use the side door. That way Lumber can’t see me. And after that, I just sort of space out for about an hour. Space out? Yeah. stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I’d say in a given week, I probably only do about 15 minutes of real, actual work. Peter, would you be a good sport and indulge us and just tell us a little more? Oh yeah. Let me tell you something about TPS reports. “The thing is, Bob, it’s not that I’m lazy. It’s that I just don’t care.” “Don’t… don’t care?” “It’s a problem of motivation, alright?” I mean, really, how can you talk about work and not talk about the movie office space? See, he’s talking about… not a style. He’s talking about the fact that he’s actually pretty lazy. He doesn’t want to do his job, and he doesn’t care about the fact that he needs to do his job. that people are relying on him to do his job and even paying him to do his job. So this is not a style. This is a problem. All right, everyone. Thanks so much. I hope you have a great week. And if you remember to tell a friend that they can have better relationships with the people around them by taking small steps. [MUSIC PLAYING] you [fart]

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2022Happiness

91 – Thrive in the Seasons of Life

by Jill

At any age or season of life, there is a purpose, a thing to learn, and an action you should take. Whatever comes your way, learn to thrive.

The Four Seasons

  • Spring is a time to be young and curious and grow some roots. Learn everything. Question everything. Try things and meet new people.
  • Summer is the time to branch out and create stronger roots. It is the adulthood of your life. Make choices and make connections. Experiment and plan and decide how your life should go.
  • Autumn – This is a time to cash out the rewards and growth you achieved in your life. Plan for your next season by planning and setting aside the rewards you gathered.
  • Winter – It is a time to enjoy and teach. Take all the. Opportunities you gained and prepared for the next adventure or the next thing. Enjoy the roots and branches of your life. You worked hard for them!

Every Season has a Purpose – Keep in mind that each season has a purpose in nature. Trees grow and fruit and drop their leaves because of their purpose. Find the purpose of the season. Find what you need to learn or do or not do. Keeping the purpose in mind will allow you to do what is needed and thrive.

Seasons as a Short Period of Time – Sometimes seasons are discussed as periods of times that are either good for certain goals or activities or bad for them. Is it a season to get a new job or is a season to sit tight and keep still? Know what season you are in. Find the purpose of the season and figure out what you should do or not do. Figure out whom you need to teach about this season and help them thrive.

Challenge

Figure out two different seasons that you’re in, first, figure out not when it comes to age. But when it comes to the mentality you’re having. Are you in spring, where you’re learning summer, where you’re growing autumn when you’re reaping the benefits, or winter when you’re cozy up? Or when you’re cozy and drinking hot cocoa and thinking about and reflecting on your life? Again, it’s not based on the real seasons, it’s based on where you’re at right now. Then try to come up with some minor seasons. Are you in a season of job growth? Are you in a season of job learning? Maybe you just got a new job? Or are you in a season of moving,

Links

Transcript

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. Have you ever wondered how life is like the seasons of the year? Not only when it comes to our age, but when it comes to how to react to certain things that are going on. That’s what we’ll talk about today. All the trees are losing their leaves and not one of them is worried. Donald Miller. I’ve been introduced to this concept about seasons of life. And sometimes people mean it to say that when you’re in your spring of life, that means you’re young and summer is adulthood. And then autumn would be middle age as you’re starting to think towards retirement. And then winter is in your older age. And it tends to be derogatory a bit. And the movie line and Winter is about Henry II and it’s a stark time, his reign was not everything it should have been, his kids are grown and plotting to overthrow his rule. This is a stark view of a king at the end. It’s sad and it tries to bring that idea of winter into it. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. We’re talking about the fact that every season, whether they’re about age or they’re about certain time points, is an opportunity for us to grow, do better, and have new adventures. This is about optimism and finding our path, regardless of where we’re at or what’s happening around us. I came across this topic, I think, because it’s talked about more often in Christian families that they’ll say something like, “Well, I was going to go look for another job, but now the economy isn’t doing very well. It’s not the right season.” So they’re not even talking about it in terms of age. They’re talking about it in more of, “You plant when it’s time to plant, and you reap when it’s time to reap. You plow when it’s time to plow. Do the thing that is the best thing that you can do right at this moment.” And I think that’s so valuable to how we do things in life, particularly when we’re having a little bit of turmoil in our economics, when there’s some bad statistics when it comes to the economy, when there’s time of war and other things that we have to look at the seasons of our life to determine what it is we need to do. So we’re going to break it down a little bit both ways of looking at it. And so the first one to look at it is, like I said, when it comes to age. Spring is when we are young, the grass is coming up, everything is new and green. That’s our childhood. We observe and learn everything that we can. We take in everything that we can take in. Springtime is when we have to take advantage of new things, new learning, new ideas. we’re talking about being a young person or we talk about the springtime of our life right now. Maybe we took on a new job, maybe we just started retiring, or maybe we just got out of college. It is the springtime of our life and it’s time for us to grow and learn and listen and find out new things. Then the summer is what they say is when you’re starting to put down roots, when you’re starting to grow. If you were a tree, you would start to branch out a little bit and you’re establishing yourself. You’ve learned a lot, you’ve listened a lot, and now you’re starting to make some decisions. If it’s in terms of your life, that might mean that you have picked a job, a career, bought a house, or at least picked a town to live in, and now it’s time to take what you’ve learned and start to grow them into the decisions that you’ve made. It’s time to reach out a little bit. Again, if you’re a tree, you’re putting those branches out and trying to grab new experiences. It’s time to experiment. You know, even in times of life, if this were talking about age, a lot of people will travel the world at this point because they have few obligations and a lot of time so they can get more travel done. It’s times to maybe start a small business or try something new that will make your life much more full. Whether again you’re talking about age of summer, your beginning of your adulthood, or you’re talking about a time in your life when maybe you decided to move to a new town and you just put down a deposit on a house and you decided that it’s time to start branching out just like a tree. Autumn tends to be the harvest. If we’re talking about age groups, we’re talking about when we’re starting to reap the benefits of the career we put down, the the family we put together, maybe our kids are starting to grow and leave the house. We got our house exactly how we wanted it. You know, maybe initially we bought a starter house, but now we’re in a house or a town we really like. And all that experience, all the things that you learned, all that experimentation and stretching and growing branches you did in your adulthood, now it’s the time to make those pay off. Maybe you started a business and it didn’t go very well. Maybe now that you know better, you know what you like, that’s the time where you really are going to grow in the autumn, and that’s really when you’re going to take advantage of all the branching you did in your adulthood and do what they say is to sharpen the ax, that’s autumn. It’s also a point where you’re going to put your eyeball on the next phase. you’re gonna try to make sure that in the next phase, you’re set to go. Whether that’s money for retirement, a plan for retirement, or keeping yourself healthy so that when you do retire, or at least slow down a little bit when it comes to work, you can have the healthiest, most financially successful opportunities in your next phase in life. The idea here is that you’re gonna do things when you can, as you grow older, that might change a little bit. So you need to think about what it is you’re harvesting in the autumn of your life, or if it comes down to a time period, maybe you have reached a reward in your career. You’ve been promoted, you’ve been given a different opportunity. And now through all your experiences, you have some expertise in that area. I feel like even in my own career, I’ve reached this point where I’m really good at some things. I think that I can go to a customer now that I’ve learned everything I could, I tried experiments, I’ve reached out, I educated myself, I became a master of knowledge in these things, now I’m reaping the benefits by going out to my customer sites and helping them learn what it is they need to do in order to use our software better. I feel like I’m in that autumn phase of my career where I’m really reaping all the benefits of everything I did up to this point. And then winter, again, sometimes people think of it as a difficulty or look at it as a hardship. But to be honest with you, I don’t think we should because what else do we do in wintertime? It is a time where we hunker. We watch the snowflakes fall. We enjoy the quieter downtime. we rest a little bit and we find new hobbies and new activities to do that aren’t so based on being outside, stretching, growing, branching out. And so we shouldn’t judge our lives based on whether or not we’re in winter. This is how we can spend our time. And what we can do is teach the next generation, the summers and the springs and the autumn, all the lessons we learned to help them do better too. So don’t think of winter time, whether again, we’re talking about older age, or we’re talking about a career that maybe is coming to a close, or retirement, or something that you are counting on that’s just not producing the way you thought it should. And this is your time to take a step back, think about what’s going on, reflect on what’s happening, and maybe even just enjoy your time a little bit. That’s winter. It shouldn’t be the negative thing that everyone sometimes refers to it. I think the nice thing about seasons is that we have to realize, just like when I walk out in the trees in every season, everything has a purpose at that moment. Whether it’s spring, the tree is trying to grow new leaves. Whether it’s summer, the tree is soaking in the water and bringing everything together. And then comes the fruiting, where it’s gonna produce the fruit and is gonna produce the benefit that it has as a purpose for that tree. A pear tree is meant to grow pears and a plum tree is meant to grow plums. And what is your tree meant to grow? And then think that at this particular season, what is my purpose? What is the reason that I’m here? And what will be the next season if I do this successfully? And try to think of it more like that. I think that sometimes when we get into these more judgmental views of the seasons of our lives, it’s sad almost, you know, that we think that winter is a time where it’s all kind of coming to a slow end. This is a time when you’re ready to make your next leap, when you’re plotting your next move, when you’re relaxing and resting up so that you have your best energy. That’s wintertime. For springtime, it’s a time to take opportunities, Grab them, go, act, move. It’s the Mel Robbins, five, four, three, two, one, go. It’s the time that we are supposed to be soaking in everything that we could and taking advantage of it. And then the summertime is when we’re going to grow and nourish and feed our business and feed our careers and feed our family and really start branching out in everything we do. And then that fall is where you start taking the right actions to harvest what you’re supposed to harvest. So I really don’t want anyone to think about any of these as being a negative time. The seasons are really meant to be a place where you know what next thing to do. But let’s take it down and break it down into a little bit of a smaller piece, maybe not just the four seasons. Let’s talk about seasons in another term, because I think that a lot of times when Christian families talk about seasons or other people talk about seasons, they’re meaning it on a more minuscule scale. They’re just meaning that it’s the right time to do something. Is this the right time to have a family? That’s a season. It’s a season of my family. Is it the right time for me to get a new job? That’s a season of reaching out and getting a new job. So you don’t even have to think about seasons as it comes to these four major blocks of time. Instead, think about them in smaller bits and think about them as a chance for you to do something. You know, I think that a lot of times people had plans and then the pandemic came along. Okay, this isn’t the season for me to get a new job. This is a season for me to buy a house or maybe to have a family. Or I was thinking maybe it’s a season to get a dog. Smaller, tinier seasons. You take a look at what’s going on around you and figure out what’s the best thing to do at this moment. Right now, we’re having economic troubles, but there are a lot of jobs out there that are struggling to find people to fill them. So maybe this is not the season to buy a house. Maybe this is a season to get a new job. It just changed over the last few months. But I want you to think at any given moment, what season am I in? What is the best opportunity I have right now to really change my life. There was that old song and it came from a Bible passage called Ecclesiastes 3, 1 through 11, where it talked about a time to plant and a time to pluck what is planted, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to break down and a time to build up, a time to weep and a time to laugh, time to mourn and a time to dance, a time to cast away stones or gather stones. So you can see even in this passage, it’s not talking about the major seasons, it’s talking about finding out what it is this particular point in time is meant for us to do. Keep in mind a few things about seasons is that first of all, seasons change. If you’re looking at the four seasons, they might be bigger gaps of time. Again, time for learning or reaping or quiet, reflection, those might be bigger pieces of time. But if you’re talking about a season to buy a house or a season to get a job, those windows open and close. Sometimes, like I said right now, where there’s a lot of people who are hiring, what an amazing season it is to go look for a new job. But if the job market ends up tightening, that would end the season for looking for a job and it would be a harder time to find a new job. So you have to plan around the season. No, for good or ill, it won’t last forever. So if you’re having a bad season, this is a tough time. Maybe you’ve lost someone close to you. It’s not gonna last forever. But if it’s a good time to get a new job or a fantastic time to buy a new house, that won’t last forever either. So when you think about those seasons, think about the actions you should take now. We have to take the right actions in the season. We don’t want to plow when it’s time to harvest and we don’t want to harvest when it’s time to throw seeds in the ground. We want to do the right activity at the right time. Make sure that you’re always learning about yourself or what’s going on around you in every season. There is no point in your life or no thing that is happening where you can’t learn about what’s going on. And always keep an eye out about what the next season might be. If you think that the next season might be a chance for you to change towns, buy a dog, get a house, whatever that is, be prepared and start planning for that next season. You know, if you think that the next season is going to bring a new house for you, go to the bank, figure out what you can spend, figure out what you would like to do, but be prepared for the next season that you have. And also think about it too, that there are things for you to learn in every season, but sometimes there’s things for you to teach in every season too. As you start going along in your adulthood, you’ve seen these things happen before. You’ve seen good economic times, bad economic times. You’ve seen times when the job market was stretched or times when the job market was full of jobs. You get prepared because you get that experience about knowing what comes next when. So you can take your lessons and not only use them in your own life for that season to come along, but share it with someone else who maybe never saw that season. Different seasons will give you amazing memories, trips, photography. Maybe it’s a season of travel. Maybe it’s a season of family. And you’re going to have so many memories based on the season that you’re in. And I think it’s important always to embrace the lessons that you have, learn something out of it, but then really enjoy it. See different seasons in your life as a gift. I know sometimes it’s hard because difficult seasons make it hard to realize the lessons, make it hard to see the good in it. But even in the pandemic, I took the opportunity of the seasons to try to improve some things in my life that just weren’t getting done because I was alone more often, I had more time on my hands, most of the activities I got done came to a close, but I got a lot of things done in my house. I started a podcast and so I took the opportunity of the pandemic season to try to expand on the good things in my life even though it wasn’t a good thing at all. My best advice to you is to figure out what season you’re in. Whether you’re talking about the big four, spring, summer, autumn, or winter, or you’re talking about the minuscule seasons. Figure out what season you’re in, figure out what season you might be in next, and then try to plan appropriately. Start being that tree in either growing branches or producing fruit or preparing for the winter, but do the next right thing when it comes to being that tree in whatever season you’re in. So my challenge to you is just that. Figure out two different seasons that you’re in. First of all, figure out not when it comes into age, but when it comes into the mentality you’re having. Are you in spring where you’re learning, summer where you’re growing, autumn when you’re reaping the benefits, or winter or when you’re cozy and drinking hot cocoa and thinking about and reflecting about your life. Again, it’s not based on the real seasons, it’s based on where you’re at right now. Then try to come up with some minor seasons. Are you in a season of job growth? Are you in a season of job learning? Maybe you just got a new job. Or are you in a season of moving? Try to figure out just some little seasons that you’re in and write a few things down that will help make those individual seasons better. And now our fun entertainment advice of the week comes from Richard III, played by Shakespeare. (audience applauding) – Now is the winter of our discontent, made glorious summer by this son of York. (audience laughing) All the clouds that lowered upon our house in the deep bosom of the ocean, buried. Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths. (audience applauding) Our bruised arms hung up for monuments. – See, there goes that analogy again. It was the winter of our discontent. We were in winter, it was terrible. but now it’s been made summer by the son of York, who was Prince Edward. This is one of the top two or three speeches in all of Shakespeare. And it was said sarcastically probably because Richard didn’t think Edward was the right prince to be the king. But you see, even in the great literatures of the world, the theme of seasons is important. All right, everyone, thanks so much for listening. I appreciate it. If you have anything to say to me, you can email me at [email protected]. Please remember to send a review that helps other people find this podcast. And I hope to have a podcasting empire someday. So it’ll help if you remember to write a review and tell your friends that they can thrive in whatever season they’re in by taking small steps. (upbeat music) you [fart]

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2022Happiness

90 – Maximize Your Choices and Be Satisfied

by Jill

90 – Maximize Your Choices and Be Satisfied

Maximizers and Satisficers – Maximizers want the best purchases and restaurants. They act in a way to produce the best results. The Satisficers look to find “good enough.” It is beneficial to act and get things done or find appropriate items. But often, better options are possible and should be pursued.

Traits and Outcomes – Deciding which action level is appropriate is the key. Determine what traits a project, lunch, or purchase needs to have depending on the audience and the expectations. For example, are you working on an essential task for your boss or picking lunch?

Overcoming the impact – Each side has its pros and cons. For a Maximizer, they need to make quicker decisions or get things done. Projects need to be completed. Lunches need to get picked. Meanwhile, Satisficers need to find appropriate quality and not get things done for the sake of getting it done. Figure out the right level of detail that is required. Perhaps you can let others make decisions or help you find the right level of determination. Satisficers can spend more research and see what other criteria matter to other people.

The Eisenhower Matrix – To help sort your projects, use the Eisenhower Matrix, which was talked about in the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. You decide between important and not important and urgent or not urgent. Important and urgent things need quick action and decisions. Important but not urgent can take time, or perhaps someone else could do it. Not essential, but urgent can be delegated. Not critical and not significant should be maybe it shouldn’t be done at all

FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) – Maximizers can feel like they made a wrong choice if they do not pick the best or find out later that there was a better object, restaurant, or meal they missed. They struggle to choose if they feel something better is out there or think they can do better or if there are too many choices. By restricting choices or letting others choose, decisions are made faster.

Challenge

Figure out if you’re a Maximizer or Satisficer for the most part or take note of when you change into a different personality type based on situations, then try to determine how being in this camp has benefited you. For example, maybe you make fantastic decisions as a Maximizer, and you should pat yourself on the back for that. But sometimes it takes too long. Or, if you’re a Satisficer, you make quick decisions, and you’re on the go, and you get things done quickly. But maybe you picked something that wasn’t the right thing because you were trying to be okay. Write down a few things that you could do, like taking more time doing a little more research or making a quicker decision and counteracting the negatives that go along with this personality type.

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2022Goals

89 – Ben Franklin’s Life Improvement Plan

by Jill

Benjamin Franklin’s Book of Virtue

Benjamin Franklin's Book of Virtues by Franklin, Benjamin -Hcover ...

How He Created the System – Franklin created the system in 1876 at the age of 26.  He wanted to make a trackable system. He listed the 12 virtues he felt he was struggling with the most. He asked a friend to name the 13th virtue. 13 virtues divide evenly into 52 weeks. He would work on one virtue a week and then move to the next on the list. He also ordered the virtues so they would build on each of the subsequent virtues.

A Modern Attempt – David G. Allan wrote a piece for CNN where he tried this experiment for a decade. He picked two Franklins virtues, updated the definitions, and created 11 other virtues he wanted to tackle. He gave himself firm goals and definitions to know how to accomplish them. He thought it was beneficial and great for everyone. See the link to read about his experience.

Franklin’s Virtues

  1. Temperance – Eat not to dullness. Drink not to elevation.
  2. Silence – Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.
  3. Order – Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.
  4. Resolution – Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
  5. Frugality – Make no expense but do good to others or yourself—waste nothing.
  6. Industry – Lose no time; be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.
  7. Sincerity – Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
  8. Justice – Wrong none by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
  9. Moderation – Avoid extremes; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
  10. Cleanliness – Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, in clothes, or habitation.
  11. Tranquility – Be not disturbed at trifles or at accidents common or unavoidable.
  12. Chastity – Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.
  13. Imitate Jesus and Socrates

How Did Franklin Do? He said that he didn’t entirely succeed, but he did pretty well, making him a better person and happier.

How Do You Do Hard Things? He knew that perfection was not attainable, but he would get pretty good by constantly working on it over the years and measuring his progress. He would improve on these virtues and knew that he would find that to be good enough.

How To Measure Progress – Franklin tracked his day and his habits. He had a diary he used to complete the process. See the grid below:

Challenge

  • What virtues could you improve in that would make you a better person? Things that maybe have nagged on you your whole life, or, again, if someone else has an opinion about what virtues you should work on. Something that perhaps is nagging other people about you and making a challenging list: write them down and create a grid to track how well you tackled your 13 virtues on any given day.

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2022Happiness

88 – Be Alone or In a Community

by Jill

Learn how to find happiness by being alone or being with a community with words from around the world.

Solivagant(French) – Solitary Wandering – Find happiness by wandering in new places and just doing what you want.

  • https://www.onemillionwomenwalking.com/solviturambulando/2018/1/22/im-a-solivagant-are-you

Fjaka (Croatian) – Doing Nothing – Don’t feel compelled into action. Do nothing! Relax! Be guilt-free about it!

Wú wéi (Chinese) – Effortless Action or Inaction – Just flow with life without strife or fighting for action.

Entrückt (German) – Enraptured Daydreaming – Relax and sink into the state of mind where you are calm and stress-free. Ponder something or just daydream.

Koselig (Nowegian) – Be Cozy – Be content and cozy in a calm environment and get all the warm and fuzzy feelings. Mysa is similar but in Swedish. Mys-fika is getting cozy in a coffee break. Glezellig is the Dutch version.

Mamihlapinatapai  (Tiera del Fuego) – Sharing a Look of knowing – Have you ever shared a glance with a friend and the other person read your mind and knew what you were thinking? That moment is such a joy and the Yangan language captures it!

Kopfkino (German) – Head Cinema – Need a quick break? Try to have a quick daydream like a movie in your head.

Gemütlichkeit (German) – Spirit of Community – Enjoy the community friendliness and joy and sink into the cozy moment with your friends and family and new people.

Ubuntu (Zulu) – Togetherness – I am because you are! – Be a community with the best virtues and warmth and care.

Firgun (Hebrew) – Joy for Others’ Success – Be happy for others having success. It makes them happy and you are happy. It could mean that you are openly cheering them on or silently celebrating their success.

Shù Shù (Chinese) – Forgiveness – Don’t just say the words that you forgive people but honestly do it out of mercy and compassion.

Gadugi (Cherokee) – Cooperative Efforts – Build something new that will help a community! Try being a volunteer!

Tuko pamoja  (Swahili) – Community Togetherness – Be together by sharing a vision or a purpose. The best ideas come about with people thinking together.

Retrouvailles (French)  – Reunion – Come back together with someone you haven’t seen in a long time. If there was ever a time to get back with people, now is it!

Simpatía (Spanish) – Harmony – Be at peace and harmony with people around you and society.

Challenge

  • What’s one thing that you can think of this week that could bring you back into a community, you have long missed? Is there a way that you can regain some of that community that you missed for the last couple of years?

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