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4 Simple Ways to Be More Original (and Satisfied) at Work by J.T. O’Donnell

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For many people, work lacks freedom – a nagging feeling there’s a set of golden handcuffs keeping you from unleashing your potential. A study by Gallup shows just 13% of workers feel engaged at work. Leaving the majority of the world’s working population wondering how they got trapped in their careers and longing to not be one of the masses. But rather, an original.

Sadly, so few ever take the steps necessary to become an original. Why?

In a word: fear.

In his newest book, Originals, Professor Adam Grant sets upon a journey to debunk the myth being an original requires extreme risk taking. His goal? To persuade you and I that originals are actually far more ordinary than we realize. More importantly, to encourage us all to be more original because of the incredible professional benefits it provides.

2 Paths To Achievement… Which One Are You On?

Psychologists determined years ago achievement is accomplished in one of two ways: conformity or originality. The first stays the proven course. The second takes the road less traveled. Conformity plays it safe, while originality challenges the status quo. It’s not hard to see why we all admire originality – it’s so much rarer than conformity. As a result, it gets labeled as harder.  Read more…

 

Who would be a librarian now? You know what, I’ll have a go

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Remy Cordonnier, librarian in the northern town of Saint-Omer, near Calais carefully shows an example of a valuable Shakespeare “First Folio”, a collection of some of his plays, dating from 1623.

About the only drawback is dismissiveness from my friends and family. A working-class male taking a degree to be a what? Denis Charlet/AFP/Getty Images

 

“Who would want to become a librarian now?” asked an anonymous public servant on National Libraries Day, seeing before them a graveyard of dead libraries and old reference desks filled by volunteers. A valid question, and one to which I’ll reply: “You know what? I’ll have a go.”

I’m training to be a professional librarian, having just finished a lecture on “semantic web ontologies” and “linked data”, and sat dumbstruck in front of a “Dewey Decimal assembler” without a clue as to what I’m looking at. The course is challenging – it’s a three-year master’s degree that bites eye-watering chunks out of my wages. Why am I doing it to myself?

The fact is, I can’t not. It’s a sort of calling – like becoming a priest, only with warmer business premises. I can’t stand by and let public libraries sink. I won’t.

Forget all about reading as a pleasure, forget that children should have unlimited access to books, throw away arguments about libraries being lifelines for those less fortunate – they’re falling on deaf ears. You just have to look at the comments beneath pro-library articles to gather a general response: Kindles, the internet replacing information needs, and so on. And the one we wheel out about libraries being the centre of the community – there’ll be someone swatting that old classic aside with a “and yet the majority of the population doesn’t use them”. Read more…

 

Critical Skills You Should Learn That Pay Dividends Forever

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Coauthor Emotional Intelligence 2.0 & President at TalentSmart

Mar 2, 2016 

aaeaaqaaaaaaaavxaaaajdzkntzmndizlwm3mzktngzlny1hodu4ltkwztnhmzi5ywy4nqThe further along you are in your career, the easier it is to fall back on the mistaken assumption that you’ve made it and have all the skills you need to succeed. The tendency is to focus all your energy on getting the job done, assuming that the rest will take care of itself. Big mistake.

New research from Stanford tells the story. Carol Dweck and her colleagues conducted a study with people who were struggling with their performance. One group was taught to perform better on a task that they performed poorly in. The other group received a completely different intervention: for the task that they performed badly in, they were taught that they weren’t stuck and that improving their performance was a choice. They discovered that learning produces physiological changes in the brain, just like exercise changes muscles. All they had to do was believe in themselves and make it happen.

When the groups’ performance was reassessed a few months later, the group that was taught to perform the task better did even worse. The group that was taught that they had the power to change their brains and improve their performance themselves improved dramatically.

The primary takeaway from Dweck’s research is that we should never stop learning. The moment we think that we are who we are is the moment we give away our unrealized potential. Read more…

Things To Consider Before Accepting A Job Offer 7 Things You MUST Consider Before Accepting A Job by Ariella Coombs

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Before accepting a job, it’s important to understand a few things about the company (and about yourself). The last thing you want to do is take a job now only to leave in six months because you’re miserable. Here are some things you should think about before accepting that job offer:

1. Do I like the people I’d be working with at this company?

The truth is, you’re not going to get along with everybody, and no everybody is going to get along with you. However, it’s important to realize that you’ll be spending the majority of your days with your co-workers. While you don’t necessarily have to be buddy-buddy with them, you want to make sure you can at least get along so you can work together effectively.

Make an effort to get to know the people you’d be working with before moving too far into the hiring process. This will not only help you learn who they are and if you’d be able to get along with them, but it’ll also strengthen your network within that company. Having good relationships with people who work within your target companies can increase your chances of getting referred in. Read more…

A Harvard psychologist says there’s a personality trait that’s just as important as charisma and is easier to develop

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Some people are naturally more charismatic than others.

Bill Clinton, Oprah Winfrey, and Martin Luther King Jr. had the ability to captivate and inspire their audiences the way few other leaders could.

Yet Harvard psychologist Amy Cuddy says there’s a personality trait that’s just as important as charisma — and it’s considerably easier to develop.

That trait is what she calls “presence,” and it’s the subject of her new book by the same name.

“Presence,” as Cuddy defines it, is about being attuned to and able to express your full potential — whether in an important presentation or a conversation with your boss.

During a recent talk at the 92Y in New York City, Cuddy explained the difference between charisma and presence, and why presence isn’t something that only certain people are born with:

Charisma seems to be more about the intoxicating quality that you have on other people, as opposed to presence, which is more about the self in relation to others, and how you feel you represented yourself in a situation, and how you were able to engage. So it’s less about how others see you and more about how you see yourself.  Read more...