Why a Positive Attitude about Aging is Important

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Our age beliefs can have a direct effect on our physiology. Elderly people who have been primed with negative age stereotypes tend to have higher systolic blood pressure in response to challenges, while those who have seen positive stereotypes demonstrate a more muted reaction. This makes sense: if you believe that you are frail and helpless, small difficulties will start to feel more threatening. Over the long term, this heightened stress response increases levels of the hormone cortisol and bodily inflammation, which could both raise the risk of ill health.

David Robson, The Expectation Effect: How your Mindset Can Transform Your Life

When to Quit

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David Epstein (who wrote the book Range) points to research that has shown that quitting something that’s unrewarding or unfulfilling and moving on to something that’s a better fit makes people happier. For example, when the economist and Freakonomics co-author Steven Levitt conducted a study online in which participants who were considering a career change could flip a digital coin, heads for quit and tails for stay, he found that six months later, those who flipped heads and changed jobs were substantially happier. And perhaps more important, they had freed themselves up to try other things and find out what fulfilled them more than their current career. So quitting once it’s clear that the “match quality” between the person and the pursuit is bad, Epstein said, should be seen as more of a success than a failure. Seth Godin, the author of a number of career-advice books, has even endorsed making a list at the start of any endeavor of the conditions under which to quit.

Ashley Fetters writing in The Atlantic

Meet the entrepreneur in the mirror

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All humans are entrepreneurs not because they should start companies but because the will to create is encoded in human DNA, and creation is the essence of entrepreneurship.   

Whether you’re a lawyer or doctor or teacher or engineer or even a business owner, today you need to also think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture: your career. 

Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha, The Startup of You

What to do instead of simply venting about frustrations

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There is no consistent empirical support for the common view that putting an emotional experience into words can resolve it. We “equate emotional relief with emotional recovery,” but they’re not the same.

Chatting with friends can bring closure when they help you reconstrue an event, rather than just recount it. What does that look like? Asking why you think the other person acted that way, prodding to see whether there’s anything to be learned from it all, and just generally broadening your perspective to “the grand scheme of things.”

Gail Cornwall & Juli Fraga writing in Slate

Entrenched Opinions

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While lack of knowledge is certainly a major source of bias, professional expertise doesn’t fare much better. Whether we are looking at judges, lawyers, professors, scientists, doctors, engineers, architects, writers, journalists, politicians, investors, economists, managers, coaches, consultants, or computer programmers, sharp differences and entrenched opinions are the norm. Deep experience and expertise do not necessarily lead to objective consensus. As behavioral scientists have long noted, subject matter experts tend to:

1.    Rely too much on societal and professional stereotypes

2.    Overvalue their personal experiences, especially recent ones

3.    Overvalue their personal gut feel

4.    Prefer anecdotes that confirm their existing views

5.    Have limited knowledge of statistics and probability

6.    Resist admitting mistakes

7.    Struggle to keep up with the skills and literature in their fields

8.    Burn out and/or make mistakes in demanding work environments

9.    Avoid criticizing, evaluating, or disciplining their peers

10. Become less open-minded over time

For decades, we have seen the unfortunate results of these traits in criminal sentencing, student grading, medical diagnoses and treatments, hiring and salary negotiations, financial services, editorial coverage, athletic evaluations, political processes, and many other areas.

We may think that we are being impartial and fair, but our minds are full of stereotypes, preconceptions, self-interests, confirmation biases, and other discriminatory forces.

David Moschella writing for the Information Technology & Innovation Foundation

When Professional and Personal Lines are blurred

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We must understand that “family” means different things to different people. Not everyone wants to connect with their coworkers on a deeper level, let alone create a dependency to the organization. In a professional context, an employee will want to reserve private details of their personal lives outside of work. But when your workplace is a “family,” these types of conversations can be fair game, as the goal of the organization is to encourage socialization for the benefit of the whole. This leads employees to emotionally attach themselves to the organization. While it can reduce conflicts and disagreements within the organization, a fear of causing a strain in the relationship with their superiors (who are now seen as fathers or mothers) could leave employees feeling like they must share any information that is being asked of them.

Joshua A. Luna, writing in the Harvard Business Review

Graduating from the Artificial Bubble

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College classes are an artificial bubble. Students emerge from that bubble upon graduation—often without realizing it. After a few months, they feel frustrated at not making progress. 

In college, they had clear tasks, clear deadlines, and a clear payoff—grades and new classes. That’s all gone outside of academia. As new employees, graduates are likely to start at the bottom of the ladder, be assigned tasks lacking clear instructions, and produce inferior work. 

Here’s the good news: Knowing this is coming will blunt the repetitive grind. Knowing this depressing condition is only for a time will make it easier to keep going. By letting go of former expectations, graduates can fully embrace the new way of life.

Stephen Goforth

Poison to the Soul

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What a strange thing bitterness is! It breaks in on us when we need it least, when we’re down and in desperate need of all our freedom, ability, and energy to get back up. And what strange things bitterness can do to us. It slowly sets, like a permanent plaster cast, perhaps protecting the wearer from further pain but ultimately holding the sufferer rigid in frozen animation. Feelings and responses have turned to concrete. Bitterness is paralysis.

A young man, falsely accused, condemned and penalized by his high school principal, turns sullen, angry, bitter. His faith in all justice and authority dies. He will not forgive.

A girl, betrayed by a fellow she trusted, is forced, becomes pregnant, then turns bitter and withdrawn. Her faith in all humanity ends. She cannot forgive.

A woman, deserted by her husband, left to be both mother and father to their two sons, turns angry at life- at the whole universe. Her faith in God and everything good has ended. She did not forgive.

Bitterness is such a potent paralysis of mind, soul and spirit that it can freeze our reason, emotions and all our responses.

David Augsburger, The Freedom of Forgiveness

Success may be sweeter, but failure is the better

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Failure is a better teacher than success. I know of nobody who hasn’t had a string of failures before their success. What kind of people go out and the first thing out of the shoot is a success and they continue on successfully. I never met anyone like that. 

Uninterrupted success is less satisfying than success intertwined with failure.  

A University of Colorado study drew data from satellite launches and space shuttles and concluded that success may be sweeter, but failure is the better teacher. 

There’s a tendency for organizations to ignore failure or to try not to focus on it. There are vital lessons for the future overlooked in the rush to put on a brave face, to cover the disappointment. In the adult world, we are success-crazed. We tolerate diversity better but we don’t tolerate failure. There is a big social stigma attached to failure that causes people who have failed to go into denial. 

Most people have either come up the hard way or had to overcome periods of chronic self-doubt. You’ve heard the life stories: JK Rowlings’ mountain of rejection slips and Churchill was miserable in school. Could any of them have achieved the success they did if their lives had been an effortless progression from triumph to triumph.  

American physician and broadcaster Dean Edel 

19 Articles about Getting the Most out of LinkedIn

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The Illusion

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Self-evaluation involves interpretation. We’re all heard the studies showing that the vast majority of us consider ourselves above-average drivers. In the psychology literature, this belief is known as a positive illusion. Our brains are positive factories: Only 2 percent of high school seniors believe their leadership skills are below average. A full 25 percent of people believe they’re in the top 1 percent in their ability to get along with others. Ninety-four percent of college professors report doing above average work. People think they’re at lower risk than their peers for heart attacks, cancer, and even food-related illnesses such as salmonella.

Most deliciously self-deceptive of all, people say they are more likely than their peers to provide accurate self-assessments. Positive illusions pose an enormous problem with regard to change. Before people can change, before they can move in a new direction, they’ve got to have their bearings. But positive illusions make it hard for us to orient ourselves – to get a clear picture of where we are and how we’re doing.

Chip & Dan Heath, Switch

Activity is not Accomplishment

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John Henry Fabre, the great French naturalist, conducted a most unusual experiment with some Processionary Caterpillars. These caterpillars blindly follow the one in front of them. Hence, the name. Fabre carefully arranged them in a circle around the rim of a flower pot. So that the lead caterpillar actually touched the last one., making a complete circle. In the center of the flower pot he put pine needles, which is food for the Processionary Caterpillar. The caterpillars started around this circular flower pot. Around and around they went, hour after hour, day after day, night after night. For seven full days and seven full nights they went around the flower pot. Finally, they dropped dead of starvation and exhaustion. With an abundance of food less that six inches away, they literally started to death, because they confused activity with accomplishment. 

Zig Ziglar, See You at the Top

The Next Small Victory

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In training camps, we don’t focus on the ultimate goal — getting to the Super Bowl. We establish a clear set of goals that are within immediate reach. 

When we start acting in ways that fulfill these goals, I make sure everybody knows it. I accentuate the positive at every possible opportunity, and at the same time I emphasize the next goal that we need to fulfill. 

When you set small, visible goals, and people achieve them, they start to get it into their heads that they can succeed. 

Former NFL coach Bill Parcells in the Harvard Business Review