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The Surprisingly Strong Case for Luck in Sales
My wife and I started our first business together in 2003. We sold solar panels in Long Island, New York, which meant making thousands of in-home sales calls. Before we entered a potential customer’s home, we had a little ritual. We always looked at each other before we opened our car doors and said, “Let’s go sell a solar system.”
Fail! Fail a Lot! It’s Good for You
Failure is baked into the human experience. So why are we so terrible at dealing with it? Fear of judgment and the stigma that our failures reflect poorly on us discourage us from trying new things. Negative self-talk and rumination convince us that our failures mean we’re incapable and undeserving. But failure is typical in all professions.
You Are Not Your Mental Health
For many people, receiving a diagnosis of a mental health issue is a revelation, a kind of validation that explains the confusing symptoms they’ve endured, sometimes for years. Suddenly, the world feels a bit more manageable because now, there’s a label for their experience. For the first time in a long time, they feel understood. Take my friend, Thomas (not his real name).
Control Your Calendar (Not Your To-Do List)
Our society celebrates getting things done. Long hours, overflowing inboxes, and maxed-out calendars become badges of honor. But this relentless pursuit of output can leave us feeling drained, disconnected, and unfulfilled. We neglect the things that truly matter to us—family, personal growth, health—because tasks, not our values, dictate our schedules.
Sleep Hacks: Getting Great Sleep is Easier Than You Think
A few years ago, I started waking up at three o’clock every morning. Over the years, I’d read many articles about the importance of rest, so I knew the research was unequivocal: Quality sleep supports cognitive performance and lowers the risk of diseases and health conditions such as type 2 diabetes, heart disease, stroke, obesity, and dementia. Knowing that, I’d toss and turn in bed, disappointed that I wasn’t following through on my plan to get seven to eight hours of shut-eye.
How to Be Lucky in Business & Life: 4 Science-Backed Principles
Something as vague and indiscernible as “luck” has no place in the business world, right? Except studies show luck can make all the difference between business success and failure. Turns out, it’s not a matter of being born lucky. You can, quite literally, make your own luck in business and in life.
How to Handle a Distracting Boss
See if you can relate to Sarah. She’s a software engineer who loves her job—except for her manager, Tom. To Tom, everything is a crisis worthy of interrupting Sara, even when she’s trying to focus on her work. One morning, while Sarah was coding a critical feature, Tom called and asked her to drop everything to help with an urgent report for the CMO.
Only People Who Believe in Luck Have It
Richard Branson will be the first to tell you that he’s generally a lucky person in business and life. An adrenaline junkie, he’s lived through several near-death experiences, including in the early ’70s, when he and his then-wife survived a shipwreck that no other passengers did by jumping off the boat in a storm and swimming to shore. Branson isn’t the only uber-successful person to say that luck was on their side.
Can You Think Yourself Thinner?
As a clinically obese teen, my parents were desperate to get me to a healthy weight. My mom coaxed me on a walk through our boring, middle-class Central Florida suburb every Sunday. The road we walked was paved with good intentions, but for me, it was hell: the heat and humidity, the painful chafing between my thighs, the inevitable embarrassment of applying Vaseline to said chafing. … If I was going to suffer, I would need a reward, and it had better be a good one!
Why Successful People Only Get More Successful
You know those people who just seem to get more and more successful? It’s as if each success gives them momentum to achieve even more. Bridgit Mendler is a former Disney child star turned singer, lawyer, and entrepreneur. Amor Towles was a very successful investment banker for two decades and then became a very successful author. Well, there’s a secret to their success, and no, it’s not the obvious money, privilege, and social class (although those certainly count for something). It’s not even their natural talent.
How to Become an Indistractable Reader
When I was growing up, you couldn’t pay me to read a book about self-help or business. Now, I read between 60 to 80 books every year. A good non-fiction book is the distilled knowledge of years of research and insight and costs just a few bucks. Why wouldn’t you take advantage of such a cheap, efficient way to learn lessons that could change your life without having to do the work or live the experiences the author had to bear?
Want to Live Longer? Change Your Mind About Aging
Typing in “longevity” into Amazon reveals over 40,000 books on the topic. Each author purports their own cure, typically involving a special diet, miracle supplement, or painful practice. However, there is one often overlooked factor that studies have found increases lifespan by seven years or more.
How to Overcome Anxiety Forever
Winston Churchill predicted three to four million people might be forced to flee metropolitan centers after the first bombing raids of WWII. Tens of thousands of police officers were requested to prevent the stampeding exodus from trampling one another... Yet these predictions were wrong.
Referent Power: The Ultimate Form of Influence
Forget prestige and corner offices, forget gentle parenting—the real power of effective leaders and parents is their behavior. It’s no secret that our behavior influences those around us. It gives us the power to make a difference—to influence the behavior of others and shape environments.
Limiting Beliefs: Ditch the 4 Dream Killers Holding You Back
You’re probably not going to fulfill all your goals this year. And if you don’t, it likely won’t be because you’re incapable; it will be because you got in your own way. A slew of self-limiting beliefs will distract you from your goals and New Year’s resolutions. Below are four ways you’re likely to shoot yourself in the foot with self-limiting beliefs, plus ways you can learn to get out of your own way.
Sales Psychology: Why You Make Terrible Buying Choices
Did the load of gift returns you made in January make you realize that you need to be a smarter shopper? During the holidays, we’re bombarded with ads and sales pitches that use psychological tactics to grab our attention. These messages make it tough for us to make smart shopping choices.
Listening to Fitness Gurus is Making You Fat
You could feel the excitement buzzing through the WhatsApp channel. An A-list fitness guru reportedly spending millions of dollars yearly to reverse aging was in town to hold an in-person workout. Without hesitating, I signed up. I was interested in seeing Mr. Guru in action and eager to be inspired by his approach.
The Magic of Now, Not How
Airbnb began as a weekend project when the founders sent an email offering their living-room air mattress to hotelless attendees of a major design conference. Facebook started when Mark Zuckerberg built a clone of ConnectU over the weekend and told everyone in his dorm about it. Most of us think we are never ready for what we want: being in a relationship, living in another country, or starting a business. But the best way to make it happen is to start immediately.
The App that Transforms Drinking Habits: a Case Study
As a child of two parents who both struggled with alcoholism, Nick Allen had a choice to make when it came to his own drinking. He could follow the same destructive path his parents took, or he could swear off drinking altogether. But for Allen, and millions of others like him, all or nothing wasn’t much of a choice. Instead, Allen found a third way and co-founded a multimillion-dollar company in the process: Sunnyside.
3 Steps to Master Your Emotions and Be Your Best Self
You won’t evolve if you ignore your emotions. Mastering them is the best hack for becoming your best self at work and at home. I discovered the power of managing emotions when I set out to find a cure for my chronic distraction. I was struggling to the point that it was affecting my relationship with my daughter: whenever we spent quality time together, I found myself fiddling with my phone, my mind elsewhere.
The Ultimate Guide to Unstoppable Motivation
The Pacific Crest Trail is renowned as one of the most arduous—and sometimes dangerous—hiking trails in America. Every summer, thousands of intrepid walkers set off on the trail, beginning in spring and knowing they won’t arrive at the Canadian border until five months later. For most people, this sounds like a hellish feat of endurance. For University of Missouri professor Kennon Sheldon, it sounded like a perfect opportunity for a psychological experiment.
Multitasking During Meetings? Make Your Colleagues Indistractable
When I moved from a Google sales team in New York City to a Google operations team in Boulder, Colorado several years ago, I expected to find differences in culture and team norms. But one particular practice took me by surprise. Multitasking during meetings was rampant. Everyone was so distracted. This became grossly apparent during my first presentation in my new role.
How to Build a Habit-Forming Enterprise Product
For companies building products for enterprise customers, increasing customer retention by just 5 percent increases profits by 25 to 95 percent. Yet keeping customers isn’t easy. Eighty percent of B2B buyers say they switch suppliers at least once in two years. User retention is perhaps the most important metric for SaaS providers, who offer products or services that must engage customers regularly to ensure they don’t churn.
Score Your Spats: How to Stop Arguing & Enhance Relationships
I got this message from Shane Parrish: “Oh I meant to tell you... I remember something you told me that I now share with everyone. It's made a difference for so many.” The “something” he’s referring to is a simple question that my wife and I have posed to each other throughout our 22-year marriage. We’ve been using this method for so long, I assumed it was common practice. Here’s the gist: Whenever you have a disagreement with someone you care about and who cares about you, pose this straightforward question...
Unlocking Focus with the Distraction Tracker
Think you’ll explode if you try one more ineffective productivity hack? Here’s what you need to know to actually hack back distraction: there are only three causes of any distraction: an internal trigger, an external trigger, or a planning problem. A distraction tracker is the only way to help you figure out which of those is causing you to get distracted so you can do something about it. Download ours here.
Unlocking Focus with the Distraction Tracker
Think you’ll explode if you try one more ineffective productivity hack? Here’s what you need to know to actually hack back distraction: there are only three causes of any distraction: an internal trigger, an external trigger, or a planning problem. A distraction tracker is the only way to help you figure out which of those is causing you to get distracted so you can do something about it. Download ours here.
This Meeting Could have Been an Email: Time Suck to Unstuck
We’ve all been in a dumb meeting—one that makes you think, “This doesn’t even apply to me,” “I’m learning nothing from this,” or, worst of all, “This meeting could have been an email.” I’m sure you’ve commiserated with colleagues over what a time suck dumb meetings can be. Still, you might have resigned yourself to dumb meetings, accepting them as an inevitable facet of the workplace. But dumb meetings are not inevitable; they’re totally avoidable.
Decoding Self-Serving Bias: A Spy's Guide to Clear Thinking
One Sunday morning early in my career, I arrived at work to find a colleague of mine already there. We were working on a critical piece of software for an upcoming covert operation. He approached me shortly after I sat down at my desk. “That code you were writing was supposed to be done two days ago,” he said. “The operation is tonight, and we can’t go without you. You’ve put the whole thing in jeopardy.”
When Do You Feel Most Creative? Why Ideas Bloom at Bedtime
More times than I can count, I’ve slid under the bedsheets, turned off the light, and shut my eyes…only to have a great idea pop into my head. I’ll toss and turn for a while, hoping I’ll forget the thought. But if it’s a good one, I’ll turn on the light and, eyes bleary, scribble it down.
32 Morning Affirmations: Rise and Shine! [Backed by Science]
Even if you’re not sure about the power of morning affirmations, the science behind them is: When used correctly, self-affirmations can significantly affect your mindset and behavior. They have the power to rewire your brain, helping you break free from negative thought patterns and instill healthier habits.
Scheduling for Life’s Surprises: When Timeboxing is Toast
Some days, the world seems intent on sabotaging your timeboxed calendar. A meeting goes longer than expected. The daycare center calls to say that your child is ill and has to be picked up ASAP. A project you thought would take an hour to complete instead took three. Before you know it, the end of the day arrives, and you’ve barely given time to the tasks you had wanted to do. But what can you do? Some events are just outside your control... right?
Messaging App Madness: How To Stay Productive [and Sane]
When they came on the scene in the 2010s, enterprise messaging apps delivered the fast collaboration companies craved. A new world of internal messaging dawned in which anyone could ping anyone and get a near-immediate response. But in offering a potent solution, group messaging apps also introduced a problem: constant distraction at work. We’re drowning in notifications that lure us to diversion and degrade productivity.
How to Build an Irresistible Product for VC Investors
Venture capital (VC) is a great opportunity for new entrepreneurs seeking to bring a product to life—but the funding is incredibly difficult to secure. A survey of almost 900 VC firms found that they consider 101 opportunities on average for every deal they close. Still, the benefits of VC funding are clear.
You Don’t Have to Follow the Same Routines Forever
Numerous articles detail the routines of the most successful people in the world: Apple CEO Tim Cook wakes up at 3:45 a.m. and exercises. Actor and producer Reese Witherspoon eats the same healthy breakfast. Society has become so focused on increasing productivity and packing the most into every day that we think of long-term, consistent routines as the gold standard for spending our time.