Category: young professionals

The Secret To Unleashing Your Productivity

Scott Asai3 Comments

Distractions

There are plenty of myths surrounding productivity, but most of them are false because they’re centered on being more focused or giving perks. Managers would love to find the magical whip they can use to micromanage workers, but that stuff doesn’t work in the post-industrial days. Productivity is getting in a “flow” similar to when an athlete gets in the “zone.” It’s not as simple as snapping your fingers and you’re there. Instead it’s about controlling your surroundings and tuning out the noise that distracts us in a technologically driven world.

Rationally thinking becoming hyper-focused is the key, but it’s not. It’s like when you’re having a hard time falling asleep, the more you try the worse it gets. Actually when you “turn off your brain” is when you naturally dose off. I found as working as a Millennial Coach, the key lies with removing distractions. This can be as simple as venting to someone else. Imagine entering a room frustrated, then leaving refreshed. Work isn’t even discussed, but you feel ready to conquer the world walking out. Companies such as Zappos and Google are forward-thinking enough to provide the optimal environments to enhance productivity. Back to the analogy of the micromanaging boss, in order to unleash your optimal performance trust must be given freely. It is not without consequences, but a person should be innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. Leaders empower productivity, they don’t control it.

The next time you’re watching a sporting event, watch how athletes prepare before the game. Most have headphones on and are listening to their favorite music. Why? Besides possibly being sponsored to wear a certain brand, it’s a pre-ritual to help calm their mind and body. The term corporate wellness gets thrown around a lot these days, but essentially its function is to counter the daily stress with an outlet of release or relaxation. Most people wake up, grab coffee and stumble into work wondering why they’re not in the mood to produce at a high level. You may not be able to listen to music by yourself during work, but you can go for a morning workout, eat a healthy breakfast or listen to music that calms or motivates you in the car during your commute.

Lastly, I can’t emphasize how crucial to your success coping is. That means being able to deal with curveballs thrown at you frequently. You can’t control what happens to you, but you can control how you respond to it. Re-framing situations from negative to positive is merely turning that frown upside down. Your mind has the ability to pause in situations that don’t feel right and choose to focus on something else. For example, if you’re given a new assignment that has a hard deadline soon instead of complaining about it, stop, re-prioritize and drop what you’re currently doing to work on what’s more urgent. A split second is all it takes to catch yourself from going down a hole of despair to re-framing to what’s more positive.

So the next time you’re having a problem getting focused, think about your environment. Experiment with what’s conducive to your optimal performance and tinker with it constantly like a game. There are some factors, like meetings or an annoying co-worker, that you can’t control, but you’d be surprised to know a lot of your performance has to do with what you decide to tune out.

Scott Asai is a speaker/coach that has been developing leaders for 20+ years – athletes, companies and individuals. His focus is helping people develop leadership skills to advance in their careers. Scott tends to attract a large audience of Millennials and Introverts to his programs/events. His professional background consists of: B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Organizational Leadership, Certified Professional Coach and Certified Strengths Coach.

Millennial Makeover: 3 Steps for Success

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millennial_infographic

Millennials are now the largest generation in the U.S. Labor Force and that number will just keep growing. The stereotypes of being narcissists, fickle and poor communicators are mostly true, but there’s too much emphasis on the problem and not enough focus on solutions.

I’ve worked with Millennials both as a volunteer and paid basis for the past 20 years and here is what works:

1) Teach/Model Communication Skills: As technology increases, communication skills decrease. With texting, social media and various apps, verbal communication isn’t practiced much. Young professionals can multitask quickly, but are slow to respond to emails, lack professionalism and avoid conflict. In order to turn the tides give them opportunities to speak in public, network at events and define professionalism. Rarely is a new hire ready to do their job independently. That doesn’t mean they’re not capable, it means you need to teach them what they lack. The only way to improve skills is to practice. Stop complaining about their faults and show them how to do it.

2) Give Frequent Feedback: Millennials crave coaching. Since we’re stereotyping here for brevity purposes, Baby Boomers and Gen X’ers aren’t the greatest managers. Most supervisors move up in rank because of seniority, but the technical skills mastered are far from leadership skills that are needed to develop emerging candidates. Frequent means daily or at least weekly feedback. Yes, Millennials tend to dislike criticism, but that doesn’t mean you stop giving it. No, I’m not an advocate for micromanaging, but if someone isn’t performing to standards, they must be informed. This goes both ways too. Leaders should be secure enough to ask how they can serve their workers better. Praise is welcome, but make sure it’s specific, not general like “good job.” If you’re going to be generic in your feedback, do everyone a favor and don’t bother opening your mouth. Start at the end. Performance evaluations shouldn’t be a surprise to any worker if feedback is being given constantly.

3) Reward Intraprenuership: Millennials are the most innovative generation in history. If they don’t see the market fulfilling a need, they create it themselves. Corporate culture should welcome mistakes. We all learn best through trial and error and the most successful people in the world deal with failure better, not success. New projects are a great way for Millennials to take initiative, collaborate and test market products/services. If you ask most young professionals what matters to them most at work, you’ll usually get the response: make an impact in the world or opportunities for growth. Rewarding intrapreneurship satisfies both desires if planned well. Responsibility happens when ownership is taken. The quickest way to teach that is by delegating tasks, trusting people to get it done and holding them accountable for the results. Don’t worry about retention as much, instead foster an entrepreneurial culture and it becomes your most effective recruiting tool.

Generational differences cause a lot of problems at work, but if you choose to focus on the strengths of Millennials instead of their weaknesses, you’ll see positive results in your ROI much sooner than later.

Millennials: Why Potential is Overrated

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potential

Dear Managers,

Before you hire your next college graduate based on potential, stop. The equalizer for a young worker is experience, which tends to be lacking, but ultimately what employers care about for long-term tenure. After completing a four-year program, you need someone to give you a chance because you need experience right? Well, only part of that is true. If you’re a smart worker, you would have been interning, volunteering and/or working a part-time job. Experience, not a diploma, is a far superior measurement for success on the job.

This isn’t saying natural talent doesn’t matter, but far too many times “potential” makes us blind to current deficiencies. Take for instance athletes. Young talent is referred to as “raw,” but since sports is something you take seriously since childhood if you want to go pro, your body of work as an amateur precedes you getting to the next level. If a pro basketball prospect is known for his scoring ability, but struggles on defense that’s a red flag. As a natural scorer, that’s probably where he’ll thrive in yet even with teaching, he’ll be a mediocre defender at best. People can be taught skills, but we can’t can’t escape our strengths and weaknesses. Most superstars are elite at every level of competition. Play to your strengths and be aware of your shortcomings. Each person has a ceiling whether we want to believe it or not.

That’s why good interviews consist of past behavior questions. Employers want to know what you’ve done so they can predict how you’ll do. If you’re hiring for sales job, don’t look for charismatic individuals, look at sales experience. Want to hire the best engineer? See how much your candidate toyed with computers and video games as a kid. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell referred to the 10,000 hours rule where it takes that much practice to master a skill. Sounds crazy, but that’s equivalent to about 10 years of work. Someone straight out of college will probably not have that much experience in the industry, but some experience is much better than no experience.

It goes back to how we view our college experience. Did you wait for counselors and advisors to tell you what to do or did you take initiative to learn things on your own? High school is the last time education will tell you what’s next. In college, you choose your own destination. Potential is overrated because is says “I’m confident I can do this, I’m just waiting for my opportunity.” Experience says, “I can give you a specific example of why I’m a great fit for your company, when do I start?” Hire the experienced over the potential candidate. You’ll be glad you did.

The Introverted Networker

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Shy

There’s a belief out there that you have to be an extrovert in order to be an effective networker.

That’s a myth.

While it’s true that extroverts can be great at networking, introverts have their advantages too. Take for instance: listening skills. You and I love to connect with others, but the only way that’s possible is if there’s a discussion. That means someone is talking, while the other one is listening. If you’re talking all the time, you’ll notice people avoid you like the plague. Listen well and people will be drawn to talk to you.

Quality over quantity is a huge factor too. As an introvert, you may not be able to shake 50 hands during an hour meeting, but the 5 or less people you do meet you’ll probably remember how to follow-up with them. Consider using network events as a way to meet people, then grab coffee or schedule a phone call with them afterwards. Networking is a numbers game. Extroverts are better at meeting a lot of people at once. Introverts are better at getting to know a small amount of people at a time.

Only 7% of communication is done through words. The other 93% is shared between tone and body language. Introverts tend to be more intuitive so they pick up on non-verbal cues and intonation. Since interpreting communication requires observation and reading beneath what’s said, people feel valued when they are “heard” correctly. Knowing this, if you’re an introvert and have avoided networking up to this point because you didn’t feel like you’re “talkative” enough, stop making excuses.

It’s about who you know, not what you know, so if you’re not meeting new and maintaining old relationships, you’re getting behind!

A Speaker’s #1 Weapon

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public-speaking

Public speaking is the #1 fear of adults, but why? Up until a few years ago I dreaded speaking in front of an audience myself. Most people aren’t born with the gift of public presentation and as an introvert it can cause a lot of anxiety just thinking about it. Practice doesn’t make perfect, but it does make better so every opportunity to get up in front of people and speak, you should take advantage of. Confidence builds over repetition, but the one technique that elevated my speaking ability literally overnight is called The Memory Palace.

Essentially it’s a visualization routine to help you memorize your speech. Think about it. If there’s one aspect that stands out about great speaker, it’s their ability to not use notes. I always believed speakers who could orate without referring to an outline were superhuman. But with this technique not only do you give your audience the illusion that you have a fantastic memory, but your body language exudes confidence that is memorable.

Not only has it helped me become a better speaker, but it also cuts down on prep time because you’re remembering stories associated with images rather than reciting words written down on paper. When speaking only you know if something was omitted. You can always play off the fact a point was forgotten because no one else knows what you intended to say. There are many ways to plot your talk, but here’s what works for me:

1) Storyboard your ideas on paper in 4 equal quadrants

2) Organize your thoughts so the story flows

3) Add visuals (screen images and/or props) to enhance your message

4) Rehearse at least 3 times before you present

5) Smile and have fun speaking!

The formula of 70% presentation and 30% content has worked for me. Once I jot down my ideas, I shift my focus towards what clearly communicates my point to the audience. Your message is directed towards the crowd, not you. Stop preaching and start sharing. Body language plays such a huge role in the absorption of a presentation, so smile, make eye contact and slow down. Public speaking is becoming a lost art with the rise of technology, so if you want to stand out professionally learn how to become a great speaker.

If you want to improve your speaking skills, here’s the video that transformed me!

Follow Up Like A Boss

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Follow-Up

A friend of mine owns a very successful business called Westside Rentals. He built it from the ground up over 10 years ago and now it’s a multi-million dollar company. Mark is a very generous and friendly guy and being an extrovert he gets asked to speak frequently and accepts more times than not. I’ve been fortunate enough to work with him on occasion and hear him present. No matter where he speaks, he always concludes with the following:

Here’s my email address (usually it flashes on the screen), feel free to contact me, I’d love to hear from you.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The more successful you are, the less available time you have. So the caveat is Mark check’s his email several time daily, but one tactic he uses is if he responds to you, he’ll ask that you send him an email 2 weeks later to follow up. 90% don’t. For the 10% who do follow up, he’ll usually stay in contact with you.

This story is unique, but the principle is not. I can’t stress enough as a coach how much people today don’t follow up. We live in a world where distractions are plentiful and focus is becoming a lost art. For example if you send an email to someone you’re trying to contact, the rule of thumb is try 3 times. That means if you don’t get a response within a week, try again. If you don’t hear back after that, try once more reminding the person you understand they are busy, but you’d love to hear back from them. Be specific. Be brief. Be courteous.

Since only 10% of people actually do follow-up, those are the ones who usually reach their goals. Not because they are pushy. Not because they are arrogant. But because they are persistent. Most people give up after contacting someone once because they take it personal. Someone not responding to you isn’t rejection, it’s usually them being too busy or intending to respond, but forgetting to.

Following up is similar to sales. Rarely do you get the sale the first time around, but if you keep at it (albeit you’re not sleazy or annoying) you usually get better results than not. When you follow up, you stay on that person’s radar. Just because they don’t respond initially doesn’t mean they’re not receiving your message. That’s why the “3 times” rule comes in handy. If after 3 tries you still don’t get a response, it probably means you’ll never hear back from them. Go back to what I said earlier: the more successful a person is, the less available time they have. So don’t take it personal, rather take it as a challenge.

If you want to stand out from the crowd, you have to do what everyone else isn’t doing. Follow up like a boss and be a part of the 10% that makes it happen.

OED: Obsessive Efficiency Disorder

Scott Asai2 Comments

work smarter

I admit I’m obsessed with efficiency. To me it’s about working smarter, not harder. Planning my week out ahead of time means I can maximize my time the way I want. Since time is equal to all, I just want to make sure I’m optimizing mine.

For those of you who can’t relate because you feel disorganized, here’s some practical tips to control your schedule:

1) Use your Smartphone Calendar Daily. iPhone users have the luxury of syncing everything (as long as you have Apple products) so once you devices are connected, you have no excuse to forget dates, run errands and pay bills with alerts and reminders. There are three color coded categories preset: work, home and social/out. I encourage you to put everything you do in your phone. That includes meetings, when to exercise, follow-up emails, paying bills, projects, etc. Putting events in your phone means you don’t have to remember them. It’s like working on auto-pilot. Our brains aren’t meant to multitask (no matter what you’ve heard before), therefore make it easier on your brain by setting alerts.

2) Network Spreadsheet. Relationships are your greatest asset. Remember that. It doesn’t matter how career-driven or lazy you are, you need people. One thing that has helped me tremendously is tracking my contacts. I use Numbers (Apple’s version of Excel) to organize all the people I’ve met into different lists (similar to Twitter). In each category, I color code based on how I last contacted someone: black – email, blue – phone/Skype, green – in person, orange – text and red – need to get back to them. I also date it so I know how long ago since the last time we communicated. On top of that I use LinkedIn to write a note to myself about how we met and what we last talked about so I can pick up the conversation where we left off. Also take into consider prioritizing. I go from left to right. On the left side are people I need to keep in touch with so the frequency is more. Towards the right are people I just met so it’s not as frequent, but if our relationship grows they move “left” on the spreadsheet. You don’t have to use a system like this, but its just an example of how I organize my network.

3) Leave Gaps. As someone who’s goal-oriented, I like to achieve. The worst thing I can do is pack my schedule too tight where I get behind early and can’t finish what I intend to accomplish. Let’s say you have a coffee meeting that is supposed to last 30 minutes. Factor in the commute, extra time to talk, one of you being late, etc. and I’m sure the time slot allotted will be much higher. It takes some experimentation, but in the end you can estimate pretty accurately over time. We live in a world where everyone is in a rush, so why not go against the grain? I’m not saying be slow, but give yourself extra time to get stuff done. Back to the whole multitasking concept, give yourself a break between tasks to rest. Otherwise you’re setting yourself up to make mistakes. On a personal note when I planned the majority of my wedding, I put this idea of “leaving gaps” into action. As I worked in tandem with our wedding coordinator, I created a schedule for everyone involved (imagine getting separate timelines from the groom). The result: our family and friends said we were the most relaxed couple they’ve ever seen get married. That’s because the planning and preparation were done ahead so once it was showtime, we had nothing to be worried about.

You can tell by these examples that efficiency matters to me. It’s what I pride myself on and the standard I hold others to. I realize everyone doesn’t think the same as me and that’s fine. But if any of these tips can help you become more efficient, this post was worth writing. So have fun working smarter, not harder!

Scott Asai is a speaker/coach that has been developing leaders for 20+ years – athletes, companies and individuals. His focus is helping people develop leadership skills to advance in their careers. Scott tends to attract a large audience of Millennials and Introverts to his programs/events. His professional background consists of: B.A. in Psychology, M.A. in Organizational Leadership, Certified Professional Coach and Certified Strengths Coach.

3 Ways Leaders Are Willing, Not Ready

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LEADERSHIP

Are leaders born or made? That’s a debate this article can’t cover (in under a 1000 words) so I won’t go there. Everybody wants to be a leader, but if you knew what it really entails you might change your mind. In previous positions I’ve held, I learned over time that leadership isn’t as glamorous as advertised. In order to be an effective leader you have to be willing to absorb the following 3 things:

1) Willing to Take The Blame – If you want to lead, you have to accept being the goat. Not the “greatest of all time,” but pointing the finger at yourself when your team fails. It may not be your fault, but when something goes wrong people usually point “up.” I remember a time one of my staff members said something insensitive during a presentation and one of the audience members expressed their displeasure to me immediately. It wasn’t my mouth that this inappropriate comment came from, but after discussing it with my colleague, I decided to publicly apologize to the crowd. I wasn’t thrilled about it, because it wasn’t my “fault,” but it was under my watch so I took the fall for my team.

2) Willing To Deflect Praise – If you love getting credit for success, get out of leadership. Books, media and social networks paint a different picture, but rarely do leaders get praised when things go well. In fact, the better you get at leading and the longer you do it, it becomes an expectation (not appreciation). It’s like the obedient, older brother who gets overlooked by the prodigal son by his father. “Hey, I’ve been doing great all this time, but now this delinquent boy comes home and you give him a party?” Thanks for noticing. Not only do you have to take responsibility for your team’s blunders, but you also don’t get rewarded for achievements. Leadership isn’t all what it’s cracked up to be.

3) Willing To Follow – Maybe the hardest lesson to learn as a leader is managing your ego, not the egos of others. I learned this as a coach. Sometimes you’re right and they’re wrong, but you still go with their decision even when it turns our bad. Why? Because leadership is about developing people. If you make all the decisions, followers become dependent on the leader and never learn to soar on their own. When you delegate responsibility/let your team make decisions and live with the outcomes, they become leaders during the process. It’s not about telling people what to do and enforcing it. That’s called dictatorship. It’s why we hate micromanagers. The best way to illustrate this concept is an inverted triangle. The leader is at the bottom and his/her job is to support the people “above” them. Serve up and you’ll never fall down.

The better question to ask when it comes to leadership is: are you willing? Leadership is not for everyone and that’s okay. There can only be so many chefs in the kitchen, then it becomes too chaotic. Leaders are thrown into situations where they aren’t prepared all the time. It’s about knowing yourself, knowing your values and knowing your role. You don’t need an official position to lead, you just have to be willing to do the tough things and not get applauded for it.

Why Graphic Design Contests Are Great For Startups

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For a very long time, most companies have hired design agencies or freelance designers in order to source custom designs for their business. While it works well for multinationals such as Facebook, Microsoft and Apple that have exorbitant budgets, it proves to be a rather costly proposition for small businesses and startups as they mostly lack resources and bank balance to settle the bills of design agencies or freelance designers.But does that mean startups and small businesses don’t deserve to professional and creative logos, business cards, websites etc. for their entity? Do they necessarily dig a hole in their pockets for a professional identity? Of course not!If you’re at the helm of a startup in need of everything from a logo to a business cards, simply turn your attention to crowdsourcing design sites such as Designhill and launch a design contest. No matter how much people despise of crowdsourcing contests, it still rules the roost, especially for small businesses and startups with limited funds and resources.

Crowdsourcing design contests allow you to procure designs that share your passion, drive, and vision for your startup without spending an arm and a leg. But it’s not just that you get to save some fortune and a lot of hassle, there are numerous other benefits of holding a design contest. Let’s explore 5 of the most significant reasons why crowdsourcing design contests make for a great proposition for startups and small businesses.

1. Tap Creative Extremes:

Inc.com reveals that most design agencies are in fact marketing agencies with a heavy focus on visual media. Resultantly, when you work with such agencies, you end up getting graphic designs out of complacency. This is because design agencies are not faced with any competition when working for a client. On the contrary, crowdsourcing contests thrive on competition and ingenuity.

Competition gives birth to ingenuity. So, when you launch a crowdsourcing design contest, hundreds of designers compete against each other and come up with different unique concepts to win the competition making it easy for you to tap the creative extremes and get unique and superior quality designs for your startup or small business.

2. Get Much More than What You Pay for:

Let’s face it; graphic design firms remain the first choice for most multinationals and large corporations. Quite expectedly, design agencies often treat multinationals and large corporations with huge budgets as premium clients and offer them better service as against startups and small businesses. After all, you’re just another low-budget client in their long roster of clients. Resultantly, most startups end up getting ‘just what they pay for’.

But with crowdsourcing design contests, listed designers treat every design project as an opportunity to earn prize money and in a bid to outshine their competition; they come up with dozens of unique and professional concepts. Therefore, with crowdsourcing design contests, you get ‘much more than what you pay for’.

3. Get Innumerable Choices:

Chances are that you may a design agency that would agree to work on your budget, but you would not get more than 3-5 design options to choose from limiting your choices. With limited concepts, at times, you’ll find the ideas stalled and will have no option but to compromise on your business identity.

But, for crowdsourcing design contests, diversity is the name of the game. Startups can get many design ideas, inspirations and styles. With an average of 100+ design options to choose from, you’ll be able to find more than just a few concepts to match your project needs.

4. Get Affordable Designs:

Forbes reveals in one of its articles that for most startups and small businesses, the real challenge remains getting things done in a nickel-and-dime. Well, with the price of graphic design services sky-rocketing these days, it becomes almost impossible for startups tobuild a brand around users with graphic elements that they can relate to and connect with.

This is where crowdsourcing design contests help startups and small businesses reach beyond boundaries and get quality custom designs without burning a deep hole in their pockets. But affordable price doesn’t mean that you need to compromise on quality. So with crowdsourcing design contests, you get the finest of fine graphic designs for the price that you’ll set for your design contest.

5. Save Money & Time:

Quick sprout mentions in one its insider stories that establishing a startup takes an awful lot: a lot of effort, time and money! Working with a design agency usually takes up a lot of time due to the long list of people involved in the entire process. And due to the involvement of many people, it takes a seemingly long time, a lot of energy and quite a fortune to meet people, exchange emails, arrange teleconference and personally visit the agency.

However, crowdsourcing design contest doesn’t require you to spend too much time, money and resources. And all you need to do is just fill in the design brief, name a price and relax while the ideas start to pour in from graphic artists, logo designers, illustrators and an entire community of graphic artists from across the globe, ready and willing to work for you under the tightest of deadlines. It saves you money, time and efforts that you would otherwise incur on transportation, teleconference and physical visit when working with a design firms.

So, Go For Crowdsourcing Contests And Give Wings to Your Startup:

So, if you have a big graphic design project on your plate, launch a crowdsourcing design contests and explore the endless possibilities of getting affordable logos, business cards or web designs to establish your brand identity, garner media mileage and build a loyal customer base.

Why Do You Want to be An Entrepreneur?

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Being an entrepreneur is certainly a stressful experience.

Why, then, would anyone dream about taking their chances as an entrepreneur?

It is not that hard to fathom.

Let us find out why.

It is Satisfying

When you taste success as an entrepreneur, it could be both emotionally and financially

rewarding. There is no better feeling in this world than seeing a product you have

designed on a store rack, or when you have provided extraordinary service for an

appreciative customer. It is all the more exciting to win a new customer over or

successfully complete a sale when you know it all comes down to your perseverance.

Further, it is very pleasing when customers tell you that your service has truly made a

remarkable difference in their lives. Finally, it goes without saying that generating

profits and knowing your business is scalable provide great personal satisfaction as well.

It is Flexible

The degree of flexibility in an entrepreneurial avatar is far too flexible than what you

would experience in a typical 9 to 5 job. Yes, you can put in more hours at work, and

you can very well do so whenever you want- on your own terms. Moreover, you can

take a break at 330 to pick up your kids from the school down the road. What’s more,

you need not seek for permission from your boss. If you are nocturnal, you can change

your schedule to work from 12 am to 5 am. You are the boss. You are free to call the

shots. And, it can be quite exciting.

It is an opportunity to create

What do you want to do as an entrepreneur? Do you want to build something new? Or,

do you prefer to help others around you? Maybe you want to form a legacy that will

outlive you. Or, you want to help the community by leaving something behind. No

matter what motivates you, building things or creating stuff right from scratch is akin to

raising a baby.

Got a new idea for a small business? It is not difficult to get business loans these days.

Several small business loan companies are ready to turn your dream into reality. Leave

it to them, and set your focus, rather, on the new idea. The joy you get from seeing

your idea grow, and develop over time into a successful entity is incomparable.

The sense of accomplishment, the degree of flexibility and the chance to innovate that

an entrepreneurship role offers is quite difficult to replicate in most other professions.

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