TED Tuesday: How to Stop Screwing Yourself Over

Okay. Seriously - I know that you all can't always watch the entire TED video but I really want you to watch this one.

Last night I found it and started it - I was passively listening, scrolling instagram and starting to take down notes for you. A few minutes in, I couldn't ignore the passion and conviction in the voice of Mel Robbins and needed to start the video back at the beginning to give it the attention it deserved. It's worth your time.

Mel is a radio host, reality show host, relationship expert and a woman who boasts having the ability to help you get anything and anywhere you want. Would you believe that she can help you ?

Let's begin there ... What do you want?

Want a hot body, or double your income, retire 5 years earlier, take a year off and travel, settle down and start a family?

What is it that you're after? What's standing in your way?

We live in an age where everyone has access to  any information that they want to acquire - via books, blogs, videos - you have everything you need, so why don't you have what you want?

I think Mel has a point when she says that first thing you'll have to do before getting after your dreams is to drop this 4 letter F-Bomb from your vocabulary because it's cheap, dirty and it's ruining your life. 

You read that right - "Fine". It's a disgusting word that you need to stop using immediately.

Of course "fine" is the perfect word because it alleviates you of having to do anything to change your situation. But that's not going to get you to your goals, dreams and ambitions.

When you use the word "fine", you're not only using it to mask your emotions to others, you're using it to hide your feelings from yourself too. And the saddest part is that you believe it.

It's simple to get what you want, but not easy!

You need to stop hitting your snooze button; metaphorically and literally (#DirtyhairDontCare).

As Mel suggests, try these three things:

• Force yourself out of your head - don't listen to that jerk in your head, you wouldn't be friends with someone who spoke to you that way.
• Force yourself past your feelings - If you listen to how you feel, you will never get what you want.
• Force yourself outside of your comfort zone - outside this bubble of yours is where you greet the challenge and the magic takes place. 

TEDx conferences are the best, thanks for watching!

TED Tuesday: Born To Run

I really hope that what Christopher McDougall is saying in today's TED Talk is true - that we as human beings are designed to sweat and to run.

Not just run but to run long distances.

Why do I care?

This week I have to make good on my commitment to run 100 miles a month... only using up 12 days total.

If you're reading this when I am publishing on Tuesday morning, I have 57 miles left and 140 waking hours to do it in. Possible, right? Right!

Now obviously some of those hours I want to sleep, some of those hours I guess I have to work and some of the others I just plain want to relax, but mark my words - by Sunday when I get on a plane at midnight to return to Toronto I will be at 100 miles and no less.

Dedicating today's post to running is important to me as I had to drop out of my annual Hood to Coast fun that's this upcoming weekend as too much is happening at work and I wouldn't have had the chance to take Friday off. (Insert massive sigh here).

(Insert yet another massive sigh here)

I liked this talk as it inspired me to think of my running challenge this week as not an obstacle, but something that my body is designed to do.

Enjoy!

[ted id=1067]

TED Tuesday: To Win or To Succeed

If given the option to either win or succeed, which would you choose?

If you're anything like me, your first reaction is to say 'win'. I'm a competitor at heart and if you have a game to play, I'm going to do anything I can to come out on top.

Pause: Career Chat ahead!

Even with all of the good things it seems like are happening at work, I'm non-stop behind and feel like I'm failing at every turn. Staying up late, 14 hours in the office yesterday, giving my everything just hasn't been cutting it - but seriously, by what standards?

The feeling of 'failure' comes from the high expectations placed upon me and just not enough time, not enough support and sometimes not enough energy to do a great job like I'm used to doing.

Jumping over hurdles that high isn't always possible. Unless you're this guy:

John Wooden defines Success as "Peace of mind attained only through self-satisfaction and knowing you made the effort to do the best of which you're capable."

Yes.

What I'm missing from my current state of being is having that peace of mind and self-satisfaction for all of the work I'm doing. As many of my co-workers know, I often strut around the office because I'm so smitten with everything our team does day in and day out for the business. Lately it's been a different Jessi - one who shows defeat on her face, doesn't walk as tall as she should and isn't satisfied with her efforts as her standards for herself are too high along with the expectations of others.

I'm not trying to be better than anyone else, I'm trying to be better than I've ever been before.

Healthy approach, but I think where I can help myself is by appreciating my own work, patting myself on the back, and measuring myself against who I was the day prior, not what every external source expects me to be.

And with that take advice from everyone around me to be vocal about what help I need, where I need it, and how to better set everyone up for success. Sometimes you need people who are looking in to tell you to pause and reset - and I'm ready to listen.

I re-played 30 seconds from this video over and over again to get this entire quotation and I think it's perfect.

"You should never try to be better than someone else, always learn from others and never cease trying to be the best you can be. That's under your control.  And if you get too engrossed and involved and concerned in regard to the things over which you have no control, it will adversely affect the things over which you have control."

Just like I learned long ago through my time spend on the diamond - control the controllables and the rest will fall into place.

[ted id=498]

TED Tuesday: Secrets of Success

I promise you that the video below will be one of the quickest and pain-free TED Talks I'll ever put you through. If you're hungry for more, head to the archives.

Success - what does it mean to you?

When thinking about being successful, the formula seems almost impossible. First you have to be in the right place at the right time. You then have to be willing to put in the work, have a passion for what you're doing and be comfortable with the idea of being in the spotlight.

In my career I feel like I've been pretty successful. From pushing boundaries to making ideas a reality, my daily goal is to prove myself to those around me who may not know what I'm capable of doing.

That said, never have I felt more inadequate for the tasks and challenges in front of me than I feel today. What is expected of me on a daily basis is more than I know what to do with. It's clearly a lesson the universe is trying to teach me. In the words of a teammate at work, "If Jessi can make it through this, the sky is the limit for her career."

Success is for the gritty, the passionate, the persistent, the pushers, the dreamers, the outside of the box thinkers. Success is for me.

What I adore about the short TED Talk below is how simple success can be summarized by remarkable TED contributors who aren't strangers to what success looks like at its most fundamental level.

Before I leave you, I want to share my absolute favorite part from the video that happens at the 2:50 mark:

"PERSIST"

Persistence is the #1 reason for our success.

You have to persist through Failure and you have to persist through CRAP!

Criticism

Rejection

Assholes

Pressure

Yep! 4.5 Million Views and it can't be a hard 3 minutes of your life.

[ted id=70]

TED Tuesday: 5 Ways to Listen Better

Me: "Did you hear what I said?"

Dan: "What?"

Me: "Did you he__, you're a jerk."

DANGER: We are losing our listening!

Do you consider yourself a good listener, or feel like you actually retain what you hear?

We are often distracted by multiple sounds, multiple signals and competing 'noise' from all directions and on average only retain 25% of what we hear.

I for one have a problem focusing on just one thing at a time. I'm constantly juggling an iPhone in one hand, a laptop in front of me, people asking me questions and email noise popping in left and right. I think of myself as efficient, but if the reality is that I'm only retaining 25% maybe I'm living my life wrong.

Confession #1: Just last week I recorded a conference call so that I could replay it back because I knew I wasn't going to be able to give 100% attention - and truly didn't even give 40%! Playing it back on a run over the weekend allowed me to get caught up on the meeting that I physically attended but emotionally ignored.

Confession #2: This 7 minute video shared below about ways to listen better? Yeah, I had to watch it 2 and a half times to capture all of the notes for this post because I was distracted by kittens running around the house, a Say Yes to the Dress marathon and the bustling neighborhood. Seriously, I couldn't even actively listen to a video about active listening (which could also be attributed to point #2 about day drinking in yesterday's post).

Confession #3: If you want me to really listen more, say less. Tami wrote a great tutorial on How to (not) Write a Press Release last week and I'm talking about "Mistake #2".

Maybe you're better than me, so how about you give it a try. Watch the video, actively listen, and get on board with being able to understand the people around you better than ever before.

[ted id=1200]

TED Tuesday: Where Real Work Happens

How many of you think that your place of work is where you feel the most creative and productive?

Nobody? Yeah me either.

The conversation today is about why we can't get real work done at work.

This is something that plagues me daily. If I was in a closed room, a music playlist already set for me, unlimited bottled water and some amazing fresh and healthy snacks - I truly think I'd be the most productive human being alive.

Reality? I work in an open-space environment and share about 60 square feet with 12 people and NO walls. Is a wall too much to ask for?

But seriously, people in the corporate world know the two most common killers of productivity very well. They're M&M's... Managers and Meetings. Thankfully for me, I have an amazing manager that isn't a helicopter dad and let's me and my co-workers run our own show. But meetings, interruptions and being accountable for any and every conversation in earshot can get incredibly exhausting.

Everyday (including yesterday) I'm at the office from 6am to 6pm and honestly my most productive hours are 6-8am and 4-6pm. This shouldn't be the case.

Those hours are my best and brightest because I'm able to have my headphones completely over my ears, emails aren't bouncing back and forth yet and there's so much more concentration to knock out the daily work. Once other people start showing up, I have to either take my headphones all the way off or can only have them over one ear when just in case somebody has a question or needs something.

Also in the past two years I've been told to pick up the phone when I need someone to do something for me but I agree with Jason Fried in the TED Talk below - a phone call in the middle of some serious brain waves can completely derail productivity. For me, a phone ringing makes me instantly sigh and worry about how long I'm going to be tied up on the line. Send me an email or an instant message and allow me to respond on my own time, I promise I'll get back to you!

Where I work, we have a beautiful campus complete with cafeterias, fitness centers, a hair and nail salon, a daycare and a beautiful running track where us employees can truly stay the entire day and love every minute of it. Those amenities are amazing and I need to take more advantage of them, but feel like my entire day is shot the minute the first person (after me) walks into the office.

What do you think, how can you make your place of work more productive and allow you to get actual work done during your assigned work hours?

And p.s. I don't have much time for it in my day job but I agree with Jason Fried that interacting with today's modern forms of Social Media at work IS equivalent to a smoke break you've never been able to take advantage of. 

Enjoy today's TED Talk!

[ted id=1014]

TED Tuesday: Start a Movement

My friends, you are in for a major treat today!

I believe this was one of the very first TED Talks I was ever exposed to (thanks, brother!) and it still resonates with me today.

What I seriously love about this video is how organic and pure a movement can be. What begins as a wild, carefree and maybe a little inebriated concert-goer enjoying some music and letting his body groove [who hasn't been there?] turns into a full-blown party thank you to the first of many followers who courage and confidence.

via

It's no doubt that you've been told for your entire life that leadership is an invaluable quality. That's because it is. But if we were all leaders, then who would we be leading and what changes would we really be making?

For a leader to be effective, it's necessary to have a first follower.

Not a follower like that pesky fly that kept landing on your hamburger this weekend, but a follower who will support the leader's vision. A follower who will stick their neck out for their leader and a follower who will give other followers an example.

As you'll see in the short video, one follower, two followers, three followers and all of a sudden the dance of the young and free is less risky, more fun and the hippest place to be.

Take a look and tell me - who would you rather be, the lone nut or the first follower?

[ted id=814]

TED Talks: Ideas Worth Spreading