Month: August 2011

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life

This book claims to be a ‘word-of-mouth’ bestseller.
I can see why. Since buying the book myself 2 weeks ago, I have gifted 7 copies to friends and intend to gift a few more.
2 others have also bought the book thanks to my insistence.
And I have never done this before.

What do I love about the book? It’s depth and inherent simplicity. I still don’t rate it above my bible – ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ but I would definitely recommend this book to more people because it covers a simple concept in great depth.. with astounding simplicity.

This book is the source of the Choice Map, which deserves a special post in itself.
This book comes highly recommended.

On ‘Even a Penny Will Help’

This week’s learning draws inspiration from ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini, Noah Goldstein, Steve Martin.

2 test groups of people were asked to donate to a Cancer cause.

The 1st group was asked – ‘Would you be able to help by giving a donation?’

While the 2nd was asked – ‘Would you be able to help by giving a donation? Even a penny with help.’

They found that this small disc in copper and zinc (i.e. the penny) was worth its weight in persuasive gold! People in the ‘Even a penny will help’ were almost twice as likely to donate to the cause – 50% vs 28.6%.

But, what about donation size? Again, the research team were amazed – there was NO difference in the average donation per contributor.

Small changes to our sentence formation make huge difference in determining our persuasive power

3 Applications that came to mind –

‘Even a minute will help’ – To a member of senior management with whom we want a meeting

‘Even a brief initial phone call will help’ – To a client who doesn’t seem to have the time

‘Even a penny will help’ – If we are indeed collecting donations!

Here’s to trying ‘Even a penny will help‘ this week!

The ‘Sent from my iPhone’ Thing

Smartphones are taking over the world and we see more emails with the familiar ‘Sent from my iPhone’ signature.
Lifehacker has a good article on Email Annoyances that is worth a read.
For those who would like the executive summary, one best practice might be to have a line like
‘Sent from my mobile. Please excuse the brevity, spelling and punctuation.’


I use ‘Sent from Handheld. Please ignore any typos’ myself.

Build Your Own Board of Directors

I’ve said this many a time on this blog. It sometime helps to think of ourselves as a venture – ‘Me Inc’. We are the CEO’s and the Chief Investors in this venture. It is our responsibility to make sure this venture is successful and happy.
Just like any real world company, it is vital we have our ‘Board of Directors’. Typically, this board consists of respected people who would like to see this venture be successful. The more committed this board of directors are to the venture’s success, the better the venture’s strategic decisions are.
In our own lives, this ‘Board of Directors’ is a set of respected mentors to whom we go for advice.
Over the years, as I have come to realize that ‘The World is My Family’, I’ve had more help than I could have imagined from my own ‘Board of Directors’. There have been few who have stayed with me, some who have come and left but this group’s care, love and belief in me have constantly left me amazed.
While I will write about the difficulties of engaging mentors some other time, I think the simple idea here is to find a mentor/mentors if you don’t have one. And if you don’t know where to start from, try and find people a couple of years older who you would like to emulate/be like and then reach out to them and try and keep them engaged with what’s happening in your life.
And if you are nervous about reaching out, do keep in mind that there is 1 thing that will probably go your way – if those you are reaching out to are indeed doing well, then they probably haven’t gotten there alone. So, you have every chance they will atleast understand where you are coming from and be of help.
Universities/schools of education encourage ‘independence’ in their bid to get us ‘standing on our own feet.’ The issue is that the fact remains that in the ‘real world’, nobody gets to where they are, alone. We need all the support we can get. And just like it is a CEO’s responsibility to ensure he has a board he can rely on, it is our duty to do so in our lives as well!

Keeping Perspective

It often amazes me as to how we all live in worlds of our own and how we are kept so incredibly busy in them.
I am always amazed by the idea that every person walking on the street has a story of his/her own complete with drama, hopes, fears and a mixture of emotions.
And hence, the simple idea that perspective is the most valuable commodity on the planet is a powerful one. For we can get so very entrenched in our own worlds that we often lose sense of what’s on the outside.
Today was one of those days when I felt humbled after a long conversation. It wasn’t that I was feeling particularly ‘high’ but I guess the act of looking ahead at the many challenges that lie ahead made me reflect on the past, and look ahead at the same time with the sort of perspective that doesn’t allow for bullish confidence nor fear.
Some might call it ‘inner peace’ but to me, it was just an act of keeping perspective. It helps greatly to meet with people outside our immediate circle, often even people who are way above our league in intelligence, achievement, age etc (if we can manage to find some time) because it always helps give a different perspective. And that is always useful.

Never Worry about the Permanent Marker Again

Now, I have seen many white boards destroyed thanks to being written on by permanent markers.
Coming from this background, I groaned when I saw that a friend had written on her board with one. I was vaguely aware that using nail polish remover generally solves the problem but felt that sinking feeling all the same when I saw I couldn’t erase the marker off.
And that’s when this friend simply wrote/drew/scribbled on the text with the ‘whiteboard’ marker and erased the whole thing.
(The science is that the whiteboard marker simply ensures that there is a dose of xylene on the ink which makes it erase-able)
It feels ‘obvious’ now that he has done it. But it wasn’t to me and wasn’t to a friend who I helped the very same day. She was considering replacing the board altogether!
So, next time you find someone feeling bad about writing on a whiteboard with a permanent marker, amaze them by scribbling over the writing and taking it off. It could even be a magic trick! :)

Albert Gray’s Common Denominator of Success

‘Successful people formed the habit of doing things that failures don’t like to do.’

We’ve all heard this in different forms but I was struck by its simplicity – in understanding and application.
Let’s take a simple example with just 2 activities –
1. Reading
2. Exercising
They are not easy to do on an every day basis. We all are busy after all, aren’t we? How can we dig out 30 mins to an hour for reading? And the same holds true for exercising as well, of course.
What amazes me is that the most successful folks around have just made it a habit – exercising 30 mins to an hour every day (typically in the morning) and definitely 30 mins to an hour of reading.
These are simple examples – I, for one, am still struggling with making daily exercise a habit. I did it for a month in June and I could feel the difference getting up @ 530am in the morning and getting to exercise. But since then, the simple truth is that I’ve been making one excuse after another and I’ve been trying to justify (to myself) that exercising 3 times a week is not that bad. It probably isn’t.. but then again, I am missing the point.
A Bill Gates wouldn’t bother with that. He’s simply made a habit of doing this kind of thing..
That’s simply what defines great people – they live by doing. And then by doing more..
Live now, do now. Time to get back to daily exercise!
—
Here’s a link to Albert Gray’s full speech – for those who are interested.