The word “passion” is defined as a “strong and barely controllable emotion.” Can you say that about the job you are currently in? The idea that you can barely contain your excitement and enjoyment from what you are doing every day? If you don’t have a passion for what you are doing, you will not feel fulfilled in your life. It doesn’t matter if you have a lot of money – passion does not always equal “rich.” Finding a way to pursue your passion full-time, as a career, can mean the difference between living your life to the fullest vs. just living. But how do we connect the passion we have into a career? It starts inward and works its way outward. Here are 4 ways to connect your passion with your career.   Interview Yourself Before you create any plans on joining your passion and your career, the first thing you must ask yourself is “What am I passionate about?” This means the answer should not be… What other people think is cool What other people think you should do What other people are doing It starts with who you are. What are your values? What gets you excited? What makes you feel fulfilled like you achieved something worthwhile? These are the questions that dig into the core of who you are and how you approach the world. If you value helping others and get excited watching others achieve their goals – then teaching or coaching may be the field for you. Knowing who you are by questioning who you are provides important information and acts as a compass directing you towards a career you are passionate about.   Interview Others Now that you’ve got a foundation of information, the next thing is to compare your perspective with other people’s perspectives of you. The people you ask should be loved ones or close friends that you trust to give you honest answers. Ask them questions like… What do you feel I’m good at? What things do I get excited about? What do I like to talk about? The goal here is not to understand where you could improve. The goal is to understand how other people perceive you, which could spark an insight into your personality that you didn’t previously know about. These insights may cause you to think of a career or industry that you’ve never considered but maybe something you would thrive in.   Figure Out What You’re Trying to Do The information you get from the above two steps gives you a great foundation on what you could do. The next step is to understand what you *should* do based on what you now know. Do you want to help a certain group of people (kids, adults, athletes, etc.)? Do you want to try and solve a problem (“Why hasn’t anybody ever tried _______?”) Your interviews (with yourself and others) will guide you on what type of problem you can solve [...]

What would you do if someone came up to you and said, “Here’s a check for $1 million, no questions asked?” You would most likely take it because hey, free money. What if someone said, “You can get $1 million, but you’ll have to work for it?” Odds are you wouldn’t be as excited because you’ll have to put in some effort. But it would be nice to know the possibility is there. Here’s the thing – that question is asked of you every day. You may not hear it, but the possibility of having $1 million is real – but you must behave like it. That doesn’t mean you start interviewing randomly for high-paying jobs. That means developing habits that are going to put you in the best position possible for you to eventually have lots of money. Here are 4 millionaire success habits to implement now.   They Look at Time Differently Every successful person you have ever heard of looks at time differently than the rest of us. In their mind, time is a valuable resource that you can never get back. Once that hour is gone, you can’t buy or steal or get an extra hour out of nowhere. Millionaires, whether they are athletes or CEOs, spend every second working on improving themselves and their skills. Have you ever noticed you never have seen T.V. commercials for Ferraris or Lamborghinis? That’s because the audience for those types of cars is not watching T.V. – they are busy grinding away and trying to be and stay successful. This means not binging T.V. for 4 hours a day or scrolling endlessly on your phone. Every minute you spend watching T.V. is a minute you are not spending developing your skills to help you be more successful. You must look at every minute as an opportunity to work towards success.   They Associate with Successful People There’s a saying that goes “If you want to be a lion, you have to train with lions.” Millionaires, and those who want to work towards being a millionaire, spend time with people who have the same type of mindset. If you spend time with people who don’t have a passion for anything, it can be difficult to feel passion for something yourself. This doesn’t mean eliminate everyone from your life. It just means you should evaluate who you always spend time with and ask yourself “Is this person helping me drive towards success or improvement?” If not, it may be time to start hanging out with people who have a passion for something and who are constantly trying to improve themselves. You may have never felt like this, but if you want to start behaving differently, these people can guide you towards actions to set yourself up for success.   They Set Goals for Everything Wouldn’t it be weird if sports did not keep score? No one would know who is winning or losing. Each team, whether [...]

“Never get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.” ~Unknown   I was sitting on the beach with my wonderful girlfriend, trying to relax on our vacation in Florida, yet I was racked with anxiety. We were lying under a large umbrella, taking in the beautiful waves and swaying palm trees, attempting to recover from the past months (and years) of overwork and overstress. But all I could think about was a marketing initiative I was working on for a client. The more I tried to chill, the more nervous I became. My girlfriend lay peacefully, dozing off occasionally, while I was busy fending off a full-blown panic attack. Did I hurry back from our beach session to get back to work? That would be crazy, right? Well, it was worse. I pulled out my laptop and went to work right there on the beach. I was so addicted to my computer and so stretched thin with commitments that I couldn’t even enjoy this highly anticipated vacation with the love of my life. In fact, the only thing I can remember when I look back on this trip is my stress. I don’t remember enjoying the beach or ever feeling present. When I got back from Florida, I didn’t feel refreshed at all. I more desperately needed a vacation after it than I did before it. Not only had my over-commitment to work prevented me from enjoying my time away, it led me to operating at below my best for many months following. Why did I do this to myself? It was a combination of things. I was insecure and using money to mask it. I was correlating my self-worth with the amount of money I had in the bank. I worked more to distract myself from my own anxieties. But most of all, I was working myself to death because of how the human brain works.   The Psychology of Over-Working The benefits of working less are counterintuitive, but well documented. There are the obvious benefits—such as having more time for hobbies, friends, family, health, or even working on bigger and better projects—and then there are the less obvious benefits, such as improving creativity and productivity. Tim Ferriss’ proposition of a “four-hour work week” is attractive to our rational thinking brains, but in practice, it’s surprisingly difficult to work less. The reason we work more than we need to—sometimes to the extent of actually hurting our productivity, health, or personal relationships—may lie in how humans have evolved. In their book Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters: From Dating, Shopping, and Praying to Going to War and Becoming a Billionaire – Two Evolutionary Psychologists Explain Why We Do What We Do, Alan S. Miller and Satoshi Kanazawa postulate that our brains are shaped by evolutionary pressures to survive and reproduce. We’ve adapted to recurring problems faced by our hunter-gatherer ancestors. “Our human nature is the cumulative product of the experience [...]

Sometimes, we wish we had more hours in the day. However, time is not something we can control. Therefore, we need to spend each hour wisely. Luckily, one thing we do have control over is our productivity. Waking up early, creating regular to-do lists, meditating—there are several ways to make the most out of every minute. Being careful with how we spend the hours at work is key to getting more things done. Successful people get most of their work done before lunch via streamlining their tasks and boosting efficiency. Today, we’re going to help you learn how to get 90% of your work done before lunchtime. How to Get Most of Your Work Done Before Lunch O’Clock Imagine this. You’re sitting at your desk. Lunchtime is near. You relax and push back with a sigh of relief. Since you’re done with most of the work, you leave the desk for a stress-free lunch and start daydreaming about all the cool things you are going to do for the rest of the day. Guess what? You can actually make this happen. 90% of your work can be done before lunch. When everyone else is groping for another cup of coffee, you sit back, relax, shut down your computer, and chill out. Wondering how you can achieve this? Well, we’re going to provide 16 incredible tips, but before that, let’s make two things clear: We are defining work as things that only YOU do—the most important tasks, not involving frequent meetings. This particular approach follows the Pareto Principle, aka the 80/20 rule, which states that for many events, 80 percent of the effects come from 20 percent of the causes. With all that said, here are 16 essential tips to get 90% of your work done in the morning. #1: Make a To-Do List for the Next Day Every night before going to sleep, try listing out all the important tasks you’ll do the next day. Remember, you won’t be productive if you don’t plan out each and everything you are going to do first thing in the morning. Try not to overschedule. Know how to detox your schedule and keep it light to accomplish surefire results. #2: Wake Up Earlier If you really want to get things done, you must get up earlier in the morning to make stuff happen. We recommend waking up anytime from 5 to 6 am. Your morning schedule might take a bit longer. In that case, bump your wakey-wakey time back further. And obviously, you will have to adjust the bedtime accordingly. #3: Clean Your Workplace Every Day Clutter in the office can create distractions. Even a tiny note on the desk that has “Call this number asap!” written on it could throw your entire day off. Remember, showing up at the office with a clear head, in a tidy environment will help you think sharper and work even harder. #4: Always Stay On Schedule You cannot let yourself get [...]

What’s the first word that comes to your mind when you think of the word “leader?” Sometimes, the word “leader” makes you think of titles that are associated with it – CEO, Manager, Coach, Parent, etc. It’s easy to think of titles that carry a status with them which makes anyone with that title a “leader”. At other times, the word “leader” makes you think of someone you know personally – a spouse, your manager, or a close friend. Out of curiosity – when you heard the word “leader”, did you think of yourself? Most people don’t think of themselves as a leader because it would seem overconfident or full of themselves. News Flash: It doesn’t. There is nothing wrong with considering yourself as a leader or wanting to become a leader. You may think of people who seem like natural leaders, but it took them a lot of practice and energy to make it look natural. One of my favorite quotes is from author Marianne Williamson – “Your playing small does not serve the world.” The world needs a diverse set of leaders, and you shouldn’t resist the desire to become more of a leader. But what if you don’t know how to be a leader? We want to share six techniques you can start practicing today to develop yourself into more of a leader.   Walk the Walk Before you can be seen as a leader, you need to be seen as someone who people would want to follow. I can’t ask you to do something that I’m not willing to do myself. People gravitate towards others who are willing to go through tough times and good times and embrace the challenge. You can’t lead until you set the example.   Be Vulnerable The quickest way to be seen as someone who is not part of the team is by avoiding responsibility or acting like a “know-it-all”. Being a leader means admitting you have opportunities to grow and admitting when you made a mistake. Nobody’s perfect. Everyone is going to make a mistake at some point. A leader says “Ok, I made this mistake. How can I prevent it from happening again?" By focusing on the solution instead of the problem, you show people you are somebody who wants to help others succeed.   Help Others Every person you consider “great” became great because someone took the time to help them become great. A true leader serves other people. The best leaders I know are not higher in job status – they are teammates and colleagues. Having a certain job title doesn’t make you a great leader and being a great leader doesn’t mean you need to have a certain job title. Whether it’s another team member at work or a neighbor, helping others shows your commitment to their success. That’s the type of person people want to follow.   Check for Understanding Typical leaders are used to barking orders and expecting everyone [...]

When’s the last time you said, out loud, “There’s not enough time in a day”? For me, it was about 30 seconds ago. As a mom who now works from home, I feel like my threshold for exhaustion is maxed out every day. It’s like I am on the show Survivor, but instead of whittling together bridges from coconuts and eating raw fish, I am scavenging the couch cushions looking for my Airpods while juggling Zoom calls and handling issues for my sons. It is quite a sight. One of my sons is now at home attending college classes online, which is out of my ordinary routine/setup. Fortunately, the techniques I’m about to share with you have helped me stay productive and calm working from home, even with unanticipated interruptions from other people in the house. Hopefully, you can apply these tools for whatever your “work from home” situation is. Some of these may work better than others for you, but even if you just take one idea away, you’ll see your productivity increase, even with all the chaos going on around you.   Set Up before you Get Up When you work from home, the most difficult part is getting started. Since you don’t have the urgency of needing to beat traffic, you don’t have the motivation to move fast. In the past, after handling family issues and getting the computer turned on, I’d often realize that my home workstation wasn’t organized and ready – computer cord was missing,  papers were all over the place, and I didn’t know what time my first call was. I finally started implementing a nightly routine where I organized and prepped my workstation the night before. The next morning I would arrive at my work area to find my computer open and on “sleep”, my papers organized for that day’s projects, and my entire schedule detailed in my phone’s calendar so that I could approach the day with calm and control So, at the end of every night, before you go to bed – set up your workstation for the next day. It takes 10 minutes, but you’d be amazed at how much better you feel when you start the day organized.   The Schedule Is Sacred When you work from home, your mind can easily wander while typing up e-mail“ -“My windows need to be cleaned.” “The yard is looking rough.” And other random thoughts that prevent you from focusing on the work. Since you don’t have a mental separation between work and home, you have to create a mental separation by creating a schedule and sticking to it. If your “workday” starts at 8 am, then that’s when your “work-mind” starts too. Creating a set schedule (breaks and lunch at certain times, a specific time you “log off” for the day, etc.) keeps you sane by giving you a routine to maintain. Of course, you’ll have to plan on interruptions, like your child’s computer having technical [...]