Self Improvement Daily Podcast

Let's talk a little bit about the importance of being in tune with yourself. Whether you are a high achiever or a low achiever, the achievement should always be viewed within the context of how you went about working on it. Being honest with yourself, and doing the right things for the right reasons, can make lesser accomplishments feel more fulfilling. Bradley Tusk, the CEO of his own Venture Capital Fund and a successful author, touched on this in an interview I had with him recently. 

“I try to challenge my own assumptions every day, right? So, if we have a weekly call and after the third time in a row, if I don’t feel it was that productive, I question ‘Do we need this call and what do I need to do to do this differently?’ I also go to therapy every week. I mentioned I pray every morning. I try to figure out if I did anything good the day before, did anything bad the day before, if I did something bad I try to make amends. I hold myself extremely accountable, and some of that is ethically / morally, some of that is intellectually, some of that is professionally. Sometimes it gets done through lists, sometimes it gets done through routines and habits. But, I have a lot of things I want to accomplish both in my work career and as a human being, and it only gets done if you make it get done. So accountability to me is everything”.

This message is to Check Yourself. It is so important to allocate a time to just evaluate your life and the means by which you live. Are you proud of your work and accomplishments, or a little embarrassed by some of your actions? If it’s the latter, it is not too late, and a performing a personal audit on your values will help right the ship. In order to have an intrinsically successful career, you must have an ethically sound foundation to start from.

Who hasn’t heard this expression before, "don’t judge a book by it’s cover"?  As tempting as it is, making judgments about the way something is can be a slippery slope.  Although I must preface, being judgmental is important in a lot of ways. For one, it helps us evaluate threats, understand our surroundings, and usually make good decisions.

I want to focus on how making judgments about other people can be to a detriment, which brings us to today’s tip, “Don’t judge a book by its cover”.

Our first inclination when assessing someone is external. Our attraction to them physically, the way they dress, the way they carry themselves, is all communicated within seconds. This is featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, where he calls this quick perception “thin-slicing”.  Make a point to see beyond the exterior and more into where compatibility lies.  

To do so, simply start getting to know the other person and remove any pre-conceived notions about who they are or what they do. Having an open-mind when first meeting someone is the foundation to a mutually beneficial relationship so that you can understand each other for who your are.

Then, as the relationship builds, continue to use that information to better relate with them.  

So don’t judge a book by its cover. Compatibility is way more than skin-deep and each person deserves that you take the time to see it.

This message is all about eliminating self-doubt. Charlie Houpert, the eloquent founder of “Charisma on Command”, talks about his 5 tips to overcome self-doubt.

‍

Have you heard of the term “elevator pitch”?  Basically, it is a sales pitch, usually about your product or company, that you can recite in the amount of time it takes to ride in an elevator, just in case you are in the elevator with someone important. Although limited in time, a good elevator pitch can portray enough information to allow a decent overall understanding while making them excited to want to hear more.

I propose that we all have a personal elevator pitch. Something that is just enough to explain what we do, why we do it, and what we are hoping to achieve.  

This can be useful from a few different angles. First, is it will help you hone in on your personal brand. When crafting a short message, you only have time to mention your personal highlights, which might be pretty revealing in understanding your own priorities. Also, if you do come across a big moment, maybe someone you are hoping to network with, you have an optimized way to present them about yourself and close a meeting.  At the very least, developing a personal elevator pitch will help you be transparent with yourself and where your skillset and priorities lie.  

So, to get started, brainstorm a few things to help identify those important parts of your life. For me, those things are personal development, being creative with the psychology of others, and making an impact. I’m still working on how I synthesize all of it, but I think there is an easy connection between those pieces and the marketing and self improvement daily roles I am in.

The next steps are to write that story and rehearse it, so that it is ready in the arsenal when the right time comes.

Why is it that we pay so much attention to the things that are going wrong in our life, rather than the things that are going right in our life?  There is so much to be celebrated every single day that deserves recognition.

Every single one of our lives is the result of a virtually impossible, smallest chance probability.  Life itself really is a gift and a privilege.  Beyond that, think about your personal circumstances and the blessings you live with.  If you have a house with utilities, a car, have freedom of expression, and your health, you are in the top tier of accessibility to resources and opportunity

So why don’t we wake up in the morning and think about that?  

A good habit to get into is practicing gratitude and mindfulness.  A good friend of me taught me this trick. After waking up, “when your feet hit the floor, say three things you’re grateful for”.  This trick forces me to reflect on the positivity I have in my life, and have appreciation for those things that I normally wouldn’t give credit to. So, “Life is a gift, wake up every day and realize that".

Play to win. Flip that avoidance mentality and harness the passion that you started with. It is human nature to feel fear as a goal approaches because of our evolutionary predisposition to safeguard assets. With our goal so close, we feel like we have it, and then our mentality becomes that we don’t want to lose it. This is best thought of as the alternative to “playing to win” which is “playing not to lose”.

Now that we understand that, we can replace this fear with a more appropriate emotion, excitement. The best way to do that is to track your goal. Having a visual representation of how much progress you are making on your goal is a good way to remind you of the initial reason for pursuing that goal.  I suggest making a calendar specific to your goal that you can visit every evening. This is beneficial in a few ways. First, the physical nature of a calendar allows you to interact with your goal when you succeed in small ways, either by checking it off or crossing it out. It also helps you focus on daily progress and provide validation in your efforts on an on-going basis, which provides small but frequent surges of motivation. Then, as you near the end, you can look back on all of the work you’ve put in to get to that point, and feel more inclined to attach the final bit than obligated to finish it out.

We all want to be winners, and the best way to get there is to play to win.

Most communication is non-verbal. Between body language, intonation, and other non-verbal factors, our word choice can assume a variety of different meanings based on different situations.  That’s why it is important we are finely tuned to what we are communicating. The alternative though, is people can get away with subtly communicating dissatisfaction, and use that as an outlet to get something off of their chest.

Well, let’s avoid that and not be passive aggressive. There are better ways to handle certain situations than playing it off in a passive aggressive way.

The first thing you can do is to be up front and honest about the way that you feel. A lot of the time people revert to being passive aggressive because it reduces confrontation, but the issue will persist if a mutual resolution is not met, and it can only be met through honest communication. Another thing to try is a classic playground tip, which is to hold your tongue. Give yourself some time to process the emotion, and if you still feel the same way the next day and feel it is necessary to address the problem, then now you can do so in a more dissociated way.

Paul Carrick Brunson is a successful entrepreneur, author, and television host, but is best known for being the world’s best matchmaker. With years of speaking under his belt, Paul shares the 5 tips that will help you speak with more confidence.

To summarize Paul’s five pillars, they are: 1. Have an erect back. 2. Have a natural gaze. 3. Fillers are killers. 4. Pause. 5. Use a slow pace.