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- Book Recommendation: Life Makeovers
- Want To Keep Tech Workers Creative? Set Them Free
- Getting Specific
| Book Recommendation: Life Makeovers Posted: 26 May 2012 08:00 AM PDT Book Recommendation: Life Makeovers: 52 Practical & Inspiring Ways to Improve Your Life One Week at a Time by Cheryl Richardson
Cheryl is a personal coach. I would love to have the money to hire a coach to improve my life, but instead I settle for her books. Luckily this book is like getting a session a week. In each chapter she discusses a way to improve your life and then gives you an action list to work through. The chapters are short, but they are full of ideas to inspire you. You probably don't need to improve in every way mentioned in this book. Most of us have parts of our lives that we are quite happy with. I suggest reading through the whole book and marking those chapters that apply to your needs. Then you can spend several weeks applying those ideas to your life. The great part about this book is that there are so many ideas that everyone can get something out of it. One of my biggest problems is assertiveness. I am always willing to settle for the status quo instead of speaking up. I found several chapters in Life Makeovers that helped me deal with this. I read them over and over and used a notebook to keep track of the assignments. Little by little I got better at taking care of me. I am sure there are chapters in this book that can help you with whatever weakness you may have. If you would like to learn more about Life Coach Cheryl Richardson and get her e-newsletter, check out her website at www.cherylrichardson.com  |
| Want To Keep Tech Workers Creative? Set Them Free Posted: 26 May 2012 05:00 AM PDT
They all now work for Dyn (Dynamic Network Services, Inc. in Manchester, New Hampshire. The creative company has made quite a splash in a traditionally boring industry: infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), providing DNS and email service. (The service is like electricity – you generally take it for granted until you don't have it.) Dyn's creative environment and eclectic team have fueled growth, leading to an enviable roster of clients, including Twitter, Amazon, CNBC, and Pandora, just to name a few. Along the way, the company has found that unstructured time on the job is the best way to keep tech employees thinking creatively. In its early days, Dyn had 15 people who were techies, but creative. "Everyone wore a lot of hats and got to experiment and try out what they wanted in a low-risk environment," says Cory von Wallenstein, Dyn chief product officer. But as the company grew, things changed. "Our growth stove-piped us as a business…It can suck the creativity out of you as you get more specialized," von Wallenstein says. Employees found it hard to find pockets of time to try out new ideas. While the leadership had the freedom to experiment, "it pales in comparison on what can be achieved by leveraging our technical teams," he explains. To do this, the company implemented Un-Roadmap Days, allowing Dyn's engineering and operations employees to have unstructured time on the job to explore any project they desire. So now, two full days every month – 10 percent of a full-time employee's work – is spent with no directives, deliverables, or plans. "Some people have launched new products or open source projects, explored better ways to do things or addressed a bug. It's entirely self-directed," he says. Like in other fields, in creativity development no single method works best for every individual. Because the Un-Roadmap Days are self-directed, people can work alone if they prefer. "Others find that they do better if they can evangelize their idea and get others to help," von Wallenstein says. Over time, some joint work has evolved into more definite collaborations, he adds. The concept must be working: In less than 2 years, Dyn has quadrupled profits, added 60 employees, opened offices in San Francisco and London, and added a list of seriously impressive clients. And they did it all without investor money. Von Wallenstein says that the Un-Roadmap Days and other creative boosts are not just an afterthought: Dyn dedicates a certain amount of revenue to support a creative environment and a culture of innovation for its employees. The right benefits are also important, so Dyn offers unlimited paid time off. "We have an aggressive schedule and deadlines…It's easy to work yourself into oblivion," von Wallenstein says. "Time off is necessary to get more out in the long run," he says, adding that the system is based on trust. In addition, the company offers free lunches each Tuesday and the second Thursday of each month, a kitchen stocked with snacks and drinks, a company lounge equipped with video games, a ping pong table, Foosball, three Segways (from another cool New Hampshire company), a rock climbing wall, and two beer taps. For all these reasons, Dyn has been named one of the best companies to work for in New Hampshire for five consecutive years and has been recognized by Inc. Magazine as one of the top small business workplaces in the country. Dyn's leaders are also concerned about the creative environment outside the walls of their 30,000-square-foot building in the city's old textile mills. Once employees relocate to Manchester, the company wants to make sure that enough opportunity exists to keep them there. "We've found that some people have more ambition than we have positions," von Wallensteim says. Dyn wants to help build an employment ecosystem in Manchester that has enough opportunities so people stay. They actively work with employees who are creating spin-offs and other start-up businesses by sitting on advisory boards and even offering some seed funding. "We want to make sure that there's not just one awesome company here, but a whole bunch," he adds. Photo Credit: Dyn  |
| Posted: 26 May 2012 02:00 AM PDT One of the most powerful tools in business and life is goal setting. There have been books, speeches, seminars, and more done on this one subject than probably any other. Yet one of the most significant parts of the goal setting process is not only ignored by most, but appears innocuous if it's not followed. You need to be specific when you're setting your goals. Being vague can produce unwanted results. Goal setting is not just some gimmick. It's a very powerful tool and when used correctly it can produce incredible results. The problem with goal setting today is not with its fundamental application, but rather not following through on one key step that is critical to the process. Specificity. I learned a mantra years ago while attending a Tom Hopkins seminar. He implored from the stage, "You must be specific to be terrific." What I did not realize at the time was just how important that detail was. It sounded so simple, so plain, or may I say so corny at first blush. After all I knew all the rules. I had been to countless seminars. I read all the books. I practiced this stuff. It wasn't like I didn't get it. I did, so next subject please I muttered to myself. Problem was I knew it, but I wasn't doing it. Goal setting allows you to focus. It gives you clarity in where you're going and why. But not accurately setting them while monitoring your progress with possible adjustments can result in inadvertently reaching a goal in a way you least expect. "I want to make a lot of money" is worthless. "I want to make X dollars, by X date, by doing X tasks" is specific and your chances of hitting the marks are exponentially increased as compared with something less specific. Leave vague details to be filled in by the cosmos, and trust me, what you'll get might be something short of stunning. Years back I had written down a goal on a specific amount of money I wanted to earn over a given time frame. When I wrote it I had no idea if I could ever achieve it. What's uncanny about this was the fact I had put the note in a place and forgot about it only to find it a few years later. To my amazement I had hit it nearly to the exact amount. It was an amazing example of the power of specific goal setting. But I also have had stunning reminders on what can happen when you get lazy and let the universe fill in the details. When I was a kid we were left poor from divorce. My father on the other hand was always seen around town driving the fanciest of cars. (Lincoln Continentals, to be exact.) There was one I would see him driving and for some reason, I loved its styling. I would say to myself "Someday I'll have a brown, 1972 Continental." Years later I did — but not what you might think. I was in the middle of the crisis of my life. I had just lost everything. I lost my cars, my job, money, titles, everything. I had just met my wife and now I was nearly destitute. From big shot to big loser in a matter of months. It was winter and she lived 3 cities over and I had no transportation of any type to get around…. till a friend offered me something I could borrow to at least get around with. Being near destitute I was grateful for anything, but what it was is nothing short of eye-opening. There I was, once again poor, but this time the universe gave me my wish. I had a brown 1972 Continental. Only it wasn't a car, it was a Schwinn bicycle. Featured Photo Credit: bikesniffer  |
Most of us have some issue in our work or life that we would like to change. It could be something we procrastinate on, or a habit that we can't seem to break. It may seem like a good idea to make the change quickly, like ripping off a Band-Aid, but I have found while that works for small changes, large life-changing moves should be done more slowly. In Life Makeovers, Cheryl Richardson shows you how to make permanent change over the course of a year.
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