#readmorebooks

Atomic Habits will change your life! 10 takeaways.

Atomic Habits by James Clear is one of those rare books that I immediately read twice in a row. It is filled with dozens of science-backed and actionable nuggets of wisdom. Do you want to improve any habits in your life? I heartily recommend Atomic Habits to you! We are all driven by our habits - many of which are unconscious. Below are 10 quotes and takeaways from this life-changing book:

1. "Getting 1 percent better every day counts for a lot in the long-run." Atomic Habits explains why the little things you do every day matters. Your little habits matter. It may not seem like a big deal to skip a workout or to be kind, but it is a big deal. Imagine if you improved your habits by only 1% every day. You'd be dramatically a different person in a year. Then imagine if you let your habits decline by 1% every day. You'd be in a much worse spot in life overall a year from now. Your little habits - atomic habits - count for a lot in the long run. What little habits are you improving upon (or neglecting...) today?

2. "You do not rise to the level of your goals. You fall to the level of your systems." This is such an important point in the book. Oftentimes we focus on goals in our life, while neglecting to focus on the systems that help us achieve goals. As an example, I had a friend who had the goal to complete a triathlon.  He achieved this goal!  And then he quit working out for the next year and got out of shape... He was so focused on achieving a goal that he neglected his underlying systems of being healthy. Goal achievement can actually set us back if we don't get set up sustainable systems.  Get the systems right and then we'll indeed also achieve our goals. Systems > Goals. 

3. "Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity." I love this quote from the book. Every action - every habit - you take casts a vote for the type of person you want to become. Do you want to be a more organized person? When you develop habits and systems that organize your life, you are casting votes for thinking of yourself as an organized person. You think to yourself, "hey, I'm an organized person." And then you reinforce that belief with your habits and actions - a virtuous cycle! The flip side of this can be true too. What if you often show up late to meetings? You're casting votes that may make you think "well, I'm just a person that is always late." An un-virtuous cycle.  Be careful to make sure that your habits and ultimately your beliefs cast votes for the type of person you want to become and, indeed, who you truly are.

4. "How long does it actually take to form a new habit? You just need to get your reps in." Atomic Habits answers the question of "how much time does it take to form a new habit" with a better answer of : X number of actions.  Meaning, you may need to simply complete a new habit 100 times for it to stick, which could be done in 3 days or 3 weeks or 3 months, depending on the new habit. It is better to think of forming new habits in terms of consistently taking action, versus trying to stick to a habit for just X number of days. Get your reps in.

5. "Reduce friction. Decrease the number of steps between you and your good habits." The inverse of this is also true - increase friction between you and your bad habits! I think about this a lot when it comes to eating healthy. I need to reduce friction by having healthy food in the house and healthy snacks at work. And I need to increase friction by not having candy in the house or in my office! Out of sight, out of mind. In sight, and I eat it. :)  (which of course reminds me of the Dad joke I often tell my girls: "I'm on a seafood diet. I see food and I eat it...) 

6. "Use temptation bundling. Pair an action you want to do with an action you need to do." This is a powerful concept. I put this in practice by only "watching TV" when I'm on the treadmill. I am able to run at a 6 MPH pace and watch TV or videos on the iPad when I'm on a treadmill. So, I generally only watch sporting events or movies or 80s music videos on YouTube when I'm running on the treadmill. This approach actually allows me to run longer if I want to watch a full half of a game, for example. And 80s music videos will often give me the energy to run that extra mile. :)  Think about a new habit you want to start and how you can bundle it with an action you're already taking. Stack them together - i.e. habit stacking.

7. "Use a habit tracker. Keep track of your habit streak and 'don't break the chain.'" Atomic Habits does a nice job of explaining the importance of tracking your habits for success. What gets measured gets managed. One of my favorite habit trackers is a FitBit/Apple Watch, which tracks steps, heart rate, sleep, weight and can even track food intake/calories, if you input this data.  My behavior definitely changes thanks to these habit trackers. Atomic Habits gives you additional habit tracker resources.

8. "Never miss twice. When you forget to do a habit, make sure you get back on track immediately." We all will have days where we fall off the bandwagon and our habits go in reverse. Well, that's okay for one day. Don't let it happen twice. Get back on track as soon as possible. (And, yes, sometimes we miss a habit two days in row. Just don't let it become three days...)

9. Author James Clear gets to the point quickly in Atomic Habits and with actionable advice. James has been blogging about habits, health, happiness, creativity and productivity since 2012. Check out a sampling of his writing at www.jamesclear.com/articles.  (While you're there, subscribe to his terrific weekly newsletter with 445,000+ subscribers!)  James is also fun to follow on Twitter at www.twitter.com/JamesClear.  Atomic Habits has 20 relatively short chapters that open with compelling stories and end with helpful chapter summaries. If you listen to books on Audible, I highly recommend the audio book as James reads this book very passionately. 

10. Check out a great interview with author James Clear about Atomic Habits below:

https://youtu.be/xRse5I_p7tA

Have you read Atomic Habits yet? If so, please share your thoughts on the book in the comments section below. Thanks!

Be well,
Mike

p.s. I plan to blog regularly about "Read More Books" in 2019. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

Eat That Frog! 9 tips from an epic time management book

Eat that Frog by Brian Tracy has a catchy title for one of the best time management books on the planet. If you haven't read it yet, you should. It is a short 144 pages that can be read in a couple of hours. I try to read this book annually, because it has so many great productivity tips. Below are 9 takeaways and quotes from this epic book that can easily double your productivity - if you'll apply its teachings.

1. Eat that Frog is comprised of 21 short chapters, all on the topic of productivity and time management. Brian gets to the point quickly in each chapter, which I appreciate. He doesn't belabor each chapter with long stories, but quickly explains the productivity tip and how you can apply it right away. I find that many nonfiction books are about twice as long as they need to be, due to long stories. This book is just the right length. Brian is a prolific author and teacher who has written 70 books. Learn more about him here: www.briantracy.com

2. “If you have to eat two frogs, eat the ugliest one first. This is another way of saying that if you have two important tasks before you, start with the biggest, hardest, and most important task first.” The title of this book is based on the concept that it is best to tackle your most important priority at work first thing in the day. Get it done before you get sidetracked on other less important but perhaps more seemingly "urgent" tasks that come up. If you have two important tasks, do the most important one first. Eat that frog!

3. “One of the very worst uses of time is to do something very well that need not to be done at all.”  This is one of my favorite quotes of the book. It's simple and yet so profound. How much time do we each waste doing things that don't need to be done at all? This quote reminds me of Jim Collin's advocating in his classic book, Good to Great, that we each should have a "stop doing list." What are some tasks in your life you should simply stop doing? We all have some. Perhaps many things we should stop doing... 

4. “Goals are the fuel in the furnace of achievement. The bigger your goals and the clearer they are, the more excited you become about achieving them. The more you think about your goals, the greater becomes your inner drive and desire to accomplish them.”  Brian Tracy is a big believer in goal setting. In fact, he wrote another favorite book of mine, Goals, which I heartily recommend to you. I confess that I haven't been the best goal-setter in my life. I'm naturally driven, which is generally helpful, but I see the wisdom in setting big and clear goals. As I type this, I realize that I need to read Goals again too... :) 

5. “Rule: Continuous learning is the minimum requirement for success in any field.” This is such a powerful quote and is so very true. We need to be continuous learners in our lives.  Never stop learning and growing. In fact, this is why I advocate on this blog that we should all #readmorebooks. :) Reading books is indeed one of the best ways to continually improve yourself. Brian does make the point in this book that you should aim to read 1 hour a day materials that are related to your career: books, articles, blogs, etc. 

6. “The Key to Success is Action." Okay this might seem like a no-duh quote, but it gives a great snapshot of this book. This is an action-oriented book that will encourage and propel you toward action. Planning is nice, but execution is everything. You will only be successful in work and life to the extent you are action-oriented. This book will give you some great tools to not only take action, but take the right actions every day. Go the extra mile. As another great quote says: "There are no traffic jams on the extra mile." :)

7. “Rule: It is the quality of time at work that counts and the quantity of time at home that matters.”  I will close with this quote from Brian because it is again epic. Work hard at work. Work smart at work. But then when you are at home, just spend time with your family. Don't try to be "efficient" or just have "quality time" with your family. We need to have "QUANTITY time" with our family. The hours matter. Be present with your family. Be efficient at work so you can spend more time at home with your family.

8. A fun animated 7-minute video overview of Eat that Frog is below:

https://youtu.be/y6mGuFe5YNc

9. Eat that Frog's 21 chapters, listed below, will give you a good overview of this book's structure:

1. Set the Table

2. Plan Every Day In Advance

3. Apply the 80/20 Rule to Everything

4. Consider the Consequences

5. Practice Creative Procrastination

6. Use the ABCDE Method Continually

7. Focus on Key Result Areas

8. The Law of Three

9. Prepare Thoroughly Before You Begin

10. Take It One Oil Barrel at a Time

11. Upgrade Your Key Skills

12. Leverage Your Special Talents

13. Identify Your Key Constraints

14. Put the Pressure on Yourself

15. Maximize Your Personal Power

16. Motivate Yourself into Action

17. Get Out of the Technological Time Sinks

18. Slice and Dice the Task

19. Create Large Chunks of Time

20. Develop a Sense of Urgency

21. Single Handle Every Task

 

Have you read Eat That Frog or any of Brian Tracy's other books? What are some of your favorite productivity tips? Please share in the comments section below, thanks!  

Read More Books,
Mike

p.s. I blog to encourage you to live a better life by reading more books. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

 

Digital Minimalism! 10 tips to break your social media addiction.

Do you have a Facebook-Instagram-Twitter-LinkedIn account? If so, you need to read Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport! This book opened my eyes to the truly addictive nature of social media. Guess what? You are the product on social media. You essentially have no privacy, even if your account settings are set to private. Your data, your posts, and your likes are all being aggregated by massive advertising databases and algorithms so that products can be target-marketed to you. Worse than the privacy risk is the risk of literally wasting hours of your life on social media. Digital Minimalism is call to action to live a deeper life offline by minimizing or even quitting your use of social media. Below are 10 tips from this powerful book, including several quotes, a video and some actions I personally have taken recently to reduce my use of social media.

1. Cal Newport is one of my favorite authors on the planet. He blogs at www.calnewport.com and wrote Deep Work, which is a terrific book about personal productivity at work. Deep Work advocates that we each aim for 4 hours a day of "deep work," to truly make a difference in our jobs and world. Most of us do "shallow work" most of the time: meetings, emails, and low priority tasks. Deep Work has changed the way I work. I make sure not to over-schedule myself with shallow tasks during the day and I do seek to schedule at least 4 hours a day of "deep work." At the end of Deep Work, Cal advocates quitting social media, which is a very shallow activity. Digital Minimalism picks up where Deep Work left off. (If you liked the book Essentialism by Greg McKeown, you'll appreciate Deep Work.)

2. “The tycoons of social media have to stop pretending that they’re friendly nerd gods building a better world and admit they’re just tobacco farmers in T-shirts selling an addictive product to children. Because, let’s face it, checking your “likes” is the new smoking.” This is a bold quote from Bill Maher at the beginning of Digital Minimalism which throws down the gauntlet on Cal's views of social media. Social media is engineered to be addictive. Cal describes how Facebook changed their notifications from the color blue to the color red, because they found that the color red created a more urgent response in social media users to check their notifications. This is one small example of many ways that Digital Minimalism details how social media is engineered as a "virtual slot machine" where we keep scrolling and scrolling while looking for that next jackpot of a dopamine hit. 

3. “Digital Minimalism is a philosophy of technology use in which you focus your online time on a small number of carefully selected and optimized activities that strongly support things you value, and then happily miss out on everything else.” Cal doesn't suggest in this book that we try to live life without the internet or digital tools. He recognizes that there are many technological advances that save us time. The challenge is when we can't turn off our connection to the internet, primarily due to our smart phones and social media usage. One of the problems with social media is FOMO: the fear of missing out. You will always see someone posting something on social media that you might wish you were doing, buying, or consuming. Cal gives some great tips in this book on how to turn your smart phone into a "dumb phone" so that you can focus on living a full and deep life offline. This book can help turn your FOMO into JOMO: the joy of missing out! :-) 

4. “Where we want to be cautious is when the sound of a voice or a cup of coffee with a friend is replaced with ‘likes’ on a post.” I appreciate that Cal doesn't simply malign social media in this book, but he explains what we might be missing out on in real life if we spend too much time online. Cal worries, and I think we'd all agree, that there are times when we or our kids or friends are looking at our smartphones when we should be actually talking to each other. This book does a great job of giving tips on how to turn off the phone and turn on real life engagement for a rich life. Social media promises friendship and engagement, but if we're not careful it can leave us feeling quite empty. 

5. "By cultivating a high-quality leisure life first, it will become easier to minimize low-quality digital diversions later.” Cal advocates in Digital Minimalism that we all develop offline hobbies and friendships to live a full and deep life. These high-quality leisure activities are so much more fulfilling than the low-quality digital distraction of social media. What are some hobbies, activities (exercise...) or friendships you feel like you never have time for?  Might cutting back your time spent online give you back the time you crave? (The answer is... Yes.)

6. Digital Minimalism describes how you can undertake a digital declutter:  "Put aside a thirty-day period during which you will take a break from optional technologies in your life. During this thirty-day break, explore and rediscover activities and behaviors that you find satisfying and meaningful. At the end of the break, reintroduce optional technologies into your life, starting from a blank slate. For each technology you reintroduce, determine what value it serves in your life and how specifically you will use it so as to maximize this value." Cal led this digital declutter experiment with readers of his blog and learned that many of his readers never went back to social media after taking a break from it for 30 days.  Others found that they could check social media for only 30 minutes total a week and get the same benefit of their prior 30+ minute daily usage before the digital declutter. 

7. Digital Minimalism's chapters, listed below, will give you a good overview of this book's structure:

1. A Lopsided Arms Race
2. Digital Minimalism
3. The Digital Declutter
4. Spend Time Alone
5. Don't Click Like
6. Reclaim Leisure
7. Join the Attention Resistance

8. After reading Digital Minimalism, here are the actions I have taken. I started with simply deleting Facebook and Instagram off of my smartphone. This is one of the most powerful steps you can take: get social media off of your phone. You won't have the compulsion to check it throughout the day. I haven't quit Facebook or Instagram, and still check them maybe once day on my computer, but my usage is way down. I am now also in process of getting family photos off of my social media accounts, primarily for privacy reasons. It has been a joy to share our family's adoption journey this past several years on social media, but I'm now wanting to protect my family's privacy going forward. 

9. Digital Minimalism doesn't go into details of cyber security, but it is a personal passion of mine at work and now personally too. I found a terrific 10 point guide that I shared with my team at work and I recommend you read it to protect your privacy and data online at this link.  You might also want to consider how your web browser is tracking your online activity data for advertising purposes and decide to switch to a privacy browser.

10. Check out this video interview with Cal Newport below, which gives a great overview of the book:

https://youtu.be/lHLoE4fCuZ0

Have you taken any steps in your life to reduce your usage of social media? Does anything above stand out to you as an idea you might want to implement? Have you read read Digital Minimalism or any of Cal Newport's other books? Please share in the comments section below, thanks! (I should note that Cal's 2012 book, So Good They Can't Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love, is fantastic too! It is particularly great for 20-somethings embarking on their careers.) 

Read More Books,
Mike

p.s. I plan to blog regularly about #readmorebooks in 2019. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

Measure What Matters! OKRs + Google + Bono + You?

This is one of those rare books that I heard rave reviews from friends in a diversity of sectors: startup technology companies, higher education and nonprofits. Measure What Matters by John Doerr is a book that describes the powerful concept of OKRs: Objectives and Key Results. John is the Chairman of Kleiner Perkins, which is a very successful venture capital firm. I heartily recommend this book to you. Below are 7 quotes and my takeaways from this treasure trove of a book.

1. “Objectives and Key Results are the yin and yang of goal setting.”  OKRs are a simple concept that have fueled the success of Google, the Gates Foundation and Bono's ONE Campaign to end poverty.  John describes in detail how you too can set compelling Objectives (the yin) and Key Results (the yang) for your organization. Objectives are what you want to achieve and Key Results are how you are going to achieve the objectives. Google generously shares in depth how they use OKRs at this link.

2 . “Healthy culture and structured goal setting are interdependent.” This book does a terrific job of explaining how structured goal setting actually improves an organization's culture.  Employees want to know what goals they should be working on to move the organization forward. OKRs provide a framework for every employee to be involved in an organization's success. This process improves culture.

3. “Leaders must get across the why as well as the what. Their people need more than milestones for motivation. They are thirsting for meaning, to understand how their goals relate to the mission.”  This quote from the book reminds me of Simon Sinek's TED Talk and terrific book, Start With Why. Employees are indeed thirsting for meaning in their work, and OKRs are a simple yet effective framework for employees to see how their work directly contributes to the organization's success. 

4. “We must realize—and act on the realization—that if we try to focus on everything, we focus on nothing.” The book describes how you ideally want only 3 to 5 Objectives and then 3 to 5 Key Results for each Objective. Less is more. You want a few focused OKRs that are measurable, transparent, inspirational and achievable - with some stretch to achieve them. This concept of focus in goal setting reminds me of the terrific book, The 4 Disciplines of Execution by Chris McChesney, which I reviewed at this link.

5. “Innovation tends to dwell less at the center of an organization than at its edges.” I absolutely love this quote and agree with it. Oftentimes leaders of organizations might think they have all of the answers, and won't listen to their front line employees. I have learned that often the opposite is true: the front line employees have the answers and the leaders simply need to stop and listen to them. OKRs are a way that front line employees can be engaged in an organization's goals and be heard by leaders.

6. “To win in the global marketplace, organizations needs to be more nimble than ever before.” Gone are the days of setting 3, 5 or 10-year strategic plans and thinking those will stand the test of time. Even in one-year goal setting, changes to the plan will come your way. OKRs advocate quarterly goals to be nimble. Every 90 days you set and review your OKRs.  I think there is a lot of wisdom in thinking about "90-day sprints" in goal setting.  Traction by Gino Wickman is another terrific book that advocates quarterly goal setting. 

7. “Annual performance reviews are costly, exhausting, and mostly futile.” I was pleasantly surprised to see this book discuss performance reviews in light of the concept of OKRs.  Instead of annual reviews, the book advocates the use of real-time CFRs: Conversations, Feedback, and Recognition. This is a process where you are having real-time conversations with your employees, giving them feedback right away and recognizing achievements when they happen. This builds culture and buy-in from employees more than the typical annual performance review process.

Check out John's 12-minute TED Talk below, which gives a great overview of the book:

https://youtu.be/L4N1q4RNi9I

Lastly, listen to this book on Audible if you can. Author John Doerr reads the book, but he also integrates in readers for their sections of the book, such as Bono reading about OKRs and the ONE Campaign to end poverty. It is fun to hear a rock star talk about Objectives and Key Results!  :)  There are also readers from Google, the Gates Foundation, and other tech startups in the book. This is a really well done audiobook.

Bonus: My internet friend Nick Gray wrote a great summary of this book, too. You can see it here:  Measure What Matters by John Doerr – Book Club Discussion

Have you read this book? Are you utilizing the concept of OKRs at your organization? How is it going? Please share in the comments section below, thanks!

Be well!
Mike

Humble + Hungry + Smart = The Ideal Team Player! Productivity & Hiring

Psssst.. Want to know the secret of how to hire the ideal person for your next job opening? It is a simple formula. Hire someone who is: 1. Humble, 2. Hungry, and 3. Smart.  While this sounds simple, it is rare to find these 3 traits well-balanced in a job candidate. When you do find someone with these 3 traits, hire that candidate fast! The framework of Humble + Hungry + Smart comes from Patrick Lencioni's book, The Ideal Team Player. This blog exists to help make you more productive. Hiring "rock stars" or "A-players" is one of the most productive things you can do. The right hire can transform your team toward world class performance and absolutely make you more productive.

(image courtesy of www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player)

Presumably you've heard of Patrick Lencioni's terrific book, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team? His more recent book, The Ideal Team Player, is also in a parable format and walks through each of the components of the formula humble + hungry + smart, which I unpack in 7 points below.  The book and its companion website also give you practical tools, such as interview questions to help you determine if a job candidate is humble, hungry and smart.

1. Humble. You want someone joining your team who is humble. They're willing to listen to others and admit they don't have all of the answers. They appreciate the Stephen Covey principle of "Seek First to Understand, Then to be Understood." They don't have big egos. They want to see the team succeed and not just themselves. They say "we" more than they say "I." Caveat: don't hire someone who is only humble. They may be "nice" but may not get anything done.

2. Hungry. You want to hire someone who has the energy and drive to do their work with excellence. They want to learn and grow. They want to be promoted and grow in their careers. They want to take on new projects and new opportunities. They don't need to be prodded to work hard - they are wired to work hard. Caveat: don't hire someone who is only hungry. They may bulldoze over others to get what they want for their own selfish reasons.

3. Smart. You want someone who is smart in both technical skills for the job and people skills.  Technical skills are of course important for any given job, but equally important are people skills. You want someone who demonstrates emotional intelligence and works well with others. They are self-aware and know how their words and actions can impact others on the team. Caveat: don't hire someone who is only smart. They may be liked by many, but probably won't get much done because they're too busy playing politics.

4. Humble + Hungry + Smart. When you are reviewing resumes and in particular when you are interviewing a candidate, ask yourself frequently: "Is this person hungry, humble and smart? All three? Or are they missing one (or more) of the traits?" You'll want to hire candidates that are well-balanced in these three traits.

5. Interview Questions. Author Patrick Lencioni graciously provides 3 pages of interview questions that you can use in an interview to assess if a job candidate is humble, hungry and smart. Download a PDF of the interview questions at this link.

6. Self-Assessment. Patrick Lencioni also graciously provides a one-page PDF for you to assess yourself. Are you hungry, humble and smart?  Find out quickly at this link.

7. The Ideal Team Player. I encourage you to read the book to get a full parable about why it is important to hire job candidates that are humble, hungry and smart. It's a great quick read. I listened to the book on my commute to/from work via Audible.com. Learn more about the book and additional resources at this link.

(image courtesy of www.tablegroup.com/books/ideal-team-player)

Do you agree with the concept of hiring job candidates who are humble, hungry and smart? Are there additional traits you look for when hiring? Do you have any other books or resources related to hiring that you would recommend? Please share in the Comments below. Thanks!

Read More Books,
Mike

 p.s. I blog to encourage you to live a better life by reading more books. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

12 reasons YOU need a coach! (life/business/health) "What Got You Here Won't Get You There" by Marshall Goldsmith

Do you have a coach? You should. I'll explain why in this article. We all have blind spots. We all have rough edges. Working with a coach will help you improve your relationships or business or health much faster than if you try to improve on your own. I just finished coach Marshall Goldsmith's epic book, What Got You Here Won't Get You There: How Successful People Become Even More Successful. This book reminded me of the importance of coaches in our lives. I'll share 12 reasons below why you need a coach. I'll also share the names of 8 coaches I personally know and recommend below.

1. Read Marshall's terrific book. It is an important book about how we succeed early in our careers based on our technical skills. As we advance in our careers, technical skills are not enough. We need top notch people skills. And those aren't always easy or natural for smart technical people. You need to pivot from being a technician to being a diplomat if you want to advance in your career. This book will lay out why this is the case and what you can do about it.

2. You need a 360 degree review. Have you ever done one? It's not exactly fun. But it is critical to do. Marshall smartly shares in his book how we all have blind spots. We all have behaviors that can hamper our careers or relationships or health. And sometimes the only way to bring these blind spots into the light is through a 360 degree review while working with a coach.

3. Coaches aren't necessarily going to tell you what you need to improve. Ideally your circle of colleagues or friends will tell you what you need to improve through a 360 degree review. The coach will then share the themes of the 360 degree review. What you're doing well. What you need to improve. And the coach will work with you to decide which one or two areas you should focus on for improvement. Don't try to improve more than a couple areas at once or you'll likely fail at making significant improvement in any area.

4. Coaches will hold you accountable to your goals. Once your goals for improvement are set, the coach will work with you to think through what action steps you need to take to meet your goals. The coach will then check in with you regularly to ensure you're making progress on your goals. 

5. A good coach will not "go easy" on you.  Look, if you hire a coach you should expect to be challenged. This is good. This is healthy. This is what you need to improve. If you hire a coach that only says, "wow, you're doing great. You're great. Nothing you need to really improve." Well, then you've hired a "yes-person" and this is not what any of us need. We need to grow. We need some friction to grow, just like muscles need friction to grow. You need a coach that will challenge you while also encouraging your growth. 

6. You can work with great coaches for your business or relationships or health. It's probably a good idea to only work with one coach at a time. However, you may want to find great coaches for different arenas of your life in different seasons of your life. One coach may be great at helping you grow your business skills. Another coach for improving your relationship skills. And another coach to help you improve your diet and/or fitness. It's possible to find one coach that can cover all of these arenas, but somewhat rare I think.

7. Hiring a coach is a good investment. Coaches are not free. They cost money. But I think it is generally money very well spent that is an investment in YOU.  Is there a better investment you can make than an investment in yourself? 

8. Ask if your company will pay for a coach. While I think most of us will need to pay for coaching on our own, sometimes your company will help pay for a coach. Particularly if the coach is helping you improve your business or relationship skills at work. Put together a plan and request for your boss as to how and why the company could help pay for a coach. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that the company will pay for 100% or maybe 50% of the coaching costs. I also think your boss will be impressed that you want to continue to grow and challenge yourself through coaching. 

9. There is no shame in working with a coach. In fact, I think it says something great about you if you work with a coach. It means you want to continue to learn and grow. You want to get better. You are okay being challenged. And you are making an investment in yourself. There is no shame in your game!

10. Sometimes you need a therapist, and not a coach. Coaches are awesome. But they are generally not therapists. If you are going through a significantly hard time in your life, please hire a therapist ASAP. Therapists are trained to help your mental health. If you've lost a loved one or someone near and dear to you is sick or you're feeling depressed, please hire a therapist. Men, this includes you. I wrote a blog post for men recently about depression, panic attacks, mental health and suicide that I encourage you to read here: "Men, please read this! Man Therapy. Kevin Love's panic attack. DeMar DeRozan's depression." Let me encourage you to contact my wife, Marcia Pritchard, if and when you or someone you know needs a therapist. She's a terrific Licensed Professional Counselor! And she will keep your call in complete confidence. I have no idea who her clients are. Learn more about Marcia's counseling services here: www.marciapritchard.com

11. Coaches, what points have I missed about why someone would want to hire you? I am sure coaches will read this blog post. I'd love to hear from you in the Comments section below about what additional points you'd like to share? Are there books or resources you'd recommend? Thanks in advance for sharing!

12. You can be "coached" by authors, podcasters, YouTubers and leaders you've never met. I read a lot of books. One a week is my goal. And I do absolutely believe that you can be "coached" to a degree by authors or TED Talks or other leadership resources you consume. However, this is only a one-sided coaching relationship, so you are very likely not addressing your blind spots and you won't be held accountable for growth. That being said, I do encourage you to consider some of your favorite authors or podcasters as coaches. Their experience and great work can coach you from afar. A few of my favorite long distance "coaches" include: Chris McChesney, Sheryl Sandberg, Cal Newport, Amy Cuddy, Gary Keller, Carol Dweck, Jocko Willink, Angela Duckworth, Darren Hardy, Melissa Faye Green, and Jim Collins, to name a few. 

I'll close this blog post by sharing some names and website links of coaches I personally know and recommend. Please consider reaching out to one of these coaches TODAY! Don't procrastinate on this one. Take the next step by contacting one (or more) of these coaches. Most coaches will do an introductory meeting with you to make sure they're a good fit for you and your goals.

Jenn Peppers: www.vergecoaching.com

Doug Slaybaugh: www.thecpacoach.com

Renelle Everett: www.insight-cc.com

Clay and Philippa Cousins: www.elevatemomentum.com

David Dye and Karin Hurt: www.letsgrowleaders.com

Kendall Colman: www.colmancoaching.com

Jan Rutherford: www.selfreliantleadership.com

Tasha Eurich: www.tashaeurich.com

If you have a coach you'd recommend, who is not listed above, please share the coach's name and website and/or contact information in the Comments section below. Thanks!

Productivity Equals Happiness,
Mike

p.s. I blog about "Productivity Equals Happiness." I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

The 4 Disciplines of Execution is the best business book I've read. 10 reasons why.

Jim Collins’ Good to Great was the best business book I read for 15 solid years. That changed 2 years ago when I read Chris McChesney’s The 4 Disciplines of Execution (or 4DX), which transformed the way I approached goal setting & achieving at work and in my personal life. I hope this article inspires you to read 4DX and put it into practice. I’ll share 10 reasons why below.

1. Author Chris McChesney is the real deal. I’ve met him, as you can see in the photo above. I do judge a book by its author, and Chris, Sean Covey and Jim Huling are wonderful human beings who are passionate about helping businesses and individuals improve their practices. Chris is a high energy presenter that captivates audiences with his 4DX message, as you’ll see in two videos I’ll share below.

2. 4DX is ultimately about employee morale, engagement and culture building. Yes, 4DX will help your organization set and achieve goals, which is terrific. But it will also energize and engage your team in your organization’s mission and work.

3. 4DX principles work at any type and any size organization. 4DX was crafted by the team at FranklinCovey by consulting at over 1,500 organizations ranging from large corporations to small nonprofits to government agencies to churches. 4DX will work for your organization.

4. Discipline 1: Focus is a Superpower. 4DX leads in with the discipline of focus. We live in an age of distraction. 4DX is a process that forces you to focus on 1 or 2 “Wildly Important Goals” (or WIGs) at a time. Not 5 goals. Not 10 goals. The law of diminishing returns kicks in and the more goals you try to accomplish, the less you will actual get done. Less is more. WIGs should follow this simple formula: From X to Y by When. You should have a starting line (X), a finish line (Y) and a deadline (When).

5. Discipline 2: Acting on the “lead measures” is a game-changing concept. 4DX details the concept of “lead measures,” which are the actions you need to take to achieve your WIGs. Lead measures are 1. Predictive and 2. Influenceable. Most of us set goals and then incorrectly focus on the “lag measure” which is the WIG. Figuring out and acting on your lead measures will transform the speed and impact of your goal achievement.  Read 4DX to learn about lead measures alone.

6. Discipline 3: People play differently when they are keeping score. 4DX advocates that organizations create a scoreboard to track WIGs and lead measures. They scoreboard should be simple and ideally created by the team. The more creative the scoreboard, the better. You could also track everything in Excel, but that’s sort of boring. :)

7. Discipline 4: Create a cadence of accountability. And be agile. This discipline is magic. Your team working on WIGs should ideally meet weekly. It can be a brief 20 to 30 minute meeting.  During that meeting each team member reports out on what they accomplished on their lead measures the past week and what they are committing to work on during the upcoming week. The beauty of this “WIG session” is that it creates an “agile” goal achieving forum. Agile means that you can make adjustments to your lead measures based on what’s working and what’s not working. The world changes, and you may need to make adjustments to your lead measures as you work toward your WIG.

8. The “Whirlwind” of work/life is the enemy of execution. 4DX acknowledges that one of the biggest challenges to achieving WIGs is that we all have a whirlwind of responsibilities in our daily lives that are necessary to keep our organizations going. The whirlwind never stops. That said, 4DX details strategies for focusing and acting on your WIGs in the midst of the whirlwind.
   
   
9. 4DX works for personal goals too. I personally dropped 20 pounds of weight in 2017 using 4DX. I set a WIG: lose 20 pounds in 2017. But the key to my success was acting on several lead measures and keeping score. Basic lead measures for weight loss are: 1. Diet and 2. Exercise. However, I went deeper on thinking about lead measures and came up with several more, including getting 7+ hours of sleep a night.

10. 4DX has 2 great videos featuring Chris McChesney to give you an overview of the book, which I’ve embedded below. Video #1 is a great 6-minute video. If you have the time, I also highly encourage you to watch video #2, a 48-minute video, which is a terrific overview of the book’s concepts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEJDliThj7g

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGpcnEJE1o8

I hope this article has encouraged you to read 4DX! Once you do read it, please come back to this article and post up your thoughts about it in the Comments section below. I’d love to know what you think about it.

If you have already read the book, please share in the Comments section below what you thought about the book. Have you used the concepts of 4DX in your organization or personal life in any way?

Be well!
Mike

How's your Sleep? 12 tips + 2 books = Sweet Dreams!

Sleep is so under valued in our modern era. Sleep is medicine for your body. And lack of sleep can literally kill you. 12 tips below and 2 books will improve your sleep, health and quality of life. 

1. Don't "jet lag" yourself every weekend. Going to bed and waking up at the same time 7 days a week is the #1 thing you can do to improve your sleep. Unfortunately, most of us stay up later on weekends and sleep in later. This literally is creating "jet lag" every Monday morning and potentially for several days into the work week. Change this habit. A consistent sleep schedule is critical.

2. No caffeine after Noon. Caffeine has a "half-life," so it takes up to 8 hours and sometimes more to get out of your system. Only drink caffeine in the morning and ideally not a lot of it. Green tea is a good substitute for higher caffeinated coffee. 

3. Track your sleep on a FitBit, Apple Watch, Garmin etc. I have been tracking my sleep this past year on my FitBit Charge 2 and it has been a game changer. FitBits track the 4 stages of your sleep: REM, Deep, Light and Awake. Seeing these metrics has improved my habits to have a more consistent bed time and try to get more REM and Deep sleep, the 2 critical stages of sleep. 

4. No screen time 1 hour+ before bedtime. The blue light from our smart phones, laptops and TVs cuts into our internal melatonin production, which is critical for getting to sleep. Shut it all down at night. Or get some blue light blocking glasses, if you must. I think being on screens keeps your mind firing too much, so you're not relaxing before bed.

5. No stress before bed. Relax. Stress is really not helpful to getting good sleep. Working before bed can be stressful. Instead talk to your family, read some fiction, take a hot bath or shower, or meditate. Chillax for a good hour+ before bed!

6. See a doctor. Get a sleep study. Sleep apnea can kill you. If you are having serious sleep issues I highly recommend you see a doctor as soon as possible. You might have sleep apnea, which can kill you. Sleep apnea is where you stop breathing hundreds of time during the night, so your brain wakes you up to get you breathing again. This is horrible on your heart and your sleep stages. A doctor and a sleep study can save your life. You might need a CPAP machine. Or, there is a new implant called Inspire that works like a pacemaker for sleep apnea. If you're in the Denver area, UCHealth has some great sleep doctors and an overnight sleep study clinic. Note that most sleep studies are now done in the comfort of your own bed. The clinics will train you on a device to take home, sleep one night, and bring it back. This costs only a few hundred dollars compared to a few thousand dollars for an overnight sleep study in a clinic. Your insurance hopefully will cover both, as needed.

7. Sleeping Pills don't really help you. CBTI does. I've read so much on sleep that I've learned that sleeping pills really don't help you get good quality sleep. They can knock you out like a sedative does, but they often don't allow you to get the nourishing REM and Deep sleep stages.  I am sure there are some scenarios where we do indeed need sleeping pills for a short period of time. But your goal should be to get off sleeping pills and CBTI can help big time.

8. CBTI - Cognitive Behavior Therapy for Insomnia. CBTI is really what you want to embark on if you have sleep issues. This is a process where a doctor will help you inventory all of your sleep habits or your "sleep hygiene." They will work with you to improve these habits and improve your sleep. This is therapy. And it is a beautiful thing. There is no shame in therapy for whatsoever you're working to improve in your life. Therapy works and can save your life.

9. Exercise helps you sleep better. Staying active helps you sleep better at night. Ideally you want to exercise in the morning when you wake up. However, exercising anytime of the day up until early evening is great. You just don't want to exercise late in the evening before bed. This will be counterproductive to your sleep, as your body is heated up.

10. Eating healthy nutritional meals helps sleep. This is pretty self explanatory. Eating too much sugar can spike your insulin, which can affect your sleep. Or eating rich foods that upset your stomach affect your sleep. Eat healthy for a myriad of reasons, with sleep being one. Limit alcohol too, as it can negatively affect your REM sleep.

11. Don't go cheap on your mattress or pillow or sheets. It is worth it to invest in a great mattress, pillow and sheets.  You are spending a third of your life on your bed, and I personally have found that a better mattress indeed helps with better sleep. I currently sleep on a hybrid mattress of memory foam on top and traditional springs on the bottom. I got a terrific deal on this at Mattress Firm, negotiating 25% off retail price. I also found an amazing curved pillow at a Sleep Number store. The nice thing about Mattress Firm and many other stores is that you can test out a mattress for up to 3 months and then return or exchange it if it is not working well for you.

12. Sleep sound machines are great. I have used a fan for white noise for many years. I've tried white noise apps on my phone, but personally haven't found anything great yet. This past year I used a Dohm white noise machine, which was pretty good but it broke. So, I invested a bit more into this Sound+Sleep white noise machine and I am loving it. 

Sleep Smarter by Shawn Stevenson has 21 practical tips to improve your sleep. If you have any sleep issues whatsoever, start with this book. It's terrific. The book expands on many of the tips in this blog post, and has some additional interesting tips such as the importance of getting sunshine on your skin during the day to improve your sleep. 

Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker is a scientific look at the importance of sleep. This book amazed me in every chapter. It explains how lack of sleep literally will kill us.  Protein plaques get built up in our brains during the day and we need sleep to clean out those plaques. If we don't get enough sleep the plaques can build up, which creates significant risk of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other brain related diseases as you age.

Check out this terrific video interview with Shawn Stevenson, author of Sleep Smarter:

https://youtu.be/LERJSdRdeB0

I hope this blog post has been helpful! Please share in the Comments section below any sleep tips or books you would add to this post? Thanks!

Be well,
Mike

p.s. I plan to blog about Work-Life Happiness at least weekly in 2018. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

Ray Dalio's "Principles: Life and Work" (Book #3 in 2018)

This is one of those books that will make you smarter! Reading it feels like getting an MBA and a Philosophy degree simultaneously.  Ray Dalio is the billionaire founder of Bridgewater Associates, one of the largest hedge funds on the planet. In Principles: Life and Work, Ray shares in detail what has made him successful. Below are my top 7 takeaways from this terrific book:

1. Write down your Principles. Ray advocates writing down your principles for your own life and work. He believes writing down our principles helps us create an operating system for our lives that can help us live life fully and successfully.  After reading this book, I am inspired to write down my life and work principles. Maybe this blog is part of how I'll do it. 

2. Face Reality and Deal With It. Ray is a strong proponent of the "Confront the Brutal Facts" principle that I first read about in Jim Collin's epic book, Good to Great. Ray and Jim both advocate being absolutely clear about a situation so that you can do something about it. If you're being too positive or too negative about something, you'll miss the clear next step to take.

3. Be Radically Open-Minded. Ray believes, rightly, that none of us know everything. We always need to continue learning. However, we can often be our own worst enemy by believing that we do indeed know everything about a subject. We need to cultivate a "beginner's mind" and always remain open to learning.

4. Trust in Radical Truth and Radical Transparency. Ray leads his company by being as open as he possibly can with his employees. He doesn't try to spin a situation to make it seem more positive than reality. If things are not going well, he communicates it. He has found in his career that being truthful and transparent with his employees has helped build a successful company and team over the years.

5. Create a culture in which it is okay to make mistakes and unacceptable not to learn from them. I really like this principle. We all make mistakes in life and work. And that should be okay. (Within reason and boundaries, such as laws.) However, if we don't learn from our mistakes then we've truly failed. We need to be okay with our employees making mistakes, as long and they learn and grow from the mistakes.

6. Diagnose Problems to get at their Root Cause. Ray believes that we often stop short of getting to the root cause of a problem by not asking enough "Why" questions. When you have a problem in work or life, it is a great idea to ask "Why" you have that problem. But don't stop there. One you answer the first why, ask another why about that answer. And another why, and so on, until you truly get to the root cause of the problem. We too often stop after asking just the first "Why" as if we don't really want to know or go to the true root cause. 

7. Ray Dalio's TED Talk titled "How to build a company where the best ideas win" gives a nice snapshot of some of his principles in this book:

These are some quick takeaways from a 592-page book. I will say that you could skim or skip the first part of the book where Ray shares his autobiography. Part two of the book is where Ray details his life principles and part three is where he details his work principles. These are the two must-read sections of this great book. 

I'm curious if anyone else has read this book and what are your takeaways? Did this book leave you inspired to write down your life and work principles? Please share in the Comments section below!

Be well,  
Mike

p.s. I plan to blog about Work-Life Happiness at least weekly in 2018. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

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Top 5 Regrets of the Dying (Book #2 in 2018)

I have heard great reviews about this book for years and am so glad that I finally read it! This book will bring you to tears, in a very good way, and make you think deeply about your life. Bronnie Ware was a palliative care nurse in Australia for 8 years and spent countless hours taking care of people who were dying. Bronnie beautifully documents the top 5 regrets of the dying, which I'll share with you below. 

In sharing the top 5 regrets of the dying, let me encourage you to actually read this book so that you can let the full weight of these regrets sink in.  Bronnie does a terrific job of sharing several life stories and honoring the dying individuals that taught her so much. Here are the top 5 regrets:

1. I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.
   
   
2. I wish I hadn't worked so much.
   
   
3. I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
   
   
4. I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
   
   
5. I wish that I had let myself be happier.
   

Let me encourage you right now to take a few minutes to read through these top 5 regrets again and think about how you are living your life today. Is there any chance you might end up with one of these top 5 regrets at the end of your life? If so, what can you do now to make changes to your life?

The wonderful writer Anne Lamott poignantly said at a book signing event at the Tattered Cover I attended years ago: "100 years from now? All new people." She gets a laugh when she says this line, but it also highlights for us all the brevity of life.  We'll each be incredibly blessed if we live to 100, but odds are we'll live to more like 80, God willing.  Your and my life is flying by quickly.  Pick up The Top Five Regrets of the Dying by Bronnie Ware and ponder how you can live a life so you don't have regrets on your death bed.

If you're not familiar with palliative care nursing, let me share with you below this beautiful TED Talk by BJ Miller titled What Really Matters at the End of Life:

 

Mary Oliver wrote a wonderful poem, The Summer Day, where she poignantly asks each of us: "Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?" 

Be well, 
Mike

p.s. I plan to blog about Work-Life Happiness at least weekly in 2018. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

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Email Inbox Zero in 2019! Is it possible? 15 tips.

Quick! We're still in the first month of 2019. You still have time to achieve email inbox zero on your 2019 emails! You may need to declare "email bankruptcy" or archive emails in your inbox from 2018 or earlier - see tip #13 below. Will you join me in committing to email inbox zero in 2019? 

Not replying to important emails in a timely manner can negatively affect your career and your life. Why should we even desire email inbox zero? I think the answer is simple. It is common courtesy to your coworkers and your family/friends to reply to their emails in a timely manner. If you take weeks or months to reply to an email (or never reply...), it can make the other person feel like you don't value them.  Over my career I have not done a great job with email inbox zero, and I have occasionally heard from coworkers or friends who have been disappointed by my lack of a timely response. On the other side of this coin, when I reply to important emails quickly, I often hear "thanks for the quick reply!" My coworkers share that they appreciate the great customer service when I reply quickly to emails. This is why I am committing to email inbox zero in 2019, and I hope you will join me too.

How many emails do you have in your inbox right now? I'd wager it is more than zero. :) Probably a lot more. I know that is the case for me. I've decided that in 2019 I want to pursue the mythical unicorn known as "Email Inbox Zero." I share 15 tips with you below, but would also really like to read your tips in the Comments section too. Have you ever achieved Email Inbox Zero? How?

In our modern world of work and in our personal lives, emails come in fast and furiously all.of.the.time. They never stop. Yet, I have heard there are a select few of us walking the earth that have tamed our email inboxes. Here are 15 tips I'm working to put in practice in 2019:

 1. Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe, Unsubscribe. I used to get dozens of emails daily from news websites that screamed “Breaking News." This was an incredible distraction and it took me forever to go back and delete hundreds of those emails that I never read. I have now become a master of Unsubscribe and it has been so relieving to see my number of incoming daily emails reduced dramatically.

2. Set Rules to Filter Incoming Email. There are still a few news websites whose emails I want to receive. However, I don't want their incoming emails to be a distraction for me. So I set a Rule on these news emails to go automatically into a News email folder. I then occasionally read those emails during downtime, but often find myself never reading them. Out of sight, out of mind.

3. Close your Email client when working so you can focus. When you are working on a project, close down all potential distractions. For many of us this means closing down Outlook.  I'd also recommend putting your smart phone on airplane mode so you won't get distracted. I realize this tip doesn't necessarily get you closer to inbox zero, but it does take away the distraction of incoming emails.

4. Batch process your emails. Ideally you should only check your email a few scheduled times per day.  And during those times crank through your emails. This helps email not be a 24 x 7 distraction.

5. Delete.  Many emails should simply be deleted quickly. They don't need a response from you. Spam emails should be deleted immediately and marketing/sales emails often don't need a response and should simply be deleted. 

6. Reply. If you can type a reply to an email in less than 3 minutes, do it. 

7. Defer. If an incoming email requires you to do more than 3 minutes of work, you may want to defer it until you've batch processed your other emails, and then come back to the more time consuming email replies.

8. Prioritize. You're going to want to respond to your boss or colleagues or top client's emails before you reply to less important emails.  Don't defer emails that are important.

9. Delegate. For some incoming emails you're not the best person to respond.  Forward them along to someone else on your team who can best respond.

10. Create templates of frequent email replies. If you find that you receive a lot of the same types of emails that have basically the same reply, then create and save a template for these situations. You can simply create a series of Word documents that have template replies that you can quickly copy, paste, edit slightly (if needed), and reply. You can save a ton of time with templated email replies.

11. Don't over organize your email with folders. This is a hard tip for me to follow. I'm an accountant so I like files and organization. However, many email inbox productivity articles I've read say that it's not worth the time to create dozens of different folders to organize all of your email. Simple Archive your emails or create a very few folders to store old email. Most email clients, like Outlook, have robust search functionality so you can find old emails quickly. Without the zillion folders.

12. Don't "Reply-All" to emails, unless absolutely necessary. Too often we hit Reply-All to an email, when we don't need to. We typically can just reply to the initial sender. Even if you simply want to say "Thanks," just reply to the sender and don't Reply-All.  Worst case scenario is when someone hits Reply-All with something like, "I am not sure if this email was intended for me?" And then a chain reaction of emails of Reply-All emails ensues.  Trust me. The less you Reply-All, the less emails you will receive. :)

13. Declare Email Bankruptcy? I honestly have not done this yet, but I have friends who have done so. Email Bankruptcy is where you simply delete all of your old emails in your inbox and then work to achieve email inbox zero going forward. The theory is that if an older email was important enough that you should have responded, then that person will email you again. I am committed to email inbox zero in 2019, but don't feel comfortable deleting emails from 2018 or earlier that are still in my inbox. I likely will move these older emails into a folder, so I can still get to them if needed.

14. Sign off on all of your emails with a simple "Thanks." If you have trouble figuring out how to best sign off on your emails, I have good news for you. A data scientist analyzed 35,000 emails and learned this: "Emails that closed with “thank you,” “thanks,” or “thanks in advance” received a relative 36 percent increase in responses, whereas closing like “cheers” or “best regards” only received around 11 to 14 percent." {Quote is from this helpful article.)  Having a simple way to start and finish your emails will save you processing time and can even help you get a better response rate!

15. Don't forget to reply quickly to important Voicemails, Texts, and Messages on LinkedIn / Facebook / Twitter / Instagram etc. We live in an age where people communicate to us using so many different channels. While email inbox zero is a great goal, don't neglect replying quickly to important messages that come to you from other channels of communication. 

What tips am I missing for achieving Email Inbox Zero? Please share in the Comments section below!

Be well, 
Mike

p.s. I blog about Priorities + Productivity = Happiness regulary. I'd be honored if you'd subscribe to my blog's emails on my website at: www.mikepritchard.com/subscribe.html

Recent Posts:

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