Susan Cain, the author of the New York Times best-seller, The Power of Introverts, gives a great talk about the advantages of introverts in the workforce.
-Many people act more extroverted then we really are.
-Introverts prefer lower stimulation environments.
-Introverts have a stronger response to stimulation.
-The vast majority of teachers believe the ideal student is an extrovert, even though introverts get better grades.
-Introverts are routinely passed over for leadership positions.
-Many species display introvert and extrovert behavior.
-Introverts tend to know more about subjects.
-Solitude is a powerful catalyst to creativity.
-Set a goal of making at least one authentic relationship at a networking event.
-Teams that are composed of a mix of introverts and extroverts are more effective.
-Introverts prefer a mild mannered approach to conflict.
-Extroverts have been found to take greater risks, get into more car accidents, and make more risky financial bets.
The Power of Introverts is an excellent book for learning more about this topic. You can also read Susan Cain’s blog, The Power of Introverts for interesting articles.
Rick Steves describes how travel can be educational and open your eyes and change your perspectives.
-”Travel opens us up to the wonders of the world.”
-Travel can reveal the struggles going on in the world that you were previously oblivious to.
-Fear is for people who don’t get out very much.
-Europe approaches moral crimes with more pragmatism than in the US.
-In the Netherlands they haven’t made a marijuana arrest in 25 years and use has gone down.
-When you’re traveling you have the poor reaching into your window.
-You don’t want to be filthy rich in a desperately poor country.
-Thomas Jefferson said travel makes you wiser, if less happy.
-Travel can help you become a better citizen of the planet.
Rich Horwath is the author of Strategy for You and discusses how people and companies can develop an effective strategy and why it is important in this excellent talk.
-New growth requires new thinking.
-Strategy can help give us a direction so we are not like a pinball.
-Write down your goals and how you plan to get there.
-15% of adults have a written plan for their life. Only 22% of Fortune 1000 managers have a written plan for their life.
-The number one cause of company bankruptcy is poor strategy.
-The number one skill valued in leaders is strategic thinking.
-Only about 3 out of 10 managers are strategic.
-What specifically do you want to achieve?
-If you are comfortable every day then you probably aren’t maximizing your potential.
-If you don’t feel pain when developing strategy, then you are not developing strategy. -Reed Hastings
-What unique skills do you have that can bring value to others?
-We are very good at adding to our plate but not at taking things off our plate?
-Consider creating a not to-do list. What things are not adding value.
-Conduct a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats) for yourself to prioritize the opportunities.
-Great strategies should be simple.
-Carve out time in your schedule to think about your work and life.
-Strategy is the bridge from where you are today to where you want to be.
-Our actions are consistent to who we believe we are.
-Ask yourself “when did I decide to set that limitation?”
-It’s really hard to be happy when you’re not being yourself.
-The strongest force in the human personality is the need to stay consistent with how we define ourselves.
-All results in your life come from your rituals.
-Successful people hold themselves to a high standard.
-Success or failure comes from all the little stuff.
-People are rewarded in public for what they have practiced for years in private.
-Michael Jordan said he had talent but the thing that set him apart is he demanded more from himself than anyone can expect.
-Who you spend time with is who you become.
-It’s not what we get that makes us happy, it’s what we become.
-What is the one area of your life that you want to improve? Write down where you are right now. What are the rituals that have put you there? What do you want/ what is your vision? What are the rituals that will get you there?
-Will power doesn’t last but rituals can last a lifetime.
-There are two pains in life: discipline or regret.
Guy Kawasaki, former Chief Evangelist at Apple and Co-Founder of AllTop.com, discusses lessons from his book Enchantment.
-You can’t be enchanted by someone you don’t like.
-Default to “Yes”.
-When you meet someone, always be thinking of how you can help them.
-Tell a compelling story about your business, like Ebay starting because the founder’s girlfriend wanted a place to sell Pez dispensers.
-When someone thanks you, say “I know you would do the same for me”.
-When someone owes you, give them the opportunity to reciprocate.
-When your boss asks you to do something, drop everything and do what they asked.
Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, talks about his thesis of the future of work becoming more entrepreneurial and more dependent on relationships rather than employers. He recently wrote a book based on this thesis titled The Startup of You.
-The career escalator or career ladder is disappearing in the present work environment.
-How a career progresses is substantially different from what it was in the past.
-Taking intelligent risks in your career is essential.
David Rock, author of Your Brain at work, discusses how you can optimize your brain’s functioning by understanding how your brain works.
-Studies show that solving a problem reduces blood glucose and lowers performance on the next task.
-Shifting from anxiety to happiness will improve the ability to solve problems.
-Suppressing emotions has a negative cognitive effect.
-You can not collaborate well with someone if your brain identifies someone as a foe.
Harvard professor Tal Ben-Shahar studies happiness and shares some valuable takeaways from positive psychology research.
-Happiness is not a constant high. There are ups and downs.
-It is normal and okay to feel negative emotions.
-One of the main reasons for increased depression in the world is stress.
-The mean age for depression today is under 15.
-Simplifying and doing less makes us happier and more successful.
-Happiness boosters are activities that are meaningful and pleasurable.
-Happiness boosters have a trickle down effect.
-The number one generator of happiness is relationships. It is the number one predictor of well being.
-Disagreement provides a learning and growth opportunity.
-Mark Twain said I can live off a good compliment for two weeks.
-Meditation improves the immune system.
-There is a strong media bias towards the negative that affects our internal bias.
-Writing things down that you are grateful for can have a positive effect.
Psychology legend and Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman gives a great lecture about fast thinking (intuition, recognition, emotion) and slow thinking (logic, problem solving).
-Our pupils dilate when we view a math problem that takes effort.
-If a person was asked to keep a 7-digit number in their head and then given the choice of chocolate cake or fruit salad, they tend to choose the chocolate cake.
-It takes some effort to control your impulses.
-There is really no magic to intuition, it is the same as recognition.
-Stock pickers cannot develop intuition because there isn’t enough regularity.
-Political forecasters are as accurate long-term as a dart throwing monkey.
-When there is low predictability, formulas do better than individuals.
-Memory is terrible at remembering lists, but it is suburb at remembering routes through space.
-If you ask students how happy are you and how many dates did you have last month in that order the correlation is zero. If you reverse the order, the correlation is .66.
Standford University hosted an excellent panel on the future of education which included Sal Khan from the Khan Academy and Reed Hastings from Netflix and moderated by Charlie Rose.
The education system is at an inflection point.
States that have weaker unions are not correlated with higher performance.
5 percent of schools in the United States are charter schools.
Schools and the credential could be decoupled so that anyone who masters a subject could get a credential by passing a test.
The value of a degree is a signaling mechanism to employers.
If you give up watching TV for 4 hours a month, you can mentor a kid through Big Brothers Big Sisters and break a cycle of poverty and reduce crime rates.
