Driving home from the office today I got stuck behind one of those huge old Dodge Ram vans -- you know the kind where you can fit an entire living room set in the back. Most of it was beige-ish, although the cream-colored paint was fraying from the edges around the doors and windows like it was running for its life. On the back right rear door, just below the window, it had a bumper sticker that said:
RELAX: God is in control.
Now, that might be true (I like to think it is), but let's just be honest with ourselves -- God is not going to come down and paint your frickin' van.
These things are our responsibility.
I got a call today from a good friend of mine who has been hit with a series of really crappy life circumstances lately. Now some of them he created, and he owns that, but the point of the call was to let me know that he's fed up with it, and he's doing some things to change his life. Taking steps. Moving forward.
The big picture might very well be taken care of, but that doesn't mean we should just sit there and wait for God to come over with a bucket of beige.
What are you doing -- TODAY -- to improve the situations in your life? You don't have to be sick to get better.
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I came across an fascinating list of stats provided by Dr. Donald E. Wetmore, the President of the Productivity Institute in Connecticut. Some pretty interesting stuff in here!
- There will be 2 million marriages in this country this year and 1 million divorces. 95% of divorces are caused by a “lack of communication”
- The average working person spends less than 2 minutes per day in meaningful communication with their spouse or “significant other”. The average working person spends less than 30 seconds a day in meaningful communication with their children.
- 80% of employees do not want to go to work on Monday morning. By Friday, the rate only drops to 60%.
- 31% of working Americans do not use all their vacation time that they have earned. On average, three out of twelve (one quarter!) of all vacation days go unused.
- The average person gets 1 interruption every 8 minutes, or approximately 7 an hour, or 50-60 per day. The average interruption takes 5 minutes, totaling about 4 hours or 50% of the average workday. 80% of those interruptions are typically rated as “little value” or “no value” creating approximately 3 hours of wasted time per day.
- On an average day, there are 17 million meetings in America.
- By taking 1 hour per day for independent study, 7 hours per week, 365 hours in a year, one can learn at the rate of a full-time student. In 3-5 years, the average person can become an expert in the topic of their choice, by spending only one hour per day.
- 95% of the books in this country are purchased by 5% of the population. 95% of self-improvement books, audio tapes, and video tapes purchased are not used.
- 97% of workers, if they became financially independent, would not continue with their current employer or in their current occupation.
- 20% of the average workday is spent on “crucial” and “important” things, while 80% of the average workday is spent on things that have “little value” or “no value”.
- In the last 20 years, working time has increased by 15% and leisure time has decreased by 33%.
- A person who works with a “messy” or cluttered desk spends, on average, 1 1/2 hours per day looking for things or being distracted by things or approximately 7 1/2 per workweek. “Out of sight; out of mind.” When it’s in sight, it’s in mind.
- The average reading speed is approximately 200 words per minute. The average working person reads 2 hours per day. A Speed Reading course that will improve the reading rate to 400 words per minute will save an hour per day.
- 90% of those who join health and fitness clubs will stop going within the first 90 days.
- 9 out of 10 people daydream in meetings.
- 60% of meeting attendees take notes to appear as if they are listening.
- 40% of working people skip breakfast. 39% skip lunch. Of those who take a lunch break, 50% allow only 15 minutes or less.
- The average American watches 28 hours of television per week.
- 78% of workers in America wish they had more time to “smell the roses”.
- 49% of workers in America complain that they are on a treadmill.
- Angry people are twice as likely to suffer a heart attack as a person in better control of their emotions.
- 75% of heart attacks occur between the hours of 5:00 a.m.-8:00 a.m., local time, and more heart attacks occur on Monday than on any other day of the week.
- 25% of sick days are taken for illness. 75% of sick days are taken for other reasons.
- 95% of the things we fear will occur, do not occur.
- Taking 5 minutes per day, 5 days per week to improve one’s job will create 1,200 little improvements to a job over a 5 year period.
- 1 out of 3 workers changes jobs every year.
- 1 out of 5 people moves every year.
- 70% of American workers desire to own their own business.
- 75% of American workers complain that they are tired.
- The average worker gets a 6 hours and 57 minutes of sleep per night.
- The average worker spends 35 minutes per day commuting.
- When someone is asking for our time for a meeting, 80% of the time, there is an alternate date and time that will be acceptable.
- Good time managers do not allocate their time to those who “demand” it, but rather, to those who “deserve” it.
- The most powerful word in our Time Management vocabulary is “no”.
- 1 hour of planning will save 10 hours of doing.
- Hiring a college student to do routine tasks (grocery shopping, yard work, household chores, etc.) will create as much as 20 hours per week for the average person to devote to more productive uses.
- The average person today (1999) receives more information on a daily basis than the average person received in a lifetime in 1900.
- We retain 10% of what we read. We retain 20% of what we hear. We retain 30% of what we see. We retain 50% of what we hear and see. We retain 70% of what we say. We retain 90% of what we do.
- Half of what is known today, we did not know 10 years ago. The amount of knowledge in the world has doubled in the last 10 years. And it is said to be doubling again every 18 months.
I don't suppose there are too many things better to post on Christmas Eve than something about peace.
My friend Greg recently turned me on to this documentary, made by Mark Johnson, called "Playing For Change: Peace Through Music."
I don't want to ruin all the fun by telling you the story here; take 18 minutes or so and watch this video above... you'll be glad you did. (Get a sample song, "Stand By Me," below.)
Happy holidays my friends!
PBS chat transcript is here.
Playing For Change website is here.
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When in a position of leadership, how much does a leader's lack of faith in a subordinate actually create their downfall? Is there some kind of derivative of a self-fulfilling prophecy that happens here?
To put it another way, will I, as a leader, only ever get as much as I expect out of the folks I try to lead? Is there some kind of projected glass ceiling of progress or productivity that I fabricate over their heads?
Or can a leader's unwavering belief in a person actually help propel them towards success?
I believe this to be true. I have personally been in a number of situations where it appears as though a protege simply needs someone else to believe in them... and, perhaps most, to believe in them even when they can't believe in themselves.
I am hopefully always learning more about myself. It is one of my constant projects: to figure out why I act the way I do. One thing I have learned is that I'm so confined within my own skin that it's often a Sisyphean battle to even understand WHAT I'm doing half the time, as most of my movements have become completely rote programming. But every once in awhile something breaks through, and a light bulb turns on.
I imagine I'm like one of those Lite-Brite machines from the 80's... eventually -- just maybe, someday -- I can light up enough LED's to actually get a complete picture of me.
At the nonprofit I work with, we're currently looking for a person to take over our one of our departments. I've learned that I have an overwhelming tendency to be extremely optimistic when it comes to people. I always think they can accomplish great things, often more than they may even think. But at the same time, I've learned that a myopic view of only seeing "potential" and not necessarily "reality" can also have a dangerous edge. I know how crucial it is to have the "right people on the bus" and that making a hasty decision on the front end is a very costly error, in more ways than just financially.
But as we look to add people to our staff, or to grow the participants we already have for that matter, isn't it more dangerous to set expectations too low, instead of too high?
In any kind of relational setting, be it an organization or a friendship or a marriage, isn't there just something about the complete audacity of hope (to quote that other guy); hope that each person involved can change and grow and become more than they currently are?
Isn't there just something grand about always looking for the best in people instead of expecting the worst?
The greater danger for most of us is not that we aim too high and miss it. Rather, it is that we aim too low and reach it." — Michelangelo//
By Tim Ferriss (excerpt from The 4-Hour Work Week)
I had to bribe them. What other choice did I have?
My lecture at Princeton had just ended with smiles and enthusiastic questions.
At the same time, I knew that most students would go out and promptly do the opposite of what I preached. Most of them would be putting in 80-hour weeks as high-paid coffee fetchers unless I showed that the principles from class could actually be applied.
Hence the challenge.
I was offering a round-trip ticket anywhere in the world to anyone who could complete an undefined "challenge" in the most impressive fashion possible. Results plus style. I told them to meet me after class if interested, and here they were, nearly 20 out of 60 students.
The task was designed to test their comfort zones while forcing them to use some of the tactics I teach. It was simplicity itself: contact three seemingly impossible-to-reach people — J Lo, Warren Buffett, Bill Clinton, J.D. Salinger, I don't care — and get at least one to reply to three questions...
Of 20 students, all frothing at the mouth to win a free spin across the globe, how many completed it?
Exactly... none. Not a one.
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Bigger Goals = Less Competition
There were many excuses: "It's not that easy to get someone to...", "I have a big paper due, and...," "I would love to, but there's no way I can..." There was but one real reason, however, repeated over and over again in different words: it was a difficult challenge, perhaps impossible, and the other students would out-do them. Since all of them overestimated the competition, no one even showed up.
According to the default-win rules I had set, if someone had sent me no more than an illegible one-paragraph response, I would have been obligated to give them the prize. This result both fascinated and depressed me.
The following year, the outcome was quite different.
I told this cautionary tale and six out of 17 finished the challenge in less than 48 hours. Was the second class better? No. In fact, there were more capable students in the first class, but they did nothing. Firepower up the wazoo and no trigger finger.
The second group just embraced what I told them before they started, which was...
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Doing the Unrealistic is Easier Than Doing the Realistic
From contacting billionaires [here’s how one reader did it] to rubbing elbows with celebrities—the second group of students did both—it's as easy as believing it can be done.
It's lonely at the top. 99% of the world is convinced they are incapable of achieving great things, so they aim for the mediocre middle-ground. The level of competition is thus fiercest for "realistic" goals, paradoxically making them the most time- and energy-consuming. It is easier to raise $10,000,000 than it is $1,000,000. It is easier to pick up the one perfect 10 in the bar than the five 8s.
If you are insecure, guess what? The rest of the world is too. Do not overestimate the competition and underestimate yourself. You are better than you think.
Unreasonable and unrealistic goals are easier to achieve for yet another reason.
Having an unusually large goal is an adrenaline infusion that provides the endurance to overcome the inevitable trials and tribulations that go along with any goal. Realistic goals, goals restricted to the average ambition level, are uninspiring and will only fuel you through the first or second problem, at which point you throw in the towel.
If the potential payoff is mediocre or average, so is your effort. I'll run through walls to get a catamaran trip through the Greek islands, but I might not change my brand of cereal for a weekend trip through Columbus, Ohio. If I choose the latter because it is "realistic," I won't have the enthusiasm to jump even the smallest hurdle to accomplish it. With beautiful, crystal-clear Greek waters and delicious wine on the brain, I'm prepared to do battle for a dream that is worth dreaming. Even though their difficulty of achievement on a scale of 1-10 appears to be a 2 and a 10 respectively, Columbus is more likely to fall through.
The fishing is best where the fewest go, and the collective insecurity of the world makes it easy for people to hit homeruns while everyone else is aiming for base hits. There is just less competition for bigger goals.
(Excerpted from The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss)
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