Michael Hyatt's Blog, page 63
May 10, 2017
How to Harness Sleep to Boost Your Productivity
4 Ways You Can Get the Rest You Need for the Results You Want
No sleep.” “I’ll sleep when I’m dead.” “Sleep is for the weak.” I often see motivational statements like these hashtagged on social media.
The idea is to spur high-achievers on to work harder for better results. But what if that’s exactly backwards? What if our willingness to shortchange our sleep is actually sabotaging our success?
The Problem with #NoSleep
I have argued for years that adequate rest is vital to our focus and our success. Sleep expert Shawn Stevenson recently reminded me just how true this is.
Case in point: In the past doctors trained with very little sleep. That’s slowly changing in part because of an alarming study Stevenson shared with my audience, and a larger body of medical evidence of just how bad sleep deprivation is for you.
The Lancet studied doctors who went without sleep for twenty-four hours. Physicians in that restless state were 20 percent more likely to make mistakes and took 14 percent longer to do routine tasks. The effects of sleeplessness were similar to what you’d see if the doctors had been drunk.
What’s true for doctors is true for all highly motivated people, Stevenson said. Folks may think it’s smart to skimp on sleep but “in reality, most of the people who are buying into that are not successful—they’re not even close to successful.” While a few “anomalies” might pull it off, most of eventually “fizzle out.”
And unfortunately, says Stevenson, these stubborn #NoSleepers often “create massive problems in their metabolism, in their endocrine system. They just really hurt themselves physically while they’re chasing the almighty dollar.”
4 Ways to Ace Your Zzzzs
Stevenson has nothing against success. Far from it. He just knows from painful personal experience and from helping others how important good sleep is to getting good results in our lives.
When we face time crunches, sleep is often the first thing to get cut. It may seem efficient and even smart at the time, but it’s not. “In reality, you getting that optimal sleep is going to enable you to wake up and do the job to the best of your ability,” Stevenson says.
He’s written a very helpful book on sleep titled Sleep Smarter. I’ve read it twice and continue to benefit from it. I encourage my readers to buy and read the book for themselves.
Stevenson’s message is not about prescribing an exact amount of time we should sleep. It’s more like a sliding scale. “Our sleep cycles are between 75 minutes and 120 minutes on average,” he says. “We need four to six of those per night.”
To get the most from those sleep cycles, the quality of our sleep really matters. Here are four strategies to get better sleep so we don’t, as Stevenson says, “wake up feeling like a piñata after the party.”
1. Put away the Gadgets and Smart Phones
The best sleep is low-tech with the sounds and lights and electricity of apps and devices well away. Turn it all off, to the greatest extent that you can.
Right now that’s not happening. Too many people today—and especially young people—are “sleeping with their cell phones literally next to their head on their pillows” and keeping all of the notifications on, inviting the outside world to mess with their sleep.
They could actually use be using technology to help them tune this out: iPhones, for instance, allow us to shut down all notices and to screen out all calls except from close friends and family so they can reach us in the event of a genuine emergency.
2. Get Ready for Bed
We have routines for many things throughout the day and often have routines for how to put our children to bed. But too many of us don’t have our own routines for how to shut down. We just flop into bed and hope that it happens.
An optimized bed-time ritual can automate this process for us, allowing our brains and bodies to downshift so we’re not up hours longer than we want.
3. Consider Music
One way to battle “inner chatter,” Stevenson says, is to play the same song or set of songs every night at bedtime. He was able to get a son to sleep through the night, every night, starting at six weeks, by playing the same music.
Though we now have a different bedtime ritual, I used to listen to the same four songs every night while falling asleep with Gail.
4. Careful What You Eat and Drink
Many people drink a glass of water before bed and then have to get up to go to the bathroom. Staying hydrated is important, but Stevenson says it’s best to do so throughout the day, often starting in the morning.
If possible, it’s best not to eat anything for a few hours before going to bed. If you get must eat something, it’s best to avoid things that are too sugary or starchy. For better sleep, the best bet for a late night snack is probably a few nuts.
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Shortchanging your sleep to get more done is actually sabotaging your success.
—MICHAEL HYATT
There are many more ideas for how to get a better sleep in Sleep Smarter. The bigger picture, which Stevenson would wholeheartedly endorse, is that a good night’s sleep is essential to seeing the results you desire in work and life.
Question: What needs to change so you can get the rest you need to succeed? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
May 8, 2017
6 Ways to Energize Your Team
Major Motivators that Build Trust and Increase Success
As a leader, you have an effect on people. When you leave the room, people either feel taller or smaller. This is an almost super-hero power, but, unfortunately, leaders are often unconscious of it.
A few years ago, I met with an author I had always admired. It wasn’t our first meeting; I had met with him a few times previously. I had always enjoyed being with him and left our encounters with a renewed commitment to serve him well.
But this time was different. He marched into the meeting with an entourage of assistants and a heavy dose of entitlement. Something had changed.
My people had worked hard to deliver stellar results, particularly in a tough economy. They had spent the weekend preparing, eager to share what they had accomplished. They had slides, handouts, and (they thought) good news to report.
However, he managed to “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” He scowled during the presentation. He was cold and aloof. When we were finished, he asked why we hadn’t accomplished more. He offered a litany of complaints.
His staff—several of them new and eager to look smart—followed his lead. They focused on the hole rather than the donut. In our two hours together, not one of them expressed an ounce of gratitude. It was demoralizing and we left feeling diminished.
On the way to the airport, I did my best to encourage my team. They were clearly deflated. One of my senior people sighed, “He made me feel like an idiot.” Another added, “Honestly, that meeting made me want to quit.” In my own heart, I felt precisely the same way.
My guess is that this author had no idea what he had just done. He may even have thought he was somehow motivating us. Not so much. In fact, he had just shot himself in the foot—maybe even in the head.
He had evidently forgotten that, at the end of the day, everyone is a volunteer. People will only go so far in the performance of a duty. If you want their very best, you have to have their hearts. You can’t demand this or even buy it with a paycheck. You have to earn it.
In my experience, there are six ways to do this:
Assume others are smart and working hard. People want to succeed. When you fundamentally trust that they’re working diligently to meet or exceed your expectations, you empower them. In contrast, coming to the table with unfounded doubt in your team’s capability or work ethic can quickly sabotage everyone’s efforts.
Listen intently and ask thoughtful questions. It seems almost silly to encourage something as simple as listening, but so many of us do it very poorly. Listening and asking thoughtful questions not only generates more useful ideas and conversations, but it bolsters your team’s faith in your engagement level—and it drives their momentum.
Acknowledge the sacrifices others have made on your behalf. When you recognize how people have worked to put your interests before their own, you demonstrate humility and gratitude that is absolutely key for maintaining healthy collaboration. You can deeply inspire and motivate your team when you acknowledge the sacrifices they’ve made.
Express gratitude for their effort and their results. This should be a no-brainer, but sometimes we forget to thank our team members for what they’ve accomplished! You earn loyalty and boost confidence when you take the time to truly express gratitude for the work that others do.
Remind them why their work is so important. It’s so easy to lose sight of the big picture. Knowing that their work is making a difference in the grand scheme will go a long way in motivating your team to do great work.
Put slack in the system. When everything is tight all the time, it drains us. When we punctuate periods of drive with rest, it rejuvenates us. For example, the content team and I just took a week off the blog after an intense season. We know that purposeful time to unwind allows us to come back sharp, energized, and creative.
Yes, you can talk about issues that need to be addressed, but it has to be done in a way that leaves people motivated about what is possible.
As a leader, you have more power than you think. You will get more of what you focus on. Next time you walk into a meeting, consider, How do I want people to feel when the meeting is over? Begin with the end in mind.
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You have more power than you think. You will either make people feel taller or smaller.
—MICHAEL HYATT
Question: Think back to a great meeting where you left feeling empowered. What happened to make you feel that way? What happened to your performance? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
May 1, 2017
No New Blog Posts This Week [Announcement]
No New Blog Posts This Week
I am not posting any new blog posts this week. My content team and I are taking the week off so we can rest and recharge after an intense season.
Margin matters, and it’s a big part of our value system at my company. We want to affirm (and model) the importance of time away for rejuvenation. I look forward to connecting with you again next Monday!
April 29, 2017
April 28, 2017
How to Beat Your Brain and Succeed
3 Insights for Overcoming Your Biggest Obstacles
Millions of people all over the world struggle to get things done at the office. A massive international study commissioned by the office equipment firm Steelcase found 37 percent of employees are disengaged from their work.
A similar poll by the Gallup organization found barely one in ten workers worldwide is really engaged on the job. Most people are just checked out.
This kind of disengagement is a constant source of frustration for those of us who need to find the focus and drive necessary to accomplish what matters most. The good news is that the solution is closer than you might think.
Discipline Gets Results
I recently spoke with discipline strategist Rory Vaden, author of the New York Times bestseller Take the Stairs and his new book Procrastinate on Purpose.
In his job, Vaden has coached hundreds of incredibly successful people one-on-one about increasing their self-discipline, or, as he says, “doing the things we know we should be doing even we don’t feel like doing them.”
“It’s not that they’re smarter than other people, it’s not that they’re more educated,” or any number of other variables, he says. What really matters is that successful people have made a habit of doing what needs to be done.
So how do they muster the motivation to stay engaged when they feel like dropping out? They don’t rely on the joy of the task alone, which can be fleeting. Instead, they understand that engaged, hard work now will lead to the results that they want later.
3 Ways to Overcome Your Biggest Obstacles
Vaden knows this not just through observation but also experience. He used to be fifty pounds heavier. He dropped that weight through a combination of exercise and diet with “no cheat days.” It took him two-and-a-half years to land an agent for his book, then he landed on all of the bestseller lists.
One of the biggest obstacles to engagement comes not from outside annoyances or distractions, says Vaden, but from inside our own heads. He shared three insights for how we might turn that around.
Get behind me, brain. “Our brain is not programmed for success. It’s programmed for survival,” Vaden explains. That means our brains are not always going to want to stretch to succeed or to banish distractions. They might even tempt us toward laziness. As long as we understand that, we can overcome it and succeed. But how best to do that?
Reprogram your gray matter. Vaden compares the human brain to a computer in that it “does not believe what is true or what is false” but rather believes “whatever you tell it most often.” In other words, we become the stories we tell ourselves.
You have to intentionally change that programming through repetition of what you think should matter most to you. One form of self-persuasion, which I use, is affirmations. But affirmations alone are not enough. We need to set exciting goals and identify our key motivations for reaching them. I detail that process here.
Fire at will. How do you find the discipline or willpower to do what it takes to succeed? Phrasing the question like that is a mental trap, Vaden warns. Don’t concentrate on the willpower. Instead, he says, concentrate on what you’re trying to will. In other words, keep your eye on the prize. The lack of discipline is really a lack of vision.
What we need to do is understand that our patterns of thinking are an obstacle to full engagement. But we can reprogram our brain and stay focused on the steps to achieve our goals. If we do that, the will to keep going will be a natural outgrowth of our having the end in sight.
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Our biggest obstacles come from inside our own heads—not outside annoyances or distractions.
—MICHAEL HYATT
Question: Which of these three insights do you need to apply this week to make progress toward your goals? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
April 26, 2017
How Deep Work Can Change Your Life Forever
3 Strategies to Overcome the Distractions
How many of your work hours are wasted on distractions? Probably more than you think. Financial management service Think Money researched the question, and their findings are eye-opening.
According to their 2015 report, distractions annually eat up 759 hours per worker. That’s just one hour shy of twenty complete 40-hour workweeks every year!
Now flip the question around. How much time do you spend on deep, focused work? I’m talking time where you’re not interrupted and where you’re working on your top, most important priorities. The answer people constantly tell me is “not nearly enough.”
A Work Wake-up Call
To get insight on how to fix this, I recently spoke to Georgetown computer scientist Cal Newport, author of the book Deep Work: Rules for Success in a Distracted World.
Newport is not what many people would expect in a computer scientist. He’s not on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other social media, and he doesn’t want to be. “Stay away from your inbox,” he advises people taking workday breaks. “Stay away from social media. Stay away from a computer if you can.”
He’s also “very worried about artificial intelligence,” due to its potential effects on jobs. Why? Newport warns that because of the tremendous amount of time wasted on the job by most of us, not even workers in the knowledge sector will be safe from automation.
What matters is not how your job is classified but how you spend your days. Machines are good and getting better at taking over small, shallow, repetitive tasks, such as sorting information or sending emails–and they do it without distraction.
If that sounds like your job, then Newport has some important advice: Go deeper.
The Power of Deep Work
“Focusing intensely without distraction for a long period of time on a cognitively demanding task” is how Newport defines deep work, and he doesn’t think its benefits can be undersold in today’s economy.
“Focus is now the lifeblood of this economy,” he says. Successful people “use their brain to create new value” making intense concentration “relevant in a way that it hasn’t been before.”
“It’s almost like a superpower,” he says of the power of concentration to produce great results. An intense focus on just one important task for a long stretch of time has at least two direct benefits:
That focus “helps you to learn complicated things more quickly.”
It allows you to have a “higher level of quality output” at a time when the economy is putting a premium on quality.
Solving a theorem, writing a chapter in a book, writing complex code, and doing jobs involving detailed craftsmanship are all things that Newport calls deep work.
As you can see from the craftsman example, deep work isn’t just for knowledge workers. It’s simply work that requires intense focus. But we live in a world that is shot full of distractions.
3 Ways to Banish Distraction
Newport says the “addiction to distraction” is so widespread that breaking it was one of his aims in writing his book.
In fact, even when we think we are focusing, we usually aren’t. When we work intensely on one problem but do quick “check backs” on email, social media, and the like during breaks, we run into the problem of “attention residue.” Those things come back with us when we return to our core work and make it harder to focus on our most important tasks.
With these distraction hurdles in mind, he has three strategies to move out of the shallows and get to deep work.
1. Practice Concentration
Because of email, smartphones, social media, and more, most of us have lost our ability to go deep. When we try, the initial results are not good, but Newport wants us to be encouraged. “You can get better at this,” he says.
Many people try it and quit too soon, telling themselves, “I’m just not a focused person.” But if you recognize this as a skill that you have to train into your brain and body, like playing the guitar, you’ll be able to improve with practice.
2. Protect Your Time
Newport blocks out weeks and even months in advance to work on problems. Your approach might not be that detailed, but if you are going to focus on the most important things, you’ll need a plan to protect that time. Otherwise, distractions will be more than happy to eat it up.
Every person’s distraction defense system will be different, but turning off notifications on your phone and letting your team know you’ll be offline are good places to start. You might even consider a tool like the Freedom app. It’s basically a virtual set of training wheels, helping you learn to focus.
3. Leave Work at Work
In looking at the lives of many great thinkers and innovators, Newport made a wonderful discovery: “Their schedules look downright relaxed.”
Innovators understand that the human mind can only focus deeply for a limited amount of time every day. So they devote their best time to their most critical thinking, then use the remainder of their time to recharge.
In fact, one benefit of deep work that Newport touts is that it can help you better enjoy life outside of work. This is true, not just in the sense that you have more time off, but that you make better use of that time because you’ve harnessed the skills to be fully present.
If you manage to banish most distraction from your work life, it will certainly make you more productive. Plus the habits you learn might help to root out unwanted interruptions from your personal life as well.
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Your mind can focus deeply for a limited amount of time. Devote it to your most critical thinking.
—MICHAEL HYATT
Question: Which of these obstacles do you need to overcome to do deep work? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
April 24, 2017
The One Thing You Need to Create Wow Experiences
How to Overcome the 5 Obstacles to Excellence
Today’s marketplace is more noisy and competitive than ever. If you want to capture—and keep—your audience’s attention, you need to build wow into whatever you’re offering. But that’s harder than it sounds sometimes.
Several years ago, when I was CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, I had a conversation with one of our editors. He had just finished a new manuscript from one of our biggest authors. I asked, “So what did you think?”
“Honestly?” he replied, slightly hesitant. I assured him that I wanted the truth, and he gave it to me. “Not great,” he said.
My heart sank. We had invested a lot of money in this book and were counting on significant sales from it. “Okay,” I said, now a little apprehensive, “what’s wrong with it?”
“I dunno,” said the editor. “It just feels like the same ol’ same ol’. I didn’t really see anything new here that he hasn’t said before.”
“That’s a problem,” I said, stating the obvious. “This project is too important to settle for anything less than wow.”
I almost always get to this point in a project, the fork in the road. I have a choice—you have a choice. Either we can settle for good enough or press on toward wow. In my experience, one or more of these five obstacles tempt us to settle.
See if any of these ring true for you:
We lack time. The deadline looms. We scramble to get the product out the door. We have to wrap up so we can get to the next client. We simply don’t have the time to give our best effort. So we let it go. Half-baked. Before the job is really done.
We lack resources. We’d like to do a better job. We sincerely want to take it to the next level. But we just don’t have the money or the people-power. We rationalize, “I did the best I could do with the resources I had.” And again, we let it go and turn our attention to the next project or client in the queue.
We lack experience. We just don’t know how to do what we know needs to be done. Our vision exceeds our know-how. We know what the product or service could deliver, but we don’t have the knowledge or the skills to get us there. So, we settle for something less than our vision demands.
We lack resolve or conviction. Too often, we acquiesce to the committee. Perhaps we’re a little unsure of ourselves. “Everyone else seems to like it,” we say to ourselves. “Maybe they’re right. There are a lot of smart people in this room. Just let it go!” And so we do. We succumb to the collective judgment of the group and dial back our own vision for what could be.
We lack courage. The biggest obstacle of all is fear. If we’re honest, we must admit that the previous four obstacles are mainly excuses. If we had enough courage, we would find the time, the resources or the experience. We would stand up to the committee. We wouldn’t settle for something less than wow.
But what are we really afraid of? Perhaps we fear losing our job, our client, or our influence. Maybe we don’t want to be thought of as unreasonable or demanding. We’re afraid to step out. We’re afraid of what others might say behind our back. Instead, we want to be liked.
Whatever the reason, if we are going to create wow experiences, we must become courageous.
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If we are going to create wow experiences, we must become courageous.
—MICHAEL HYATT
You have to listen to your heart, take stand for excellence, and remind yourself of what’s at stake. This is a personal, psychological bridge we need to cross. The experience we want to create is on the other side of the ravine, and there’s no other way to get there from here.
Question: Which of the five obstacles to wow do you struggle with the most? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
April 22, 2017
Check Out The Full Focus Planner™ [Video]
If you can’t see this video in your RSS reader or email, then click here.
My mission is to help overwhelmed high achievers win at work and succeed at life — and recently, that has called for the creation of something really special: a planning tool with roots in the strongest research surrounding best practices in goal-setting and productivity.
The Full Focus Planner™ was designed for high achievers just like you who are seeking a fulfilling, productive lifestyle. Come behind the scenes with me so I can show you where this project came from — and why it means so much to me and my team.
April 21, 2017
How Do You Stand Out in Today’s Crowded Marketplace?
4 Lessons on Innovation from a Successful Female Entrepreneur
The economist Tyler Cowen says the last few decades have seen the rise of what he calls the complacent class. It may not seem like it, but the numbers show people are sticking with jobs longer, relocating rarely, and innovating less.
In the midst of this complacency, there’s tremendous opportunity available for the non-complacent. I recently spoke with a woman who embodies the restless entrepreneurial spirit.
An Entrepreneurial Education
Carrie Green had intended to become a lawyer. But after a year of law school she ran short on money.
She needed work to fill the financial gap, but none of the jobs she found seemed interesting. Eventually she saw an opportunity as an online reseller unlocking cellphones, and took it.
“I didn’t know what on Earth I was doing,” she admitted. Fortunately, she was a quick study. “Somebody told me about Google Ad Words and so I got a credit card, a spending limit—a really small spending limit every day—and started to build the business.”
Her entrepreneurialism set her apart from her classmates. “When I wasn’t studying,” Green said, “I would be building my business,” and building her knowledge base by devouring business development books.
“In my third and final year of law school, I went to night school to learn more about web development. And I absolutely loved that. While everybody else was just being a student, I was exploring this whole new world that I’d just discovered,” she said.
Many college graduates search for what to do next, but Green already had a successful business and the know-how to pursue future endeavors.
She has since founded the Female Entrepreneur Association and published the bestselling book, She Means Business, which has a five star rating on Amazon after nearly 500 reviews by satisfied readers.
4 Lessons for Entrepreneurs
From our talk and from her book, I identified four lessons for motivated, non-complacent people to thrive in this more complacent world.
Risk takers are needed. Green said that it takes “courage” to go out on your own and start something new, especially if you haven’t done it before. Often people give up the certainty of a paycheck to strike out on their own, and don’t make any money to speak of until the business is a success.
But in a complacent world in which fewer people attempt to be entrepreneurs, there are more opportunities just waiting to be pursued. There are also fewer potential competitors to fight you for marketshare. That doesn’t mean you will face no competition, but there’s more space to grow than ever before.
Marketing has never been easier. Technology has made it much easier for the little guy to compete in markets that he wouldn’t even have had access to in the past. Green built her success on a primitive website and a marketing budget of $30 a day on her credit card.
With only a computer, a simple Internet connection and a lot of determination, you can get your message, your products or your services out there like never before.
“I dipped my toe into the online world and quickly realized how unbelievably powerful it was, and I was hooked,” Green said.
It’s a challenge you can rise to. Green calls starting a business an “adventure.” She argues that the struggle that you will face along the way “forces you to grow and to become the best version of yourself.” I agree.
For some people, that may not apply, but for people who are wired for risk, the challenges of entrepreneurship are truly satisfying. You find that you enjoy it and would rather be doing this than anything else. That puts you in a great mental space to succeed.
Help is one click away. One mental block to entrepreneurialism is people imagine they’ll have to figure out everything on their own. But that’s just not true, especially today. Information and tools for implementation are are more widely available now than ever before.
There are also a lot of people who are eager to trade information or offer their help on challenges. Carrie Green is one. I guarantee there are more in your space.
If Tyler Cowen is right and Americans are actually hedging their bets and risking less than in years past, there’s an opportunity for anyone willing to step outside their comfort zone to innovate and invest.
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There’s an opportunity for anyone willing to step outside their comfort zone to innovate.
—MICHAEL
Question: What steps do you need to take toward the opportunities in your life? You can leave a comment by clicking here.
