This thought came to me as I was reading Love + Work by Marcus Buckingham, where he states:

“… to live happily and fully, you have to express your loves… You’ve got to get them out somewhere, somehow. Turn them from loves into actions; from passions into contributions and when you do, your life feels coherent and authentic and you know, you just know, every fiber of your being that you’re on your path. The inverse is also true, though… if you’re prevented from doing it (what you love) then your life starts to feel wrong. During the moments when you start thinking about doing something different because you’re frustrated, angry, concerned, think about what is happening in your current job and what you’re prevented from doing.” 

For any given job or career, there are times when we feel energized and there are times when we feel like quitting (even though we are in the same job). Often, our immediate response to unhappiness at work is to think about our exit plan. Before going there, take a moment to think about what your organization may be inadvertently stopping you from doing that means a lot to you. That insight may help you find a path forward either in your current role or when you look for your next opportunity. 

If you’re not sure what you love, take the free Gift of Standout Assessment. 

Don’t deny what you love and what you’re meant to do because it may just eat you up from the inside.

Inspired by Love + Work by Marcus Buckingham

Photo by whoislimos

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When asked about the drivers for his career success, John highlights these three key elements:

1. Find an organization that aligns with your values

John’s values and those of HSBC aligned perfectly and, that, according to John, fueled his career success. Whether it was his conservative stance toward risk or the importance of doing something bigger than oneself, John felt this cultural fit allowed him to focus fully on his work. He advises anyone joining a new organization to closely observe the organization’s behaviors to make sure it matches the values it states and that those values match your own. Most organizations will have great-sounding values but do their senior leaders stay consistent with those values during difficult times? Do they defend people as they promise? Will they turn away business for the right reasons?

2. Run towards problems

When reflecting on his early career, John recognized his interest in tackling the bank’s most challenging issues when others tended to shy away from them. He noted that his interest and aptitude in dealing with difficult problems helped him attract mentors who took him under their wings. When asked how best to land a mentor, John recommends that you keep your focus on your own performance. Strong performance in itself will catch the right people’s attention. Leaders invest in you when they see your potential and drive to succeed. Of course, the personal chemistry between you and them counts too! Finally, if your organization has a formal mentoring program in place, John recommends actively taking advantage of it.

3. Capitalize on luck

John, the humble leader that he is, acknowledges the role of luck in his career. He reached the top because he was in the right place at the right time on several occasions. At the same time, his work ethic allowed him to showcase his skills when the right opportunities arose. When asked about navigating corporate politics, John highlights the importance of recognizing that we are all part of a politicized situation (“You aren’t stuck in traffic. You are traffic.”). He recommends analyzing how incentives work in your system especially if you feel like the system is political in a way that is not helpful. Once you understand the incentives, it may become clear why people are doing what they are doing.

In addition to the drivers for his career success, John also discussed the leadership lessons he learned at the helm of HSBC.

On Leading a New Team

For any new leadership role, John suggests that you start with listening. Let the people in your new group know that you want to hear what they have to say and create an environment where they can be candid with you. These conversations will help you best diagnose the situation as you formulate your plan forward. Also, if you’re feeling nervous about your new role, keep in mind that the people who report to you are likely feeling even more anxiety. Show empathy for your people, especially during this transition period.

On Managing a Crisis

Despite the work and stress that comes with handling a crisis, John recalls one of the most significant lifts in his career came after he successfully navigated his organization through a crisis. He believes a crisis accelerates your growth as a leader because you must make more decisions in a shorter amount of time. When asked how he deals with a crisis, John suggests viewing it as a series of waves. “You take the hit from the first wave, get your head back above water, and brace for the second wave.” As a leader, John emphasizes the importance of psychologically preparing your team to focus on the incoming waves rather than spend too much time trying to get back to the way things were. To stay resilient during tough times, John relied on trusted individuals in his professional and personal networks to share what he was going through. Lastly, as a leader, no matter how difficult the situation, you should always have a view on what to do.

On Working for “Bad” Leaders

If you’re working for a leader you don’t respect, John advises that you not worry too much about it. He emphasizes, “Good leaders teach you how to be, and bad leaders can teach you how not to be. As you build your own leadership skills understanding this can help you learn from any boss – whether you respect them or not.”

When asked about his selection criteria for his executive team, John looks for the following qualities:

• Integrity – will they make the right decision when no one is looking?
• Willingness to learn – do they keep striving to be better every day?
• Impact on others – when the person enters a room, is the room energized or deflated? How do they treat people when under pressure?

John adds that he’s personally drawn to people who are both brilliant and humble. Two red flags: First, when a person’s brilliance impacts others negatively. Second, overly selfish behavior. Once someone shows they are no longer willing to serve something bigger than themselves, John will likely start planning for a change.

On Understanding Your Value

John emphasized that most people can readily answer how much money they’ve made that fiscal quarter. Yet, few people can answer how that money was made. John advises leaders to be curious and thoughtful about understanding how they and their enterprise make their money. He recommends that you know it well enough to explain it clearly to a ten-year-old. By recognizing the ways you truly add value to your organization, you will know where you stand and come up with ways to become more valuable.

John wraps up the fireside chat with his leadership philosophy,

“A leader’s most profound responsibility is to create the best possible environment for the people they are leading so they can fulfill their potential and do the work that they need to do.”

For any Wharton Alums who would like access to the full recording of this fireside chat, send a message here.

The post Career and Leadership Lessons from John Flint, former Group CEO of HSBC appeared first on Robert Chen.

1. It’s as easy to do something big as it is to do something small, so reach for a fantasy worthy of your pursuit, with rewards commensurate to your effort.

• What are you working towards right now in your career? in life? If you achieve what you wanted, what rewards would come your way?
• How might you increase the size and scope of the goal you’re pursuing?

2. The best executives are made, not born. They never stop learning. Study the people and organizations in your life that have had enormous success. They offer a free course from the real world to help you improve.

• Which successful person are you learning from right now? Who has achieved the success you want to achieve?
• How can you continue to find high-quality people or resources to further your learning?

3. Write or call the people you admire, and ask for advice or a meeting. You never know who will be willing to meet with you. You may end up learning something important or form a connection you can leverage for the rest of your life. Meeting people early in life creates an unusual bond.

• Who can you reach out to today for advice or to connect?
• How will you make connecting with others a regular practice?  

4. There is nothing more interesting to people than their own problems. Think about what others are dealing with, and try to come up with ideas to help them. Almost anyone, however senior or important, is receptive to good ideas provided you are thoughtful.

• Think about the key people in your professional and personal networks. What problems are they grappling with right now? How might you be able to help them?
• Can you reach out to one of these people today to offer your ideas? 

5. Every business is a closed, integrated system with a set of distinct but interrelated parts. Great managers understand how each part works on its own and in relation to all the others.

• Do you understand every part of your business and how each part connects with each other? (Knowing your business has been advice echoed by Andrew Gorsky, Ken Chenault, and Mary Barra). 

6. Information is the most important asset in business. The more you know, the more perspectives you have, and the more likely you are to spot patterns and anomalies before your competition. So always be open to new inputs, whether they are people, experiences, or knowledge.

• What new experiences will you participate in to broaden your information base? List 3 specific new inputs for this month, this quarter, and this year.

7. When you’re young, only take a job that provides you with a steep learning curve and strong training. First jobs are foundational. Don’t take a job just because it seems prestigious.

• What new things are you learning from your job right now?
• If you’re not learning anything new, how can you adjust your role to get back to learning?

8. When presenting yourself, remember that impressions matter. The whole picture has to be right. Others will be watching for all sorts of clues and cues that tell who you are. Be on time. Be authentic. Be prepared

• What are you doing to manage the impressions people have of you? What clues and cues are you giving off to people? If you’re not sure how to manage this, this article on personal branding might help.

9. No one person, however smart, can solve every problem. But an army of smart people talking openly with one another will.

• Who are the smart people you talk to on a regular basis? If you can’t list anyone, what will you do to find these people? 

10. People in a tough spot often focus on their own problems, when the answer usually lies in fixing someone else’s.

• Whose problem can you help fix right now based on your skill set and resources?
• Can you take action today to fix someone else problem?

11. Believe in something greater than yourself and your personal needs. It can be your company, your country, or a duty for service. Any challenge you tackle that is inspired by your beliefs and core values will be worth it, regardless of whether you succeed or fail.

• What are your beliefs and core values? (This pdf and this article might help if you’re not sure.)
• What is the greater cause you’re striving for?

12. Never deviate from your sense of right and wrong. Your integrity must be unquestionable. It is easy to do what’s right when you don’t have to write a check or suffer any consequences. It’s harder when you have to give something up. Always do what you say you will, and never mislead anyone for your own advantage.

• Over the last 3 months, what situations have tested your integrity? What did you end up doing in those situations?
• What investments or sacrifices have you made over the last 12 months because it was the right thing to do?

13. Be bold. Successful entrepreneurs, managers, and individuals have the confidence and courage to act when the moment seems right. They accept risk when others are cautious and take action when everyone else is frozen, but they do so smartly. This trait is the mark of a leader.

• What is the last bold thing you did in the past 6 months? 
• What are you doing now to help you take quick action when the moment is right?

14. Never get complacent. Nothing is forever. Whether it is an individual or a business, your competition will defeat you if you are not constantly seeking ways to reinvent and improve yourself. Organizations, especially, are more fragile than you think.

• What are the specific things you’re doing right now to reinvent and improve yourself and your organization? 
• What are the inputs that have you decide what to improve/reinvent?

15. Sales rarely get made on the first pitch. Just because you believe in something doesn’t mean everyone else will. You need to be able to sell your vision with conviction over and over again. Most people don’t like change, so you need to be able to convince them why they should accept it. Don’t be afraid to ask for what you want.

• What vision would you like to sell to people?
• When was the last time you sold this vision or ask people for what you want? How are you selling that vision right now?
• Who is one person you can pitch this week?

16. If you see a huge, transformative opportunity, don’t worry that no one else is pursuing it. You might be seeing something others don’t. The harder the problem is, the more limited the competition, and the greater the reward for whomever can solve it.

• What transformative opportunity do you see?
• What is one thing you can do now to capitalize on that opportunity?

17. Success comes down to rare moments of opportunity. Be open, alert, and ready to seize them. Gather the right people and resources; then commit. If you’re not prepared to apply that kind of effort, either the opportunity isn’t as compelling as you think or you are not the right person to pursue it.

• Are you connected to the right people and resources? How can you secure enough “dry powder” to take advantage of the opportunities when they come?

18. Time wounds all deals, sometimes even fatally. Often the longer you wait, the more surprises await you. In tough negotiations especially, keep everyone at the table long enough to reach an agreement.

• If you’re in an active deal or negotiation right now, what can you do to close the deal so both parties are taken care of?
• What might you be doing that needlessly jeopardizes the deal? 

19. Don’t lose money!!! Objectively assess the risks of every opportunity.

• Do you have a good process to objectively assess risk? 

20. Make decisions when you are ready, not under pressure. Others will always push you to make a decision for their own purposes, internal politics, or some other external need. But you can almost always say, “I think I need a little more time to think about this. I’ll get back to you.” This tactic is very effective at defusing even the most difficult and uncomfortable situations.

• What decisions do you have to make right now? 
• Which ones can you make faster and which ones should you slow down?
• What is your decision-making process? (see rule #22)

21. Worrying is an active, liberating activity. If channeled appropriately, it allows you to articulate the downside in any situation and drives you to take action to avoid it.

• What might be worth worrying about? 
• Are you worrying in a productive way?

22. Failure is the best teacher in an organization. Talk about failures openly and objectively. Analyze what went wrong. You will learn new rules for decision making and organizational behavior. If evaluated well, failures have the potential to change the course of any organization and make it more successful in the future.

• What was your last failure? What did you learn? (Growth mindset book summary might be helpful)
• How recent was your last failure?

23. Hire 10s whenever you can. They are proactive about sensing problems, designing solutions, and taking a business in new directions. They also attract and hire other 10s. You can always build something around a 10.

• How many 10s are you working with right now? 
• Who are the 10s in your network? 
• Where can you find 10s in you need to recruit them?

24. Be there for the people you know to be good, even when everyone else is walking away. Anyone can end up in a tough situation. A random act of kindness in someone’s time of need can change the course of a life and create an unexpected friendship or loyalty.

• Who can you be kind to right now?

25. Everyone has dreams. Do what you can to help others achieve theirs.

• What are the dreams of the people close to you? Can you do one thing to move them forward in those dreams? 

Take some time and answer the questions for each of these rules. Then take action aligned with your responses. One action I’ll take to support you in your dreams is to offer you the e-book version of my Dreams to Reality Fieldbook free. Just email me and we’ll send a copy over to you. 

The post 25 Rules for Work and Life from Stephen Schwarzman, CEO of Blackstone appeared first on Robert Chen.

Below is a list of useful resources I often review and send to high performers who want to continually improve themselves:

Leading People and Organizations

• Mindsets and practices of the best CEOs (McKinsey – pdf version)

• What makes an effective executive (Harvard Business Review)

• Google’s new manager training (facilitator guide, slides, and workbook)

• An atlas of strategy traps (Boston Consulting Group)

• What makes a leader (Harvard Business Review – pdf version)

Communicating Effectively

• Think fast, talk smart (video – Stanford Graduate School of Business)

• Three strategies for introverts to speak up in meetings (Fast Company)

• How to have difficult conversations and stay true to yourself (Lean In – guide)

• A plain English handbook (pdf – Securities and Exchange Commission)

Managing Your Career

• How to pick a career (that actually fits you) (Wait but Why)

• Top 10 practical tips for managing up (LinkedIn)

• The brand called You (Fast Company)

• Why you hate work (NY Times)

Mastering Yourself

• Managing oneself (Harvard Business Review – summary)

• How to get strong (NY Times)

• Why procrastinators procrastinate (Wait but Why)

• How to find a hobby (NY Times)

If you want to go beyond articles and dive deeper into any one of these topics, check out Robert’s book recommendations. If you know of other highly practical resources that you reference frequently, feel free to send them to us or share them in the comments section.

Photo by Syd Wachs

The post Timeless resources to help you be more effective at work (updated Jan 2020) appeared first on Robert Chen.

Indra mentioned that as a minority (woman and Indian) employee, her work is often discounted. She was able to get to parity by showcasing her competence and being more prepared than anyone else. This need to perform above and beyond just to be considered was echoed by Sol Trujillo, former CEO of Telstra, US West, and Orange.

In addition to being competent, Dr. Nooyi offers the following career advice:

“Invest in communication skills”

As she reflects on the success factors for her career, she emphasized that “packaging is important”. Being able to navigate a difficult problem and meeting and to influence stakeholders to be on board with your ideas are core leadership skills. Confidence is perceived as competence and if you want to be taken seriously, you need to communicate impactfully.

How are you honing your communication skills? What does your packaging say about you?

“Put your hand up for the most difficult assignments …”

“… and deliver on it.“ You’re not going to get the right visibility by fixing easy situations. If you want to get noticed, make positive things happen in challenging areas. Just make sure you’re ready to tackle these tough assignments (see Indra’s point about being competent). Failing to turnaround a bad situation will not help you establish a strong reputation.

What is the most difficult task facing your firm right now? How can you ready yourself to be a part of the solution?

“Embrace life-long learning”

In the past, firms trained the front lines and briefed senior management. With major shifts in technology and business, senior management must stay ahead of their competitors by constantly learning and using that knowledge to develop better strategies. Firms are now training their executives so they can brief their teams. Change management is becoming the norm and it’s forcing all leaders to “read more and question more”.

What was the last thing you learned? How are you staying informed of new technologies in your industry?

During this talk, Indra emphasized how her Asian values and support system contributed to her success.  She recounted how her mother would help her at home and on occasion, her mother would give feedback to her during a business call about how she’s handling the call. Despite having every right to ignore her, Indra would acquiesce and follow her mother’s guidance as a sign of respect. She recognized that if she wanted her parents’ support, she needed to play her role as well.

This story taught me two important lessons: Leverage your heritage as a strength and be kind to your parents (especially when it’s not easy to do so).

The post Words of Wisdom from Indra Nooyi, former CEO of Pepsi, at the Ascend National Convention appeared first on Robert Chen.

These were the questions I asked myself during Professor Stew Friedman’s Total Leadership program at Wharton. What attracted me to take this course was Stew’s concept that work-life balance doesn’t work because it implies having to make trade-offs. Instead of managing life as slices of a pie that gets smaller or bigger at the expense of each other, his alternative was to consider different areas of your life as independent circles that can potentially overlap with each other.

This new construct helped me unlock the creativity to better optimize my life and it has transformed the way I live and work.

Before this course, I felt at the whim of my goals and the needs of my stakeholders. I felt forced to make tradeoffs in one area of my life because of the demands of another area and instead of leading my life, it was leading me. The process I learned in this live workshop with peer coaching helped me gain control over the important areas of my life. You’ll see below five insights that might be helpful to you as you think about leading all areas of your life:

Lead Your Life: Don’t Use One Area of Your Life to Make Excuses for Another Area

Before this program, I would often feel guilty that I did not get home early enough to spend time with my kids. I would use work as my excuse and rationalize that now is the time to focus on my career and once I’ve “made it”, I can carve out more time for family. Along the same vein, I would use my two young sons as the excuse for not exercising. I would tell myself, “How can I afford to work out if I don’t even have enough time to spend with my kids?” Then I would use the time I needed for work, school, family, and exercise to justify why I slept on average only five hours each night.

I found myself often saying how much I wanted to do these things but explaining how I couldn’t because of the many legitimate excuses that I had. Looking back, that was a weak way of living. This experience has taught me to either do what I say is important to do or stop saying it’s important to me. Either way is fine but continuing to make excuses is not.

As part of this course, we all conducted personal experiments. For my experiments, I committed to getting 7+ hours of sleep, getting home before 7pm during most of the work week, and exercising daily, which included running 2x a week. I was initially skeptical since I’ve had so many false starts trying to implement similar positive habits but I’m excited to share that so far I’ve not only sustained these habits but I just completed my first half-marathon after never running a race in the past.

What made the difference this time was clarifying the vision I wanted for my life and taking control to bring that vision to life. Essentially, leading myself to where I wanted to go.

Sleep Really Matters

I was lucky to choose sleeping 7+ hours as one of my experiments because there was no habit change that yielded faster and more drastic results than getting 7+ hours of sleep. I used to subscribe to the “you can sleep when you retire” and “I’m successful because I work harder and longer than everyone else” mantra. I’m beginning to see the fault in this thinking and realizing that I may have spun my wheels more often than I am aware of or care to admit.

After consistently getting 7+ hours of sleep, I noticed my mood becoming more positive and relaxed. What surprised me the most was that I immediately stopped craving coffee (I was drinking about 2-3 cups a day for the last few years).

I also found sleeping sufficiently a linchpin habit. The days when I was well rested, I almost always completed every other habit change along with my work and school goal for that day. It allowed me to exercise more self-control and discipline.

Create Constraints to Force Creativity

Forcing myself to get home early, sleep enough hours, and exercise daily meant taking time away from other areas of my life, especially work. Initially, I was worried I wouldn’t get my work done leading to adverse consequences. What I found instead was the most important work was still getting done and since my deadlines were tighter, I became more effective with my time. Having less time for work began to prevent me from over-engineering my work and school projects.

It also helped me to be more creative about my time. Instead of agreeing to drinks or dinner with a client, I would offer to meet for breakfast or lunch so I can keep my commitment to get home early. I started running and working out with other people as a great way to catch up with them. Interestingly, by creating constraints and forcing myself to keep these new habits, the quality of my life has increased at home and at work.

Be the Building Block for Other People’s Goals

One of the key exercises in the Total Leadership process was to set up conversations with the most important stakeholders in the different areas of your life. The goal is to ask your stakeholders about their expectations for you and how you’re doing in meeting those expectations.

Holding these conversations, I realized that I often see people around me as building blocks to my success and drive our interactions in the direction of my agenda and accomplishing my goals. Hearing people’s expectations of me have made me realize that other people have their own needs and aspirations and to create long-term, positive relationships with them, I need to be the building block for their goals and success.

If you want people to see you as a leader, they first have to recognize that their life will be better because they follow you. There is no better way to do that than to become a critical part in their quest for success and meaning.

Grow the Relationships You Take for Granted

Every year I have clear goals to improve and to grow my career. It seems like the natural thing to do. What’s interesting is when I reflect on my closest relationships, I don’t have the same aspirational tendency. I don’t think about growing these relationships and at best, the relationship stays where it is. The only time I pay attention is when the relationship gets strained and I spend just enough energy to get it back to the original level.

Applying the same growth mentality from my career to my personal relationships, I asked my wife, family, and others close to me what we needed to do to take our relationship to the next level. Just by having these conversations, my key relationships are beginning to thrive and grow and it’s having a positive impact on other areas of my life. When you ask people about their needs and truly listen, they often become open to sincerely understanding your needs. Another benefit to this exercise is it allows you to decide which relationships may not be worth investing in because the other person doesn’t want to engage.

To start this journey, craft the vision for your life and clarify your values. You choose the life you want to have and the key idea is to align your actions to bringing to life your vision. Stay attuned to how you’re tracking to your vision and continue iterating with experiments to find overlap in the different circles of your life.

If you would like to dive in deeper, check out Stew’s Total Leadership book, which outlines the exercises in his process. You can also take the Coursera version of the course.

Photo by Brooke Lark

The post 5 Ways to Better Lead Every Aspect of Your Life appeared first on Robert Chen.

During a recent trip to Los Angeles, the head of sales for a top financial services firm reflected on his career and shared with me that the #1 factor for most employee’s success, including executives, is the quality of their boss.

When you work for a manager who is a superstar, they will continue to move up in their career, which creates space for you to advance. If they get promoted, there is a good chance that they will actively pull you up with them as long as you have a strong working relationship and continue to perform.

If you don’t work for a top performer, you run the risk of that person seeing you as a threat since there is a good chance you’ll end up taking their job. Instead of focusing on their goals and finding ways to outperform their peers, they will expend their energy holding you back and shooting down your ideas. It’s not personal, it’s self-preservation.

Poor performing managers will also have trouble fighting for the limited resources of the firm and influencing the organization to focus on your team’s initiatives. This means working with smaller budgets and working on low-priority projects.

If you are a high-performer, you want to work for someone who is constantly growing so you don’t outgrow them. An easy way to tell whether someone is a superstar is to look at their work history. In their LinkedIn profile, bio, resume or website, do you see any of the following:

• Promotions every 2-3 years
• Activities that show they are learning new skills
• Thought leadership or involvement in industry groups
• Recommendations or endorsements from others
• Credentials that match those of the senior leadership team

You may want to change your boss if they are (1) staying stuck as a mid or lower-level employee that’s been in the same role, title, and function for the last 10 years, (2) trying to limit your exposure to other senior people or departments, or (3) constantly taking credit for your work.

Your boss matters so if you are ambitious and want to move up in your career, follow someone who is heading to the top. If you work for a true superstar, they will pave the way for you as long as you can keep up just like you will pave the way for those behind you. If you can’t find a great boss and still want to move up quickly in your career, then you might have to switch firms or strike out on your own.

Photo by Kiran Foster

The post When you want to move up quickly in your career … appeared first on Robert Chen.

“We live on an island surrounded by a sea of ignorance. As our island of knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.”

John Archibald Wheeler, American Physicist (Scientific American (1992), Vol. 267.)

The more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know.

To be successful in your career, keep learning new things. Learn broadly about many subjects and deeply about the subjects you’re passionate about. Carve out one hour per week learning about a subject you know nothing about.

This practice will make you more creative and a better conversationalist. For books worth reading, check out our recommended reading list along with the 10 books I wish I read earlier in my life.

The post Keep Learning – Knowledge Helps You Recognize Your Own Ignorance appeared first on Robert Chen.

In every Olympics including this year’s games, new world records are being set by those who continue to innovate the way they train and perform. In renowned expertise researcher, K. Anders Ericsson’s, book on performance, Peak, I came across this quote that served as a great reminder.

“Progress is made by those who are working on the frontiers of what is known and what is possible to do, not by those who haven’t put in the effort needed to reach that frontier.“

To innovate and be better than the best, first emulate the best (like Ben Franklin).

A few easy-to-understand-yet-difficult-to-do tips:

1. Practice purposefully by staying one or two steps outside of your comfort zone
   • You know you are at the limits of your ability if you are engaged in an activity that requires your FULL concentration and effort
2. Study the best performers in your field and learn their mental representations
   • What are the thoughts and practices they developed about their craft that allows them to accurately assess and fix their own mistakes?
3. Find a way to get concrete feedback for your performance so you can track your progress and pinpoint where you are falling short
4. Believe you can be better than the best
5. Work harder than everyone else you know

“When you want to achieve something and you believe that you can, you work harder”

– Philip Zimbardo, Stanford Psychologistm in The Time Paradox

In your quest to be better than the best, don’t be surprised if you hit a few plateaus. When you do, step further out of your comfort zone to reveal the particular gap in your skill set. Set up your practice to work on the isolated issue only. This should help you move beyond the plateau.

To make the world better, we should all strive to be better than the best. If you follow the steps above consistently and persistently, you have a good chance of getting there.

Photo by Marco Paköeningrat

The post When you want to be better than the best … appeared first on Robert Chen.

If it doesn’t look amateurish to you, you may not be learning fast enough. What did you do in the past year to better yourself and your skills?

If you’re not careful, you may fall for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

The post Were you better than you were yesterday? appeared first on Robert Chen.