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

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You have nothing to gain. It doesn’t matter what has happened, stay away from complaining, getting bitter, or blaming others.

If Stephen Hawking, who has every right to complain, whine and be angry about his condition, recognizes this, you should too. This mirrors the advice from Dale Carnegie in his book, How to Win Friends and Influence people – Don’t criticize, condemn or complain.

Next time when things don’t go your way or you recognize that others had a better head start than you in life, keep smiling and find ways to put yourself in a positive state of mind and mood. If you don’t know how to change your state, start by either exercising or sleeping followed by being appreciative for what you already have.

When you stay optimistic in the face of setbacks, everyone else around you and especially you will be much better off for it.

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As a high-performer, you want to do a great job in EVERYTHING that you do.

It’s understandable.

It’s what made you successful.

It’s also what will limit you if you apply it too broadly.

To iron out all of the kinks all of the time requires a big time investment. The more time you spend on the minor details, especially with low-priority tasks, the less time you spend on meaningful work.

Whenever you feel overwhelmed by administrative or low-value work, revisit your priorities list. Determine your priorities by reflecting on the intersection between what you want to do and excel at and what your firm or boss needs from you at the moment.

Once your priorities are clear, rank your tasks so they align with your priorities. The key idea is to spend most of your day on top-ranking activities that will help you achieve your core career goals. This is much easier said than done since urgent but unimportant tasks frequently hijack our tasks list.

If you are frequently mired in low-value tasks despite using a clear ranking system, it may help to analyze your daily actions more closely. Find the points in your day where you get distracted by low-value activities and notice the habits that get you off track. Once you identify your bad habits, isolate and change one of them and see if you are better at following your task list. Also, frequently review your priorities since they will change as you progress in your career.

Always be clear on what you want to accomplish with each task and remember:

For less meaningful tasks, good enough is good enough.

Inspired by Extreme Productivity by Bob Pozen

Photo by Lindsey Turner

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You thrive on feedback. That’s how you got to where you are today. You actively seek out advice and insights from your mentors, great books and life experiences.

Since you’re open-minded and motivated to succeed in the shortest time possible, you experiment with all the different winning strategies that you come across. Some working well and others not so much and you keep searching for the holy grail to sustainable excellence.

There is a risk to your openness. By taking on so many suggestions, it’s easy to lose touch with who you really are.

This happens to me from time to time. I speak with a senior executive who inspires me to be one way. I read a book that motivates me to try another way. I run into an old friend who has completely revamped her life and swears by a third way.

And I try all of these ways and they all have their merits. But when I stop to reflect on who I’ve become, sometimes it’s not so clear who I am. In these times, I pull out a quote from Aristotle to help me sort through this uncertainty:

“We are what we repeatedly do.”

To remember the type of person I am, I just need to look at my actions. Our actions directly represent our decisions, which are driven by our beliefs and values.

If you do kind things consistently, you are a kind person. If you exceed your manager’s expectations all the time, you’re a high performer. It doesn’t matter what you say you are, what matters is what you do. I can talk about how much I want to focus on family and be a great father but if I constantly come home late from work and spend very little time with my son, I’m not a great father.

The bright and empowering side of this realization is that I don’t need to sort out how I see myself. I just have to consistently act in a way that reflects who I want to be. If I want to be authentic, I can share my true views and vulnerabilities. If I want to be a writer, I’ll write 1000 words a day. If I want to be bold, I might cold call a CEO to get an interview.

For those of you who plan to make a drastic change around people who know you, understand that it’s hard for people to see past the “old” you. If you’re in this situation. you might want to read this article on upgrading your identity.

If you’re not sure what actions to take, observe those who you want to be more like and mimic their behaviors. You decide who you are by controlling what you do.

Just focus on changing your actions.

Ask yourself:

1. What type of person do I want to be?
2. What actions would this person take?
3. When can I apply these actions?

You can also use the inverse method:

1. Who do I want to make sure I never become?
2. What actions would this person take?
3. When might I be susceptible to these actions?

Photo by Md saad andalib

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You can do the work but you can’t control the results.

Whether or not you get promoted, make a deal or get the resources you need all depends on the decisions of other people. Unfortunately, Peter Drucker is right – the decision maker may not be the best person to make that decision but they still get to decide.

If you’re not getting what you want, think of what you can do to influence the decision. It doesn’t help to blame or judge the decision maker.

If you’re the boss, hire good decision makers because ultimately, they decide what happens.

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This is the most common pushback I hear from my clients when they gain more clarity on what they want in their careers and realize they were meant to do something completely different from their current job. Whether it’s switching into a new career, company or industry, the fear of or actual lack of relevant experience prevents most people from leaving a job or employer they don’t like.

Having successfully switched careers several times to very different roles and industries, I’ve learned firsthand that direct work experience for most careers and industries is overrated and the barriers to entry for a new career is much lower than you think. (Please note: my definition of “direct work experience” is working in the specific industry and role.)

So why doesn’t work experience matter as much as we’re led to believe?

Repetition of work

Many people do very similar work year after year. Employers pay individuals to perform specific functions and the bigger the company, the more specific the individual’s function will be. This creates the common situation where an average performer with 20-years of experience might really only have 1-2 years of unique experience and 18-19 years repeating similar experiences. They stop learning and begin to settle in and coast because it’s easy and comfortable.

This is great news if you’re looking to switch careers because with concentrated effort over a 2-3 year period, you can catch up to many people who have significantly more years of experience than you. You may need to take an initial pay cut to get your initial opportunity but if you put in the work, you’ll soon earn as much as if not more than others in your field because of the extra time you’ll put into improving your skills.

Rapidly changing world

The world is constantly changing. What you learned today will probably be obsolete in a few years. Maybe even a few days. If you’re looking to switch careers, your lack of experience may actually be a plus as firms look to innovate and stay ahead of or at least with the fast-changing times. Your ability to be agile and flexible will serve you better than any specific work experience or title.  Seek to understand the current trends and leverage them to market yourself to prospective employers.

Relationships matter

Most senior executives and business owners I know are on the look out for top talent even if they don’t have a specific job for them (Charles Koch is one of them). As long as you can add value to the company moving forward, your previous experience doesn’t matter as much as your potential. If you build strong relationships and cultivate a network of senior people who know what you can do, you will get opportunities despite your direct experience.

So if you’re looking to switch careers, take time to:

• Understand how the business or organization you want to work for makes money and figure out honestly how you can add value to this process.
• Build the skills you need to add value and find ways to showcase your abilities.
• Network with others in the business and industry you want to be in to gain visibility and agreement that you’re an insider.

If you’re willing to work hard on the right things, your lack of experience is a non-issue.

For many job functions, pre-requisite knowledge or skills may not be required as different companies have different methods and processes. Most likely, you’ll get training from your company and support from your manager to help you learn and do your job well. Any extra work you put in will only fast track your learning and if you sustain your hard work past year 3, you’re going to begin surpassing others with more official experience.

You might also consider developing evergreen skills, skills that are useful everywhere you go. Your ability to communicate, make decisions, size up a situation, lead, motivate, sell and build relationships are core to being successful everywhere you go.

Don’t get me wrong, proper work experience is valuable. Just because experience is overrated doesn’t mean that it doesn’t count. For those who continuously learn and find ways to build on their experience year after year, they are the ones who make it to the top of their professions. The point is that work experience is not weighted as much as you would imagine.

If your lack of experience is stopping you from going after your dream job. Take comfort that it doesn’t take long to catch up and surpass others in what you want to do. The faster you get started, the faster you’ll get there.

Photo by Sabrina

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As a high-performer, you’ll have more opportunities than you know what to do with. As you continue to grow in your career, you’ll have to make tough sacrifices. When you give things up all the time, it’s easy to begin feeling guilty, resentful or depressed because sacrificing often focuses you on what you’re losing.

If you feel that you’re giving up too much but find it necessary to continue doing so, consider reframing sacrificing as investing instead. This simple shift helps you to focus your attention on what you gain as opposed to what you lose.

This can be used for personal sacrifices as well.  For example:

When my son was born, I went from playing basketball weekly to stopping completely. I initially saw this as a sacrifice I would gladly make for my son but then it seemed like my life was shrinking. This made it easy to blame my son any time I wanted to play but couldn’t.

What changed my perspective was reframing the act of giving up basketball into investing in being a better father. No longer was I being punished but rather I’ve made the conscious choice to invest my time and energy to reach my aspirations. This allowed me to take back the power that I was giving up when I thought I was sacrificing and the negative feelings dissipated.

Remember: When you can, think invest rather than sacrifice.

Photo by Quinn Dombrowski

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… ignore them.

(especially if they have not achieved success by your definition of success and if you know this is what you want to do.  If you’re not sure of what you want, go here.)

Now if people are telling you to quit, great news, you’re not alone. Here is a running list of successful people who were told they wouldn’t make it either:

• Walt Disney, Animator and Founder of Disney
  • Former employer thought “lacked imagination and had no good ideas.“
• Oprah Winfrey, Talkshow Host
  • Fired as a tv reporter because she was “unfit for TV“
• Fred Astaire, Actor and Dancer
  • Testing director at MGM – “Can’t act. Can’t sing. Slightly bald. Can dance a little.”
• Howard Schultz, Starbucks CEO
  • Business partners didn’t think Americans would pay for lattes and cappuccinos
• JK Rowlings, Writer (Harry Potter Series)
  • Rejected by 12 different publishers and told “not to quit her day job.“
• Elvis Presley, Singer – “King of Pop”
  • Told by the manager at Grand Ole Opry -“You ain’t going nowhere, son. You ought to go back to driving a truck.“
• Sidney Poitier, Oscar-winning Actor
  • Casting director – “Why don’t you stop wasting people’s time and go out and become a dishwasher or something?”
• Stephen King, Writer
  • 30 rejections for Carrie, the book that launched his career
• Vincent Van Gogh, Painter
  • Sold only one painting during his lifetime
• Colonel Sanders, Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken
  • Recipe rejected 1009 times
• Beatles, Music Band
  • Record executive -“We don’t like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out“; “They have no future in show business.“
• F. Scott Fitzgerald, Writer
  • Book review headline for The Great Gatsby -“Fitzgerald’s Latest A Dud.“
• Michael Jordan, Basketball Player
  • Didn’t make high school basketball team
• Anderon Cooper, CNN Anchor
  • From previous colleagues in TV – “You’ll never be on air.“; “You’ll never be hired as a correspondent here.“
  • “Okay, so you are working for this little show that’s seen in high schools, but you’ll never get a job at a network”
• Graydon Carter, Editor of Vanity Fair
  • From a former boss – “Look, everyone really likes you, and you’re a wonderful person, but you’ll never make it in the magazine business. Maybe you should think about going into ad sales?”
• Arianna Huffington, Founder of Huffington Post
  • Skeptics – “A millionaire socialite who didn’t get the web.“; “this is simply unsurvivable.“
• Thomas Edison, Inventor
  • His teacher – “too stupid to learn anything.“
• Frank Geary, Architect
  • From a former architecture professor – “You will never make it in this field. Get out now or you’re just going to waste a lot of time.”
• Amy Tan, Writer
  • Her former business partner – “You’ll never make a dime writing.“
• Fred Smith, Founder of FedEx (shipping company)
  • His professor on his idea of reliable overnight shipping – “The concept is interesting and well-formed, but in order to earn better than a ‘C’, the idea must be feasible.“
• Dr. Judah Folkman, Cancer Research Pioneer
  • His fellow scientists on his research – “You’re studying dirt.“

Others who have been told they wouldn’t make it (without naysayer quotes):

• Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin
• Bruce Springsteen, Singer – “The Boss”
• Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bodybuilder, Actor, Politician
• Maxine Clark, Founder of “Build-A-Bear”
• Sara Blakely, Founder of Spanx
• John Paul Dejoria, Founder of John Paul Mitchell and Patron Spirits
• WD-40 – took 40 tries to perfect the formula.

“Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there will always be someone to tell you that you are wrong.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Inspired by individual biographies, articles and Getting There: A Book of Mentors by Gillian Zoe Segal.

Bonus: And if you end up failing …

Source: OnlineMBAToday.com

Photo by hobvias sudoneighm

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When I asked a senior leader what his key to success was, he simply answered:

“I ask for what I want.”

Simple, straightforward and …

… surprisingly rare.

As a high performer, you might be used to other people tapping you on the shoulder for bigger opportunities, but as you continue to rise in your career, the shoulder tapping stops. Once you’re at a certain level, everyone is awesome and only the individuals who proactively ask for the right opportunities to develop their skills and profile will continue to rise to the highest levels.

So why aren’t more people asking for what they want?

Here are some common reasons:

Not Knowing It Is Possible

Many people don’t ask because they don’t realize asking is an option. We’re usually given a selection of items to choose from and we assume those are all the choices available to us. In some cases, that may be true but in many cases, it is not. The only way to find out is by asking for what you want.

See everything as being negotiable and begin making specific requests. To test this in a low stakes situation, go to any restaurant and ask for an option that is not on the menu and see what happens. You may be surprised.

“You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

– Wayne Gretzky, Professional Hockey Player

Low Self-Esteem

When people don’t deem themselves as important, they see their requests in the same way. They don’t feel worthy of getting what they want and they stop themselves from asking through negative self-talk such as “who am I to ask for …” or “I’m not worth the trouble“.

This is dangerous thinking because it affects all aspects of your life (health, relationships, career, etc). To overcome this, understand that only you can determine what you are worth and that you are worth it. You deserve to live your best life and to do that, you need to ask for what you want.

When people deny your request, know that it is not personal and it’s not a reflection or confirmation of your worth. More often that not, people have their own reasons for saying “no” and it almost never has anything to do with you.

“You create your opportunities by asking for them“

– Shakti Gawain, Author

Limiting Assumptions

“I don’t want to appear weak or needy.”

“If they value me, I don’t have to ask.”

“No one cares.”

If you assume these statements to be true, then most likely you won’t ask for what you want. Instead, if you believe that:

“Only the powerful ask for what they want.”

“People value me but they can’t read my mind.”

“Everyone cares.”

Then you’ll probably be more inclined to be upfront with your requests.

There is no right or wrong when choosing your beliefs. You can choose the first set or the second set or create your own. Why not choose the set of beliefs that will allow you to live a happy life.

In life, the choice is always yours. Don’t let me or anyone else tell you what to believe and what is right. Collect information and decide on your own.

“If you always put a limit on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them.”

– Bruce Lee, Martial Artist and Actor

If you view asking for what you want as a form of empowerment, consider this approach:

• Ask confidently and specifically from someone who has the power to give you what you want.
• Always be respectful and understand that it is not personal when people tell you “no”.
• Be persistent and patient – ask someone else, choose a different time to ask, break your request down into smaller pieces.

No matter what you do and where you are, you’re going to be more effective if you begin asking for what you want.

So … what are you going to ask for today?

Photo by Mac Vincente

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