Business
Be determined to succeed against all odds
As we all know, the odds are against us. Every day, people are born into poverty, people lose their jobs, people get sick, and people die. And that’s not even getting into the natural disasters that happen on a regular basis.
But here’s the thing: No matter what happens, you are never truly out of luck. There is always something that can help you turn things around.
And you’ll get the opportunity to succeed against all odds when you become a self-starter.
A self-starter is someone who is able to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness despite adversity.
As a self-starter, you are able to see the glass half full, not just half empty. You learn how to deal with failure and loss, instead of avoiding them. And you learn to take risks, instead of being afraid to try new things.
Self-starters aren’t born; they develop this trait through a combination of effort and experience.
Someone is always telling you that you can’t do it. But that’s just their problem. You are going to succeed against all odds and beat them.
You see, there is a big difference between what you think you can do and what you really can do. If you doubt yourself, you will never make it to the top.
If you have doubts, you will never succeed in life. If you don’t believe in yourself, who will?
You will need to have the determination to succeed. When you have that determination, nothing can stop you.
Do you know people who have overcome many odds to achieve their dreams? It’s not just people in movies but real-life people who have done things many would have said were impossible.
While there’s a difference between dreaming big and actually accomplishing that dream, there’s also a gap between dreaming and making it happen. You need to make it happen; if you want to do that, you must be determined to succeed against all odds.
It might seem like a silly thing to say, but you can achieve a lot if you have determination and ambition. Many people don’t have either, and that’s why they struggle to achieve anything in life.
When you’re determined to succeed, you can do a lot. You’ll have to work hard, but if you’re determined, you’ll be able to overcome any obstacles or challenges that stand in your way.
The main reason people fail to accomplish their goals is that they don’t have the right mindset and lose sight of what they want to do. As you can see, this is why you need to ensure that you have the right mindset and are determined to achieve your goals no matter what comes your way.
If you’re someone who isn’t successful in life, it’s likely because you never worked your butt off and you never gave anything a real chance. You might even have given up before ever getting started on your journey.
This mindset can work against you, but it’s not like you’re doomed to failure in life, so long as you want it bad enough. You don’t have to just settle for being average; instead, you can strive to improve.
You don’t have to do everything perfectly, but you do need to give yourself the chance to grow and develop. This means you need to try new things and make mistakes along the way. You need to do this to avoid failing and see what works and what doesn’t.
Once you see what works, you can apply that to other aspects of your life. This is especially true in business, where many people repeatedly fail until they get it right.
Even then, they keep on failing until they finally figure it out. Once you understand what you’re doing wrong, you can adjust accordingly. You’ll make mistakes, but you’ll learn from them, allowing you to become a better person.
You can attain success, but you must put in the work to get there. You can’t expect it to fall into your lap, nor can you simply wait around for it to happen. You have to be determined to succeed, and you have to work for it.
You might not succeed in everything, but you’ll improve at many things. If you’re working towards your goals, that’s a good sign, but you can also be working towards achieving new goals.
You’ll get a lot of ideas and inspiration from what others are doing, and you can take some of that and use it to develop your own ways of doing things. You don’t need to copy what others are doing blindly, but you do need to understand how they can succeed.
That’s how you’ll ultimately become a successful person, and you’ll realize that it doesn’t take much money or work. It’s actually about having the right mindset and being able to take a risk in your life.
The worst thing that you can possibly do is give up. Even if you fail miserably at something, you can still get up off the floor and keep trying because there’s always a chance to try again.
The more you try, the more you’ll learn. That’s the only way you can progress as a person, and you have to know that even if you fail, you won’t fall completely down in defeat.
If you can accept that no matter how bad your efforts are, you can keep trying and improving, then you’re well on your way to becoming a successful person.
When you fail, there’s a good chance that you’ll just give up. But you have to be strong enough to keep on going. Don’t let your failures define you and ruin your chances of success.
Even if you keep failing, you’ll learn something new every time. When you start learning how to succeed, you’re already making progress, so you should keep pushing forward.
If you can acknowledge your failures and just learn from them, you’re already on the right path to being a successful person. It doesn’t matter how often you fail as long as you’re determined to keep trying and keep trying until you finally succeed.
Business
Breathing break reduces stress
If your to-do list is running long and your stress levels are rising, you might want to start your day with a quick break. It sounds counterintuitive, but it’s true — just a few short minutes of breathing and mindfulness can help you set your stress aside and improve your focus and productivity when you attack your inbox.
Set a timer for five minutes. Start up some relaxing sounds or soft music if you like. Close your eyes, relax your shoulders, and take a few deep breaths from your belly, letting the air slowly rise up into your chest, all the way up to the top of your head. Inhale for four counts, hold for four counts, exhale for four counts, then hold for four counts before starting again. Focus on each count and how the air feels as it moves in and out of your body. Think about how your body feels through each breath, and if other thoughts enter your mind, acknowledge them and let them go.
While you do this exercise, don’t worry about how well you’re doing it — just try to stay in the moment. When your timer goes off after five minutes, you can return to your tasks feeling refreshed and ready to tackle each challenge as it comes.
If a DIY quick meditation isn’t for you or if you prefer a guided experience, a number of meditation apps are available for iOS or Android. Try Headspace, Calm, Healthy Minds, or The Mindfulness App.
Business
How to attract millennial employees
According to a survey by Deloitte, by 2025, 75 percent of the workforce will be made up of millennials. As an employer, you must learn this generation’s motivations, needs and expectations to attract, engage and keep them in your company. Here are five things to consider.
1. Highlight values. Millennials want to work for a company with values that align with theirs. For them, a job isn’t just about a paycheck. It’s very much about having a purpose and making a difference.
2. Create flexibility. Millennial candidates are looking for a job that offers a work-life balance. For example, they’ll prioritize companies that offer remote or hybrid work schedules.
3. Prioritize advancement. Career progression is a top priority for millennial workers. They’re much more likely to stay at a company if they feel upper management is invested in their careers. Ensure you have strategies and policies in place to facilitate career progression.
4. Offer continued learning opportunities. Millennials want to advance and learn new things to progress in their careers. They’ll seek out employers who can provide these opportunities. Investing in training and development can help catch and keep their attention.
5. Embrace technology. Technology is essential to the millennial workforce. Therefore, integrating popular technologies and platforms into your business can give you a decisive edge in attracting this generation.
Ensure your company continues to grow and thrive by appealing to millennial employees.
Business
Keep your workspace organized and boost your productivity
A clean desk doesn’t just feel nice — it communicates professionalism, reduces stress, helps you keep track of your important tasks, and saves you the time you would have spent hunting for lost files and sticky notes. Try out these strategies to transform your workspace and your work life:
- Use a bulletin board to keep assorted papers from piling up on your desk. If it’s important enough to keep, pin it to the board, but if not, chuck it into the wastebasket.
- Try a hanging closet organizer with clear plastic pockets for shoes or other small items to store extra office supplies. Hang it on the wall or the back of your door, or if you work from home, just stick it in the closet.
- Utilize the space under your desk. A small cabinet or shelf under your desk could be a storage lifesaver.
- Use wall space. You can mount shelving, hooks for cables and headphones, or whiteboards for making notes. You can even buy wall-mounted organizers to stash your supplies or planters to brighten your space.
- Speaking of plants or other decorative items, try to minimize them on your desk. A nice plant stand or stylish wall-mounted shelves will give your office some color without sacrificing desk space.
- Create extra desk space with risers for laptops and monitors.
- Stash a few cleaning supplies within easy reach so you can quickly wipe away dust or clean up coffee rings.
Business
6 blunders that can demotivate your employees
Engaged employees are more productive and creative and less likely to quit. However, demotivating management practices can make employees inefficient and start looking elsewhere for work. Here are six managerial mistakes to avoid.
1. Making too many rules. Organizations need rules, but unnecessary rules can make employees feel cramped and uncreative.
2. Overlooking accomplishments. When managers don’t recognize employee successes, workers become less motivated to exceed expectations.
3. Hiring and promoting the wrong people. Great employees want to work alongside other great workers. Hiring or promoting friends or underqualified employees demotivates those who work with them.
4. Treating everyone equally. Treating all employees equally shows top performers that they’ll be treated the same as underperformers, no matter how hard they work.
5. Breaking promises. Keeping your promise of awards, time off, or raises engenders trust. Reneging on commitments makes you look disrespectful and uncaring, creating an environment where accountability isn’t valued.
6. Tolerating poor performance. No one likes conflict, but when you fail to call out an employee for poor performance, you show the entire team that their underperformance has no consequences.
Engaging your employees and recognizing their worth is key to maximizing your organization’s performance.
Business
Quiet hiring versus quiet firing
In a tight labor market, not only is it hard to find employees, but it’s also difficult to keep them engaged. Gallup has found that at least half of employees are emotionally disconnected from their jobs. Many of these folks do the bare minimum amount of work, and at least 18 percent of workers are actively disengaged, meaning they’re proactively undermining their company.
Disengaged employees can be a major drag on companies and their bottom line. That’s why some companies are pursuing quiet firing. This means the company makes the work environment a bit unpleasant in an effort to encourage disengaged workers to quit. Don’t like it here? Then find a new employer — or so the thinking goes.
Getting employees to quit, instead of flat-out firing them, may reduce costs. Severance packages, for example, can be rather expensive. Further, many companies aren’t exactly sure who the underperformers or disengaged folks are. Quiet firing could spur under-performers to self-identify.
Now, companies are upping the ante with quiet hiring. Instead of just encouraging some folks to quit, businesses are proactively identifying certain employees and then showering them with favoritism. Selecting and rewarding high performers is a business mainstay. However, with quiet hiring, favoritism is also part of an effort to push low-performing employees out. Often, these favored employees are shifted from position to position, working to address an organization’s most acute needs.
Companies aren’t the only stakeholders using “quiet” methods either. Many employees have also been quiet quitting. Essentially, they stop doing their job, perhaps expecting to get fired in the future, but instead of quitting, they continue cashing checks. Gallup believes that disengagement, in general, could be costing the global economy more than $8 trillion.
Business
Tech layoffs explained: Is a once-hot sector on thin ice?
After expanding staff sizes for years, many tech companies have announced dramatic layoffs in recent months. What’s driving the downsizing? Certainly, the risk of an economic contraction fueled fears, but the cutbacks are more complex.
First, the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped the structure and makeup of the tech industry. As COVID closed borders and social distancing became the norm, reliance on digital services surged. Amazon, for example, saw sales spike and responded by expanding services like same-day delivery. Staffing was bolstered to develop and expand digital services and otherwise meet demand.
With the pandemic over, growth has moderated. Amazon saw revenues surge nearly 40 percent YOY in 2020, but growth stalled in 2022. Now, underperforming projects are on the chopping block. In November, Amazon laid off roughly 10,000 tech and corporate employees, according to cePro. In particular, the teams working on Alexa voice-activated devices saw steep cuts. Why? While many customers enjoy the services rendered, monetizing those services hasn’t been as profitable as hoped, with Amazon reportedly losing $10 billion on the devices, according to Macro Trends.
Further, with the Federal Reserve steadily raising interest rates in recent months, borrowing has become more expensive. Many large companies relied on cheap loans and easy access to funds to expand staff. With borrowing costs rising, underperforming projects and bloated tech staffs are much more expensive to maintain.
Employees are sometimes shifted to new roles within companies while underperforming services are cut. But with the labor market remaining tight through the end of 2022, many employers still want to hold onto talent. Further, Revelio Labs found that roughly 75 percent of laid-off tech workers found new jobs within three months.
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