Self-help and Self-improvement
Financial Strategies:
1) (French intellectuals on Charlie Rose Show) Sometimes the best enemy of success is success. (Knowing and experiencing the real consequences of failure can keep you on the right track.) Nothing fails more than success. (In other words, the greater the success, the greater the possible failure) Complacency Good is the enemy of great
2) (Dilbert) To succeed in organizations, have low self-esteem and be happy.
3) (TDN) The thrill of competition and the challenge of cooperation.
4) (From Differentiate or Die: Survival in our Era of Killer Competition) communicate your difference How am I different that any other Consolidated employee? How am I different than any other partner, friend, or human being?
5) Build your resume constantly.
6) Love and passion for your career, whatever it may be; enthusiasm.
7) Net worth growth. (David Barklow) It’s not what you make, it’s what you keep.
8) Work longer than others.
9) Think big picture, seeing both the forest and the trees.
10) Think BIG.
11) Seek mutual benefit and establish mutual commitments. A secret of succes - think that this will help you and help me. If you give, then also receive. If you receive, then also give. In order to receive value, give value.
12) The seven C’s of Success
Conception - a goal clearly imagined
Confidence in completing your goal.
Concentration and focus
Stubborn consistency regardless of any distractions.
Emotional commitment to your goal, since you know the purpose and importance of your mission
Character, without guilt
Capacity to enjoy yourself on the way
13) (Lynk Systems) Organization is a key to success.
14) (Jon Zannutto) Working horizontally between many games jeopordizes your vertical development within a particular game.
15) (Ron Nichols and Michael Jordan) Repetition, repetition, repetition.
16) Manage each of your assets, including your time.
17) Look for opportunities with little competition, but high profits.
18) Be ultra-competitive.
19) (The Lexus and the Olive Tree) Creative destruction, destroying the old ineffective, and creating the new, more effective.
20) (David Barklow) Never be comfortable where you are in life.
21) (Lynk) Determine your responsibilities and hold yourself accountable. Be clear to yourself when you succeed and when you fail, learning from mistakes.
22) Don’t expend energy thinking about how others perceive you. Avoid preoccupation with yourself, your emotions, and others’ perceptions of you. It’s a waste of energy.
23) (Jim Carrey 11/01) Confidence. Faith in yourself and in the universe.
24) Relieving and preventing work-related stress. The real cause of job-related stress is not overwork, but lack of personal control. Participating as actively as possible can help you feel more in control of your job. (e.g. Asking and answering questions, attending company meetings and events, mentoring a younger co-worker. Also, be sure to speak up in the workplace.)
25) (Fr. Byron) Hympmonoi. Patience. . . you’ll get there. (Think of the Israelites and the Promised Land.)
26) Greed breeds competition. Thus, to be competitve, you need to be greedy.
27) Always be busy. Always be doing something. Always be pursuing a goal.
28) (From Good to Great) Ambitious first and foremost for the cause, for the work, for the company, not him or herself. It’s not me, it’s the cause. E.g. It wasn’t about Lincoln, it was about the nation. These people transferred their ego to ambition for something larger than themselves.
29) (From Good to Great)
Level 5 - level 5 executive
(either from birth, or from some catalyst event such as cancer, or from external circumstances e.g. Churchill)
Level 4 - effective leader
Level 3 - competent manager
Level 2 - contributing team member
Level 1 - highly capable individual
30) The X factor (divine spark, our gut, our heart, just plain ole luck)
31) (Bill Mitchell) ‘Eat like an elephant and shit like a bird.’
32) (From Wealthy 100) The wealthy built their fortunes on the frontiers, in new territories. Following the herd won’t work, but rather by finding a new direction.
33) (From Wealthy 100) The key is to get the world to beat a path to your door.
34) (From Wealthy 100) When old frontiers are broken in and civilized, new areas have to be found to conquer.
35) (From Wealthy 100) Driving ambition and audacity, extraordinary determination, a broad vision and a daring plan.
36) (From Wealthy 100) Many effective collaborations helped build the empires (e.g. brothers like the Mellons or the Dodges were like Siamese twins).
37) (From Wealthy 100) Wealth was a curse to some, but a blessing to most.
38) A healthy family life is crucial to a productive business life, according to 80% of CEOs.
39) (Honore Balzac) Behind every great fortune is a great crime.
40) (Jack Welch) ‘Business is a game. It’s not a serious, pompass-ass thing.’
41) (Robert Wilson) One of the dumbest things you can do with money is spend it.
42) (TDN) Every and any decision could be interpreted from within an economic framework of self-interest and rational choice.
43) (Jim Zabroske) Give a job at least 6 months to a year. Otherwise, it doesn’t look good on a resume.
44) (Jon Zannutto) ‘Keep your mind in the game.’
45) The most knowledgable, well-prepared salesperson usually wins.
46) Without taking risks, all types of profit, especially financial, would be unattainable.
47) During downtime at work, I could assign myself a different theme to focus on each hour, half-hour, or even every 15 minutes.
48) (Game Theory at Work by James Miller) In a negotiation, he who cares less, wins. He’s the one who frames the take it or leave it deal
49) (Game Theory at Work by James Miller) Eliminating Options: making it as painful as possible to give up and take the easy way out to failure. A medieval army once did just that by burning its ships when it reached the island where a great fortress resided. The opposition saw just how real the threat was an easily fell.
50) (Game Theory at Work by James Miller) Relinquishing Control: e.g. ‘I don’t have control to offer you an extension for your final paper. Only the dean has that authority.’
Intellectual Strategies:
1) What really stimulates the mind? Focusing on what is unknown, foreign, exotic, strange and unusual. Realizing what is unique about the issue at hand.
2) All thinking is decision-making. Thus, don't think, make decisions. I make decisions, therefore I am. The brain is a decision-making machine.
3) (TDN) Life is all about achieving as many of our goals and dreams as possible. Achieving our goals is the same thing as getting what we want.
4) (TDN) Goals mean setting deadlines also.
5) Every decision is about making an investment (e.g. financial, health, my beliefs, my time, my relationships with people). Return on investment = return on decisions. Thus, we constantly make investments and decisions.
6) Also, every decision is about achieving some kind of goal. And every goal is about securing some type of profit. Every aspect of our life operates within the SPIFs system.
7) (Christopher Columbus) "Stay the course."
8) (Immanuel Kant) "Philosophy and intellectuality helps longevity and mental acuity."
9) (Blaise Pascal) Life is a gamble.
10) To be alive at all involves some risk.
11) Most people waste their lives chasing after things they don't really want.
12) Living life is a fine art, not a hard science.
13) Focus on the 'critical inch,' the absolutely essential, not just necessary. That which will give you the edge and truly make the difference.
14) (TDN) Whenever we fail or lose, it's because of others or external circumstance. Whenever we succeed or gain, it's because of us and our abilities.
15) All of these ideas could be seen as individual little tools within a toolbox. Learn how to use the different tools.
16) Stay on top of your game. Jimmy once said, "UTA's on top of his game." (Let's consider someone we know who is.)
17) Each action you take, each move you make is like shooting a bullet. Hit your target.
18) (TDN) Feel powerful by thinking of all the things you own, all your accomplishments, all your relationships. And think of all the things you can do to be perceived as powerful.
19) (Karen Weisman) "Once I decide I wanna do something, I will not let anything get in my way, and I will accomplish it."
20) Fun work gets done.
21) Optimists treat themselves as their own best friend.
22) Relish the difficult, the complex, the challenge.
23) (Alex Lowe, a climber) The greatest climber in the world is the one having the most fun.
24) Less thinking, more action. Failure is the price for success. (Wayne Gretsky) You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.
25) (Karen Weisman) I'm the type of person that no one can stop me.
26) (Karen Weisman) As with anything else in life, I make it happen.
27) (NYPD Blue) It's all a situation.
28) (Short story Forked Paths) To accomplish atrocious acts, act as if it's not you, but a power within you. (As with St. Paul saying, "It's not me, but Christ within me.")
29) (Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning) You could always be in control of your attitude and your faculties.
30) Necessity is the mother of all invention. (Richard Holbrooke) Was it Benjamin Franklin that said, 'Nothing concentrates the mind like a nuce tightening around your neck.' The power of negative thinking. ‘Only the paranoid survive.’
31) (Michael Jordan) For the love of the game
32) Creating episodes of mental adventures can entertain our minds during downtime.
33) (TDN) See yourself as a center of authority. Being masters of our domains: our decisions, our faculties, our property, our interpretations, our mental attitudes, our bodies, our assets, our behavior, our intellects
34) (Game Theory) True games are purely rational.
35) Read, read, read.
36) The first step in anything is always the most difficult.
37) The triad of Effective Intelligence - making decisions, enacting them, assessing them. Make a decision. Act on it. Evaluate it. Taking conscious control over my decision making.
38) I could work on mastering my mind and my environment for my own purposes. Also, I could decide what to think and what my attitude will be.
39) (Dr. Goldstein on the street near Rush St. Luke’s Medical Center) ‘Sometimes you just need to take control (of your life).’
40) (Idiot’s Guide to Improving Your IQ) To get into and stay in THE ZONE, get involved, concentrate, and focus, but do less and try less.
41) (Idiot’s Guide to Improving Your IQ) Deciding and doing is almost always better than not deciding and not doing. (Profitable people are always men of action; thought alone does not equal action.)
42) (TDN) Affirm your singular focus, and negate all other options and concerns. Afterall, the mind could only focus on one thing at a time. (The secret of focus and concentration - affirm this and negate everything else. Giving this current opportunity your total focus, blocking out the problem you were just tackling just 10 minutes ago.)
43) (Idiot’s Guide to Improving your Memory) To memorize effectively, write it, speak it, see it, hear it, and especially use it over and over again.
44) Mental practice: visualize and imagine what you will do and what you will be over and over again. I can educate and train myself in this manner. (Jim Carrey, on top of a mountain outside the city, imagined gifts falling down from heaven for him to use. Charlie Rose interview 12/01)
45) I can delineate my strengths and base my actions off of them, sidestepping my weaknesses.
46) (Kostas Papadakis 12/01) ‘It’s not about how hard you work. It’s about the moves you make in life. You need to decide on the right moves and be able to pull the trigger.’
47) Make agreements and signed contracts with yourself and honor them.
48) Intense urgency awakens our innermost skills and abilities. ‘Lace it up, doc, I got a war to fight.’
49) Develop the skill of finding the good out of any scenario. Be a goodfinder and an optimist. (What good could I get out of these people, these resources, this situation?)
50) Analyze and conquer. Divide a problem or task into sub-goals and manageable actions to easily accomplish your overall goal piece by piece. (Compartmentalizing tasks, just like a computer divides an email message into bits of information and sends each of them separately and then reorganizes them at their destination.)
Psychological Strategies:
Psychological Principles to Live By #1 - #15.
A. Autonomy
1. Taking Responsibility
2. Mastering Change
3. Recognizing Options
4. Solving Problems
B. Support
1. Healthy Relationships
2. Effective Communication
3. Intimacy
4. Sense of Belonging
C. Perspective
1. Accepting Reality
2. Letting Go
3. Gaining Meaning
4. Finding a Sense of Humor
D. Healthy Life-style
1. Choosing Healthy Behaviors
2. Adequate Sleep and Rest
3. Proper Diet
4. Daily Exercise
16) Incorporating variety in our lives (fun/serious, music/language, silence/extroverted)
17) (Dr. Goldstein) To each his own.
18) (Idiot’s Guide to Survival) Mental toughness is more important than any other consideration in survival. The belief, ‘I will survive,’ ‘I will succeed,’ ‘I will never give up.’
19) (The Other 90%) Dance every single day.
20) (The Other 90%) Posture, stand tall, chest out, shoulders back.
21) (The Other 90%) Lightening your eyes, innocence, caring.
22) (The Other 90%) Don’t underestimate yourself, you have vast untapped potential. We have potential we’ve never even imagined.
23) (The Other 90%) Rooting for the underdog, find a lost cause and support it.
24) (Linux creator) FUN is the meaning of life.
25) (A personal lesson from losing my job at St. Haralambos and the betrayal by Nick Georgafendis) Fear of loss is more powerful than greed for gain. (We will fight harder to prevent a devastating loss rather than to achieve a spectacular gain. We will protect what we have more than striving for what we want.)
26) Be super-loyal to yourself. Be your best supporter, cheerleader, and promoter.
27) Know what you want and don’t want.
28) Reflect on and journal on a traumatic experience for 20 minutes each day.
29) (Dr. Restak) Spice up your life with risk. Live dangerously.
30) (Dave Barklow) What you feel is more important than what you think.
31) (MYK) bored, FLOW, anxiety & indifferent, RELAXED, worried
32) Nothing great has ever been achieved without enthusiasm, without specialization, or without struggle.
33) (TDN) 99.9% of every game in life is mental. Accept this reality and exploit it.
34) (TDN) Use verbal self-talk, verbal soliliquy, expressing yourself throughout the day.
35) (TDN) To give meaning to our actions, we could focus on something or someone trying to oppose our mission and be angry against that entity.
36) (Timber Hill’s TSI) Universal advice: ‘Suck it up, pussy.’
36) (TDN) Use auto-suggestion to strengthen your focus, e.g. saying short phrases 30-100 times, such as, ‘I am the best,’ ‘I am #1,’ ‘I am a genius,’ ‘I’m the toughest,’ ‘I feel great,’ ‘Everybody loves me.’ Say it loud enough for you to hear it.
37) (TDN) For motivating ourselves and others, we could use the carrot AND the stick, many times within the same hour. (Recall how Fr. Varnava would slap you on your head and then hug you.) Notice the profit resulting from your actions, as well as the potential losses avoided.
38) (TDN) Useful mental tool: describe the situation - what you’re seeing, hearing, doing, feeling, thinking etc., saying ‘I am . . . ,’ ‘I am seeing. . . ‘
39) (TDN) Keeping it fresh. How? Spin the situations you find yourself in with a new perspective, a new light, a new interpretation.
40) (TDN) Contrary to popular belief, shifting your attention from your personal problems to the personal problems of others can immensely help your personal growth.
41) Most basic needs and drives are: survival, health, freedom, human appreciation (William James), variety, avoiding boredom and anxiety.
42) People are primarily unconscious beings. The unconsious mind may have its own goals and agenda. Be aware of it.
43) The vision and the great dream were oftetimes more important to the giants of wealth than the wealth itself.
44) (Dr. Goldstein) Reducing meaning exercises due to overthinking too much. Control the ‘importance’ of an issue by minimizing or maximizing its import as you see fit. e.g. seeing my dear brother Dimitri merely as a friend.
45) (TDN) When speaking use upbeat infletions, speak loudly, pronounce clearly, utilize dramatic silence ala Coca-Cola manager Jancausakas.
46) (TDN) Sometimes the human psyche needs to act altruistically (charity, philanthropy).
47) A happy person is affluent, educated, religous, extroverted, complex, ambitious, optimistic, mentally strong.
48) How you cope with external stressors depends on your commitment to your goals, your sense of being in control, and whether or not you enjoy challenges.
49) Notice the interest we take in ‘life or death’ circumstances. Perhaps our lives and our gains/values/priorities/goods must continuously be threatened in order to challenge our faculties, really live, and appreciate life. (Friedrich Nietzsche) Live dangerously. (TDN) Love life and you’ll be happy.
50) (Vietnam War POWs on PBS) Throughout the years of suffering in solitary confinement we had to move or die.
Social Stategies
1) Seeking what is fair and reasonable to both sides.
2) Networking and building alliances. Establish affiliations of mutual advantage with important people.
3) Sociability, likability, charisma, kissing up. We like those who are similar to us, as well as those we could look up to.
4) Building trust. The frequency and intensity of contact builds the relationship and trust.
5) Creating an ideology others could buy into e.g. Bin Laden, Hitler, Jack Welch
6) Exploit unpredictability, elusiveness.
7) If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.
8) Being neat in our dress and in our lifestyle helps.
9) Starting with easier social tasks and then performing difficult ones will build our self-confidence.
10) Surrounding ourselves with happy, successful people will positively influence our lives.
11) (TDN) When we avoid telling our friends what to do or what to think, they feel more comfortable around us. Recognize and accept the space each person's individuality needs and requires. Healthy relationships result from this very principle. Afterall, each person is an individual center of authority making his or her own decisions, just like you make your own. (Author of Rogue Nation, on America’s current unilateralism) Individuals, groups, and even nations all have their pride and want to be respected.
12) We could choose our battles with others. Ultimately, will it be worth it?
13) Where am I now with my relationships? Where do I want to be? How will I get there? What will the obstacles be?
14) Realizing a common enemy or foe when building alliances helps (Hitler and the Jews, German Chancellor Schroeder and America)
15) Repeat your message relentlessly.
16) People love those with the right attitude - the upbeat, enthusiastic, forward-looking, cheerful, and those having some type of energy as well as humor when dealing with others.
17) We can help ourselves and others achieve goals and meet those conditions which will make us satisfied, our conditions of satisfaction.
18) (Jim Zabroske, Household International) Individuals and groups will listen to us when we give them a compelling reason to continue listening upfront and right away.
19) (Dr. Goldstein) Manipulate without appearing manipulative.
20) Sincerity can be the most powerful way for us to communicate. If we don’t really believe what we say, others won’t care to listen. Some phrases to consider incorporating in our repertoire include, “I really feel that. . . ,” “From the bottom of my heart. . . ,” “I sincerely feel that. . . “
21) Co-opetition teaches us when to compete and when to cooperate. Operating against the opposition help us focus our energy.
22) (Zabroske) Leading others in today’s political landscape is like managing a group of cats.
23) (Jack Welch) It’s all about people.
24) (Donald Trump) People want to believe that something is the biggest and the greatest and the most spectacular. People don’t always think big themselves, but they can still get very excited by those who do. I call it ‘truthful hyperbole’ and it’s a very effective form of promotion. (In other words, hype it up!) (Donald Trump) Generate interest, create excitement, achieve an aura. Promote, promote, promote.
25) (Jim Stoynoff) Acknowledge the future value of people’s present actions. People want to feel they are making a difference.
26) Seeming happy and successful is often a condition for becoming more happy and more successful.
27) (TDN) To profit from our relationships, we don’t need to be really close to someone. Acquaintances or superficial relationships can be instrumental in our progress.
28) (Old Mayor Daley) Everybody needs a favor. (In other words, everybody needs something from us. We just need to find out what.)
29) (Idiot’s Guide to Raising Your IQ) People accept messages more readily when they are presented with an emotional punch.
30) (Donald Trump) I’m a great believer in asking everyone for an opinion before I make an important decision. I ask and I ask and I ask, until I begin to get a gut feeling about something. And that’s when I make a decision.
31) Gain, secure, and utilize POWER, both hard power and soft power. The social arena is not just about friendliness and charisma i.e. soft power. (By way of example, the US uses both its hard and soft power. Recently, we see how it has been abandoning softer tactics and utilizing its military and economic power in more direct ways, as evidenced by Iraq.)
32) (Trump) The press is always hungry for a good story, and the more sensational, the better. It’s cheaper and more effective than advertisements, even in the NY Times.
33) (TDN) Our actions and our example surpass our words in social importance.
34) The self-depracating technique can work in public speaking and in writing as well. Humility, or merely pretending to be humble, may serve our social purposes. (Even Ben Franklin argued if you can’t be humble, pretend to be humble. It may serve your purposes just as well.)
35) (Pericles of The Golden Age) “We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics (or social affairs) minds his own business. We say that he has no business here at all.” (i.e. Give a hoot.)
36) (Charlie Rose guest on Donald Rumsfeld) “Loyalty up and loyalty down is necessary in every organization."
37) (Warren Buffet) “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and 5 minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.”
38) (TDN) In general, the way we treat others is the way they’ll treat us. And the way they treat us is usually the way we’ll treat them. (i.e. the concept of reciprocity)
39) Find common ground with others.
Rules of Office Politics
40) Don’t intimidate superiors.
41) Zig Ziglar’s secret to success is if we help enough people get what they want, we could achieve anything.
42) Whenever necessary, redefine and reinvent yourself on the job and in life.
43) Don’t assume anything will stay secret.
44) Keep employer’s perspective in mind.
45) Keep informed on the opinions and attitudes of management, especially in regards to you and your performance.
46) Create win/win solutions. (Alan Gardner’s Conversationally Speaking) Use dual perspective when considering activities and topics of discussion with others. (TDN) All politicians and social thinkers agree that empathy skills lead to greater social effectiveness.
47) Don’t make others look bad, don’t make enemies, and don’t burn bridges.
48) Think of your boss as a customer; his wants, needs, and priorities take precedence over yours.
49) Motivate, don’t dictate. “My way or the highway” leadership is dead-end leadership.
50) Pretend you can stand those people you can’t stand.
