Self awareness

Why Do Incompetent Men Become Leaders & What We Can do About it

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Do you work for leaders that are incompetent? Do you think our political leaders are incompetent? If either is true for you, read on and find out from Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic – why do so many incompetent men become leaders? This 9 min Ted talk is hilarious, eye-opening, and actionable.

Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders – A summary

I have probably watched this Ted talk 5 times in the last few weeks. The facts he share are true and frustrating. Each of us is still contributing to helping incompetent men become leaders. Here are the three aspects of why so many incompetent men become leaders. This unfortunately also applies to incompetent women leaders.  ...  read more

Focus on What I Want Instead of What I Don’t Want

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stressful work

Work has been stressful. At a macro level, there are massive organizational changes in motion and definitive news of layoffs coming this year. At the micro level, my leader resigned last week and I have to deal with lots of politics, ineffective processes, and incompetence.  I guess “work” is not called “play” for a reason.  ðŸ™‚ ...  read more

Outraged by George Floyd’s Death? 4 Difficult Actions to Take to Drive Change

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I struggled with what to say and how to feel after watching the blatant racism and senseless killing of George Floyd. I just cried. How can this be happening in 2020? I always thought I was doing enough by being “color blind” when it comes to interacting with anyone.

I realized however that I haven’t done enough. I came across this video 2 weeks ago and watched it with anguish and sadness.  ...  read more

What Do You Want to Be in this New Decade?

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I have been writing this post in my head for the last month. Glad to finally have time to put “pen to paper.” Every year, I take time to think about my new year aspirations. Here are some of my past ones

As it’s now the new decade, I asked myself a longer term question – What do I want to be in this new decade? I find sometimes it’s the question we ask ourselves that can broaden our horizon. Here is what I came up with that has been inspiring me into new action and perspective. I hope this post can also help you think holistically and differently about who you want to be in 2020 and beyond. ...  read more

5 Questions to Ask Yourself as You Look Back on This Year

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“Time flies,” a common phrase many of us say as we get older. “Where did this year go” is another common expression. As this year draws to a close, it’s time to a do a retrospective – a look back to appreciate and reflect on this year. Here are 5 questions you can ask yourself to better appreciate what you have done & learned this year.  ...  read more

Is it Better to Be the Fastest in a Slow Group or a Slow one in a Fast Group?

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For the last 5 years, I have been running the 15K hot chocolate run with a friend. We have been late to start the race for the last two years so ended up running with folks that are much slower than our speed. As soon as I crossed the start line, I started passing people left and right. At first, it was a great feeling, but then I started getting blocked to run any faster as there were simply too many walkers. ...  read more

New Year Inspiration – 5 Ways to Become a Better Version of Myself

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Happy New Year!  Wow, its already 4th week of January.  Where did the time go?  I have been meaning to write about my new year aspirations.  I am sharing them to help me be more committed.  I hope they can also help you.

Last week, I saw this great article – In the New Year, Become a Better Version of Yourself.  It inspired me to come up with these five way to  become a better version of myself.  All of them are hard for me, but they are also great aspirations for the year – how to evolve who I am as a professional and a human being. 🙂

Be Patient with myself and others – I am not a patient person.  I tend to interrupt people in discussions.  I get impatient when people are slow to understand or respond.  I like to rush my kids when they are slow to shower, clean up, brush their teeth. You get the picture.  This will be one of the hardest one to adhere to..  I think deep down I believe if I just rush others and myself, I will get more done.   It sounds silly now that I have articulated it :-).   This year, I will try to work on the following:

  • Interrupt less and listen more.
  • Remember to pause before I react to an unexpected situations.   Let things cool.  Sometimes they resolve on their own.
  • Accept mundane things will take time.  Dedicate the time to get it done right.   This one stems from an experience I had just last week. I upgraded my work phone.  It probably should have taken about an hour.  It took me about 7 hours over 3 days instead.   It was however completely self-inflicted.  I was trying to save that hour by multitasking this while working.  Let’s just say I learned the hard way quickly rushing has unintended results :-). C’est la vie
  • Be judicious about what I must do right away.  As a productive person, I tend to want to do many things a day to feel accomplished – a “hamster” on a never-ending “hamster wheel.” Need to remember that less is more.
  • Be patient with my kids.
  • Allow myself to slow down and enjoy the journey – I am trying to ramp up on a big role this year. Even though I have until April to do it, I can tell I am rushing to do it faster.    I will enjoy this journey much more if I pace myself.

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