Soft Skills - Ask a Wharton MBA
Develop Soft Skills – Work Smart & Live More
A few months ago, “Janet”, one of my best friends, sent me a shocking message. She was diagnosed with nerve deafness! “What the heck is that?”I asked. It meant she is mostly deaf in one ear and only salvages the hearing in her other ear with strong drugs and mandatory rest. 🙁 She added her doctors did not know the root cause. ...
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. 🙂 ...
This is such a common issue as well as a highly stressful one. I am so glad one of the members asked me to talk about it in our January group coaching call. Here is her question
“We are asked to be financially savvy and not outsource any activity during Q1. We still have smart goals to achieve and I am understaffed. I am already running a lean organization. To continue to deliver results with all activities done in-house I need to overload the team. What should I do? Should I do the right thing and continue to explain the need for outsourcing activities or do the right thing for my career?” ...
I have had trouble finishing any articles in the last month. Partly it’s because work has been all consuming, and partly it’s because I have been putting too much pressure on myself to write the perfect article. I have rewritten the intro to a few articles for a few weeks now. Every week I didn’t publish something just made me pressure myself more to make sure the article I finish is extra insightful and helpful. I was literally over-analyzing every sentence.
I realized now that I was trying too hard to please when in fact the reason I started writing this blog was because it is therapeutic. The reason these articles may help you is because my stories are like yours – fulls of up and downs – mistakes and learnings.
It is exhausting to try to perfect anything. it is never an inspiring goal and actually makes everything we try to do feel like WORK we never want to do. This blog is not supposed to be work for me. It is supposed to heal me and perhaps you if you can relate. So the timing of this movie clip was perfect for me.
Once you see this 1 min clip – you will understand the title of this post. Here is some context.
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Have you made any New Year resolutions yet? “Eat Healthier” and “Get More Exercise” are
2018’s top 2 New Year resolutions. ...
I hope you are taking some time to enjoy this holiday season with your friends and family. December is the best time to reflect on this entire year
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Stress can be a killer to your self confidence and productivity. Even the most accomplished executives must learn how to manage stress in order to be effective all the time. When you are not stressed, you can be at the top of the game. However, when destructive stress sets in, it can suck up all your energy and render you sub-optimal. This is why it’s important to learn and practice stress management techniques early in your career. Stress will only increase as you climb the career ladder.
As I am still learning to master this skill, I turned to one of our Executive Authors for advice. I have known Louis Johnston for 12 years. He is one of most even-tempered people I know in business despite experiencing many unexpected and stressful situations. Recently, I had a chance to interview Louis about his stress management techniques. There are five techniques he shares in this 15 minutes conversation. You can also read the audio transcription below
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