SELF IMPROVEMENT AND MOTIVATION

What authentic people do differently than the rest of us, and how you can too  We tend to value "genuine" people and think poorly of those whom we perceive as being "fake"—but why is that? After all, what motivates "fakeness" is an effort to appear more appealing or impressive, so shouldn’t we find people who care about our opinions more appealing than those who, by definition, do their own thing regardless of what we think? Well, no, we shouldn’t—and for three basic reasons: We are much more likely to trust a genuine person than a fake one because we believe those who are true to themselves are also likely to be truer and more honest with  us . We often associate genuineness with appealing traits, such as strength of character and emotional  resilience —and correctly so, as being true to yourself takes  confidence , tenacity, and often even bravery.  We are attracted to uniqueness and individuality, qualities genuine people usually have in spades...

Always do your best......speak your truth. There are times in our lives that we connect with someone who encourages us, who invites the best in us to come back to life, and who most importantly gives us an opportunity to speak our truth. We all have things that we know about ourselves, about the people we spend our days with, and about our world that we don't acknowledge often enough. This knowledge is kept quietly packed away just beneath our consciousness so that we feel and experience the gap between what we know and what we say. These gaps are the cracks in our ability to take what we know and to use it towards making things better. After all if you know something, and you know it isn't right, and you don't speak about it, then you are a part of the problem. We are conditioned to think that we need to just accept things as "part of life" but dishonesty is not something that you should accept in your life. After all if you can see how things could be better, if...

COURAGE Courageous leaders lead with principles. Without courage they will not make a difference; they won't have the difficult conversations; they won't make the unpopular decisions that leads to change; and they won’t get off the starting block as a leader.   Aristotle called courage the first virtue because it makes all of the other virtues possible. Leadership means making bold and often unpopular decisions. Leadership takes courage - showing up fiercely and completely, bringing your vulnerabilities, imperfections, and inadequacies, but not being driven by them takes courage. And it takes courage, lots of it, to ask for help. All good leaders do not see asking for help as weakness; they see it as a strength.  Courage is neither an intellectual quality nor can it be taught in the classroom; it can only be gained through multiple experiences involving some sort of personal risk. Courage and comfort will never be friends. If you are comfortable, chances are you aren’t learnin...

Surround yourself with people who challenge you, who make you better, who make you happy. The beauty of it is that you will lift them higher, too. Do not just look for 3-7 years of experience when hiring. All age groups are so important - all of them. I hired veterans whom I learned from, and I hired freshers who learned from me. Even with freshers I was always learning - how to lead, how to help, how to inspire. Every time it was a mutually rewarding experience. I still have a lot to learn, and always will. Life is a journey. Always be a student. You will go far. Agree ?

There’s nothing worse in business than firing someone.  I’m not usually the one who does it at VaynerMedia anymore since we’ve grown to so many employees, but when I did I would spend a month figuring out how to make myself feel better about it.  We’re not in the one-, two- or three-strike policy here at VaynerMedia. We actually have enormous continuity, and I think part of that is thanks to the firing policy.  People see that we try to handle things with empathy and grace. 1. TRY NOT TO LET THE FIRING COME AS A SURPRISE.  At VaynerMedia, we do our best to give employees as much feedback and help when they need it.  We work hard with people to try to help them achieve what they wanted to do when they came on board, or to help them find a better fit within the company. I think word of that effort gets around, and it makes people feel good about working here. Here’s how to manage underperforming employees:  1. Take the blame. 2. Start to communicate better....

As someone who has  interviewed  probably thousands of job candidates in my career, I’ve long been surprised by how many people don’t ask good questions when their  interviewer gives them the opportunity . A surprising number of candidates don’t have many questions at all, or simply use the time to try to further pitch themselves for the job. To me, this is crazy — after all, this is a job that you’re considering spending 40 or more hours at a week, a job that might have a huge impact on your career and your quality of life for years to come. You should have  questions ! But people understandably worry about what to ask. They stress about seeming demanding or nitpicky, or that they’ll be negatively judged for things they want to know. They also worry that they don’t quite know how to draw out the information they really want about the job or the manager or the company. So here are the ten best questions to ask in an interview when it’s your turn to ask the qu...

To get ahead in your career or seek out a new job, you need a high level of self-confidence. You have a couple of options, including dedicating months to absorbing dozens of self-help books, spending a small fortune on a career and life coach, giving up because it’s too hard or simply following this easy to-do checklist: 1. Turn off the television. 2. Put down your phone. 3. Set goals, write them down and work toward manifesting and achieving them every single damn day. 4. Keep physically, mentally and emotionally fit to power through the tough times. 5. It’s okay to be afraid; just keep moving forward anyway. 6. Never stop, never quit and never give up. 7. Surround yourself with smart, positive, upbeat and enthusiastic people. 8. Always stay alert and keep your eyes and ears open to learn about the next great opportunity. 9. Keep things in perspective. Don’t fret over the small stuff. Appreciate all the good things in your life. 10. Focus on the one or two things that you exc...