Do You Have Any Questions For Us? YES

You’ve done all your prep for your upcoming interview. You’ve researched the company, you’ve got a handle on their attitude and aspirations because of all your scoping on social media. You have prepared answers to questions you know they will ask you, like Where do you see yourself in 5 years? And What is your greatest flaw? Great. Now what about the Do you have any questions for us? Question. Are you ready for that? Here are six possibilities:

 

What would a typical day be like in this role?

Asking this question demonstrates that you are already picturing yourself in the role, figuring out exactly what will be expected.

 

Can you describe the corporate culture?

If you’ve done your homework you should already have a pretty good idea of the answer to this question, but it’s always good to ask because they probably don’t post everything on social media.

 

What are some of the company’s initiatives in regards to extra learning?

This demonstrates your excitement about expanding your credentials and growing with the company.

 

What are some of the possible future opportunities associated with this role?

This question indicates that you are envisioning a long-term career with the company, as opposed to taking the job as a stepping stone to something else.

 

How would my performance be measured?

Will you be assessed monthly? Quarterly? Who will be doing this assessment? It’s important to know.

 

What are some of the company’s long term and short term goals?

With this question you can determine whether or not this company is a place where you actually want to invest a large swath of your time and dedication. If for example you want to be part of a large organization and this small company is planning on expanding then it would probably be a good for you. If however they’re more interested in staying small then maybe it’s not quite the right fit for you.

 

The questions you ask should be two way. Helping them realize exactly why you are the perfect candidate and also helping you figure out if this is somewhere you would actually like to work.

Look Around At Your Life Before It Passes You By

In general career advice leans heavily on the go-go-go of life. The rise up the ladder. Shortcuts and hacks to make the most of each day. The people you should meet, the courses you should take, the exercises you should be doing. All that is important. Very important. However, it’s also important not to lose sight of other things that are equally important to a fulfilled, happy life.

 

Sunrises

Imagine you are a blind person and you see a sunrise for the very first time. What would that be like? Spectacular right? Amazing, magnificent. That sunrise and other equally mesmerising views are right in front of our faces every single day. The only thing stopping us from appreciating them is a lack of attention. Taking time to notice the moments enriches our lives and makes them more meaningful.

 

Stay in touch with your senses

As you watched that sunrise (or sunset if you’re more of a late riser), as if for the first time bring that same perspective to your other senses. Instead of simply having your favourite music on as something in the background take some time and really listen to it. Remember why you love it so much. Feel the softness of the fur of that dog you pet everyday. Explore all the flavours in that salad you’re eating.

 

The magnificent minutia of the moment

You don’t have to spend every moment diving into the minutia of the moment, but you should certainly spend some time every day doing it.

 

As slow as life seems to plod along sometimes, it’s actually a fast ride. And people notice, the older they get the faster the ride spins. We won’t get off this ride until we get off for the final time, so take the time to appreciate it. For at least a few moments every day!

 

Communication Is The Basis For Great Leadership

What motivates people to do their best? Financial rewards? Yes people will work hard for financial rewards? Prestige? Yes again, an advanced position or impressive job title in recognition of a job well done with are certainly going to encourage individuals to work hard. As motivating as money and job titles are, those might not always be in the cards for every boss and every employee, but it doesn’t matter because great leaders know one of the most motivating things they can do for their team is also the one they have the most control over. It’s the way they communicate with their people.

 

Communication

If you want people to do a great job for you, you need to make sure they know exactly what you expect of them. They need to know when they’re on track and when things need to be improved and how. They need to feel like they make a difference, like they’re not just another cog in a rolling corporate wheel.

 

Help them feel good about themselves

People will work well if they feel good about themselves and what they’re doing. Great bosses give people reasons to feel good about themselves. They say things like, “I have total confidence in you.”

 

They give people an opportunity to shine, to use their natural talents and strengths to accomplish something, and those people invariably rise to the task.

 

Acknowledge a job well done

Leaders expect their people to do a good job. That’s why they brought them on. Even so, people always do better when their efforts are acknowledged. When they feel like what they’re doing matters. Great bosses are not stingy with praise. They let their people know exactly how they’re doing.

 

They also know acknowledgement is a two way street. A job poorly done is also acknowledged. Leaders that engender the greatest respect don’t simply complain about a job that wasn’t well done. They discuss the situation with the team member. They’ll ask, “What went wrong? How can we improve next time?”

 

A person that is included in the process this way also feels acknowledged and will always do their best to improve and gain the approval of the boss who treats them with so much respect and consideration.

 

Share the vision

People will work better when they see the big picture. It brings meaning to all the smaller, individual things that need to get done and learned along the way. The big picture gives the group a common goal to strive for. It keeps people on track and motivated. Great leaders always ask, “Do you have any questions?” keeping the lines of communication always open.

What you do defines you

Outward success

How would you define success? A beautiful house in a prestigious neighbourhood? A luxury car? A wardrobe filled with designer label clothing? All those things are great and certainly present an outward face of success to the world, but that is if we are going to define success strictly in terms of dollars and cents.

 

Sharing of time and energy

How about a person who consistently makes other people smile and feel good about themselves? Someone who spends their weekends in a shelter helping troubled kids? Or uses their vacation time to go overseas and help build schools in developing countries? Would you deem that a successful way to spend a life?

 

Most of us do strive for that beautiful house and the other outward signs of success, but it’s important to remember what you see on the outside is only one kind of success.  Even if you can’t afford more than a basic car and you’re still living paycheck to paycheck that does not mean you cannot live a successful life.

 

What can I do? You might think. I barely have enough money to keep my own life in order. How can I give to someone else? Money is only one thing you can share with others. Just as important is time and energy and attention. Sometimes it’s the gifts with absolutely no monetary value that are worth the most to other people.

 

Every time you consider another person’s health or happiness you are adding more success to this world. It truly isn’t what we have or what we drive or what we wear that defines us. True, lasting, world changing success is measured by what we do.

Change Your Mindset Like You Change Your Mind

When you look around those around you, you will see high achievers low achievers and many people in the middle of the spectrum, sometimes going all out, sometimes laying low. You might be inclined to think of the high achievers as having something special. Bigger brains, a larger allotment of drive, an ability to somehow squash twenty five or twenty six hours into a day.

 

The fact is we all have the same general tools at our disposal. Some of us are more mechanically inclined, some more artistically inclined, some are athletes and some are academics. Exactly what a person does or how talented they are isn’t of interest here. What is of interest is how they approach their lives. Whether their mindset is fixed or open.

 

Fixed Mindset

A person with a fixed mindset will decide from the get-go that they (and other people) are either good at something or they are not. They believe failure is a definitive answer to the question of their abilities. From a fixed mindset perspective, a person is pretty much born with a certain set of abilities and there’s nothing they can do to change that. So they avoid challenges, give up easily and look at effort as mostly a waste of time.

 

Generally people with a fixed mindset are threatened by the success of others because they feel powerless to achieve comparable success on their own.

 

Growth Mindset

A person with an open mindset has a completely different approach to themselves and their potential. They look at where they at any given moment as a starting point. They believe they have the capacity to learn new things. That failure is simply and opportunity to learn and grow. They embrace challenges and are prepared to put in however much effort is required to get where they are going.

 

Rather than feeling threatened by the success of others, they are inspired to keep on trying.

 

Same abilities, different mindset

We may not have any control over our natural abilities, but every single one of us can determine our mindsets. We can choose whether we believe it’s important to keep trying. Whether it’s worth it to heed the advice of others. If we are going to feel threatened by others or inspired by them.

 

We change our minds all the time. It’s up to us to change our mindset.

Understanding The Universe

One of billions

Astronomers tell us there are billions of stars in our own galaxy alone. Mind boggling as that is, it gets even more boggling when you realize that every one of those stars mostly likely has a planetary system revolving around it. Billions of opportunities for life, possibly intelligence right here in the Milky Way. Out here on this remote arm of the spiral, kind of far away from all the action in the middle of the galaxy it’s easy to feel un-special. An average being on an average planet, revolving around an average star.

One in a billion

At this point we don’t know what else is out there in the vast unknown potential, but we do know what we have here. A species of featherless, wingless bipeds that have mastered flying to the point that we have flown clear off our planet. Communications to the extent that we can check in with our associates, loved ones (and others) all the way around the world with not a wire between us. We’ve even mastered time travel – in a way. We can perceive light so old that it has been travelling since nearly the beginning of time.

 

We may be ordinary in that we are one of billions of planets, but we’ve also made strides that make us one in a billion planets extraordinary.

 

Raging potential

As individuals on this extraordinary planet it’s true none of us likely has much to do with space flight or time travel, but within each of us is the raging potential to do something special. You may choose to pursue that potential professionally, you may choose to pursue it in extracurricular activities. The key is to never lose sight of the fact that no matter how insignificant a planet or person may seem, they hold within them the potential for something very special.

A Memory Trick You Can Draw On

Everyone knows, if you want to remember something you should write it down, but did you know an even better way to establish something in your memory is to draw a picture. In a study from the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology participants were asked to remember a particular word by writing it down and by drawing it. Later when asked to remember the words, it was found people remembered the ones they drew better than the ones they wrote down.

 

No art skills necessary

What was interesting was memory was boosted not only for words, but for concepts, ideas, imaginings. The drawing doesn’t even have to be good, it just needs to be enough to jog the memory. Something drawn in ten seconds or less will do the trick!

 

Your relationship with the visual

The reason drawing something creates such a strong bond is because in order to draw it, you have to focus on the thing you want to remember much harder than you would if you were simply writing the word down. You have to imagine how you’re going to draw it, and then take the time to draw it. Writing is automatic, but for most of us drawing is more involved and engaging.

 

People remember visuals more readily than words

Go ahead and try it yourself. Make a list of ten things you want to remember three days from now. Write down five of them and draw a picture of the other five and see which ones produce the better recall.

 

Drawing is something just about everyone enjoyed doing as a kid. Now it’s time to start enjoying it all over again as an adult. Take advantage of the benefits of drawing pictures as a memory aid and bring a little more art into your life!

This Moment Is Not Your Life

Shifting sands of time

How many times have you been kept up all night because of something you said or did that day? For me, it’s more times than I can remember.

 

However, fast forward a little and whatever it was that tied me into such sleepless knots ends up lost to the sands of time.

 

Variable scale of significance

How often do you feel like you are in the absolutely worst situation of your entire life? Again, for me, too many to keep track of.

 

Without the great balancer of time to put things into perspective it is easy for us to get pulled into the drama of the moment. To hear the Chicken Little running around inside our heads screaming about the falling sky and believe it.

 

Although there sometimes are truly life changing moments, in general the drama of the moment only feels significant because it is the moment you are then living.

 

Trapped in a moment

When you have an argument with a friend or associate, or you mess up at work, or you say exactly the wrong thing to a person you are trying to impress it is easy to get trapped in the moment.

 

You refer to it over and over in your head. It gets endlessly rewound and played  differently in your head as you lament all the things you didn’t say or do.

 

When you find yourself in an endless loop of regret, take a deep breath and remind yourself, in the big picture, this mountain is nothing more than a mole hill. In the bigger picture it will become so insignificant as to become invisible.

 

The moment you are in is a microscope that makes everything seem way bigger than it is. When you find your eye glued to the lens lift your head and remind yourself your life is more than this moment.