Nearly 60% of job recruiters report that "tell me about yourself" is their first go-to question for a candidate. Although this open-ended question can feel overwhelming, it could be the key to ensuring your interviewers remember you as the standout candidate.

The universal "tell me about yourself" question

Managers ask questions like "tell me about yourself" because they are looking to see whether your professional skills align with the role you're interviewing for.   Hiring managers are looking for more information you can express in one minute. So, if your answer is too short, the recruiter might think you simply don't care or don't have much to say. It's not just what you've done in your career but why you made those decisions. Share your experiences, roles and achievements.

Take your time

If you answer this first interview question hesitantly, it'll be harder to show that you're a strong leader.<ul><li>Leadership starts with your physical presence. Be vocal and animated. Act enthusiastically and eager to be there. </li><li>Start your interview with the intention of motivating and inspiring your potential employers. Show that you've done your research on the company.</li><li>Adopt the "Leader Script." Open your answer with a line such as, "I've heard so much about you from my previous interviews, so it's great to meet you in person."</li></ul>

Think like a leader

Think of how your answer to "tell me about yourself" can be the start of a deeper conversation, leading to a stronger relationship with your interviewer.  Keep three themes in mind when crafting your response:<ol><li>Engage your audience</li><li>Establish credibility</li><li>Tell your interviewers why they should care</li></ol>

Embrace it

Employers are looking for well-rounded candidates. Don't discount the last thing you read or watched, as this can be a way to demonstrate your interests beyond the workplace and show that you have opinions you're not afraid to express.

Don't list what's on your resume

You'll leave hiring managers cringing if you admit how you've been unable to get a job or that you're unsure why this position is a good fit for you.  Instead, "tell me about yourself" is an opportunity to share what you're like beyond your one-page résumé.

Don't narrate your life story

Another way to start a job interview is with "Tell me your story." Most candidates seem caught off guard by this question and fall back on reciting their résumés or fall prey to telling the interviewers everything they've done since high school. The question is meant to be an opportunity for a potential hire to offer a deep dive into what drives and encourages them as a person.

Be on the lookout for similar questions

Your athletic experience could be a factor in showing hiring managers that you're suitable for the job. Many skills employers are looking for alignment with the characteristics developed on the athletic field. You just need to convince an interviewer that this is the case. Former athletes know how to work through tough times, handle a busy schedule, and always keep a goal in mind. They understand that if one team member is struggling, success is unlikely.

Don't discount your athletic experience

Employers interview many candidates, and if your answers sound the same as theirs, you won't stick out.  <ul><li>Using generic buzzwords will increase the chance you'll sound like the rest. To avoid this, practice describing your skills and experience with anecdotes that demonstrate the value you will bring to a company.</li><li>Avoid generic descriptions such as "I'm a perfectionist," "I get along with everyone", and "this is a dream job for me." Instead, focus on individual experience and growth.</li></ul>

Avoid buzzwords

Without a script to the question "Tell me about yourself", you could be caught flailing in an interview. It's better to be prepared. Good scripts don't come in the moment.  You have to think about how you will tell your story that inspires the interviewer and company. Every job seeker needs a message. What's the big idea you want your interviewer to hear? And how will that show them that you're the right candidate?

Plan ahead and write it down

If you struggle to write out possible responses, build your story chronologically with a past, present and future.  Go into the interview having already rehearsed what you plan to say. You should sound confident without coming across as a know-it-all. Practice in front of a mirror or with trusted friends. Stay calm, take a deep breath, and move ahead with your prepared script.

Frame it as a story, then practice, practice, practice

During the interview, follow the lead of your interviewer. Do they want to make small talk? Go with it. Are they probing for how much you know about the company? Go for it.  During the "tell me about yourself", emphasize the skills and strengths you will bring to the job.

Be yourself. This is just a conversation.

Everyone asks it, yet we’re all caught by surprise. Here are 12 key steps to avoid that interview stress.

Stashed ideas

The ultimate guide to nailing the ‘tell me about yourself’ interview question

Everybody wants someone on their team that is a high performer and is highly trusted. The Navy seals put a considerable emphasis on trustworthiness. A high performer of low trust is a toxic team member. A medium performer of high trust or sometimes even a low performer of high trust is preferred over the high performer of low trust.

Performance vs trust

In business, we have many metrics to measure someone's performance but negligible to no metrics to measure someone's trust. You may have a selfish driven toxic team member who, if they're high performing, you may promote them. This toxic high performer may push other people to resign or cause the culture to crack, or the person will leave because they got a better job offer. They may be your highest performer, but they're not loyal.

Metrics to measure trust

Medium performance of high trust are often your best natural leaders. They are also trustworthy people who have your back and are always there to help you. When you notice a toxic high performer, they don't need to be fired but coached instead. Only let them go if they prove uncoachable.

Medium performance of high trust

We fight against things we hate. We fight for things we love. + + + Simon is an unshakable optimist. He believes in a bright future and our ability to build it together. Described as “a visionary thinker with a rare intellect,” Simon has devoted his professional life to help advance a vision of the world that does not yet exist; a world in which the vast majority of people wake up every single morning inspired, feel safe wherever they are and end the day fulfilled by the work that they do. Simon is the author of multiple best-selling books including Start With Why, Leaders Eat Last, Together is Better, and The Infinite Game. + + + Website: http://simonsinek.com/ Live Online Classes: http://simonsinek.com/inspireU Podcast: http://apple.co/simonsinek Instagram: https://instagram.com/simonsinek/ Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/simonsinek/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/simonsinek Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonsinek Simon’s books: The Infinite Game: https://simonsinek.com/product/the-in... Start With Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/start-... Find Your Why: https://simonsinek.com/product/find-your-why Leaders Eat Last: https://simonsinek.com/product/leader... Together is Better: https://simonsinek.com/product/togeth... + + + #SimonSinek

What's more important: TRUST or PERFORMANCE?

In the distant past, studying nutrition was a relatively simple science. Diseases such as scurvy, pellagra, anaemia and goitre were solved by developing hypotheses and running experiments until they found what was missing in people's diets. However, nutrition is no longer that simple. Today, our greatest health problems are related to overeating. People eat too many calories from too much low-quality food, causing chronic diseases like cancer, obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. These diseases develop over a lifetime, and fixing them is not as simple as adding a few oranges to the diet.

Nutrition is not a simple science

The randomized controlled trial is considered the gold standard for many areas of medicine. People are randomly assigned to two groups, and the only significant difference between the groups is the treatment. But with nutrition, it's too difficult to randomly assign different diets to people and assume people will stick with the specific diets for years to find clues if certain foods caused certain diseases. Scientists can't lock people up to ensure they stick to the diet. At best, studies can only measure short-term effects.

 It's not practical to run randomized trials

Studies that track very large numbers of people who already eat a certain way can be very valuable. For example, that is how scientists learned about the dangers of smoking and the benefits of exercise. But observational studies are rife with uncertainty. These studies aren't controlled like experiments, and they're less precise and noisy. Health outcomes could also be the result of a higher income or better educated, or being more health-conscious.

Nutrition researchers have to rely on observational studies

Many observational studies rely on surveys and have subjects report on their diets. An obvious challenge is that people don't remember what they ate for lunch yesterday or if they sprinkled something over the salad or snacked afterwards. Yet, much nutrition research rests on people's self-reporting from memory of what they ate. Many people also lie about what they eat, offering more socially acceptable answers.

Many nutrition studies rely on (wildly imprecise) food surveys

Researchers discovered that different bodies have very different responses to the same food. This makes nutrition research more difficult. Israeli scientists tracked 800 people over a week, monitoring their blood sugar levels to see how they responded to the same foods. Every person responded differently to identical meals, suggesting that health and nutrition cannot be simply understood by assessing what people eat.

People and food are diverse

Nutrition science is horribly underfunded by the government, so food companies and industry groups sponsor research. Industry-funded studies tend to have results that are more favourable to the industry.

Conflict of interest

Researchers have used all these imperfect tools to learn important things over the years. Nutritional research contributed to the knowledge that folate deficiency among pregnant women causes congenital disabilities or that drinking too much soda increases the risk of diabetes and fatty liver disease.

Nutrition science isn't futile

<ul><li>Always consider all the available research on a question, not just single studies. Meta-analyses or systematic reviews are helpful.</li><li>Different types of studies on a question, such as clinical trials, observational data, and lab studies, should all point toward a common conclusion.</li><li>Paying attention to the source of funding behind the research is key. Research funded by independent government agencies or foundations tends to be more credible.</li></ul>

What nutrition science to trust

I asked 8 researchers why the science of nutrition is so messy. Here’s what they said.

<ul><li>If we want to perform at our best, we must first and foremost manage our energy, not our time.</li><li>Optimizing our performance, health, or happiness is not about the quantity of time, but about the quality of energy.</li></ul>

Energy, Not Time, Is The Fundamental Currency Of High Performance

Humans are not meant to run at high speeds continuously for long periods of time, instead we are performing at our best when we move between expending energy and intermittently renewing energy.To do this, we need to live a rhythmic life with periods of intense activity followed by periods of rest.

The Best Way To Optimize Your Energy

You are much better off oscillating between activity and recovery than when you are living in a linear fashion with your brakes on all the time.Most of us are in a state of constant energy preservation. We’re never fully engaged or fully off, we just keep going until the clock hits 5pm.

You Either Fully Engage Or Strategically Disengage

The top players optimize the rest between each point.Tony Schwartz and Jim Loehr have found that the top players are able to lower their heart rates between points by up to twenty beats per minute while the average player’s heart rate stays the same.

Tennis Players and The Power of Rest

<ul><li>The ultradian rhythm is a cycle that repeats itself countless times during the day.</li><li>To get the most out of your working day, go full out for 90-120 minutes (fully engage) and then take a 15-20 minute break (strategically disengage).</li><li>Take 2-3 short 1-5 minute breaks during this time.</li></ul>

The Ultradian Rhythm

<ul><li>The body and mind should take  frequent breaks.</li><li>The point of these breaks is to renew your energy.</li><li>Turn these breaks into rituals.</li><li>Use rituals to refill your energy without using up any energy or willpower.</li></ul>Rituals are powerful because they insure that we use as little conscious energy as possible where it is not absolutely necessary, leaving us free to strategically focus the energy available to us in creative ways

The Benefits Of Energy Rituals

If you want to perform at your highest level, you have to optimize each of these four sources of energy:Physical: How’s your body doing? How’s your muscle to fat ratio? How does your nutrition look like?Emotional: How’s your emotional life doing? Do you feel positive emotions on a regular basis? Are you emotionally resilient? Mental: How’s your brain doing? Are you able to focus and concentrate for sustained periods of times?Spiritual: How’s your motivation doing? Do you have a purpose in life? And a clear set of values that drive your actions?

The Four Sources Of Energy

The better your nutrition, sleep, and exercise are, the more physical energy you'll have.Potential energy rituals to replenish your physical energy:<ul><li>Going for a daily walk/jog</li><li>Scheduling a weekly tennis session</li><li>Deep breathing</li><li>Daily Sleep rituals to fall asleep faster and stay asleep all night</li><li>Eating healthy all day long</li></ul>

Physical Energy

<ul><li>Positive emotions fuel performance.</li><li>The more positive emotions you're feeling on a regular basis, the more emotional energy you have and the higher your performance will be.</li><li>If you don't have access to sufficient positive emotions, ask yourself if you are devoting enough hours a week to activities purely for the pleasure and renewal they provide.</li></ul>

Emotional Energy

Concentration is mainly your attention.To perform at your best, you must be able to sustain concentration, and move flexibly between broad and narrow focus.Potential energy rituals to replenish your mental energy:<ul><li>Meditate daily for 20mins.</li><li>Commit to a daily yoga practice.</li><li>Play concentration-enhancing brain games.</li><li>Exercise.</li><li>Get enough quality sleep.</li></ul>

Mental Energy

<ul><li>Spiritual energy is the connection to a deeply held set of values and to a purpose beyond our self-interest.</li><li>It gives us the motivation to act.</li><li>To optimize our spiritual energy, we need a set of strong values and a purpose for why we do what we do.</li><li>Find out what your purpose and values are.</li></ul>

Spiritual Energy

Set an exact time and exact place for when you'll do something dramatically increases your chances of actually doing it.To manage your energy as skillfully as possible, you must rely on positive energy rituals that happen automatically without the use of any willpower on your part.The beauty of rituals:<ul><li>They happen automatically.</li><li>They don’t use up willpower.</li><li>They don’t use up conscious energy.</li></ul>

Energy Rituals In Your Life

<ul><li>We are oscillatory human beings who should live their lives as a series of sprints, not one never-ending marathon</li><li>To optimize our energy throughout the day, we should follow the ultradian rhythm and take a 15-20 minute break every 90-120 minutes</li><li>Installing energy rituals is the holy grail of optimizing your energy and performance</li></ul>

The Conclusion

Harness and optimize your energy, as it is even more important that time.

A personal energy training program outlines strategies on how to prevent burnout and improve productivity, discussing such areas as how to work with four key sources of energy, balancing stress and recovery, expanding capacity, and implementing positive routines. Reprint. 60,000 first printing.

The Power of Full Engagement

Workers are attracted to companies and stay at them when they feel like they’re connected to a motivating purpose, surveys have shown. And so managers have turned to “purpose” as a tool to deploy amid challenges recruiting and retaining talent over the past year.But what does it really mean for a company to have a purpose? And what are the best kinds of purpose to have? We find out in the book summary.

Deep Purpose: The Premise

Convenient Purpose is when organizations talk about making the world better because it makes it easier to recruit, retain, and motivate employees or market to customers, but their practices are detached from that rhetoric.“Win-win” approaches claim to maximize both profit and social good, which is often not possible.Forced to choose between financial performance and social good, leaders at these firms usually wind up operating the enterprise for shareholders’ primary benefit.

Convenient Purpose Isn’t Enough

When pursuing deep purpose, leaders orient their organizations existentially around the ‘North Star’ of purpose, articulating a conscious intent to conduct their business in a more elevated way. Purpose in their minds is a unifying statement of the commercial and social problems a business intends to profitably solve for its stakeholders.At such organizations, purpose is not just a tool but is the underlying logic used for decision making at all levels, creating “moral communities” of workers and partners drawn to and motivated by it.

The North Star Of Purpose

Deep Purpose directly addresses many of the pressing leadership questions of our time—including how to weigh financial performance and societal impact, how to talk about purpose most effectively, how to establish a strong culture, and how to successfully have individualist and inclusive workplaces. The right approach is to avoid profit-first approaches if they don’t deliver social value and steer clear of purpose-driven solutions if they can’t one day be profitable as well.

One Solution To Many Problems

The best way to activate deep purpose is to increase the care you show to individual employees.

Four ways that deep purpose delivers superior business performance:Directional—Purpose guides the company’s growth. Bühler, for example, proactively sought to slash waste and energy and water usage at its customers’ plants, which unlocked deeper partnerships and focused its innovation efforts.Relational and Reputational—Having a long-term purpose fosters trust with clients and partners and boosts the reputation of firms.Motivational—Research shows that when companies take meaningful actions in line with purpose, employee engagement climbs.

Superior Business Performance Using Deep Purpose

Knudstorp discovered a mantra carved in wood during Lego’s early days, “Only the best is good enough,” and used the phrase to evoke the continuous improvement needed to turn the company around. A forward-looking purpose rooted in an organization’s history carries extra weight.

Leadership Approach: Rooting Purpose In The Past

A fundamental task of leadership is telling a “Big Story” or “master narrative” that critiques the status quo and issues a rallying cry toward a desired future. One narrative model is to interweave “self, us, and now.” That involves telling stories of defining moral decisions in your life, defining “choice points” for the organization, and highlighting a current challenge and a strategy for addressing it.

Leadership Approach: Moving Beyond Slogans To Stories

Individuals thrive when they can identify their own personal purpose and express it through their work. Seattle Seahawks coach Pete Carroll is known for welcoming nonconformity among players, focusing on their individual performance, and forging trusting relationships with them.

Leadership Approach: Unleashing Individuals

With an organization unified around purpose, there is greater trust and momentum. That allows for increased employee autonomy and focus on loosening tight bureaucratic structures to allow for collaboration across the company.

Leadership Approach: Flattening Organizations and Unlocking Collaboration

Personification—The departure of a founder can leave a company adrift if the new leadership doesn’t succeed in looking both back and forward.Death by inadequate measurement—It’s often hard to measure execution against long-term societal purpose. That means leaders need to work harder to manage them.  “Do-gooder’s dilemma”—Investors can have higher expectations of purpose-driven companies and hold them to account for financial performance.A purpose-strategy divergence—If leaders don’t start with purpose when discussing strategy, they often pursue opportunities that aren’t aligned.

Four Phenomena That Can Derail Purpose

Companies can deliver exceptional value to stakeholders and elevate themselves beyond a merely commercial logic by energetically and inconveniently pursuing a reason for being.

Deep Purpose offers a compelling structure for thinking about how to pursue business performance and societal good.

A distinguished Harvard Business School professor offers a compelling reassessment and defense of purpose as a management ethos, documenting the vast performance gains and social benefits that become possible when firms manage to get purpose right. Few business topics have aroused more skepticism in recent years than the notion of corporate purpose, and for good reason. Too many companies deploy purpose, or a reason for being, as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous and to look good to the outside world. Some have only foggy ideas about what purpose is and conflate it with strategy and other concepts like “mission,” “vision,” and “values.” Even well-intentioned leaders don’t understand purpose’s full potential and engage half-heartedly and superficially with it. Outsiders spot this and become cynical about companies and the broader capitalist endeavor. Having conducted extensive field research, Ranjay Gulati reveals the fatal mistakes leaders unwittingly make when attempting to implement a reason for being. Moreover, he shows how companies can embed purpose much more deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, and communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of and relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, and comprehensively than ever before. In this authoritative, accessible, and inspiring guide, Gulati takes readers inside some of the world’s most purposeful companies to understand the secrets to their successes. He explores how leaders can pursue purpose more deeply by navigating the inevitable tradeoffs more deliberately and effectively to balance between short- and long-term value; building purpose more systematically into every key organizational function to mobilize stakeholders and enhance performance; updating organizations to foster more autonomy and collaboration, which in turn allow individual employees to work more purposefully; using powerful storytelling to communicate a reason for being, arousing emotions and building a community of inspired and committed stakeholders; and building cultures that don’t merely support purpose, but also allow employees to link the corporate purpose to their own personal reasons for being. As Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future. With capitalism under siege and relatively low levels of trust in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that businesses—and the rest of us—urgently need.

Deep Purpose

This is the central tenet in Buddhism. George believes there are five ancient superpowers to achieve what you want.<ul><li>Faith</li><li>Diligence</li><li>Mindfulness</li><li>Concentration</li><li>Insight.</li></ul>These are the author’s spin on the Noble 8-Fold Path. These five are nonlinear. They are a multiplicative series (not an additive one) and if you take one away the rest fall apart

Life is only available in the present moment.

You can practice mindfulness meditation by sitting still, focusing on your breathing, and practicing bare awareness: staying aware of what’s going on in your mind and body at the present moment.That's difficult because we’re constantly surrounded by distractions. Our minds jump from topic to topic like a monkey swinging from branch to branch. The monkey mind is hard to control, but you can pacify it by practicing Buddhism. And once you reach a high state of self-control, you’ll find yourself in the Zone.Athletes enter the Zone when performing at the highest level.

Mindfulness helps us reach our peak potential and be our best selves.

In 2013 playoffs, people caught LeBron James sitting courtside with closed eyes, focusing on his breathing You can enter a state of relaxation by controlling your breathing, think of the space between an inhalation and an exhalation as your inner center, where your watcher watches everything. Our breathing works in tandem with 2 other parts of our autonomous nervous system. 1st is the sympathetic system, which is activated by fear, anxiety, and stress. The 2nd is the parasympathetic system. It releases the neurotransmitter acetylcholine, which lowers our heart rate and makes us more relaxed

Concentrate by focusing only on your breathing

Scrutinizing the thoughts behind your habits is like looking under the hood of your car, rather than just staring at the dashboard.Everyone has a unique collection of emotional blueprints, which includes their insecurities and other negative emotions. It’s important to be aware of them because the negative ones can build up and burst out in negative actions. Practicing mindfulness means letting go of who you think you are. So accept negative emotions like anger or resentment for what they truly are: fleeting distractions that shouldn’t define you.

Insight is about understanding your own thoughts and the impact they have on your life.

I’ve missed more than 9,000 shots in my career, lost almost 300 games. I’ve failed over and over again in my life. That’s why I succeeded.

Bruce Lee is a famous example. Martial artists like Lee use their intuition to connect with the Zone. They focus on the journey, not the final destination.So when your actions align with wholesome, positive thoughts like love, kindness, compassion, and generosity, that’s the right kind of effort for your path.Another important part of reaching your maximum performance is letting situations play out by themselves. Mindfulness is about knowing yourself and focusing on the present, but you have to forget yourself again if you want to reach your highest possible performance level.

The right effort is about focusing on the journey and letting the situation you’re in run its course.

Faith is related to the concept of “God” a word that means different things to different people. But the idea of God is really about trusting the divinity within yourself. We all have it and we have the potential to awaken it. It doesn’t come from the external environment; you find it by looking within.Trusting in yourself instead of looking for guidance from others fosters your own self-efficacy. Mindfulness allows you to connect with higher forms of consciousness, and you can build a strong spiritual foundation by practicing it.

Unlock your full potential by trusting yourself and your inner divinity

It gives you the right type of energy and motivation to push through and succeed. Attention always follows intention and you have to put out into the universe what you want to receive. Keep listening to yourself, your body, your thoughts, your emotions, but deeply listening to others is as important of a skill. It helps in finding your intention and in helping others.

The intention is incredibly important

In the sense that they are optimizing for flow and optimal cooperation rather than simply beating the other team. It is a “we” mindset rather than a “me” mindset and one that is focused on growth rather than outcome. Right effort heightens energy rather than detracts from it – it allows you to be present and to become one with those who are working with you on the task at hand.

The best teams are inwardly focused

Filling yourself with love and awareness removes space for distractions, negativity, and noise. This is the space you want to get into to be mindful athlete

Mindfulness helps us reach our peak potential and be our best selves

The all-star adviser to athletes like Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan shares his revolutionary, mindfulness-based program for elevating your game “George helped me understand the art of mindfulness. To be neither distracted or focused, rigid or flexible, passive or aggressive. I learned just to be.” —Kobe Bryant Michael Jordan credits George Mumford with transforming his on-court leadership of the Bulls, helping Jordan lead the team to six NBA championships. Mumford also helped Kobe Bryant, Andrew Bynum, and Lamar Odom and countless other NBA players turn around their games. A widely respected public speaker and coach, Mumford is sharing his own story and the strategies that have made these athletes into stars in The Mindful Athlete: The Secret to Pure Performance. His proven, gentle but groundbreaking mindfulness techniques can transform the performance of anyone with a goal, be they an Olympian, weekend warrior, executive, hacker, or artist. When Michael Jordan left the Chicago Bulls to play baseball in 1993, the team was in crisis. Coach Phil Jackson, a long-time mindfulness practitioner, contacted Dr. Kabat-Zinn to find someone who could teach mindfulness techniques to the struggling team—someone who would have credibility and could speak the language of his players. Kabat-Zinn led Jackson to Mumford and their partnership began. Mumford has worked with Jackson and each of the eleven teams he coached to become NBA champions. His roster of champion clients has since blossomed way beyond basketball to include corporate executives, Olympians, and athletes in many different sports. With a charismatic teaching style that combines techniques of engaged mindfulness with lessons from popular culture icons such as Yoda, Indiana Jones, and Bruce Lee, Mumford tells illuminating stories about his larger than life clients. His writing is down-to-earth and easy to understand and apply. The Mindful Athlete is an engrossing story and an invaluable resource for anyone looking to elevate their game, no matter what the pursuit, and includes a foreword by Phil Jackson.

The Mindful Athlete

Aligning on three things before diving into a solution can help ensure teams spend the right amount of time and energy solving every problem. Start every project with a problem statement that answers these questions:
<ul>
<li>What outcome does the customer want?</li>
<li>Why do they want it?</li>
<li>What problems currently exist that prevent them from achieving it?</li>
</ul>

Tackling Problems

A well-crafted problem statement ensures the team shares an understanding of the core problem your customers are facing. But not every problem is equally important. Some problems need a straightforward solution, while others require more innovation.
The steps you take – and the amount of time you spend on each one – should vary from problem to problem depending on these factors. By failing to acknowledge the differences early, teams risk misallocating their focus and energy when solving problems, investing too much or too little in each one.

Stating The Problem

Apply a simple three-part framework before you start exploring solutions. By accounting for these differences at the beginning of each project, you can align on how to approach the solution. It ensures you’re focusing on the right areas with the right resources, and it’s the lever that moves the team from the problem space to the solution space. 
<ul>
<li>Innovation </li>
<li>Investment </li>
<li>Urgency</li>
</ul>
Rank each point as “low”, “medium”, or “high”.

Three-Part Framework

Is this solution something we want to innovate on and own as an industry leader and differentiator, or is it table stakes where we want to be on par with the market?
Understanding where a project sits within the product strategy should help steer the ranking. If the problem is directly tied to your product’s differentiation, innovation should be higher. The team should spend more time thinking big, evaluating multiple directions, and iterating before committing to a solution.

Innovation

Before we start a project, we usually consider potential innovation within the latter two categories – product strategy and execution.<ul><li>At the product strategy level, does this project sit within a product area that requires an innovative solution?</li><li>At the execution level, does this project contribute directly to differentiation or closing product gaps?</li></ul>

Ranking Innovation

Do we intend to spend a lot of time on this project and potentially enlist resources beyond our teams? Or is it something we want to solve rapidly at a low cost?
When ranking investment, ensure your team has a practical understanding of what it will take to complete a project. Projects that require a lot of engineering effort, especially if contributions from multiple teams are needed, will automatically rank higher in the investment category.

Investment

Is this time-sensitive? Is it something we want to get to the market as quickly as possible, or do we have the luxury of spending a lot of time here?
Urgency can have both top-down and bottom-up inputs. Product and launch strategies can dictate a problem’s urgency from the top down. If your strategy demands a compelling solution in one core area, the urgency to build that solution will be higher.

Urgency

Not every problem is created equal, and neither are solutions. Agreeing on three things helps ensure team alignment before tackling a problem.

Tackling the problem: A simple three-part framework to align your team’s efforts

Three important points to help you perform better:
<ul>
<li>When you’re in flow, five neurochemicals are released simultaneously.</li>
<li>For flow to happen, some parts of your brain must be switched off, not on.</li>
<li>What we think is possible changes every time we see a new achievement, which is why flow is so important.</li>
</ul>

Flow: Performing Like Superman

Five strong chemicals are released, all at once, when you’re in flow:<ul><li>Dopamine, which gets you excited about new ideas, while helping you filter what’s important from the noise.</li><li>Norepinephrine, which increases your heartbeat, blood sugar and breathing speed, to give you energy and attention to the task at hand.</li><li>Anandamide, which works a little bit like cannabis, thus getting your brain to make more new connections and be creative.</li><li>Endorphins, which absolves you from physical pain, because it’s 100 times stronger than morphine.</li><li>Serotonin, which causes the glowing feeling after you achieve a goal.</li></ul>

The Flow High

Another factor, which is part of the flow experience, is something called transient hypofrontality. What this complicated expression means is simply that for a short time (transient) your preFRONTal cortex is less (hypo) active.The prefrontal cortex is part of the neocortex, which, in turn, is the “youngest” part of our brain, evolutionary speaking. This is where all complex thinking happens (like you crunching numbers to decide which house you want to buy), and it’s what allows us to think rationally about our feelings and be self-aware.

Transient Hypofrontality

Another part that slows down during flow is your orientation adjustment area, the part of the brain that lets you assess your position in the world, relative to other objects around you.
This is what causes surfers to feel “as if they’re one with the wave” or writers to just “think their words onto the paper.”

Orientation Adjustment Area

Bannister was the first man to run a mile in under 4 minutes. Before he accomplished this in 1954, for decades people had thought a 4 minute mile simply wasn’t possible. 
However, once he did, someone else did it just two months after him. His record was broken again twice within the next five years and ten years later a high school student ran a 4 minute mile.

Roger Bannister Effect

Every time someone accomplishes something we think is impossible, our definition of that word changes. 
Great achievements inspire us to go beyond them and achieve even more, and that’s what makes flow so important. Without it, humans would stop pushing the boundaries of performance.

Impossible Is So Yesterday

Ten core components that indicate the Flow state:
<ul>
<li>Clear goals</li>
<li>Concentration</li>
<li>A loss of self consciousness</li>
<li>Distorted sense of time</li>
<li>Direct and immediate feedback</li>
<li>Balance between ability level and challenge</li>
<li>A sense of personal control over the situation</li>
<li>Intrinsically rewarding so action is effortless</li>
<li>Lack of awareness of bodily needs</li>
<li>Absorption, narrowing of awareness down to the activity.</li>
</ul>

The Core Components

<ul>
<li>As flow requires focus, one of the first changes suggested by experts was the removal of cubicle farms, those open office plans that permit constant interruption.</li>
<li>Studies have shown that each time a flow state is disrupted it takes fifteen minutes to get back into flow, if you can get back at all.</li>
<li>A shy man need only cross the room to say hello to an attractive woman to trigger this rush.</li>
</ul>

Hacking Flow

Flow appears near the emotional midpoint between boredom and anxiety, in what scientists call the flow channel— the spot where the task is hard enough to make us stretch but not hard enough to make us snap.
How hard is that? Answers vary, but the general thinking is about 4 percent. That’s it. That’s the sweet spot. If you want to trigger flow, the challenge should be 4 percent greater than the skills.

The Midpoint

The US military trained snipers in flow twice as fast as normal. McKinsey established that executives in flow are five times more effective than their steady-state peers. 
This is exactly what 150 years of flow research has revealed; this is what the recent revolution in action and adventure sports clearly demonstrates, flow brings out the very best in us— and for certain, it’s that very best we’ll need to create a world of abundance.

The Bottomline

Most people live in a very restricted circle of their potential being. They make use of a very small portion of their possible consciousness, and of their soul’s resources in general, much like a man who, out of his whole organism, should get into a habit of using and moving only his little finger.

Using years of research and interviews with adventure sports athletes, the New York Times best-selling author of Abundance and A Small, Fury Prayer attempts to unlock the secrets to ultimate human performance and the state of consciousness called “flow." 25,000 first printing.

The Rise of Superman: Decoding the Science of Ultimate Human Performance

It is best not to rush through writing up a summary of your year. Your employer will ideally let you know what the performance reviews are used for and the effect they could have on your career.Year-end evaluations can be a way to get your boss up to speed on what they may have missed, but they can also be used as part of the compensation cycle. Therefore, you have to be strategic about what you advocate for.

Performance review self-assessment

Vague statements include being a good co-worker, well-organised or a good communicator. <ul><li>Instead, mention specific and relevant accomplishments. Share how they happened and why you could achieve them. Ensure to quantify the impact it had on the business.</li><li>If you don't know how to mention a win, ask yourself why it mattered. What was the effect?</li><li>Consider the people you work with (your manager, colleagues, customers). Gather emails, reports and communications that support your work, then ask yourself what you did to make their life easier and how you can improve?</li></ul>

Don't be vague. Be specific in mentioning relevant progress

Leaving out areas for improvement could be a missed opportunity to make the evaluation a pitch to your boss about what skills you would like to learn or ideas you want to explore. If you want to move up the corporate ladder, ensure your self-evaluation reflects that. If you feel you are ready for more responsibility or a promotion, express that.

Share what you want to improve next year

Using the pandemic as an excuse for not performing your job in the best way is not going to put you in the best light. Language that shows you are stagnant, such as "we did not have enough resources", will taint your evaluation. Instead, use words that show you are moving forward, such as "I was able to be agile during our challenges and changes."

Don't blame others for your setbacks

It's difficult to remember in December what you worked on in February. <ul><li>Habitually keep track of emails, collaborations and projects that are applicable to the team and business goals.</li><li>Every month, ask what you did that month. What stood out to you? </li><li>Keep track of project milestones reached, emails with positive feedback, reports with sales numbers or other metrics and moments that make you proud.</li></ul>

Keep track of your accomplishments and results

False modesty is not helpful in a year-end review, but neither is vague praise.

How To Advocate For Yourself In Your Year-End Review

From time to time, everyone must cope with the pressure of their own expectations or that of others. They may feel they don't have the skills needed or the weight to succeed. However, they are often expected to become mentally stronger or tougher to lessen the frustration from feeling out of their depth. Athletes, adventures, entrepreneurs widely adopt this mental toughness. But this it can push performers to shy away from an intimidating challenge.

Coping with pressure

Those who practice mental toughness often ignore their worries and could self-sabotage. You may see evidence of this in putting off practising, procrastination, valid excuses, and poor performance.Unhelpful coping mechanisms include:<ul><li>Self-imposed rigid rules.</li><li>Perfectionistic traits.</li><li>Lack of self-compassion.</li><li>Seeing goals as threats rather than challenges to embrace. </li></ul>This can cause you to think with the fear-driven parts of your brain and prevent creative solutions.

Consequences of mental toughness

This approach to coping with pressure is drawing on the principles of acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT). It blends insight from Buddhism and other perspectives with psychotherapy. Mental flexibility can be described as 'the ability to contact the present moment more fully … and to change or persist when doing so serves valued ends.'  When you are mentally inflexible, you'll continue in your action, even if it's no longer effective in helping you achieve your goal. With flexibility, you can switch quickly based on the demands of each situation and which is in line with your values.

Mental flexibility

People do better when they acknowledge and face their fears, worries and stress instead of fighting them. For example, the more you try to block out challenging thoughts, the more evident they become. When accepting these fears, they lose their impact. The things you fear will distract you less, and you can then become more solution-focused.

Mental flexibility as a goal

To perform well under pressure, distance yourself from destructive thoughts and self-talk. Remind yourself that your thoughts are often emotionally driven thoughts, not facts. 'I'm useless at presenting, this will be embarrassing.' To help you distance yourself from your thoughts:<ul><li>Notice the unhelpful thoughts without dwelling on them.</li><li>Repeat them in an amusing voice to pull the negativity and power from the thought.</li><li>Try distanced self-talk. Instead of thinking, 'I always begin my presentations poorly', add distance with "I'm thinking that I begin my presentations poorly.'</li></ul>

Separate yourself from your thoughts

When you're under pressure, your feelings might overwhelm you, such as  saying, 'I'm terrified.' This can trigger the fight-or-flight response and prevent you from finding solutions. To overcome this, practice increasing your emotional vocabulary to help describe your feelings more accurately.

Practice labelling your feelings accurately

'Should', 'must', 'have' is loaded with expectations and pressure and can instantly trigger a threat reaction. 'I should be able to win.' or 'I should be able to finish this project tonight.'  Instead, reword it as opportunity or awareness. 'Here's an opportunity to do better.' If thinking this way feels unnatural, try writing down a few examples of the pressurised self-talk in your head, such as "I should be the best,' and then replace 'should' with something less restrictive.

Replace words that increase pressure

Rigid thinking and routines can contribute to feelings of pressure. Increase your mental flexibility by deliberately challenging your usual way of doing things. Every day for the next week, do something you don't usually do, such as washing up immediately after dinner or taking a different route home from work. This can teach your brain that you are able to escape routine and that it will work out OK.

Break some of your own rules

Know why performance matters. This is all about your values. Clear values will help you spot when they could be violated and measure how to respond when you feel under pressure. For example, your goal may be to become the highest goal-scorer in your soccer team, but your values may be trying your best and being a good teammate.  To find your key value, scroll through your photos on your phone. Is there a theme that emerges? Success, family, beauty, community, spirituality? Then consider how you can make more decisions in line with that value.

Identify and remember your values

Ditch the tough talk, it won’t help. Instead cultivate your mental flexibility so you can handle whatever comes your way

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