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Category: career

Want to become better at…?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Want to be a better writer? keep writing.

Want to be a better storyteller? keep telling stories.

Want to be a better leader? keep leading.

Want to be a better creative? keep getting creative.

Want to be better negotiator? keep negotiating.

Want to be a better coach? keep coaching.

Want to be a better teacher? keep teaching.

Want to be a better manager? keep managing.

Want to be a better mentor? keep mentoring.

Want to be better skilled at any craft? Keep at it.

Prioritize and work on the craft that you want to become the best in the world at.

You made it

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

What’s your success criteria?

What makes you feel like you’ve made it? Personally? Professionally? Overall?

Is it financial success, family success, social contribution, personal well being, or making the world a better place?

Is it enough to make it there or should you be thriving in where you want to be?

Have you made it to where ever you wanted to be and proud of it?

Effective Corporate Training

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

In Carol S. Dweck’s ground breaking book, Mindset The New Psychology of Success How We Can Learn To Fulfill Our Potential, she shares how to make corporate training programs effective.

She mentions:

Look for talented managers who also embody a growth mindset.

Train leaders, managers, and employees to believe in growth, in addition to training them in the specifics of effective communication and mentoring.

Creating a growth-mindset environment in which people can thrive which involves: presenting skills as learnable, conveying that the organization values learning and perseverance, not just ready-made genius or talent, giving feedback in a way that promotes learning and future success and presenting managers as resources for learning.

A belief in human development can make corporate training programs effective and help generate the results needed.

Talent vs Skill

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

What is Talent and what is Skill? Are they the same or different?

Talent is a natural ability to gain a skill or set of skills. Skill is the ability to complete a set of tasks well. Skills are learned and we get better at a craft by practicing intentionally over a period of time. If we want to become better writers, athletes, teachers (or at anything), we can because it’s an skill or set of skills. The beauty of identifying and understanding that something is a talent or a skill is liberating and profound. Once we find clarity that it’s an skill, we can learn and become better at it. Having talent does not mean that hard work, discipline, effort (and others) are not that required or important to become excellent at a craft or a task. While some who are talented can understand or do certain tasks better because of their “natural ability” or “gift”, talent by itself would not be enough for them to be excellent or world-class in their craft.

Here’s a simple distinction between Skill and Talent.

SkillTalent
DefinitionAn ability developed with practiceA natural affinity for a skill
ExplanationAn ability that, with practice, a person can become an expert inAn ability one is born with that, when nurtured, can develop more quickly than those without the
innate talent
ImpactsAnyone willing to work on itFewer people, who must be born with it
DevelopmentTraining, education, coaching, and practiceNature, along with training,
mentoring, education, and practice
Source : https://www.upwork.com/resources/difference-between-skill-and-talent

Seth Godin, author of The Practice Shipping Creative Work says that “It’s insulting to call a professional talented. She’s skilled, first and foremost. Many people have talent, but only a few care enough to show up fully, to earn their skill. Skill is rarer than talent. Skill is earned. Skill is available to anyone who cares enough.”

So was Micheal Jordan talented or skilled or both when it comes to basketball? Was Mira Rai a “gifted” trail runner than other runners? Is Warren Buffet more skilled or talented or a mix of both at analyzing businesses and financial numbers?

Getting to that Next Level

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What’s the Next Level?

There are Levels. Realizing that there’s another level to be better is a key component in getting to that level. If you strongly believe that there’s no more level beyond where you currently are, then either you’ve achieved a lot already (Happy for you!) or you are limited in your circumstances, environment, or in your mindset. If you are doing what you can and still not getting the results that you want, then looking for outside help can benefit you. Getting to the Next Level is where the Coaching comes in!

BetterUp has written a helpful article in Benefits of coaching: Purpose, clarity, and passion in daily life

Attitude and Skill

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Attitude and Skill were found to be the two key differences between great competitors and good ones in swimming in a study done by Daniel F. Chambliss and shared through his paper “The Mundanity of Excellence: An Ethnographic Report on Stratification and Olympic Swimmers.”

Daniel reviewed the habits, backgrounds, and performance of competitive swimmers and discovered that attitude and skill were the main differentiators between the great swimmers and good swimmers. The great swimmers swim differently (strokes, turns etc) than the good swimmers. The great swimmers have practiced and honed their skill(s) and technique(s) over a period of time. Also the great swimmers came with a different attitude to their swimming training compared to the good swimmers.

How are you approaching your craft everyday and where’s your current skill level at that craft?

Meet to Succeed

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Technology, devices, globalization and many other factors have enabled us to work from any part of the world. Being on a virtual meeting with people across multiple locations, time zones, and cultures is more common than ever before. Yet there is something very special about being able to meet your virtual colleagues or team in person (regularly)!

Meeting team members in person enables us to see our individual personalities, have spontaneous conversations, get to know each other, and helps build empathy. It’s harder to build empathy and understanding when you have only interacted virtually with the other person or team. As much as remote work has enabled and empowered those who work remotely, it can have long lasting severe impact to company culture, team bonding, productivity and ultimately the success of the team and the company. To succeed as a company, you need to have an excellent team that challenges and understands each other, can work collaboratively, and keep the bigger picture in mind over their personal goals.

Do you have the option to work remotely at your current company? If so, how often do you meet with your team, leadership, or customers? What are the benefits and challenges you’ve experienced working remotely?

What’s your company culture like?

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To get a quick gauge of your current company culture, you can do a few activities.

Have a look at what is being promoted and encouraged within the company.

What pictures, videos or posts are team members posting on internal company channels? Are those pictures of team events, community activities, nature, industry reports or something else? What is the engagement level on those posts?

See what activities team members spend most of their time on besides their day to day work responsibilities.

Are team members actively participating in company events, social events or any event in general? Do the same individuals tend to attend these social events compared to other team members? Are there regular planned company culture activities?

Management’s time and effort in company culture related activities

Does senior leadership understand the benefits of company culture and activities around it? Do they show up or be present in the cultural activities of the company? How is the leadership team treating or behaving towards the volunteers who organize the company culture activities?

The thing about ideas is..

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

We all have ideas. Some are good than others. All are welcome and each perspective is unique.

Coming up with ideas (creative ideas, business ideas, problem solving ideas and others) is a form of an exercise. It’s a muscle. The more we exercise the muscle, the better we become.

How often are we exercising our “idea muscles”?

Who’s got the ball?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Nowadays there are more company meetings than necessary.

Zoom meetings, Client meetings, internal sync ups, and weekly catchups fill up our calendars every week. Months go on with many meetings that serve no purpose or get results.

Meetings are not going away soon. However, effective meetings are highly valuable for everyone in attendance.

To make company meetings effective, have an agenda, start and end on time, and have clear next steps.

Shellye Archambeau, chief executive of MetricStream likes to end her meetings by asking, “Who’s got the ball?” When you’re in sports, and the ball is thrown to you, then you’ve got the ball, and you’re now in control of what happens next. You own it. It becomes a very visible concept for making sure that there’s actually ownership to make sure things get done.” – NYT’s article

First class experiences

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Our minds are powerful and create our everyday “reality.”

We have the physical world where every living being is part of. Then there’s the subjective “reality” that’s unique to each one of us.

We create consciously, subconsciously and unconsciously and live in our own “reality.”

To be able to experience a better life or “reality” for ourselves, we have to learn to condition our minds.

If you want to experience flying first class, you have to make the decision to pay more to be there. Once you’ve experienced how flying first class feels like, our mind wants to get back to first class and will motivate you to find ways to fly first class more often.

Similar to flying first class, try experiencing better products, services and experiences and you’ll continue to find ways to attract them and live in your “best reality.”

What does Progress look like?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

We want Progress. Like yesterday.

It’s tempting to be thinking of achieving massive success as soon as possible.

So what does Progress actually look like (realistically)?

In Atomic Habits, James Clear says if you find yourself struggling to build a good habit or breaking a bad habit, it is often because you have not yet crossed the Plateau of Latent Potential. When you finally break through the Plateau of Latent Potential, people will call it overnight success. We tend to see the most dramatic event rather than all the work and efforts that came before that “overnight success.”

Source: James Clear

From Entrepreneur to Empowerer

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

How can entrepreneurs grow their startup?

The qualities that help entrepreneurs start their businesses might not be the same that will help take the startup to the next level.

There will still be challenges that entrepreneurs will face when they have hired all the “right people” for the different roles of the company. If the entrepreneurs continue to become heavily involved in decision making of the different functions even when they have put “right people” in those positions, the company will be limiting itself. The entrepreneurs’ efforts might actually be counterproductive then.

For entrepreneurs to grow their company, most times they themselves become bottlenecks to the growth. It’s time to switch from being an entrepreneur to becoming an empowerer (one who empowers others to do their best). If entrepreneurs have empowered other leaders in the best way possible, the company will experience growth in many ways.

Greatness through Giving

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

We can achieve greatness by focusing our energy on helping and supporting others.

When we focus on helping others through what we can give, we put good energy into the universe.

To achieve our goals, we collaborate with people because greatness is not a sole journey or destination.

The more energy you commit into inspiring and helping others, the more you will receive in return.

How are you inspiring and helping others today?

3 A’s to greatness

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Awareness. Action. Automatic.

Awareness is the first component of becoming great at a skill or craft.

Once awareness is established, action is needed to intentionally practice and work on the skill or craft.

After taking consistent action to get better, the skill or craft becomes automatic.

There’s no failure in sports!

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Indeed.

There’s no failure in sports. Definitely not in life!

Giannis Antetokounmpo, player for The Milwaukee Bucks eloquently explained why there’s no failure in sports after his team exited the NBA playoffs. You’re always working towards a goal. Sometimes your team will succeed and other times, your team will come up short on those goals.

There are many key insights one can derive after watching the whole video.

Some insights that stood out to me were:
–To not reach your goals when you have put in the efforts/time/energy is disappointing but should not be looked at total “failure” or a “waste.”

–To be successful, you will experience some sort of setbacks but the focus should be on getting better to achieve that goal next time.

-Ownership is key. If you are leading a team or a group, you have to take responsibility for the outcomes – good or bad.

After watching the video, what were your takeaway(s)?

The best time to do a startup is…

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

NOW.

Literally now.

If you are thinking about doing a startup, want to be an entrepreneur or create something of your own, there is no better time than RIGHT NOW.

There is no uniform age, timeline, state, region, phase, moment or any other factor that guarantees the best time to do a startup.

I like to watch this Ted talk by Bill Gross from time to time to remind myself why start-ups succeed.

I used to have an illusion/perception that I need to have a decent amount of money to start a business. Yet when I did start a business, it was more than just money that I needed. I learned about the importance of having a solid business and technical team members, balancing product development and marketing, public relations and network and countless other valuable lessons that I learned only because I started the business.

I believe that if you are thinking of doing a startup or want to go into entrepreneurship, the earlier the better.

For example, let’s say you are 25 now, have an idea and want to build your own company. If you wait 5 years (at 30 years old) to start implementing that idea, the market might have changed, other companies might implement similar idea(s) and you are late to the market, you have other priorities now (family, job etc) among others. On the flip side, if you wait you might be gaining experience in a particular domain that can help build your company or have more financial resources to venture on your own.

I strongly believe that if you have an idea and want to build a company, the best move you can make is to start it. The immediate benefit of starting now will give a lot of momentum to your idea/venture, you will learn tremendously by experimenting and getting feedback from the market/customers/non customers etc. The learnings from starting a business will be exponential. If you start as early as you can, you will gain experience that will be very valuable to the success of your idea/business and also as an entrepreneur.

Doing entrepreneurship is both an art and a science.

I can’t wait to see what you create in the world. Now.

What’s on your calendar?

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

One way to identify what’s a priority for someone is to look at their calendars.

What’s there and what’s not there?

If your calendar does not have the activities/people/experiences that you value or are important to you, pretty soon it will start filling up with other people’s priorities.

Someone can tell you how much they want to be an entrepreneur and live the lifestyle they have always dreamed of. Yet when you see how that person spends their time, you will notice if they really mean it or are not focused on their personal/professional goals. If it’s not booked on your calendar (or time blocked off for it), then usually it will not happen for many reasons.

Usually the calendar is a good indicator of what’s a priority to someone.

Working those muscles

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

Being more creative, more inquisitive, more evolved requires working with intention on those creative/curious/reflection muscles.

If you want to be more creative, keep challenging yourself to think outside the box, look for different ways to solve the same problem or spend time around “creative people.”

If you want to be more inquisitive, keep asking questions, look for follow up questions and learn from others who have the knack for asking good questions.

If you want to be more evolved as a person, invest in yourself and reflect on your emotions, feelings, and behaviors.

When you keeping working on the “muscle/craft” you want to become better at, you will be skilled in it overtime!

Beyond the Comfort Zone

Posted on by Nirmal Thapa

In our comfort zones, we tend to feel at ease, almost no anxiety, stress free, and safe.

In the boundaries of our comfort zones, we tend to feel some or a lot of anxiety, stress, and get defensive.

Do we all have comfort zones? If so, do we stay in those zones or go beyond them?

Of course, we all have our comfort zones in different areas of our lives and activities that we do. As humans, we operate from a place where we make decisions from what we know, feel comfortable doing, and go about our personal and professional lives.

However, if those same comfort zones are limiting our own growth or from allowing us to reach our full potential, wouldn’t we want to go beyond them?

Imagine you have been selected as a member of your varsity basketball team. Your basketball coach sees a lot of potential in you and provides regular feedback. There are parts of your game that are already good and you capitalize on them. Then there are other parts of your game that you are not mostly aware of but your coach sees where and how you can improve on them. After each varsity practice, the coach comes up to you and gives you constructive feedback on your improvement areas. You listen to the coach but you are not REALLY LISTENING to your coach. You have a feeling that you are already good in certain areas and that’s the part the coach should praise you on. Yet here you are listening to the coach just talking about where you can be in the future and keeps going on and on the improvement areas, not so much your strength areas. After a few of these feedback sessions, you finally get the urge to just tell the coach that you are doing everything you can and get defensive because you don’t feel appreciated or valued by the coach. You have excuses and don’t take any responsibility or ownership.

Now what can happen next?

As a player, you can reframe the conversation with the coach as a way to see that the feedback is for your own growth and if you have want to reach the next level, you should do the activities the coach recommends you to do. Or you can stay defensive and feel entitled to think that you have already reached your potential and the coach doesn’t see that? Or just quit the varsity basketball team?

Comfort zones are there and will continue to be an integral part of each of us. Yet, if you want to live out your AUTHENTIC GREATNESS, how often will you push yourself out of your comfort?

A recommended read related to this topic “How to Leave Your Comfort Zone and Enter Your ‘Growth Zone“

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