Diplo Learning Corner

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Month: February 2015 (Page 1 of 2)

The gift of today

24/02/2015 /

Imagine there is a bank that credits your account each morning with $ 86,400. It carries over no balance from day to day. Every night, it deletes whatever part of the balance you failed to use. What would you do? Draw out every cent every day, of course.

However, each of us has such a bank, not in dollars but in TIME. Every morning, it credits you 86,400 seconds. Every night it writes off as lost whatever you have failed to invest to good purpose. There is no balance, no overdraft. If you fail to use the day’s deposits, the loss if yours.

There is no going back. There is no drawing against “tomorrow”. You must live in the present on today’s deposit.

The clock is running. Make the most of today.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift. That’s why it’s called the present !

(Thanks to Ed Gelbstein for this contribution)

photo-1414788020357-3690cfdab669Image Source: Unsplash – Rula Sibai – (CC0 1.0)

Soft skills to succeed in the workplace

19/02/2015 /

How many soft skills you can think of? The Blog Aboutcareers has made a comprehensive list which shows how vast and articulated this domain is.

In this context, Soft skills are defined as the personal attributes you need to succeed in the workplace. Regardless of the job, you need at least some soft skills to be successful.

Here is a list of 10 chosen at random just to give and idea:

  1. Able to Listen
  2. Delegation
  3. Facilitating
  4. Good at Storytelling
  5. Motivating
  6. Problem-solver
  7. Respectful
  8. Sense of Humor
  9. Time Management
  10. Writing Skills

Check the full list  4605043024_c2a7051918_bImage source: Flickr – Elle * (CC BY 2.0)

18 Tips To Become a Young Leader

17/02/2015 /

Hung Vo, Director of Policy of the International Youth Council, has posted on his Blog on The Huffington Post some tips for anyone aspiring to become a young leader or just a more effective one.

1. Be confident, but be careful to not confuse confidence with arrogance.
2. Leadership is about vision.
3. Inspire others to take action by showing your own action, commitment and good work for a better world. Make it easy for people to step in and join forces if they want to help.
4. Be ambitious and do not be afraid to take risks.
5. Never let someone tell you that you cannot do something.
6. Be organized.
7. Be able to articulate your thoughts and speech thoroughly and efficiently (a.k.a. communication skills).
8. Be able to establish your goals and commit to your plan.
9. Make sure your project, campaign or endeavor solves a problem and you that have clearly defined what the problem is and how you are going to solve it.
10. Know the strengths and weaknesses of yourself and your team.
11. Be fair.
12. Be clever.
13. Be optimistic.
14. Remember that you are young.
15. Connect! Strive to make a vast and diverse network of friends and colleagues.
16. Know when to give “the talk,” and do give it when it is necessary.
17. Have a right-hand man (or woman).
18. Know when to listen to others, and when to listen only to yourself.

Read the full article: The Huffington Post

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Image source: Flickr – Ian (CC BY-NC 2.0)

 

10 Leadership Techniques That Do Not Work

12/02/2015 /

John Rampton, from Inc.com, lists 10 leadership techniques that definitely don’t work:

1. Lack of Vision
2. Failure to Communicate
3. Intimidation
4. Micromanagement
5. “No Tolerance Policy”
6. Being a Know-It-All
7. Offering Incentives
8. Withholding Helpful Information
9. Taking Credit for Others’ Work
10. Management by Walking Around the Office

The more you learn from your mistakes and improve, the more you truly will become a leader.

For more: 10 Leadership Techniques That Do Not Work

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Image source: Flickr – Olivier Carré-Delisle, Leadership vs management

 

Tackling procrastination

10/02/2015 /

In this video Dr. Barbara Oakley explains why “Procrastination can be a single
monumentally important keystone bad habit, a habit in other words that influences
many important areas of your life. If you improve your abilities in this area many other positive changes will gradually begin to unfold.”

The video has been realized for the course: “Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects” available on Coursera.

The value of time

05/02/2015 /
  • To realize the value of one year, ask the student who failed a grade
  • To realize the value of one month, ask the mother who gave birth to a premature baby
  • To realize the value of one week, ask the editor of a weekly newspaper
  • To realize the value of one day, ask the person whose vacation ends tomorrow
  • To realize the value of one hour, ask the lovers who are waiting to meet
  • To realize the value of one minute, ask the commuter who just missed a train
  • To realize the value of one second, ask the driver who just avoided an accident
  • To realize the value of one millisecond, ask the swimmer who won a silver medal in the Olympics

Treasure every moment you have and remember that time waits for no one.

(Thanks to Ed Gelbstein for this contribution)

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Image Source: Gratisography – Ryan McGuire – (CC0 1.0)

Impostor Syndrome

03/02/2015 /

As strange as it seems, over 70% of people have experienced at one time or other in their lives the feeling to cover a place or a charge behind their personal value and capacity. People are unable to see their own accomplishments, dismissing them as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be.

Mike San Román gives eight advises that help you tackle with such an uncomfortable state of mind.

  1. Recognize that the problem exists.
  2. When you receive positive feedback, embrace it with objectivity and internalize it.
  3. Don’t attribute your successes to luck.
  4. Don’t talk about your abilities or successes with words like “merely,” “only,” “simply,” etc.Keep a journal.
  5. Writing your successes and failures down gives you a retrospective insight about them, and re-reading them makes you remember equally both of them.
  6. Recognize that the perfect performer doesn’t exist, and that problems will pop up eventually.
  7. Be proud of being humble.
  8. Remember that it’s okay to seek help from others, and that even the best do it.

47982559_d7db66b4ab_oImage: Flickr – AleRK – (CC BY 2.0)

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