Tausi Insider

To master the world you must master yourself, advises Toronto-based executive coach Craig Dowden. And high on the list of what you must master are your mindset, emotions and strengths. Our mindset affects how we process information and affects our experiences. “Imagine you’re getting ready for an upcoming meeting and are thinking, ‘This is going to be torturous and a complete waste of time.’ Guess how the meeting turns out?” he writes in A Time to Lead . Mr. Dowden places great stock in having a “growth mindset,” in which we are energized about new opportunities, rather than a fixed mindset, in which we prefer tasks we already do well and don’t expect to make mistakes. A growth mindset allows us to handle challenges and setbacks better, because we have a more flexible approach. Indeed, for those with a growth mindset, a setback becomes a puzzle to figure out rather than a reason to give up. We are likely to put more effort into improving ourselves because we believe such change is p...

Consultant and former New York Times columnist Adam Bryant argues every moment of your day falls into one of three categories: want, should or need. You essentially are making decisions on how to use each moment based, implicitly or explicitly, on completing an intention that begins “I want to …,” “I should …,” or “I need to ….” (A close cousin to the last one is: “I have to ….”) If you accept those buckets, he suggests you can use them to better organize your life. You can start by creating a pie chart of your life based on his categorization. “How much of your typical day, week or month falls into each of those three categories? How much of your job is spent doing the things you want to do – ideally creating that state of flow in which your skills and talents are well-matched to the task at hand – versus the things you just muscle through because you should do them or need to do them?” he asks in Strategy + business . There is no right mix. It can depend on the nature of your work ...