You’ve probably been told growing up that being intelligent and hardworking is how you’d go places in life. Yet oftentimes you see people with similar backgrounds and similar amounts of talent, drive, and work ethic, yet the end results of their lives are drastically different. Why? The answer, like reality itself, is complicated. But here’s one important piece of the puzzle: What you choose to “work” on have a huge impact on where you end…
(This article is originally published on Entrepreneur.com) Last night in the shower, you had an ingenious idea for a new business. You rushed to the desk to write it down, with water still dripping down your back. Your [insert the brilliant thing] is going to change the universe! It’s time to call up investors, assemble a team and . . . stop! Stop right there! Before plunging into execution, you should confirm you’re solving a problem…
You just need to be really smart… I’m kidding! Actually the weird thing is having great ideas has nothing to do with your IQ. How do I know? I’m smart. (Stop fooling around and get to the point, Natasha!) Ok, ok. Last August when I left my job, I spent all days sitting on the floor, scheming the next stage of my career. I’d madly write down ideas on scraps of paper, making my living…
Three months ago I decided to learn web development (read about how it happened here). In early-September I enrolled in Hack Reactor. Since then, I’ve been coding for 13-14 hours a day almost every day. I thought I was an efficient person before, but really had to up my productivity game to accommodate the intense coding schedule. I’m sharing with you some simple practices I tried that’ve helped me get everything done while staying healthy and sane. If you skim through…
Do you feel like an impostor at work? You know, the nagging feeling that you’re just faking your expertise and people will find out about you soon. Most experts would say that what you need is more self confidence or higher self esteem. But no, you have enough of those already. In this video I talk about the real reason why you feel like an impostor, and how you can truly thrive at your work…
I got an email the other day from a friend who is a talented writer. She felt discouraged that other people’s work gets attention and praise but not hers. “I’ve worked a long time on my craft,” she said. “But still I don’t know if I’m any good at this. Sometimes I feel it is all hopeless.” I totally sympathize. I’ve been there before. And it got me thinking: why is pursuing our dreams so…
When it comes to the secret of success, a common mistake we all make is to confuse correlation with causation. Leaders sit at the table. But that doesn’t mean sitting at the table makes you a leader. The average self-help book prescribes a set of behavioral rules for you to follow. The unspoken (and false) assumption is that since those behaviors all correlate with success, if you act the same, you’d be successful, too. This…