Why You Don’t Have To Work 80 Hours A Week To Be A Great Leader

I was talking to a new coaching client recently about how, over the past month, I have gone through a dramatic shift schedule-wise since starting to home-school my three kids.

In January I was working 40 + hours/week and then just like that in February I was working 20 – max.

In less than four weeks I cut 20 hours of work out of my schedule without my life falling in piece around me.

She asked me how in the world I did that on such short notice and if I thought it would be possible for her to do the same thing.

My response? Absolutely.

If you’re a nonprofit leader working more than 40 hours per week, I want to stake a very bold claim – you’re working harder than you have to. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all in favour of working hard at something you believe in but I’m not a fan of amazing, talented leaders wasting their time on tasks that don’t help move your organization towards its ultimate goal – changing the world.

Here are five things you can do right now to begin getting your life back under control.

Read more: http://idealistcareers.org/you-dont-have-to-work-100-hours-per-week-to-be-a-great-leader/#ixzz2xt5CNpND

Wharton Professor Adam Grant Explains Why The Most Successful People Are Givers

Last year Adam Grant released a book that changed the way we think about success.

In the best-selling “Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success,” which is now in paperback, the Wharton professor uses decades of psychological studies to make a provocative yet promising argument: that givers are the most likely to succeed.

Why? Because success doesn’t depend on talent or hard work alone. It also depends on how we interact with people.

To Grant, people tend to have one of three “styles” of interaction. There are takers, who are always trying to serve themselves; matchers, who are always trying to get equal benefit for themselves and others; and givers, who are always trying to help people.

It’s in the helping that givers succeed, he says. People with an optimistic (but not naive) perspective have a way of making their own luck — and being awesome leaders. Below is a transcript of our conversation, condensed and edited for clarity.

Read more http://www.businessinsider.my/wharton-professor-adam-grant-on-success-and-generosity-2014-4/?utm_content=buffer228ae#.Uz4vkCipBdg

How To Make Money Without A Job

Before joining the staff of Forbes in July of 2011, I was happily self-employed for 23 years. For much of this time my husband and I ran two mostly unrelated home-based businesses. He worked in his office in the front of the house, while I was in mine across the hall. Our office doors were usually closed and we knocked before interrupting each other. Until our son was old enough to go to school, we had a full-time babysitter to take care of him downstairs while we worked upstairs. Our only break during the workday was to eat lunch with our child.

Upon observing our traffic patterns, our house painter once said, “It’s like you’re in an office!“ Others remarked about our discipline. We didn’t have a choice. If we didn’t produce, we didn’t get paid, and we needed that money to live on. So for all the flexibility about setting our own hours and balancing work and family, we didn’t vary much from the routine. If we took time off to see the class play or take our son to the pediatrician, we made up for it in the evening or on weekends. Come to think of it, we worked a lot of evenings and weekends anyway.

read more http://www.forbes.com/sites/deborahljacobs/2011/12/14/how-to-make-money-without-a-job/