To be or to have

Too often we believe that life will improve once we “have” (obtain) something.  We can, however, flip this and focus on “being” before having.

If you want to have an outstanding partner, work on being someone worthy of an outstanding partner.  If you want to have a better job, take steps to be someone with the skills and work ethic consistent with better employment.

Don’t wait to acquire something.  Don’t wait to be picked by someone else.  You can work on you before anything happens.

Learning from triage

In medical terms, triage is the prioritizing of patients’ needs based on the severity of their conditions.  This wisdom that can also be applied to non-urgent, non-medical circumstances. Intentionally neglecting hundreds of possible uses of attention to focus on what’s most essential is strategic and effective.  In fact, it’s careless not to do so.

Most of my failures and screw-ups aren’t caused by lack of skill, time, or persistence, but a failure to prioritize.

Job interview hack

Two smart questions to ask in a job interview:

1) What was it that prompted you to want to interview me?

2) If you hired me, what would I accomplish so that in a year from now you’d feel that hiring me was a great decision?

Psychologically both questions force the interviewer to visualize you favorably (this is known as pre-suasion).  From a functional perspective, the answers to both are useful in determining what’s important to the interviewer, and whether the work itself is compelling.