Category Archives: Productivity

Small Change Big Results: The Power of Compound Living.

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CompoundInterest3We’ve all been on the receiving end of compound interest. Our mortgage, credit cards, and even the Dentist love to tack on that interest. Luckily, it also works in our favor, if we’re wise enough to take advantage of it. For instance:

Compound Interest is Powerful

If you take $1 and save it, every week, for twenty five years, you would have $1,300. Not bad for a less than the cost of a donut. But, and this is the key, take that same $1 and invest it, adding $1 a week for 25 years, at a market average return of 9.19% (a which is the average market return adjusted for inflation 1988-2013), you would have $4,946.88. That’s $3646.88 (281%) more than saving it. Compound interest is a powerful thing.

Compound Living is Powerful

This post is not about your finances, so why am I waxing eloquent on compound interest? Because the same principle holds true in lifestyle design. You can save your energy or invest it. Your choice determines the difference in how effective your life will be. That is why some people are hundreds of times more effective than others, even though we all have the same 525,949 minutes a year. Time is what this is really all about.

FindingTime1Finding Time

According to International Business Times (http://www.ibtimes.com/average-us-adult-spends-21-minutes-day-facebook-1691274) the average person–as of September 2014–spent 21 minutes a day on FaceBook. So, 21 x 7 x 52 x 25 = 191,100 minutes or 3,184 hours or 132.71 days. Oh, BTW, those are 24 hour days. If you want to look at it like work days…398.125 work days.

Now, I’m not about to bash FaceBook. The platform is amazing and useful, but it’s hard to look at those numbers and still say, “I don’t have time to do something amazing. There just aren’t enough hours in the day.” Imagine what we could do with our lives if we took back 10 of those minutes each day.

Small changes create big rewards

Small changes in how we use our time create big rewards over time

DailyImprovementsQuote

I’ll save you the arithmetic. By taking back ten minutes a day, we would gain ourselves 190 work days over 25 years. That’s a lot of time to build a business, volunteer for a cause that matters, or write the book you know you should be writing.

Small changes in how we use our time create big rewards over time. Where are you losing out on future riches by “saving” time instead of investing it? What could you accomplish in the next five, ten, or twenty-five years by finding ten extra minutes a day?

If you can’t find 10 extra minutes a day, you’re doing something wrong. Try this: https://www.headspace.com/ or stop by http://balanceisbunk.com and connect with me. I’ll help you figure it out.

The Simple Phrase that Increases Effort 40%

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power of lever

Every effective leader and coach knows that there’s no moment more important than the moment feedback is delivered. When you perform this important process correctly,  the learner takes a step forward. Do it poorly, and the reverse happens.

Daniel Coyle asks this great question, “What’s the secret of great feedback?” Coyle says “we instinctively think that effective feedback is about the quality of the information — telling the learner to do this and not that. But is this true, or is there something else going on?”

Leading psychologists from leading institutions including Stanford, Yale and Columbia addressed this same question. They had middle-school teachers assign an essay-writing assignment to their students, after which students were given different types of teacher feedback.

To their utter astonishment, researchers discovered that there was one particular type of teacher feedback that improved student effort and performance so much that they considered it “magical.” Students who received this feedback chose to revise their paper far more often that students who did not (a 40 percent increase among white students; 320 percent boost among black students) and improved their performance significantly.

What was the magical feedback?

Just one sentence:

I’m giving you these comments because I have very high expectations and I know that you can reach them.

That’s it. Simple, 19 words. Not only this is great feedback, but a signal that creates  something more powerful: a sense of belonging and connection. Growing up as a child who had ADHD, I remember how my mom consistently used this type of feedback. Though I didn’t believe it on the outset, her constant reminders helped me change my belief culminating into a transformation of behavior and achievement of goals that seemed rather impossible at that time.  (Read more on the fascinating study of Pygmalion effect HERE)

Looking closer, the sentence contains several distinct signals:

  • 1) You are part of this group.
  • 2) This group is special; we have higher standards here.
  • 3) I believe you can reach those standards.

I love how Coyle follows up with these insights:

“The key is to understand that this feedback isn’t just feedback — it’s a vital cue about the relationship. The reason this works so well has to do with the way our brains are built. But when we receive an authentic, crystal-clear signal of social trust, belonging, and high expectations, the floodgates click open.”

Coyle offers three, relevant lessons for leaders and coaches based on this finding:

  • First, connect: like John Wooden said, they can’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.
  • Highlight the group: seek ways (traditions, mantras,  fun little rituals) to show what it means to belong in your crew.
  • Don’t soft-pedal high standards. Don’t pretend that it’s easy — do the opposite. Emphasize the toughness of the task, and  your belief that they have what it takes.