ChangeThis
The original idea behind ChangeThis came from Seth Godin, and was built in the summer of 2004 by Amit Gupta, Catherine Hickey, Noah Weiss, Phoebe Espiritu, and Michelle Sriwongtong. In the summer of 2005, ChangeThis was turned over to 800-CEO-READ. In addition to selling and writing about books, they kept ChangeThis up and running as a standalone website for 14 years. In 2019, 800-CEO-READ became Porchlight, and we pulled ChangeThis together with the rest of our editorial content under the website you see now. We remain committed to the high-design quality and independent spirit of the original team that brought ChangeThis into the world.
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Blog / ChangeThis
7 Secrets for Strategic Business Growth
By Justin Sachs
"What are the secrets to growing my business and increasing my revenues strategically?" is one of the most common questions that I'm asked most often by start-up and emerging entrepreneurs. The key here is strategically. There are thousands, perhaps millions, of possible ways to build your business and increase your sales."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Fifty Percent Solution: One Religion's Global Impact on Entrepreneurial Women and How to Fix it
By Bettina Langerfeldt
"Although it has certainly become more common to see women launch their own companies, statistics clearly show that the creativity and entrepreneurial potential of women is a largely underexploited source of economic growth worldwide. This tendency for women to shrink from business and leadership opportunities is even more evident in Christian circles. In my opinion, this stems from a fundamental misunderstanding of scripture and what it teaches about women and how scripture says God sees them. It's well past time to set the record straight."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Curing the Temporary Dis-Ease of "Too Busy:" Strategies for Everyday Sanity
By Flip Brown
"How often do you hear or read these phrases? 'Sorry, I didn't get back to you – I've been so busy' or 'Things are just crazy busy at work.' This word 'busy' has become almost meaningless on one hand, and a catch-all excuse for not being truly present and engaged on the other. So how do we break out of this pattern? [...] Some would say this is modern life. It's just the way it is. Might as well learn to deal with it because the pace is out of your control. Besides, want to continue to receive a paycheck, right? I completely and sweetly disagree. There are ways to work from a sense of grounded being, of using the awareness of the moment to truly be in the moment, and to be fully engaged without being 'swept along' more often than not."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Change How You Change: 7 Insights for Faster Positive Habit Formation
By M.J. Ryan
"I'd been reading about a Tibetan Buddhist mind training technique called Lojong, or slogan practice, a set of fifty-nine one line aphorisms you recite as mental antidotes to undesired mental habits. Hmm, I thought, I wonder if his kind of practice could be useful for my clients. But I found the slogans so obscure that I didn't think they could be applied, so I abandoned the idea. Apparently the concept was still rolling around in my head when one day I was working with a bust executive who was trying to learn how to get great performance from his employees without micromanaging. I was yammering on and he looked at me and said. 'I'm busy. I need it boiled down to something simple I can remember.' Without thinking, I replied, 'I'm going to give you a slogan. Every time you talk to an employee, say to yourself: Give what and why, not how. And so he did"
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Necessity of Speed
By Jack Zenger, Joseph Folkman
"Life for a manager inside an organization has an unrelenting pace, with very few occasions when there is uninterrupted time. As a result, relationship building and development opportunities may fall by the wayside or become superficial due to the enormity of managerial time constraints. [...] The hectic pace alone increases the workload. Added to that, however, is the need to be a good collaborator and team player. The need for frequent interactions with others layers on additional tasks. And being a good boss means that people must have access to you. No, it is not all right to lock the office door to get all of your work done. Your influence is directly proportional to the quality and frequency of the connections you make through the day. So what can you do?"
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Blog / ChangeThis
Failure Drives Success
By Dr. Stan Beecham
"There is no success without failure. Success is what you do after you fail. The people in my life who have become great successes have also suffered through quite a few failures. Those who avoid failure or try to help others avoid failure are really just impeding their progress. [...] Failure itself is not a bad thing, but repeating the same mistake over and over is a tragedy. There is rarely a time in life when one cannot recover from failure. However, having consecutive failures can be unrecoverable. One of the reasons people have consecutive failures is that they are unable to see the value of or learn from the lesson of the first failed attempt."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Disrupt Yourself! Create the World You Want with Liminal Thinking.
By Dave Gray
"People talk a lot about disruption these days. Leaders in large organizations fear that rapidly-emerging competitors will disrupt them and make them irrelevant. Netflix has disrupted Blockbuster. Uber has disrupted the taxi industry. AirBnB has disrupted hospitality. Brexit disrupted an entire system of government—in one day, with one vote. Who's next? In an era where change has become the norm, we spend a lot of time worrying about how to avoid being disrupted by others. We'd be more successful if we learned how to disrupt ourselves. What if I told you the number one reason companies go out of business is that their senior leaders don't know how to listen? That they are not paying attention? That they are completely blind to disruptive new businesses that are staring them right in the face?"
Categories: changethis
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Blog / ChangeThis
In Defense of the Gray Area
By Phillip Barlag
"For countless cultural reasons, Americans have long associated the phrase with defeat. Yet, 'I don't know' is not an end, but a beginning. It is not a failure but an opportunity. 'I don't know' is a launch pad for deeper investigation. [...] Yes or no not only creates a false interpretation of historical or contemporary issues, it can also be dangerous. Isaac Asimov said violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. That refuge is frequently guarded by unyielding monolithic absolutes."
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Blog / ChangeThis
The Five Keys to Being Fiercely You
By Jackie Huba
"When was the last time you did something that astounded those around you, that amazed yourself, that was outside of your comfort zone? Has it been a while? Was it in your childhood, or at college? If it was recent, did you need the help of a drink or two to muster up that courage? That's pretty common. But when was the last time you felt intimidated, insecure, afraid to do something because it might be wrong? Or when was the last time you watched someone else do something bold and you thought, 'That's amazing! But I could never do that?' Unfortunately, that's pretty common too. Why? Fear. We often hold ourselves back from our true potential because of all kinds of fears—fear of failing, fear of rejection, fear of being laughed at, and even the fear of being our most glorious self."
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Blog / ChangeThis
Wake Up, Heretics! We Need You
By Cort Dial
"Today's corporate culture is leadership-starved. Our leadership vacuum is somewhat ironic, given that sometimes it seems like all we talk about is leaders—what makes them strong or weak, successes or failures. Skim your favorite business publications, and you'll find think piece after advice column after scientific study outlining how to lead and why it matters. Many of the pointers are good: servant leadership is indeed worthwhile, and empowering your employees is a key to peak performance. But those strategies alone are not the path to the kind of groundbreaking leadership we not only want, but desperately need. The climb to taking charge of changing the world is only scalable via bareknuckle, boldfaced heresy. To put another way: we need more than just leaders in the workforce. We need heroes––and the greatest heroes have always begun their journeys as heretics."
Categories: changethis