4 Simple Words That Have A Powerful Impact On Your Career

No matter how hard they can be to say, four simple words, used correctly and with the right intent, can make a powerful impact on your profession, your life... and especially on other people.

Here's how. When you need help, just say these four words:

"Can you help me?"

And then pause for a moment. Don't say anything else.

Here's why.

We're not kids anymore. We're adults. We're smart, experienced, and savvy. We've accomplished things. We've earned our place in the world.

So when we ask for help we also tend to unconsciously add image enhancers. For example, if I need help with a presentation I might go to someone and say, "I'm giving a TED Talk next week and my slides need a few formatting tweaks."

The problem is that wording frames and signals my "importance" and ensure my ego is protected. Okay, I may need a little assistance with a trivial little thing like a PowerPoint layout, but still: I am giving a TED Talk. I have important stuff to say. I am the big dog in this particular hunt.

Plus I haven't really asked, I've stated. (When you're in charge and accustomed to directing others, turning a request into a directive is a really easy habit to fall into.)

Here's a better way:

1. When you need help — no matter the kind of help you need or the person you need it from — take the bass out of your voice and the stiffness out of your spine and the captain out of your industry and simply say, with sincerity and humility, "Can you help me?"

I guarantee the other person will say, "Sure," or, "I can try," or, "What do you need?" No one will never say "No," even to a stranger. Why?

Simple: "Can you help me?" speaks powerfully to our instinctive desire to help other people. We all want to help. We can't help wanting to help.

2. Then make sure you don't frame your request. Don't try to protect your ego. Don't imply you place yourself above the other person. Don't make your request too specific. And don't say what you need.

Instead, say what you can't do. Say, "I'm awful at PowerPoint and these slides look terrible." Say, "We absolutely have to ship this order by Tuesday and I have no idea how to make that happen." Say, "I'm lost and I can't find my hotel."

When you ask that way, several powerful things immediately happen... for the person you're asking:

One, you instantly convey respect. Without actually saying it, you've said, "You know more than I do." You've said, "You can do something I can't." You've said, "You have experience (or talents or something) that I don't have."

What you've said is, "I respect you." That level of regard is incredibly powerful — and empowering.

Two, you instantly convey trust. You show vulnerability and admit to weakness.

What you've said is, "I trust you." That level of faith is incredibly powerful — and empowering.

Three, you instantly convey you're willing to listen. You haven't tried to say exactly how people should help you. You give them the freedom to decide.

What you've said is, "You don't need to tell me what you think I want to hear. Please tell me what you think I should do." That level of freedom is incredibly powerful — and empowering.

By showing you respect and trust other people, and by giving them the latitude to freely share their expertise or knowledge, you don't just get the help you think you want.

You might also get the help you really need.

And even though you might think asking for help places a burden on other people, it doesn't. You make it easier for others to ask you for help when they need it because you've shown it's okay to express vulnerability, to admit a weakness, and to accept you need their help.

And more importantly they gain the true sense of satisfaction and pride that comes from being shown the respect and trust we all deserve but so seldom receive.

And afterwards you get to say two more incredibly powerful words:

"Thank you."

And then everyone wins — which is how it should always be.

From Business Insider

A guide to perfect social media posts

People like to say there's no such thing as perfect, but at the rate customers' attention spans are decreasing, social media managers can't risk posting updates that aren't close to perfection.

What does a perfect social media post look like?

An infographic from My Clever Agency has the answer. It explains in detail what strong, engaging and effective social media posts should include. While we've gone over what good Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+ posts look like, this infographic has been updated to include YouTube, Instagram, Vine and Tumblr.

Are you ready to achieve perfection? Here are a few tips as to how:

YouTube:

• Carefully name your files. You want your videos to be searchable, so when you upload a video, make sure the file name includes strong keywords, not just "Movie1.mp4."
• Include a call to action. What do you want viewers to do after they watch your video? Give them instructions in the description section, and include a link to your website.

Instagram:

• Use captions. Add captions to your photos to grab followers' attention and prompt discussions.
• Follow basic photography rules. The graphic recommends following the rule of thirds, which says the subject of your photo should only take up two-thirds of the shot. This will make your photos more visually appealing.

Vine:

• Be still. Invest in a tripod to prevent your video from looking shaky. You don't want to make fans nauseous.
• Master the infinite loop. The goal is to create a video that will seamlessly loop over and over. Try to make your final scene blend smoothly into the first one.

Check out the full graphic for the rest of the tips: 

From PR Daily

The 6 PR Tips Every Startup Should Employ

Today there are more than 30 startups in the United States, Europe and China that are valued at $1 billion or more and that number is expected to increase. With 100 million startups opening up each year and 472 million entrepreneurs worldwide, competition to become the next big thing is brutal.

What does this mean for startups looking to establish their brand, get press coverage and gain recognition? The truth is, in the beginning it is tough. You will find it challenging to cut through all the competitive noise to establish your brand and get the media to pay attention to your company. However, there are strategies you can employ to establish yourself as a startup that cannot be ignored.

Here are six PR tips every startup should use to help gain a competitive advantage.

1. Be ready. First and foremost, you need to be prepared. If your product is not the best version of itself, you won’t get any good product reviews, no reporter will cover you and you will most likely experience backlash and negative press. And believe us, there is such thing as bad press. So, make sure you are completely ready before employing any PR strategies.

2. Establish your identity. Before you can tell the world who you are, make sure you know how to answer that question. To establish your identity, ask yourself: What are our values? What exactly is our company culture? What makes us different from our competitors? Are we doing something that no one else is doing? What makes us uniquely us? It’s important to define those answers and incorporate your identity, values and culture in every aspect of your startup. If you aren’t sure, ask those around you for help. Make a spreadsheet of the answers and rate which responses are the same. If there are too many different answers there is an issue. Fix it before telling your story.

3. Share your story. Learning to communicate a great story is an integral part of PR. After you’ve established your identity, you need to work on creating a narrative, or your startups story. If you want to stand out in the eyes of the press, investors and your target demographic, you must have a great story to share about who you are and how you got started. It will not only help you connect to your audience, but it will also make it hard for them to forget you. Incorporate this narrative in social media, in your messaging, during interviews and any other opportunity to talk about your startup. And a big key factor, use your company name in each narrative. Many people talk in superlatives instead of facts. Every sentence shared should be a soundbyte for media.

4. Make sure there is CEO visibility. Your CEO or founder is your mouthpiece that plays an instrumental role in shaping your company’s image, brand and culture. Therefore he or she needs to be accessible and visible to the public. This means they must have a presence on social media, a positive relationship with the press and the ability to share your story flawlessly. Not only will their visibility create credibility and leadership in your industry, but it will also get them in front of the right people to help expand the business.

5.Don’t ignore social media. Establishing your brand and staying above the fray is all encompassing, time consuming and a lot of hard work. However, don’t forget the importance of creating a social-media strategy that represents your brand, your values and culture. In fact, you need to create an engaging social-media plan from the beginning to grow your presence. A good execution strategy for social media will allow you to establish your identity and credibility in your industry, share your story and position your CEO as a thought leader and pioneer. You need to dedicate time to directly engage with your followers, answer questions, share information and include them in the conversation.

6. Hire if you need help. Launching a startup is difficult and implementing strong PR strategies when you are just getting your foot off the ground can be challenging. The good news is you don’t have to do it alone, you can hire a professional. That said, you need to make sure they are a great match for your business and are excited about your plans. A good PR firm will help you establish a strong identity, effectively communicate your story to the right people, create thought leadership opportunities for your CEO and establish an engaging social-media program. They will build your brand, help you stand out, increase your visibility and get you in front of decision makers.

From Entrepreneur

New Study Dismantles Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 Hour Rule

The 10,000 Hour Rule — closely associated with pop psych writer Malcolm Gladwell — may not be much of a rule at all.

The principle holds that 10,000 hours of "deliberate practice" are needed to become world-class in any field.

When psychologists talk about deliberate practice, they mean practicing in a way that pushes your skill set as much as possible.

In "Outliers," Gladwell contends that early access to getting 10,000 hours of practice allowed the Beatles to become the greatest band in history (thanks to playing all-night shows in Hamburg) and Bill Gates to become one of the richest dudes around (thanks to using a computer since his teen years). 

But a new Princeton study tears that theory down. In a meta-analysis of 88 studies on deliberate practice, the researchers found that practice accounted for just a 12% difference in performance in various domains. 

What's really surprising is how much it depends on the domain: 

• In games, practice made for a 26% difference
• In music, it was a 21% difference
• In sports, an 18% difference
• In education, a 4% difference
• In professions, just a 1% difference

The best explanation of the domain dependency is probably found in Frans Johansson's book "The Click Moment."

In it, Johansson argues that deliberate practice is only a predictor of success in fields that have super stable structures. For example, in tennis, chess, and classical music, the rules never change, so you can study up to become the best. 

But in less stable fields, like entrepreneurship and rock and roll, rules can go out the window:

• Richard Branson started in the the record business but quickly branched out into fields well beyond music: Virgin Group has 400 companies and is launching people into space.
• Then there's a band like the Sex Pistols, who took the world by storm even though Sid Vicious could barely play his bass.

So mastery is more than a matter of practice. 

"There is no doubt that deliberate practice is important, from both a statistical and a theoretical perspective. It is just less important than has been argued," the study's lead author, Brooke Macnamara, said in a statement. "For scientists, the important question now is, what else matters?"

From Entrepreneur

8 Steps to Having Wildly Productive Mornings

You’ll wake up for about 25,000 mornings in your adult life, give or take a few.

According to a report from the World Health Organization, the average life expectancy in the United States is 79 years old. Most people in wealthy nations are hovering around the 80–year mark. Women in Japan are the highest, with an average life expectancy of 86 years.

If we use these average life expectancy numbers and assume that your adult life starts at 18 years old, then you’ve got about 68 years as an adult. (86 – 18 = 68) Perhaps a little less on average. A little more if you’re lucky.

(68 years as an adult) x (365 days each year) = 24,820 days.

Once I realized this, I started thinking about how I could develop a better morning routine. I still have a lot to learn, but here are some strategies that you can use to get the most out of your 25,000 mornings.

Here are eight strategies that I’ve found to be most effective for getting the most out of my morning:

1. Manage your energy, not your time.

If you take a moment to think about it, you’ll probably realize that you are better at doing certain tasks at certain times. For example, my creative energy is highest in the morning, so that’s when I do my writing each day.

By comparison, I block out my afternoons for interviews, phone calls, and emails. I don’t need my creative energy to be high for those tasks, so that’s the best time for me to get them done. And I tend to have my best workouts in the late afternoon or early evening, so that’s when I head to the gym.

What type of energy do you have in the morning? What task is that energy best suited for?

2. Prepare the night before.

I don’t do this nearly as often as I should, but if you only do one thing each day then spend a few minutes each night organizing your to–do list for tomorrow. When I do it right, I’ll outline the article I’m going to write the next day and develop a short list of the most important items for me to accomplish. It takes 10 minutes that night and saves 3 hours the next day.

3. Don’t open email until noon.

Sounds simple. Nobody does it. It took me awhile to get over the urge to open my inbox, but eventually I realized that everything can wait a few hours. Nobody is going to email you about a true emergency (a death in the family, etc.), so leave your email alone for the first few hours of each day. Use the morning to do what’s important rather than responding to what is “urgent.”

4. Turn your phone off and leave it in another room.

Or on your colleagues desk. Or at the very least, put it somewhere that is out of sight. This eliminates the urge to check text messages, Facebook, Twitter, and so on. This simple strategy eliminates the likelihood of slipping into half–work where you waste time dividing your attention among meaningless tasks.

5. Work in a cool place. 

Have you ever noticed how you feel groggy and sluggish in a hot room? Turning the temperature down or moving to a cooler place is an easy way to focus your mind and body. 

6. Sit up or stand up. 

Your mind needs oxygen to work properly. Your lungs need to be able to expand and contract to fill your body with oxygen. That sounds simple enough, but here’s the problem: most people sit hunched over while staring at a screen and typing.

When you sit hunched over, your chest is in a collapsed position and your diaphragm is pressing against the bottom of your lungs, which hinders your ability to breathe easily and deeply. Sit up straight or stand up and you’ll find that you can breathe easier and more fully. As a result, your brain will get more oxygen and you’ll be able to concentrate better.

(Small tip: When sitting, I usually place a pillow in the small of my back. This prevents my lower back from rounding, which keeps me more upright.)

7. Eat as a reward for working hard. 

I practice intermittent fasting, which means that I eat my first meal around noon each day. I’ve been doing this for almost two years. 

But health is just one piece of the puzzle. I also fast because it allows me to get more out of my day. Take a moment to think about how much time people spend each day thinking, planning, and consuming food. By adopting intermittent fasting, I don’t waste an hour each morning figuring out what to eat for breakfast, cooking it, and cleaning up. Instead, I use my morning to work on things that are important to me. Then, I eat good food and big meals as a reward for working hard.

8. Develop a “pre–game routine” to start your day.

My morning routine starts by pouring a cold glass of water. Some people kick off their day with ten minutes of meditation. Similarly, you should have a sequence that starts your morning ritual. This tiny routine signals to your brain that it’s time to get into work mode or exercise mode or whatever mode you need to be in to accomplish your task. Additionally, a pre–game routine helps you overcome a lack of motivation and get things done even when you don’t feel like it.

The Power of a Morning Routine

Just as it’s rare for anyone to experience overnight success, it’s also rare for our lives crumble to pieces in an instant. Most unproductive or unhealthy behaviors are the result of slow, gradual choices that add up to bad habits. A wasted morning here. An unproductive morning there.

The good news is that exceptional results are also the result of consistent daily choices. Nowhere is this more true than with your morning routine. The way you start your day is often the way that you finish it.

Take, for example, Jack LaLanne. He woke up each day at 4am and spent the first 90 minutes lifting weights. Then, he went for a swim or a run for the next 30 minutes. For more than 60 years, he spent each morning doing this routine. In addition to being one of the most influential people in fitness in the last 100 years, LaLanne also lived to the ripe old age of 96.

This is no coincidence. What you do each morning is an indicator of how you approach your entire day. It’s the choices that we repeatedly make that determine the life we live, the health we enjoy, and the work we create.

You’ve got 25,000 mornings. What will you do with each one?

From Entrepreneur

One Word Successful Entrepreneurs Never Use

There's a word successful entrepreneurs never use--and you should never use it, either.

In 1991, I was working at a small lumber retailer in St. Paul as a lowly graphic designer. Each day, I'd fire up an old clunky Mac and use some archaic page layout program that doesn't exist anymore, type up ad copy directly on the page, and arrange a few graphics. It was a mundane job, but I was part of a small team that produced all of the marketing material for the retail stores, and our services were in high demand.

I was hired right out of college at a measly salary of only $19,000 per year. Usually, when my paycheck arrived at the office, I'd stare at it and wonder if they could add a few more digits. I didn't realize the company was in serious trouble at the time, but eventually they started firing people left and right (i.e., first the person on my left, then the person on my right). Even my boss and his boss were fired. I was left to run the department by myself, but eventually, the entire corporate office closed. When I came home to tell my wife about getting canned, she told me to buck up and start looking for a new job.

I had other ideas. A friend at the lumber company was thinking of starting a new company. He called and said he needed a designer. So, we rented a dingy office space in the back of an old retail store and added our phone number to the directory. With high hopes, we started meeting with potential clients, made a logo, and bought a few desks. Then the company went belly up after only one month. Our sales guy wasn't that interested in doing his job, we didn't have a clue about how to manage a business, and we were never that hungry to build the company. But I think there was a more serious problem.

We used the word failure.

I remember the conversations quite vividly, mostly because we didn't have anything else to talk about at the time. The company had "failed" to reach its full potential. We had "failed" to attract any new customers. We had "failed" to market our services in the industry. We accepted that we had no other choice but to close the company.

There was a sense, after only a week or two, that failure was an option. It was as though we had all bought a T-shirt that had the word failure printed in bold letters with an arrow pointing up. We accepted our demise. Instead of resolving some of those early problems--hiring a new salesperson, taking a night class in business management, digging deeper into our personal motivations, and setting long-term goals--we pulled the plug.

Is failure an option for you? If you are starting a company right now, realize that there is one word that successful entrepreneurs never use. It is just not in their dictionary. The word failure is as foreign to those who start a successful company as any other word.

Fortunately, I ended up getting a job at another startup, a company that still exists today. I moved up through the ranks in management and found my calling as a leader of writing and design teams. Those years were a boon for me: I learned how to manage large groups of people, push projects forward from an early concept phase until completion, and resolve problems without letting them fester for too long. Yet in 2001, I was fired again after the 9/11 attacks, because that industry became worried about growth potential. This time, I was much higher up on the pay scale. Amazingly, even at this stage in my working life, I was still tempted to use the word failure and crawl into a ditch.

But it never happened. I had stopped using the word.

Sure, my wife still told me to buck up, but this time, I actually did buck up. I've been working nonstop as a professional writer ever since. I never accepted getting kicked out of the corporate world as failure. In fact, I took that experience of being fired as an opportunity and turned it into success. The word failure never reached my lips.

From Inc.

7 Hard Lessons Everyone Needs To Learn About Success

It seems logical that if you go to a great school, you work hard, and you stay positive, you'll become successful.

But the truth is that life is a whole lot more complicated than that.

Taking a well-tread path to success doesn't mean you'll have an amazing career, and even if you're lucky enough to have one, it doesn't guarantee you'll be happy.

On Quora, users addressed the question: "What is the most difficult thing to learn and accept about life?"

We've collected some of the best answers that concern the pursuit of money and status. Here are some hard lessons that everyone needs to learn about success:

1. The universe doesn't care if you succeed or fail.

When you're on top of your game, it can seem like the world is on your side; when you're at your worst, it can seem like the world is out to get you. The truth, says Quora user Tom Wills, is that neither is true. You're responsible for yourself.

2. The biggest obstacle to success is often yourself.

And once you recognize that you're not the center of the universe, Wills adds, you may realize that the main thing holding you back is your own behavior. You're probably guilty of this if you can always find reasons for why you got fired from your job, why your startup fell apart, etc.

The user Manas J. Saloi quoted author J.K. Rowling, who struggled with poverty and personal setbacks before becoming a famous writer and millionaire, on this point: "There is an [expiration] date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you."

3. You're not owed anything.

Wills says that he also realized that nobody owes him anything. In terms of advancing in your career, it's advisable that you do whatever you can to treat people ethically and help out your coworkers. This can build your professional network and give you a good reputation, but it certainly does not guarantee that your good deeds will always be returned.

4. Luck plays a huge role in success.

Catching a big break that leads to landing your dream job, for example, often depends on being in the right place at the right time. All you can do is foster professional relationships and develop your skills to increase your odds of getting lucky.

"People are afraid to face how great a part of life is dependent on luck. It's scary to think so much is out of one's control," user Aditya Gupta writes.

5. Everything you've worked for can disappear in an instant.

When your career goes well and you make enough money to buy a house and put your kids through college, you should enjoy it. Quora user Ankit Sharma writes that what you have today isn't necessarily yours forever. That's why it's important to live in the present, and be grateful for your accomplishments.

6. You can do, say, and think all the "right" things and still not succeed.

Getting a degree from an elite university and putting in countless overtime hours does not mean that you will be adequately rewarded for your hard work, says user Jon Mixon. And even if they do lead you to influence and money, he says, you can still be perceived as a failure.

7. You define what "success" means.

A big paycheck and the respect of your coworkers are great things to have, but there's a danger to narrowing your definition of success down to them, argues Mixon, because they mean nothing to your happiness or self-fulfillment if you destroy relationships along the way.

"It is difficult for most people to accept the fact that they are only as happy as they allow themselves to be," says user Gary Stein.

From Business Insider