Simon Sinek's Top 10 Rules For Success (@simonsinek)

Very inspiring and truthful. If your getting in the way of your own success this is a great video!

Richard Branson: Advice for Entrepreneurs

Advice from one of the greats! Might be just you needed to hear before you start making those new year resolutions!

What Is Emotional Intelligence and Why Does It Matter?

Most people agree that having a strong work ethic, dedication and skill makes a successful employee. However, a new study finds that high emotional intelligence also plays a key role in career success.

In an article published in the Journal of Vocational Behaviour, Joseph C. Rode, professor of management at Miami University of Ohio, and his co-authors found emotional intelligence is linked to bigger salaries and higher job satisfaction.

While high emotional intelligence alone won't make you successful, it will probably make you happier and more successful in your career. Business News Daily talked to Rode and other experts about what emotional intelligence is and how you can use it to advance your career.

What is emotional intelligence?

According to Liz Bentley, founder of Liz Bentley Associates, "emotional intelligence in its simplest form is our ability to get along with people." Bentley said people with high emotional intelligence have self-awareness and social awareness, and can manage themselves and others.

Similarly, Rode describes emotional intelligence as the ability to recognize and manage emotional information.

"It represents the intersection of emotions and general mental ability – sometimes referred to as IQ," he said. "It can also be thought of as the extent to which one actively thinks about emotion, or uses emotions as important information in a manner similar to other information such as facts and opinions."

Bentley added that people with high emotional intelligence typically drive good outcomes and results, align people with the mission, hold people accountable, coach their subordinates and colleagues when they're stuck, and create a collaborative and cohesive work environment.

Emotional intelligence and its associated people skills are important because people are an important part of any business.

 "People are our most valuable and critical commodity," Bentley told Business News Daily. "We are all in the people business – people are our bosses, subordinates, team members, colleagues, clients, vendors and consumers."

Emotions, said Rode, are important pieces of information that must be considered in decision-making – even if that means learning to tune them out.

"While emotional intelligence includes the ability to use emotions to increase motivation and focus, it also includes the ability to detach from very powerful short-term emotions when needed to better focus on the tasks at hand," he said.

Using emotional intelligence to get ahead

Rode's study found that people with high emotional intelligence typically have higher salaries than people who don't. To measure emotional intelligence, Rode and his co-authors required participants to solve multiple emotional problems that had right and wrong answers like an IQ test. For example, participants had to identify emotions in faces or artwork, and identify the best response to different scenarios. Higher emotional intelligence has shown to be related to several measures of leadership effectiveness.

"Following this research, we argued that emotional intelligence should be more relevant to success – and salary – at higher organizational levels, where leadership becomes a relatively more important part of one's job," said Rode.

But what is the connection between high emotional intelligence and high salary? Brad Flowers, partner of boutique branding agency Bullhorn Creative, says this important quality helps you to read the situation and time your request just right.

"The most difficult part of getting a bigger salary is asking for it," Flowers said. "Emotional intelligence – combined with a smart case – equips you with the tools to recognize the perfect moment to ask, how to ask appropriate for your audience, and how to deal with any answer you receive."

Jennifer Hancock, founder of Humanist Learning Systems, said people with emotional intelligence also typically have high salaries because they tend to be more productive.

"People who are good at working with other people and getting other people to work with them tend to get more work done," she told Business News Daily. "They have good reputations since people like working with them."

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Saige Driver

Saige Driver graduated from Ball State University in 2015 with a degree in journalism. She started her career at a radio station in Indiana, and is currently a B2B staff writer at Business News Daily. She loves reading and her beagle mix, Millie. Reach her by email, or follow her on Twitter.

DEALING WITH ‘DIFFICULT’ PEOPLE AT WORK

We’ve all encountered ‘difficult’ people in the workplace. Whether it’s a boss, a colleague or a subordinate, it’s challenging working in close quarters with someone whose personality or approach to work doesn’t always gel with our own and who pushes our buttons.

You know who I’m talking about – the sort of person who rarely listens to others’ opinions but is always pushing their agenda, who doesn’t pitch in but still expects to get their own way, and who is loud, aggressive,discourteous or constantly negative

The key to managing difficult personalities is to become familiar with common behaviours and personality types. Once you understand why people act in a certain way, you can better understand how to work with them. High performing organisations readily embrace a culture of giving and receiving feedback – after all, it can take a village to onboard and develop teams, and a gentle reminder of expected behaviour never goes astray. But ultimately, you can’t change others, only how you deal with them, which is vital to ensure a challenging colleague doesn’t impact how you feel about your job.

There are four common behaviours we see in the workplace:

1. Dominant-controlling

D-C personalities can be fast-acting, outgoing, bold and assertive. They like challenges but can get impatient, aggressive, demanding, challenging and power hungry. They can be bullies and insensitive to others’ feelings. While D-Cs can be helpful when you need to make a tough decision, they can be motivated by getting people to do what they want, their way, which can make them difficult to work with and, when challenged – even mildly – they find it hard to manage their anger and aggression.

Working with them:

It’s hard to work with Dominant-Controlling personalities. They continually make demands and dictate orders. It often feels demeaning and you can fear them, have an urge to fight them or dislike yourself for giving in to them. But if you approach them in the right way, things can work out.

To work best with a dominant-controlling person, you need to think like one. Get to the point and stick to the topic – avoid small-talk or vague expressions. Be brief, direct and respectful, back up your position with evidence and refuse to bend.

2. Analytical-obsessive

These personalities are methodical, logical and detail-oriented. They like perfection but their focus on doing things the right way can come across as nit-picky. A-Os take pride in high standards and are systematic in their approach to problems and projects. These are not bad qualities but they can be inflexible, and stand in the way of innovation. When they feel criticised, they avoid the issue, demonstrating their distaste of confrontation and argument.

Working with them:

There is a great need for people like these in business, but when you’re trying something new you need to approach them with caution. Firstly, acknowledge their work and their concerns without being critical or argumentative. Address their apprehensions then use logical language to map the path forward.

3. Expressive-impulsive

Expressive-impulsive people are enthusiastic, people-oriented, optimistic and social but can also be self-centred, reactive and charged up, seen as highly strung and pushy. They rarely think of consequences and refuse to take responsibility when things go wrong.

Wanting to be recognised for their work is a hallmark of E-I personality types but they concentrate solely on their own opinions and the big picture, and ignore inconvenient details.

Working with them:

E-Is bring creativity and energy but are not always the best listeners and don’t like being confined or controlled. They can be hard to work with sometimes but there are strategies you can use. Rather than trying to control them, make an effort to build a rapport. Let them know you appreciate their energy and ideas then give them tasks that require them to organise their ideas – challenging them to plan properly will be necessary to get them to focus.

4. Skeptical-negative

The S-N’s glass is always half empty, which can wear colleagues down because their pessimistic, suspicious nature promotes poor morale in the workplace. Not only is it annoying when someone is always complaining, but worst of all their negative attitude impacts other people. They think nothing of bad mouthing decisions and blame factors other than themselves for the ills of the world.

Working with them:

When you have to work with consistently negative people it’s good to have some strategies so you can deal with it head on. Firstly, support them by hearing them but don’t buy into their negative behaviour. Focus on how they might do things differently to prevent them drifting into negativity.

The goal of adapting your behaviour to different situations is not to change who you are, but to help you recognise your own role in difficult interactions.  You can’t make other people less difficult so your challenge every day is to deal more effectively with the difficult people you meet. Next time you’re involved in a touchy interaction with a difficult colleague, take a moment before you say anything. Consider their approximate personality type and formulate an appropriate response without letting emotions get the better of you.

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About the author

Kath Greenhough is the Senior Manager of Customer Success Organisation at e-learning provider Skillsoft (Asia pacific).

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5 Steps To Becoming The Most Productive You In 2018

1. Clarify Your Goals

As were coming into the new year take some time over the next few weeks to sit down and set your goals. Set your own personal goals, your business goals, and your health and fitness goals. Create both long and short term goals.

Not only do you need to identify your goals but you also need to make sure that they are realistic and achievable. Losing 10 pounds and finally getting those abs you’ve always wanted is a great and attainable goal but if you want it by tomorrow it is unfortunately unrealistic and unachievable. This is why you must attach a time frame to every goal you set. Make the time frame realistic but also challenging. Allow it to create a certain level of urgency. If there isn’t a clear and concise time frame the goal is often procrastinated. To avoid this, set your goals and set a time frame in which you would like to achieve your goals. Identify and predict any setback or challenge you may face. Make your goals attainable and absolutely crush them! Let’s make 2018 YOUR year!

2. Annihilate Excuses And Distractions And Work In Laser Focus

First, identify any challenge, setback, or distraction you may encounter while reaching your goal. Identify why it has the power to set you back and defeat you. How bad do you want your goal? Is this challenge significant enough to stop you? Will you let it stop you? Are you allowing yourself to use this challenge as an excuse to not accomplish your most important goals in life? Second, create a strategy that empowers you and pushes you through the pain of the challenge into the pleasure of the achievement.

Work in laser focus. Focus on the one thing each day, week and month that will get you closer to your goal. Become a master at focusing on your most important tasks at all times. What needs to get done immediately? When you find yourself getting distracted consider asking yourself if the action you are currently doing serves you? Is it pulling you towards your goal or pushing you away from it? If you find that, like many, you struggle with this or need some extra resources in this area, check out the book The One Thing by Gary Keller.

3. Know Yourself

Know yourself and how your operate. What makes you excited about the work you're doing? What aspects are you not so excited about? What time of day do you do your best work? Early in the morning or late at night? Do you work better before or after a workout? What environments allow you to thrive? What environments compromise your work?

Figure out all the answers to these questions and then some. Once you do this give yourself a 90 minute block of extreme focus. Extreme focus means no distractions like your phone, your coworker, your business partner, your email and everything else that has the potential to distract you. Dedicate those 90 minutes to complete whatever challenging task you are determined to get done.

4. Progress Is Power

Often times success is viewed as the direct influencer of happiness and achievement. I have a much different view. I believe that progress is our biggest driving force. Progress and becoming better than you once were creates a certain level of happiness, fuffillment and achievement. To encourage this, come up with some benchmark goals that you can hit along the way to your desired goal. Frequently review and reflect on your goals and progress.  Remind yourself often of how far you have already come, of all the challenges you have already faced. Give yourself credit for the ability to overcome these difficult challenges and continue on this journey to reach your goals. Remind yourself that you are awesome and you can conquer anything! Success is great but progress is the driving force that holds the real power.

5. Become Habitual

If you take away one thing from this entire article it is to become habitual. Find what works for you and triple down on it and do that consistently. By consistently I mean every single day. Create a morning and night time routine that is designed for productivity and success. Optimize the time you have before your day starts and as your day is coming to an end. Optimize this time by creating rituals that propel you towards your goals instead of holding you back. Do something at night that will set you up for success for the next day. Watching an hour of cat videos on Facebook or binge watching an entire season of netflix before bed is not helping you. Instead, try reviewing your day. What worked well and what didn’t serve you? How can you can improve the little things you did today to have a more productive day tomorrow? Ask yourself these questions each night before going to bed and when you wake up in the morning ask yourself how do you want to attack the day? Do you want to attack it with positivity and productiveness? If so, create habits and rituals that encourage and reinforce these positive emotions, actions and overall mental state.

Start and end your days as strong as you possibly can. Do these rituals consistently every single day until this becomes effortless and natural. Become habitual in your productive patterns. Know what works for you and create a morning and night time routine that is optimized for your success. Trust me on this, watch how implementing daily rituals will influence your life in 2018...

Jennifer Cohen , CONTRIBUTOR
I help executives & entrepreneurs boost productivity through wellness.

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3 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills

Good quick starter for anyone who wants to improve there communication let me know your thoughts?

3 Skills That Will Make You A More Successful Entrepreneur

In my previous article, I drew a parallel between the CEOs of Fortune 50 companies and their educational background in science. Being an entrepreneur means being a CEO and a leader more than anything else, and embodying those two qualities is both a science and an art. I believe that harnessing your mathematical skill set will make you an outstandingly better CEO and a leader. The reason for that is because being a CEO involves a vision that can be achieved practically and soundly. In our data-driven world, it involves understanding the relationships between numbers and trends, in order to outsmart your competition and this is where having a mathematical mind gives you an advantage. Here are three ways embodying a mathematical mindset will set you apart.

Faster Decisions -- Seeing The Connectivity of Relationships

Mathematics, more than anything, is a study of relationships and connections. When one studies math, what is really being studied are the connections between various formulae and ways they interweave. Of course, this is natural, because those formulae describe the physical world around us, which is connected. Thus by studying mathematics, our brain is trained to see the world in terms of connections and relationships. Recognizing patterns and seeing loopholes between things, ideas, numbers, and trends is the mindset that mathematicians work in. In entrepreneurship, this is important because if your mind is trained in recognizing connections then you can make faster and better decisions than your competitions and be the first to gain market share. It also gives you leverage to adapt faster if certain problems arise. Speed is important because we all know timing is crucial.

Better Insights -- Leveraging The Power of Data-Driven Trends

As the mathematician, we are trained to look at data and draw conclusions from it. In our data-driven world, a person leaves a digital imprint that can have more than a million unique parameters that store rich information about spending habits, likes, and dislikes, as well as behavioral patterns. As an entrepreneur, in order to make key decisions in this digitalized landscape, you must be very comfortable with using data. And the more comfortable you are with it, the easier it becomes to spot certain trends or problem areas, which leads to a more efficient decision making and insights. Thus, leveraging the mathematical mindset allows you to draw better insights which translate to a better bottom line.

A More Perfected Execution -- Choosing The Best Approach

Decisions predeterminate outcomes. When we make decisions in business, they can have an enormous effect on our bottom line, hopefully in the positive direction. Of course, the definition of a decision implies that there is more than one way of action. Thus the most crucial component of the decision-making process is picking the best outcome. Having a mathematical mindset, one is able to better understand outcomes and their probabilities and picking the outcome that will hedge the best case scenario.

Dr. Anna Powers is an entrepreneur, advisor and an award winning scientist. Her passion is sharing the beauty of science and encouraging women to enter STEM fields.

Anna Powers ,  WOMEN@FORBEs
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Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

4 ways to keep a successful team motivated

You’ve done the hard work and hired an all-star squad. Without your staff, success isn’t an option. So how do you keep them happy and motivated? Here are four things you can try…

Set the tone: If your work ethic is top notch, your employees will notice. Over time, it will do wonders for the culture in your office. Try and keep your office energized by being full of positive energy that your staff can feed off of.

Communicate: Being open and honest with your employees helps them to be open and honest with you and this is great for motivation. Listening is magical. Employees love when they feel like they have a voice and feel valued. And remember to always give positive feedback. When someone is doing something well, let them know it. Don’t underestimate the power of communication.

Socialize: Get to know the personalities of your employees and find out what gets them out of bed every day. Finding a little time each week to bond with your staff can create a strong business relationship. Be friendly and open but make sure it doesn’t get too personal. Providing opportunities for your staff to bond with you and each other will make them more excited to come to work every day.

Recognize: Any time your team does well on a task or project you should let them know. Positive recognition will make your employees feel appreciated and valued and motivate them to have repeated success. Give your employees incentive to succeed by offering bonuses or other rewards that will give them the desire to go above and beyond.

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November 21, 2017 by JOHN PETTIT