Our leisure

In our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.
Ovid

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What Smart People

Keep a perspective on the reality of your performance. From What Smart People Do When Dumb Things Happen At Work by Charles E. Watson (Career Press; $15.99): "The next time you contemplate an important action, don't ask yourself "Will it be praised?' Instead, ask "Should it be praised?' No amount of favorable responses to the former can justify a negative answer to the latter."
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The Working Life

Work is not what it used to be. Neither is play. From The Working Life by Joanne B. Ciulla (Times Business; $25): "Economist Juliet Schor shows how work has increased over the past 20 years as vacation time shrinks. The average employed person in America worked 163 hours more in 1987 than in 1969. Women average 305 more hours of work than in 1969. Free time fell 40% since 1973 from 26 hours a week to under 17 hours."
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Blade Runner

From the movie Blade Runner by Ridley Scott as Batty is dying, he talks about the nature of experience: "I've seen things...seen things you little people wouldn't believe... Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion bright as magnesium...I rode on the back decks of a blinker and watched c-beams glitter in the dark near the Tanhauser Gate. All those moments...they'll be gone...like tears in rain."

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Do not be a joke teller

Don’t write a speech, memorize it and tell jokes. Do not be a joke teller, says Jessica Selasky, speech instructor and sales force advisor: “What you should do is be natural, be prepared and be enthusiastic. If you say big, your hands go to big.”
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The Working Life

How do you define tasks at your company? The Working Life by Joanne B. Ciulla (Times; $25) "While labor implies exertion, toil denotes continuous and exhausting labor and drudgery refers to work that we dislike. Compared to words like labor and toil, the word job sounds almost cheerful."
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Total Exposure

Choose wisely the person to respond to reporters, advises Hirschfeld Carlson in Total Exposure (AMACOM), particularly when your company is facing a crisis. Never simply respond to questions. Instead, shape the dialogue: “If your company is under fire, it is important to have someone state your case." Don’t delegate, either: “When an influential publication calls, it's the chief executive who should answer."
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Homer Simpson

Trying is the first step towards failure.
Homer Simpson
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Never Wrestle with a Pig

Inject info about your character into your resume, says Mark H. McCormack, author of Never Wrestle with a Pig (Penguin): “If I wanted an employer to know I saved my best friend from drowning, I’d list that friend as a reference. If I wanted an employer to know of my voluntarism at the soup kitchen, I’d list the kitchen’s director. There’s nothing sly about this, not if it helps worthy people shine a light on their true achievements.”

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Three sides of the work triangle

In most companies, performance, learning and enjoyment are “three sides of the work triangle,” suggests W. Timothy Gallwey in The Inner Game of Work (Random House): "When any are ignored, performance will suffer. When it does, management feels threatened and pushes harder for performance. Learning and enjoyment diminish further. A cycle ensues that prevents performance from reaching its potential."
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HGTV

Kenneth W. Lowe wanted to create his 24-hour network on the home for the E.W. Scripps Co. and wanted to do it while Scripps’s bosses were losing nearly $1 million a month in a brutal newspaper war in Denver. A reluctant board agreed. Payback for this network gamble? Within a decade of the launch of HGTV and Scripps Networks: $2 billion in revenues, $700 million in profit
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Eustress

Stress is not necessarily a bad thing, says Warren Farrell in Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap – And What Women Can Do About It (AMACOM) as long as it is eustress - not distress. When stress is self-affirming, health benefits result: “If your career makes you proud of yourself and excites you after hours, chances are it is creating eustress – and eustress strengthens the immune system.”
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JTM Food Group

JTM Food Group grew from a family-owned meat market to a food company with $120 million in revenues within a generation. Roots? Founder Jack Maas had seven kids to feed. He had to buy out his brother. He mortgaged his house three times and with nothing to hang his hat on, really, but will and desire - the hope that everybody could pull it off. Every spare dime went back into a new machine, freezer or production line
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Networking Magic

A good listener is a good networker. And in Networking Magic (Adams Media) authors Rick Frishman and Jill Lublin point out a side benefit that accrues to good listeners: “Ironically, when you listen, people will think that you are interesting. They will be flattered because you gave them your attention and showed interest in them. They will consider you a wonderful conversationalist simply for listening to them.”
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Leonardo da Vinci

Author Michael J. Gelb offers a mantra for success in his classic book of lifestyle and business management advice, How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci (Dell). Copy and tape this one to your morning mirror: "I am comfortable with ambiguity. I am attuned to the rhythms of my intuition. I thrive with change. I see the humor in life every day. I have a tendency to jump to conclusions. I trust my gut."
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