Sustainable Ambition Forum - 04.28.22
Hi everyone!
Are you having a hard time focusing? Do you often get distracted from working on your most important work? You aren’t the only one, believe me.
Well, this newsletter is all about taking back control of our time and attention and putting a lid on distraction.
I loved having Dr. Sahar Yousef on the Sustainable Ambition podcast. She is a cognitive neuroscientist and faculty member at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Dr. Yousef researches and teaches busy leaders and their teams how to be more productive and effective at work. Her focus—to help us work smarter, not harder, so we have time for what’s important to us in our lives.
She offers so many smart tips to operate at our best that are totally doable and within our control. One is Dr. Yousef’s mantra, “Reset your default settings.” Meaning—turn off your cell phone alerts. Turn off your Slack channel. Turn off your email. Listen in to the episode, featured below, to learn more, along with all the Dr. Yousef resources I share below.
Another default setting many of us get pulled into is the “busy” of life. Since I’ve been setting an intention to actively resist this and set my own pace, I share a few insights in Episode #52 of the podcast, also featured below.
Finally, I’m highlighting 2 episodes of Oprah’s podcast with Johann Hari where they talk about his new book, “Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again.” Lest you think something is wrong with you, like Dr. Yousef, he shares how our modern world really works against us and offers ideas on what to do.
Here’s to taking back control of our attention and finding our own “sustainable peak performance,” as Dr. Yousef would say, that keeps us operating at our best.
Warmly,
Kathy
Founder of Sustainable Ambition
The Round-Up
Gain focus: Additional smart tips to help you do what you need to do.
Avoid burnout: Why are we getting burnt out? And tips to address. You can even find a link to take a Burnout Risk Index assessment.
Enjoy music: Learn from John Legend and Dr. Yousef about how music can improve your focus and productivity.
Learn when you work best: Nobel Prize winning research identified that we all have a set rhythm that doesn’t get set until our late 20’s and is hard to change. It’s called chronotype (read more here and here). Want to take a test to figure out yours? Becoming Superhuman offers one here for just $10. (Note: I don’t get any affiliate income from sharing.)
Learn directly: Becoming Superhuman is offering a sprint course through Section 4. Check it out if you’re interested in learning directly from Dr. Yousef and her partner and experience their highly popular course. (Again, I get no affiliate income from sharing.)
Don’t blame yourself: Why are we so distracted? These are two good podcast episodes (Episode 1, Episode 2) from Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday with journalist and author Johann Hari. They discuss his new book Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention and How to Think Deeply Again. He talks about the human-made forces that are stealing our focus and how to take back control.
Take a break with beautiful music: NPR Music’s Tiny Desk (home) concerts.
The Sustainable Ambition Podcast - Episode 51
Join me for conversations with experts, authors, and friends on
what it means to live with Sustainable Ambition.
In this conversation with Dr. Yousef, we discuss how our future self can help us make decisions today and for our future, cadencing career possibilities across our lives, how to avoid “reckless ambition!,” and tips to becoming superhuman to get work done in less time and with less stress so you can get back to your life. There are so many smart, practical tips in this conversation that you can implement today, right now!
Find it on Apple Podcast here
Or, listen on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Overcast.
Take Back Control of How You Experience Time
In this episode, I share my personal experience with setting the pace in my life to not fall into the “I’m so busy” frantic narrative that often surrounds us. I offer 5 tips that have helped me create boundaries around how I experience my time.
How do you want to experience time? What pace do you want to set?
Listen on Apple here or on our website here
You can also find the podcast, subscribe, and listen on Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Overcast.
A Challenge:
1. Turn off the notifications on your phone now.
2. Shut down your email and chats during deep thinking time blocks. Create a communication that kindly shares you’ll respond to email and chats at a later set time.
3. Commit to 10-minutes of meditation a day for 30-days.
“It’s about the daily becoming. I want people to get obsessed and feel joy in the becoming process.... It’s a constant daily process and grind, and it’s not for the sake of getting more done. That’s just sole productivity, but productivity really is getting the right things done so that you have more time to actually live your life.”
— Dr. Sahar Yousef
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SUSTAINABLE AMBITION™ IS ABOUT CRAFTING A FULFILLING CAREER TO SUPPORT YOUR LIFE FROM DECADE TO DECADE.
It is centered around articulating your personal definition of success and achieving that without burnout while honoring your personal aspirations and ambitions as they ebb and flow over time. The end game—more fulfillment and ease in your professional and personal life, while still being ambitious.
We offer 1:1 Executive Coaching, Leadership Coaching, or Career Strategy Coaching, as well as VIP Leadership Brand Sessions and Workshops on a range of Sustainable Ambition topics. We also provide tips and inspiration, advice on career management over the decades, guides on key Sustainable Ambition topics of interest, and coverage of tools and inspiration.