Karl Edwards presents Working Matters

Tag: resolutions

  • Listen In -> Bold Resolutions for the New Year #4: Create Your Own Opportunities

    Have we become overly risk-averse?

    One has to wonder.

    That was a devastating and frightening near-miss with total disaster that our economy experienced a few years ago. And we don’t seem to have recovered yet.

    We are sitting on our wallets, postponing investments, and not hiring.

    We need to find ways, though, to take the initiative and create opportunities where none may yet exist.

    Easier said than done.

    Hence Claudia and my discussion this week suggesting that we need to make the creating of our own opportunities a New Year’s resolution.

    We cannot afford to wait around for someone else to jump start the economy.

    Can you?

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Bold Resolutions for the New Year #2: Think Outside the Box

    Far too many of us are waiting for the economy improve before we make important decisions and commitments of our own.

    I suggest this is the case because most of us are waiting until we know it is safe to go back to doing things the way we did before our economy’s near collapse and this extended recession.

    I am almost certain that the only viable way forward will not be found in going backwards. In fact, business may never be successfully done again the way it was before 2008.

    To move forward aggressively and responsibly, though, we need to get our thinking out of the rigid box that limits us to the values, methods and means of the past.

    We need new perspectives, new frames of reference, and new approaches.

    In this week’s show, Claudia and I discuss making one of our “Bold Resolutions” for the new year to think outside the box.

    Not crazy, impulsive, rash thinking. But creative, non-linear, and proactive thinking.

    Listen in.

    Just now joining the conversation? Catch up on the entire series here.

  • Listen In -> Bold Resolutions for the New Year #1: Too Much Fear, Caution and Passivity

    Doesn’t it seem like everyone is waiting? Waiting for the economy to improve before making important decisions.

    The problem with everyone waiting is that leaves no one taking actions that might stimulate the economy.

    No one wants to take the first step, which, while understandable, leaves open the possibility (which is currently being realized) that no first steps are being taken.

    This week Claudia and I begin a new series entitled Bold Resolutions for the New Year.

    Let’s use the tool of setting New Year’s resolutions as a means for taking the initiative, making some decisions, and taking concrete action… even if it seems like we’re the only ones.

    How can we be bold without being rash or impulsive?

    We certainly don’t want to repeat the mistakes that landed us in the economic mess of the past several years!

    Are there ways to be both bold and responsible?

    Bold Resolutions for the New Year
    Week #1: Too Much Fear, Caution, and Passivity
    Week #2: Think Outside the Box
    Week #3: Build a Team, Not Fill a Job
    Week #4: Create Your Own Opportunities
    Week #5: Rethink Failure

    Listen in.

  • Building a Distinct Approach to Your New Year’s Resolution

    For as widespread as the practice of setting New Year’s Resolutions is, almost more common is the expectation that these resolutions will not, in fact, be kept.

    Are we becoming too cynical? Or are we merely laughing at our own failings?

    The problem with how we traditionally approach New Year’s resolutions is that it’s such an all-or-nothing affair.

    Most of us set an ambitious goal for ourselves. So far so good. It’s helpful to have a goal and for that goal to be specific.

    But then we articulate the goal as an all-or-nothing proposition. In other words the only two options available are to keep it entirely or to fail it utterly.

    “I will lose 15 pounds.” “I will keep my desk clean.” “I will stop calling the Trojan (more…)

  • Listen In -> Bad Resolution Recovery #3: Half-Hearted Intenders

    “Oh, did another year go by before I tackled my New Year’s resolution?”

    Our third resolution maker is the “half-hearted intender.” This person may love the annual tradition of setting New Year’s resolutions, but ends up returning to life as usual with little change to show for the exercise.

    In this week’s podcast discussion, Claudia and I appreciate the strengths of the easy-going, take-life-as-it-comes type of person and offer a couple of suggestions for moving forward on your resolutions without having to morph into some sort of driven maniac.

    Listen in.

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  • Listen In -> Recovering From Bad New Year’s Resolutions

    Now that January is about over, is the same true for your New Year’s resolutions? All those bold decisions, ambitious plans, and good intentions from 4 weeks ago… If they’re scattered around your feet as just so much discarded failure or discouragement, then this is the podcast series for you!

    Claudia Rempel is back in the studio with her flair for getting to the core of issues. Instead of getting caught in a pattern of make-a-resolution -> break-a-resolution each year, we discuss ways to redeem this tradition and turn it into a useful change tool.

    In this series we will look at four types of resolution makers:

    1. The Sweeping Changers
    2. The Don’t Bother Cynics
    3. The Half-Hearted Intenders
    4. The Rigid Disciplinarians

    Each approach has a downside that sabotages our desire for change. But each approach has an upside that we don’t want to lose track of either. Join the discussion as we have some fun getting inside why change is so hard for us.

    Listen in.

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