Awards: Winner of the Gold medal from the Axiom Business Book

Author: Peter Bregman

Published by: Business Plus (U.S) Orion Publishing Group (UK) U.K edition Cover

Pages: 261 Pages

Parts : Four

Chapters: 46

Author• Peter earned his B.A. from Princeton University and

his M.B.A. from Columbia University. • Started his career teaching leadership in wilderness

and mountaineering expeditions later he moved to consulting field with the Hay Group and Accenture

• He started his own consulting firm Bregman Partners in 1998

• Peter has advised CEO and senior leaders in many of the world’s premier organizations, including Allianz, American Express, Brunswick Group, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Deutsche Bank, JPMorgan Chase, FEI, GE Capital, Merck, Clear Channel, Nike, UNICEF, and many others.

• Peter is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Forbes, National Public Radio (NPR), Psychology Today, and CNN as well as a weekly commentator on Fox Business News.

Part 1: Pause- Reducing Your Forward Momentum1) Momentum is hard to resist. Hard to stop arguing.

Two Strategies to pull back momentum: In discussion in which you’ve been pushing hard and suspect you might be wrong. 1) Slow Down: Say: a) “ That’s an interesting point; I need to think about it some more” b) “ Tell me more about what you mean “

Listening is the perfect antidote to momentum since it doesn’t commit you to any point of

view.

Part 1: Pause- Reducing Your Forward Momentum

2) Start Over: Great Leaders have enough confidence to

look critically at their own perspective and stay open to other people points of view, using the technique of slowing down. Even when they know they are right.

Part 1: Pause- Reducing Your Forward Momentum

Reducing your forward momentum is first step to freeing yourself from the beliefs, habits, feelings and busyness that may be limiting you.

Part 1: Pause- The Incredible Power of a Brief Pause

• Dr Joshua Gordon- A neuroscientist and Asst. Professor @ Columbia University

“The amygdala is the emotional response center of the brain, when something unsettling happens in the outside world, it immediately evokes an emotion”

Amygdala is the emotional response center of the brain

Part 1: Pause- The Incredible Power of a Brief Pause

The key cognitive control ( mental processes of perception, memory, judgment, and reasoning, as contrasted with emotional )of amygdala by the prefrontal cortex (problem solving and complex thought)

If we take a breath and delay our action, we give the prefrontal cortex time to control emotional response

Tip: A brief pause will help you make smarter next move

Pause-See the World as it is

• Shabbat is the Jewish Sabbath (generally a weekly day of rest or time of worship)

• No work, No travel, no computers or phones or T.V

• Rest day from life marathon.• They give you time think.

Pause-Expanding your view

• First Question when we meet people we ask “What do you do? “ We have become our work, our professions.

• We are connected 24/7 via Smartphones checking mails, we have left no space for other parts of ourselves.

• We spend all time working , travelling for work, planning for work, or communication for work. As long as work is going well, we can survive that way.

Pause-Expanding your view

• Establishing our identity through work alone can restrict our senses to self, and make us depress, loss of self-worth and loss of purpose when the work is threatened.

• What we are if our work is taken?• So we need to diversify. Diversifying ourselves.• So when one identity fails other keeps us

vibrant.

Pause-Expanding your view

• Life isn’t just about some of you; it’s about all of you. Don’t negate (make ineffective), integrate

Pause-Where do you want to land

• Event Reaction Outcome• Solution, pause give your self time to

negotiate with emotions. • Focus on the outcome, then choose your

reaction.• Ask what is the outcome I want?• To listen sometimes also help. So just listen

(Eleanor)

Pause-Where do you want to land

• Knowing what outcome you want will enable to focus on what matters and escape the whirlwind of activity that too often leads nowhere fast.

2.What is this year about- Find your focus

• Leverage your Strengths• Embrace your weakness• Assert your differences• Pursue your passions

Find your focus -Leverage Your Strengths

• Play the game you know you can win, even if it means inventing it yourself.

• Entrepreneurs start their own companies for exactly this reason.

Find your focus –Embrace Your Weakness• We all have quirks (peculiar aspect of a

person's character) and obsessions like these. We don’t admit them, even to ourselves.

• But that’s a mistake. Our quirks very well may be the secret to our power.

• The second element is your weaknesses. Rather than avoid them, embrace your weakness and spend your time this year where they’re an asset instead of a liability

Dinner instead of shrimp add salmon on saladFinancial statements on sking.

Find your focus - Assert your Differences

• If you look like other people, and if your business looks like other business, then all you’ve done is increase your pool of competition.

• The third element is your differences. Assert them, Don’t waste your year and your competitive advantage, trying to blend in.

Find your focus-Pursue Your Passion-Desire

• Cpt. C.B. Sullenberger made an emergency landing of 50 ton passenger aircraft saving 155 people, by gliding onto Hudson River.

• He got pilot license when his friends were getting driver license. He got it for fun. He flew glider planes with no engines.

• The fourth element is your passion, which is sometimes hard to find. One way to recover your passion is to pursue your desire. As you choose your focus for the year, pay less attention to “shoulds” and more attention to “wants”

Find your focus-Pursue Your Passion-Persistence

• Anyone can do anything. As long as three conditions exist.

1) You want to Achieve it.2) You believe you can achieve it.3) You enjoy trying to achieve it.( Very Important than first two)

Find your focus

• Planning ahead Plan your day ahead so you can fly through it,

successfully navigating and moving toward your intended destination.

• Deciding what to do Reduce your overwhelm by putting your tasks

in an organized list, focused on what you want to achieve for the year.

Find your focus

• Deciding what to not do To get the right things done, choosing what to ignore is as

important as choosing where to focus.

• Using Your Calendar. If you really want to get something done,

decide when and where you are going to do it.

6 box list

What is this day about-Getting things off your to do list

• Do it Immediately: Two minute simple email, thirty second call .• Schedule it: If it is not immediate, give it a slot in calendar even it

is six month’s away. If it is important it has to in schedule. • Let it go: Simply admit yourself you will not get do it immediately

or schedule for a specific time and day. If it is to hard to delete put it into someday/maybe.

• Someday/Maybe: Put things slowly to die . Look this monthly or so, periodically delete it as that are no longer relevant, or put in other month.

• Never leave things on your to-do list for more than three days. They’ll just get in the way of what you really need to get done.

What is this day about-The power of a Beep

• Overwhelm and Stress• We need a discipline a ritual that can help us stay

grounded throughout the day.• Beep- Set a watch for every hour. At that time every

hour ask if last hour has been productive and commit how to use next hour .

• The right kind of interruption can help you master your time and yourself. Keep yourself focused and steady by interrupting yourself hourly.

What is this day about-Evening minutes Reviewing and Learning

• How did the day go? What success did I experience? What challenges did I endure?

• What did I learn today? About myself? About others? What do I plan to do- differently or the same –tomorrow?

• Whom did I interact with? Anyone I need to update? Thank? Ask a Question of? Share feedback with?

• Spend a few minutes at the end of each day thinking about what you learned and with whom you should connect. These minutes are the key to making tomorrow even better than today.

What is this day about-18 Minute PlanA Daily Ritual

• 18 Minute Plan

Mastering Distraction- Mastering your Initiative

• Create an environment that naturally compels you to do the things you want to.

• You need to be motivated for only a few seconds. Know when you’re vulnerable and you’ll know when you need to turn it on.

• Fun reduces our need to motivate ourselves because fun is motivating.

• A good story-one you feel deeply about and in which you see yourself- is tremendously motivating. Make sure the story you tell about yourself (sometimes only to yourself) inspires you to move in the direction you want to move.

Mastering Distraction- Mastering your Boundaries

• Resist the temptation to say yes too often.• When you say no, mean it, and you won’t needlessly

lose your time.• A few moments of transition time can help make

your next task shorter, faster, and more productive for you and others.

• When you take vacation- or any other time you want to be undisturbed- schedule a specific time to take care of the things that would otherwise creep into each and every available moment.

Mastering Distraction-Mastering your self

• Distraction, used intentionally, can be an asset.(Marshmallow)

• Do not do multi tasking.• A study showed that people distracted by incoming

mail and phone calls saw a ten-point fall in their IQ. Equivalent to the effect of marijuana smoked twice.

• We don’t actually multitask. We switch task. And it’s inefficient, unproductive, and sometimes even dangerous. Resist the temptation.

Mastering Distraction-Getting Over Perfectionism

• Perfectionists have hard time starting things and an even harder time finishing them. At the beginning they who aren’t ready . At the end, Its their product that’s not.

• Don’t try to get right in one big. Just get it going. For eg. Don’t write a book, write a page. Don’t create entire presentation, just create a slide.

• Do what feels right to you, not to others. • Choose your friends, co-workers, and bosses wisely.• The world doesn’t reward perfection. It rewards productivity.• Stay alert and adapt to changing situations. Keep your eye on

the ball, whichever ball that may be.