5 Ways to Choose Generosity

5 Ways to Choose Generosity

I was heating the grill to cook steaks when our son-in-law pulled in unexpectedly with one of our grandsons. We had two extra steaks in the fridge. But I wasn’t sure I wanted to choose generosity.

I had plans for those extra steaks that didn’t include others.

I had a moral crisis. Choose generosity or cook hotdogs. Either choice is acceptable.

Choose generosity. It does more for you than it does for others. Image of two teddy bears sharing an umbrella. Choose generosity. It does more for you than it does for others. Image of two teddy bears sharing an umbrella.

I looked at my wife and said, “Let’s be generous.”

We went out to welcome our guests. I asked, “Have you had dinner?” You know the answer to that question.

I said, “We have a couple extra steaks in the fridge if you would like steak.” They thought that would be great. By this time the grill was hot. I watched my future dinner sizzle for someone else.

Choose generosity. Never let what you can't do be reason to neglect what you can do. Image of an open hand.Choose generosity. Never let what you can't do be reason to neglect what you can do. Image of an open hand.

5 ways to choose generosity:

#1. Choose your best self.

Do things that would make your momma proud.

Greed, fear, and discontent block generosity. Commitment fuels generosity.

#2. Consider higher purpose.

It’s hard to feel close to stingy people.

Generosity strengthens relationships.

#3. Act responsibly.

Don’t give something that belongs to someone else. Pay your bills before you give money away.

#4. Don’t encourage helplessness.

Don’t repeatedly bail out people.

A young person asked me about loaning money to people who don’t pay it back. I said, “The next time it happens say no but tell them you’d be glad to help them create a budget.”

Generosity that enables irresponsibility isn’t helpful.

#5. Think beyond money.

Time is your most valuable asset. You are your greatest gift to others.

Go ahead and have coffee with someone who wants to talk.

Afterward:

Generosity did more for us than it did for them.

Still curious:

Generosity Makes you Great and Much More

What Is Generosity? (And How to Be a More Generous Person)

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2 Unexpected Ways Success Leads You Astray

2 Unexpected Ways Success Leads You Astray

Success teaches you things to continue. Failure teaches you things to change.

You repeat failure when all you do is study success.

Enjoy winning. Learn from failure.

Enjoy success. Learn from failure. Enjoy success. Learn from failure.

#1. Success for one isn’t success for everyone.

Success for me is living where I hear wind in the trees and rush hour lasts 10 minutes. I enjoy living simply and quietly. Central air in our home is a delightful extravagance for a farm boy from Maine.

I built several pieces of furniture in our home. We’re fans of the Shaker style.

Winning for you might be eating out five nights a week. Success for me is breakfast on the deck with my bride.

Don’t look at the trappings of success and say, “I want that.”

You lose yourself when success seduces you.

Success rule #1: Build your life, not someone else's. Image of a long bridge.Success rule #1: Build your life, not someone else's. Image of a long bridge.

Success rule #1: Build your life, not someone else’s.

Tip: Do things that increase your energy.

#2. It’s deadly to focus on success and ignore failure.

We’re in love with success stories. Apple started in a garage. Phil Knight, the creator of NIKE, began on a shoestring. The NIKE swoosh is one of the most valuable logos in the world. It was purchased for $35.00. But we often learn more from failure than success.

Abraham Wald saved lives by studying failure.

During WWII Wald was asked to determine the best place to put armor on airplanes. The idea was to study where airplanes that had returned from battle had the most bullet holes. But Wald knew they needed to put armor in places where returning planes didn’t have bullet holes.

The planes that failed to return had better information than the planes that made it home. Our tendency to over-focus on success is called survivorship bias.

It's deadly to focus on success and ignore failure. Image of red spotted mushrooms.It's deadly to focus on success and ignore failure. Image of red spotted mushrooms.

Success rule #2: Study failure as well as success.

Tip: Ask, “What will we do differently next time?

How might success blind leaders?

Still curious:

The Plate-Drop Challenge: How to Respond to Failure

Responsible Mistake-Making: You Suck Before You Shine

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The Best Strategies for Repairing Your Company’s Online Reputation

Negative reviews and bad PR can damage your company’s credibility. Lots of businesses struggle with this.

Let’s go over the steps you can take right now to repair your company’s online reputation. Then you can rest easy knowing your company looks good to customers, prospects, employees, investors, and anyone else digging for information online. 

Top-Rated Online Reputation Management Companies to Repair Your Company’s Reputation

Our top recommendation for most people who need help with online reputation management is WebiMax because of their deep experience and affordable pricing. Get in touch with WebiMax today for a free quote.

Unless you really know what you are doing, a professional service will resolve issues with your online reputation is much faster. Here are the best ones we’ve found:

You can read the full reviews of each online reputation management company here.

What is Online Reputation Management Repair?

Reputation management is the process of improving your company’s perception in online reviews, social media posts, search engine results, news outlets, and other online sources.

Businesses with a negative reputation can apply different strategies to build and repair their brand image. This may include content removal, negative review deletion, claiming business profiles, responding to customer reviews, and other tactics to enhance your company’s online perception.

Understand that the steps you take to repair your online reputation may not pay immediate dividends. If you are expecting to be able to repair your brand image in a couple of hours, you are going to experience disappointment.

The repair of your brand reputation is going to take a period of time. The steps you implement today are going to need to be part of an overall brand management strategy. You may need to rebuild your website to make it more useful for visitors,…

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Episode 1797 Scott Adams PART2: The Biggest Problem With Conservative Thinking About Fatherhood

Episode 1797 Scott Adams PART2: The Biggest Problem With Conservative Thinking About Fatherhood

Content:

  • Some strategic Reserve oil went to China?
  • Microwave cruise missiles kill electronics
  • Half believe cheating likely in the midterms?
  • Our systems are designed to ensure cheating
  • Whiteboard: Conservative Illusion
  • Good parents and drug addicted children
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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10 Social Media Analytics Tools Perfect for Beginners AND Pros

In this article, we’re going to discuss what social media analytics tools really are, why you need them, and which solutions are the best on the market.

Social media marketing is a great way to build an audience, drive traffic, and generate leads for your brand. However, if you don’t have the data to inform your strategy, you’re just winging it.

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Social media analytics help you identify what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong in an effort to reach your target audience. But gathering that data manually can be incredibly time-consuming. Thankfully, there are many tools that provide insights and reports on almost every social media metric available.

Let’s dive in.

What are social media analytics tools?

A social media analytics tool is software that is designed to collect and analyze performance data from all relevant social media channels. These tools help marketers and brands monitor, analyze, and improve the outcomes of their social media marketing efforts. This way, they’ll know what’s working and what isn’t in their social media campaigns.

Social media analytics tools usually have visual dashboards and reports that help users make sense of the ocean of data they pull. Some even allow users to pick specific metrics and KPIs to track, instead of tracking everything under the sun and making the dashboard convoluted.

Most social media networks have their own built-in analytics, but social media analytics tools help you break down the data from multiple social channels in a single dashboard. This means you don’t have to hop around from platform to platform to analyze your data.

Why you need social media analytics tools

Analytics tools for social media help you collect and analyze data from social media networks. When you understand how your social channels are performing, you’ll be able to make the right changes to your social media marketing strategy.

But let’s break down three major reasons why you need social media analytics tools.

  • Understand your audience. Some social media analytics tools have features that monitor your target audience and track the online conversations they’re having about your brand, product, or service. This data will help you understand who your audience is, what they need, what they think about your business, the kinds of content they want to see, and the times they come online.
  • Increase brand awareness. Social media analytics tools can track metrics associated with the popularity of a brand on social media. These metrics include reach, engagement (likes, comments, shares), volume of brand mentions, and clickthrough rates.
  • Competitor analysis. In addition to understanding your own performance, social media analytics tools can help you track your competitors’ performances across major social networks too. This way, you can see your competitors’ online activity, marketing campaigns, brand reputation, and more. Then, you can use this data to make your strategy better.

10 best social media analytics tools

1. Hootsuite



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4 Surprising Things Leaders Aren’t Responsible For

4 Surprising Things Leaders Aren’t Responsible For

Stress goes up when you take responsibility for things you can’t control.

You’re doomed when you confuse ‘accountable for’ with ‘responsible for’.

Leaders aren't responsible for results. Image of Simon SinekLeaders aren't responsible for results. Image of Simon Sinek

#1. Leaders aren’t responsible for results.

“Leaders are not responsible for the results. Leaders are responsible for the people who are responsible for the results.” @simonsinek

Leaders are accountable for results. Other people do the work.

The leader’s work is people. The people’s work is getting things done.

10 questions accountable leaders ask themselves

  1. How can I become the person I should be?
  2. How will I stop doing other people’s work?
  3. How do I honor and reward people who get stuff done?
  4. How can I hire the right people?
  5. How do I delegate effectively?
  6. How can I build trust on and with teams?
  7. How can I set clear goals, track progress, and remove obstacles?
  8. How can I get out of the way? What might I do that impedes progress?
  9. How can I maximize strengths and protect people from their weaknesses?
  10. What are the best methods for helping people improve?

Bonus question: How can I improve?

#2. Leaders aren’t responsible for employee engagement.

You can coerce conformity, but engagement is freely chosen.

You can create environments where engagement is more likely.

Leaders can:

  1. Hire for engagement.
  2. Invite engagement.
  3. Reward engagement.
  4. Honor engagement.
  5. Punish disengagement.
  6. Coach for engagement.
  7. Fire for disengagement.

Leaders aren't responsible to make people happy. Image of a happy cat.Leaders aren't responsible to make people happy. Image of a happy cat.

#3. Leaders aren’t responsible to make people happy.

Happiness is a choice we make for ourselves.

You can create environments where happiness is easier to enjoy. You can’t make people happy.

  1. Help people achieve their goals.
  2. Connect purpose to work.
  3. Include relationship building in your daily goals.

#4. Leaders aren’t responsible to know all the answers.

You are responsible to help people find answers, not have answers.

Mark Miller said, “I would tell my younger self to stop trying to have all the answers.”

What AREN’T leaders responsible for?

What happens when leaders take responsibility for things they can’t control?

Image source for Simon Sinek: Sinek speaks at TED

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Episode 1798 Scott Adams PART1: Let Me Tell You All The Things The News Isn’t Telling You Today

Episode 1798 Scott Adams PART1: Let Me Tell You All The Things The News Isn’t Telling You Today

Content:

  • Shinzo Abe murdered
  • Dr. Simone Gold avoids a “so what?” question
  • Energy crisis in Germany
  • 2022 Midterms HOAX brewing?
  • The case for Tom Cotton in 2024
  • The Fed, Strategic Petroleum Reserve, Inflation
  • If you would like to enjoy this same content plus bonus content from Scott Adams, including micro-lessons on lots of useful topicsto build your talent stack, please see scottadams.locals.com for full access to that secret treasure.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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What Is Social Media Monitoring? [7 Tools for 2022]

If you want to succeed with your social media strategy, you need to be aware of what people are saying about your brand online. You also need to know what they’re saying about your products or services, your competitors, your industry, your newsletter, your customer service, your new logo… basically everything about your brand.

Why? It’s free business intelligence for social media marketers! When you know what people think of you, you can make informed decisions on how to promote your brand to get more engagement and conversions.

cover imagecover image

The best way to gather this data is through a social media monitoring tool.

In this article, we’ll cover some of the best social media monitoring tools in the market, go over how to set up social monitoring, and give you some great tips for making the most of the data you’re tracking.

What is social media monitoring?

Social media monitoring is the process of tracking keywords, hashtags, and mentions about your brand, product, or industry across different social media platforms. It can help you measure metrics like brand sentiment and satisfaction, and collect inspiration for new posts and marketing campaigns.

The information you get from social media monitoring can help you determine things like:

  • Relevant keywords and hashtags, e.g. which Instagram hashtags or Pinterest keywords might help increase your reach.
  • Trends, i.e. what are people talking about? What new ideas or memes are blowing up, which social networks are offering new tools and services?
  • Social ROI — is your monetary investment in paid social ads and sponsored posts paying off?
  • Social share of voice, i.e. how much of the conversation is about your brand, as opposed to your competitors.
  • Social sentiment analysis — what’s the mood of the conversation?

Social monitoring also helps brands know the right time and way to guide users down the sales funnel. For example, you shouldn’t push your product in someone’s face the second they walk into your office. You’d listen to them first to figure out if your product is the right solution for them or not.

It’s the same thing on social media. If you want to be relevant, you need to pay attention to what users are saying.

Note: Social media monitoring is different from social media listening. Social listening comes after monitoring, and it involves taking action on the metrics you analyzed during the monitoring process.

Check out our article on how to do social media listening right. (It comes with a list of social listening tool recommendations!)

the differences between social media monitoring and social listeningthe differences between social media monitoring and social listening

You can also check out this video to see how the team down at Hootsuite handles social media monitoring (and listening).

7 brand social media monitoring…

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Mind Pops Are Random Memories That Jump Into Your Head

Mind pops are random words or images that suddenly pop into your head for no reason — like a flashback.

You’re walking down the street, just like any other day, when suddenly a memory pops into your head from years ago.

It’s about a person you haven’t thought of for years.

Just for a moment you’re transported back to a time and place you thought was long-forgotten.

In a flash, though, the memory has vanished as quickly as it appeared.

This experience has been dubbed a ‘mind pop’ and sometimes it is prompted by nothing your conscious mind is aware of.

Weirder mind pops

There is, perhaps, an even weirder type of mind pop.

This is when all you get is a word or an image which seems to have no connection to anything at all.

Like suddenly thinking of the word ‘orange’ or getting the image of a cheese grater.

They seem weirder because they feel unconnected to any past experience, place or person—a thought without any autobiographical context.

Not everyone has these experiences, but many do.

When psychologists have recorded these involuntary memories, they find that, on average, people have about one a day.

They are most likely to occur during routine, habitual activities, like walking down the street, brushing your teeth or getting dressed (Kvavilashvili & Mandler, 2004).

They are also more likely to come when your attention is roaming and diffused.

Mind pops can be traced

Some of these mind pops can even be traced back to their causes.

Here is one psychologist (L.K.) describing some mental detective work:

“…while throwing a used bag in a dust bin the word “Acapulco” popped up and since L.K. had no idea what it was and where she might have come across the word she turned to a member of family for help. To her surprise, it was pointed out to her that Acapulco was mentioned on the TV news some 45 minutes ago.”

This ability to trace a mind pop back to its source wasn’t an isolated case.

When they surveyed people, Kvavilashvili and Mandler found that the words and images that seemed to pop up randomly, didn’t actually come from nowhere.

Sometimes it was an associative mind pop, like being reminded about Christmas and later having the words ‘Jingle Bells’ pop into your head.

Or, it could be a sound-a-like, for example having the image of a sandy beach appear after you see a banana (Bahamas sounds like bananas).

The fact that many mind pops could not be traced back to their source is probably the result of how much of our processing is carried out unconsciously.

The fascinating thing was that many of these mind pops occurred weeks or months after exposure to the original trigger.

This suggests that these words, images and ideas can lie in wait for a considerable period.

Some even think that experiencing mind pops could be associated with creativity as these apparently random associations can help to solve creative problems.

Mind pops are another hint that we are recording more information than we know.

Fortunately, our minds mostly do a good job of suppressing random thoughts and images, as they…

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