Smart people complicate simplicity. Sincere people overcomplicate life by worrying about everybody’s feelings. Aspirational people overcomplicate work by overachieving insignificance.
“Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.” Edsger W. Dijkstra
Choose simple:
Simple is powerful. You could say, “Not knowing I feel a delicacy in articulation lest I should deviate from the ethereal hypothesis of the nebular conception of the truth.” Or you could say, “I don’t know.”
Simple is achievable. You might decide to practice better hydration. Or you could simply set a goal of drinking 8 glasses of water today.
Symptoms you overcomplicate things:
#1. Your actions serve immediate concerns.
You overcomplicate when your focus shrinks to immediate problems. You can’t ignore pressing issues, but urgent issues seldom serve important goals.
“I have two kinds of problems, the urgent and the important. The urgent are not important, and the important are never urgent.” Dwight D. Eisenhower
Pressure to keep the lights on shrivels thinking.
Leadership is about seizing opportunities, not racing from one problem to the next.
What opportunity can you seize today?
#2. You worry about what you don’t have and can’t do.
Life is simple when you focus on things you have and actions you can take.
Life is complicated when don’t-have paralyzes you. But don’t-have is why you matter. Can’t-do gives life meaning.
Rakuten Super Logistics (RSL) was acquired by ShipNetwork in 2022 and now operates under the brand name ShipNetwork. But while the owner has changed, ShipNetwork continues to be an ecommerce fulfillment service you can trust. Admittedly, it’s still too new to vet its current formation. However, the integrations with key partners like Shopify, Amazon, and ShipStation and fast fulfillment promises are a solid first start.
Before the acquisition, ShipNetwork had seven strategically located warehouses across the US and an international network of shoppers. Post-acquisition, ShipNetwork continues to build on its existing resources, partnering with its sister company, FirstMile, to provide users with a full suite of logistics parcel technologies and solutions.
ShipNetwork Compared
ShipNetwork hasn’t made it on my list of the best ecommerce fulfillment services, primarily because of its high minimum order clause and the tremendous goodwill of its competitors. Instead, I chose ShipBob as my top pick, with its 99.95% fulfillment accuracy rate and two-day shipping. Request a quote to get started.
ShipNetwork is a leading ecommerce order fulfillment company that offers scalable, flexible, and cost-effective distribution solutions to your fulfillment problems. It aims to provide online retailers and consumers with fast, accurate, and efficient distribution for truly borderless ecommerce.
With over 250 employees across the country and 20 years of experience in logistics, ShipNetwork is one company you know you can rely on to deliver a positive shipping experience for your customers and uphold your ecommerce store’s reputation.
Aside from order fulfillment, ShipNetwork offers other 3PL services like returns management, subscription boxes, freight, and kitting.
ShipNetwork Health and Stability
ShipNetwork is a privately-owned company with annual revenue between $25…
Self-compassion involves recognising that everyone makes mistakes and fails and that is just the way life is.
Self-compassion involves thinking about the self with kindness, sympathy and compassion, without evaluating, judging or being critical of the self.
The feeling of self-compassion involves recognising that everyone makes mistakes and fails and that is just the way life is.
What a wonderful world it would be if people could generate a little more self-compassion and compassion for others.
The power of compassion is stronger than empathy or sympathy because it is about imagining the suffering of others at a deeper level; consequently it is more likely to motivate action.
And compassion isn’t just beneficial for the person being helped — nurturing compassion has some remarkable psychological effects on the self.
Below are some psychology studies that reveal what you need to know about compassion and self-compassion.
All of these studies show that the following quote from the Dalai Lama couldn’t be more true:
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
1. Self-compassion can be learned
Compassion is not something you either have or you don’t — it can (and should) be learned and nurtured.
That’s been demonstrated by Weng et al. (2013) who gave participants a one-day course in loving kindness meditation to improve their self-compassion.
This helps foster benevolent and loving feelings towards the self and others.
After the self-compassion training, people felt better in themselves, were more compassionate towards others and there was more activation in the areas of the brain associated with love, affiliation and positive emotion.
This was true even when they were shown videos of people in distress which previously had caused negative emotions.
The lead author of the study, Helen Weng said:
“It’s kind of like weight training.
Using this systematic approach, we found that people can actually build up their compassion ‘muscle’ and respond to others’ suffering with care and a desire to help.”
2. Compassion motivates action
It’s all very well feeling more compassionate, but it’s not much use if you don’t do anything about it.
Compassion, though, can be a powerful motivating force.
In one study, participants who had been meditating were given an undercover test of their compassion (Condon et al., 2013).
They were sat in a staged waiting area with two actors when another actor entered on crutches, pretending to be in great pain.
The two actors sat next to the participants both ignored the person who was in pain, sending the unconscious signal not to intervene.
Those who had been meditating, though, were 50 percent more likely to help the person in pain than a control group who had not been meditating.
One of the study’s authors, David DeSteno, said:
“The truly surprising aspect of this finding is that meditation made people willing to act virtuous–to help another who was suffering–even in the face of a norm not to do so.”
3. Happier and healthier with compassion
Along with being beneficial to others, experiencing more compassion benefits your own psychological and physical health.
4 Reasons We Make Dumb Decisions and 7 Ways to Make Smart Decisions
Our ability to develop solutions that don’t work is only exceeded by our capacity to misjudge.
Daniel Kahneman identified nearly 40 cognitive biases in Thinking, Fast and Slow. All lead to bad decisions.
4 reasons we make bad decisions:
#1. We overestimate the likelihood of future events based on how easily they come to mind – Availability heuristic.
There were 57 unprovoked shark attacks reported globally in 2022. But if a shark attack is reported we worry about shark bites, even if it was in a different part of the world.
#2. We believe someone who is good at one thing is good at other things – Halo effect.
TV doctors on pharmaceutical commercials.
#3. We make judgments based only on available information – WYSIATI (What You See Is All There Is) bias.
You buy a house after seeing it during daylight hours only to learn the neighborhood is noisy at night.
#4. You overestimate the predictability of past events – Hindsight bias.
“I knew that.”
You see the winning lottery number and feel like that’s the number you would have played.
7 ways to improve your decisions:
#1. Doubt yourself.
You could be wrong even though you feel right. Use doubt to motivate exploration.
#2. Seek alternatives.
Ask for suggestions. Say, “And what else might work?”
#3. Sleep on it.
Avoid snap judgments on important matters.
#4. Journal.
Writing is thinking. Challenge yourself to write down three viable alternatives.
#5. Use a decision-making framework.
SWOT – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats.
Premortem – Imagine your project goes wrong in six months. What could we have done differently to prevent failure? What did we leave undone that contributed to failure?
#6. Explore execution.
Explain your plan and ask, “What needs to be in place for this to happen?”
#7. Leverage diversity.
Seek input from diverse sets of people including age, gender, race, and experience.
How can we make smart decisions in the face of cognitive biases?
How to build a content campaign that drives sales quarter after quarter.
We all know the importance of creating content– but creating content for the sake of it doesn’t often result in increased sales. Content campaigns are a great way to engage your audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales quarter after quarter.
In this article, you’ll learn how to create a 90-day content campaign that will deliver lasting value to your business, move prospects through the customer journey more efficiently and effectively, and drive sales! Let’s get started!
6 Levels of Customer Awareness
As your prospects move through the customer journey, their awareness of your brand and offer increases.
In 1966 Breakthrough Advertising, marketer and author Eugene Schwartz identified five stages of customer awareness. Since then, digital marketing has evolved significantly, creating the need for a sixth level of customer awareness that DigitalMarketer introduced.
First, we’ll walk through each level of customer awareness and then create a content campaign that moves prospects through these levels to increase the speed and efficiency of your customer journey.
1. Unaware Stage
Customers in the unaware stage have no knowledge of the problem or perceived need for a solution. To catch a prospect’s attention and keep it, we need to stop the scroll. The best way to do that is with entertainment!
Types of entertaining content for the unaware stage:
Shock and Awe
Amazing Demos
Data/Research
Examples:
Tip: As you scroll social media and the internet, think about the advertisements and content that catch your attention.
2. Problem-Aware Stage
Customers in the Problem-Aware Stage know they have a problem but don’t know if a solution exists. They are in need of hope as they search to discover if a solution is available.
Types of hopeful content for the problem-aware stage:
Question & Answer (Q&A)
How-Tos
Brand Case Study
Success Stories
Examples:
Tip: Leverage tools like AI to help identify what questions customers may have in your industry or niche.
3. Solution-Aware Stage
Customers in the Solution-Aware Stage are researching and comparing their options. They need clarity so they can efficiently and effectively choose the best option for them.
Types of clarifying content for the solution-aware stage:
Demos
Tricks & Hacks
Comparisons
Examples:
Tip: Spend some time researching your competition to understand exactly what your customer is comparing you to so you can address their concerns.
4. Offer Aware Stage
Customers in the Offer Aware Stage are getting ready to make their decision but want to confirm that their choice is going to deliver the outcome they want. They need assurance that you are the right choice
Types of assuring content for the offer aware stage:
Shipfusion is an ecommerce fulfillment solution that provides businesses across the United States and Canada with powerful fulfillment, inventory management, and customer support to assist in building a seamless ecommerce operation.
With additional products in returns, freight, and warehouse projects, you can focus on growing your business with an all-in-one solution.
Shipfusion offers comprehensive features for ecommerce fulfillment that scale to the size of your business. Whether you need shipping for 10 products or 100 products per month, Shipfusion can help you process orders, manage customer returns, and track inventory without the hassle of outsourcing various fulfillment platforms.
Along with Shipfusion’s ecommerce fulfillment platform, its other products and services include inventory management, fulfillment center locations, a returns program, a freight management system, warehouse projects, and a reporting portal.
Shipfusion Health and Stability
Shipfusion was founded in 2014 as a privately traded company with headquarters in Chicago, Illinois. Shipfusion has four investors, including Kanye Anderson Capital Advisors, Vitality Capital, Seek Captial Management, and MER Partners, collectively raising $40 million across four funding rounds.
As of 2023, Shipfusion has hired more than 250 employees across the United States. With a 4.9-star rating on Glassdoor, most of Shipfusion’s current and former employees seem to support the CEO and like the work culture.
Shipfusion Pricing
Unfortunately, Shipfusion doesn’t disclose pricing for any of its products on its website. This is because its ecommerce solution is highly customizable, and Shipfusion wants to…
The supplement is found naturally in many healthy foods.
Some dietary supplements have been shown to improve weight loss by scientific research.
Indeed, one study has shown that inulin can help to quadruple weight loss.
People in the study lost 2.3 percent of their body weight after taking the supplement, compared with just 0.6 percent in the control group.
Inulin is a fibre found naturally in many foods, including leeks, wheat, onions, bananas and asparagus.
The natural fibre — which is also available as a supplement — works by reducing appetite.
It has a creamy consistency and is sometimes used in the food industry as a substitute for fat.
Inulin is low in calories, high in fibre and it can improve the health of the digestion.
Researcher repeatedly finds that an increases in fibre intake can help with weight loss.
The study included 44 overweight people with prediabetes who were tracked for 18 weeks.
Half were given 30g per day of inulin, while the other group were given a placebo.
Both saw the same level of weight loss over the first nine weeks.
But after that, the group taking inulin achieved a weight loss of 2.3 percent of their body weight in comparison to only 0.6 percent in the control group.
The study’s authors write:
“…the consumption of inulin enhances a traditional calorie-restricted lifestyle program.
An added benefit of the inulin supplement was a greater reduction in intrahepatocellular and intramyocellular lipid in the soleus muscle even after accounting for weight lost.”
Inulin seems to work by reducing appetite, the study’s authors write:
“…subjects taking inulin ate significantly less (~270 kcal less, p = 0.027) at the follow-up ad libitum meal, with no consequent rebound in food intake at the 18 week visit despite a total 7 % weight loss in the inulin group, suggesting that inulin’s effect on weight management is mediated via appetite modulation.”
The study was published in the journal Nutrition & Metabolism (Guess et al., 2015).
A Comedy Makes Pfizer’s Chief Corporate Affairs Officer Feel Alone
Tears streamed down Sally Susman’s face while she watched The Intern on the return flight from business in Europe. It was Spring, 2016. She felt alone.
Robert De Niro becomes Ann Hathaway’s best friend in the movie. He’s a seventy-year-old intern. She’s an ambitious young leader. Sally Susma thought, “I want a mature presence, a true confidant, an office friend.” She writes about it – along with much more – in her new book, Breaking Through.
Susman’s story made me cry.
Sally got off the plane determined to contact Paul Critchlow, former Vice Chairman at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, to ask him to be her summer intern. Paul shares his experience here.
We have associates, colleagues, neighbors, but 20% of Americans have no one to talk to. Gen Z is the loneliest generation (people born between 1997 and 2012).
“Show me your friends and I’ll show you your future,” Anonymous.
3 Solutions for feeling alone in leadership:
Realize Wonder Woman, Superman, and the Lone Ranger are fictional characters. You have frailties. You need others.
Seek a mentor or coach. You need someone in your life who doesn’t have a dog in the fight.
Build relationships intentionally. It’s messy. It takes time. You are more likely to flourish.
“Positive relationships keep us happier, healthier, and help us live longer.” Harvard Gazette
5 questions to explore your relationships:
Who affirms and strengthens your sense of self?
Who will you call in the moment of personal crisis?
Who encourages you to go for it? Try new things? Pursue your goals?
Who can you call when you feel low, furious, or ecstatic (and you’ll speak honestly with them)?
Who brings a smile to your face? Makes you laugh?
You never flourish alone. People count on you. Who do you count on?
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best restaurant payroll software for most people is Gusto or Paycor.
Running a restaurant can be a payroll nightmare. Tracking dozens or even hundreds of shift hours, shift changes, tips, and overtime payments across multiple locations is complicated and time-consuming. Thankfully, there’s payroll software that caters specifically to restaurants.
This software can ensure you’re paying your employees accurately and on time each month—and some are even free.
Your restaurant may not need a robust payroll system, but automating payroll tasks can streamline otherwise monotonous and repetitive payroll tasks. That’s where services from Gusto thrive.
If you’re jumping ship from another payroll system, Gusto can help you make that transition by taking care of data transfers and setup. Once you’re onboarded, you’ll…
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