by Suzie Doscher 
There are wonderful books, classes, films, talks, workshops, DVDs, magazine articles, conversations, coaches, and therapists teaching the importance of being in the moment, staying in the now and going with the flow. But how do you really do this?

It seems odd that we do not just naturally live in the now. After all, almost everyone would agree that the present moment, the now, is all we have. The fact remains that most people do not live in the present moment and have to learn how to do so.
 
Reasons to master living in the moment:

• You receive instant relief from stress
• You are able to manage fears better
• You become calmer. A sense of calmness enters if you stop to take a few breaths. Focusing on your breathing returns your mind to the present moment, away from your thoughts.
• You feel stronger and some of your personal power returns. You feel stronger because you took charge of the moment. This offers the feeling of having influence and consequently strength.

 
Steps to practice being in the moment:​

BY STEPHANIE VOZZA 4 MINUTE READ

​Ever have to psych yourself up to go to work? If that’s the case more often than not, your job might not align with your personal motives, says Carter Cast, author of The Right (and Wrong) Stuff: How Brilliant Careers are Made and Unmade.
Strengths are your natural skillsets, and motives are the place from which you draw energy, says Cast. They differ from values, which are what’s important to you. “If you ask someone what their values are, they can rattle them off quickly,” he says. “Motives are much harder to identify because we’re often not conscious of them. They’re the river that flows under us.”
A mismatch in job and motives will wear you down and eventually cause you to fail to live up to your potential, says Cast. “Currently, the assumption is that if you took this job, it’s the right job for you,” says Cast. “But people who are smart, don’t have a skill gap, and are good interpersonally will underperform if they don’t have energy for position.”

By Monica Torres 
​
No good employer is going to outright say that they kill you, but new research finds that too many modern workplaces are grim reapers inflicting a fatal amount of stress on our bodies and minds.
Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford, is ringing the alarm that job stress and poor management is killing us — accounting for up to 8% of annual health costs and leading to 120,000 excess deaths every year in the United States.
In his new book, “Dying for a Paycheck: How Modern Management Harms Employee Health and Company Performance — and What We Can Do About It,” he explains how long hours, a lack of job autonomy through micromanagement, and unstable health insurance are making us sick to death.
He talked with Ladders about his research and what leads otherwise reasonable people to stay in toxic jobs:

Published by The Local

​The number of sick days taken by Swiss people because of stress and other mental health issues has shot up by 35 percent in the last five years, new figures show.The data from health insurer Swica shows the number of days taken off by Swiss employees for health reasons has risen overall by 20 percent in the last half decade.

But a spokesperson for the company which provides pro-rata sickness indemnity to 30,000 Swiss firms said it was the skyrocketing number of sick days for mental health reasons that was particularly “alarming” given this is the health issue that companies can do most to combat.

“A lot of employees can no longer deal with rising work pressure,” Adrian Wüthrich of Swiss trade union TravailSuisse told the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper, adding that flexible working hours and unpaid overtime were making the situation worse.

By Betty Liu - Host and editor-at-large, Bloomberg Markets
​
I get asked this question quite a lot.
Everyone wants to know what the secret sauce is to succeed in the corporate world.
And I hate to disappoint but the answer is simpler than you might think.
And no, the trick isn't being smarter than everyone else.
It boils down to one thing: how you interact with people.
True we can all rattle off examples of jerks who have succeeded, but in my experience, those who succeeded most in the corporate world have elevated EQ skills. Surprising?

by Thomas Oppong

You are most productive in the morning, according to research.
Your best work happens within a short time span of the day. And you should be making the most of it.

• Your morning should be spent on outputs, not inputs.

• Do your best work in the morning whilst your brain and body can deliver the best results.
• It pays to protect your morning.
• Wake up early and be productive with that time.

Don’t spend it on distractions. Don’t even think about scheduling a meeting at a time when you are most focused, efficient and mentally alert to do deep work.
Instead of letting others dictate your priorities, give yourself at least an hour to focus without external distractions.

“People who get up early in the morning are hitting it out of the park, doing things we struggle with at other times of the day,” 

by Suzie Doscher

Emotional Intelligence can be defined as having: 

• Self-awareness
• Self-regulation
• Motivation

• Empathy
• Social Skills
  
  

I like to think in terms of feeling a sense of power - Personal Power means you have the soft skills that make up Emotional Intelligence.

I believe your Personal Power is intact when you:

BY XIMENA VENGOECHEA 5 MINUTE READ

It happens to high- and low-performing teams alike: The ties that bind everyone together just aren’t as strong as they could be. Maybe you’ve inherited a team that’s always been sluggish and uninspired, or one that’s usually steady, but the trust is eroding under pressure. Or perhaps you’re just trying to take your team to the next level. Whatever the case, every team needs to reflect once in a while on what could be improved. It’s human nature to be conflict-averse, but it’s every manager’s job to bring points of conflict out into the open and move forward together.
Unfortunately, most meetings aren’t the best venues for doing that. Typical team meetings focus on planning what’s ahead–an upcoming project, the next quarter’s top goals and metrics, expectations moving forward. But there’s a simple alternative, focused on reviewing the immediate past, that can change how your team works for the better.