CHARTR The genie is out. When OpenAIlaunched ChatGPTat the end of November last year, the tech world and the Extremely Online community went into something of a meltdown, racing to try the chatbot and sample its hilarious / genuinely insightful responses. The process was simple: put in a prompt — anything from “solve this complex coding problem” to “come up with rap battle verses between a caveman and Shakespeare” — and ChatGPTwould often spit out exactly what you were after.
Back in December, the chatbot was making waves as one of the quickest platforms in history to reach1 million users — hitting the milestone ~15xfaster than Instagramand ~30xquicker than Spotify. Indeed, by the time the new year rolled around, ChatGPT already had 25 million users. Since then, however, even as more details of the bot’s full capabilities and ever-developing skillset have emerged, ChatGPT’s usage has started to temper.
9. Tax Data Reveals Large Flight of High Earners From Big Cities
Economic Innovation Group by Connor O’Brien
Key Findings
The exodus of workers and families from major U.S. cities during the first two years of the pandemic was exceeded by an even larger outflow of income.
Newly-released IRS data shows taxable income (Adjusted Gross Income, or AGI) in large urban counties fell by more than $68 billion between 2020 and 2021 from net migration alone, a dramatic acceleration of pre-pandemic leakage.
Rural counties benefited most from the outflow of earnings from major cities; net growth in AGI from net migration totaled more than 1.5 percent of existing residents’ taxable incomes, the highest of any county type.
Geographically, pandemic growth regions like Florida, East Texas, the Southern Triangle, and broad swathes of the Mountain West saw large inflows of income, coinciding with rapid post-pandemic population growth.
Income flows out of urban areas and towards these growth regions appears to have been driven by upper-income households; in growing counties, in-migrants were on average higher earners than out-migrants, while in shrinking counties, out-migrants earned more than newcomers.
2. QQQ Nasdaq 100 Closes Below 50day Moving Average
3. Apple Historical P/E Ratio, EV/EBITA, P/S
4. Short Sellers Targeting List of Names
Dave Lutz Jones Trading Hedge funds are betting that stocks in some of the market’s hottest sectors are headed for a fall, amid concern over how long the boom in electric vehicles, luxury goods and artificial intelligence will last – Electric-car maker Tesla Inc., Gucci owner Kering and Japanese chipmaker Advantest Corp. were the large-cap stocks with the highest percentage of funds shorting them last month in their respective regions, according to data compiled by Hazeltree. Hazeltree aggregates data on about 12,000 equities globally from about 700 funds.
Jill Disis(Bloomberg) — July’s data left no doubt: China is now clearly dealing with a deflation threat. Consumer and producer prices fell together for the first time since 2020, adding to concerns about the health of the world’s second-largest economy. News that China’s prices are falling may be somewhat jarring, given the inflationary pressures in many other parts of the world. But the unique factors contributing to China’s problems are deep and ingrained. Solving them may not be an easy fix.
Summary. Although experts recommend eight hours of sleep a night, many of us don’t get that. A recent study of leaders across the world found that 42% average six hours of shut-eye or less. Insufficient rest leads to poor judgment, lack of self-control, and impaired creativity….more
How much sleep do you get each night? Most of us know that eight hours is the recommended amount, but with work, family, and social commitments often consuming more than 16 hours of the day, it can seem impossible to make the math work. Perhaps you feel that you operate just fine on four or five hours a night. Maybe you’ve grown accustomed to red-eye flights, time zone changes, and the occasional all-nighter. You might even wear your sleep deprivation like a badge of honor.
If this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. Although the ranks of sleep advocates are no doubt growing—led by the likes of Arianna Huffington and Jeff Bezos—a significant percentage of people, and U.S. executives in particular, don’t seem to be getting the sleep they need. According to the most recent data from the National Health Interview Survey, the proportion of Americans getting no more than six hours a night (the minimum for a good night’s rest for most people) rose from 22% in 1985 to 29% in 2012. An international study conducted in 2017 by the Center for Creative Leadership found that among leaders, the problem is even worse: 42% get six or fewer hours of shut-eye a night.
You probably already have some understanding of the benefits of rest—and the costs of not getting it. Sleep allows us to consolidate and store memories, process emotional experiences, replenish glucose (the molecule that fuels the brain), and clear out beta-amyloid (the waste product that builds up in Alzheimer’s patients and disrupts cognitive activity). By contrast, insufficient sleep and fatigue lead to poor judgment, lack of self-control, and impaired creativity. Moreover, there are lesser-known secondary effects in organizations. My research shows that sleep deprivation doesn’t just hurt individual performance: When managers lose sleep, their employees’ experiences and output are diminished too.
So how can we turn this knowledge into sustained behavior change? A first step for sleep-deprived leaders is to come to terms with just how damaging your fatigue can be—not only to you but also to those who work for you. Next, follow some simple, practical, research-backed advice to ensure that you get better rest, perform to your potential, and bring out the best in the people around you.
Spreading Damage
Historically, scholars have depicted supervision as stable over time—some bosses are just bad, and others aren’t. But recent research indicates that individual behavior can vary dramatically from day to day and week to week—and much of this variance can be explained by the quality of a manager’s sleep. Indeed, studies have found that when leaders show up for work unrested, they are more likely to lose patience with employees, act in abusive ways, and be seen as less charismatic. There is also a greater likelihood that their subordinates will themselves suffer from sleep deprivation—and even behave unethically.
In a recent study Cristiano Guarana and I measured the sleep of 40 managers and their 120 direct reports during the first three months of their assigned time working together, along with the quality of these boss-employee relationships. We found that sleep-deprived leaders were more impatient, irritable, and antagonistic, which resulted in worse relationships. We expected that this effect would diminish over time as people got to know each other, but it did not. Sleep deprivation was just as damaging at the end of the three months as it was at the beginning. However, the leaders were completely unaware of the negative dynamic.
Lorenzo Lucianetti, Devasheesh Bhave, Michael Christian, and I found similar results when we asked 88 leaders and their subordinates to complete daily surveys for two weeks: When bosses slept poorly, they were more likely to exhibit abusive behavior the next day, which resulted in lower levels of engagement among subordinates. When the boss doesn’t feel rested, the whole unit pays a price.
Sleep also affects managers’ ability to inspire and motivate those around them. In a 2016 experiment, Cristiano Guarana, Shazia Nauman, Dejun Tony Kong, and I manipulated the sleep of a sample of students: Some were allowed to get a normal night’s worth, while others were randomly assigned to a sleep-deprived condition in which they were awake about two hours longer. We then asked each participant to give a speech on the role of a leader, recorded those talks, and had third parties evaluate the speakers for charisma. Those who were sleep-deprived received scores 13% lower than those in the control group. Why? Previous research has shown that when leaders evince positive emotion, subordinates feel good and therefore perceive the bosses as charismatic. If we don’t get enough sleep, we’re less likely to feel positive and less able to manage or fake our moods; it’s very difficult to pull ourselves out of an insomnia-induced funk.
When the boss doesn’t feel rested, the whole unit pays a price.
Furthermore, leaders who discount the value of sleep can negatively impact not just emotions but also behaviors on their teams. Lorenzo Lucianetti, Eli Awtrey, Gretchen Spreitzer, and I conducted a series of studies of what we termed “sleep devaluation”—scenarios in which leaders communicate to subordinates that sleep is unimportant. They may do so by setting an example (for instance, boasting about sleeping only four hours or sending work e-mails at 3 am), or they may directly shape employees’ habits by encouraging people to work during typical sleep hours (perhaps criticizing subordinates for not responding to those 3 am e-mails, or praising individuals who regularly work late into the night). In our studies, we found that employees pay close attention to such cues and adjust their own behavior accordingly. Specifically, subordinates of leaders who model and encourage poor sleep habits get about 25 fewer minutes of nightly rest than people whose bosses value sleep, and they report that their slumber is lower in quality.
One additional—perhaps more powerful—finding from this research was that leaders’ devaluation of sleep may also cause followers to behave less ethically. Bosses who systematically eschewed rest—in comparison to other managers—rated their subordinates as less likely to do the right thing. We suspect this wasn’t just a matter of the sleep-deprived leaders’ giving tougher ratings; it’s likely that employees were actually behaving in less moral ways as a result of the workplace environment or their own sleep deprivation. Indeed, in previous studies we’ve shown that lack of sleep is directly linked to lapses in ethics.
Overlooked Solutions
Fortunately, there are solutions to help leaders improve the quality and quantity of their sleep. Many of these are well-known but underutilized. They include sticking to a consistent bedtime and wake-up schedule, avoiding certain substances too close to bedtime (caffeine within seven hours, alcohol within three hours, and nicotine within three or four hours), and exercising (but not right before bed). Additionally, relaxation and mindfulness meditation exercises help lower anxiety, making it easier to drift off to sleep.
A new branch of research is beginning to show how important it is to alter smartphone behavior too. Melatonin is a crucial biochemical involved in the process of falling asleep, and light (especially blue light from screens) suppresses its natural production. In research focused on middle managers, Klodiana Lanaj, Russell Johnson, and I found that time spent using smartphones after 9 pm came at the expense of sleep, which undermined work engagement the next day. The simple advice is to stop looking at your devices at night. If that’s not practical, you might try glasses that filter out blue light. Some researchers have found that these can mitigate the effect on melatonin production, thus helping people fall asleep more easily; I’m now in the very early stages of a study examining how this may improve work outcomes as well.
Savvy leaders are also starting to track their sleep, through either diaries or electronic trackers. But beware: Most sleep trackers have not gone through rigorous validation for accuracy. (Your Fitbit can do many things, but it is not especially good at measuring sleep.) Many phone apps in particular make unsupported claims—for example, that they can track which stage of sleep you’re in. However, some devices, such as ActiGraph monitors, are very accurate and can help you determine whether you’re overestimating your sleep (we often forget about periods of wakefulness in the night) and whether there are patterns you can change. For example, you might find that although you’re in bed for seven hours a night, you’re getting only five hours of sleep, fragmented into small segments. Or perhaps you notice that your bedtime drifts later on the weekend, leading to “social jet lag” on Monday, when you have to return to your earlier waking time. With this information, you can make adjustments, such as taking a relaxing bath before bed in hopes of getting more sustained rest, or hitting the sack earlier on Saturday and Sunday nights.
A nap can speed up cognitive processing, decrease errors, and increase stamina.
Leaders often overlook two other tools. The first is treatment for sleep disorders. By some estimates, up to 30% of Americans experience insomnia, and more than 5% suffer from sleep apnea. A large majority of people with these issues are never diagnosed or treated. If you are overweight, have a thick neck, snore, and spend adequate time in bed at night but still feel tired, you may have sleep apnea. Partners or spouses are often the first to notice the symptoms, but official diagnoses are typically made after a sleep study that measures oxygen levels and brain waves. You might then be prescribed a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) mask to wear at night; by keeping nasal and throat airways open, these devices greatly help sleep apnea patients.
As for insomnia sufferers, they’re typically aware of the problem but may not know how to fix it. Jared Miller, Sophie Bostock, and I examined an online program that uses cognitive behavioral therapy to combat this disorder. We found that participants who were randomly assigned to the program experienced improved sleep, more self-control, better moods, and higher job satisfaction, and they became more helpful toward colleagues. The treatment cost only a few hundred dollars per participant, indicating a substantial return on investment. I’m currently in the early stages of another study that will measure the effects of this treatment on leader behaviors and follower outcomes, and I expect similarly beneficial effects.
The other overlooked tool for getting more rest is napping. Too often, leaders view nap breaks as time spent loafing instead of working. However, research clearly indicates that dozing for even 20 minutes can lead to meaningful restoration that improves the quality of work. A brief nap can speed up cognitive processing, decrease errors, and increase stamina for sustained attention to difficult tasks later in the day. One study found that as little as eight minutes of sleep during the day was enough to significantly improve memory.
Many cultures outside the United States have embraced naps as a normal and desirable activity. In Japan, inemuri, or napping at work, is typically viewed positively. Midday siestas have long been part of work life in Spain. Now some American leaders are beginning to embrace this form of rest. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos, is a nap proponent, and organizations such as Google and PriceWaterhouseCoopers have nap pods for employees, understanding that 20 minutes of downtime can make people more effective and productive for many more hours that day.
As a leader, even if you fail to get enough sleep yourself, you should be careful to promote good sleeping behavior. Your employees are watching you for cues about what is important. Avoid bragging about your own lack of sleep, lest you signal to your subordinates that they, too, should deprioritize sleep. If you absolutely must compose an e-mail at 3 am, use a delayed-delivery option so that the message isn’t sent until 8 am. If you must pull an all-nighter on a project, don’t hold that up as exemplary behavior.
For pro-sleep role models, look to CEOs such as Ryan Holmes of Hootsuite (“It’s not worth depriving yourself of sleep for an extended period of time, no matter how pressing things may seem”); Amazon’s Bezos (“Eight hours of sleep makes a big difference for me, and I try hard to make that a priority”); and Huffington, the CEO of Thrive Global, who wrote a whole book on the subject.
It is clear that you can squeeze in more work hours if you sleep less. But remember that the quality of your work—and your leadership—inevitably declines as you do so, often in ways that are invisible to you. As Bezos says, “Making a small number of key decisions well is more important than making a large number of decisions. If you shortchange your sleep, you might get a couple of extra ‘productive’ hours, but that productivity might be an illusion.” Even worse, as my research highlights, you’ll negatively affect your subordinates.
If instead you make sleep a priority, you will be a more successful leader who inspires better work in your employees. Don’t handicap yourself or your team by failing to get enough rest.
A version of this article appeared in the September–October 2018 issue (pp.140–143) of Harvard Business Review.
Christopher M. Barnes is a professor of management at the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business. He worked in the Fatigue Countermeasures branch of the Air Force Research Laboratory before pursuing his PhD in Organizational Behavior at Michigan State University.
Women are closing a gender gap, but it isn’t a good one: They’re catching up to men when it comes to problem drinking.
Women’s drinking, on the rise for the past two decades, jumped during the pandemic as women reported more stress. Although men still drink more alcohol than women and have higher alcohol-related mortality rates, doctors and public health experts say women are narrowing that divide.
Alcohol-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations and deaths are increasing faster for women than for men. And studies suggest that women are more susceptible to alcohol-related liver inflammation, heart disease and certain cancers.
“There used to be a large gender gap in alcohol use and alcohol use disorder between men and women,” says Dawn Sugarman, a research psychologist at McLean Hospital and assistant professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. “That is shrinking.”
Over the past couple of decades, problem drinking has risen most among 30- and 40-something women, says Aaron White, senior scientific adviser to the director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, or NIAAA. Rates of drinking among teen girls has been declining, he says, but go up once women hit their 20s.
Binge drinking among women has gradually lost its social stigma over several generations to the point where it is almost a rite of passage in college. In recent years, a growing culture of mom drinking escalated during the pandemic, as some mothers juggling remote school and work drank more to cope with stress, and the habit stuck, doctors say.
10. What is the secret to happiness?-The Daily Stoic
It’s not an easy question to answer. And it might seem like the Stoics wouldn’t have a good answer either. Because it might seem like they didn’t have much fun, or experience much happiness. After all, they wrote repeatedly about the emptiness of chasing money or celebrity. They reminded themselves that fine wine is just rotten old grapes. But that doesn’t necessarily mean their lives were empty and joyless. By one definition of happiness, in fact, the Stoics were some of the happiest people to ever live.
On a recent episode of The Daily Stoic Podcast, we interviewed Gretchen Rubin, one of the most thought-provoking and influential experts on happiness. They talked about one of the things she learned from her former boss, the Supreme Court’s first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor. Shortly after Gretchen published The Happiness Project, she asked O’Connor who she had clerked for, what is the secret to happiness? O’Connor replied,
“The secret to happiness is work worth doing.”
Perfect.
The Stoics didn’t seek happiness. They sought purpose. They were of service to others. They worked on art and made scientific breakthroughs and changed people’s lives. They fought for causes. They held public office. They represented clients in court. They dedicated themselves to their children. They did their duty. They did work worth doing. The byproduct of which was happiness, joy, contentment, pride, satisfaction, all of those things.
1. Utilities Not Acting Defensive in Last Week’s Pullback
Utility Index About to Make New Lows as S&P Sold Off
2. U.S. Government Debt
Dorsey Wright However, these persistent deficits, combined with an aging population which is expected to add to Medicare and social security costs, have some forecasting US debt will increase to 200% by 2050. That’s not unheard of – Japan was in a similar situation back in the 1990’s (red color in chart below), and they now have debt to GDP over 250%.
The problem with all that debt is that, just like all of us, the government needs to pay interest to its lenders. Japan has managed to continue deficit spending to support their economy because their interest rates are so low. Luckily, for now, the average interest rate the US government needs to pay on debt is also still pretty low. But, if inflation doesn’t recede, and debt keeps growing, it’s possible net US government interest costs could more than quadruple to 7.2% of GDP by 2052, That would soak up nearly 40% of federal revenues – compared to around 10% today – which would necessitate much higher taxes or much lower government spending. Or both.
3. S&P Revenue vs. Earnings Growth by Sector
4. Bekshire Another Name Right at Previous Highs
5. Fear and Greed Index Update Going into Weak Seasonality
WSJ By Bjorn Lomborg For more than two decades, satellites have recorded fires across the planet’s surface. The data are unequivocal: Since the early 2000s, when 3% of the world’s land caught fire, the area burned annually has trended downward. In 2022, the last year for which there are complete data, the world hit a new record-low of 2.2% burned area.
Over the past few days, college football has undergone a shake-up that further obliterated traditional geographic rivalries, left a once-proud conference on its deathbed, and cemented the formation of a handful of national superconferences—all in the pursuit of TV riches.
The moves reflect the inevitable professionalization of college football, one of the only university athletic products that can command billions of dollars for television broadcast rights.
Here’s what went down:
Oregon and Washington defected from the Pac-12 for the Big Ten, joining their West Coast peers USC and UCLA in the once-Midwestern-focused conference that will soon have 18 teams from coast to coast.
Arizona, Arizona State, and Utah said they would also leave the Pac-12 for the Big 12, a decision Colorado made two weeks ago.
The 108-year-old Pac-12 is teetering on the verge of collapse with just four schools remaining: Stanford, Cal, Oregon State, and Washington State.
If you hate this, blame TV
The Big Ten and Southeastern Conference (SEC) have recently secured mega TV deals that will pay their members handsomely…and the Pac-12 has not. It’s that simple.
The SEC inked a $3 billion deal for 10 years with Disney beginning in 2024, while the Big Ten reached a mammoth agreement with Fox, CBS, and NBC worth up to $7.5 billion over seven years. The Pac-12 has been trying to strike a deal with Apple TV+ to stream its games, but the potential payout for schools was not enough to stop the exodus.
The Big Ten sent $58 million to each of its schools during the 2021–22 fiscal year, according to tax records, and that number will only grow under its new TV deal.
Under the Apple deal, Pac-12 members would receive $30 million…on the high end of the range.
Big picture: “The old question—how long would it take TV money to destroy college football? Maybe we’re here. Maybe we’re here,” the head football coach at Washington State mused last Thursday. And whether or not you agree that conference realignment has “destroyed” college football, it has certainly dismantled the regional distinctiveness of each conference that gave the sport its magic.
From Dave Lutz at Jones Trading SHOW ME THE MONEY– Florida State University is working with JPMorgan Chase to explore how the school’s athletic department could raise capital from institutional funds, such as private equity – PE giant Sixth Street is in advanced talks to lead a possible investment, Sportico Reports. Institutional money has poured into professional sports in recent years, from the NBA and global soccer to F1 and golf, but this would break new ground by entering the multibillion-dollar world of college athletic departments.
The school is considering a structure similar to many of those pro sports investments, where commercial rights are rolled into a new company, the private equity fund invests in that entity, and then recoups its money via future media/sponsorship revenue. That’s how Silver Lake structured its investment into the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, and how CVC organized its $2.2 billion Spanish soccer deal with LaLiga.
10. Sportswriter Sally Jenkins details what elite athletes can teach the rest of us-Yahoo Finance
Kerry Hannon·Senior Columnist Sally Jenkins’ father, Hall of Fame sports writer Dan Jenkins, once told her: “A lot of people are afraid to win.”
For years, The Washington Post sports columnist didn’t know what he meant until she mentioned the line to her late friend, Pat Summitt, the winner of eight women’s basketball championships at the University of Tennessee.
“Some people don’t want to keep score, because most people are afraid to go all in,” Summit told her. “They’ll have to say, ‘That’s the best I can do.'”
That’s not true of elite athletes, who Jenkins has spent more than three decades following.
She remembers Charles Barkley saying when he was a young all-star NBA player for the Philadelphia 76ers: “I realize I’m never going to be perfect, but as long as you strive to, at least you’re going to get better.”
The Chicago Bulls’ Michael Jordan (23) shows he’s still friends with the Phoenix Suns Charles Barkley as they get set to play Game 6 of the NBA finals in Phoenix, June 20, 1993. (AP Photo/John Swart)
And there’s Tom Brady, who Jenkins said was a faster runner at 42 than at 22 when he came out of college.
“What separates these elite athletes, the Hall of Famers, is that they try to get better every day, not by 20%, but just 1% or 2%,” Jenkins said, quoting Tom House, a well-known football throwing coach.
“The rest of us kind of plateau and stop,” she said. “We get pretty good at something and then we don’t work for the 1% to 2% improvement, but the 1% to 2% improvement over time can be really significant.”
You see a lot of hero worship and a lot of kind of idolatry of athletes. And if you are a sportswriter for long enough, you come to the conclusion that people often admire them for the wrong things. They are beautiful; they do magnificent things, but they’re just as flawed as you or me. And so the nagging question for me for many, many years has been, what’s really exportable from these people? What are we supposed to be really learning from this? Apart from awe.
What can sports teach us about work?
The more important things that they teach are basic resilience in the face of setbacks. The champions that really succeed often weren’t identified as the most talented kid on the field when they were small. My favorite thing in the book might be the fact that 27 members of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers Super Bowl winning team were rated two stars or less by talent evaluators in high school. So I think the first and most important thing we should take is that talent is an absolute fractional factor in real success. I won’t say it’s meaningless, but I will say it’s next to meaningless compared to all the other things that athletes and coaches do that make them worth watching and make them great.
Your book is built around the seven fundamentals of great decision-making. Could you give us a snapshot of why those are important in the our work?
Conditioning is not just being in good shape. It is the messaging system between your brain and your body, so it can work more efficiently. Conditioning is really big in decision making because your brain robs your muscles of the energy to function. There’s a million different neurological studies out there that show people’s judgment really changes, and they get more erratic, when they’re gassed.
You have to practice with a purpose. Deliberate practice means detailed work on your weaknesses and then practicing on those weaknesses and making measurable improvement. It’s actually understanding, say, that your left foot is weaker than your right.
Peyton Manning’s feet get very uneven under pressure. And he tended to throw from a less stable position when defensive linemen were coming at him below the knees. And so coaches would hurl sandbags at his feet to try to get his feet set in the proper position. That leads to a good arm throw.
The rest of us tend to run around our backhand. Athletes don’t do that. They make their left hand as strong as their right, and that is a critical separator between them and people who don’t win things, or people who don’t go about their lives as purposefully.
What the really great coaches understand, even so-called disciplinarians, like Pat Summitt or Mike Krzyzewski, is that you actually have to ask people to discipline themselves, and you have to select people who are willing to discipline themselves. The last thing a leader wants to do is waste a whole lot of time trying to persuade someone who’s unwilling to adopt basic standard habits so that you can move on to more interesting work.
One thing Peyton Manning told me was that Tony Dungy had incredibly disciplined teams, but Tony Dungy never raised his voice. And Peyton said that Dungy wasn’t going to have anybody in the room who he had to ask to be on time. You were either interested enough in the endeavor to be on time or you weren’t going to be there.
The Right Call
What’s next?
Candor is the honesty to look at yourself and look at your teammates and talk frankly about what’s going on in your performance or in an organization’s performance. And do it in a way that is diagnostic, but not blaming or accusatory. Blaming doesn’t lead to good outcomes. People can wind up clouding an event with an excuse or rationalization, and you never get at what’s really happening.
Culture is so hard to define, but Steve Kerr was really helpful on that one because he’s built such a great one at Golden State. Golden State Warriors’ culture is a very joyful culture. Kerr basically wanted it to seem to just play like kids play.
The first thing you see when you go to a Warriors practice is you see balls flying all over the place in the gym. And instead of being in these regimented warmup lines and stuff, you see the Warriors are doing trick shots and laughing and horsing around in some ways. There’s music blasting from the speakers. There’s real high energy and a lot of laughter, and that’s one way Kerr aligns everything he’s trying to do with Golden State. He wants them to play very fast and loose basketball, and he understands, as he put it to me, that everything in your building, every vibe in the building has to be bent towards the environment and the feeling that you’re trying to create.
The main thing about culture is that things have to match up. Your statements, your values, your selection of people, the people you bring in – all that stuff has to sort of be bound together by a coherent philosophy.
Okay, let’s hear the last two principles.
Resilience. Nobody succeeds a hundred percent. The best clutch shooters in the NBA don’t even make 45% of their shots. Failure is an essential precondition for success. Athletes and coaches are a bit like engineers or tech guys in the sense that they understand that an interesting failure breeds future success.
It’s your tolerance for setbacks, your tolerance for failure, and then your willingness to attack that failure in a very organized, analytical way and make incremental personal or organizational improvements. It’s failing with purpose.
Finally, intention is like that last magical bit of animation. I mean, athletes aren’t robots. We’ve all had experiences where we watch athletes who almost seem to fly. And it’s not just a physical manifestation, it’s that they love what they do. They’re fully a hundred percent invested in what they do. And when you have that, that’s when things can really elevate. Saying, ‘I’m gonna give everything I have to this. And I may not be the best in the world at it, but I’m going to feel a sense of completion from having given everything I have to it.’
You write about embracing what we do as something we all should do with our work, how so?
Look at these great coaches, like Pat Summitt. She coached for 38 years, Kerry, and she won eight championships. Now, that was a lot of championships. But 30 years, she went home a loser. If it was about winning, she couldn’t have done it. She wouldn’t have been happy. She loved her work more than anyone I’ve ever known. She loved coaching. She loved teaching. She found real meaning and purpose in it, even when she lost.
People who have successful lives and successful professions have purpose and meaning in their life, so that even when they hit a roadblock or they suffer a setback, they know why they’re doing it, and they can feel good about themselves and how they’ve conducted their business.
What is the common thread of all the high performers you have met?
They all care more about the overall endeavor than their own personal status. The happiest I ever saw Michael Phelps was when the USA team won relays. He was plenty happy for himself, but he had a special joy on relay teams. You see that in golf where you see players compete in the Ryder Cup with an intensity of feeling. You see the same thing in tennis too, with the Davis Cup.
What is the one magic ingredient you write about that is not one of your seven principles?
Curiosity. That’s what striving really is. Who am I? What is this? What can I do with it? Can I get better? Can I find a way not to get worse as I age? Striving is good for people.
Kerry Hannon is a Senior Reporter and Columnist at Yahoo Finance. She is a workplace futurist, a career and retirement strategist, and the author of 14 books, including “In Control at 50+: How to Succeed in The New World of Work” and “Never Too Old To Get Rich.” Follow her on Twitter @kerryhannon.
