https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8hB7dArRhE What happens when you seize the opportunity to help a stranger? It could change your whole life. On this episode of Forward Tilt Isaac shares two stories about the power of small acts. First is a story of a spilled coffee in Starbucks that led to a kind act, that led to a friendship, that led to an introduction, that led to a bunch more introductions. Second is the story of an underground radio station in Poland. Both stories illustrate …
Actionable ideas to kickstart your career
The Five Traits | Forward Tilt Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RLfLrXjzWNE There are a lot of factors that impact who we are today and who we will become. Genetics, childhood experiences, conscious choices and the people we spend our time around all impact us. A popular maxim speaks to the power of other people's impact on who we are and says "you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with." Thinking about the five people you spend the most time with is a valuable tool, but what happens if you …
Placement Update: April 2017 Apprenticeships
This month our participants in the placement process focused a lot on building strong personal brands. They made awesome pitch videos, created cool side projects, and wrote interesting and valuable blog posts. Blogging doesn't seem like it makes a huge difference, but this is the number one thing our Business Partners regularly comment on. They love reading stories of personal interests, hobbies, successes, failures, and more on our participant's blogs. Having a blog is one of the most …
Never Coast | Forward Tilt Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeigmlijtBQ Doing great work shouldn’t be about impressing others or avoiding punishment, it should be about becoming the best version of yourself. Great work is transformational. When you show up and do your best, you slowly change who you are. That is why great workers are self-motivated. The clearest example is when you are close to leaving a job. In the last few weeks, the consequences for slacking are low, and the rewards for hard work are …
Excuses We Give Ourselves for Inaction and How to Respond
There’s an insidious quirk in myself and everyone I know that prevents us from action. Call it “Resistance” or anything else you like, but the result is the same: things don’t get done, and your success suffers for it. For most of my life, I’ve been told the solution is to “buckle down” and just “do it.” While this is true in many ways if you’ve ever sat and stared at a computer screen for a few hours and gotten nothing done because you were “just doing it” you’ll know this advice is not …
You Have to Pick Two | Forward Tilt Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A39UbvcCiqE Think of your life divided into three main categories. Work, social life, and family or love life. We want all three areas to be great, but the reality of being a successful entrepreneur means that work takes up a massive amount of time and energy. If you work a regular job you could probably balance all three areas, but to be happy as an entrepreneur will likely mean accepting that you likely can only have two. You can use the "I can only …
But I Notice | Forward Tilt Podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mpup4sZ2tnw Doing great work isn't about being noticed by others. You don't owe it to customers, bosses, friends, and family to do your best. You owe it to yourself. You should go above and beyond for what it does for you. In any task you do, you can choose to be good enough, or you can choose to be great. You get to choose the standards you hold yourself to. You do great work even if others won't notice because you notice. You will notice if you didn't …
How to Learn Professional Skills More Quickly
Today I’m going to write about learning. No, not classroom learning and not intellectual learning. This post is about highly practical professional learning and how to accelerate it. It assumes a few things: 1. You don’t have time to spend four years studying to see the results you want. 2. Money is on the line — you need results now. 3. Years of schooling have killed your love of learning and your knowledge of how to do it. Whether you’re in marketing and sales like me or you’re …
3 Dumb Reasons People Mess Up Great Opportunities
When we’re young, we often bring along baggage and bad ideas about work into our first few professional opportunities. We assume the problem lies with the job, the people with whom we work, our something else outside ourselves and we rarely ask whether we are the problem. Our work becomes unfulfilling and unenjoyable, and we wonder why we aren’t progressing as fast as we thought we would. At this point we often quit, thinking the answer is in removing ourselves from a situation. We pass up on …
Five for Friday | Forward Tilt Podcast
This week we are releasing five new episodes of Forward Tilt. We've got great episodes in the vault so we thought we'd release a bunch at once. This week you'll find five new doses of Forward Tilt on your favorite podcast platform (iTunes, YouTube, all major platforms) The Struggle is a Gift https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUtgNd_zqyI Direct download When things are easy, we don't grow. It is in moments of struggle when everything is going wrong that we are forced to take massive steps …
At Praxis, Commitments Are Better Than Rules
Earlier this week we held the opening seminar for our April participants. After going through Kicking Ass 101, having them meet their advisor, and getting advice from participants in later stages of the program, we reminded them of one critical component to their success: Everything in this program is optional. Nothing is mandatory here. We explain why we think each deliverable in the curriculum is important and what the benefits are, but the participants choose whether or not they follow …
What Job Seekers Can Learn from Top Sales Teams
“Do the unconventional” is one of our mottos at Praxis. No, it’s not something we do for the sake of being unconventional, but in a world where the cost of information is reaching zero, doing the unconventional is often the only way to stand out in a crowded field. Consider the fact that companies like Pricewater Cooperhouse can receive hundreds of thousands of job applications per year alone. The standard advice: get good grades, have a resume and apply for multiple positions, just won't …
3 Common Traps to Avoid when Choosing Your First Job
I remember in college just about the most stressful period of every semester was not finals. It was the time everyone had to choose their classes for the next semester. At the University of Michigan, there were literally hundreds of courses, you could enroll in, and students would become overwhelmed by options. What I noticed was that the freshman students went about choosing courses by very different standards than some of the seniors. A first-year student, for example, picked courses by …
Adopt a Value Creation Mindset
This is a written version of the video in this post by Isaac, the CEO of Praxis, about how to adopt a value creation mindset. -- Getting good grades, listening to adults, and being obedient will get you ahead in school. In the real world, only two things matter when building a career: The ability to create value. The ability to convince people that you can create value. If you can create value but nobody knows about it, then it won't matter. If you can sell your ability to …
Get Some Skin in the Game: A Guide to Better Learning
There’s a story told in Plutarch’s Lives about the ancient Greek orator Demosthenes that nicely parallels the lives of many students today. In the story, Demosthenes, desiring to become a master orator, shaves his head so that he is too embarrassed to go out in public. The thought was that he'd be able to focus all of his time on practicing and improving his speech abilities. Despite this program of self-improvement, his first speeches before the Athenian Assembly were disastrous. It would …
