Shut up

For the next 5 minutes, let’s elevate your career.

In today’s email:

• Avoid stupid decisions

• Shut up

• Don’t meet them

• Book a long weekend

• Jo Malone’s career wisdom

ON YOUR CAREER

Avoid stupid decisions

Charlie Munger said, “It is remarkable how much long-term advantage people like us have gotten by trying to be consistently not stupid, instead of trying to be very intelligent.”

Warren Buffett and Munger made fewer bad investment decisions than competitors made. Good decisions were able to compound.

In our careers, we want to avoid stupid decisions. We want to avoid Impulsiveness. It’s easy to justify hasty decisions by saying it was gut instinct. It’s easy to delegate our decision to somebody else who is persuasive.

Sometimes avoiding a stupid decision requires significant research. Sometimes it’s as simple as hitting pause for 24 hours and deciding when we’re in a better mood.

COMMUNICATION

Shut up

Here are three situations when I benefit from shutting up:

✅ When 2 of us are talking over one another

✅ When I don’t need to have an opinion

✅ When my mood is bad and I might say something that will diminish trust

Shutting up at these times leads to better relations and better decisions.

PRODUCTIVITY

Don’t meet them

Meeting new people brings us opportunities. It can also waste our time. A quick, initial phone call helps protect our productivity. It informs us if there is a likely match of interests.

If the phone meeting is a ‘green’, we can invest more time to continue the call or meet in-person.

If the phone meeting is an ‘amber’ or ‘red’, we can politely end the call. This limits our opportunity cost and allows us to return to more valuable work.

1 MINUTE TO HAPPINESS

Book a long weekend

Planning and anticipating a holiday can release the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. This boosts mood, motivation, and overall well-being.

There are 86 hours between 6pm Thursday and 8am Monday. A long weekend provides a great opportunity to switch off work and do something new.

Many of my coachees book 4 long weekends each year. If work feels too busy, they know they have something good to look forward to.

What enjoyable thing will you do on your next long weekend?

CAREER WISDOM

Jo Malone

Jo Malone (1963 — ) was born in South East London. She left school at 13 due to severe dyslexia and to care for her mother who had a stroke. Malone worked as a florist, in a delicatessen, and as a beauty and massage therapist. She started making her own skincare products and bath oils at home. Demand surged. Malone launched her fragrance brand, Jo Malone London, in 1990.

The business grew rapidly and was sold to Estée Lauder in 1999. Malone continues to operate another luxury fragrance brand called Jo Loves. She was awarded an MBE in 2008 for services to the beauty industry. Some of her career wisdom: