Your manager can’t read your mind

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

In today’s email:

• Maslow’s hierarchy of needs today

• Your manager can’t read your mind

• Cook your tasks

• Focus on others to lower your stress

• Laurie Greiner as career coach

ON YOUR CAREER

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs today

Abraham Maslow (1908 — 1970) founded humanistic psychology. He studied how people could reach their potential. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a useful model to understand how we can optimize our job and career:

Physiology - Most people need a job that is reliable and can pay for food, shelter, and healthcare. Sufficient time off work for rest and leisure is part of this physiological need.

Safety - We need a workplace where we feel physically and psychologically safe. This involves manageable stress and the absence of harassment.

Belonging - Most of us want to feel like we belong in our team. A sense of belonging is advanced by common goals and shared experiences.

Esteem - We are motivated to feel competent at work. Our self-esteem increases when we get to use our strengths and others recognise our achievements.

Self-Actualization - Fulfilling our potential is a need for many of us. Our careers help us lead meaningful lives when we create significant value for others.

COMMUNICATION

Your manager can’t read your mind

Our managers can’t read our mind. As they pursue their own goals and juggle multiple tasks, they may not think much about what we need to thrive in our job. This can lead us to feel frustrated. The best way to get what we need from our managers is to tell them.

A roadmap to get what you need:

• Know what you need and how your manager can help

• Make an appointment convenient to your manager

• Express your requests in calm, plain language without apologizing

• Use your best reasons and identify any benefits to your manager

• If ‘no’ ask, ‘how could we work together to make this happen?’

• If ‘yes’ say ‘thank you’

PRODUCTIVITY

Cook your tasks

In our team, we sometimes use kitchen timers to individually work under exam conditions. A burst of effort to complete a task. I use it for administrative tasks that I don’t enjoy and tempt me to procrastinate. Kitchen timer set to 40 minutes and cook that task.

1 MINUTE TO LESS STRESS

Focus on the needs of others

Focusing on the needs of others lowers our stress by:

✅ Listening to others means we don’t listen to our negative self-talk

✅ Helping others promotes the release of feel-good oxytocin in us and them

✅ Understanding the difficulties of others means we can feel grateful for our lives

✅ Deepening relationships makes us more resilient to future stress

GET SMARTER

Lori Greiner

Lori Greiner (1969 - ) is an inventor, entrepreneur, and investor. She grew up in Chicago and majored in communications at Loyola University. Greiner holds more than one hundred patents in travel, cosmetic organization, electronics and household items. She is known as the Queen of QVC for her success in selling her products on television. Greiner has been a venture capitalist on Shark Tank since 2012. Her investments in Everlywell and Scrub Daddy are the second and third most successful in the show’s history. Some of Greiner’s wisdom: