I used to think that salespeople would make lousy futurists. Sales seemed so myopic, whereas futurists were all about the "big picture." Yet, as I've discovered, salespeople are futurists too. Sales is focused on outcomes. The best salespeople concentrate on long-term results. However, even they can struggle to maintain their focus on the long-term prize. The distractions of admin tasks, qualifying leads, and sales calls can cloud their vision. Employing techniques that futur

Can you remember what you had for lunch on this day last week? For most of us, it's not even easy to remember what we had for lunch yesterday. Yet we can remember events from our childhood and lots of factual information that's accumulated over the years. That's how we can play along with Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Memory is also central to your ability to make great decisions. Your experience of the past is what fuels your imagination for the future, and the decisions yo

A lot of mid-career people I meet seem to be stuck in roles where they'd like to be creating more strategic value for their companies, but spend most of their days chasing their tails. Business decision makers waste 12 hours a week on non-valuable and repetitive tasks, according to a survey last year. For 21 percent of workers in the survey, the main reason they would consider leaving their role was the lack of value derived from performing it. So it seems lots of people are

I went to a conference recently where the presenter was explaining how to win more clients by helping them reach their objectives, but the concept applies to any kind of goal setting. It was a pretty straightforward idea: Your client is in a present state and has a desired state. In between are obstacles. If you can help your client articulate and overcome those obstacles, that's how you make money. It makes sense, right? We all have dreams and aspirations in our professional

The saying "Man plans, and God laughs" reflects the difficulties in taking all the uncertainties into account as we try to fulfil our ambitions. No matter at work or at home, the best-laid plans frequently go sideways for reasons that, in hindsight, often seem obvious. The costs of poor planning can be enormous. A review of 258 transport projects globally revealed that actual costs were on average 28% higher than planned costs, with some projects experiencing cost overruns

How much sleep did you get last night? Around one-third of people don't get enough sleep, and so wake up in a dark mood that stays with them all day. Coffee can cover up some of the cracks but can't replace the restorative powers of a good night's sleep. At a surface level, poor sleep can simply be a drag, sapping your motivation during the day, but it's also been associated with cognitive impairment, anxiety and depression. Worse than that, those who are more chronically sle

Got a regret? Everyone has done things they wished they hadn't. Sometimes we can pass them off as youthful exuberance, sometimes not. Regret sounds like something bad, but it doesn't need to be if handled properly. Regret is really just an unpleasant memory of an action you took. It's unpleasant because of the consequences and the associated negative emotion. It should be a learning experience, something you didn't do again. But those strong negative emotions keep the memory

You've got a great idea, but you're struggling to convince the boss. What can you do to get buy-in? Asking people to imagine the future can be hard. The future can often seem abstract and less important than what's going on right now. Even if they thought it was a good idea, they may focus on the time, effort and cost of making it happen. This is particularly true in situations where the benefits are less tangible and easy to measure. There's a trick that can make your idea a