Category Archives: Quick Bytes

Quick Bytes

Vision Board and Planning Workshop in Milan, Italy

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If you follow me on Twitter (@rosso), you might have seen my Tweet today:

After speaking with several friends who are struggling to see the next evolution of themselves, I decided to hold a Vision Board and Planning Workshop in Milan, Italy. It will probably be in Italian unless a majority of the participants desire English.

I’m working on the agenda and logistics as you read this, and I’ve already gotten enough interest to start picking a date. If you’re interested, feel free to contact me or leave a message on this post and I’ll get back to you with more details.

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Quick Bytes

Quick Bytes: Hidden Demons of High Achievers

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I love podcasts – I wrote A Guide to Podcasts and recommended some podcasts for food lovers, tech lovers, and everyday listening. I even run my own all-Italy podcast called Eye on Italy.

One of my favorite podcasts is the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast – ideas for leadership, business, economics, and all-around smart and concise topics. Most episodes aren’t longer than 15 minutes.

I encourage you to look through their archives of past episodes that you can listen to right from your browser or iTunes.

The latest episode was called “The Hidden Demons of High Achievers” with Tom DeLong, Harvard Business School professor and author of “Flying Without a Net: Turn Fear of Change into Fuel for Success” about people who feel a high need to achieve and how their fear of losing their image of competence can lead them to putting too much emphasis on succeeding the first time.

I don’t consider myself a high achiever but definitely an achiever and some of the behavior he described struck some chords within me, such as:

“…no matter what they’re doing they feel like they should be doing something else, so it gets very difficult to concentrate.”

In addition there was discussion about some traits / personality of high achievers:

  • success is only defined in terms of how well you’re doing when compared to others
  • the same strengths that helped you achieve can become weaknesses
  • over time they don’t realize their ambition and need to achieve can become an addiction
  • blaming others for reasons of not achieving and avoiding looking inside to improve
  • focus on a task, forgetting about relationships and the human capital / long-term goals
  • how to differentiate between urgent and important.

I’m interested now in checking out this book, and definitely check out the Harvard Business Review IdeaCast.

Quick Bytes

Quick Bytes: SMART Goals vs. HARD Goals

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I’m a big believer in goal setting – that’s why I encourage everyone to make a Life List. On the Personal Branding Blog, Heather Huhman goes into detail about what makes a SMART goal and what makes a HARD goal. It’s probably not what you’re expecting.

SMART goals are about clearly mapping out a plan to achieve them:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Action-oriented
  • Realistic
  • Time-bound

But HARD goals are not about setting yourself up for failure – they require an intense engagement of your brain and are all about visualizing the path to the goal and using your emotional, visual, survival, and learning systems:

  • Heartfelt
  • Animated
  • Required
  • Difficult

Murphy discovered that goal success isn’t determined by daily habits, raw intellect, or writing numbers on a worksheet, and that it actually depends on the engagement of your brain. HARD goals can help you do that.

Read more about SMART goals vs HARD goals and creating SMART goals on the Personal Branding blog.

Quick Bytes

Quick Bytes: Do the Work (Free Kindle Book)

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“Do the Work” by Steven Pressfield is currently available for the Kindle as a free ebook (so also on your iPhone/iPad, too!) and is worth a download.

It’s a quick ebook that is very step-by-step and delves into the process of getting things done but really, more of the psyche behind it and how you, great idea holder, shouldn’t let resistance at every step of the way hold you back. To understand “resistance” and other concepts to take your idea from in your head to reality, read the book.

Hat tip: @Michelle Fabio

Quick Bytes

Quick Bytes: Building America’s Most Innovative Brands

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This is the first in a series of quick posts about content or ideas I’m finding online and offline dealing with technology, branding, marketing or entrepreneurship called Quick Bytes! Enjoy.

Great interview on Inc with Nancy Koehn from Harvard Business School about building innovative brands.

Some of the points I appreciated in this article were the misconceptions about leadership which she addresses really nicely:

  • leaders are made, not born
  • engagement is more important than plain charisma
  • it takes a lot of effort, it’s not on cruise control

And two other critical points for me – the importance of the marketer’s role (influence / persuasion / storytelling) as a driver for an idea/business’ success, and how the strengths of women can be used as assets in the managerial world.

It doesn’t get really into detail about innovation but focuses on the stories behind the individuals driving these famous brands and is worth a read.

I think leadership is a skill that must be practiced and refined just like playing the piano, learning a language, or doing long division. Practice and repeat.

Read more at Inc: Building America’s Most Innovative Brands.

Quick Bytes

Welcome to When I Have Time!

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Hello and Welcome to When I Have Time

Here’s some information about subscribing to When I Have Time, the categories of information on the site, and how to contribute to the site as a writer.

You can access the content on this site in several ways:

More information on subscribing to When I Have Time on the Subscribe page.

Here’s a quick guide to the categories you’ll find in this site:

Coming soon….

  • Pimp My Blog: Submit your blog/site to for feedback/improvements (submit it via the Contact Form)

When I Have Time is currently looking for one-time guest posts as well as regular contributors. Read more on Write for When I Have Time.

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