Business Lessons from Prison
Have you every had your back pushed up against the wall and did not know what to do. Have you ever been left without the resources you had and had to make something great happens? Our biggest asset is our imagination and our imagination gets to come out when we need to head in the direction of a particular goal and do not have the resources to do what we want to do.
This post is inspired by a Ted Talk from Jeff Smith, a former Missouri State Senator, who spent a year in prison for covering an election law violation.
We need] to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit and the tremendous untapped potential in our prisons." Jeff Smith.
Smith learned that the entrepreneurial spirit runs rampant in prison. He shared stories of men sculpting other men's hair with just a nail clipper. He shared about inmates taken scraps of food and making a delicious meal.
Watch the Ted Talk Below -
Jeff Smith: Lessons in business
The point of Smith's talk was not to share how ingenious prisoners are but to request of the audience to push for rehabilitation training for prisoners so they have a better chance for success when they get to the outside.
How can you apply the lessons from this talk in your own life? -
Give yourself false time constraints - Time is our most precious resource. Why waste time doing things that you do not need to do? Give yourself a false time constraint to complete a task or a project and you will find out that you get a lot more done in a quicker period of time than f you did not do that.
Take on projects outside of your comfort zone - The only way to grow is to take on work that you are not comfortable with. Most of us focus on getting better at the things in our comfort zone. Try something uncomfortable and fail. The key is to learn the lessons from your failure so you can be better the next time around.
Challenge your beliefs - If you believe something and believe it strongly, and then challenge that belief. If you can challenge your belief, you will become a much more critical thinker and will be better able to communicate what you actually want and actually mean.
Learn to give yourself false constraints and 2013 will be a much more exciting year.
This post is inspired by a Ted Talk from Jeff Smith, a former Missouri State Senator, who spent a year in prison for covering an election law violation.
We need] to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit and the tremendous untapped potential in our prisons." Jeff Smith.
Smith learned that the entrepreneurial spirit runs rampant in prison. He shared stories of men sculpting other men's hair with just a nail clipper. He shared about inmates taken scraps of food and making a delicious meal.
Watch the Ted Talk Below -
Jeff Smith: Lessons in business
The point of Smith's talk was not to share how ingenious prisoners are but to request of the audience to push for rehabilitation training for prisoners so they have a better chance for success when they get to the outside.
How can you apply the lessons from this talk in your own life? -
Give yourself false time constraints - Time is our most precious resource. Why waste time doing things that you do not need to do? Give yourself a false time constraint to complete a task or a project and you will find out that you get a lot more done in a quicker period of time than f you did not do that.
Take on projects outside of your comfort zone - The only way to grow is to take on work that you are not comfortable with. Most of us focus on getting better at the things in our comfort zone. Try something uncomfortable and fail. The key is to learn the lessons from your failure so you can be better the next time around.
Challenge your beliefs - If you believe something and believe it strongly, and then challenge that belief. If you can challenge your belief, you will become a much more critical thinker and will be better able to communicate what you actually want and actually mean.
Learn to give yourself false constraints and 2013 will be a much more exciting year.