Adam Kirk Smith

- A. Smith Blog - Leadership in Life

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Must It Be Difficult to Achieve Big Things?

This is a guest post from Michael Deane. He is the Editor of Qeedle, a small business magazine, and has been working as a marketing executive for nearly a decade. He manages teams with great success, aiming to facilitate better conversion rates and return on investment for his clients.

This is the third time I’ve sat down to write this article. I outlined it twice, but I keep getting stuck at the same point every time. I feel like I am trying to solve an equation with too many variables, which is why we are going to begin this piece by defining big things and difficult, and we will then move on to the achieving part.  [Read more…] about Must It Be Difficult to Achieve Big Things?

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How Better Sleep Can Make You A Better Leader

How many times have you thought to yourself “If I push through one more hour, I will finish everything I set out to achieve”? You probably even feel like you are being more productive when you skip out on sleep to finish up work, but compromising on sleep actually hinders our leadership abilities.

Being an effective leader isn’t just about talent, confidence, and a poised demeanor. In fact, getting a good night’s sleep and effective leadership go hand in hand. The prefrontal cortex is the part of our brain that is in charge of higher-order cognitive processes, including problem-solving, planning, organizing, executing, and reasoning. Our leadership behaviors rely closely on the prefrontal cortex and without it, we wouldn’t be able to get anything done. And while other parts of the brain can carry on with little sleep, the prefrontal cortex cannot, which causes our leadership skills to suffer when we sleep poorly.

Here are three ways that getting better sleep can make you a better leader:  [Read more…] about How Better Sleep Can Make You A Better Leader

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Never Stop Learning

33% of U.S. high school graduates will never read a book after high school and 42% of college students will never read another book after they graduate. While this statistic is disheartening, it’s not surprising. Our education system is structured in a way that turns everyone into well-rounded people all the way through undergraduate classes in university instead of allowing individuals to solely focus on the things they care about for those fifteen years. Of course, this is because most sixth graders have no idea what they want to do for the rest of their lives, so it’s a good idea to show them options. On the other hand, forcing people to study various subjects for which they care nothing for will leave anyone looking for something else.

So, what are we to do post-graduation? After studying texts and lectures, merely to pass our exams, what do we do to ensure long-term learning? Find a curiosity for something valuable. It was physicist Albert Einstein who said, “I have no special talent, I am only passionately curious.” American author, William Arthur Ward, also said, “Curiosity is the wick in the candle of learning.” And if curiosity was good enough for Einstein and Ward, then it is surely enough for the rest of us.

If you need another reason to relentlessly pursue curiosity, even after reading about brilliant individuals such as Einstein and Ward crediting their success to it, here’s one: Above all else, curiosity ensures that we never believe we have it all figured out. Author John Maxwell said, “The greatest enemy of learning is knowing.” And if that wasn’t enough, the Greek philosopher Socrates said, “The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing.”

I love learning new things, but is there more to this story than the need to continually store up knowledge? There has to be.

Do you never want to stop learning? Find a curiosity for something that matters, and then above all else, do something with it. Because while learning is invaluable, if you have all the knowledge in the world and do nothing with it, you’ve squandered the most valuable opportunity available–to make a difference in the world.