When Faster-Harder-Smarter Is Not Enough

by Cramer, Kathryn D.

• ISBN13: 9780071376716
• ISBN10: 0071376712
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2001-08-20
• Publisher: MCG

Summary

Do you ever feel over-extended and that demands on your attention exceed the amount of time and energy you have to cope with them? How does your in-box look? Do you receive over thirty e-mails a day - even on weekends? We are living in a time of unprecedented stress. In order to accomplish more, we try to do things faster, harder, and smarter, using our intelligence, organizational skills, and determination. But our responsibilities accumulate faster than we can work! There's hope! When Faster-Harder-Smarter Is Not Enough by Dr. Kathryn Cramer, shows how to turn stress into success by activating our inner creativity, intuition, imagination, innovative thinking, resilience, collaboration, and optimism to achieve a new kind of mastery of our lives. In her 25 years of studing how people thrive under pressure, Cramer found that responding creativel is a necessity to achieve effectiveness and to avoid burn-out. Cramer's approach is not about changing one's behavior, nor is it a typical how-to self help book you've read before. Instead this is about developing a creative mindset. With every challenge or dilemma, there is a defining moment when we decide whether we are going to conquer the task at hand with faster-harder-smarter techniques, or engage it with ingenuity and resourcefulness. To put this another way: should we be reactive or creative? When Faster-Harder-Smarter Is Not Enough reveals why our reliance on speed, intensity, and control has blinded our foresight, and tells us how to reclaim a life that is rich, deep, and wise. She tells us how to pursue our most important priorities with optimism, ingenuity, and stamina. Using this book, readers will learn how to: tap reservoirs of resilience during periods of intense pressuer; maintain energy and stamina during episodes of peak demand; view everyday demands as opportunities to pursue short- and long-term priorities; face uncertainty with courage and confidence; capitalize on mistakes to reveal unexpected alternatives; stay optimistic and creative, even during major setbacks; turn anxiety into ingenuity, and stress into success. This book will help high-achievers become energized--instead of drained--by the pressures of life.

Table of Contents

How to Read This Book	v
Acknowledgments	vii
Introduction: Richer, Deeper, Wiser	1	(26)
The Premise
The Promise
The Prescription
Take Your Blinders Off	27	(48)
How to See What You Don't See
Question Reality
Feel What You Feel
Be Outrageously Optimistic	75	(80)
How to See Potential, Not Problems
Scout for Opportunties
See the Glass as Half Full ... with a Pitcher of Water on the Way!
Make the Future Happen Inside You
How to Walk Your Talk
Think Big, Think New
Be the Change You Want to See	115	(40)
Get Others on Board	155	(46)
How to Speak and Act From Your Heart
Build Strong Alliances
Communicate to Motivate
Stack the Odds in Your Favor	201	(46)
How to Build Momentum
Overcome Obstacles
Have Courageous Conversations
Celebrate Every Victory, Large and Small	247	(18)
How to Leverage Your Success and Wake Up to What's Next
Don't Go Back to Sleep
The Best Is Next!
Bibliography	265	(6)
Index	271