6 Practical Tips For Getting Shit Done

You have a full time job, brilliant ideas to share with the world, a side hustle business to launch, sleep to catch up on, exercise to hustle through, and about 100 other #adulting things to take care of. 24 hours in a day seems like we would have plenty of time to get all of our shit done - doesn't Beyonce have those same 1,440 minutes? But time seems to escape us, the weeks add up, and we're not sure if we've made any progress at all. So how do you get all of this done, without losing it!?

1. SPARK THE FIRE
Attitude is everything, and being passionate about what you're doing goes a long way during difficult hustle days. Maybe you love your full time job, but have to work a side job to pay the bills; or perhaps you're no longer passionate about your career, and struggle to find time to focus on a side hustle you're pumped about. If you're not doing what you love right now, seek out the small things that bring you joy and start a daily gratitude practice to keep a positive mindset and track what sparks your internal flame.

Photo Credit: The Demureist

2. SET INTENTIONS
To create and maintain daily motivation to get shit done - write your goals down! Even if they are big, lofty dreams - it helps to see them on paper and break them out into small steps that you should be taking in that right direction. Whether it's project based goals, annual achievements, or a lifelong vision - knowing what you are hustling for will fuel your drive and ensure your time is well spent.

3. BREAK IT DOWN
People often never even start to chip away at their goals because it seems like such a big task to tackle. Once you have stated your intentions, take each of your goals and break them out into a series of smaller goals that you can accomplish each month throughout the year. Then, take it further and break it down into what you can handle a week at a time. This way you know what you have to do, so you can schedule the appropriate chunks of time to do it and get that shit done.

4. SCHEDULE PRIORITIES
Ask yourself - 'What will I do this week to create my legacy?'. Staying organized and keeping an ongoing task list helps you see what's coming up, where you need to schedule work or playtime in, evaluate your priorities, and tackle your to do list as efficiently as possible. Writing down ideas, notes, and future tasks can help clear the clutter from your brain so you're able to focus on the task in the moment. Knowing what you have on your plate allows you to evaluate what you're spending your time on and how you should spend it.

Photo Credit: Strategic Stephanie

5. CHUNK
Set aside chunks of time to power through and focus on only the priorities you set for the day so you can work as quickly and efficiently as possible. You could even try an interactive journal; Pierre Khawand, work and productivity expert, has a new book called The Perfect 15-Minute Day: Managing Your Time, Thoughts, and Emotions, which helps you stay aware of what you're working on and stay focused by working in highly productive bursts of short 15-minute increments. Knowing that you've set aside specific time for tasks will keep you on track and focused in the moment.

6. TAKE A BREAK
The hustle is real, but giving yourself time to rest and reflect will ensure you are efficient and healthy in the long run. If you're constantly trying to run at full speed, you can get tired and anxious and that will only hinder the time it takes to achieve your goals. Scheduling in chunks of free playtime and using your vacation days allow you to stay refreshed and creative!

Every single day counts leading up to your big dreams, and even though you can't get it all done right now, every task will add up to something grand. By writing down your intentions, breaking down and scheduling priorities, and chunking out time to focus, you can make sure the work you're doing is leading you in the right direction with every project you take on and every person you meet.

Photo Credit: Strategic Stephanie

Stephanie Huston [@StrategicStephanie] is a career mentor, volunteer, social media strategist, and world traveler living and working in New York City. Stephanie has served as the NYC President of The United Women in Business Foundation since 2014, leading the organization's long-term development in efforts to help members excel despite the challenges and inequalities that women face in today's business environment. A passionate traveler, Stephanie has explored 27 countries across 6 continents and will be going on an Antarctica Basecamp Cruise to her 7th continent this November 2016 with Oceanwide Expeditions!

The Type Of House You Should Never Buy

The massive, gaudy houses lining the streets of America’s upscale suburbs began to look like the epitome of bad taste and poor judgement once the foreclosure crisis hit. The writer behind the blog “McMansion Hell” tells why they’ll eventually be gone for good.

Kate Wagner, a 22-year-old getting her master’s degree in architectural acoustics at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, has been researching consumer trends in architecture since she was in high school. Her background knowledge has given her ammunition for “McMansion Hell,” which she started writing this summer. At first, she wrote for a few friends to let off steam about the houses she despises, but the blog quickly gained followers. 

“There’s literally nothing that would convince me to live in a McMansion,” Wagner said. “I would rather donate it to a fire department to use for controlled burns.”

Wagner marks up real estate listing photos like a merciless English teacher. Her snarky but informative explanations of the problems with McMansions make architecture criticism accessible for people who aren’t experts.

Credit: McMansion Hell

Bad columns and faux balconies rank high on Wagner's McMansion scale. 

There’s no hard-and-fast definition of a McMansion, but Wagner has a long list of criteria. McMansions are oversized ― more than 3,000 square feet, with five or more bedrooms and a garage for three or more cars ― and typically too large for the size of their lot.

“One of the defining factors of the McMansion is this concept of waste and the proliferation of excess and … pushing this illusion of wealth,” Wagner said.

They’re also identified by poor craftsmanship, often covered in trendy but cheap materials like faux stonework. And they’re usually a jumble of styles from different periods, with out-of place columns and turrets, fake balconies, and windows that are a mix of shapes and sizes.  

Credit: McMansion Hell

In one post, Wagner compares classic mansions to their McMansion offshoots. 

Some of the houses’ design flaws might not be obvious to most buyers, but that’s what Wagner is here for.

She breaks down the architecture principles that make houses look tacky, schooling readers on elements like “secondary masses” and “quoins.”

Credit: McMansion Hell

I now know that one of the reasons this house looks weird is because it has too many windows, or voids, a problem that makes some McMansions look like Swiss cheese, according to Wagner.

Wagner has invented irreverent terms to describe McMansion features, like “Palladian window bunker hell” and “roofline soup”: “when the roofline of the house is so chaotic and illogical, one is immediately sent into a spiraling descent of cringe.” 

Credit: McMansion Hell

A name for an oversized turret that you probably won't see in a real estate listing.

She doesn’t limit her scorn to exteriors.

Credit: McMansion Hell

The kitchen of a 6,400-square-foot McMansion built in 1994 -- Wagner argues that the so-called luxury interior finishes in many McMansions are trendy for a few years, but quickly make houses look dated.

McMansions, first built in the 1980s, grew in size each decade leading up to the financial crisis. Then, people who’d sometimes spent millions on their personal palaces were left with homes worth only a fraction of what they’d paid, and often going into foreclosure. Neighborhoods full of McMansions emptied out, attracted squatters and, in at least a few cases, were cheap enough that groups of college students could rent them.

“After the recession, I think people took poorly to the houses because they [became] physical representations of the financial crisis,”  Wagner said. “And they’re not recovering from that well, especially the older ones.” 

Still, homeowners crave more space, and houses built last year were bigger than ever. With a median size of almost 2,500 square feet, the average home is 10 percent larger than at the height of the bubble a decade ago.

Related...

• Million-Dollar Homes Are Taking Over These Cities At An Alarming Pace
• Here's How Much Money You Need To Make To Buy A Home

That’s partially because developers have catered to wealthy homebuyers rather than building smaller, more affordable houses as middle-class families struggled to re-enter the housing market. There’s also more profit to be made on luxury homes.

New houses may soon shrink, however. Homes built last quarter were actually a little smaller than those built in the last couple years.

And while older McMansions are still more expensive than most homes, the gap between their prices and the rest of the housing market is narrowing in most major metro areas, according to Bloomberg, making them questionable investments. 

Credit: McMansion Hell

Wagner mixes genuine architecture criticism with some entertainingly rude descriptions of McMansions.

Wagner does more than ridicule tacky design. She argues that McMansions should be reviled because they’re bad for the environment, from the extra energy required for heat and electricity in such a large space, to the emissions from the production of construction materials.

In her ideal world, McMansions would eventually disappear as people traded sprawling suburbia for sustainability ― dense, walkable and diverse neighborhoods.

“People are starting to see that it’s a waste of money to build super trendy, huge houses,” Wagner said. “Hopefully, the blog will continue that discussion.”

_____

Kate Abbey-Lambertz covers sustainable cities, housing and inequality. Tips? Feedback? Send an email or follow her on Twitter.   

_____

12 Things Successful People NEVER Reveal About Themselves At Work

You can't build a strong professional network if you don't open up to your colleagues; but doing so is tricky, because revealing the wrong things can have a devastating effect on your career.

Sharing the right aspects of yourself in the right ways is an art form. Disclosures that feel like relationship builders in the moment can wind up as obvious no-nos with hindsight.

The trick is to catch yourself before you cross that line, because once you share something, there is no going back.

TalentSmart has tested more than a million people and found that the upper echelons of top performance are filled with people who are high in emotional intelligence (90% of top performers, to be exact). Emotionally intelligent people are adept at reading others, and this shows them what they should and shouldn't reveal about themselves at work.

The following list contains the 12 most common things people reveal that send their careers careening in the wrong direction.

1. That They Hate Their Job

The last thing anyone wants to hear at work is someone complaining about how much they hate their job. Doing so labels you as a negative person, who is not a team player. This brings down the morale of the group. Bosses are quick to catch on to naysayers who drag down morale, and they know that there are always enthusiastic replacements waiting just around the corner.

2. That They Think Someone Is Incompetent

There will always be incompetent people in any workplace, and chances are that everyone knows who they are. If you don't have the power to help them improve or to fire them, then you have nothing to gain by broadcasting their ineptitude. Announcing your colleague's incompetence comes across as an insecure attempt to make you look better. Your callousness will inevitably come back to haunt you in the form of your coworkers' negative opinions of you.

3. How Much Money They Make

Your parents may love to hear all about how much you're pulling in each month, but in the workplace, this only breeds negativity. It's impossible to allocate salaries with perfect fairness, and revealing yours gives your coworkers a direct measure of comparison. As soon as everyone knows how much you make, everything you do at work is considered against your income. It's tempting to swap salary figures with a buddy out of curiosity, but the moment you do, you'll never see each other the same way again.

4. Their Political and Religious Beliefs

People's political and religious beliefs are too closely tied to their identities to be discussed without incident at work. Disagreeing with someone else's views can quickly alter their otherwise strong perception of you. Confronting someone's core values is one of the most insulting things you can do.

Granted, different people treat politics and religion differently, but asserting your values can alienate some people as quickly as it intrigues others. Even bringing up a hot-button world event without asserting a strong opinion can lead to conflict.

People build their lives around their ideals and beliefs, and giving them your two cents is risky. Be willing to listen to others without inputting anything on your end because all it takes is a disapproving look to start a conflict. Political opinions and religious beliefs are so deeply ingrained in people, that challenging their views is more likely to get you judged than to change their mind.

5. What They Do on Facebook

The last thing your boss wants to see when she logs on to her Facebook account is photos of you taking tequila shots in Tijuana. There are just too many ways you can look inappropriate on Facebook and leave a bad impression. It could be what you're wearing, who you're with, what you're doing, or even your friends' commentary. These are the little things that can cast a shadow of doubt in your boss's or colleagues' minds just when they are about to hand you a big assignment or recommend you for a promotion.

It's too difficult to try to censure yourself on Facebook for your colleagues. Save yourself the trouble, and don't friend them there. Let LinkedIn be your professional "social" network, and save Facebook for everybody else.

6. What They Do in the Bedroom

Whether your sex life is out of this world or lacking entirely, this information has no place at work. Such comments might get a chuckle from some people, but it makes most uncomfortable, and even offended. Crossing this line will instantly give you a bad reputation.

7. What They Think Someone Else Does in the Bedroom

A good 111% of the people you work with do not want to know that you bet they're tigers in the sack. There's no more surefire way to creep someone out than to let them know that thoughts of their love life have entered your brain. Anything from speculating on a colleague's sexual orientation to making a relatively indirect comment like, "Oh, to be a newlywed again," plants a permanent seed in the brains of all who hear it that casts you in a negative light.

Your thoughts are your own. Think whatever you feel is right about people; just keep it to yourself.

8. That They're After Somebody Else's Job

Announcing your ambitions at work when they are in direct conflict with other people's interests comes across as selfish and indifferent to those you work with and the company as a whole. Great employees want the whole team to succeed, not just themselves. Regardless of your actual motives (some of us really do just work for the money), announcing your selfish goal will not help you get there.

9. How Wild They Used To Be in College

Your past can say a lot about you. Just because you did something outlandish or stupid 20 years ago doesn't mean that people will believe you've developed impeccable judgment since then. Some behavior that might qualify as just another day in the typical fraternity (binge drinking, minor theft, drunk driving, abusing people or farm animals, and so on) shows everyone you work with that, when push comes to shove, you have poor judgment and don't know where to draw the line. Many presidents have been elected in spite of their past indiscretions, but unless you have a team of handlers and PR types protecting and spinning your image, you should keep your unsavory past to yourself.

10. How Intoxicated They Like to Get

You might think talking about how inebriated you were over the weekend has no effect on how you're viewed at work. After all, if you're a good worker, then you're a good worker, right? Unfortunately not. Sharing this will not get people to think you're fun. Instead, they will see you as unpredictable, immature, and lacking in good judgment. Too many people have negative views of drugs and alcohol for you to reveal how much you love to indulge in them.

11. An Offensive Joke

If there's one thing we can learn from celebrities, it's to be careful about what you say and whom you say it to. Offensive jokes make other people feel terrible, and they make you look terrible. They also happen to be much less funny than clever jokes.

A joke crosses the line anytime you try to gauge its appropriateness based on how close you are with someone. If there is anyone who would be offended by your joke, you are better off not telling it. You never know whom people know or what experiences they've had in life that can lead your joke to tread on subjects that they take very seriously.

12. That They Are Job Hunting

When I was a kid, I told my baseball coach I was quitting in two weeks. For the next two weeks, I found myself riding the bench. It got even worse after those two weeks when I decided to stay, and I became "the kid who doesn't even want to be here." I was crushed, but it was my own fault; I told him my decision before it was certain.

The same thing happens when you tell people that you're job hunting. Once you reveal that you're planning to leave, you suddenly become a waste of everyone's time. There's also the chance that your hunt will be unsuccessful, so it's best to wait until you've found a job before you tell anyone. Otherwise, you will end up riding the bench.

Bringing It All Together

What other things do people with low emotional intelligence reveal about themselves? Please share your thoughts in the comments section below, as I learn just as much from you as you do from me.

U.S. Job Growth Just Slowed Down For The Third Month In A Row

WASHINGTON, Reuters - U.S. employment growth unexpectedly slowed for the third straight month in September, which could make the Federal Reserve more cautious about raising interest rates.

Nonfarm payrolls rose 156,000, down from a revised gain of 167,000 jobs in August, the Labor Department said on Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected employers to add 175,000 jobs last month.

Fed Chair Janet Yellen has said the economy needs to create less than 100,000 jobs a month to keep up with population growth.Average monthly job gains have been about 180,000 this year, which Yellen has described as “unsustainable.”

The unemployment rate ticked up a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0 percent last month, though the increase was driven by Americans rejoining the labor force.

Friday’s employment report will be the last before the Fed’s Nov. 1-2 policy meeting. Investors see almost no chance of a rate increase at that meeting given how close it is to the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Yellen said last month that the Fed will likely raise rates once this year, but prices on fed funds futures suggest just above even odds the hike will come at the Fed’s last policy meeting for the year in December.

Hourly wages for private sector workers rose 2.6 percent in September from the same month a year earlier, in line with economists’ expectations. The annual growth rate has shown signs of accelerating over the last year although it remains slower than before the 2007-2009 recession.

Three Fed policymakers voted for a hike last month when the Fed kept rates steady. However, Friday’s data could boost the case of Fed policymakers who have vocally defended a go-slow approach to rate increases.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has accused the Fed of playing politics by holding rates low, a charge Yellen and other Fed policymakers have denied.

Trump has also made reversing job losses at U.S. factories a central campaign promise. Manufacturing employment fell by 13,000 jobs in September and the sector has shed jobs in three of the last five months.

At the same time, the job market on balance continues to firm, even if at a slower pace, which could be an asset for Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton who has argued that President Barack Obama, also a Democrat, has helped the economy.

The Fed lifted its benchmark overnight interest rate at the end of last year for the first time in nearly a decade, but has held it steady so far this year amid concerns over persistently low inflation.

 

(Reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Paul Simao)

Women in Business Q&A: Amanda Lannert, CEO, Jellyvision

Amanda Lannert

Amanda Lannert is CEO at Jellyvision, a technology company whose interactive software talks people through important, complex and snooze-inducing life decisions -- like choosing medical insurance, saving for retirement, or managing finances -- in simple, fun, and engaging ways. Jellyvision's employee communication platform, ALEX, is used by more than 800 companies -- 72 of the Fortune 500 -- and helps over 5 million employees make better decisions about financial wellness, retirement savings, and employee benefits.

How has your life experience made you the leader you are today?
How has my life experience made me who I am? I'm the kid of an academic. I am a constant student and a studier. I believe in history and liberal arts and culture and books, because the more you learn, the more you can learn more, if that makes sense. I still have more questions than answers at this point in my career, and that's made me a more humble, curious, student-minded leader.

How has your previous employment experience aided your tenure?
I spent the first part of my career doing traditional consumer packaged goods advertising--TV and print in the olden days of advertising--and then I spent three years in a new business development think tank, where I watched large companies innovate ... or try to innovate.

I learned a lot about how big companies set up processes that in fact prevent innovation and invention, and that was really formative, and why I wanted to go and work in product at Jellyvision.

What have the highlights and challenges been during your tenure?
The highlight is I get to do work I'm proud of with people I like and respect, and I really believe that the vast majority of people I work with can say the same. What we're doing matters. It matters to the people who use our software, to the customers we sell it to, and to the partners that we work with.

The challenge making sure we stay grounded and focused while we grow. The scale at which we work is changing so quickly, and we don't want to get so big and so slow that we start to suck. And that's really hard. Growth is hard. The challenge is staying nimble and resilient when you feel like you have so much more to lose.

What advice can you offer to women who are seeking a career in technology?
Here's what I can say about advice--I seek advice all the time. I get advice from great mentors and books and the people I work with. What you have to do--and credit for this idea goes to a guy named Tom Haley--is find someone who loves you and will tell you the truth.

You're not looking for an affirmation. You're not looking for a "yes." You're looking for the truth-- about your business, your skill set, your management style, whatever--because when you have the truth and you're smart and you're humble and you're resilient, you can fix your problems.

You can fix any technology issue, you can change any product, you can get new team members, you can go raise money, you can live to fight another day if you actually know the truth and have the good sense and humility to address your challenges.

How do you maintain a work/life balance?
It's a mix between trying to be a happy, healthy balanced person and then truly showing interest and support for what makes the people who work with me happy and healthy.

I take a lot of vacation. People who work for me know that I'm out of the office a lot because I celebrate it. I'll announce, "Two more days until I'm out of here!" And when I get back, I take care to ask about how they're using their time. I want to hear about my colleague's vacations and their families and their interests outside of work.

It is a good thing to have a home life that is loving and supportive because this job is hard. It's good to have outside interests that can both calm and inspire you. It's balancing and rewarding and interesting.

For me, though, it just so happens that reading about my industry and thinking about business in my space are some of my hobbies. The key is to do what makes you happy and to pursue interesting ideas, and as long as work is part of that, you'll be all right.

What do you think is the biggest issue for women in the workplace?
I think women leaders are being tasked to do more, faster, but that's true for all leaders, women and men. It's a human problem. The stories of hyper-growth unicorns get a lot of attention, and it's hard to remember what great performance is as a CEO. I think there's a lot of pressure to get rich quick instead of building a lasting, sustainable, meaningful business. You've got to have the discipline to build something real. I think that's the challenge for any entrepreneur. It has nothing to do with being male or female.

How has mentorship made a difference in your professional and personal life?
I am so grateful for my mentors, but I also get so much out of being a mentor myself. It is really hard to spend 8 to 10 hours a day staring at the same business with the same challenges and to be incredibly nimble and creative in the way you think. Mentorship--hearing other people's stories, seeing other people's successes, hearing about their problems--allows you to bring a fresh and nimble perspective back to your own problems.

Also, when people mentor me, I remember just how good it feels to receive the generosity of others, and it makes me want to be a more generous person. It makes me want to pay it forward. I'm getting more and more open and honest about what's really going on, what we've been through, etc, just in an effort to be helpful. Then other colleagues are more open back, and we're both able to learn and grow. And that just helps everyone in our community from a business perspective.

Which other female leaders do you admire and why?
I like Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, just because she strikes me as someone really bad-ass. I like Sheila Penrose, chairman of the board at Jones Lang LaSalle, because she said, "I want to make Jones Lang LaSalle the best place for women to work in a brokerage," and accomplished that goal by trying to make it the best place to be a human in a brokerage--it just turned out that a lot of women were capable of doing the job. Also, I do like Sheryl Sandburg because she galvanized conversation and got people to think and take a point of view.

And then I like anyone who starts--those are my favorite women leaders. I love all the female founders--especially of tech companies in Chicago--because they've got the courage and the guts and the craziness required to make a real big difference in the world by starting their own businesses.

What do you want Jellyvision to accomplish in the next year?
I want us to grow without sucking. I want us to grow in a way where we are fast and responsive and focused and capable, and, most of all, helpful. And I want to do it in a way that is nimble and collaborative. I want us to be high revenue-generating, but still friendly to each other and friendly to the world, and helpful to each other and helpful to the world. I want us to do good and be good in a very high-growth, fiscally responsible way.

Theranos To Lay Off Hundreds Of Workers, Close Wellness Centers

Theranos Inc said it will lay off about 340 workers, or about 43 percent of its full-time employees, as it closes its clinical labs and Theranos Wellness Centers, signaling a withdrawal from the consumer blood-testing business.

The move impacts workers in Arizona, California, and Pennsylvania, Theranos Chief Executive Elizabeth Holmes said in a letter published on the company’s website on Wednesday.

Theranos, which employs around 790 people full time, had earlier withdrawn a request to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for emergency clearance of its Zika virus blood test.

Theranos ran into trouble after the Wall Street Journal published a series of articles beginning last October suggesting its blood-testing devices were flawed and inaccurate. [nL1N1AI1Q6]

(Reporting by Gaurika Juneja in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Rigby)

Valuing the Invaluable in Business

This article has been submitted as part of the Natural Capital Coalition's series of blogs on natural capital by Ivo Mulder, REDD+ Economics Advisor, UNEP.

This article was originally published on LinkedIn.

Putting an economic value on our natural environmental is difficult, both from an ethical and from a technical perspective. Nature is therefore often regarded as 'priceless'.

However, in our globalized economic system, the value of nature's multitude of critical services is subsequently translated as "0". This is true for services such as crop pollination, water purification, climate regulation and carbon sequestration, and the list goes on.

Many people know in the back of their minds that as we continue to overuse our forest ecosystems, deplete soils, and overuse our water resources, at some stage the "rubber will hit the road".

In other words, there will be real economic and financial impacts. For the private sector then, the race is on to identify how changes in our natural environment can positively or negatively affect the costs and revenues of a business.

We are entering an era where water scarcity, deforestation, soil degradation and biodiversity loss will increasingly incur real costs or affect revenues by companies caught unaware. Take the Malaysian palm oil producer 'IOI Corporation', whose shares has been on a roller coaster.

On 1 April 2016, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) suspended the corporation due to failure to prevent its subsidiaries from illegal deforestation in Indonesia. As a result, 27 major corporate buyers - including Cargill - suspended and terminated relations with IOI and its share price fell 17%. Then on 5 August 2016, shares rallied 5% on the news that the RSPO will lift its suspension effective 8 August 2016. Moody's - a credit rating agency - however maintains a "negative credit outlook" on its debt. (See research conducted by Chain Reaction).

Take another example. The south of Brazil experienced a massive drought in 2015, severely affecting São Paulo state, which accounts for a third of Brazil's economy and 40 percent of its industrial production. The agricultural sector - including production of coffee and sugar (ethanol) - has been seriously affected. An article in the Guardian highlighted that production of Arabica coffee beans fell 15% in 2014, which, (given that Brazil is by far the biggest producer globally), pushed up the global price of the commodity by almost half.

While rising population density and higher water consumption are among the reasons cited, there is increasing evidence that continued deforestation in the Amazon leads to decreased rainfall. Because of the drought, the Brazilian water firm Sabesp also saw the outlook of its credit rating changed to negative.

These are just two among a growing number of examples that show how the deforestation, forest degradation and other environmental issues can be financially material for companies, and therefore, for those who have put money into them, such as stock and bondholders as well as banks and other investors.

So, if you understand as a business that this is real and relevant for your operations, what tools are out there for the private and financial sector to understand the extent to which your company can be affected by natural capital risks?

A good starting point is the Natural Capital Coalition, which has just released a Protocol that guides companies through nine steps to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on the natural environment. It has also issued two sector guides for food & beverages and for the apparel sectors. Specific sector guides for more sectors will follow.

If your company is specifically or exclusively interested in understanding the financial impacts related to natural capital, then the Natural Capital Declaration (NCD) is developing a range of tools that directly integrates natural capital in credit risk analysis of loans and bonds, as well as in market valuations of companies listed on stock exchanges.

The basic premise of any of these tools is that they look in principle at costs and revenues, and how to embed these in standard financial metrics such as EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization).

A water risk tool target (equities) developed and released in 2015 by Bloomberg and the NCD enables financial professionals to gauge the extent to which water scarcity affects earnings and potentially the share price of mining stocks using a standard discounted cash flow model (DCF). It found for example in the case Antofagasta, a copper mining company, that the difference between free cash flow in a business-as-usual scenario in 2021 and when taking water risks into account, is about 40% or US$ 2.5 billion. This is large enough to affect equity value and the projected share price.

The NCD has also co-developed a water risk tool focused on corporate bonds. It found that water stress could have a significant impact on credit ratios. In the case of South African utility, Eskom, the model predicts that its debt/EBITDA ratio, (which is an important yardstick for the value and riskiness of corporate bonds), will almost triple if the full cost of its water use is internalized.

What these two tools have in common is that they are Excel-based, free to download from the internet, focus exclusively on the financial impacts of natural capital risks, and are customizable meaning that anyone can override the assumptions in the model and add new companies.

Nevertheless, this story is not only about risks and credit downgrades. There are major business opportunities for companies and investors that know how to turn a healthy profit in a world where resource scarcity is a reality and where greenhouse gas emissions need to get down fast, including in relation to forestry, agriculture and other land use.

The market for green bonds is rapidly expanding with close to US$ 700 billion of climate-aligned bonds outstanding in 2016 (of which US$ 118 specifically labelled green bonds). There are plans to issue the first green bond that would specifically finance commercially viable projects that have a positive effect on sustainable landscape management. This is being made possible thanks to a growing drive by consumer goods companies to work towards 'zero-net deforestation' commodity supply chains, effectively creating demand for private finance that leads to lower or zero-net forest impacts. As of June 2016, 579 companies had made pledges to remove forest destruction from their supply chain.

The UN-REDD Programme is also playing a very active role by supporting partner countries such as Panama, Costa Rica, Kenya and others to identify how the private sector can contribute to achieving REDD+ results.

The take away message is that changes in our natural environment - deforestation, water scarcity and greenhouse gas emissions building up in our atmosphere - are real and if left unaddressed will affect many businesses in a vast multitude of ways. On the other hand, those who are well prepared and know how to navigate changes in consumer and investor preferences related to natural capital, will be much better positioned to weather the storm.

Disclaimer: Articles in this series are submitted by people who work in organizations who are part of the Natural Capital Coalition, or people who are involved in the natural capital space more generally, the views expressed here do not necessarily represent the views of The Natural Capital Coalition, other Coalition organizations, or the organization that employs the author.

Ivo Mulder has over ten years of professional experience working for UNEP, private consulting firms and with NGOs on building the business case for companies and governments to deal with challenges related to climate change, water scarcity and ecosystem management. He has published more than forty reports, blogs and articles.

Over the past two years, he has contributed to building the economic case for reduced deforestation and forest degradation as part of the UN-REDD Programme, including through economic valuation studies, fiscal policy analysis and outlining how businesses can decouple revenue growth from forest impacts. More recently, Ivo is involved in setting up new finance mechanisms with the aim of channelling private capital to activities that contribute to achieving REDD+ results.

Follow REDD+ on Twitter: @unredd

On 13th July 2016, The Natural Capital Coalition launched a standardized framework for business to identify, measure and value their impacts and dependencies on natural capital. This ' Natural Capital Protocol' has been developed through a unique collaborative process; a World Business Council for Sustainable Development consortium led on the technical development and an IUCN consortium led on business engagement and piloting. The Protocol is supported by practically focused 'Sector Guides' on Apparel and Food & Beverage produced by Trucost on behalf of Coalition.

Keep up to date with the Natural Capital Coalition on Twitter: @NatCapCoalition

Keep up to date with our series on natural capital here.

www.naturalcapitalcoalition.org

Lost Sight of 'Why' You Are Working? 3-Steps To Integrate Work-Life Balance

We’ve lost sight of why we work: the goal of well-being and happiness. October is National Work and Family Month which focuses on the challenges working families face every day. One of those challenges is being happy. Americans rank 13th among the happiest nations, according to the 2016 World Happiness Report. Since the US has the world’s largest economy, it clearly shows money does not buy happiness. Why do other countries, including third-world developing countries, score higher on happiness than American citizens? We work for many reasons, and one of those is money. We work longer and longer hours to make more money. We do this because we have been indoctrinated into the pursuit of profit and return on investment – Wall Street’s only metric in deciding if a company, and those that work for a company, are good or bad.

According to a 2014 Gallup poll, full-time American employees work an average of 47-hours per week with 39% working greater than 50-hours. Is this too much or too little of time to meet the needs of other roles in our life such as family, friends, self-care, spiritual, and pleasure? Well, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, Australia, and Sweden average a much shorter work week than the USA does, and those countries are higher on the world index of happiest citizens and are living a more balance life.

Do We Balance Work-Life or Integrate the Two?

Work-life balance has been broadly defined in the academic arena as how well an individual assesses his or her performance in balancing the multiple roles in life. In the past, turning off your office light or punching a time clock used to be the “off” switch that separated work from personal time. However, technology has not only blurred the lines; technology has interwoven them. There is no true divide between work and personal life.

Devon Bandison, based in New York City, is a high performance coach and speaker who, among many leadership attributes, is committed to helping his clients in work-life satisfaction. In one of Devon Bandison Podcasts, he interviewed Stew Friedman, who is the founding director of Wharton's Work/Life Integration Project. Stew’s take on work-life balance is that it shouldn’t exist. Balance is about trade-offs such as I need to give up family time for work time. Stew teaches work-life integration where people will benefit more by focusing on how an improvement in one role in life can have a ripple effect in another role. In other words, what positive outcomes in your life might occur if you make a positive change in one of your other roles? Stew teaches how to integrate work and life versus focusing on balancing life by contemplating the trade-offs one needs to make in their various roles.

I believe the ideal state might lie between balance and integration. For example, many Americans trade-off sleep to recapture more family or work time. According to the 2014 Gallup Sleep Study, 40% of Americans sleep six hours or less per night. The American Medical Association continues to advocate we should get between seven and nine hours of sleep to rejuvenate our minds and bodies.

Richard Fagerlin, one of the top 100 trust leaders in the world, believes the pursuit of balance in his life is a constant tension. He seeks excellence in everything he does yet realizes he can’t do everything at the same time. He chooses when to say no and when to say yes. Managing his priorities is how he manages the tension in his life and ultimately his happiness.

3 Steps to Become Happier and Improve Your Work-Life Satisfaction

1. Enjoy your work and the organization you choose to spend a significant amount of time with each day. Find engagement and meaning in your work so you can achieve a sense of accomplishment. Gaining these happiness attributes at work often lead to spill-over effects that bring happiness to the home. Can’t find this at work? Perhaps it is time for a career change.

2. Reflect on your meaning of happiness. What are your priorities in life? Where do you want to see improvements? Reflect deeply on what is important and why it is important. Then take a step in that direction. Remember, each of us are capable of great accomplishments. We can all eat an elephant one bite at a time.

3. What brings happiness to those you care about the most? One of the best injections of happiness is in having healthy personal relationships. Do you need to change the amount of time or mental energy you are applying in one or more roles in life to bring greater energy to your personal relationships? Do something today for someone you love that will catch them by surprise. Feel the gratitude and love they express to you. Remember that feeling and build on it in the near future.

9 Ways Influencer Marketing Can Exceed Traditional Advertising

By Joe Gagliese

Traditionally, online content was made to be delivered in a commercialized way, similar to pop-up ads and YouTube pre-rolls. But the problem with content like this is that it's built with a brand's perspective in mind, not a customer's. This results in content that doesn't resonate or engage with an audience.

To successfully resonate with a target audience, content must emulate something or someone that the customer relates to. The overwhelming nature of ads explains why marketing efforts through print, email campaigns, mainstream digital and TV are becoming less effective. But a new extension into the marketing world, known as influencer marketing, is making waves.

At its core, influencer marketing leverages people with heavily-engaged audiences to communicate a brand's message. It breaks through the noise and connects to the masses, making it more likely to be seen, heard and absorbed than traditional advertising alone. 

As the founder of a global influencer marketing and talent agency that has launched hundreds of campaigns for brands, I've come to understand the value behind the industry and how the space really works. Here are nine reasons why influencer marketing is exceeding traditional advertising.

1. It's Organic 

Brands that allow for influencers to have more creative freedom achieve incredible results with their content. According to data from Twitter, there is a 5.2 percent increase in purchase intent when users are exposed to both brand and influencer tweets, versus a mere 2.7 percent increase when users are exposed to tweets from brands alone. 

2.  It's Shareable

Shareability is the driving force behind what makes social media as powerful as it is, as it takes word-of-mouth marketing to an entirely new level. For instance, it's likely someone will feel more compelled to share a video of a lifestyle YouTuber conducting a beauty tutorial than sharing a product advertised on a YouTube pre-roll. In fact, 94 percent of people skip pre-roll ads after the five-second mark.

3. It Promotes Trust

Trust is the foundation that needs to be built between a consumer and a brand, and influencers assist in bridging the two. Consumers can feel comfortable relying on influencers for recommendations on a certain brand or product just as they would with a friend. 

4. It Can Tap Into Specific Audiences

Influencers can be the key to tapping into a target audience: This is because influencers aren't unique to one area; they're spread throughout the world. Each influencer audience differs significantly from one another, whether it be by location, age, gender, etc. More so, influencers tap into a variety of interests, including travel, food, art, sports, beauty, DIY, etc.

5. It Can Be Amplified by Paid Media

Paid media through social is a large part of many marketers' current spend, and its landscape is ever-changing as platforms continue to transform. Paid media can be used to amplify influencer content on brand platforms, or within the influencer's channel.

6. It's Cost-Effective

When compared to mainstream marketing, influencer marketing is more cost-effective in many ways. Traditionally, the costs associated with creating content can be extremely high, but influencers create content as part of the cost of leveraging their network. Content from creators is typically much more vibrant and engaging, thus achieving a more valuable result. Organic reach and the quality of the audience's attention delivers more value than comparable media prices, with access to the same audience.

7. It Serves More Than One Purpose

Influencer marketing is not about merely posting to a large audience. Content produced by influencers can be reused for paid media, distribution, social content and commercials, just to name a few. Influencers have the ability to be multifaceted with a brand, just as content creators, strategists, brand ambassadors and spokespeople are. 

8. It Attracts a Younger Audience

Today's generations aren't engaging with advertisements on TV as previous generations once did. According to Think with Google, in 2015, 18- to 49-year-olds spent four percent less time watching TV, and 74 percent more time watching YouTube. Influencer marketing offers access to audiences that have been disengaged and grants more communication with them than ever before. 

9. It Connects the Consumer to the Brand

In traditional forms of advertising, there is little that ties the consumer to the brand. Influencer marketing has the ability to dramatically increase the way consumers interact with a brand, as influencers can create a voice for that brand. Consumers may also rely on influencers to dictate their decisions and preference. 

Ultimately, it comes down to this: Would you rather have a pop-up ad tell your story or a trusted voice? Influencer marketing is still overlooked and misunderstood in many ways within the media industry, but the amount of brands and agencies that are embracing influencer marketing continues to increase.

Joe Gagliese is the Co-Founder of Viral Nation. Joe is an industry thought leader on all things social.

Wells Fargo CEO Should Resign Over 'Egregious Fraud' With Fake Accounts, Lawmakers Say

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK - U.S. lawmakers called for Wells Fargo & Co chief John Stumpf to resign on Thursday and a top House Democrat demanded the bank be broken because it is too big to manage.

Stumpf’s second trip to Capitol Hill on Thursday went no better than his first as lawmakers from both parties angrily rebuked his handling of sales abuses and said the bank has damaged customer trust as well as the broader banking system.

Representative Maxine Waters, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said fraudulently opening accounts amounted to identity theft and called for Wells Fargo to be broken up because it is too big to manage.

She called the sales abuses “some of the most egregious fraud we have seen since the foreclosure crisis.”

“I’m moving forward to break up Wells Fargo bank,” Waters said.

Although Stumpf offered fixes for the widespread abuses, members of the House Financial Services Committee blasted him over the bank’s culture, his compensation, and whether those responsible got the appropriate punishment for overseeing the opening fee-generating phantom accounts. Several called for his resignation.

Representative Mick Mulvaney, a South Carolina Republican, said, “The damage you have done to the market and your industry far exceeds the damage you have done to your business.”

Wells Fargo shares fell 2.4 percent to $44.22. Since Sept. 7, the last trading day before the scandal broke, its stock has lost 11 percent, or about $27 billion in market value, based on Reuters data. The stock is trading at its lowest since early 2014.

Stumpf said he has had one conversation with Warren Buffett, whose company Berkshire Hathaway is Wells Fargo’s largest shareholder, since the penalties were announced Sept 8. Buffett’s secretary told Reuters he was not immediately available for comment.

Jeb Hensarling, the Republican chairman of the committee, said in his opening statement that he has lost faith in Wells Fargo, where he has a mortgage.

“Mr. Stumpf, I have a mortgage with your bank,” Hensarling said. “I wish I didn’t. I wish I was in the position to pay it off because you have broken my trust as you have broken the trust of millions.”

Stumpf said he was sorry the bank broke the trust of its customers and admitted under questioning that employees stole money through unwarranted fees.

“I am deeply sorry that we didn’t do the right thing,” Stumpf said in response to a lawmaker who said the scandal has eroded the bank’s market value.

Asked by Representative Sean Duffy, a Republican from Wisconsin, about whether Wells Fargo employees ‘stole,’ Stumpf said, “In some cases, they did.”

The sales practices have exploded into a scandal in Washington, on Main Street as well on Wall Street. The hearing, the second on Capitol Hill this month, raised the possibility lawmakers may look at banks’ sales practices beyond Wells Fargo.

Republicans on the committee have often advocated easing Wall Street regulations but at Thursday’s hearing they were among Stumpf’s strongest critics. Duffy said small fees wrongly levied on Wells Fargo accounts amounted to customer theft, an accusation Stumpf accepted.

Representative Steve Pearce, a Republican from New Mexico, faulted Stumpf for saying the company’s board could eventually be relied upon to sanction the executives responsible.

“I, sir, think you ought to submit a resignation and your board cannot hold off action on that,” he said.

Representative Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked the committee to summon other Wall Street chiefs, including from Citigroup Inc and Bank of America Corp, to determine if they have imposed sales demands and quotas on their employees.

“I don’t think, Mr. Stumpf, that you should be alone in this joyous experience,” said the California Democrat.

Stumpf told lawmakers that Wells Fargo will eliminate sales quotas for branch staff starting Oct. 1, three months earlier than planned.

He said the bank was strengthening oversight of sales tactics and changing procedures for issuing credit cards. It also paid back past and current customers for any fees incurrent on the ghost accounts.

Earlier this week, the bank took back $41 million in stock awarded to Stumpf, an unprecedented rebuke to a major U.S. bank CEO, but the move is unlikely to silence calls for his resignation. Investigators found that branch staff opened as many as 2 million unauthorized credit card and deposit accounts to meet sales quotas.

When pushed about whether the bank would waive its mandatory arbitration rules so customers could sue the bank, he said “no.”

Representative Carolyn Maloney raised questions about $13 million in stock sales by the CEO in 2013 after he learned about the abuses. Stumpf said he sold stock with proper approvals and added that the sales were made “with no view about what was going on.”

The affair has triggered lawsuits, more investigations and wiped more than $20 billion from the bank’s market value.

On Wednesday, California, Wells Fargo’s home state, suspended business relationships with the bank for a year and said it would work with the state’s two giant public pension funds to change the management structure at the bank, including separating the roles of CEO and chairman.

The episode has been a stunning reversal for Stumpf, long regarded as a safe pair of hands in the industry for navigating Wells Fargo successfully through the financial crisis.

Thursday’s testimony follows a bipartisan tongue-lashing from the Senate Banking Committee on Sept. 20, when Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts called Stumpf a “gutless leader” who should be criminally investigated.

Criticizing Wells Fargo’s practice of calling its branches stores, Representative Ed Perlmutter, a Democrat from Colorado, said, “You don’t sell Veg-O-Matics. You don’t sell grapefruit. Why are you calling these things stores? You’re a bank.”

(Additional reporting by Ross Kerber in Boston and Lisa Lambert in Washington; Writing Nick Zieminski in New York; Editing by Carmel Crimmins, Jeffrey Benkoe and Alan Crosby)