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ApochroMinute 67: School Year

In this week’s ApochroMinute, we encouraged you to pause, reflect on the last few months, and consider what you want to do with the 1/3 of 2020 that remains. To get you started, here are some questions to spur your reflection. We hope you’ll do more than just reflect, though. We hope you’ll use these a few or all of these questions to launch your forward progress.

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Leveraging Habits To Change Your Life - Part Two

According to Clear, the most proven scientific analysis of personality traits (as of the time his book was published) is "The Big Five," which is an inventory of five principle traits. Clear describes the traits as: 1) Openness to Experience (curious and inventive versus cautious and consistent), 2) Conscientiousness (organized and efficient versus easygoing and spontaneous), 3) Extraversion (outgoing and energetic extraversion versus solitary and reserved introversion), 4) Agreeableness (friendly and compassionate versus challenging and detached), and 5) Neuroticism (anxious and sensitive versus calm and stable).

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Leveraging Habits To Change Your Life - Part One

James Clear has a passion for self-improvement and optimization via habit engineering. I recently listened to his book Atomic Habits on Audible and I was spellbound. I wrote so many notes that I'm actually going to divide this article into two parts. In Part One, I want to share Clear's four laws of habit building, which he believes are key to making change.

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Recently Published: Why engagement should top your to-do list in 2021

Apochromatik’s Amy M. Gardner and Keith R. Sbiral recently authored an article for The Bottom Line, the newsletter of the Illinois State Bar Association’s Standing Committee on Law Office Management and Economics.

In the article, "Goals Only Go So Far: Why Engagement Should Top Your To-Do List in 2021,” they discussed strategies to engage employees and the benefits for morale, productivity, and the bottom line.

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How a Mastermind Can Change Your Career

*OK, so maybe I’ve never had a direct conversation with TV character Leslie Knope of “Parks and Recreation." Or with Amy Poehler. But I’m pretty sure if I could, they’d both be in favor of masterminds. And, as we know, waffles.

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6 tips to a successful salary negotiation

Negotiating your compensation package with a new job can be complicated, which is why we shy away from avoiding one-size-fits-all advice on this topic.  Instead, due to requests, we offer one-on-one negotiation coaching, and a popular negotiation presentation delivered as a live program or online webinar well-suited to professional organizations.  

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9 Ways to Go Beyond the Imposter Syndrome

We recently taught a webinar on the imposter syndrome for the American Bar Association.  (ABA members can access the webinar and earn CLE free of charge here.  Non-ABA members can access the webinar with a 15% discount by using the discount code FACMARK at checkout.)  

In conversation with the ABA and program moderator Lacy Durham in advance of the webinar, one of the issues identified was that many people who feel they are a fraud or imposter think they’re unusual or alone, which adds to their shame and difficulty understanding that these feelings are common and not related to qualifications or skill.  We’re prepared this blog post as part of an effort to normalize the feelings of imposterism and help lawyers and other professionals build awareness.  It’s based on the remarks we and Lacy made during the webinar and is intended, in a more cursory way, to provide some brief background and resources.  We encourage you to share it with colleagues and your network to spur more discussion of the imposter syndrome and, in so doing, help remove the stigma around it.  

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2020 Holiday Gifts for the (Virtual) Office

The holidays are coming, and along with gifts for friends and family, you likely have gifts for coworkers on your list. In case you happen to have “?” next to them on your list, here are a few guidelines to follow, and a few suggestions.

First, let’s acknowledge 2020 as a truly unique year. And with COVID numbers spiking around the country, the likelihood is your office holiday party will be virtual. Many people will still send gifts and we want to help you pick the most appropriate ones…even this year.

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