Optimize your work environment for winning

Folks are writing me wanting to know how I start my workday, how to optimize their own lives. You want heuristics for better living, so I’ll suggest how a Wall Street winner -yours truly- structures his work area.

To be clear, optimizing your environment means nothing if you don’t have good, predictable habits in place. You should have clean habits and live a healthy life. We are not going to touch on your habits today.

How do you structure a supportive environment ? It’s common sense not to leave bad foods at your fingertips, in the fridge, sitting around. If you look at their workstations most people have pictures of their wife, and kids, maybe vacation moments.  That begs the question: What’s the girlfriend/wife picture going to get you ? “Missing you” feelings ? A “I wish I wasn’t here doing what I’m doing” stamp ? Pictures of your wife scream “I’m a pussy, I’m new, I am wimp.”

Have you ever been in a CEO’s office ? I can answer yes to that,  because I have, dozens of times. They have their workstation radically different than what you have now. I’ve talked before about the boss who had a mini-replica of Sisyphus and the boulder made out of clay. Another folk had an original handmade samurai sword that costed $3,000 hanging on the wall behind him.

You need to optimize your work area, whether your company office or home office [don’t tell me you work out of Starbucks, you shouldn’t work out of of a coffee shop for more than an hour at a time, and only rarely]. You need a space that makes a statement of who you are. Ask yourself: what inspires you ? Suppose you don’t have trophies on the wall, you haven’t made magazine cover pages,  you don’t have a wall art collection: then do as a reader of mine does, he has a canvas portrait of actor Christopher Walker.  If you already have wall art, congratulations. Other suggestion:  Wolf Wall Art by Mark Adligton .  Do you have a hero, a brand, or a symbol that inspires you ? Then put it up as wall art.

Next step: your whiteboard

Most companies have a whiteboard. All people should have a whiteboard. On the whiteboard you write the ideas that drive you, your mission statement, your defining moments, your inspiration. Leaving aside any particular schematics to your office goals, what DO YOU HAVE written on your whiteboard ? “I’m falling backward…Happy Monday [whatever day of the week]  ?  Stop it. Here’s what I have written today on my dry erase board:

SMILE ! GET UP ! GET MOVING !

I’M A GIFT TO BE AROUND.

THERE ARE ALWAYS OPTIONS.

FUCKING OWN IT.

I also wrote a “reminder”, encircled: WATCH YOUR BODY AND FACIAL MUSCLES (this is a checklist of sorts because tension in your facial muscles, posture, mean poor performance).

I go and periodically check  myself in the mirror, not that I lost my makeup, but to see if I’m off on facial coordination, straighten up, and look myself in the mirror: I’m the greatest guy in the world.

If you work 12 hours a day with your head between two monitors, you’re not the only one. A lot of people work with 6 Bloomberg terminals and a CNBC monitor blasting on the wall, and that’s not helping.

Have you ever thought of taping yourself during your work hours ? If you ever did that, it might reveal lapses you didn’t even know you had. Donald Trump replays his interviews and press conferences on mute. Why do you think he does that ? And why with the volume off ?  Hey, I look good today. Look at me !

The reason a lot of finance guys come to me is because they’re not prepped up for meetings and they have poor, or should I say, unremarkable interaction skills.

When you consciously become aware of your performance, and you understand you are responsible for it, then you become ready.

Must haves at your desk:

– exercise hand squeeze ball
– spiked hand and back massage ball – I use this for my neck, rubbing it against the chair to relieve     neck trigger points

“You don’t get what you wish for,You don’t get what you hope for,You get what you believe.” -Oprah Winfrey

Next one up : your calendar

I divide my schedule into: To-Do and Could do, leaving two hours open on purpose. These two hours are for “creative” times, not emergencies !  You wanna set up some time at the end of the day to review your day, write down three things that happened and you are grateful for.

Pro-tip: Emergencies should never drive your calendar, because they are not your emergencies, they are other people’s emergencies. This is why it is paramount that you should not make yourself available at all times of the day. People that call and don’t leave a message never had to say anything important anyways. “Be available at 3 A.M.” -this is bullshit. At 3 A.M, motherfucker, my job is to sleep. And if I get up at 5 or 6 AM, for example, I don’t get up for you ! I get up to follow my schedule. “Emergencies” are BS. Don’t take BS from people. Of course, these doesn’t apply to “night owls” or people that work nights.