This is why you force yourself outside of the building where you seek unbiased external perspectives willing to not only explain their part of the world, but also hold a mirror up to yours.
Women in the Netherlands work less than men, have lesser titles, and have a big gender pay gap — and they love it.
Though the Netherlands is consistently ranked in the top five countries for women, less than 10 percent of women here are employed full-time. And they like it this way.
Incentives to nudge women into full-time work have consistently failed. Less than 4 percent of Dutch women wish they had more working hours or increased responsibility in the workplace, and most refuse extended hours even when the opportunity for advancement arises.
Ever more companies are realising that autonomy isn't the opposite of accountability – it's the pathway to it. "Rules and policies and regulations and stipulations are innovation killers. People do their best work when they're unencumbered," says Steve Swasey, Netflix's vice-president for corporate communication. "If you're spending a lot of time accounting for the time you're spending, that's time you're not innovating."
The same goes for expenses. Employees typically don't need to get approval to spend money on entertainment, travel, or gifts. Instead, the guidance is simpler: act in Netflix's best interest. It sounds delightfully adult. And it is - in every regard. People who don't produce are shown the door. "Adequate performance," the company says, "gets a generous severance package."
The idea is that freedom and responsibility, long considered fundamentally incompatible, actually go together quite well.
Success comes from the work and ability you put in becoming better than the others, and not from some brilliance you feel you may have within you.
So don't believe that the brilliance of your idea is what will make you successful. What will make you successful is when you are out there every day, doing something new, challenging yourself, trying new methods, studying new ways, having a lot of small failures, then getting better every day.
“The work you do while you procrastinate is probably the work you should be doing for the rest of your life.”
This is the sort of site online video should be used for — meeting people face to face matters when sharing earned wisdom or good advice.