4 Eating Habit Changes That Can Boost Your Critical Thinking

The ability to think critically is of the utmost importance when you’re running a business or an organization. Although it's rarely given the attention it deserves, the food choices that you make every day affect your critical thinking skills, and determine whether you can make important decisions when it really counts.

There’s no magic pill that will make you a great critical thinker. However, you can make some easy diet changes that can improve your brain health and optimize your ability to think critically.

As a former management consultant, I learned this the hard way, through much trial and error. Now as a full-time entrepreneur, I’ve mastered the simple diet changes that keep my critical thinking skills sharp, so that I can perform my best, no matter what challenges come my way!

1. Have coffee, but not too much.

Caffeine really perks you up, but it doesn’t really give you energy. It’s actually a drug -- a stimulant -- that’s been shown to increase thinking ability and attention. Most research into caffeine’s effects on thinking are done with 200 to 300 mg. of caffeine, about the amount that you’ll get in one to two cups of coffee. Anything more than that, and your thinking ability might go south. Too much caffeine is associated with anxiety, rambling thought and speech.

If you find yourself hitting up the coffee pot several times in the morning, remind yourself to slow down. Make sure to eat something along with your morning coffee, and stop at just a cup or two.

I personally find drinking green juice (a blend of dark leafy greens, cucumber, celery, lemon and ginger) to be very energizing and mind-enhancing. Give it a try!

2. Lay off the "sugar bowl."

If you eat cereal for breakfast and wash it down with some orange juice, you’ll be sure to get a sugar high. After that buzz wears off in an hour or two, your thinking ability will drop off, possibly dramatically, and you’ll experience the dreaded crash and burn. That’s because simple carbs are quickly digested, spike your blood glucose and energy levels, and then falls like a rock. Your brain function can be dulled and it can be impossible to remember anything.

To combat this, it’s best to limit sugary foods in your diet, which will train your body to start craving healthier foods. Make sure to combine any sugar intake with some protein and fiber. Protein will slow down the digestion, protecting you from a blood-sugar surge. Fiber helps to slows the rate of sugarentering your bloodstream. It’s a good idea to make sure every meal contains some fiber, mainly from raw vegetables and fruit.

If you’re craving something sweet, grab an organic honeycrisp apple and some almond butter. Eat some raw veggie sticks before lunch and dinner and you’ll easily add more fiber to your diet.

3. Go nuts.

Nuts and seeds have all been shown to help keep your brain in tip-top shape, along with being a good source of vitamin E, which is associated with less cognitive decline. In particular, walnuts have been shown to increase inferential reasoning skills, fundamental to critical thinking. Not only are they delicious, but they make quick and easy snacks that you can pack on your way to the office or wherever you’re headed.

Don’t be afraid of fat, it keeps hunger pangs at bay and will help you stay focused for hours.

4. Don’t overdo it.

Overdoing it in your life -- whether it’s work, sleep or exercise -- can backfire. In particular, simply overdoing it by eating a huge lunch before a major project can keep you from thinking clearly. When you eat too much, you decrease the blood flow to your brain as it’s preoccupied with your digestive system.

You don’t want to skip meals, but keep them reasonable in size, eat slowly and stop eating when you are full. I like to eat a simple bowl of lentil soup with a salad, which keeps me full for hours without draining my brain power.

by Vani Hari, Food Activist, Food Babe

10 Ways to Keep Making Your Clients Happier and Happier!

According to Forest Research, it costs five times more to find a new customer than to retain a current customers. Sometimes, small changes have a big impact on how customers perceive the quality of your service and make the difference between loyalty and high churn rates.

Here are ten ways to increase customer retention for service businesses.'

1. Call your clients regularly.

Communication makes everything easier. Schedule periodical calls with your customers to share updates about how things are going and to ask how happy they are with your services on a scale from 1-10, 10 being best. If they do not give you a 10, do not ask why but ask what it would take to make it a 10. If they give you a 10, ask what they particularly appreciate.

2. Create valuable content.

Share new market insights, your opinion on the matter, and opportunities that your clients might not be aware of yet. Generating valuable content shows that you are on top of your game and improves brand awareness. Clients will also be likely to share your content or recommend your services to their connections based on publicly available content.

3. Become an authority in your field.

Your should always strive to be the best company in your market. If people see your business as a leading brand in the market, they are much more likely to stick to you. They have confidence in you because the consensus confirms that they already have one of the best providers.

4. Reply to your emails promptly.

You should always reply to your emails within 24 hours. If possible, within one hour. It is much more effective to reply saying that you received an email and that you will reply as soon as possible instead of waiting several hours and responding with a long detailed email. Quick response times show that if something important comes up you are always on top of your inbox.

5. Be decisive.

Clients  hire you because you are the expert. You cannot afford to be uncertain what's best for your clients. Your confidence has to come across in your discussions. Avoid "if" in your emails or calls. Anticipate questions that require research, do the research ahead of time and have all the right answers at your fingertips.

6. Value your client's point-of-view.

Clients are experts in their field as you are in yours. You need to listen to ideas and inputs from your clients because they have worked with their own customers longer than you and can make your efforts more efficient. If you are providing a service to an end-customer, listen to their needs and personalize your service to their liking.

7. Add a personal touch.

Adding a personal touch to the relationship such as a hand written Christmas card or an email about your work anniversary. It shows that you care and enforces your position as the top of mind choice for your customers.

8. Be realistic and do not over promise.

It is better to under promise and over deliver. On average, unhappy customers share their experience with 20 people or more while satisfied customers share their experience with three or four people. One way to avoid the nay-sayers is to set realistic expectations from the get go and take on only clients that are happy with that.

9. Identifying opportunities proactively.

Don’t wait for customers to ask you what else can be done to improve performance. Come up with ideas and new strategies to proactively tell your clients how they can get more out of their budgets. This will show your customers that you care about making sure their investment in your company is helping them grow continuously over time.

10. Be clear and transparent.

State clearly what you do, how you deliver your services, and what customers can expect from you. Customer loyalty increases also based on how mistakes are being handled. Studies show that up to 70 percent of unhappy customers transform into loyal customers if the mistake has been fixed exceeding their expectations.

Customer retention is an essential part of a service business model because existing customers are easier to upsell and more profitable than constantly acquiring new customers while having a high turnover.

By Rocco Baldassarre, CEO of Zebra Advertisement

When It Comes to Communication, Less Is More. Period.

I bet you didn’t know that the average American consumes 34 gigabytes or the equivalent of 100,000 words over 11 hours a day from all media sources. I would assume there are similar numbers for other countries.

What does that mean to you? It means we’re all overloaded with information, communication, and entertainment and our attention spans are getting shorter and shorter. But then, you already knew that. So what’s the big epiphany?

Did you ever stop to consider that, if you’re spending more and more time generating more and more content that people have less and less attention for and interest in, then maybe, just maybe, you might want to focus on doing less and having a greater impact?

If you buy into that premise, and you should, let me introduce you to a concept called media overexposure. If people see too much of you, they get sick of seeing your face. More to the point, they become sort of numb to your presence and stop paying attention to anything you have to say. The same thing happens if you spam them with stuff they could care less about and waste their precious time.

The way to avoid that is by blogging, posting, tweeting, updating, emailing, texting, calling – whatever form your communication or marketing takes – only what matters. Not what matters to you. What matters to them.

If you don’t know what matters to them or even exactly who “them” is, then you don’t have much of a marketing or communication strategy and you probably shouldn’t be sharing anything at all until you figure it out.

The best example I know of this sort of thing is Apple. Apple has a starkly minimalist communication strategy. They only communicate when they’ve got something important to say, and when I say important, I don’t mean important to Apple, I mean important to its users.

The result of that kind of strategy is what’s called a media vacuum. You know what happens when there’s a vacuum in place of information people want to know? The media gets sucked into the vacuum. That’s what creates a buzz. That’s a good thing. And it only happens when you go dark.

There’s an old line: How can I miss you when you won’t go away? Same thing.

Most highly accomplished entrepreneurs and business leaders understand this concept. We actually have a number of terms to describe people that don’t understand it. We call them self-serving, self-promoting, attention-seeking, spamming, egotistical blowhards who do more harm than good for their business.   

Some say if you want to be heard over the noise, make sure your content is crystal clear and to the point. That’s absolutely true. But that assumes what you’re saying is even relevant to whomever you’re saying it to. The vast majority of content blasted at me everyday doesn’t even come close to meeting that criterion.

Since I’m sure you want to avoid being called any of those unpleasant terms, here’s what I want you to do. Before you blog, tweet, retweet, post, email, or message anything, ask yourself if it’s something that whoever’s at the other end of the pipe will find useful in some material way.  

If not, don’t do it. Less is more. And yes, I do follow my own advice. 

by Steve Tobak, Invor Consulting