I spent a lot of time this week thinking about thinking and decision making. We are influenced more than we want to admit by our thoughts. I want to share a few thoughts around that so you can turn that into a super power. And then touch on the most important skill you should cultivate forever, and wrap with some current jobs data and how you might think about it.

Postcard from Portland:

The city isn't the war zone that is so often showcased. Protests were calm until the feds intervened. And are calming down. The area around the federal courthouse was the center of it. But just blocks away you'll find peace. Yes, there are broken windows from the initial uprising just as in so many other cities. Yet on the boards is a burgeoning art scene.

Are those voices in your head toxic?

If so, it's time to do something about them.

What are the conversations you have with yourself? I'm willing to bet there is a lot of negative self talk. Maybe you feel like an imposture. Maybe there's fear, uncertainty and doubt that dampens what you think is possible. There is certainly a lot of external stimuli to influence such negative talk. The news is negative because that is what people want to read and watch. Calm and pleasant is boring. We want to see the car wreck even as we don't wish harm on those involved. We're hardwired for the negative.

Whenever you are stretching beyond your comfort zone, your voice will try it's best to pull you back. Rethinking work, building new skills, or tackling a new sport will find a seed of doubt. Left unchecked it keeps most of us stuck in neutral or worse, reverse. I imagine you're familiar with the notion that you become what you think. You might think that makes sense. And then get back to your day and not even realize how you are sabotaging your future success.

When my dad was alive he would often call up to chat and ask me "what happened that was bad today?" He was ever the pessimist on pretty much any subject. Which became a pretty loud influence. It's taken awhile to train my brain to manage negative self talk, but it rarely owns me like it once did.

If you find yourself going down the negativity rabbit hole, consider setting a time for no more than 10 minutes. Make a game of it. Get it all out there and when your time's up, you sweep all of those thoughts into a box and put it on a shelf. Then move on. Time to rock your inner optimist. Before I go too far down this path, I want to put it out there that I advocate for the 'right' mix of pessimism and optimism. Too much of either one doesn't lead you to success.

The easiest example of too much optimism is the compulsive gambler or investor always thinking the next big win was imminent. And what about those people that are always happy no matter what? Either you don't know them well enough to see them have a bad day. Or they might be masking how they really feel out of fear or shame.

It's pretty hard to just tell yourself to think positive and expect success. You need a framework to shift your mindset. Yes, this gets back to mindset which I've talked about before. More than your competition or any external factor, you are your own worst enemy. Those that have a victim mentality won't understand that. But if you're curious, you will. Or at least you'll be open to the possibility.

The standout quote from this week was from creative entrepreneur Chase Jarvis who was talking about our thoughts and tied it to quantum physics: "The energy within you influences your outcomes more than the outcomes influence your energy."

Think about the times of day you feel most energized and creative. When you have the resources needed to tackle tough problems. And are better able to manage relational conflict. Ever have an argument when you are tired and hungry? It's hard not to snap, right?

Now think about how you can increase that energy within yourself. I won't give you a prescriptive framework but it starts with good hygeine:

• Sleep hygiene. It's amazing how much better you feel when you sleep consistently well.
• Food hygiene. Junk in and junk out. I know people who complain about how they feel bad and eat bad and want to change. Yet they consistently make poor food choices. It takes work to eat well when you don't. I used to eat poorly and accepted that I would have a four-week cold every fall. Now I'm conscious of it. I quickly notice a change in how I feel when I don't get the right mix. One of the best books on the impact of diet, among other things is Blue Zones Living about the lifestyles of the longest living people in the world.
• Friend hygiene. You really are who you surround yourself with. Choose your friends wisely. Ditch toxic friendships. I feel grateful for the circle of friends I connect with weekly and biweekly to share what's going on with our lives and work. They've become a life vest during this time.
• Media hygiene. Curate your media so that it fills you up rather than saps your energy. I've heard more and more people say giving up Facebook has made them much happier. For the news, here's a newsletter that will generally keep you appropriately informed quickly. You can use the time you save to improve your skills. Or explore what you are curious about.
• Time hygiene. How we spend our time tells us what we value. If you've tracked your time over the past three weeks you likely see patterns around sleep, meetings, media (news and social), and other areas of your life. Use this to reveal low hanging fruit to carve time for designing your life so that you live it the way you want to. And to stop making excuses for not having time for what you say matters.

Resilience: the most important skill you should cultivate

Physical resilience is something we might think about more when it comes to climbing Mt. Everest or professional sports. But it warrants elevating here as it serves you in so many ways. Mental resilience, which is also crucial for physical endurance, will help you combat negative thoughts and persevere through obstacles and hardship. It makes you more effective at problem solving because you will be more elastic and bounce back from adversity faster. You'll approach problem solving more creatively because the resilient mind considers alternative perspectives.

If you practice good sleep and food hygiene you'll increase your resilience against disease and injury. Which is even more important in the COVID-19 world.

How do you cultivate your mental resilience?

Through systems thinking. Introduce predictability where you can. For example, make your daily clothing choice easy. I read where Obama wore the same color suit most every day so he didn't have to think about it. I get up at about the same time every day and eat Steel Cut Oats with Pepitas every day for breakfast. It's simply fuel for the day. For those who are curious, I invest my energy in creative dinners.

You don't put yourself in situations where you have no wiggle room. You know the escape route. You know that there are alternative paths should you find yourself on a dead end. Examples of this include cultivating go to resources for knowledge including a stable of people you can bounce ideas off of, building time into your projects for uncertainty. Things don't always go as you wish. And when they don't, this time buffer can save your bacon. Which lowers your stress and helps you operate at a higher level. It keeps your brain from switching to fight or flight mode where you make poorer decisions.

According to the book Stronger, here are the seven characteristics you need to cultivate to build resilience within:

The seven characteristics of highly resilient people are:

1. Optimism
2. Decisive action
3. Honesty
4. Tenacity
5. Interpersonal connectedness
6. Self-control
7. Calm, innovative, nondogmatic thinking.

Think about where you are strong and where you have an opportunity to increase your strengths in these areas. Note that number one is optimism! Get those negative thoughts in check.

Tracking layoffs: what is the most popular job?

This is a newsletter about developing your work portfolio and I am spending much time on personal development because that is where it all starts. But let’s touch on what jobs in tech recruiters are searching for most. According to this article on Layoffs.fyi, which recruiters are using to fill open positions because many sharing their layoff lists here to help their people find new jobs. Engineering jobs are, not surprisingly gold, sought out more than four times than the next most popular category which is design. The hubs of San Francisco and New York are most popular locations. I'm also not surprised to see Software Engineer the top job title given our ever increasing digital future. Deloitte conducts a survey of CMOs and the latest shows that 60.8% are shifting resources to developing better customer-facing digital interfaces. 56.2% say they are shifting their go-to-market business models, which speaks to the resilience needed. It seems that while 62% said that marketing is becoming more important, it's not reflected in more jobs as 9% of the marketing jobs have been eliminated. A quarter of those surveyed don't see them coming back.

What does this mean for you?

If you are a software engineer, opportunity abounds. If you're not, you'll need to get more creative in how you think about your job, job title and where you work. You'll need to consider what skill sets you should acquire to set yourself apart.

Jeff Hunter, the CEO of Talentism said in a recent podcast that hiring is a numbers game with one out of five being amazing, two out of five very strong and the remaining two out of five not working out. More important is the mistake he said most companies make when hiring is they hire for the job they have to fill today rather than the job they need to fill in three to five years. They don't consider how this role will need to adapt to deliver the value needed and thus don't build that into the hiring process.

As a job seeker, it makes sense to probe where a company thinks a role is going. At the same time, look for the white space in the market and find or create a job that fits that need. Think about how you can design a job that doesn't exist today. Once a company sees what you bring to the table and how you position your offering, the door may open. And you'll have few competing for the role. Hard? Yes. But maybe not harder than trying to stand out from the hundreds of others competing for the same role.