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For many of us, achieving peak productivity can seem like a Sisyphean struggle. Every once in a while, we’ll think we’ve got our inboxes or to-do lists up-to-date, triaged, and under control. And then something else comes along that throws a giant wrench in all our grand plans — a tempting off-campus lunch, a last-minute request from your boss’s boss, or a cat GIF storm you can’t help but participate in.

And so we end another day feeling like we’ve failed. While accomplishing tasks is certainly part of the picture, being productive isn’t just about checking items off a list. It’s about creating an environment and state of mind that allow you to produce great work.

And although it’s true that staying focused or having the right tools can help keep you from getting derailed, peak productivity is usually a result of the right circumstances, the right project, and the right person.

These eight TED talks cover every aspect of productivity — from how to literally do the impossible (Tim Ferriss) to how to inject out-of-the-box thinking into your everyday routine (Nilofer Merchant) — and will leave you with a new perspective on what productivity really means.

8 Inspiring TED Talks That Will Change How You Think About Productivity

1) “Try Something New For 30 Days” by Matt Cutts

Too often, we’re unproductive because we get caught in a rut of bad behavior. We come to work every day and follow the same routine, and are surprised when we haven’t seen a dramatic shift in our output. Many of us have fallen victim to bad habits that are so entrenched they seem impossible to break, and so our lack of productivity continues day in and day out.

Matt Cutts, a software engineer and head of the web spam team at Google, argues that a change in behavior isn’t as hard as we might believe. In this TED talk, Cutts suggests that all you have to do to form a good habit — or get rid of a bad one — is to consciously incorporate (or eliminate) it into your routine for 30 days. Using this 30-day challenge model, Cutts wrote a novel, cut out sugar, and laid the foundation to hike Mount Kilimanjaro.

Climbing a mountain may not be on your list of goals, but you can use 30-day challenges to cut unproductive behaviors from your repertoire.

2) “Got a Meeting? Take a Walk” by Nilofer Merchant

Sometimes it’s the smallest things that make the biggest differences. Nilofer Merchant, an author, speaker, and management consultant who has launched more than 100 products globally, has a message for office workers everywhere: Sitting is killing us.

The average person sits for 9.3 hours a day (compare that to 7.7 hours of sleep!), and this lack of physical activity is directly tied to increased risk of breast cancer, colon cancer, heart disease, and type 2 diabetes.

But when are we supposed to find the time to get moving? In her TED talk, Merchant suggests turning meetings — the other scourge of the American worker — into an opportunity to walk. Watch her TED talks to discover more benefits of walking, and why getting some fresh air could lead to your next big idea.

3) “Flow, the Secret to Happiness” by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Growing up in Europe during World War II taught Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who coined the term “flow,” an important lesson — many of the adults around him weren’t resilient enough to lead normal lives during the war. When he arrived in America, Csikszentmihalyi, now a psychologist, dedicated himself to discovering what makes us happy.

Why is this relevant to you? Because happy people perform better at work, and Csikszentmihalyi thinks the key to true happiness is “flow” — a creative state where you’re completely immersed in what you’re doing.

Csikszentmihalyi suggests three conditions are necessary to achieve flow — deep expertise, enjoyment of what you’re working on, and a challenging project that stretches your comfort zone. In his TED talk, you’ll learn why “flow” is an important concept for professionals to understand — and could be the secret to productivity and happiness in one fell swoop.

4) “What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work?” by Dan Ariely

Solving the productivity question isn’t just important for individual contributors — it’s something that’s on business leaders’ minds, too. Everyone wants to know how to create conditions that are optimal to getting the most quality work done.

Dan Ariely, a psychology and behavioral economics professor at Duke who coined the famed “IKEA effect” that causes us to place a high premium on projects we labored especially hard to complete, thinks he knows how leaders can motivate their teams. In this talk, you’ll learn why it’s so important to value people’s efforts, and how small changes in how you give feedback can be crucial for keeping employee morale high.

5) “How Too Many Rules at Work Keep You From Getting Things Done” by Yves Morieux

Yves Morieux, director of Boston Consulting Group’s Institute for Organization, strives to answer one question — why are people so unproductive? During his time with BCG, Morieux has worked with over 500 companies, and despite advances in technology and increasing efforts to develop good company culture, the question still plagues him.

Morieux thinks we’re facing a “productivity crisis.” Half a century ago, workforce productivity used to grow 5% a year. It grew 3% annually in the 1970s, 2% in the 1980s, and since 1995 has grown less than 1% per year. For the first time in decades, future generations will have less of everything because their predecessors — us — have failed to produce more.

But it’s not too late to turn the boat around, says Morieux. In his TED talk, you’ll hear how the traditional principles of efficiency — clarity, accountability, and measurement — have resulted in overengineered, excessively complex workplaces and why leaders need to focus instead on fostering and rewarding effective cooperation.

6) “How to Make Stress Your Friend” by Kelly McGonigal

Health psychologist Kelly McGonigal spent the last decade teaching her patients that stress is harmful to your health. And while an eight-year study revealed that people who reported being more stressed had an increased risk of dying, it also found that only the subjects who believed stress was detrimental saw this increased risk.

Yep, that’s a real finding: Only people who believed stress was harmful to their health actually suffered. Pretty crazy, right?

When you’re in the thick of it at work, it can often feel like the sky is falling and no matter what you do, you’ll never be able to accomplish everything you have to. And that can have some pretty nasty effects on your health. But McGonigal argues that through social contact, we’re able to “hack” our brains and literally rewire the way our bodies respond to stress. In her TED talk, you’ll learn her secret to tapping into your body’s natural defenses against stress-induced damage.

7) “Smash Fear, Learn Anything” by Tim Ferriss

Bestselling author Tim Ferriss and a “six-double-espresso-per-day” friend made a pact — his friend would forgo any type of stimulant for a year if Ferriss, who had never learned to swim, could complete a one-kilometer open water race. Over the course of his life, Ferriss has also taught himself Japanese and made it to the semi-finals of the world tango championships. And he accomplished these feats he’d previously thought were impossible by learning how to approach his fear through deconstruction.

In this TED talk, you’ll hear about how Ferriss breaks down complex challenges into manageable chunks, then proceeds to crush his goals. And the next time you’re facing a seemingly insurmountable challenge at work, adopt Ferriss’ mindset to summit obstacles that suddenly won’t feel so impossible anymore.

8) “How to Stay Calm When You Know You’ll Be Stressed” by Daniel Levitin

It’s all well and good to say that we should revise how we think about stress, but it’s quite another thing to actually change how we think about it. Thankfully, neuroscientist and cognitive psychologist Daniel Levitin has some advice for how to minimize the impact stress has on your daily life.

Levitin advocates practicing “prospective hindsight,” a term coined by psychologist Gary Klein. Also known as the “pre-mortem,” this strategy calls on people to imagine everything that could go wrong as a result of a certain decision, then act accordingly to prevent those things from happening — a technique akin to a decision insurance policy. In this TED talk, you’ll learn techniques you can use to gather all the information you need to understand those negative possibilities and create systems of thought that help minimize the fallout from unfortunate situations.

What are your favorite TED talks about productivity? Let us know in the comments below.

In business, getting ahead often hinges on our ability to get noticed. We need people to pay attention to our brand if we want them to listen, complete an action, change a behavior, and so on.

Trouble is, there are two types of attention: good and bad. And the brands below know a thing or two about both. Remember the dress that broke the internet? What about the time REI boycotted Black Friday for its #OptOutside campaign? And we’ll certainly never forget the moment when Steve Harvey accidentally announced the wrong Miss Universe winner, right? 

But what happened to these brands after the fact? The folks at Fractl and Moz teamed up to explore the impact that these stunts — both planned and accidental — had on seven different companies that made big news in the past year. Armed with a handful of tools, they dug into the data to determine exactly how media coverage affects press mentions, organic traffic, and backlinks.

So is it true that all press is good press? Check out their findings by scrolling through the flipbook below.

The way students select a school, college, or program has changed. There is now more information available online than ever before so the traditional methods of printing and mailing pamphlets is no longer effective. Nowadays, students and parents are turning to search engines to gather the information they need to decide which college or course is the best choice for them.

This has opened up a huge opportunity for schools to leverage an inbound marketing approach for gaining new students into their programs. Regardless of your budget, inbound enables any school, big or small, to own their search engine ranking without paying the big bucks to maintain it through paid advertising. It allows schools to build their own online presence and attract the right students and parents to their school’s website through educational and engaging content.

In this post, we’ll look at how to plan out a content strategy so you can make sure your school is present where your students or the parents of your students are looking for answers online.

The Basics

Set Goals and Targets

The first step to being successful with content marketing is to ask yourself why you are doing it. Is it to drive more awareness for your college or the specific programs that you’re running? Is it to drive X% more applicants than the previous semester?

Whatever your objective is, knowing what those goals are before you begin makes it easier to create an effective plan and monitor your success along the way. Typically these goals fall into the following categories:

• Attract – E.g. Driving X visits to the website
• Convert – E.g. Increasing applications by X%
• Close – E.g. Converting X% applications into enrolled students

Each piece of content you create should be tightly aligned with helping you achieve one of those goals. (Want help figuring out the right goals? Download this SMART goal planning template.)

Select or Create Your Student Personas

Think of all the people who come to your site on a daily basis — be it high school students, their parents, college students, transfer students, guidance counselors, alumni, adults seeking new skills or an advanced degree. All of these people have different needs, challenges, and questions about how your school can help them so you should create content that speaks to each of them individually.

Every piece of content you create for these personas is another opportunity for your school to show up in the search results when they are asking Google to help them choose a school. By writing content that solves their specific challenges, you build trust and credibility with the people who are most likely to convert into students in your school.

If you need help creating your student personas check out our free tool Make My Persona.

Choose the Formats and Themes

When you’re planning out your content it’s important to experiment with lots of different formats. Most people will just start with a blog and that’s a great starting point but you can also include various formats within your blog as well. This comes back to knowing your personas; how they like to consume content and where they spend their time online so you can create content that suits those platforms and publish it there.

E.g. SlideShare is a huge platform for the education industry because the format enables you to teach lessons in an engaging and visual manner and the audience on SlideShare are all professionals interested in advancing their career through learning. Just click here to see hundreds of examples of people in the education industry using SlideShare.

You can create guides, checklists, templates, videos, quizzes, games, competitions, or anything else you can come up with. The key is to test everything to find out what works for your audience.

The Content

Come up with some Ideas

Once you know who your personas are you need to conduct some research. You’ll need to identify what their biggest challenges are as relates to education; what are their biggest concerns and their most frequently asked questions? What information do they need to make a decision about the school, university or program they will attend? What terms do they use to find that information in the search engines?

It’s important to remember that picking a school to attend is a huge decision, and this is your chance to educate them, soothe their apprehension, and be their number one choice.

A good place to start with this research is Google’s search itself. By simply typing in “how to choose a” the suggestions already include “how to choose a college course”. That means that the term is very frequently searched.

If you select “how to choose a college course” and scroll to the bottom of the first page of results you’ll see Google’s related search terms. These are variations of that search that are also frequently searched for.

By creating content that answers these questions, your school can start to rank for them and get found by your potential new students or their parents.

There are lots of tools available to help you come up with content topics. Several ones include:

• HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator : Get blog post ideas for an entire year with HubSpot’s Blog Topic Generator. All you need to do is enter general topics or terms you’d like to write about, and this content idea generator does all the work for you.
  

• Feedly : This popular RSS feed is a wonderful way to keep track of trendy topics in your industry and find content ideas at the same time.

• Quora: A forum of curious people who ask questions about all kinds of topics. You can find the types of questions your different personas are asking on here and then create content to answer them. 
  

A great example of a school that has identified their personas and developed content to help solve their challenges is Saint Leo University. They don’t just create content for their potential students but also the parents and families of those students as well.

They created career planning course for parents, action plans, and guides to help parents in getting their children started on the right career path. This content helps to build trust and credibility betwen the school and the families of those who plan to attend.

Map out the Student Journey

In order to be effective at converting strangers into students you need to ensure you’ve mapped your content out across the student journey. This means you should have content that attracts your personas while they’re gathering information (awareness), content that encourages your personas to interact with your school somehow (act), content that converts them into applications, and content that keeps them engaged after they become students.

We have a template to help you plan this out which you can download here .  

Management & Measurement

Have a content marketing platform in place so you can monitor the success of your campaigns, make tweaks if it’s not going so well and keep a close eye on all the activity related to your content so you can continuously improve on each iteration.

By using a platform like HubSpot’s analytics and reporting tools you can monitor your campaign to see where the most enrollments come from. You can measure what drives the most traffic to your school’s website, what is keeping your student personas engaged with your school, and what was the last interaction they had with you before they submitted their application and became a student.

With all of that information at your disposal you have leverage that you never had before with paid tactics like printing pamphlets and ads. Now you can ensure every cent of your budget is invested in the most cost effective way that will convert more strangers into students for your school.

Your website copy is responsible for more than just presenting your visitors with basic information. In fact, your words alone have the ability to influence how visitors feel about your brand, what they choose to click (or not click), and how your site ranks in search engines.

How can you ensure that it’s working the way you want it to? Testing. Sometimes the tiniest change in word choice can have a major impact on your conversion rates. While the difference between a checkout button that reads “Add to Cart” rather than “+Cart” might seem insignificant, it can significantly alter your website’s performance.

Still not convinced? Check out these 13 case studies that prove word choice does indeed matter when it comes to optimizing for conversions.

15 Case Studies That Prove Word Choice Matters for Conversions

1) Fab Increased Cart Adds by 49%

In order to optimize their sales, the online retail community Fab experimented with the “Add to Cart” button on their site. After changing the button from one that showed a picture of a shopping cart to one that spelled out the words “Add to Cart,” the website saw a 49% increase in cart adds.

Source: Optimizely

Takeaway: In trying to increase conversions, the more obvious you can be, the better. Always make your desired action as easy as possible to achieve, and leave nothing to be inferred.

2) NuFACE Increased Sales by 90%

In an effort to increase sales, an anti-aging skin product company called NuFACE decided to offer free shipping on all orders over $75. The result was a 90% increase in sales.

Source: VWO

Takeaway: The word “free” still works like magic. According to author Dan Ariely, it serves as a powerful emotional trigger that can cause us to instantly change our behavior. If you can find a legitimate way to include it on your website, you might just see a big change in conversions.

3) Monthly1K Increased Sales by 6.5%

Monthly1K — a software solution for entrepreneurs — wanted to increase the number of online courses they were selling. To do this, they experimented with a new headline that read: “How to Make a $1,000 a Month Business.” This replaced the old headline that read: “How to Make Your First Dollar.”

Source: AppSumo

The result was nearly a 6.5% increase in sales.

Takeaway: Most people are optimists, and if you can promise them big returns on their investment, then invest they will. As long as you can back up these promises, don’t be afraid to use them to increase your sales.

4) GoCardless Increased Conversions by 139%

A debit supplier in the UK called GoCardless tested two different versions of their CTA, each one only differing by one word. The first one read “Request a demo,” while the second read, “Watch a demo.”

Source: GoCardless

Ultimately, the company found that the second version led to a 139% increase in conversions.

Takeaway: Some words have a connotation that can cause visitors to hesitate. The word “request” draws up images of having to fill out forms and wait for responses, while the word “watch” implies a far quicker and more direct process. Pay careful attention to the emotional connection of each word you use, especially when it comes to your CTA.

5) JCD Increased Conversions by 18%

No matter what you’re selling, writing engaging copy is vital. The iPhone repair service JCD, for instance, saw this first hand when they replaced their straightforward, factual web copy with an entertaining and humorous description of their services.

Source: Copyhackers

The result? Almost an 18% increase in conversions.

Takeaway: It’s important to include specific details, but be sure you’re writing them in a way that’s entertaining and engaging. Even giving your copy a small dose of personality can drastically increase the chances of it actually being read by a visitor.

6) Pink Pest Services Increased Conversions by 96%

The pest removal service, Pink Pest Services, decided to alter their advertisement so both the header and the copy below it were focused on their free quote, rather than having the header focus on the quote and the copy focus on a free report.

Source: Marketing Results

The results were a 96% increase in the number of conversions they saw.

Takeaway: Your copy needs to be consistent. Expounding on your first offer is far more effective than transitioning to a second offer under the same heading.

7) DaFlores Increased Sales by 27%

DaFlores is a company that sells and ships fresh flower arrangements through their website. In an effort to improve sales, the company added a sense of urgency by displaying the text “Order in the next [x] hours for delivery today.” In exchange, they saw a 27% increase in sales.

Takeaway: Often times, urgency is the key to driving impulse purchases. By adding a sense of urgency to your website — whether through a limited-time sale or through guaranteed delivery, as what DaFlores offered — you can open up an opportunity to drastically increase your number of conversions.

8) Stride Increased Conversions by 112%

The folks at Stride decided to switch up their abandoned cart emails by focusing more on the customer and their needs, rather than the company. Notice the consistent use of “you” and “your” in the email copy below.

Source: AWeber

As a result, they were able to rack up a 112% increase in conversions.

Takeaway: While it can be incredibly tempting to tout the accomplishments and strong-points of your company, website, or services in your copy, you would, in general, be far better served by staying focused on the customer.

9) Raileasy Increased Email Opens by 31%

In this case, an online travel agency, Raileasy, wanted to improve the effectiveness of the emails sent out to customers who abandoned their shopping cart. To do this, they use personalization to customize email subject lines based on the name of the destination the customer was shopping for.

Source: Which Test Won

As a result, Raileasy saw a 31% increase in email opens.

Takeaway: People are obviously interested in the item they added to their cart, or they never would have made it that far. Reminding them of that interest is a more effective way of re-engaging them than a generic abandoned cart email.

10) TextMagic Increased Conversions by 38%

The goal of one of TextMagic’s CTAs was to send people from the company’s homepage to its pricing page. The original text in their CTA read “Buy SMS Credits,” but when TextMagic changed this to read “View SMS Credits,” they saw nearly a 38% increase in conversions.

Takeaway: People are always a little wary of pressing buttons on the internet. If your text leads them to believe that pressing a button equals buying a product, they’re often less likely to follow through. Instead, ease hesitant customers through the process with more comforting language.

11) L’Axelle Increased Cart Adds by 93%

L’Axelle‘s goal was to increase the number of underarm sweat pads being sold on their website. To do so, they changed their ad copy from “Feel fresh without sweat marks” to a more action-oriented phrase: “Put an end to sweat marks!”

Source: Kissmetrics

The result was a 93% increase in items added to cart.

Takeaway: It’s called a call-to-action for a reason. By making your copy direct and action-oriented, you’ll leave your visitors feeling more inspired and compelled to follow through.

12) Betfair Increased Conversions by 7%

The online betting service, Betfair, tested six different persuasion tactics on their website, including reciprocity, scarcity, commitment and consistency, liking, authority, and social proof.

While each page that employed these specific tactics fared better than the control group, the top performer was the website that employed social proof by pointing out the number of “Likes” Betfair had on their Facebook page.

Source: VWO

This variation in particular enjoyed a 7% increase in conversions over the control.

Takeaway: Social proof is a powerful tactic. If people believe that there’s a buzz about your product or service, they’re more apt to want to join the party themselves. Don’t be quick to rule out other persuasion tactics, though. All six of the strategies tested proved effective for Betfair, and which one works best for you will depend on your specific website and goals. (Click here for tips on how to add social proof to your landing pages.)

13) Bloomspot Increased Conversions by 20%

Last up, Bloomspot took the surprisingly obvious step of making the text on their landing pages match the images on their landing pages. For example, if the image was of a restaurant, the text mentioned deals on top restaurants in the area.

Source: Kissmetrics

As a result, they saw a 20% boost in conversions.

Takeaway: Images and text are both two different means of conveying a message. When both your images and your text convey the same message, you’re giving your visitors a double dose of your CTA and increasing the likelihood of them converting.

As these case studies make clear, word choice matters — whether it’s in your CTAs, your headlines, or your body copy. Take their wisdom to heart by using them to identify areas on your own site that may be falling victim to unclear or uninspired language usage.

Have another great case study to add to this list? Share your suggestions by leaving a comment below.

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Agency Post. To read more content like this, subscribe to Agency Post.

In a 2013 article in Forbes, contributor Ruth Blatt wrote about why “supergroups” — bands comprised of independently successful artists — so rarely work out when such an assemblage of talent should otherwise predicate success.  

She wrote: “The problem with the additive assumption underlying ‘supergroups’ is that it does not account for the process losses that come from egos, quirks, over-confidence, sense of entitlement, and the expectation to lead that stars bring to the team. And it doesn’t account for the skills required to build synergy on the team. Talented individuals need other-focused people around them who will support them and put up with their quirks.”

In other words, Blatt is asserting that great collaborations do not originate from just throwing equally talented individuals on a project, but rather the coming together of both talent and complementary personalities. Done right, the collective will stands to achieve more than any one individual.

Yet, when we think about those that have accomplished a great deal, be it in film, music, art, or advertising, how often do those thoughts drift to the individual rather than the group? In the U.S. especially, we’ve come to cherish rugged individualism — the auteur director, the leader singer who sheds the boy band and becomes a best-selling solo artist, the renegade creative director (i.e., Don Draper). Teamwork doesn’t strike the same cultural cord as blazing one’s own trail, and even when we do celebrate collaborative accomplishments, we categorize the contributors as “superstars” or “role players.” And that’s wrong. 

It’s time we celebrate the team, which can accomplish so much more. Below is our attempt to shed light on the best creative collaborations of all time. 

7 of the Most Creative Matchups

1) Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat

In the book Warhol: The Biography, former Warhol assistant Ronny Cutrone described the relationship between Warhol and Basquiat as: “It was like some crazy art-world marriage and they were the odd couple. The relationship was symbiotic. Jean-Michel thought he needed Andy’s fame, and Andy thought he needed Jean-Michel’s new blood. Jean-Michel gave Andy a rebellious image again.”

Starting in the mid 1980s, Warhol and Basquiat produced numerous works, experimenting with a type of collaborative art in which one (usually Warhol) would begin a painting, and the other would add to it, passing it back and forth until a completed project was agreed upon. Stylistically, the paintings were a departure from what either had — or most likely would have — accomplished prior to teaming up. Eventually, their efforts were exhibited by the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York.

Source: Vulture

2) Paul McCartney and John Lennon

There are numerous musical duos that could be considered great collaborators — Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, Johnny Cash and June Carter, Simon and Garfunkel — but no pair stands taller than the creative force of Paul McCartney and John Lennon. 

Highly competitive, the duo frequently challenged one another. John would write Strawberry Fields, and Paul would respond with Penny Lane. It was a relationship of one-upmanship that pushed each of them to be their creative best. Without each other, whose to say the Beatles would have become, well, the Beatles?

Source: Wikipedia

3) F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald

Common thought holds that F. Scott Fitzgerald was a literary titan, writing classics such as The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, while his wife, Zelda, was the less talented of the pair — her accomplishments as a writer were buoyed only by her husband’s immense fame and talent. Common thought is wrong.

Zelda helped edit and craft Fitzgerald’s work, including suggesting the title of The Great Gatsby. She penned numerous works, including Save Me the Waltz, and she published essays under her husband’s name, meaning that some of the literary gravitas associated with F. Scott is actually owed to her. 

Source: NPR

4) Harry, Albert, Samuel, and Jack Warner

The four brothers founded Warner Brothers, the famous motion-picture studio, and shortly thereafter introduced to the world the first genuine “talkie,” changing film-going forever. Knowing their talents, they divided themselves across the different facets of the business, with Harry as president and in charge of the New York headquarters, Albert as treasurer and head of sales and distribution, and Sam and Jack leading the studio in Hollywood.

Together they revolutionized cinema, popularizing the gangster genre with films like Little Caesar (1931) and Scarface (1932) and producing some of the most notable movies to come out of the Golden Age of Hollywood, including The Maltese Falcon (1941), Casablanca (1942), and A Streetcar Named Desire (1951).  

Source: Wikipedia

5) Ed Catmull, Steve Jobs, John Lasseter

Though more closely associated with Apple in the minds of the general public, Steve Jobs’ collaboration with computer scientist Ed Catmull and producer and now chief creative officer John Lasseter led Pixar from being a relatively fledgling film studio to the gold-standard in cinematic computer animation.  

Beginning with the first computer-animated feature film, Toy Story, in 1995, Pixar created some of the most beloved animated films and characters of all time, winning seven Academy Awards for Best Animated Feature along the way. They include Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Ratatouille, WALL-E, Up, Toy Story 3, and Brave, two of which —Toy Story 3 and Up — were also nominated for Best Picture.

Source: Disney

6) Steven Spielberg and John Williams

Next up is the creative duo of Steven Spielberg and John Williams. With Spielberg at the directorial helm and John Williams composing accompanying scores, the two have created some of the most iconic moments in cinematic history. 

Together, they brought moviegoers such classic theme music from Jurassic Park to Indiana Jones to Jaws. 

7) Helmut Krone, Julian Koenig, and William Bernbach 

When tasked with marketing the smaller Volkswagen Beetle to an American market that loved their automobiles big and fast, copywriter Julian Koening teamed with art director Helmut Krone under the supervision of William Bernbach to create one of the most iconic advertisements of all-time: Think Small.

Each of them nailed their respective tasks — Bernbach’s leadership, Koenig’s clever wording, and Krone’s spectacular design — to great effect, and the result was nothing short of a revolution in advertising. For a detailed breakdown on what made the advertisement so genius, we recommend you read Ad Age’s countdown of the top 100 campaigns of the 20^th century, where Think Small tops the list.  

Source: Ad Age

What creative teams have inspired you? Let us know in the comments below!

This post originally appeared on HubSpot’s Sales Blog. To read more content like this, subscribe to Sales.

Over a century ago, President Theodore Roosevelt delivered a now-famous address that immediately cemented its place in the Motivational Speech Hall of Fame.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles,” Roosevelt said. “The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming.”

Well … yeah. Roosevelt was right — decisions are made (and victories claimed) by those who show up. But maintaining that kind of resilience day in and day out is easier said than done. On days when you’ve been pummeled with one setback after another and have worked 12 hours straight with no end in sight, how do you keep going?

You could quit. Or you could read on for nine ways to buck yourself up and work through it.

9 Easy Exercises for Staying Motivated All Day

1) Keep a running list of wins to refer back to when the going gets tough.

HubSpot sales rep Greg Fung has a simple, ingenious way of keeping discouragement at bay. Fung keeps an Evernote list of all the sales deals he feels he’s unjustly lost — the “wrongs” — along with their value, and does the same with his sales wins and job-related “gifts.”

“Keeping a record of where I’ve been ‘wronged’ actually helps me mentally release the negativity,” Fung says. “And more importantly, when I tally up the dollar amounts for both columns, I find that my ’rights’ far outweigh the ‘wrongs.’”

2) Set the right mood with the right music.

Our environment can have a huge impact on our moods, and while you can’t control the weather or the traffic, you can set the right tone with music. There’s real science behind the way we react to different types of music — for example, research suggests that video game soundtracks improve concentration, while nature sounds could enhance cognitive function. Check out these six specially-curated playlists that’ll put you in the right mood to tackle your day head-on.

3) Pump yourself up with a motivational video.

For some of us, a song just might not cut it — maybe you need a more direct message, or maybe you (like me) can quickly tune out music as background noise. Never fear. If you need a quick jolt of inspiration, any of these videos will get your blood flowing — Kayla Kozan has compiled 10 clips from psychologist Amy Cuddy, Steve Jobs, motivational speaker Eric Thomas, Leonardo DiCaprio in The Wolf of Wall Street, and more.

4) Set a morning routine.

Your willpower is strongest in the morning, so start your days off right. Making a routine of the things you need (or want) to do each morning will make it easier to get through the rest of your day, because you’ll be starting every day having accomplished something. Buffer has compiled a list of uber-successful people’s morning routines (think Anna Wintour and Margaret Thatcher) — check them out for inspiration.

5) Knock out a few quick wins in the first half hour of each day.

This one requires reframing how you view a “win.” It doesn’t have to be a successful connect call — leaving a great voicemail or sending a good prospecting email are both small, yet significant, things you can celebrate.

While you should always be working on improving your weak areas, there’s no reason to start your days discouraged. Prioritizing the things you’re great at allows you to start off your day strong and puts you in the right frame of mind to stay positive and focused.

6) Start your most difficult task the day before.

Oftentimes, the hardest part of completing a difficult project is simply to get started. When I write long blog posts like this one, I don’t try to complete it all in one fell swoop — even though I could, it’s not the way I prefer to work. The psychological burden of knowing I have to research, outline, write, and format a post all in one day causes me to procrastinate and dread starting.

But I’ve found a system that circumvents this problem. I spend the last part of each day researching and outlining the posts I’m going to write the next day, so that when I head into the office each day to write I know I’m not starting from scratch. This technique accomplishes two things:

1. Outlining requires less brainpower than writing. Outlining posts the day before keeps me productive at the end of my day, when my willpower is drained and it’s harder for me to focus.
2. I can dive straight into the most challenging part of my day as soon as I sit down. This sets the tone for the rest of my day and keeps me moving forward instead of getting sidetracked or discouraged.

If you have a big meeting you need to prepare for or a major project you have work on tomorrow, start it today or create a plan for how you’re going to tackle it. You’ll be amazed by how much more you accomplish when you do a little prep work.

7) Do something every day that makes you happy.

We don’t procrastinate because we’re lazy or have poor work ethic — generally, it’s because we’re unhappy. In Temptation: Finding Self-Control in an Age of Excess, journalist and public policy scholar Daniel Akst wrote that ultimately, “procrastination is a mood-management technique.”

Build some simple joys into your routine. Take time out of your schedule every month to volunteer for a cause that matters to you, put on a favorite piece of music while you’re brushing your teeth, or do something as simple as packing a lunchtime treat for yourself in the morning.

8) Reward yourself.

In his landmark study, Ivan Pavlov trained a dog to salivate at the sound of a bell by ringing it every time he brought the dog food. While I certainly don’t mean to compare you to a dog, you can hack your brain the same way to great effect.

“Research shows that rewards are responsible for three-quarters of why you do things,” neuroscience blogger Eric Barker writes. “So treat yourself whenever you complete something on your to-do list.”

9) Use the “chameleon effect” to get inspired.

1-800-GOT-JUNK? founder Brian Scudamore uses the chameleon effect to feed off the energy of a particularly focused or driven employee when he’s feeling distracted. Simply by sitting next to his more focused colleague, Scudamore is able to mentally reset and get himself back on track.

Feeling down at work? Go find the most enthusiastic, motivated person you know — the one who bleeds your company colors, always seems to have a new side hustle, and actually follows through. Grab coffee with them and feed off their good energy.

How do you motivate yourself? Let us know in the comments below.