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We never cease to be amazed by how creative (and bored) young people are. Who else can quickly take an absurd idea for a pastime and turn it into a worldwide phenomenon? Today’s case in point: Planking.

The objective of planking is simple: Find a place to lay face down, stay completely still and unresponsive, and have a buddy snap a picture of it to post online. The weirder the location, the better—especially if it’s in public, like on a park bench, in a flowerbed, or right in the middle of the road. (Check out the official Facebook page to see some particularly inspired examples.)

But you’re only a true planker when you practice your craft in dangerous spots, like on top of cop cars (where one Australian was arrested last week), and on high-rise balcony railings, from which another Australian man accidentally plunged to his death over the weekend. In light of the death, Aussie police are hoping to crack down on rogue plankers, and you can bet that thrill-seekers all over the world are now trying to one-up each other in finding even riskier places to plank. (Call it the Jackass effect, and we wholeheartedly recommend against it.)

That said, we’re a little peeved at the whole planking craze. Why? Because everyone in these photos is totally doing it wrong.

Look, here at Men’s Health, we live and die by the plank. In one exercise, you can sculpt a six-pack and stabilize the spine, preventing lower back pain. It’s one of the best core exercises you can possibly do, which is why we cringe when we look at pictures of everyone laying on the ground like a cadaver and passing it off as a plank. (Well, that’s not the only reason we cringe—the whole thing is creepy.)

So read up, potential plankers: Here’s the right way to do the move. Use it to impress your friends, earn major cool points, and—oh yeah—work your core.

1. Start into a pushup position, but bend your elbows and rest your weight on your forearms instead of on your hands.

2. Your body should form a straight line from your shoulders to your ankles.

3. Brace your core by contracting your abs as if you were about to be punched in the gut, and squeeze your glutes.

4. Hold this position for 30 seconds—or as directed—while breathing deeply.

Click here for a video demonstration of the plank. Want more plank options? Check out The Best Abs Workout You’ve Never Done for a cutting-edge core routine, and try the side plank and row, which makes a classic exercise even more challenging.

—Andrew Daniels

Your heart is the most important leadership tool you have. It is not your experience, knowledge, or skills. It is your heart that matters most of all.

Back in the mid-80s, I started my own business. My partner and I left big corporate jobs, developed a business plan, and began raising money for our new venture.

We had one investor who promised to make a sizable investment. However, he ran us through the ringer. The due diligence process was all-consuming. We really didn’t have time to court anyone else. We made the fatal mistake of putting most of our eggs in one basket.

After months of back-and-forth, the investor decided not to make the investment after all. We were left high and dry, with about $12.00 in our checking account. We were disappointed, angry, and ready to quit. We almost lost heart.

However, that experience wouldn’t be the last time I experienced an assault on my heart. In my journal, I have cataloged almost twenty distinct situations where I was ready to quit and throw in the towel. In fact, as I have grown older, the conflict has intensified.

This is why, I think, as leaders we must be diligent to guard our hearts. King Solomon said it best: “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life” (Proverbs 4:23).

This is necessary for at least three reasons:

1. Because your heart is extremely valuable. We don’t guard worthless things. I take my garbage to the street every Wednesday night. It is picked up on Thursday morning. It sits on the sidewalk all night, completely unguarded. Why? Because it is worthless.

   Not so with your heart. It is the essence of who you are. It is your authentic self—the core of your being. It is where all your dreams, your desires, and your passions live. It is that part of you that connects with God and other people.

   Just like your physical body, if your heart—your spiritual heart—dies, your leadership dies. This is why Solomon says, “Above all else.” He doesn’t say, “If you get around to it” or “It would be nice if.” No, he says, make it your top priority.

2. Because your heart is the source of everything you do. King Solomon says it is the “wellspring of life.” In other words, it is the source of everything else in your life. Your heart overflows into thoughts, words, and actions.

   In Tennessee, where I live, we have thousands and thousands of natural springs, where water flows to the surface of the earth from deep under the ground. It then accumulates in pools or runs off into creeks and streams.

   If you plug up the spring, you stop the flow of water. If you poison the water, the flow becomes toxic. In either situation, you threaten life downstream. Everything depends on the condition of the spring.

   Likewise, if your heart is unhealthy, it has an impact on everything else. It threatens your family, your friends, your ministry, your career, and, indeed, your legacy. It is, therefore, imperative that you guard it.

3. Because your heart is under constant attack. When Solomon says to guard your heart, he implies that you are living in a combat zone—one in which there are casualties.

   Many of us are oblivious to the reality of this war. We have an enemy who is bent on our destruction. He not only opposes God, but he opposes everything that is aligned with Him—including us.

   I think that pastors are particularly vulnerable. An August 1, 2010 article in the New York Times reports that,

   Members of the clergy now suffer from obesity, hypertension, and depression at rates higher than most Americans. In the last decade, their use of antidepressants has risen, while their life expectancy has fallen. Many would change jobs if they could.”

   Satan uses all kinds of weapons to attack our heart. For me, these attacks often come in the form of some circumstance that leads to disappointment, discouragement, or even disillusionment. In these situations, I am tempted to quit—to walk off the field and surrender.

This is why if you and I are going to succeed as leaders—and survive as individuals—we must guard our hearts. They are more important than we can possibly imagine. If we lose heart, we have lost everything.

Stay tuned: I have several more posts planned on the heart.

It doesn’t matter how good your church services are if no one comes. And in today’s culture, people have choices. And sometimes, the other choices they have (besides going to church on Sunday) are not bad ones. They are just different. They could spend the weekend with their family at the lake. They could visit grandma in Ohio. They could travel with the kids baseball team where they’ve been building relationships with the other parents.

So it’s up to us to give our people convincing reasons why church is a great place to grow, ask questions, worship, and learn. I imagine when people saw this video at the close of the service yesterday–it gave them a reason to plan their weekends around this upcoming series.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Need help swaying people to see things your way? Just change how you talk.

Researchers at the University of Michigan recently analyzed more than 1,300 recordings of telephone interviewers recruiting people for a survey, and found that those who had the most success showed similar speech characteristics.

But remember all the tips you learned in Public Speaking 101? Throw most of them out the window. It turns out that persuasive speech is actually pretty simple. Follow these four quick rules the next time you want someone to do something:

1. Keep a Regular Pace
Make sure not to speed things up or drag things out when you’re talking—the trick is to hover at a tempo somewhere in the middle. Interviewers who spoke at a clip of 3.5 words per second were more successful than motor mouths and slow talkers.

2. Be Kind of Boring
Don’t get crazy when you’re giving your pitch. The most surprising thing the researchers found was that listeners tend to prefer a regular-old monotone voice instead of an energetic one. “It could be that variation in pitch could be helpful for some interviewers, but for others, too much variation sounds artificial, like people are trying too hard. So it backfires and puts people off,” said lead author Jose Benki, a research investigator at Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, in a press release.

3. Talk Like a Man
Much as your friends might laugh when you impersonate women in a high-pitched voice, going falsetto doesn’t help your cause. The researchers found that males with higher-pitched voices had worse success than their deep-voiced counterparts. And if your voice is naturally high, now would be a good time to study up on some Barry White.

4. Press Pause
The last step is to pepper your speech with multiple pauses. In the study, interviewers who took frequent short pauses—think 4 to 5 times a minute—were more successful than those who were perfectly fluent. “These pauses might be silent, or filled, but that rate seems to sound the most natural in this context. If interviewers made no pauses at all, they had the lowest success rates getting people agree to do the survey. We think that’s because they sound too scripted,” Benki said in the press release.

Want more must-have persuasion tips? Click here to learn how to win any argument.

—Andrew Daniels

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What’s your definition of the perfect job? Is it one that boasts a great salary with benefits to boot, or a position that comes with the promise of a promotion? Do you want a boss that you could have a beer with and a laid-back summer schedule? There are plenty of factors that people consider before picking their next job, and some criteria count more than others.

We were inspired to come up with the perfect job pie chart that you see above after a new study in Psychological Science revealed that people really like having control. Whether that means having power over others or having choices in your own life, people are willing to exchange one source of control for the other.

After doing some research on job satisfaction, we determined five other key factors and gave each one a percentage based on how they affect employees. So, admittedly: These percentages are biased, and will vary a lot from person to person. Don’t agree with our splits? Tell us in the comments what you think makes the perfect job.

CONTROL / RESPONSIBILITY: 27%

The evidence:

- Being top dog means more to employees than earning top dollar, according to a 2003 study from the University of Warwick in the U.K. An analysis of happiness, pay, and rank data from more than 16,000 workers found that salary had very little effect on how happy people were within their organizations compared to rank

- A 2008 report from the Family and Work Institute found that 69 percent of men under 29 want a job with greater responsibility. (More from MensHealth.com: 6 Tips for Getting Promoted)

SALARY: 24%

The evidence:

- At the end of the day, it’s still about getting paid. A study from the University of Chicago found that job satisfaction rises with income: 40 percent of people earning less than $12,500 a year said they were very satisfied (wait, really?), but 68 percent of those making more than $110,000 were very satisfied. (That sounds more like it.) Want a higher salary? Click here to learn how to make your first billion.

EMPLOYEE/BOSS RELATIONS: 14%

The evidence:

- According to a Gallup survey, about 30 percent of employees in the U.S. have a best friend in their workplace. The same survey reported that over half of those people reported they “work with passion and feel a profound connection to the company,” compared with only 10 percent of those without a best friend.

- A 2010 Conference Board study found that 67 percent of American workers reported that having friends at work made their job more fun and enjoyable, and 55 percent said those relationships made their job more satisfying. (More from MensHealth.com: How to Get Along with Your Boss)

BENEFITS: 13%

The evidence:

- Principal Financial Group produces an annual guide that helps businesses reduce annual employee turnover. The 90 companies ranked in Principal’s top 10 businesses from 2001 to 2010 had a voluntary employee turnover rate of 7 percent compared to the national average of 24 percent. The number one reason for the low turnover? Benefits. And workers agree: 40 percent of employees who answered Principal’s 2009 survey strongly agreed that wellness benefits encouraged them to work harder and perform better. (More from MensHealth.com: Money Management Tips for Men)

OFFICE ENVIRONMENT: 12%

The evidence:

- A 2007 study in Human Resource Development Quarterly found that business casual was the preferred style of work attire by about half of the employees surveyed, and that employees feel friendliest and most creative when they wear casual clothes.

- In a 2010 survey, MusicWorks asked 2,000 people in offices how music affected their jobs; 77 percent said they were more productive listening to music in the background, while 84 percent said it improved their morale. (Watch This: How to Listen to Music at Work)

HOURS/LOCATION: 10%

The evidence:

- A 2008 study in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that workers who have more control over their hours are less likely to experience frustrations at home.

- The Workforce Institute recently found that 5 million U.S. workers (4 percent) have called in sick because they couldn’t face their commute. The same survey also found that 48 percent of people said their commute significantly impacted their job satisfaction.  (More from MensHealth.com: Pain-Proof Your Commute)

—Andrew Daniels

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Sitting down, which most of us do for at least eight hours each day, might be the worst thing we do for our health all day.

We’ve been preaching the benefits of stand-up desks for a while around here — and no one needs this good news more than social media-obsessed web geeks. A recent medical journal study showed that people who sit for most of their day are 54% more likely to die of a heart attack.

And our readers are receptive to the idea, too. In fact, in a recent poll, three-fourths of you said you already used a stand-up desk or you’d like to try one.

So if you need more convincing, check out these graphically organized stats from Medical Billing and Coding. We like it for the information it contains, but we love it for the Saul Bass, Vertigo-esque graphics.

Click to see full-size image.

Source: medicalbillingandcoding.org

More About: health, infographic, sitting down, stand-up desks

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