How do you get out of a rut? Natural laws like inertia apply everywhere in the physical world. But the laws of inertia apply to our emotional and intellectual life as well. The trick is to exert enough consistent emotional effort to be able to overcome inertia and create lasting change.
Doing Your Best
Years ago as a teenager, I learned a lesson about doing my best. You don’t have to do everything by yourself. Take advantage of every available resource for outside learning, encouragement, and help.
Organize a Sprint Week
Organize a “Sprint Week” in your company, your organization, or just by yourself. Plan in advance to make it the most productive week of the year. Give your supreme effort — sprint! Then celebrate your amazing successes.
Get Started
We all know things that we could do right now that would make a huge difference in our lives. I challenge you to begin now and start. The story is told about three frogs sitting on a lily pad. Two decided to jump off. How many were left?
Footsteps Along the Path to Success
You can learn a lot about life by hiking in the mountains and I am struck with the many similarities between a mountain hike and our journey to success. Here are a few simple lessons we can learn: plan ahead, pay attention, adjust for obstacles, don’t compare yourself to others, and keep going. Cultivate mental toughness to create your ideal future tomorrow.
Keep the Wind at Your Back
Why is procrastination so damaging to your productivity? Stop the headwind of procrastination by planning out important tasks, staying on schedule and getting them done on time. Several days ago, I took my golden retriever on his customary walk. The wind was blowing pretty hard and I found myself leaning forward a little and planting my steps deliberately in order to keep moving…
Invest in You!
What is the best investment you can make? It’s not an investment in stocks or bonds or gold. It’s an investment in you. Don’t wait to get started. The life you dream about is waiting for you to take action now. Self-improvement training not only pays financial dividends, it can help to improve your relationships, boost your confidence, reduce fear, hone your skills, and increase your health and happiness.
The Value of Underselling
Today, with desperate retailers and sensationalistic advertising, too many companies promise more than they can deliver, with disastrous results.
Use Goals to Reach Your Dreams
Do you ever feel like Alice, in Lewis Carroll’s classic story, Alice in Wonderland? Do you feel like you are trying to get somewhere, but just don’t know exactly how to get there? Perhaps you have never actually harnessed the full power of goals. True goals, the ones that change your life, have six essential components. Leave one out, and the framework falls apart with it. Follow through on all six, and you can’t fail. Here they are…
Focus Your Thinking
The human mind is an amazing thing. Yet, just like a sophisticated computer or a powerful machine, you must learn how it works to take full advantage of its potential. The trick is to decide what will get your attention and then keep focused on what is important.
Give Encouragement!
Our world is starving for something of which you have a potentially unlimited supply. You can get it by simply deciding to have it. You can give it away freely to thousands of people and still have plenty to give yourself. In fact, the more you give away, the more you will be surrounded with it. This illusive, yet potentially unlimited substance is simply “an encouraging word.”
A Strong Foundation
When I was a teenager, I visited the Sears Tower (now known as the Willis tower) in Chicago, Illinois. At that time, it was the tallest building in the world. In some ways, we are like a skyscraper. We work every day to achieve higher and higher levels of achievement. At the same time, we are susceptible to conditions that surround us. The foundation for the Sears tower is a massive cement structure that is 100 feet deep. If we are to stand strong, we too must have a solid foundation.
Stop Being Taken Advantage Of
Do you ever feel that you are being taken advantage of? Are certain people constantly asking for your time, borrowing money, or relying on you for things that they could do themselves. Where do you draw the line between being nice and being trampled on? How do you say “no” and still be nice?
What Today’s Customers Want
Today’s customers crave to be treated like people and to get real value. The more you can provide a personal touch, and the more value you offer in the form of exceptional service, selection, convenience, price, and integrity, the more customers you will have. These efforts may seem like backwards steps in a world of increasingly impersonal technology. But, they will win today’s customer–and tomorrow’s.
Make a Decision
How many of us have decided in a moment of strength that we would exercise daily or quit smoking or be on time, only to give up on the decision within 24 hours? How does a person make a decision and then make it stick? You do it by finding your passion, becoming committed, getting motivated, killing the ANTs, and then doing something about your decision today.
Think About Breathing
There is immense value in taking a few minutes a day to just be alive and pay attention. It fosters clarity, perspective, and awareness. A great way to do this is to stop whatever you’re doing and focus on your breathing. Every day, take a few minutes to just focus on your breathing. Be totally aware and alive in this moment. Suddenly, the cares of the day will be swept away and you will wake up and notice your surroundings. Make this a daily habit for greater clarity, perspective, and confidence in your life.
Get Crystal Clear
Before you can reach your goals, they have to become crystal clear in your mind. Ask yourself: What, How, Who, Where, When, and Why. The more clearly you define your objectives and the more frequently and intensely you review them, the faster they will be yours.
Be a Leader, Not a Boss
What is the difference between a leader and a boss? It boils down to the person’s attitude. Whether you are the company president or working in the mail room, adopt the attitudes of mutual respect, teamwork, and commitment to the company vision. As you do, you will become a true leader.
Add Variety to Your Presentations
Do you tend to lull your listeners to sleep when you stand before a group? Make your presentations more engaging and captivating by adding variety to your speech. Loud, soft, fast, slow, humorous, serious, tone, and stress—all these add interest and impact.
Make Weak Areas Strong
We all have areas where we are weak. Take a lesson from Bill Porter and work on it until your formerly weak areas become your greatest strengths. Pick a weakness, work on it, study, practice, step outside your comfort zone, enlist the help of others, and rise to a new level.
Jump In!
I’ll never forget the day our swim instructor said it was time to do the high dive. I immediately got at the back of the line, where I watched all of my class mates climb the stairs and jump off the high dive. Fear is a thief that robs us of enjoyable experiences and future success. Take a lesson from my swimming instructor and “Just jump in!” Do the thing you fear.
How to CREATE a Happy Relationship
These six keys can help you CREATE a happy relationship. They are simple, but not always easy. The fact is, happy relationships take some work. But they’re also worth every bit of effort. Start doing these things yourself and you’ll often see amazing changes in your partner as well. Follow these ideas, and I guarantee your marriage relationship will improve and prosper.
Take a Personal Inventory
Regularly schedule quiet time for a personal inventory where you can reflect on the highest priorities in your life and evaluate how well you are allocating your time and energy toward accomplishing them. Worthwhile goals will naturally flow from this type of introspection.
Has Civil Society Come to an End?
While it’s true that civility is decreasing, while violence and degeneracy are increasing, we have by no means lost our society. Yet. Let us choose to promote positive virtues in your personal actions and to focus on the good in others. It will improve your attitude, your happiness, and ultimately improve our world.
Are You In the Garage?
Sometimes life hands us difficult challenges. There are times when we are figuratively in a cold, dark, lonely place–like my garage. As unpleasant as these times are, they are necessary for us to learn and grow and bloom into the person we are meant to become. The truth is, everyone has their times in the garage as well as their moments to bloom in the sunshine.
Challenges Build Strength
The woman or man who overcomes the most strife is also often the one who makes the greatest contribution to this world. The poem “Of Trees and Men” clearly articulates this principle of the power of overcoming adversity.
Cultivate Charisma
People with charisma have amazing influence over others. They pass through life inspiring greatness, uplifting spirits, and planting seeds of excellence. They are a valuable part of any team and command higher salaries. The truth is, whether you are in management or not, you need to cultivate charisma. It will help you at work, in your family, and your social life.
Controlling Interruptions
A short interruption actually costs in lost productivity as much as 10 times the amount of time it takes. Value your time enough to eliminate as many interruptions as you can by scheduling blocks of time to work without interruption and other blocks of time to handle those items that would have interrupted your work.
Rise Above the Clouds
We sometimes allow the problems and stresses of life to cloud around us, blocking our vision and depressing our spirits. When this happens, our outlook can seem hopeless. We need to realize that hope and sunshine are just above the haze. We can Rise Above the Clouds, overcoming despair with a new perspective.
Disadvantaged Childhood? Succeed Anyway!
If you think that you had a disadvantaged childhood, listen to the story of Mario Andretti. Mario was born in Northern Italy the same year that World War II broke out. When the war finally ended, borders had shifted and his family found themselves in communist-controlled Yugoslavia. They decided to leave their homeland as refugees[Read More]
