“The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.” — John Mason Brown

Holding people accountable is a skill you can learn. In a world where you get results through teams and teamwork, enforcing accountability plays a key role to success. Even if you’re just holding yourself accountable to some results you want in your life, it helps to know the ways to enforce accountability and why there can be a lack of accountability. A lot of it comes down to clarifying the outcome, setting expectations, and then addressing motivation, skills, and feedback.

“Calm and careful, make it count.” — Robin Hood (Russel Crowe)

I saw the movie Robin Hood last week. There’s nothing like watching the birth of a legendary archer to get me reflecting on my old archery skills. Robin Hood and his band of merry men always entertain me.

“Success is not a destination thing, it’s a daily thing.” – John Maxwell

When I think of leaders and leadership, I think of John Maxwell. He is a speaker and author, and leadership is his super skill. He leads by example but more importantly, he’s created an amazing knowledge base of leadership patterns and practices by way of his books and his speaking engagements

“An expert is someone who has succeeded in making decisions and judgments simpler through knowing what to pay attention to and what to ignore.” — Edward de Bono

Would life be better if somebody could tell us the right thing to do at all possible times?

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” — Albert Einstein

Jotting down one-liner thoughts is a simple way to turn insight into action. I come across “ah-has” all the time, and I take the extra step to write them down in a sticky way. For example, while strolling through the blogosphere I came across a nice little pearl of wisdom on The Cranky Middle Manager Show:

“When the student is ready, the master appears.” — Buddhist Proverb

Mike Kropp has been one of my best mentors at Microsoft. He’s been my mentor for several years, growing my skills and maturing my thinking.

If it’s not working, fix it. That’s my take.

I had made some changes recently as part of my Spring cleaning for Sources of Insight. The problem is, while I think some of the changes were good, I think some of the changes were less effective and actually exposed other problems.

“Mastering others is strength. Mastering yourself is true power.” — Tao Te Ching

Not all power is created equal. If you know the six sources of social power, then you can influence yourself and others more effectively.

“A mother understands what a child does not say.” — Author Unknown
In the spirit of Mother’s Day, this one’s for Mom. Everything I needed to learn in life, I didn’t learn in kindergarten.  No, I got an earlier start. I learned from Mom. (Besides, in kindergarten, I was way too busy with the arts – finger painting, tasting glue,  drawing hand turkeys, etc.)
The most important thing my Mom taught me is to follow my dreams—in a big way.  Dream big, follow my dreams, and give it all I’ve got.  If …

“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it.” — Mary Engelbreit

I’ve written about the Elephant and the Rider before. This post puts it together into a simple way to remember a change framework. Change isn’t easy, but a framework helps makes it easier and helps you build skill.

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” – Winston Churchill

As a mentor put it to me a long time ago, “without the skills, you’re a motivated idiot.” His point was simple, motivation + skills = results.

Whenever I need to improve myself or help somebody with a change, I first figure out whether it’s a motivation or a skills issue. Interestingly, many times a motivation issue is a skills issue in disguise.

“For those who believe, no proof is necessary. For those who don’t believe, no proof is possible.” — Stuart Chase

Where do your beliefs come from? Maybe some come from advertisers. Maybe some come from authority figures. Maybe some are from your parents. Maybe some are from your own personal experience.

“Seek truth with open eyes.” – Steve Pavlina

Have you heard of Steve Pavlina? He’s the author of Personal Development for Smart People: The Conscious Pursuit of Personal Growth . Chances are you may know him as a personal development leader or a successful blogger or a raw food guy. If you go back in time, you might know him from his days as a successful game developer.