“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” — Dr. Seuss

This is just a quick note to wish you a very Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, a Happy Kwanzaa, and a Happy New Year.  I hope you can make the most of the holiday, your way, in whatever scenario you may happen to be.

I know a lot of folks in some unfortunate scenarios, and I hope a few miracles come their way.

As you look back over this last year, remember the good stuff and carry it forward.  Let the rest go.  As you look to the future, dream big.  Make it bright.  Make it 3-D.   Maybe it means blowing the dust off an old dream and using a little spit and polish to spruce things up.   As you look to the present, savor your moments, and make your moments count.  Most importantly, remember that whatever you focus on expands, and that your attitude of gratitude will serve you well.  It’s how you recharge and renew and it’s where a great source of your personal power comes from.   It’s one of the best ways to get your groove on and find your mojo.

To make the most of the holidays, and to keep it simple, I’m focusing on three wins.  Or, to put it another way, I’m focusing on three experiences that I want to be able to look back on.  I’m sure I’ll adjust them as the story unfolds, but they give me a place to start, and a way to find my way forward, as the holiday season moves into full swing.

One thing to keep in mind is that whatever plans you may have for the holidays … life happens.  You have to roll with the punches, or make like a duck, and let it roll off your back.  It’s not what happens to you, but how you respond.  Sometimes your best response is sarcasm or a funny face, and that’s O.K.

As I gear up for the New Year, I’m keeping things simple.  I’m going to figure out three wins that I want for 2012, and I’m going to use 30 Day Improvement Sprints as my secret weapon to help pull them off.  Both of these are practices from my book, Getting Results the Agile Way.   I’ll also be giving out my book along my travels during the holidays to people that I hope to give a lift up or an extra edge in life.

I’m actually looking forward to January as a fresh start, and a new year.  I’m thinking of a theme for month.  I’ve got a lot of ideas, but one that keeps coming to mind is to do a 30 Day Improvement Sprint on self-awareness.  What better way to start off the new year right, and set the stage for success than mastering self-awareness.  I know a lot of tools and techniques here, and if I do this, I’ll be sure to share them with you.

If you haven’t already, be sure to grab my 30 Days of Getting Results free eBook, and be sure to read Getting Results the Agile Way (you can read it for free online.)  Be sure to share them with as many friends and family as possible.  It’s the best way I know to help you be the author of your life and write your story forward. And remember, it’s not about being THE best.  It’s about being YOUR best.  That’s all you can ask for, and that’s plenty in this lifetime.  It’s how you flourish.

Happy holidays and see you in the New Year!

I served up more than 100,000 views from Sources of Insight within a single month.  I think it’s a new milestone.  For some reason, 100,000 always seems like a significant milestone for me.

By comparison, Getting Results took me multiple months to serve up 100,000 views, while Sources of Insight did that in a single month.

These are my top 10 most popular posts for the past four weeks:

1. 25 Inspirational Movies
2. 101 Questions that Empower You
3. Motivational Quotes
4. Simplicity Quotes
5. Inspirational Quotes
6. Time Management Quotes
7. How to Think Like Bill Gates
8. Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs
9. Lessons Learned from Dr. Seuss
10. 6 Personality and Work Environment Types

Some of these surprised me.   Some of them didn’t.

What surprised me the most was how often my lessons learned from Steve Jobs showed up on other sites.   I guess reuse is a form of flattery.

Photo by seanmcgrath.

He’s a popular guy.  Somebody Stumbled my post on How To Think Like Bill Gates, and the traffic spike exceeded what my hoster could allow for a shared server.  So if you happened to wander by Sources of Insight last Sunday, you might have noticed it wasn’t available.

Here’s the impact … I had to move to a dedicated server which changed the costs of my little blog from a few dollars a month to a few hundred a month.  Wow.  I did not expect this.  It’s the Slashdot effect

What I also did not expect is that my site was not available for a stretch of time during the migration.  I also had to re setup and pay for a more expensive backup plan.  All of this, to deal with periodic spikes.

The good news is, I can revert back to my shared hosting cost, if my traffic goes down.  The bad news is, each time I hit a spike, I’ll either have a server down, or I have to swap back and forth between a dedicated server and shared hosting.  Not good.

Maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to level up in life.  I might just stick with the dedicated server for now.

I can’t help but think back to my early days of little league.  I was batting .700 (which, if you know baseball is extremely high.)  I was in the minors and didn’t want to move to the majors … I thought I would suck.  The surprise for me, was I didn’t, and although my average went down, I was batting in the .300-.400 range, which was still extremely high.

Here’s how I’m going to respond to this unexpected change of plans:

1. Stick with the dedicated hosting per now.
2. Experiment and test ways to fund my site.
3. Enjoy the journey.

I figure if I keep flowing value, and if I give more than I get, then things should take care of themselves.  Worst case, I’ll learn a lot from my experiments, and at least my site should now handle more traffic.

So if you see me fumble and stumble along the way, please bear with me, while I find my wings.

Photo by jurvetson

“Time flies when you’re having fun.”

Sources of Insight is three years old as of Sep 1st, 2011.  A year ago, I posted that Sources of Insight is Two Years Old.

Slow and steady wins the race?  We’ll see.  Sources of Insight is less of a race, and more of an exploration in making the most of what you’ve got.  It’s all about personal empowerment and putting the world’s best insight and action at your finger tips, drawing from books, people, and quotes.  I’ve revamped the About page to reflect the focus with more clarity.

Interestingly, I think my book, Getting Results the Agile Way, overshadowed Sources of Insight this past year.  A lot of readers throughout the year sent me email about how they’ve used Getting Results to make big changes in their life.   From teachers, to artists, to restaurant owners, it’s been helping people ignite their life, and find their way forward.  I’m a fan of helping people flourish, so it’s great to see.

Stats at a Glance
In the last year, I added more than a 1000, subscribers (I’m now in the 3,800 range), but I’ve doubled monthly visitors.  Last year I was at 30,000 a month, and I’m now at 60,000+ a month, and I can pretty much count on ~2,000 visitors a day.

While I’ve had solid growth, I have yet to do the things I know that create exponential growth.  That’s for this year.
Three Things Going Well

1. 101 Lists.  My 101 Lists have turned out to be more popular than I expected.  My 101 Questions that Empower You went viral.  One of the most powerful and touching responses, was this post on The Way Forward, by Katherine, where she wrote “… the questions it provides will hopefully come in handy to look within my soul and discover what I need. I plan to answer one with each post and allow them to take me where they may.”
2. Great Books, Great People, Great Quotes.  I continued to invest here, and my collections are growing.  Great Books is a collection of hand-picked books that help you get results for various topics.  Great People is a collection of lessons learned from insightful people.  If you haven’t seen these, you might take a look at Lessons Learned from Steve Jobs.  Great Quotes is a collection of insightful, actionable, and meaningful quotes for different topics.  My quotes collections put the wisdom from Aristotle, Buddha, Covey, Lao-Tzu, Mark Twain, and more, right at your finger tips.
3. The People.  It’s been a great year for meeting and connecting with new people from all walks of life.  I’ve met a bunch more best-selling authors, and insightful people.  One of the more interesting projects is helping a former billionaire birth his book.  I’ve learned a lot in the process, and I’m actually helping a few people bring their books to life.  I should write some posts to help more people write their books.

Three Things to Improve

1. Growth.  If I want to scale my impact, I have to focus on growth.  To do this, it means I need to focus on guest posting.   There are other ways too, but if I want to streamline it, that will be the most effective.
2. Mailing List.  If I want to really grow and expand Sources of Insight, I should create and grow a mailing list.  This will not only give me a more direct connection with readers, but will also help me think in terms of “the business of Sources of Insight.”  Aside from that, I like email for really sharing more insight in a conversational, newsletter sort of way.
3. 30 Day Boot Camps.  I need to do more of these.  My 30 Days of Getting Results was probably one of the most impactful things I’ve done on Sources of Insight.  30 Day Boot Camps are really powerful for making amazing changes, and I based them on the idea of Monthly Improvement Sprints in Getting Results the Agile Way.

What’s Next?
I’m going to continue investing in building collections of great books, great people, and great quotes.  I think it’s one of the best ways to empower you.  I’ll also be adding articles to my new Articles directory.  I will probably do some more free eBooks, and start on some new books, as well.   And, I’ll continue to bring you some interesting guest posters.  I don’t want to spill the beans just yet, but I do have some very interesting guest posts coming in the very near future.

I’m also going to do some spin off projects on some key areas of focus.  One of the problems that deeply troubles me is helping people make a living in today’s changing world.  I see way too many people losing the jobs they knew, the life they knew, and having trouble meeting their basic needs, including shelter and healthcare.   One of the best pieces of advice I got from somebody is “hate the problem, love the customer, ship stuff.”  Well, I hate the problem and I’m going to do something about it, and it will be along the lines of personal empowerment.

Call to Action
A lot of the growth of Sources of Insight is because of you.  You’ve shared Sources of Insight with a friend, and they’ve shared it with friends.  I thank you for that, and I hope Sources of Insight continues to be a source of insight, inspiration, and action to help more people lead a better life.

I have two asks:

1. Share Sources of Insight with ten more friends.  Share it with people with a passion for more from life.  That’s important.  I want Sources of Insight to be an arena for people that really want more from life.  Good energy is contagious and I want the garden to bloom.
2. Share your feedback with me.   While I am on a mission, I am always looking for feedback to help shape the way forward for Sources of Insight.   Whether you want to share with me your hopes, your dreams, your passions, or your big hairy challenges, or just things you’d like to see more of on Sources of Insight, send them my way.  The true power of Sources of Insight is keeping it real, while also taking a balcony view … onward and upward.

Photo by Wonderlane.

Get ready for lift off … Your world’s about to rock.

What if you could have the wisdom of the ages and modern day sages on your side?  That’s what Sources of Insight is all about.

Sources of Insight is a garden of goodness at your service.  From a hall of heroes to quotable quotes that light your fire, it’s a golden gateway to better skills for a better life.

Over the past several months, I’ve invested in Sources of Insight  to bring you the best of the best and grow a garden of strategies, methods, and tools to help you make the most of what you’ve got.  You always hold the key, and you’re the author of your life.

To help you make the most of Sources of Insight, I want to take you on a stroll through some of the main features.  But first, let’s start with, “Why?” … “Why Sources of Insight?”  Answering this question helps set the stage for the rest that follows.  Let’s go “down the rabbit hole.”

Why Sources of Insight
To put it simply, I created Sources of Insight to help share the World’s best insight and action for work and life.  My super skill is sharing and scaling expertise.  I use that skill to make others great.   It’s my way of giving my best where I have my best to give.  It’s also my way of connecting to my values.  I value growth, excellence, and strength.  By sharing skills for extreme effectiveness, I can help you find your strength, leverage your excellence, and we can all grow along the way.  I want you to fully blossom and surprise yourself  Let’s flourish with skill.

Here are some key drivers behind Sources of Insight:

• Skills to Pay the Bills and Lead a Better Life. This is one of the best ways I can articulate the goal of the site.  It’s all about empowering you with skills.   Life’s a journey.  By having proven practices on your side for thinking, feeling, and taking action, you stack the deck in your favor.  With skill, you can lead a better life from the inside out, one moment at a time, one day at a time.
• Be YOUR best.  The worst thing to be is your own bottleneck.  The goal of Sources of Insight is to help you be YOUR best in any situation. Within every one of us, there’s potential.  Amazing potential.  The trick is to unleash it.   With the right methods and techniques, you can make the most of what you’ve got.
• Deal with the tough stuff.  Life can throw us curve balls and for many of us, life is full of challenges.   Through Sources of Insight, I share the best ways to help you overwhelm these challenges and come out on top.   Life won’t always go your way, but you can respond more effectively when you have the right skills.
• Exponential results for the underdog.   Knowledge is power and it helps level the playing field.  By giving the underdogs of the world, “executive thinking skills” , success patterns, smart strategies, and coping skills for the worst scenarios, more people can rise above their lot in life.
• The Relentless Pursuit of Excellence.   Sources of Insight is for passionate people who want more from life.   It’s about reaching for the moon and grabbing some stars along the way.  Mostly it’s about finding the things that make your soul sing.
• Great Books, Great People, Great Quotes.  Sources of Insight is “Greatness Distilled.”   The world is a buffet of brilliance and the trick is to turn insight into action.

“Stand on the Shoulders of Giants”
You don’t have to start from scratch.   Many people have paved the way before us.  While we each have to blaze our own trail in life, we can leverage the know-how, experience, and skills from those all around us, and generations past.  In the spirit of standing on the shoulders of giants, I draw from the World’s best books, the wisdom of the ages, and modern sages.  I supplement this with a wide variety of experience including leading high performing teams at Microsoft.

Now on with our tour …

A Growing Garden of Strategies, Methods, and Tools
Sources of Insight is a growing garden of strategies, methods, and tools at your disposal.  Even if I never wrote another article, it’s already a deep and rich knowledge base of profound know-how.  It contains several hundred timeless and timely articles that unleash your mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun in powerful ways.

Here is a quick tour of some of the key resources you’ll find throughout the garden …

Blog Maps	Blog Maps are lists of key blogs organized by topic.  You can use them to hop around the Web when you explore key topics.  Here are some of the maps: Happiness Blogs Map Leadership Blogs Map Personal Development Blogs Map
Book Recommendations	Book Recommendations are lists of key books organized by topic.  My book recommendations are hand-crafted indexes of the books that I’ve found to be the most useful.   here are some of my book recommendations: Body and Health Books Business Books Leadership Books Personal Development Books
Checklists	Checklists are one of the best ways to turn insight into action.  I create checklists to share and scale expertise as one-liner reminders: Focus Checklist Leadership Checklist Time Management Checklist
Featured Guests	Featured Guests are guest posts by best selling authors, experts, and interesting people with something to share. Dr. Rick Kirschner on Top 10 Interpersonal Skills Jim Kouzes on Top 10 Leadership Lessons Michael Michalko on Choice
Free Stuff	Free Stuff is a collection of freebies for you.  Don’t let the price tag fool you.  The stuff I’ve made free has been helping change people’s lives.  Here are the key freebies so far: The Zen of Results (Free E-Book) You 2.0 (Free E-Book)
How Tos	How Tos are step-by-step articles to help you solve a problem or learn a new skill.  They are task-based and focused on action and outcomes.  Here are a few examples: How To – Change a Habit and Make It Stick How To – Read Faster How To – Solve Problems with Skill
Lessons Learned	Lessons Learned is my collection of lessons from people of the present and past.  You can think of it as my “Greatness Distilled” series.  It’s the ultimate way to “Stand on the Shoulders of Giants.”  Here are some examples from the Lessons Learned series: Lessons Learned from Bruce Lee Lessons Learned from Guy Kawasaki Lessons Learned from Seth Godin Lessons Learned from Tony Robbins
Shop	Shop is my online store of goodness.  This is where I will make available any of the information products or books that I create.  Here are the key resources in the shop so far: Getting Results the Agile Way (THE book on Getting Results) My Sources of Insight Amazon Shop (Amazon)
Quotes	Quotes are my hand-picked collections of quotes organized by key topics.   I’m an avid quote collector and I think quotes are one of the best ways to share the wisdom of the ages and modern day sages.  Here are some of my quotes collections: Love Quotes Motivation Quotes Simplicity Quotes Time Management Quotes
Training	Training is where I share self-paced training for improving your skills.  If you want to seriously learn some powerful skills for making things happen, check this out: 30 Days of Getting Results (Free, Self-Paced Training)

I hope you enjoyed the tour.  Maybe in the future I’ll do a brief video tour so that I can really showcase and elaborate some of the parts of Sources of Insight in a richer way.

Call to Action
If you do nothing else, I think these three things will spread some good Karma and get the ball rolling with thunder:

1. Unleash You 2.0.  Use You 2.0 to build a firm foundation for yourself.   By getting clarity of your vision, mission, and values, as well as your strengths, you build a powerful core that will serve you everyday for the rest of your life.  I’ve seen Ed 2.0, Mark 2.0, Jimmy 2.0,. Alik 2.0, and many others in action.  It’s powerful stuff.
2. Treat yourself to a powerful system for getting results.  Use 30 Days of Getting Results to surprise yourself.  It’s modular and self-paced so you can go at your own pace.  The more you put into it, the more you’ll get out of it, but it will change you in some way.  Whether it wrinkles your brain with some new insight, or if it inspires you to change your world, the choice is yours.
3. Lift others up and help them stand on the shoulders of giants.  Share Sources of Insight with your friends.  I’m sure there’s somebody in your life who could use the World’s wisdom on their side.   Many people have told me amazingly powerful stories of how the insight or the inspiration they’ve found in Sources of Insight has significantly changed their lives.  That’s exactly what Sources of Insight was born to do.

Lastly, after you’ve taken Sources of Insight for a test drive and kicked the tires a bit, be sure to send me any feedback on what’s going well, what you’d like to see improve, or any new things you’d like to see addressed.

Sources of Insight is our arena to bring our strengths to the fore and unleash what’s possible.  Your inner giant is strong.  Lend a shoulder and let’s all stand strong and see just how much further we can see.

“All things are created twice. There’s a mental or first creation, and a physical or second creation to
all things.” — Stephen Covey

Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Melody Fletcher on how to attract everything you want in life.

Melody has a wealth of experience from managing multi-million dollar restaurants in San Francisco, to working as a dealer in several Las Vegas casinos, to selling fiber optic network components in Germany, to running a Global IT service center for a large multi-national corporation in Spain.  Whatever she tackles, she tackles with a passion.

As the voice behind the Deliberate Receiving Blog, Melody helps people find their find empowerment, freedom and happiness.  In her blog, she explains the Law of Attraction in a no-nonsense, pragmatic way.  In fact, she’s used the Law of Attraction in her own life to lose 100 pounds, find a way to travel the world, work only when she’s inspired, and enjoy true happiness on a daily basis.

I’ve asked Melody to share her insight and approach that everybody can use to start attracting more of what they want in their life.  Without further ado, here’s Melody …

We’ve pretty much all heard the phrase "You create your own reality". Maybe it resonates with
us to a certain degree. We like the idea of being able to control our reality, of not just leaving it all
up to fate. We like the idea of being able to deliberately feel better. But isn’t the Law of Attraction
just another term for positive thinking and goal setting? Can we actually create our own reality,
or is it just about being able to look at a pile of crap and deluding ourselves into calling it a pile of
roses? If we do actually create our reality, how exactly does that happen? Prepare yourself. You’re
about to find out in nitty-gritty detail.

Everything is Energy

e know that everything is energy. Everything, including us, can be broken down into subatomic
particles and waves. What we don’t always think about is that all those particles aren’t just
independently bumping around in space. They’re all connected. We’re all part of a massive energy
field, like a giant network – each of us with our individual energy signature and yet also tapped into
and able to interact with the whole.

So, there you are, an energetic being, vibrating at a physical frequency, with all these other energy
frequencies around you. You can interpret these frequencies using your brain – a magnificent
transceiver that can translate these frequencies into signals you can understand – sight, sound,
taste, smell and touch (and other senses, but we’ll get to that in a second). So, when you look
at your breakfast, you’re actually interpreting a pool of energy as eggs, bacon and Orange Juice
(or whatever). But you’re not just floating about, hoping that something nice will drift your way
inadvertently. You have the power to draw energy to you at will by locking on to its frequency. You
just have to remember how.

You Get What You Expect

We’re conditioned to look at our reality and draw our conclusions from what we see. If we get
rude service in a restaurant, for example, we may well decide that most servers are rude in
that particular city, especially if we have more than one bad experience. The servers are rude,
therefore we expect bad service. But here’s the thing: It’s actually expectation of bad service that
causes the servers to be rude, not the other way around.

Provide the Right Input and Get Your Desired Output

Let’s say you’ve written a computer program that remotely controls a robotic dog. But every time
you tell the dog to sit, it jumps up in the air. You would not look at the dog and conclude that it’s
simply incapable of sitting or following a command. You wouldn’t say "Oh well. I guess robotic

output. If the output isn’t what you want, you go back and fix the input – you fine tune your code.
You keep working because you know that if you get the code right, you’ll get the result you want.

Fix the Code

This is exactly what manifesting your reality is like. If you don’t like the output – your reality – all
you have to do is fix the code. Here’s how:

I said that your brain is a transceiver. That means it not only receives (and perceives) energy, but
can also transmit it. The way you transmit energy is through your thoughts. Your thoughts actually
have frequencies, and you can match a thought’s frequency to the vibration of what you want.
Transmit at the exact frequency of what you want, and it will be drawn to you. That’s what the
Law of Attraction is actually all about. But how do you know if you’ve locked on to a frequency?

Emotions are Your Feedback System

You have a built in feedback system, kind of like a testing program, which is looking for the
bugs in your code. This feedback comes to you in the form of your emotions. Your feelings give
you valuable feedback about your thoughts. The closer your thoughts are to the frequency of
what you want, the better you’ll feel. If your thoughts are going to lead to the desired outcome,
you’ll experience positive emotion. If there are still bugs in the system, if you’re going to get a
malfunctioning robotic dog, you’ll feel negative emotion.

Our Reaction Causes the End Result

Note: You will feel this emotion in response to your thoughts about the subject, not in response to
the manifestation. We’ve been taught that it’s the end result that causes our reaction (being poor
causes you to feel bad), when in fact it’s our reaction that causes the end result (thinking thoughts
of poverty causes you to feel bad and causes you to be poor.) So, in theory, in order to manifest
the reality you’ve always wanted, all you have to do is think good-feeling thoughts. But how does
that work in real life?

Debugging Your Thoughts for Better Results

Let’s say you’re a single guy and you want a girlfriend. You know there’s something off in your
code, because the fabulous woman of your dreams isn’t there with you right now. So we have
some debugging to do. Now, you’re not just going to have one positive or negative thought about
having a girlfriend, and this is where it can get a bit tricky. The idea is to figure out what thoughts
and beliefs you currently have about this subject, isolate the ones that aren’t serving you and
change them to thoughts that feel better.

How to Attract Everything You’ve Ever Wanted

Here’s a summary of the key steps to debugging your thoughts and attracting everything you’ve

ever wanted:

• Step #1 – Test Your Program.
• Step #2 – Find the bugs.
• Step #3 – Fix the bugs.
• Step # 4 – Make sure you’re running the right program.
• Step #5 – Receive your manifestation.

Let’s take a look at each one…

Step #1 – Test Your Program.

Do a visualization. Visualizations are like a dry run for life. You may think that you have perfect
control of your fantasies, but your current vibration will come through. Think of it as running your
program through a testing environment. Imagine yourself with a girlfriend and pay attention to
how you feel about every aspect of the situation. Does it feel real, or is it a fantasy that seems like
it could never happen? Do you feel good about yourself in your imagined relationship? Are you
exactly as you are right now, or have you made improvements to yourself (perhaps you’re taller,
richer, have better hair, etc.)? How does it feel when you get rid of all the fantasy elements and
just try to imagine a relationship with a nice, normal woman, with realistic traits who truly loves
you just the way you are? If anything about that scenario doesn’t feel good, you’ve just found your
bugs.

Step #2 – Find the Bugs.

Isolate the thoughts that don’t feel good. What was it about the realistic visualization that didn’t

feel good? If it was uncomfortable for you to imagine yourself being in love just the way you are,
without any embellishments, perhaps you don’t feel that you’re good enough for the love of your
life. This isn’t true, but if you believe it, you’re not going to attract Ms. Right. You won’t be able to
lock on to her frequency. If you can’t imagine a real relationship without seeing yourself getting
into a fight with her, perhaps you have some beliefs about women not really understanding you or
being mean, aggressive, or having some other negative character trait. That’s just a belief too, one
that isn’t serving you. It’s just another bug in the code.

Step #3 – Fix the Bugs.

I’m going to offer you two methods for shifting your thoughts to a better feeling place. The first

is to take each limiting thought you’ve identified and shift it incrementally to a better feeling
place. This works well with big, deeply ingrained beliefs. Let’s take the belief that you’re not good
enough to attract the woman of your dreams. You’ll want to shift that to "I am good enough", but
you can’t do that all at once. Break it down into steps and spend some time getting comfortable
with each level. Don’t move on to the next thought in the sequence until you’re stable in the last
one. You’re actually shifting your vibration – changing the frequency that you’re transmitting. The
progression could look something like this:

• "I’m not good enough to attract the woman of my dreams." (Feels horrible. I’m a total
  loser.)
• "I have attracted some women in the past." (Feels a bit better. I haven’t always been a
  loser.)
• "There are some women that like me." (Feels even better. Maybe I’m not a complete
  loser.)
• "I’m not intimidated by ALL women." (Further evidence that I don’t always screw it up.)
• "I’m good enough to attract some women." (I do have a little bit of game.)
• "I know that deep down I’m a really good guy." (I’m not broken. Maybe not everyone sees
  that, but I know who I am.)
• "If I find the right woman, I’ll adore her." (I would actually be really good for the right girl.
  The relationship wouldn’t just benefit me, it would benefit her, as well.)
• "I actually have a lot to offer someone who shares my interests." (I’m actually a really
  interesting guy! Not everyone shares my particular interests, but I’m passionate about the
  things I like and it would be great to share that with someone.)
• "The woman of my dreams will see me for who I am. That’s part of what makes her the
  woman of my dreams." (I don’t have to change myself to attract the right woman, I’ve just
  been attracting the wrong women. They haven’t been a match to me.)
• "I can see how a woman could be attracted to me, especially once she gets to know me." (I
  can see now that it’s possible for a woman to really like me.)
• "I’m good enough to attract the woman of my dreams." (The fact that I haven’t isn’t
  because there’s something wrong with me, but because I’ve been thinking about this
  situation all wrong. I just have bugs in my code, that’s all.)

Now granted, this progression is a bit simplistic, but you get the idea.

The second method of shifting your vibration is to simply change your visualization over time.

This is a fantastic and gentle way to shift all of your thoughts on the subject, but can take longer
if you have some really ugly, deep seated beliefs. Simply spend some time every day visualizing
your relationship with this perfect woman. Try to be as realistic as possible – you are who you are
right now, warts and all, and she’s a real woman (not unrealistic perfection) without any major
flaws (if your fantasy girl is very vulnerable, for example, it points to a belief that there must be
something wrong with her for her to like you. That’s a bug). While paying attention to anything in
the scenario that feels off or uncomfortable, begin to change your visualization to what you want
it to be and keep focusing on that until it feels good. You might begin by seeing yourself as more
financially successful than you really are at this moment. But if you want to attract a girlfriend now
and not in five years when you have more money, you’ll want to begin to change the situation in
your visualization until you can see the girl of your dreams actually liking you just the way you are
today. When you can see this scenario and feel comfortable with it, you’ve shifted your energy on
that point.

Keep practicing your visualizations until you can comfortably run through a loving, passionate
relationship with a woman who is your equal, who adores you and whom you adore, who you
can really talk to and open up with, who shares many of your interests, who makes you feel safe
and who feels safe with you, who lets you take care of her, who takes care of you, who you can
laugh with, who doesn’t take life too seriously, and whatever else is on your wish list. Once the
visualization feels really good, you’ve found the frequency you’re looking for. Keep focusing on it
and the energy of that woman MUST be brought to you.

Step # 4 – Make Sure You’re Running the Right Program.

Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want. We have a tendency to describe our desires
in terms of what we don’t want. "I don’t like girls that are too tall", "No fatties", or "She can’t be an
idiot." We do this a lot more than we realize. But that’s like designing the program for the robotic
dog and listing all the qualities you don’t want it to have. "When I tell it to jump, I don’t want it
to roll over" would not be part of the design process. It could take years to list all the results you
don’t want! We don’t do this when designing a program, a building or anything else. But we do it
when we’re creating our reality. And then we wonder why we get so much of what we don’t want!
Focus all of your energy on what you do want. Whatever frequency you transmit will be drawn
to you, whether you like it or not. You might not feel good – your emotional feedback system will
be screaming at you the whole time, but you can certainly attract all kinds of horror into your life.
However, you can also choose to manifest what you actually do want. Remember that you can run
more than one program at a time. Whichever one you give more attention to is the one that will
show up in your reality. It’s up to you what you want to focus on.

Step #5 – Receive Your Manifestation.

Now that you’ve locked on to the frequency of what you want, it’s time for you to receive what
you’re attracting. Pay attention to synchronicities or coincidences. You might notice a lot more

attractive women than you did before. Women in general will be nicer to you. You’ll find it easier
to talk to those women. The quality of the women in your life, even if they’re not there in a
romantic way, will begin to rise.

This is also the point at which you want to take action. Get out there more. The Universe will have
a hard time bringing you together with your dream girl if all you do is sit at home. Sure, the pizza
delivery girl could be the one, but why limit the distribution channels like that? Expect that you’ll
meet that awesome woman and start to take action that aligns with that. If your intuition tells you
to go and talk to a particular girl, do it. Notice that the action part comes last. You’re not going
to bars in desperate search of love, while believing that you’re never going to find it. You have to
get your mindset right first, and then take action from that place. When you take the time to fix
your vibration first, the action part is less about "making it happen", which is hard and frustrating,
and all about giving the Universe more chances to bring your manifestation to you, which is much
easier and more fun. Take it easy, don’t force yourself to do things you don’t want to do. If you’re
terrified of talking to women, for example, practice making eye contact first. It’s all about taking
baby steps and getting comfortable with each one before moving on.

Pay attention to how your reality is changing and be open to it. This is the beginning of your
program’s output – evidence of what you’re attracting. The more successfully you’re focusing on
the frequency of what you really want, the better these manifestations will be. If there are any
unwanted elements, you can still fine tune your input, make small adjustments. You might meet
a woman who’s a little bit controlling, for example. Then you can focus on the fact that you want
an easy going woman in your life. Add that to your visualization. As long as you keep focusing on
that good-feeling frequency, and refrain from focusing on the bad feeling frequency, the energy
of what you’re locked on to must come into your physical reality. That’s the Law of Attraction in
action.

Create Your Own Reality … The World Will Open Up for You

So, have I convinced you that you create your own reality? Why not give it a try and see what
happens? This way of thinking takes a little getting used to, but once you wrap your head around
the "input = output" model, you begin to see evidence of it everywhere. The negative co-worker
who complains all day long has more to complain about than anyone else (instead of the other
way around). The friend who keeps telling you that all women are users somehow keeps meeting
nothing but gold diggers. You’ll begin to notice the patterns in others and eventually, in yourself.
When you begin to view everything in terms of energy, it all begins to make sense. And once you
realize the degree of control you have over your own experience (it isn’t about seeing crap as
roses. You can actually shift your focus from the crap to the roses that were there all along), the
whole world opens up to you. You can create anything you want. All you have to do is remember
that you have the ability to change the code.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Orna Drawas.  Her focus is on helping working professionals become rock stars at work, while achieving work-life balance.  She is the author of the book, Perform Like A Rock Star and Still Have Time for Lunch and her book was recently on the Amazon’s list of Top 10 Books for Business Success.

As a business trainer and coach focused on leadership and productivity challenges, Orna works with professionals in Fortune 500 and smaller companies, who are striving to up-level their performance and achieve more than they ever thought possible.

As you read Orna’s words, think about how you can apply the concepts to your own situation.  I find her simple framework resonates with my experience, and the beauty is in the simplicity.  It’s elegance in action.  One thing I’ll add is whether you get a promotion or not, make it a point to enjoy the journey by living your values and playing to your strengths on the job.

Without further ado, here’s Orna …

Good News! According to CNNMoney, companies intend to increase salaries and promotional opportunities in 2011 by doing everything they can to retain and develop top talent, rather than risk losing key employees. So there is no time like the present to angle for that promotion.

It’s 2011, so what’s on tap? Well, it’s time to do The Double-Rung RAP!

Up the corporate ladder, it’s a long way to go
Been workin’ long and late, but the goin’s awfully slow
Need more than one rung to be true to my map
That’s why I keep practicing the Double-Rung Rap.
Work on big things that’re worthy of da’ man
With a good attitude – I’ll make him a fan
It comes down to results ‘cause they’re what really matter
As I skip a few rungs on the way up that ladder.

The best thing about a rap is it tells it like it is!

What can we all learn from Snoop Dog, Eminem and Jay-Z about getting a promotion in the corporate world? The RAP no doubt! The RAP applies to everything in life… from the crib to the boardroom!

The world has changed. It used to be: more, faster, bigger – stay the course and you will get ahead. Not anymore. The impact of technology, globalization and flatter organizations have changed that old paradigm forever. Now it’s about real RESULTS, a passionate ATTITUDE and all the right PRIORITIES!

(R) Real RESULTS.
Those who get results get ahead. Period, end of story. In real estate, it’s location, location, location . . . in business, it’s results, results, results. Simple as that. Who really cares that you work 80 hours a week, respond to every e-mail and personal request within five minutes or cross 50 things off your list. In the end, it all comes down to the Big R – Results. What have you accomplished – really accomplished – that is helping move yourself, your team, your company, your product or service to the next level?

Hey, Lady? What you mean – results? Simple, dude. Understand your customers better. Find ways to help them. Make it easier for them to do business with you. Try to innovate. Develop a new service or product feature. Fix an old problem. Find new solutions. Improve broken processes. Think of new ways to drive revenue. Get out of the freakin’ box and have an impact. Go above and beyond to do more than is necessary. It’s not that hard.

And one more thing . . . don’t be a slacker. The world hates slackers. Don’t come in late, sneak out early, miss a couple of deadlines (even just by a little) and barely get the job done. Surprise! Everyone does notice. And no, you will not get promoted (much less keep your job).

(A) Passionate ATTITUDE
Hire for attitude, train for success. That is the executive motto for finding the best candidates to lead an organization. Pride, passion and belief do more to move an organization forward than the cleanest computer code, the cleverest ad campaign or the most balanced budget … which are all good, but require passion to make them great. “Employers want to see a whatever-it-takes attitude and a solution-oriented team player poised for promotion,” writes V. Jean Maye in LATimes.com.

The attitude problem has gained increased attention as studies have shown that behavior — good or bad — is actually contagious! Dr. Will Felps at the Rotterdam School of Management recently published a study that measured the effects of negative behavior on a team. Groups in his study infected with a Bad Apple performed 40% worse than similar groups without a Bad Apple.

Let’s face it, those with the best attitude are sought after for the most important projects, given the biggest clients and asked to lead the best teams. Somehow, a good attitude translates into: reliable, competent, intelligent and likable. You want to be that person!

And whatever you do, don’t be difficult. It’s good to stand out from the crowd according to CareerBuilder.com, but not in a negative way. If you are high maintenance, complain a lot, sweat the small stuff and generally make life more difficult for your boss and others . . . no promotion for you.

(P) The Right PRIORITIES
What are your top priorities? And better yet – do they align with your boss’ top three? If the answer is ‘not exactly’, change them … now!

Fact is, no matter how hard you work, how long your hours or how much you think you’re accomplishing, if you are not focused on those things that are most important to your boss and the organization, you are not doing a good job, at least according to him. And frankly that’s about all that matters. He honestly doesn’t care that you worked late or over the weekend, that you missed your daughter’s soccer game or that you checked e-mail while vacationing on Martha’s Vineyard. All that matters to him is whether you were or were not accomplishing those things that help him and the company move forward and be successful.

This is even more important when you finally realize that getting a promotion is not as simple as being the best person for the job. In FastCompany.com, Bill Breen points out that “you’re not typically competing against many other candidates when angling for a promotion. But in reality, most of the time, the new job is pre-wired. Many managers already know exactly who they want to promote and only that person gets real consideration.” Fact is, your boss is your best promoter. Bring him value by helping him accomplish his most important objectives and you set yourself up for rock star status.

RAP to Success
So, dude, there are no shortcuts. But one thing is for sure. The journey is full of rewards. As with everything in life, the more you put in, the more you get out. Make it your mission to make the most of every opportunity. Live your life with passion and give it all you’ve got every time. Put faith in knowing that the rewards will exceed your expectations and that promotion you’ve been longing for can be within your grasp.

Step into the hood and kick it up a notch or two. You’ll see it’s worth it when you do!

“If you can dream it, you can do it. Always remember that this whole thing was started with a dream and a mouse.” — Walt Disney

Happy holidays to you and yours!

It’s been another strong year for Sources of Insight.  I’ve added 175 posts on topics ranging from getting results to sharpening your thinking skills.  My quest continues – find and share the best of the best insight and action for work and life.  From quotes to featured guests to lessons learned — it’s all about improving your effectiveness and leading a better life from the inside out.

Stepping back, I think the most valuable thing I created this past year on Sources of Insight is 30 Days of Getting Results – Free Personal Productivity Training.  It’s self-paced and you can quickly master some of the toughest challenges you’ll face in life from problem solving skills to  focus to work-life balance to time management to finding your purpose and your passion, and mastering self-discipline and motivation.  It’s all there in simple Web pages for free.

Now, let’s take a tour of the best of Sources of Insight for 2010 …

Top 10 Posts of 2010
I cherry picked the ones that either had the most traffic, or a ripple effect on the Web or that I heard the most about in the hallways at work.  Some of these surprised me.  For example, # 8 below is simply a response to a friend who challenged me to write a quick post of insights I’ve learned from movies.  Here are my top 10 posts of 2009:

1. 36 Best Business Books that Influenced Microsoft Leaders
2. 101 Questions that Empower You
3. Don’t Regret the Path Not Taken
4. Feel Strong All Week Long
5. Getting Results the Agile Way – The Book on Getting Results
6. Lessons Learned from Seth Godin
7. Take Agile Results to the Next Level
8. That Moment Where the World Stops
9. Tickler List of the Mind
10. What’s Worth Doing Today

Ultimately, my top posts are whatever ones helped you find a new way to kick some arse, get your inner-mojo going, or wrinkle your brain with a new “ah-ha.”  So tell me, what was your favorite post?

Featured Guests

Who better to learn insights and action from than some of the world’s best selling authors and some experts at the top of their game?   This past year I had some amazing people share some of their best lessons learned:

• Ali Hale – A deep thinker on life’s really big questions shares My Top 10 Lessons in Life.
• Craig Shoemaker – Award-winning stand-up comic shares 10 Lessons Learned in Comedy.
• Dan Schwabel – Best selling author of Me 2.0 shares Top 5 Lessons Learned in Personal Branding.
• Eduard Ezeanu – Blogger and people skills coach shares Top 10 Lessons in Improving communication and Top 10 Confidence Boosters that Work.
• Farouk Radwan – Focuses deeply on self-awareness and mastering bad emotions, shares Top 7 Lessons Learned on Dealing with Bad Emotions and 10 Ways to Get Over Your Breakup More Easily.
• Linda P. Jones – A real-world wealth builder shares her financial prowess in 8 Steps to Wealth.
• Michael Michalko – Best selling author of THINKERTOYS shares Dancing in the Rain.
• Nadia Ballas-Ruta – Author of The Buddha Blueprint shares Top 10 Lessons Learned in Spirituality and Passion 101.
• Pat Flynn – A real-world passive income specialist shares Top 10 Lessons on How To Make a Living on the Internet.

Lessons Learned … “Stand on the Shoulders of Giants”

“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” … great words from Isaac Newton.

I’m a fan of standing on the shoulders of giants over starting from scratch.  With the power of the Web, we can learn from everybody around the world, from the unsung hero, to the every Joe, to heroes of the past and present.  We can all stand on the shoulders of giants:

• Lessons Learned from Dad
• Lessons Learned from Dr. K on Interpersonal Skills and the Art of Persuasion
• Lessons Learned from Dr. Seuss
• Lessons Learned from John Maxwell
• Lessons Learned from John Wooden
• Lessons Learned from Mike Kropp
• Lessons Learned from Mom
• Lessons Learned from Seth Godin
• Lessons Learned from Steve Pavlina
• Lessons Learned from Tony Robbins

Quotes

Quotes are a great way to share the wisdom of the ages and modern day sages.  This last year, I put together some quotes collections for important topics.   If you study the collections, some of the words might just sing to your heart or give you the just insight you’ve been looking for:

• Love Quotes
• Simplicity Quotes

What would you like to see more of in 2011?  Let me know.  I’m thinking through strategies and focus as we approach the new year.

“A thing of beauty is a joy forever.” — John Keats

When people ask me what Sources of Insight is all about, I tell them, it’s about helping people “stand on the shoulders of giants.”   I find and share the wisdom of the ages and modern sages by drawing from books, people, and quotes.  I turn insight into action and focus on solving real problems with an emphasis on mind, body, emotions, career, financial, relationships, and fun.

Ultimately, I want to empower every Underdog in the world with better skills for work and life.

Books, People, and Quotes
Unfortunately, I don’t think this message was coming across clear or simple enough on Sources of Insight.   I think you had to work too hard to find the collections of books, people, and quotes.   My bad.  So I took another crack at it and added the following to my menu bar:

1. Great Books
2. Great People
3. Great Quotes

I think this helps say in a very simple way that Sources of Insight draws from books, people, and quotes to lift you up.

Energized Differentiation
These changes are my attempt to breathe some new life into the blog, better surface some of the existing value, and test the art of energized differentiation.  Energized differentiation is about communicating excitement, dynamism, and creativity.  While there may be nothing new about books, people, and quotes, what I’m doing is turning wisdom into action.  By focusing on patterns and practices and drawing from multiple sources, I’m helping people make the most of what they’ve got.  I’m putting science on your side, along with wisdom of the ages, and giving you a system to put it all together.  The world’s not fair, so this is your unfair advantage.  Knowledge is power and it’s how you can level the playing field.

Trading Up to Stay in the Game
Every choice comes with trade-offs.  To make this happen, I had to move some things around.  I pushed my Lists collection to the Resources page.  I moved my Archives from the menu to the sidebar.  I bubbled up Categories on the side-bar.  This meant pushing down my Best of Sources of Insight list of posts.  While I was at it, I expanded my Best of list from 5 items to 10, to resurface some old gems.   I also expanded the size of my Sources of Insight Amazon Shop.   And, for good measure, I added a video of Alik on Getting Results the Agile Way.   You’ll notice that while my sidebar is longer now, it should still be very easy to scan and find what you need.

Keeping Things in Check Using Scenarios
As a guideline to keep the changes on track, I evaluated against the following scenarios:

1. User can quickly subscribe to the blog using RSS or Email.
2. User can find and browse the Archives.
3. User can quickly find and browse the Categories.
4. User can quickly find the popular posts (Best of Sources of Insight)
5. User can quickly easily discover what the blog is about.
6. User can easily find out about me.
7. User can easily contact me.

Keeping things simple and easy to find will be an on-going challenge.  Keep in mind, I’ve got almost 700 posts, several hundred quotes, free E-Books, free productivity training, hundreds of lessons from people, guests posts from best-selling authors, and the list goes on.

… and yet the party is just getting started.

“Dream as if you’ll live forever, live as if you’ll die today.” — James Dean

I was trying to find ways to improve finding information on my blog.  I realized that lots of people love lists, and, I have a lot of lists, but finding my lists was too much work so I tried to simplify it.

To make it easier to get to my lists, I added a “Lists” option to my top menu.  It takes you to my Lists page.  I have many lists including book recommendations, lessons learned from people, and favorite quotes.

I find that lists are a great way to share insights, resources, and know-how.

Here are some ideas on the ways you can use the lists:

1. When you need some inspiration, browse the quotes lists and find just the right words to make  your day.
2. If you want some book ideas either for yourself or for a gift, try browsing some of the book recommendation lists.
3. If you’re feeling stuck or need a breakthrough, try browsing the wisdom distilled in the lessons learned lists.

The point behind these lists is to empower you with insight and action for work and life.  The quotes lists help you learn from the wisdom of the ages and modern sages, while the lessons learned lists are all about helping you stand on the shoulders of giants.

I’ll be looking to expand and improve my collection.  Now that I’ve consolidated my lists, I can see many of the gaps and opportunities.  There is always room for improvement.   I’m looking forward to the endless possibilities.

Here are a few examples to start you off …

1. If you want to test-drive a fun little list, try What 16 Movies Teach Us About Life and Leadership on for size.
2. If you want to know which books are top reads for Microsoft’s leaders, check out 36 Best Business Books that Influenced Microsoft Leaders.

Enjoy!

Photo by AGeekMom.