Whether you find the free prize or not, this post will make you think.

“It’s not who you are that holds you back, it’s who you think you’re not.” — Author Unknown

I was listening to a Tony Robbins talk a while back and he hit on a very important distinction … faith vs. belief. His point was that while belief is based on evidence, faith is not. Faith you believe without evidence. Right or wrong, it’s what you truly believe in your inner core.

“Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.” — Maria Robinson

When you have to think your way through things, you wear yourself out. This is why routines and going into automatic pilot serve you. You don’t have to think your way through the basics and you can focus your thinking on higher level things up the stack.

Every now and then I come across a metaphor that really sticks and helps me think differently about something I see every day. The metaphor helps me look at these situations with a new lens, and, as a result, think, feel, and act more effectively.

I’ve heard of several ways to think about our thinking. I’ve heard of the left-brain and right-brain. I’ve heard of the emotional side and the rational side. This time, the metaphor is the Elephant and the Rider.

You know those moments when you feel fully alive? … those moments when you are fully in the moment and you want the moment to last forever? This quote puts the search for these moments front and center:

This is an excerpt from my latest book, Getting Results the Agile Way. It’s from the A Word from the Author section. One of my reader’s tells me that this was the most impactful prose for them. I think because it answers the question, “Why did I write this guide?” This is yet another reminder to me how important it is to lead with your why. Here it is …

When I was a kid, I had a bike that I thought I could ride pretty well. After all, it was my bike and I rode it every day. I knew its quirks, I knew its strengths, I knew its weaknesses. Or so I thought. One day, a friend asked to try my bike.

He hopped on my bike and then paused as if sizing it up. Then, with confidence and grace, he rolled slowly forward and balanced on the front wheel. He then started to hop on the front wheel several times, before spinning 180 degrees.

“Diamonds are nothing more than chunks of coal that stuck to their jobs.” — Malcolm S. Forbes

On our team at Microsoft, things move fast and we can’t afford to get stuck. Being blocked on something is one thing, but feeling stuck is another.

When you feel stuck, it’s easy for your thought patterns to create a spiral down. This is ineffective and it can be paralyzing. The good news is, you can break the thought patterns, by asking yourself a different set of questions.

Here are some of the questions we regularly use:

“Many of us crucify ourselves between two thieves – regret for the past and fear of the future.” – Fulton Oursler

If you carry regrets around with you, this post just might lighten your load. It’s easy to regret. It’s easy to second guess yourself, especially with 20/20 hind-sight. It’s easy to ponder the “what if’’s” and “what could have been’s.” It’s not so easy to let your regrets go.

It had to be done. Out with the old, in with the new. In this case, it was a bit more like spit and polish. I cleaned up Sources of Insight to get rid of some of the things that were bugging me. I consider it an example of sweeping in action.

Here are the outcomes I wanted to achieve:

A tag line that resonates and inspires
A simpler and more useful set of categories for my posts
A simpler and more useful set of tags for my posts

Have you ever been fascinated by how to build wealth? Wondered why some people become wealthy and others don’t? From a young age, I read and studied millionaires and investing, looking for the answers to those questions. I read Think and Grow Rich when I was 10 years old. I got a Business degree, became a Certified Financial Planner (CFP), and spent 28 years in the financial industry, because I wanted to know how to build wealth.

“It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” – Charles Darwin

I was skimming Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully and I came across this nugget:

“Why are you not being everything you can be right now?” – Gabrielle Bouliane

Life’s short. I’ve had enough loss in my life to always remind me you never know how much time you have to make the most of what you’ve got.

I follow the advice of one of my mentors, living each day as if it’s my last, but planning to live 100 years. I never let fear or resistance get in the way. It’s a path of giving my best where I have my best to give, living my values, following my growth, and creating the experiences I want in my life.

“Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.” — Kevin Arnold

Dementia means “deprived of mind,” and Alzheimer’s is the most common form of dementia. If you know the impact that dementia and Alzheimer’s has on somebody’s life, as well as their family, you know it’s a terrible thing. If you’ve seen the movie, The Notebook, you have an idea of what it’s all about.

Aside from feeling more alive, I always feel sharper when I exercise regularly. It turns out that there’s science behind this, and one of the most dramatic ways to get smarter is to exercise.

Dr. John Medina, author of Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and Schoolsays that aerobic exercise is one of the best ways to boost your brain. The minimum you need for an extreme benefit is 20 minutes, twice a week. The data behind his story is amazing.

I’m 25, and over the past decade, I’ve been in school, university, full time work, freelance work and entrepreneurial work. At the moment, I make my living writing (part-time) and I spend the rest of my time taking a creative writing MA and working on a novel.

These are ten lessons I’ve learnt (often the hard way!) over the past decade:

“Success is simple. Do what’s right, the right way, at the right time.” — Arnold H. Glasgow

Getting Results is spreading. It’s leading to all sorts of interesting connections for me and it’s making a difference in people’s lives. I’m getting regular emails from people that have adopted the approach and found a new lease on life. I think the most surprising one for me came earlier this week … a raving fan liked the book so much he offered to translate it to Chinese!

“Take rest; a field that has rested gives a bountiful crop.” — Ovid

One of the most important patterns in Getting Results is the Monday Vision, Daily Outcomes, and Friday Reflection pattern. It’s a simple way to get meaningful results each day and each week. It’s how I avoid getting overwhelmed and how I drive results for myself, the teams I lead, and the people I mentor.

When i first joined Microsoft, I felt like I had joined an elite team of smart people that gets results. Microsoft is a big place, and I had joined the Developer Support Team. It was an interesting team and I was surrounded by people who worked smarter, harder, faster, and more effective than anything I had ever seen before. There were people that built robots and people that built rockets. There were former accountants and former professors. The intellectual horsepower was stunning and so was the passion.

I was curious how I too could become a skilled Softie.

There are more books coming out every year than I can read in a lifetime. One of the ways I filter for great books is, I ask the most effective people I know, which books had a significant impact on how they think, feel, or act. I like to find the books that really made a difference, not just in theory, but in practice.

Recently, I reached out to several Microsoft leaders, past and present, and up and down the ranks. The beauty of Microsoft is the extremely high concentration of smart people and I like to leverage the collective brain. In this case, I posed a simple question to find out which business books actually made a difference: