Blog

- Best Motivational Quotes of All Time
  
  “What lies behind us and what lies in front of us pales in comparison to what lies within us.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson Whether you need to defeat procrastination or inspire your inner fire, motivational quotes can help you get your inner mojo going again. Motivational quotes move us. As a high-performance coach at Microsoft over 20 years, …
- Best of Sources of Insight 2022
  
  “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way.” — Martin Luther King Jr. I’ve rounded up what I consider the best of my Sources of Insight posts for the past year. I hope they inspire your greatness or help you in some way: How To Have Your Greatest …
- 10 Big Ideas from Lead with Humility
  
  In Lead with Humility: 12 Leadership Lessons from Pope Francis, Jeffrey A. Krames shows how you can use humility as a source of strength, and apply the same principles that Pope Francis uses change the world, to change your workplace.
- The 3 Best Books I Read in 2022
  
  “Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” -? Neil Gaiman, Coraline I read a lot of books each week. I tend to spend $1,000+ on books each month, which is a lot, and it’s a habit I started …
- How To Change Your Life with the Law of Reciprocation
  
  “The difficulties we face in life are sometimes molding us into greatness.” — Itayi Garande Want to know how to change your life for the better? Try using the Law of Reciprocation. You can use it to change your life for the better. Normally, people think of the Law of Reciprocation in terms of social …
- The Law of Influence: Character Trumps Emotion Trumps Logic
  
  “You cannot reason people out of a position that they did not reason themselves into.” — Ben Goldacre The Law of Influence is a powerful one. If you need to influence or be persuasive, then you need to know the Law of Influence. The Law of Influence is how people who influence without authority improve …
- Dialogue vs. Debate vs. Discuss (and Why Focus on Dialogue)
  
  I’ve noticed some conversations just go a lot easier with some people, but I wasn’t sure why. Recently, a colleague pointed me to an article, Dialogue: The Power of Understanding by Dr. Ann McGee-Cooper. The article has a nice way of framing types of conversations. Some conversations are about exploring ideas, while others are about a winning argument or a winning idea. Once you know the nature of the conversation, you can adapt the conversations, adjust yourself, or avoid it altogether.
- 3 Futures You Can Choose From
  
  “We’re all just memories of your future selves.” — Reggie Watts Do you have a strategy for your next 6 months or year to achieve and realize your dreams? You have 3 futures to choose from. John Assaraf is a high-performance coach and a bestselling author. When he thinks about the future, he splits it …
- What is Insight? Insight Definition Explained
  
  Insight is inner sight, mental vision, or wisdom. Insight is the creative juice that authors, artists, linchpins, entrepreneurs, teachers, trusted advisers, and other creative geniuses flow and draw from.
- What’s Your Life Focus? Fame, Friends, Fortune, Family, Fun, Freedom, Faith?
  
  “Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.” — Ferris Bueller, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off It can be tough to make choices or optimize your work and life, if you don’t know what you want to optimize for. Some people learn too little, too …
- ADKAR is a Simple Model for Change
  
  “Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.” — Leo Tolstoy Change management is a challenge whether you’re changing yourself, changing others, or changing the world. It helps to have a change management framework that is easy to learn, easy to apply, and proven in practice. Change is tough enough …
- Reinforcement—How to Strengthen and Reinforce Change
  
  “What is love except another name for the use of positive reinforcement? Or vice versa.” — B. F. Skinner ADKAR is a helpful model for identifying the key components of change leadership and turning them into action. I’ve been a certified change leader by Prosci for more than a decade at Microsoft, but I first …
- Great Quotes on Leadership to Inspire Your Influence and Impact
  
  This is my collection of leadership quotes drawing from John Maxwell, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Sun Tzu, and more. It’s wisdom of the ages and modern sages, all focused on the topic of leadership. Use these quotes to add to your own repertoire of leadership knowledge.
- Feel Lighter Now–How to Feel Lighter Emotionally
  
  What if you could release negative emotions and feel lighter and ready for anything as you go about your day? A “lighter feeling” is a big deal. Recently, I read The Abundance Book: Learn to Let Go of any Negativity in Seconds, by Larry Crane. It’s interesting in that he focuses on getting and maintaining “a lighter feeling.”
- How To Be Happy: 7 Ways to Be Happier Today
  
  A while back I gave a talk at the Britelife Summit on Happiness. My talk was titled, “The Way of Happiness: 7 Principles for Happiness.” In my talk, I outlined some of the key happiness strategies and tactics I use, and share with others, to improve happiness. Happiness really is a skill.
- Make 3 Great Decisions a Day
  
  “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein This might just be the ultimate habit, or meta-habit, to change your life. One of the best ways to keep improving your work and life is through this one simple habit: Make 3 great decisions each …
- Better Decision Making with 10-10-10
  
  A friend shared a simple technique for improving decision making and helping prioritize. It’s 10-10-10, by Suzy Welch. You basically test your decisions against time frames to make better decisions. You can use it to improve decisions at work, life, business, love or anything really. By testing your decisions against different time frames, you expose your needs, fears, desires, and unconscious agendas. This can help you identify and live to your deepest goals and values.
- How To Set Boundary Conditions to Make Better Decisions
  
  “Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson You can set boundary conditions to make better decisions. Putting decisions into place usually requires compromises along the way or dealing with unforeseen events. If your decision depends on everything going perfectly well, you’re in trouble. If you don’t …
- How To Test Your Decision-Making Process to Make Better Decisions
  
  You need to test your decisions against reality. A lot of decisions might sound good at the time or look good on paper. To really test your decisions, you need feedback loops that provide first-hand experience.
- How To Make Better Decisions Through Disagreement
  
  “Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress.” — Mahatma Gandhi Do you know how to make better decisions? To make better decisions, develop disagreement rather than consensus. Disagreement provides alternatives and makes you think more deeply about the issue. In fact, if you don’t have disagreement, you’re not ready to make a decision. …