Your self-talk is hugely important. Your brain believes what you consistently tell it. In almost all cases, your brain believes you more than it believes anybody else. For example, in the beginning of many executive client engagements, my client had been telling themselves what they are not, rather than what they desired to be! “I’m not good at time management”, “I’m not good at speeches and presentations”, I’m not a good networker”. First of all, you are not as bad as you te

It’s hard to stay positive in the midst of a toxic environment, but do it for your own healthy thinking and effectiveness. Here are 10 ways: 1. Take control of the way you respond to situations. Always respond. Don’t react. 2. Proceed forward in ways you will be productive. Not being productive produces negative thoughts. 3. Resist the urge to be critical. 4. When faced with a choice in criticism or praise. Choose praise. 5. Flood your mind with positive messages. Read and li

If you’ve been to any of my live seminars or speeches, you know I post that everything begins with a thought or feeling. Thoughts and feelings then typically get transferred into language we use to communicate what we are thinking or feeling and then the next step is some sort of action. Sometimes, we spend a long time thinking and feeling something before communicating it and other times, it is mere microseconds. It works the same way with action, some people have an action

If you are going to be the best leader you can be, you need to expose yourself to as many viewpoints as possible. This is one of the ways leadership is work. It’s important to get comfortable with various viewpoints from people. Here are six common viewpoints: One viewpoint is that we should learn as much as possible about everything possible. One view point is that for anything we ever do, there should be some sort of return. If there’s nothing to be gained in return, we sho

The way we see and think about people is often the difference between manipulating them and empowering them. If we don’t want to help people but we want them to help us, we are headed for troubled times. Manipulation occurs when we try to use them for our personal gain and advantage. Empowerment happens when we value them, and we try to help them for mutual advantage. When we choose the empowerment and value path, we both win. Ask yourself: how do you see people? Are they pot

Which of these 5 things are keeping you from doing what you really want to do? You don’t know what to do You don’t know how to do it You don’t have the authority or resources to do it You are scared You don’t have any support Get yourself out of the rut. Each one of this is fixable or curable. What is will take is some courage, diligence and time. If you go to work on your goals, your goals will go to work on you. Step out of your comfort zone and remember that many of the gr

I’ve been traveling the last two months with Ann Marie. Two weeks in Arizona, one week in January and one week in February, then one week this past week in Florida. In the middle of checking out, making sure we have everything and rushing to the airport, Ann Marie does two things i greatly admire. Ann Marie leaves notes and tips. She is the consummate appreciative individual for what people do for a living. Hotel people work laboriously hard every single day. No matter if the

What good does it do to continually beat yourself up? There is no person on the planet who has not screwed something up. We all have. There is no person who has not made wrong turn, said the wrong thing, made someone feel like crap. We all have. There is no person who has not made the wrong decision, picked the wrong person or blamed the wrong person. At some point, though, to productively move on with your life and career in a healthy way, you have to forgive yourself. Give

Where did we get the idea that profits are bad? Are we just confused about the role of profit in business? I think somehow we have gotten profits confused with greed. One viewpoint thinks even when we pursue profit, we are somehow greedy. The fact is, profits are good. Profits pay for things. Profits help everyone. Profits pay for wages, salaries, taxes, investments in new products. Profits pay for research into ways to better our lives. Profits pay for the constructive thing

In ourselves, we act out our lives automatically by our core values and beliefs, whether we have articulated them or not. Superior performers do articulate them, document them and keep them in front of themselves all the time. This keep the behaviors consistent in the midst of pressures or decisions that arise. Companies should do the same thing. Keeping the Core Values or Principles top of mind and visible help to keep our organizational behavior consistent in all situations

In the last year, I have been talking relentlessly about mindsets. Your paradigm. The box you put yourself into. It guides everything. It feeds off your perception. It influences what you value and don’t value. It re-enforces beliefs. It doesn’t really take the form of good or bad. It doesn’t really take the form of right or wrong. Many times, it takes the form of negative or positive. Optimistic or pessimistic. Yes…you fall into one or the other, positive or negative. You mi

Blockbuster used to exist because VHS tapes used to cost over 100 dollars. Netflix now exists because they eliminated having to take the product back. Now it’s evolved for the customer to get immediate product without having to go get it or take it back. Redbox still exists because not enough customers have advanced to the technology of Netflix and Amazon Prime Video. But they will. The reason your computer keyboard is arranged as it is is because original typewriters used to

Any kind of growth has a pain that accompanies it. I just had shoulder surgery last Friday. I had a torn rotator cuff and a bone spur on my left shoulder removed. So now I am on the road to recovery. And…it hurts. It hurts because it is in the process of healing. Just as this is the case with my physical shoulder, we all hurt while we heal. We all hurt while we grow. As I am exercising my shoulder, it feels like it’s not supposed to bend or extend that way. The same thing is

Your ego is not part of your DNA. It is man made & can be controlled & modified #Attitude #Behavior #LeadershipDevelopment #DevelopingPeople #DevelopingLeaders

Don’t judge what you don’t completely understand #Attitude #Behavior #Leadership #LeadershipDevelopment