While weak leaders blame their followers for a lack of alignment, strong leaders know that it is their responsibility to create it. Alignment doesn’t just happen. It is created. Here are three ways to make it happen with your team.

Most people think intensity is the key to accomplishing huge goals, but Jerry Seinfeld would disagree. When this stand-up comic, co-creator of Seinfeld, and actor considers the reason for his success, he credits one word: consistency. Early on in his career, Jerry started writing at least one joke per day. He hung a giant calendar […]

Many leaders never admit their biggest goals because of invisible barriers. One of the main barriers is goal shame. Goal shame is embarrassment about the things you want to achieve. Sometimes it results from internal thoughts like, Who am I to do this? or Who am I to attempt something so big? Self-doubt, fear, and […]

It’s easy to feel like we’re constantly going from one thing to the next. From our tasks at work, to our responsibilities and commitments at home. There are seemingly endless demands on our time and attention. We can only keep up the juggling act for so long. Soon, some areas of our lives will begin […]

Having big goals is the only way big things happen. And the only way to achieve big goals is to become tolerant of the discomfort that comes with them. Of course, this isn’t our natural tendency. We’d rather play it safe and avoid failure. That’s perfectly understandable. It’s what’s comfortable. But inevitably we start to […]

A lot of us start our days with a laundry list of things to do. It’s not uncommon for people to have 10, 20, or even more items on their to-do list. Where do you even start? Even if you accomplish five or six things, it’s easy to feel like a failure at the end […]

A new year is here and with it comes a renewed sense of hope and drive for many of us as we begin a fresh start on our goals. Last year may have had setbacks and challenges, you may not have accomplished all you set out to do. This year can be different, but in […]

Over the years one thing has become evident to me. The most successful people I know don’t end up there by mistake. While from the outside it can sometimes seem like luck or that it happened overnight, I believe that the key to their success is having a clear set of written goals that outline […]

It is in our nature to make assumptions. To take whatever we experienced in the past and allow it to shape how we see the future. And this affects how we set our goals for the future. You’ve probably heard the phrase self-fulling prophecy. It’s when people allow what they believe or expect to influence […]

As we get ready to wrap up 2020, I encourage you to take the time to reflect on this past year—the challenges, the unforeseen changes to your normal routine, and the clarity that has come from being forced to reevaluate what is most important. It’s safe to say that this year threw us all quite […]

“Someday I’m going to climb Everest.” In the early 1940s, professional beekeeper Edmund Hillary shared his seemingly insurmountable goal with the world. At this point, no climber had successfully reached the Everest peak. The mountain’s difficulty level echoed loudly through 30 frozen bodies lying on its route. Louder still was the public criticism for Hillary’s […]

Everyone knows you can’t succeed without discipline, yet few possess it. Here are 5 steps to developing more of it.

Writing your goals down is one of the most important actions you can take to obtain the life you want. Sadly, most people don’t do it. Here are five why reasons you should.

Steve Smith is a Scotland-born, Canada-raised hockey defenseman whose NHL career spanned 15 seasons. He is less well known for winning three Stanley Cup championships than for a single mistake. In 1986, while a rookie skating for the 2-time defending Stanley Cup champion Edmonton Oilers, Smith took the puck behind his own net and looked […]

Does this one ring a bell? You, reader, are your own worst critic. Your penchant for nitpicking every detail and harshly critiquing your accomplishments makes it difficult for you to make progress or sometimes even get simple work done. If it doesn’t apply to you or someone close to you, then you have a great […]

Big goals are often the seed for big success. Monica Louie knows this firsthand. The Facebook ad expert launched a new company and set an audacious goal of earning $100,000 her first year in business—despite having made only $8,000 the previous year with another venture. It was such a big goal, in fact, that a […]

I’ve always done my best to keep up with the latest research in goal achievement. I not only want to learn from it myself, I also want to distill the lessons for fellow leaders. But the tricky thing about science is that it often causes us to reevaluate our assumptions. That reevaluation can be uncomfortable, […]

Few of us run races at the Olympics or score touchdowns in the NFL. But we all play a metaphorical sport in our professional and personal lives. Simply put: we want to succeed and thrive. To win, we must set big goals and work toward effective and influential results. Problems seldom arise from our goal-setting […]

“Positivity” tops my Strengths Finder test. So I like to celebrate—often. But does celebration fuel progress? Will it produce greater results? From my experience, yes. It does so by bringing three powerful byproducts to you and your organization, all of which are vital for growth. 1. Celebration brings energy Purposeful celebration brings an energy to […]

What is the single most important thing you can do to make your dreams become reality? In this post I share a critically important success principle and three ways to apply it.

A few years ago, I read David Sax’s book, The Revenge of Analog. The premise? After years of being pushed aside by digital solutions, analog applications have been making a surprising comeback. That resonated with my own experience. Most of my audience knows me as a techie. But I was in the book business for […]

Productivity doesn’t just increase your efficiency. If you do it right, it can also increase your income. The problem is that traditional systems get productivity all wrong. They define productivity as the ability to do more and do it faster. But that approach just accelerates the hamster wheel we’re already on. Instead of getting ahead, […]

The fear of missing out isn’t worth much, but FOMO costs us a lot. That’s especially true when it comes to our productivity. It’s like a powerful undertow, invisible on the surface of our work, which can pull us away in the current. Right after I left as CEO of Thomas Nelson Publishers, an online […]

To some people, ritual is a bad word. Many folks recoil at the religious association, even though most rituals aren’t religious. For others, the thought of following set, predetermined actions makes them feel boxed in. But rituals are inescapable. We are creatures of memory and habit. The only question is whether our rituals are intentional […]