“We will never make a journey of a thousand miles by fretting about how long Read More.

Very few people actually set New Year Resolutions. In fact, I’ll even go so far as to say that very few people have EVER set a New Year Resolution in their life. Sure, they set new Year Wishes and make New Year Dreams, but few can actually be called a resolution. Their New Year Resolutions are, in fact, missing this key ingredient.

Indifference puts a slow stranglehold on the throat of potential. It is what separates those who accomplish great things in life from those who wait for governments or luck to give them what they lack. It is the difference between those who are self-directed and those who see themselves as victims to a hostile world or painful personal history or the vagaries of fortune.

If you’re like 92% of those who set any goals at all, you’re looking in the mirror right about now feeling guilty and disappointed with the person you didn’t quite become. With goal-setting odds stacked overwhelmingly against you (all but a mere 8% crash and burn somewhere between January’s excitement and December’s memory lapse), it’s easy to feel those nasty little joy-suckers of shame, disappointment and regret. But maybe you don;t have to feel that way…

It’s not that people who do great things are great people and the rest of us shmoes are the gray residue stuck at the bottom of the ordinary barrel. It’s that they are willing to …

Life is in constant flux. Its in constant motion, growing and shrinking, lifting and falling in undulating waves of constant change. To simply stay on course, therefore, requires internal mobility—a willingness to bend and adapt, to learn and grow.

Belief is the blanket we wrap ourselves in when life seems cold and dark and harsh. It is the hope that shines in the darkened tunnels of life. It is a framework, a map and a marker on the path we choose to travel. It unlocks doors and oils hinges and greases paths. But it’s only the starting point.

As a high school teacher, I send almost 200 kids off into the world every year to try figure out where they fit in the world. But if I’ve merely taught them the finer points of the subjects I teach, I believe I’ve failed them. The following words are a more polished version of what I share with them each year on the last day of class.

Most people think failure is a bad thing to be avoided, to be ran from, hidden, afraid of and discouraged. And frankly, it doesn’t feel good at all. In fact, it feels terrible, sometimes like you’ve been slammed in the face with the shovel. It’s a fall, a step back, evidence you suck! But it’s not that at all.

Have you ever wished you had done things differently? Or wished someone else hadn’t done what they did? Have you ever longed to go back and repeat something from your past so you could go a different way, choose a different path, change your mind, do over the thing you did or was done to you?

Do you struggle to get things done? Do you procrastinate until it’s either too late to finish or too late to finish adequately? Well, did you know there was a simple mind trick that can magically transform your procrastinating ways into the motivation you need to finally be a productivity wizard?

There’s a reason Michael Jordan is Michael Jordan and not Michael Phelps or Michael J. Fox or Michael Jackson. His name became synonymous with basketball because basketball is what he focused all his time on. He lived and breathed it. He married it. What have you married? What do you live and breathe?

It’s often the very first step that’s the hardest. Writing the book is not always the toughest part. It’s writing the first word on the first page. Running a business is often easier than exercising the guts to start it. The first step of every journey is often the most difficult to take which is why relatively so few journeys are conscientiously taken and so few dreams fulfilled.

Here’s the challenge with problem-in-every-opportunity thinking: We become blind to the possibilities the problem presents when we are geared to seeing only, or even primarily, the problem.

You are limited only by the limits you place on your imagination. But once you open the door to any possibility, you free yourself of self-imposed confines and restrictions.

Sometimes we need a step-by-step how-to manual of 101 Ways to live Happier Lives to get us through the vicissitudes of life. Other times, all we need is a reminder, inspiration to look anew at the old to start making changes. I invite you to begin now to become who you most want to

Failure is inevitable for anyone willing to chase bold and hairy dreams. It is the universe correcting our misuse of energy. It is one way we learn there is a better way to allocate our personal assets and resources.

Today is a blank canvas waiting for you to paint your personal masterpiece onto it. It is your unfinished Sistine Chapel, your David and Mona Lisa. This very day is waiting to be fashioned and formed into something beautiful, breathtaking and sublime.

A well-known motivational guru was once challenged about the very idea of motivation. His antagonist complained that motivation doesn’t work because it doesn’t last. It wears off, so can’t be all the guru suggested it was …

We all like green pastures and blue skies. We like downhill paths and couches with remote controls and tests where the teacher shouts out the answers as we take them. But we also know that such things don’t require much from us and that things that don’t require much tend to inspire, build and produce just as little.