To paraphrase the quote, the secret to happiness and success lies in developing good habits and then letting them be your master. But the question that has come after that for millennia continues to avoid an easy answer: How do you create those good habits in the first place? And what if you have bad habits? How do you get rid of those? The Power of Habit provides an interesting overview of what research has shown us so far. It peels back some of the layers in the human decision-making process, and while it doesn't have as many answers as the title might imply, it's a useful guide along the path. Big Thought "Habits can be changed, … [Read more...]
Discipline Yourself First
The Unbreakable Marriage of Freedom and Responsibility
I hope that you enjoyed the July 4th holiday with friends and family (and with grilling and parades)! As usual, people spent a lot of time celebrating our "freedom". Even though it's one of the things I love most about this country, I think there's something we need to talk about just as much: The responsibility that must accompany freedom. I have a relatively uncommon professional perspective on those two topics because I've had a relatively nontraditional career. I figured out once that I've only been a salaried "employee" for 11 months of my adult life. From my start in business selling Cutco Cutlery as an independent … [Read more...]
Gamification Won’t Help Me Achieve My Real-World Destiny
Every few months I read another article on why gamification is the new tool to achieve success. Sometimes it's a social media dashboard that promises to make engaging with your network fun and easy. Or a smartphone app for creating better habits that will give you medals and awards for exercise or some other personal development goal. But they all claim to tap into the same psychology that makes video games so addictive and use that power for professional and personal change. But I'm not sold. Like many of my friends who grew up in the 80's and 90's, I'm a bit of video game nerd. OK, I'm a big video game nerd. From late-night … [Read more...]