In the 1930’s the United States government told us a lie. They told us that if we were working 40 hours per week…we were fully employed. Wow. That was interesting! Historically, a typical workweek included 12-hour days, six days a week. There are 168 hours in a week. I personally can tell you that you can work more than 40 of them. As a matter…

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At its core, selling is communication and persuasion. To accomplish this, we must be likeable people. This means that you don’t have the luxury of bringing your problems to work with you. When you arrive at work, everything else goes away. You put on your game face. You focus on your customers and clients. Your only reason for existence is to serve…not to be served….

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Which type of leader are you? As I discussed in my book, ReTooled & ReFueled, there are essentially two leadership models. The first is power-driven leadership. This is where a person with power leads through fear and intimidation. At its worst, this is a slave master who abuses a slave. More often today, it’s a boss who is more focused on his own career than…

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As I’ve mentioned before, I had a 25-year career as head of a Nashville advertising and branding agency. In that business, when we developed a product’s brand, we began by searching for that product’s distinctive (Differential) benefit (Advantage.) This was that special benefit our product offered that other similar products did not offer. This is what made our product distinctive, noteworthy, and special. Through those…

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“There is nothing new under the sun.” If he had never made another statement, this comment would have proven Solomon’s wisdom. Each generation goes to great lengths to convince itself that their generation is the worst and most depraved one yet. But the fact is human nature is pretty predictable. Conflict among humans has been around as long as there have been humans. In frontier…

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As you may know, I am a professional speaker. Each year I travel nationally and abroad and speak about 150 times. Bottom-line: I fly a lot…about 100 flights annually. So, it doesn’t take me long to size up a flight attendant’s mood. This is an important skill because the flight attendant’s mood is a good predictor of how enjoyable the flight will be. Recently I…

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Success is not determined by our hardware — it is usually determined by the software that we’re running. Most people have perfectly capable hardware…normal intelligence and decent health. The difference between winners and losers is in the software they run. By software, I’m referring to the things we tell ourselves, the way we choose to look at the world around us, our internal motivation, and…

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Life is a beautiful path of stepping-stones — each experience can be linked to the next—much like stepping-stones across a stream. One of the best ways to assure defeat and depression is to approach life with an all-or-nothing attitude. That is, if you don’t get the whole cake — you won’t enjoy the party. Sure, I believe in striving for excellence, but there’s a difference…

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It’s human nature to desire success without effort. But unless you have a big inheritance (or a mask and a gun), that probably won’t happen. The ancient biblical proverb says, “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” The most successful people put out the most effort. While the old saying “practice makes perfect” may not be literally…

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There may be five, 10, or even 50 different ways to accomplish a task. But there is always only one best way to do anything. Successful people are those rare people who understand that there is always only one best way to do anything. And, it’s those people who find that best way to do something, then repeats that process over and over and over…

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