Our only limitations are those we set up in our own minds. Napoleon Hill Hmm. All in our minds, eh? We can certainly find plenty of evidence that says our problems are out there, not in here. We might be right but is it helpful? Try this. Ask, “What’s the worst that could happen if […]
Too often, we let ourselves to be pulled and pushed by the events and circumstances we see around us, especially if–whether small or big–they are not what we want. This mode of life feels awful, drains us, and perpetuates those events and circumstances. Here’s something much better: direct your attention so that your attitude, […]
Labels, judgments, yeah buts, and other beliefs about the way things are can help but often stop helping us. They go rogue. We can tell that a belief has gone rogue on us in two ways. First, we feel bad when we think it. We often attribute the bad feeling to whatever we’re considering. “I […]
So used to expecting things not to work out, we limit our vision of what think we or our businesses can achieve. Or, perhaps, we allow our vision to be swamped by “yeah buts” (thoughts of fear, uncertainty, doubt, worry, anger, regret, or guilt). Damn. What if, instead, we loved our vision? Imagine what would […]
If we focus on something we don’t like (especially if we go on about what’s wrong with it and why we don’t like it) then try to fix it, we’ll struggle mightily because our focus has an odd way of preserving things. (Think about the war on drugs or trying to get teammates finally do […]
The story we tell drives our results. Tell a story of how rough it is, how terrible they are, how blah blah blah and our results will match. How could they not? Tell a story of how good it is, how capable they are, how la la la and our results will match our story […]
The sages tell us that the formula for creating any outcome is belief->actions->results. This is a leverage formula. We leverage action into results because we know that taking concerted action generates more results than our default, reactive action. We usually forget the first, more powerful part of the formula. Focused belief generates better actions (and […]
If we persist in thinking that there’s something fundamentally wrong with them, us, or the situation, then we will be locked into our current levels of success…or less. Our job, good leader, starts with the belief in a spark of good, intelligence, and possibility in everyone. We quietly and assuredly call these out of ourselves […]
We are not broken. But many of our thoughts and actions come from the belief that we and/or others somehow are. Good leader, if we want improve performance in our businesses, it is our job to drop this belief and help others to drop it, too. In your corner, Mike Today’s photo credit: easter […]
Thoughts create. So if you could think one thought that would change everything, would you? Given the opportunity, most of us would not. Usually our thoughts, beliefs, and mental models are the result of habit, familiarity, or identity. We think old thoughts about the world and about ourselves because we’ve always thought them, because we prefer them […]