To escape fear, you have to go through it, not around.
Rule 1: Be kind.Rule 2: Don’t be a doormat when they step on you.Kindness and sticking up for yourself go hand in hand if you want happiness.
Don’t allow your crisis to become a crisis of faith.
Every penny NOT spent on investing in yourself (after basic needs of course) may be a wasted future opportunity from missing learns and connects.
Earning is a product of learning. You’re only one letter away from earning more.
Want true success? Ask yourself these 3 questions daily:1. Who can I serve?2. Where can I contribute greatest?3. Is my work today congruent with my future goals?
Work is meant to create a desired outcome. If your work is not creating the dream, what are you working on?
Everyone is pretty good at learning. Very few are good at doing.
Ignorance paired with arrogance (naïveté) is logical, but arrogance paired with awareness (ego) is toxic.
If you want to double your productively, shorten the timeline to by 50%.
I’m always amazed that people will stand around books for hours and only look at the spine. I think I should write a book called “the power of having a spine” – #metaphor
If you’re not scared every day, you’re not pushing hard enough.
Some people say they have 20 years experience, when in reality, they have 1 year’s experience repeated 20 times. (Stephen M R Covey to Richie Norton when Norton asked if he was too young to train older executives for Covey.)
Hiding behind titles to create security is insecurity.
What is your motivation? When you drill down and ask, “What if there was zero ROI (of any form)?,” you’ll discover your highest and best use of time.
Do you have a personal mantra? Mine comes from a childhood song. “Wherever I go the grass grows greener.
Just because you have baggage doesn’t mean you have to lug it around.
Perfectionism is a disease. Procrastination is a disease. ACTION is the cure.
Selling is a sacred trust between buyer and seller.
Never mix negative thinking with negative people. Multiplying negatives, in this instance, won’t make a positive.
People with money tend to buy more things instead of experiences…because they don’t have time.
When the going gets tough, people bail. When the going gets easy, people get lazy. Honest, smart, hard work is the way to get results.
Don’t let your day dreams become your personally living nightmare.
Are you in love with your idea more than your reality? Change that.
Freedom on the inside comes when validation from the outside doesn’t matter.
There is only one way to make money: sell something. You’re either selling your time or a product. The secret? Productize your time. That’s freedom.
The parents of politics are lack of control and seeking to control. The parents of leadership are influence and trust.
Politics is not leadership. It never has been. It never will be.
Mentors change lives, but students change mentors’ lives more.
How to uplift others. It’s not a pie, it’s a cake. It’s not a ladder, it’s a bridge.
Rhetorical question: Did you get to where you are by accepting the status quo?I didn’t.
In the end, every startup is different. But in the beginning every startup is the same.
When everyone has a microphone, you can’t hear anything. Choose one voice carefully and listen in.
Intentional living is the art of making our own choices before others’ choices make us.
ART (in a business marketing context)Authority RelevantTimely
Don’t just create art to make money. Make money so you can create more art. (Exchange any words you want for ‘create art’ and see if it fits).
People LOVE change (when it’s about changing others). People HATE change (when it’s about changing themselves).
It’s called entrepreneurSHIP, not entrepreneurSIT. Don’t wait. Just ship.
Don’t worry about getting credit, do the work anyway.
Entrepreneurs get distracted by productivity and miss profits.Corporate folk get distracted by efficiencies and miss effectiveness.But ballers? Ballers know the difference between a hack and a hoop every time.Take your shot.
Have the STRENGTH to say “no” to the status quo. Have the WILL to listen to the deepest desires of your heart.Have the COURAGE to ACT on and live out your intent.
How much value do you want to get out of life? You get out what you put in. Approach your life with intent, courage, faith and hard work, and you’ll reap the beautiful value those sacrifices provide. That’s the way our strange world works.
Don’t just create art to make money. Make money so you can create more art.
To travel is to live. Breathe some life into your life and go outside!
How to “change the world” in two words: S.T.A.R.T. N.O.W.1. START – Serve. Thank. Ask. Receive. Trust.2. NOW – No Opportunity Wasted
Some people just love to stir the pot, but don’t realize they’re cooking themselves.
Give your idea a chance. You’ll never hit a home run (or a base hit for that matter) if you don’t swing.
My parents did a great job of creating a home we wanted to return to…and all of our friends wanted to be there too.
Sometimes I work so long and so hard that I have no idea what day or time it is. I forget to eat. I don’t get ready for the day. I fall asleep on the couch and wake up and get back to work.
Forest rangers see the forest differently. Likewise, entrepreneurs see the world differently.
Every book you’ve ever read on LEADERSHIP will finally make sense (and become practical) if you change the word “leader” to INFLUENCER.
The competition is out to get you. Are you a moving target or a sitting duck? Innovate or die.
Everyone loves the idea of “disruption” in business, but no one likes it when it happens to them.
If you think it’s funny to make fun of the “used car salesman,” you better only buy new and never sell your car. Just sayin.
At the end of the day, if you have a great product and service paired with the wrong pricing strategy / business model, you don’t have a business.
Don’t disregard your so-called “stupid ideas.” They may be inspired thoughts and high-potential opportunities. Whatcha gonna do?
Beware: If you egg people on, you’ll get egg on your face.
If you’re in business, all the content in the world will do you no good unless it leads to a sale.
Be a learning machine. What made you money last year, won’t necessarily make you money this and next year.
If you have time to write a business plan, you have time to prove the model. Just sayin.
If you want control, loosen your grip. You’re strangling your employees. Letting go is actually holding on.
Are you setting business goals? Try this:Step 1: Add a “0” to your revenue goal.Step 2: Take away a “0” from your expense goal.Step 3: Let your mind go to work.Thank me later.
Live in a way that helps you lean into your fears, make a difference and live without regret.
If only 1 out of 10 businesses succeeds, start 10 businesses. Just sayin.
The moment you think you can do something that you previously thought you couldn’t, you can.
When someone says you can’t do something because of XYZ, is that true? Or are they playing with your life with their good intentions to keep you safe?
Better to teach a man to fish who already loves to fish.
Follow your passion and learn how to make money at it. Or don’t follow your passion and learn to make money at that. They are the same. It’s a choice.
When haters start to rear their ugly head, just play around with them and throw them a bone so they can go away and chew on it.
You can disagree with an idea without attacking the person who shared it.
What are you will to sacrifice for success? Whatever it is, don’t sacrifice your values, your morals, your principles. Not worth it.
If you want to be trusted, trust first. Make decisions that are grounded in your authentic principles. Don’t lie. Don’t cheat. Don’t push others down to obtain success.
Every post is a digital tattoo of your personal brand.Every post you make is a marketing piece. Whether you realize it or not and regardless of having something for sale. Every post is a digital tattoo of your personal brand.
Note to businesspersons and salespersons: “Be professional” does not mean “be a robot.” Just be friendly and act like a real person. Cool?
Dear Influencers: Trolls will lurk under the bridges you build to gobble you up. They are hangry for attention. Build bridges anyways.
To make money you have to use a four letter word: SELL.
You may forget the toys you buy and break, but you’ll always remember the experiences and memories you create.
What story will your life tell? Love your story. Live your story. Lead your story.
I believe in solving social ills with business skills.
Entrepreneurs don’t have weekends or birthdays or holidays. Every day is my weekend, my birthday, my holiday. OR, every day is my work day. Mostly it’s a choice.
You can’t expect the level of excitement of your audience to be greater than your own.
Another year older, but am I wiser? Wisdom comes from learning and changing for the better. Sometimes we just go through life living the same day over and over and never gaining true wisdom. Let that never be me.
When you travel, somehow, the world gets both bigger and smaller, simultaneously.
Happiness being surrounded by good friends and family at a BBQ.
You can’t judge a man by the way he reacts when things go right, but by the way he reacts when things go wrong.
Building a family is an entrepreneurial experience.
No one knows your inner battle. No one knows the challenge you face. No one knows the sacrifice it takes to do what you do. But you’re not alone.
Jack of all trades or master of one? If you’re a master of one, you’ll soon be a master of none. Times are a changin. Be a jack of all trades. Or better, master of many!
Building a family is an entrepreneurial experience. No doubt about it. The family is the greatest and most important enterprise on earth. Lead yours with passion and joy!
To be inefficient and effective is better than being efficient and ineffective.
Success steps: Think big. Act small. Then scale.Failure steps: Act big. Think small. Then shrink.Consider your next big thing a project. Get one. Get it right. No sense growing a broken system.
I cannot stress how important and effective it is to leverage the principles of S.T.A.R.T. – Serve. Thank. Ask. Receive. Trust.
Gut check. Is your current fear a stumbling block or a stepping stone?
How much longer will you wait until you take a chance on yourself?
Every day you’re not doing that thing you want to do (your dream), you’re spending mental currency, your dream currency (time) on the wrong thing.
Just because you work, doesn’t mean you’re working on the right thing.
Creatives Creed: Destruction is creation. Creation is destruction.
Unless your message is that you have no message, you need a message.
If you continue to treat yourself like a 3rd class citizen, you’ll stay a 3rd class citizen.You’re better than that.
Exponential business growth comes from personal development.
Wealth isn’t about money. It’s about options…and you always have options. Choose wisely. Live wealthy.
The definition of management is literally “control,” but the definition of true leadership is love.
At the end of the day, if you’re wasting your time by not investing in yourself, you’re going to waste away—and that would be the greatest waste of all.
If only employees knew this…there is no hand out just because you got a degree. You still gotta make $ for the biz (employer), if you choose not to make $ for yourself (freelancer / ent).
Trust isn’t just the greatest currency, it’s the only currency. Once trust is gone in any form of currency, the value is gone.
If you live for money, no amount will ever satisfy you.
Would you produce, create and bring value to the world if it weren’t for money? Or would you veg out? The necessity of money keeps people relevant and active. The paradox is that people who stay relevant and active make money.
You can always get another job. You’ll never get another life.
It’s not about how smart you are–it’s about capturing minds.
Have the courage to do what you’re not ready to do.
The majority are satisfied living within the idea of the reality instead of the reality of the idea.
Ideas become reality. once you hit that reality, you get a new idea. it’s a virtuous upward spiral. However, the majority are satisfied living within the idea of the reality instead of the reality of the idea.
It’s not the circumstances that we should feel threatened by, it’s the fear of the circumstances that poses the real threat.
Live to start your stupid ideas, and start to live a life without regret–a life filled with meaning, freedom, happiness, fun, authenticity, and influence.
You gotta make it a priority to make your priorities a priority.
You don’t feel like your best self when you fall apart, but you have to fall apart to become your best self.
Companies preach creativity, hire for conformity and call consultants when they fail who tell them to be more creative.
Want creativity? Diversify your experience to develop your creative muscles.
The willingness to be a champion for stupid ideas is the key to greater creativity, innovation, fulfillment, inspiration, motivation and success.
If everyone waited to become an expert before starting, no one would become an expert. To become an EXPERT, you must have EXPERIENCE. To get EXPERIENCE, you must EXPERIMENT! Stop waiting. Start stuff.
You can’t let fear and indecision sink your creativity—they do not easily release their hold.
Believing there is a bridge from where you are to where you want to go is 99% of the battle. The other 1% is to cross it.
Overcome the prideful need to measure your worth by how much more successful you are than others, by operating from a core belief grounded in abundance.
Accepting that life is insane, that bad things happen to good people and that you can find the courage to be grateful for the good in every situation and still move forward is hard (even terrifying), but heroic.
Never trust a person that tries to sell you by how righteous they are. I’m telling your right now, it’s a scam.
There is power born of humility . . . Humility, in business and in life, is a powerful asset and does not denote lowliness, unimportance, or self-deprecation.
The way to be irreplaceable is to become a social innovator. Start projects that motivate you to save the world and simultaneously make you money (and create mindshare) for your company. Social innovation makes magic happen.
When it comes to getting a job or client, congruent value is aligning the employer’s need with your value add.
If time were to take on human form, would she be your taskmaster or freedom fighter?
If someone thinks your ideas, the dreams bubbling up inside of you, are stupid, welcome to the Club.
A little piece of everywhere I go becomes a big part of everything I do.
If you don’t build a personal brand, someone else will brand you with the wrong label.
A brand is a person that has a voice, evokes emotion and spreads a message.
A brand is a person that has a voice, evokes emotion and spreads a message. Build a brand or a brand will build you. Create your personal brand. If you don’t build your own brand, you will let someone else brand you with the wrong label.
Optimism doesn’t make you more persistent. Persistence makes you more optimistic.
It’s not about getting out of your comfort zone to reach your goal. It’s about widening your comfort zone so far that your goal fits comfortably inside. Once you do that, hitting your goals will be like hitting 3s for Steph Curry.
Widen your comfort zone so your goal fits comfortably inside. Do and you’ll hit goals like Steph Curry hits 3s.
Imagine what your life would be like if you were completely uninhibited by fear, pride, or procrastination. What would you be capable of? Anything.
To accelerate success, we must get as close to our dreams as possible as soon as possible.
If high aspirations = high fear, overcoming high fear = achieving high aspirations.
Simplicity is complex. It’s never simple to keep things simple. Simple solutions require the most advanced thinking.
All too often people pretend to be professional. “Professionalism” is sometimes a facade for fraud. Be pro, but be real. Honesty and transparency combined with character, competence and real results is the key to being a true pro.
Say no to everything, so you can say yes to the one thing.
It’s really simple. Sell high-value stuff to people who value high-value stuff.
Don’t sell based on inventory. Inventory based on who you want to sell.
How you bring people into your home is just as important as when they walk through the door. Frame well. #marketing
Urgency means paying the details the attention they deserve, with the respect they deserve, without delay.
You can be the most productive and most effective, but politics show up as ego, jealousy and sabotage from bosses who can’t perform.
Don’t allow life to pass you by because you are afraid of [looking] stupid.
Opportunities will come and go, but if you do nothing about them, so will you.
Act NOW on those ideas! As they say, you snooze you lose. Or as I say, if you BEGIN you WIN.
Fear is the freaky troll under the bridge that leads to achievement.
Personal and private and public and professional lives are blended.Separating them is what makes a fraud, hypocrite, alter ego.
The key ingredient in engaging the power available from service is motive.
When we leverage, we aggregate and organize existing resources to achieve success.
Bad boss? Fire him/her. When you’re interviewing for a job, You’re job is to interview them. You are an equal.
Like creating a masterpiece, quitting is an art: you have to decide what to keep within the frame and what to keep out.
Truly being authentic is knowing what matters to you, on the deepest level of who you are, and committing always to act from that authentic center.
Creators always have an advantage because they make the stuff we consume.
It’s called entrepreneurSHIP, not entrepreneurSTAY. Don’t wait. Just ship.
To crush fear doesn’t mean you eliminate it; crushing fear means you literally crush it down into smaller, more manageable parts and tackle one piece at a time.
It all starts with a tiny, stupid idea, then one thing leads to another, and suddenly, you find something amazing: yourself.
Try it out yourself. Test your idea with an experimental project. See what works and what doesn’t. Then move forward or move on.
If you want to trust yourself, make decisions that aregrounded in your authentic principles. Don’t lie. Don’tcheat. Don’t push others down to obtain success.
Jealousy in any form will cloud thinking and form bad habits. Jealousy is an addiction.
Influence creates affluence. Affluence does not create influence. Affluence makes you more of who you already are.
You can learn from those who have come down from the mountain, but you won’t have the same experience unless you climb yourself.
Don’t worry. You’ll find your message in your mess.
Mission matching: an ask that creates synergistic congruence (aka win-win) between missions.
If self-employment is the opposite of employed-by-other, than a job is outsourcing your freedom (time and talent) to a boss.
You have to dig a well before you can draw water from it.
A principle is not merely a fundamental truth, but principles must serve as the very first source of every decision we make along the road to success.
No one is in business for business’ sake. People are in business because their life is at stake.
Social media was designed to SHARE what you’re doing and who you are, not BE what you’re doing and be who you are.
Credibility comes from results. Everything else is just marketing.
Marketing is safe. Sales is risky. UNLESS, marketing has done its job. Then sales is safe too.
When you say the word marketing, do you think of serving? Until you do, you’re going to live far below your highest potential.
Selfishness at the expense of others is bad. Self-care for the betterment of others is good.
True leadership is caring about the people who don’t care about things you care about.
The pursuit of prosperity shouldn’t stop you from the pursuit of happiness.
Work to enjoy life. Work to create value. Work to survive, strive and thrive. But do not work…to work.
Confusion, when embraced, is the starting point for discovery, direction and decision.