It's an all too common tale: you're at a convention, panel, or meeting and you spend the day making new connections. It's an exciting feeling and you can envision all the ways the new contacts can help your business. But when you get home, you're exhausted from the busy day and you drop right to sleep. Then the next day you get caught up in business and making up for...
The brain is tricky thing. It's the most important organ in the body, yet also the least well understood. However, scientists have spent years unlocking its complexity, and although they have not yet mastered the brain, they've learned a great deal about it. One of the most important lessons thus far has been on the value of habits. Your brain is a muscle like any other. When you work out...
What's the best source of customers? Is it Facebook? Twitter? Old fashioned television commercials? Networking at industry events? Each of these avenues offers a number of advice columns, even whole books, instructing you on how to maximize their value, but which if your best source to begin with? The answer may surprise you, as its none of the above. In fact, the best - and most overlook - source of...
The poster above may be a relic of World War II, but the notion of keeping secrets to preserve the advantage dates from much further back. The ancient "Art of War" by Sun Tzu includes the advice "[c]onceal your dispositions, and your condition will remain secret, which leads to victory." More recently, the passage of the Patriot Act has shown the importance that global leaders place on protecting their own...
Experience, as they say, is what you get immediately after you need it. No doubt you've experienced this unfortunate truth many times in your life; I certainly have. That's the beauty of training. It allows us to learn from the mistakes of others, rather than having to make our own (not that any teenager in the world is going to believe that). Fortunately for us both, we live in a...
I talk a lot about business, but in an era personified by the entrepreneur and personal monetization, the business and the personal have become inextricably entangled. That makes managing your personal life an integral part of how you run your business. Now, there’s a lot of opinion about the best way to manage your personal life. Some of it is straight genetics; some of it is upbringing and culture. Some...
The heart of our economy is competition. By competing with one another, businesses are forced to find greater efficiencies and deliver results that better match what the market demands. This is the great strength of capitalism, and the results speak for themselves. However, it is also a weakness. Competition can become so great that businesses (and people) can begin to take it to heart. It doesn’t take long before some...
When's the last time you did something without procrastinating, even for a minute? With so many distractions in our high-data culture, it can be hard to retain your focus on any one project for long stretches of time. That's not always a bad thing - some people are simply happier with a lot of different things occupying their attention at the same time. For others, that can be overwhelming -...
If you're like most people, you like being right. And why wouldn't you? It's good to have an accurate view of the world around us, and it feels pretty great to be on the right side of an argument. There's certainly nothing wrong with being right. However, there's more to the story than just being right. If you're a warrior, then you need as few enemies as possible - the...
Every major company and personality has a blog these days. And why wouldn’t we? It’s modern broadcasting, putting out your message and thoughts to wide audience at the click of a button. But there are more reasons than just communicating to have a blog. For one, credibility. A blog is seen as an integral part of a fully functioning website; if your site lacks a blog, some may question just...