Have you ever heard of an elevator pitch? That’s when someone casually asks, “What kind of work do you do?” and you give them a brief answer in roughly the time span of an elevator ride. The people who hear your elevator pitch could be potential business partners or clients, or they could be strangers you meet [...]

Whenever you set a new goal, you’re unlikely to achieve it unless your habits already support it. If your goal runs afoul of your current habits, you’ll need to change your habits in order to achieve your goal. Suppose you set a goal to write a book, but you aren’t already in the habit of [...]

The past couple days have been interesting to say the least. After my spa day on Monday, I felt more relaxed, but I still felt pretty aggressive. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling hostile and belligerent. Later in the day, the anger went away, and I was left with this incredible feeling of power and [...]

Now here’s a surprise — my book Personal Development for Smart People has launched early. The original release date was October 15th, but the book has already shipped and is available now. You can get it at Amazon.com and in many major bookstores, including Borders, Barnes & Noble, Books a Million, and Hastings. The major [...]

It wasn’t until this year that I realized that one of the blocks that prevented me from improving my diet was figuring out what to do with the extra energy I’d gain if the change became permanent. For example, when I was going through my 30-day raw food diet trial earlier this year, I had [...]

What role does skill play in the path to success? Are good intentions enough? Or do you actually need some talent? Why So Many Bloggers Fail I’m often asked why so many people who jumped on the blogging bandwagon failed to get good results. While the A-list bloggers enjoy soaring traffic and income, countless other [...]

Have you ever fallen off track while trying to install or maintain a not-quite-daily habit such as exercising 3-4 days a week or getting up at 5am on weekdays? This article will share some simple ideas to help you maintain such habits more easily. If you perform a certain task every day for weeks on [...]

Many people are really bad at estimating how much time a task will take. Perhaps you estimate you’ll need about an hour, and it really takes you 3-4 hours to finish. Or maybe you allocate 30 minutes for a task, and you’re done in 5 minutes. What can you do to get better at making [...]

Every week I receive emails from people who tell me their ideas for new websites, businesses, or organizations they’d like to build. Usually they ask me for feedback on their ideas, implying that their ideas have some intrinsic value. Occasionally they want me to invest in their ideas, either financially or by putting in some of my time [...]

Life coaching (or personal coaching) is fairly popular these days. Many people have asked me what I think of life coaching, so I’ll share my thoughts on this subject. A life coach is someone you hire to help assist you with your personal development, especially in the area of setting and achieving specific goals. Typically this [...]