If you want to start on a serious career path, don’t even think about giving up during the first year. Very little happens during the first year in terms of results. Most businesses aren’t even profitable in their first 2 years; it takes them that long just to become sustainable, even for fairly small businesses. [...]

People commonly overestimate how far they can get in a year, but grossly underestimate how far they can get in 5 years. If you actually want results, make a 5-year commitment to a particular path, like building an online business, developing your social skills, becoming a world traveler, etc. A lesser commitment is largely pointless. [...]

If you accept a job, a relationship, or a lifestyle that you merely tolerate — but don’t appreciate — you’re putting other concerns ahead of your own happiness. Social conditioning may have convinced you that sacrificing your happiness to maintain a certain bank balance, to send timely payments to corporations to which you’re indebted, or [...]

Branding, brand management, and brand strategy are rooted in fear and are completely unnecessary. This is true whether we’re talking about business, product, organizational, or personal branding. The primary aim of branding is control. But people don’t generally like to be controlled. So branding is largely done at the subconscious level; if it were done [...]

What part of your life always seems to be on the back burner? Is it a certain relationship? A hobby you’ve always wanted to enjoy? A spiritual pursuit? Do you tell yourself that someday this part of your life will move to the front burner and become a priority? How will that actually happen? Back [...]

After yesterday’s post on Life Purpose and Values, I saw some questions about why I dropped values like focus and self-discipline from my list. Are these values no longer important? Or do I feel I’ve mastered them to such a degree that they I don’t need to consciously think about them anymore? Actually it’s neither. [...]

How do you create a heart-centered connection with someone close to you? I think the best way to do it is to let the other person see you naked. I don’t mean this in the physical sense, but in the emotional-spiritual sense. As you converse with the other person, talk about your career; then let [...]

Many time management experts label procrastination in strictly negative terms such as “the thief of time.” But is procrastination always such a negative experience? Is there a positive side to procrastination, one that may even encourage you to procrastinate more often? What if you could see procrastination from a more empowering perspective? What if you [...]

One of the themes that repeatedly came up at the last Conscious Growth Workshop was the problem of giving your power away. Instead of focusing on your true desires, you erect false structures in front of your desires and then feed your power to those structures as a delay tactic. Here are some typical scenarios [...]

As I mentioned in my 2010 Focus post, my personal focus for this year involves immersing myself in the fun and exciting world of domination and submission (D/s). (I really love my life!) Now one obvious question I’ve been asked a few times is: What the heck does this have to do with personal development? [...]