“In life, you can blame a lot of people and you can wallow in self-pity, or you can pick yourself up and say, ‘Listen, I have to be responsible for myself.” -Howard Schultz

Don’t lie about it. Don’t blame someone else. Admit you’re wrong. Admit you made a mistake. You overlooked the problem. It was your fault.

Don’t try to beat around the bush. You screwed up. That’s ok. People make mistakes. It’s very common. It’s the way we learn. 

Don’t lose sleep over it. Move on from the mistake. Make sure you prevent it from happening again.

If you lie about it, the mistakes will keep happening. You won’t learn at all. You’ll keep making mistakes, blaming others or other forces, and not feel bad when it happens.

What will come of that are a few bad things. You’ll get caught at least once in a lie. Now you’re known as a liar. No one trusts you plus you’ll probably get fired. 

The other outcome is you’ll probably get someone else in trouble or possibly fired. You’ll regret that. Most likely spill your beans that you fucked up and again get fired. 

It’s not good to get in the habit of lying. It leads you down a bad path. You may succeed for it in the short term. The long term is another whole can of worms. You’ll never succeed long term blaming other people and/or lying about being wrong. 

You messed up. You’re not perfect. Take the blame for the problem. Solve the problem. Move on.

People can tell when you don’t care. It’s obvious. If you care only about yourself, we’ll know. Don’t treat your employees as numbers.

Especially as a manager. If you treat employees as numbers, your business will never be successful. Treat employees as assets to the company. Treat them as humans. Crucial components. Remember, everyone has a family. Employees rely on this job.

Without your employees you don’t survive. You don’t sell. You don’t create. You don’t exist. 

Genuinely care how people do. Ask how their days are going. Actually care how their days are going. Ask them what they need from you to be more successful. To be a better leader. To make their jobs easier. 

Ask what they would change with the way you’re managing. Ask how they would manage. What they would do differently. Get feedback constantly. Improve the way you’re doing your job. If you show initiative to improve, so will they. 

Constantly train them. Put them in scenarios to succeed. Prepare them for anything. Make your employees the best versions of themselves. Provide immense amounts of value. 

Don’t micromanage. Don’t constantly ask what they’re doing. Where are your deals? Why are your calls low? Why haven’t you finished your project yet? 

Don’t demand things. You have to do x, y, and z or you’re fired. 

Why didn’t we hit goal? Good managers will explain what the team can improve upon, not what hey did wrong, not why they’re bad. Then, they ask for feedback as to what everyone thinks. They give their opinions on what to change, how to hit the deadline next time, how to get better, what we should do, etc. Then, they set a plan to hit that goal together. They hold everyone accountable including themselves.

Employees will rally behind someone they know cares. Someone you wants employees to improve. Someone who motivates employees. Someone who will do what it takes to win. To get better. To be a better team.

The manager who looks at employees as numbers will lose. They always do.

“A genuine leader is not a searcher for consensus but a molder of consensus.”                          -Martin Luther King, Jr.

Someone not show up to your scheduled meeting? Someone skip a lunch? Someone miss your scheduled call?

Think before you react. Before you go chastise someone for missing your meeting give them the benefit of the doubt. Don’t think they purposefully missed your meeting. 

Last year a had a meeting set with a prospect. I sent him a calendar invite before our meeting. He accepted it. I called him the morning before. He said he would be there. The meeting time came around and he didn’t show up. I called his office. He wasn’t in. 

I was pissed. Why would he “no show” me? We confirmed the meeting. I took all the necessary steps to make sure he would be there. He told me he would be there. He was excited. He needed the product. What could have possibly been more important? 

I failed to give him the benefit of the doubt. I called him the next week. He answered. His wife had a heart attack. He even went so far as to apologize for missing my meeting. I felt terrible. How could I be so selfish? I apologized to him, profusely.  

Remember this the next time someone misses one of your meetings. Give them the benefit of the doubt. There is most likely a good reason why they’re not there. 

Don’t let your emotions take control. Stay calm. Remember this story. Whatever the outcome may be, never call someone out of anger and accuse them of blatantly missing your meeting.

They have something more important going on. 



Don’t compare yourself to other people. Focus on yourself. Benchmark against yourself.

Beware of constantly comparing yourself to others. We all have different goals. We have different views. We want different things. We will achieve things at different times. Don’t worry what others are doing. You do you.

Make sure you set out a plan to accomplish your goals. Work hard everyday. Your hard work now will pay off in the future. 

Let other people do their own thing. Be happy for them when they accomplish their goals.

We have this tendency to be jealous. Jealous that they’re successful. You have no idea what their actual life looks like. Maybe they’re working 80 hour weeks with no free time. 

Be happy for them. Be genuinely happy. They’ve accomplish a great dream of theirs. Don’t be hateful. Don’t judge them. Don’t be jealous. That’s not your life, it’s theirs. 

Wish happiness on them. They deserve it.  

Do your work. Focus on yourself. Never stop going after your goals. 

“I live by ‘Go big or go home.’ That’s with everything. It’s like either commit and go for it or don’t do it at all. I apply that to everything. I apply that to relationships, I apply that to like sports, I apply that to everything. That’s what I live by. That’s how I like it.”                       -Paul Walker

If you want to accomplish something don’t half ass it. Don’t sporadically do it. Work hard for it. Consistently do it. Constancy wins. 

You can’t expect to become great at something if you don’t put the work in everyday. Have it marked on your calendar. Guard that time. No matter, you know everyday from 6-7 pm you are learning a language or practicing piano or learning your new skill. 

If you continue doing it day after day it will become a habit. Make sure it becomes a habit. You can’t learn by doing something 20 minutes today, working on it for 2 hours 4 days later, and working for 1 hour 2 days from then. It needs to be an everyday thing. No matter what. Any amount everyday is crucial.

The more time you spend per day on your project, the more you’ll learn. Start small. Try many approaches. Work on it for a few hours every single day. On the weekends, work longer. 

If this is something you really want don’t let anything or anyone stop you. 

Believe in the process. Believe you can learn this new skill. You will learn. It will be frustrating at times. Keep it fun and enjoyable. It will take time. Understand the work you’re doing now is important. 

If you miss a day, that’s alright. Make sure you don’t miss 2 days in a row. 2 days turns into 3 which turns into 4 and then that habit you worked so hard on is now gone. 

Go all in. Work hard for it. It will pay off. 

Starting anything new is challenging. The first few months are tough. It seems like you’re learning nothing. You’ve been trying to learn and nothing seems to be helping. This is the point when most people will give up. 

Don’t. Push through these first few months. Once you get beyond this point, that’s when the real fun begins. You start to really learn and retain the information. 

Up until this point it’s most likely that you’ve been trying every strategy to get better. 

The reason why so many people quit in the beginning is because it’s not fun. It’s not fun to be bad at something. It’s not fun to not know anything about a particular subject. It feels like you’re working instead of learning.

Once you begin to have fun and you see yourself progressing, there’s nothing stopping you. 

You’ll push yourself harder than you ever have before to learn more. You want to keep getting better, learning more, and mastering the subject. 

The grind may suck in the beginning but push through this. Put in work consistently even if you dread it. It’s necessary. Any amount matters.

Once you hit that point where you want to give up, it seems to also be the point where you begin to grasp the subject. You start to realize that you are learning a great deal. 

That’s exciting! It motivates you to keep pushing forward. It’s an unbelievable feeling. 

When you’re first starting out, set the bar low. If you set the bar so low, let’s say five minutes a day, and do this on a consistent basis, something magical begins to happen. 

You set the bar low, you accomplish some work, you begin to learn more and more, and then you start working longer each day on the project.

Five minutes seems too easy. Then you start doing ten minutes. Then twenty five minutes. Before you know it, your five minutes a day turned into one hour a day and you’re doing it everyday. 

Eventually all that work you put in will pay off. It’s compounding interest. 

Don’t give up in the beginning when everything seems lost and hard. Everyone started at square one. Push through the these tough times and consistently work everyday. 

It will pay off. 

The decisions of your friends. Of colleagues. Of your family. Of acquaintances.

Don’t be judgmental. It’s their life. Let them do what they want with it. 

If they’re happy, who cares? That should matter most. 

Imagine someone telling you what you’re doing is a waste of time. That your decision making skills are pathetic. Your boyfriend or girlfriend is horrible for you. You shouldn’t start a business because you’re going to fail. 

Don’t judge people’s decisions. Let them do what they want. Of course there are some exceptions – doing heroin, drunk driving, killing someone. 

If our choices aren’t right, let us come to that conclusion ourselves. 

Worry about what you’re doing. It will all workout. Don’t gloat if our decisions go poorly. “I told you so!” Great. You were right. I fucked up. I get it. It doesn’t help. 

Be a positive support. Let them know you’ll be there for them if they ever need anything. Let them know you respect their decisions. You respect them. You can understand why they’re doing what they do. 

This comes back to being more open minded about situations. Maybe this will all work out and I have nothing to worry about? Who knows. Time will tell. Let it take its course. 

They’ll learn from their decisions. They’ll figure it out themselves. Whatever the result may be. Positive or negative. 

Either way, they’ll learn. That’s all you can hope for. 

“It is my goal to love everyone. I hate no one. Regardless of their race, religion, their proclivities, the desire of their heart and how they want to live their life and the decisions that they make. I can even respect people’s decisions and lifestyle choices just as I hope they have the courtesy to respect my decisions and my choices.” -Kirk Cameron

No one likes spam. “50% off viagra today!”, “win a free trip to Mexico!”, “time shares for sale!”.

We can tell when you put no thought into an email and sent it to 1,000 people. All they’re hoping for is one to two people to bite. Looking for a few quick bucks.

Service announcement: This just in! Mass marketing does not work! 

We know when we’re being pitched a product. We can blatantly tell. There is no value behind the words you’ve just said. If some poor soul does buy your product, they probably will not a.) have a good experience which will lead to b.) never returning as a customer.

Of course mass marketing has some exceptions. Some people will buy and be lifetime customers. But, that’s a very few amount. 

If you want to build a brand around your products be more personalized. Think from the buyers perspective. They want to see something of value before they agree to purchase your product. Don’t send an email immediately asking for their money.

Be a thought leader. Send them free shit. Free content. Informative articles. Industry specific tips. Once you’ve set yourself apart as an industry expert, you won’t have to do any hard selling. 

They’ll reach out to you for advice on what they should do. They’ll ask, what should I do to solve x and y problems? You can send them a call to action. This could either be a product to look into, a demonstration to attend, reasons why they should purchase your product, or another way you can help their situation. 

You’ve positioned yourself as the industry expert. They’ve read your content. You’ve shown problems others are experiencing in the industry and how to alleviate them. Now show how you can solve the major problems they’re having using your products. 

Some people may need more time than others. Keep nurturing them. Not everyone is going to buy your product at the same time. Be patient. It’s all about timing and urgency – which you can help create. 

Don’t spam people. Make the emails personal. Remember that there is another human looking at your emails. Forget the email templates. Put yourself in the buyers shoes. Would I open this email? If yes, why? If no, what should I change? 

Have fun with this. Experiment a ton. Try a bunch of titles, openings, different content, etc. get feedback from your audience and go from there. 

Become their trusted advisor. If you can do this, every time they have a problem, they will come to you. 

“Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided.” -Aristotle

Show confidence. You know more than most people. Even if you’ve just started, you should have confidence. Confidence you can learn. Confidence in your product. Confidence you can improve. You’re more knowledgeable than you think. 

If you’ve been doing this for a while now, you’re an industry expert. A relative expertise in the field. You may not be the top salesman or top programmer yet, but you know more than the average person. That puts you in the top 10%.

Use that too your advantage. Write with confidence. Speak with confidence. Don’t crumble under pressure. You know the answers. If you don’t, you soon will. Be confident that you know what you’re talking about. You don’t need to know everything. Learn from your mistakes. 

Studying is an important factor. You need to consistently be learning more about your craft. Keep improving. Focus on improving incrementally. Focus on improving everyday.

Practice will help you gain confidence. You’ll be more prepared for questions. More confident you can answer them. More confident in your product. More confidence in yourself. 

Get feedback from others. Ask what areas they think you should improve upon. Act on what they say. 

You become more confident through continuous learning, practice, feedback, and studying. You can do more than you think. You know more than you think. Be confident in yourself.

“All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure.”                                                  -Mark Twain



“Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master.” -Gretchen Rubin

Take a break from technology.

After work for 30 minutes. On the weekend for a full day. 3 times a week for 1 hour. 

Whatever it may be, do it at least once a week. We all need a break from our screens. 

Get outside instead. Go run. Go hiking. Play a sport you love. Read a book. Write. Play an instrument. Play a board game. Enjoy a walk with a loved one. 

Whatever it may be, put down your phone, computer, tablet, kindle, for a few hours. 

It can be mentally draining checking your facebook every five minutes. Email constantly. Getting a ring or vibration on your phone and immediately picking it up. Resist. Turn your phone on silent. Only use it for emergency calls when taking a break.

Technology is fantastic. It’s changing the future more rapidly than we’ve ever seen. It’s incredibly important for our future but, everything has its drawbacks. Too much of anything becomes bad. Limit your use. 

Be present in this moment. Before you know it, time will have passed. Don’t ignore the truly important parts and people in your life.

Focus on being more aware. Enjoy a special moment with someone you love away from technology. You never know when it may be your or their last.

“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” -Confucius

People for centuries have done things they hate. Every day they come in and do the same thing. They dread coming to work, they hate their boss, hate their work, and dislike their coworkers. 

Why though? Is it stability? Content? Lack of motivation? 

We’ve been trained to go to school. Get a good job after graduation and work their for forty years until we can retire. That’s when the fun begins. People feel they need to stay at a job or it will effect their resume. 

Fuck your resume. Do what you want. Don’t worry what others will think of you. It’s your life. 

Confucius made a great point. Choose a job you love and you won’t work a day in your life. But how do we choose a job we love nowadays? 

You have to do as much as you can. Try everything. Write down what makes you happy. Then try to find a job around that or create one. Quit a job if you dislike it. Apply to jobs you truly want. 

If you really want to never work a day in your life you must work a bunch of shitty days. Days where you have to figure it out. Find out what it is you want. 

Most people don’t know what they want to do right off the bat. You need to do a bunch of jobs. Maybe you like what you do but you’re at the wrong company. Maybe you like your company but hate the job. Maybe you just want to work for yourself. 

Whatever it may be speak up. Let someone know how you feel. Leave your job. Start something on your own. 

Don’t regret never saying anything. Don’t regret never leaving. 

Figure out what you want to do. That’s when the real work begins. 

If you don’t like what you’re doing, change it. If you’re not having fun, mix it up. If you hate waking up in the morning, doing the same thing day after day, do something different.

Especially if you live in the United States, you have the ability to do anything. You can quit the job you hate. You can do freelance work. You can start a company. You can teach snowboarding. You can literally do anything.

We our one of the few civilizations that have the option. The option to pretty much do what we want. To be what we want. To go where we want. To live where we want.

If you don’t like where you are or who you are or what you do, you can change it. Nothing permanent. No matter how old you are. No matter how young you may be. No matter how inexperienced you may think you might be.

You can do something about it. 

If you’re struggling with making a change in your life remember you still have the opportunity to change it. Don’t waste your opportunity to make a difference. 

Make that change you’ve been putting off. Go do something different. Something exhilarating and exciting. Something that really makes you happy.

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.” -Barack Obama

“One of the best paradoxes of leadership is a leader’s need to be both stubborn and open-minded. A leader must insist on sticking to the vision and stay on course to the destination. But he must be open-minded during the process.” -Simon Sinek

Whenever someone presents you with a new idea. We tend to disregard anything we’ve thought as being wrong. We begin to get defensive. We stick to our current beliefs. To what we’ve always held as being true.

Challenge your beliefs. Don’t get stuck in your ways. Don’t be stubborn. Be more open minded to the possibility we could be wrong.

You’re never going to be right about everything. You will be upset. It’s hard at first. 

Get over your own ego. Being open minded will open opportunities. Opportunites you never thought existed. 

Get over yourself. Listen to what others have to say. Their beliefs. Their views. Their opinions.

At the very least you’ll learn something. A different approach. A different view of things. You may even form a different opinion. A different outlook on a situation. Possibly on life. 

You are your biggest enemy. Don’t get in your own way. Don’t be so closed minded. 

Be more open minded. Be more aware when you’re being closed minded. Make a conscious effort to be open minded. Pays and listen after someone says something you disagree with. 

Don’t turn it into a disagreement. Try to see the issue from their point of view. 

Go see a movie you have refused to see. Try a new activity you’ve been judging. Read an article on a subject you disagree with. 

Who knows, you may change your mind. 

If you don’t like how you’re being treated. You feel left out. You’re worried about the direction of a project. You like the way things are being run. Let someone know that.

That’s the way we improve. Our processes get smoother. We become a well oiled machine. We change the way certain things are being done. 

If we don’t communicate how we feel no one will ever know. The company may continue to do the same things. It may seem like everything’s fine. Then half their staff leave. Why? No one ever voiced how unhappy they were. Speak up.

Don’t worry about the backlash of speaking up. Ask questions as to why things are how they are. Approach the communication tactically. 

“Why do we do x?” “What purpose does x process play in our day to day?” “Why is x so important?”  

You can also propose a new plan. If you come with a new idea it doesn’t seem like an attack on someone else’s well thought out plan. 

“What if we did y instead of x?” “Have we ever thought about changing x this way?” “How do you think we can improve x?” 

Mostly use open-ended questions.

Most of all, don’t worry what people think. No question is a dumb question. Ask as many questions as possible. 

If everything is going great, let someone know. You don’t want them to change a process that’s working great. At the same time, don’t fall into the trap of if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. 

You can always improve a current process. Let people know they’re doing a good job. If you see an area everyone can improve upon, speak up. 

Communication is key to a company and individual’s success. 

“I think goals should never be easy, they should force you to work, even if they are uncomfortable at the time.” -Michael Phelps

For us to grow we have to do uncomfortable things. It’s one of the easiest ways to become better. Do something you don’t want to do. 

Have that conversation you’ve been putting off. Send an email to someone who inspires you. Do an activity you’ve always wanted to do but put off. 

It shouldn’t feel easy. You shouldn’t feel comfortable doing it. You’ve never done it before. It won’t be fun at first. 

It’s all about repetition.Challenge yourself to do one uncomfortable thing per day. Start out easy at first. Start a conversation with someone new. Something as basic as saying hi.

Each day add on to it. Soon you’ll consistently doing uncomfortable things and they’ll feel very comfortable. It will take practice and hard work. 

Like anything though, after you’ve put in he work, it will be worth it.

Have fun being uncomfortable. Force yourself to get outside of your comfort zone. It will change you.