Wired Magazine recently published a piece by Bill Gates called “Here’s My Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help.” He wrote 40 percent of Earth’s population is alive today because, in 1909, a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to make synthetic ammonia. Another example: Polio cases are down more than 99 percent in the past 25 years, not because the disease is going[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday I wrote about how leadership creates community, which, if you persevere, leads to living freely and by your values and experiencing deep emotional reward. Your life improves by doing so. It creates effects I can only call problems, but they are problems you want to have because they help you learn and grow even more. The “problem” with knowing how to make your dreams come true — in making[…] Keep reading →

Remember when I wrote “You can’t “create your world” but you can do better“? I’ve been meaning to expand on this aspect of leading your community. The more you learn to lead, the more you can make your community how you want it. The more you do so, the more your behavior, thoughts, and beliefs take on two properties. You behave, think, and believe more freely and more by your[…] Keep reading →

People talk about things being right, wrong, good, or bad as if these properties had absolute or objective standards. They don’t and it matters to leaders and anyone else trying to influence someone with different values. If you want to motivate someone you disagree with and you call them wrong or bad, you can bet they don’t consider themselves wrong or bad. They consider themselves right and good. Your suggesting[…] Keep reading →

As part of this page’s new functionality, today I introduce its first series: “Communication skills exercises for business and life.” Click the link to view the series as a single page where you can jump between posts without losing the page or having to reload it. Posts in that series rank among the most read on this page. If you haven’t read them and you want to improve your social[…] Keep reading →

Without effective communication skills and comfort practicing them, whatever awesomeness you have inside you is invisible to the world. You might as well not have it. Other people will nearly always be attracted to people with better social skills. With effective communication skills and comfort practicing them, you can showcase your inner awesomeness to your heart’s content. You can attract other people, whether for business, personal, or whatever reason you[…] Keep reading →

I’ve been coaching clients one-on-one for a few years, as readers have noted from my references to clients. I’ve coached nearly a hundred clients by now, most of whom found me through word of mouth. I added a new coaching page to this site to help people find coaching with me. Why? My clients succeed. That’s why I love coaching. You can achieve more too. Because coaching works. I have[…] Keep reading →

The great satirical online newspaper The Onion illustrated one of my favorite stepping-stones to creating the life you want. I wrote about it in this relevant post, “A model that will bring you happiness.” They didn’t realize they were onto something more effective than they thought, but their description of how deeply changing your environment can change your mood shows a great way to start changing your life — whether[…] Keep reading →

I read a story with a lesson for anyone who creates anything too helpful not to copy. As much as I didn’t want to copy something you can find elsewhere, I couldn’t stop myself. I hadn’t read it before so I hope it’s new to you. It’s from a book called Art and Fear on creating art, but you’ll find it useful for creating anything — products, beliefs, rules to[…] Keep reading →