I heard that advice and thought it sounded useful: Don’t take things personally when they aren’t. Even more useful, it was followed up with the question and answer. So when are they personal? Maybe never. Whether the answer is right or wrong, I don’t know, but it sounds like a useful belief or model. How many times when people attack, insult, or make you feel something is personal do you[…] Keep reading →

People tell me it’s hard to change beliefs and values. Some people think it’s impossible. I agree if they believe it’s hard, but you can and it gets easier with practice. Most people change their beliefs and values all the time without realizing it. One goal for this page is to help people learn to change their beliefs more easily so I try to give examples of how you already[…] Keep reading →

Are you younger than 89? Can I ask you to think critically. Forget for a moment about logistics and if you have the time or interest to do it. Just ask yourself if you think it’s possible. Do you think you could finish a marathon? Do you think it’s possible? Many people I ask consider their finishing a marathon impossible. Not difficult but impossible. They explain why and their reasons[…] Keep reading →

Following up on freedom from yesterday’s post, I wanted to share a perspective so useful, I almost can’t believe it wasn’t originally written for the context of personal development. Michelangelo, when asked about how he created David, said I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free. As I mentioned yesterday, the greatest improvements we can make are to free ourselves from constraints that inhibit[…] Keep reading →

This model is one of my most important ones I think about almost daily. It fits with my practice of having low standards the first time. It also enables you to act on the perspective most successful people I know of realizing the importance of failing. The scene is a martial arts class. A few students learning from a great master. The students ask the master how he never loses his[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about my models for how to motivate doing things you aren’t good at. Such skills are important in many fields, but especially so in leadership. More than having to motivate yourself to do things for the first time, you often have to motivate many others to do things they haven’t done. One is my practice of having low standards the first time I do something, which motivates doing[…] Keep reading →

I write a lot about models on this page. By model I mean a simplified representation of something for a purpose. I promote recognizing what models work and using those, and not dwelling on if the model is right or wrong or accurate or not. Sometimes I like using models that work despite being very wrong. For example, sometimes thinking men are from Mars and women are from Venus helps[…] Keep reading →