Category: Mindset
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Avoiding the news with the nuclear option
Despite talking about avoiding the news, I’ll confess that I dip in more often than I should. I blame my data hoarding tendencies, but I think it started for me a little after 9/11 when I started obsessively checking the headlines every 5-30 minutes to make sure nothing else had blown up. The reality is, […]
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Red car opportunities
There’s a thing called the red car phenomenon. Or maybe it’s red sweaters. I can’t remember, but the concept is the same either way: you buy a red car (or sweater) and for the next few weeks you’re seeing other red cars/sweaters everywhere. Like everyone got on the bandwagon and did exactly what you just […]
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It’s nothing you haven’t heard before
A thought last night while driving through Brockville – a passing memory of a coach’s speech to the team, some 20-odd years ago. It was one of his better ones, but not one we much wanted to hear. See, Brockville reminded me of it not because the race was held there, but the team that […]
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Embracing inbox infinity
It’s funny to read my thoughts on achieving inbox zero three years ago. While I generally keep my inbox pretty empty, lately it’s been slipping out of control again. The thing is though, what was fine back when I was an employee isn’t necessarily the best strategy for an entrepreneur, and I need to be […]
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On the highest and best use of time
The “highest and best use” concept is one that’s been hammered into my head relentlessly over the past year or so by various mentors and coaches. Maybe it’s been overemphasized because of the years of corporate work that I need to deprogram from my brain (nothing wrong with the work I did, but it occurred […]
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What you don’t do matters more
A brief thought while watching the Toronto Waterfront Marathon this past weekend: fitness magazines focus on “do this” stuff. Training programs, routines, and so on. Most athletes, even elite ones, don’t do a lot to hide their regimen, and if you want to train exactly like someone else does, you can pretty easily do everything […]
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Your weaknesses are unique
I’ve had a sore hip all week, and it’s caused me to skip the gym. Worse still, it changed the way I walk and now I’ve hurt the ball of my foot somehow, which causes me to limp even more, exacerbating the original problem. And I think my chair has something to do with it. […]
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Mike Spracklen on motivation
[iframe width=”580″ height=”325″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/YNA-JaCkvQg?rel=0″ frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen] Fantastic words from Canadian men’s rowing coach Mike Spracklen: We all have a point of which we stop, we give up. We all have a point where we back off. It doesn’t matter how determined, what ambitions we have, how much we want to get there, there are times where […]
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Hiding from time collectors’ calls
As a business owner, I sometimes feel a shiver when the phone rings. But I’m not worried about bill collectors, thankfully. Even if I was, this category of calls is far, far worse. I fear the time collectors. If only they just wanted money! Time collectors are people who make those calls that eat up […]
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Negative split testing
In sales, primarily written stuff like web pages, emails, or old-school mailings, there’s a concept of split testing, whereby one sends out two versions of some sales material with one difference between them and then compares the response between the two. The winner becomes the “control,” and then new tests are done to try to […]