“Always be closing.”  The famous sales term never really entered my vocabulary until I started the http://www.squidoo.com/Alternative-MBA.
It feels like a deceitful, slimy idea. Inauthentic. Having an agenda, always on the lookout for the next opportunity.
Watching http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TROhlThs9qY
I felt two conflicting emotions about this idea. On one hand, I’m turned off by dogma and the negative way of motivating [...]

Reading Zig Ziglar’s “Secrets,” I was amazed to find the story of the “Gloomy Gus” shoeshine man.
Seeing Zig approach the shoeshine station, Gloomy Gus asks “Well, I suppose you want the regular shine?” (as opposed to the “Best shine” or the “Spit shine” etc.)
Zig-(incredulously) “I can’t believe you said that! Why would you offer me [...]

Two statements: same words, different lessons.
“Good is the enemy of great” and “Great gets in the way of good.”
If you operate at a good level and aren’t interested in overcoming the inertia it takes to be great, you’ll fall under the first category.
If you’re operating at a great level, but allow every detail to hold [...]

Failure scares people. Rejection can be a painful experience. Many people are more scared to give a speech in front of their peers than they are of death itself. It seems ridiculous, but the reality is that for many many people, the anxiety associated with failure crippling.
The flipside (the Truth) is, if you embrace failure [...]

“I’m going to learn how to swim,” I’ve been saying to friends for the last month. I’ve looked up classes, found out which one is the right level and price for me, and wrote down the pool schedule. Dug up my bathing suit. Even went to Tim Ferris’s blog to find [...]

The “Doom Loop” is actually a defined business concept in Jim Collins Good to Great.
It’s when you:
a.) Find a new direction
b.) Enter a new program
c.) get a new leader
d.) start a new event
e.) react to a new fad
without having any plan of action, no accumulated momentum, no buildup, no direction. You then get disappointing results [...]

That wasn’t a typo. I’m just averse to writing the phrase “fake it till you make it.” I’m also averse to hearing it and saying it to others. It never feels right, even when I know what it’s supposed to convey.
I understand the idea behind it, and agree wholeheartedly that you should believe in yourself. [...]

Spike Lee gets up every morning at 5a.m. and starts his day of work.
He’ll write or craft a scene or screen footage. He starts the process of filmmaking in some capacity.
Frank Lloyd Wright said, “To love one idea is to love God.” He worked tirelessly and made those around him exhibit the same discipline in [...]

Ferns are a natural symbol of growth. Just to exist they battle bugs, storms, a tough layer of soil. Existing itself is a tiring.
But existing isn’t enough for ferns.  
Ferns reach.  
One by one their leaves create a lofty shape reaching far past the soil.  This comes from an intense push against the ground to rise higher, [...]