Use your intuition along with your intellect to guide your actions.  It’s a process to learn to trust yourself, but it can be one of the best gifts you give yourself.  In fact, it’s very likely that you have the answers you’ve been looking for all along.

Learning to use our smartphones effectively may just be the most important lesson of our time.  We should be able to take advantage of their many benefits without it adversely affecting our downtime, mental health, relationships and ability to take part in everyday life.  Committing to conscious phone usage is a great place to start!

The next time you have the urge to call, text or message your boss for help, ask yourself if it is truly something you can’t figure out on your own. If it isn’t, ask away, but if you do have the tools to tackle it on your own, give it a try. Believe me, your proactiveness will be noticed, and when you make your manager’s life easier, you will be rewarded.

Always having something to look forward to will fuel your positivity and get you through the tough stuff.  Research has found that just the anticipation of doing something you enjoy will elevate your mood, reduce stress and create happiness in your life.  

Do you ever stop to think about what you’ll be like in the next 10 or 20 years?  What will you be doing?  How will you feel?  Where will you be living?  If you haven’t, you should give it a try. When you see your future self, you are training your brain to create a visualized reality. Over time, you make gradual subconscious changes in your life toward your visualized reality, so when you do eventually experience it in real life, your brain believes you have already done it.  As a result, you don’t fear, fret or worry.  Instead, you embrace, embody and enjoy, like it was always meant to be.

We all have off days, rough days, stress days, zero motivation days…but don’t let them impede your progress. Instead, give yourself a mental out and show up or get started.

There is a deceptive comfort in holding on to your perfectionism. You’ve done things a certain way most of your life, and it seems to have worked well for you. But, I bet you haven’t stopped to think about what it has cost you…time, health and new opportunities. There is another way, and trust me when I say, you can get the same outcomes without the wasted time, unnecessary stress and avoidance of opportunities. The key is learning to be present over perfect.

When faced with a decision, we often overthink the situation to our own detriment. We pump our system with self-critical thought patterns that we somehow believe despite them being wildly inaccurate and fear based. Once you begin calling out negative thought patterns and disputing them, you’ll cancel out the fear-driven noise in your head, so that your quieter inner voice can come through more clearly. Recognizing, trusting and following this voice will make decision-making easier and life much more peaceful.

A significant part of my job is hiring people, which involves interviewing. I’ve been asked by countless individuals how I’m so successful at hiring the right people and retaining them. A lot of what I do pertains to company culture fit and comes intuitively to me, however being hounded about my process has forced me to sit down and analyze what I do and why.  I’ve come up with some unconventional advice for those sitting on both sides of the interview table.

The habits of over apologizing and qualifying our contributions may seem subtle, but in constantly seeking approval, permission or validation, we are diminishing our own power. We are weakening our impact. We are invalidating our ideas. And, we are slowly making ourselves insignificant.

By not engaging and remaining silent, we prevent ourselves from becoming worn out emotionally and are better able to preserve our patience and tolerance of those who think differently than we do. Non-engagement enables us to watch, learn, see and understand from a neutral perspective without being judged and sucked into drama. Then, we can use our energy on what truly matters to us and choose where, when and how to engage to make a meaningful and lasting impact.

Whether in our personal or business lives, there is power in being prepared. When we assess risks, develop scenarios and plan desired outcomes, we have a framework by which to accept things that are beyond our control and move forward from them, improving how we live our lives. Keeping a positive mindset with the support of our tribe can help us find the inner strength to trust in our resilience and turn obstacles into opportunities one step at a time.

Helping someone realize their potential and illuminating the path to reach that potential enables you to make a positive impact on the world that could never be possible as a single person. It is truly how you can make the most of your life.

Ever notice how hard it is to take a leap of faith when times are good? As opportunities present themselves, now never seems to be the “right” time to make a change. However, the stars will never fully align before you are called to make an important decision or take an important action. You must learn to discern for yourself what will keep you on the path of becoming the best version of yourself and using your gifts to positively impact the world.

All of us have it in us to muster up big goal discipline. Once you realize how much willpower you truly have over your habits and choices, you will no longer let emotions or impulses rule the roost. Instead, you will call up the strength to practice self-control, protect your progress and build momentum toward achieving your goal. When you learn to get out of your own way, the sky’s the limit.

Don’t allow takers with ulterior motives to dominate your time. It is nearly impossible to receive from a taker. Instead, invest your time on relationships that flow from the good intentions of both people. When both people want what’s best for the other and act accordingly, there is no room for feelings of imposition or indebtedness. There is only peace and gratitude.

When you commit to being punctual, you commit to showing up in your best state (goodbye adrenaline and stress!). You have time to think clearly and get ready for the task at hand. When you are consistently on time, it conveys you are organized and dependable, and you value everyone’s time, including your own. All of which boost your professional and personal image and credibility.

Our elders, related or not, have a special type of wisdom, groundedness and love that only come from living through all that life throws at us. Those who choose to share these gifts with the rest of us are a true blessing and should be celebrated.

Being open-minded means being receptive to the ideas and experiences of others. We all come from different backgrounds and have different work experiences. If we truly listen to one another, we can benefit from the lessons learned by others, especially when we find ourselves in similar circumstances.

There is unspoken peer pressure to respond quickly to “off” hour work calls and emails, as if to prove our dedication to the business. But what we don’t realize is how much this takes a toll on our personal relationships.