Making Your Own Luck
Luck is the intersection of preparation and opportunity. Relentlessly increasing your skill sets (Preparation!) certainly increases the scope of the opportunities you can jump on;…
Best Reason Ever to Embrace Failure
Embrace Failure? Hug it? Love on it? What? Well, given that failure has occurred (and I assure you, it will occur again… and again… and…
Tell Me I’m Not Good Enough. Tell Me I Can’t. Tell Me You Don’t Think I’ve Got What It Takes. Please.
What motivates you? What puts fire in your belly? Fuels you? Stirs your blood? Failure defeats the mediocre but inspires winners to greater effort. The…
Law School and General Time Management
Q: Mr. Collier, I have questions regarding general time management advice during law school. My goal is to continue on to law school at the…
Is Owning and Managing Residential Real Estate Still a Good Investment for Individuals?
Q: Sir, you started off by renting residential. Given the state of the modern residential real estate economy, do you think buying and renting residential is…
Success Theater
When a culture cares more about optics than reality, when you put too much emphasis on presentation versus performance, when you care more about how…
Cover Ups: The Mother of More Mistakes
Learning from mistakes is a cliché; a phrase uttered repeatedly and with which we all nod our heads and intellectually agree… and then go out…
Do the hard things…FIRST
Eat that frog! First thing in the morn! Get it over with! It’s often easier than you think. Do what you fear (dread/dislike) and the…
How We Respond to Adversity Can Create Self-Fulfilling Prophecies
How do you view setbacks? As learning opportunity or as failure? Do you view your capabilities as fixed, somewhat set at birth, essentially carved in…
You Have Contributed to the Problem
Whatever challenges you are facing, odds are you had a hand in creating them. None of us are perfect; we all make mistakes, take wrong…
Dyfal Donc a Dyr y Garreg
“Dyfal Donc a Dyr y Garreg” is a Welsh proverb that translates “Tapping persistently breaks the stone.” Persistence is firm, even obstinate, continuance in a…
Make Your Mistakes Pay
The most costly mistake in the world is the one from which you learn nothing. From an organization’s perspective, it’s the mistake that only one…
“Sorry Don’t Get It Done”*: True Apologies v. Faux Apologies
Too many things are passed off as apologies that are anything but apologies; they are faux apologies, nothing but stinky self-serving justifications, transparent rationalizations and…
2018 Checklist: Characteristics of Success v. Failure
Failure Checklist Sense of Entitlement Watch TV Every Day Live in Denial/Deliberate Ignorance Think education ends with graduation Drift, Dream, Doze Off Cultivate Resentments, Hold…
Forget New Year’s Resolutions
Better a small promise kept than a larger one broken. Most New Year’s Resolutions fail because they are lofty goals with insufficient foundation. If it…
Dysfunctional Habits: Trapped By Your Triggers
Knowing your triggers, your short fuses, is crucial to learning and substituting new behavior. If you are not aware of (and alert for) what triggers…
How Could I Not?
The Parable of the Brothers: Two brothers were raised in a home headed by a violent alcoholic father. One brother grew up to be an…
The Fighter Within
What determines our fate? Perhaps it is Determination itself? One Hundred and Twenty-Nine Children were identified* as being “high risk for future problems, because they…
Beware “Task Completion Bias”
Next is often not the same as most important. Yet when we are stressed or tired or when the work starts to pile up, instead…
5 Predictors of Success
The Harvard Business Review Nov/Dec 2017 feature article was on “Launching Successful Leaders: How to Make Sure Your Most Promising People Reach Their Highest Potential”…
Are Entrepreneurs Born or Made?
Sam Zell (founder of two largest American REITs; Equity Office and Equity Residential) was recently interviewed and asked if his children had followed him into…
Two Phrases Successful People Avoid
Words are powerful! The words you choose send strong messages to the world about who you are and what you are about. Just as important,…
Waste Your Spare Time = Derail Your Success
“I don’t have time” or “I couldn’t find the time” are some of the most common excuses for not moving forward. The truth is, we…
Critical Thinking Skills and The Cycle of Inquiry
“There is very little difference between people but that little difference makes a big difference.” – W. Clement Stone One little difference that makes a…
The Magic Question That Will Change Your Life
So what is this magical question that can improve the quality of every relationship you are in, every product you produce, every service you deliver,…
Stop Sorting Gravel
Stephen R. Covey, author of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”, used a dramatic illustration to teach the value of time and energy management. Covey…