June 26, 2010
It's a natural feeling to want to be successful in life. We constantly set goals, both short and long term, that hopefully lead to success. Sometimes they're short, quick wins and other times they are long term goals that lead to success such as saving for retirement. Time and time again I hear people call others "lucky" or "fortunate" when they achieve success. Is it really simply a matter of luck that leads to success? I don't think so. Sure, I'll agree that in almost any victory, a little bit of luck helps. We all deal with small fires or bumps while achieving our goals. We all have someone that mentors us, watches over us or gives helps to crack open the door. What you do with that opportunity is up to each of us. But, if you just sit back and wait for that door to be opened then you may never reach your goals. So, what can you do to help achieve your goals, both short and long term achievements? I'd argue it's all in the advanced work. It's in the preparation and practice that you do leading up to achieving your goal.
June 23, 2010
Over the past year or so there have been several books written about President Obama, his historic presidential race and exploring how his presidency. As someone who is extremely interested in government and politics, I have read several of them. None of them have gotten as close as Jonathan Alter has with his book The Promise: President Obama, Year One (affiliate link).
November 12, 2009
Were you as amazed as most of the rest of the country when Barack Obama seemingly came out nowhere to take the 2008 Presidential election by storm? Have you sat back and scratched your head wondering how the Obama campaign did it? Are you amongst the group that wants to understand how they built such a strong community, both online and offline? Need a break from the regular onslaught of business, marketing, and self-help books? If you're whipping your head up and down, first, stop. We wouldn't want you to get whip-lash. Now, don't even bother watching the video below and go buy 5 copies of The Audacity to Win: The Inside Story and Lessons of Barack Obama's Historic Victory
(Amazon affiliate link) by David Plouffe. Enough said.
August 8, 2009
One of the most powerful communications tools still remains the pen and paper. While technologies
such as blogs, video and photo sharing sites, and phones that can capture and post all of that content, have helped to create a 24/7, always-on communications and news cycle, it has only enhanced how powerful a simple pen and piece of paper can be. Now, you're probably starting to reach this post and think I'm insane. But, what I'm referring to is not writing memos, or publishing newspaper articles, capturing notes during a meeting or anything like that. I'm talking about the power that a simple hand-written note can wield. Notice, I did say hand-written.
July 12, 2009
If you ever read this blog, follow me on Twitter or any of the other number of networks I'm on, you'll quickly realize that I am fascinated by anything that's behind-the-scenes. For example, I love that with New Marketing Labs I get to hang out with really cool companies at their offices. As I've said before, I try to look behind-the-scenes of other industries to learn from and apply to the way I do things with my businesses. That's why when I began reading about Reggie Love, the "body man" for President Obama, I became super interested. A "body man" in politics is not a personal bodyguard, the Secret Service takes care of that. Instead, a "body man", according to Wikipedia, is:
June 21, 2009
Being that I don't have cable at home I tend not to know what news specials are on, what new movies or coming out or pretty much anything else that I can't watch on Fancast (client) or catch up on with Google News or CNN. So, earlier this weekend I came across a news special that NBC put together entitled "Inside the Obama White House" The site has a total of 15 videos which take you behind the scenes of the White House.