Your Brain… Your Thinking

GBG: The Acronym that Works

Many acronyms are negative and self-inhibiting. They stop us from pondering possibilities or alternatives. Here’s one that will switch your thinking from negative to positive.

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What You Can Learn from Playing With Your Brain

The human brain is a remarkable organ. As anyone who reads my blog knows, I’m a big proponent of playing with it. First of all, it’s a lot of fun. The human brain is inquisitive by nature, and it enjoys finding answers and solving problems. This is especially true with ‘brain teasers,’ questions that are…

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Change Your Perspective to Win

As a leader, your perspective on winning may be very different from that of your employees. If someone offered you a trillion dollars for counting to a trillion by ones, would you accept the challenge? If so, you’d better be genetically wired to live a long time, because it’s going to take a while. Assume…

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Work Less, Get More Done

One of the great ironies of our times is that the more we learn about the importance of uninterrupted focus in human performance, the more distractions and interruptions we face on a daily basis. Voice mail. Email. Telemarketing. Spam. Tweets. Snapchats. Texting. Instant messaging. Popup ads wherever we go on the Internet. Mobile applications that…

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Prompt Employees to Think Strategically

In today’s hyper-paced markets, leaders must prompt employees to think strategically.  Gone are the days of employees plodding along waiting for the next big thing to roll down from corporate.  Companies need to innovate on a consistent basis in order to win. However, ongoing innovation is no easy task. First of all, innovation doesn’t mean…

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Is Your Strategic Plate Too Full?

What is strategy? A simple question, but the answer may be more complex than you think. The dictionary defines strategy as “a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result.” Hard to argue with that. But while the basic definition may not have changed, how we go about…

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The Danger of Deadlines

We all know the value of a good deadline. It helps us get focused, motivated, and sharpens our thinking, right? Not so fast. Current brain research suggests that, in most cases, deadlines do the exact opposite – creating stress and tension while limiting our thinking. Having a sense of urgency does stimulate the part of…

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Creating the Pathways to Excellence

If you talk to winning athletes – not the one-time wonders, but those who win on a consistent basis – they’ll tell you that winning is a habit. What they don’t tell you is just how hard they work to develop that habit. Winning takes a lot of things, like talent, commitment, resources and support….

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The Ferguson Formula for Winning

You can always count on the Harvard Business Review for great insights on strategy, leadership and success.  I love this article – “Ferguson’s Formula” (http://hbr.org/2013/10/fergusons-formula/ar/1)  – from the October 2013 issue. One of the most respected names in global sports, Sir Alex Ferguson managed the highly successful English soccer club Manchester United for 26 years….

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Are You Pausing to Just Look?

Have you seen those Magic Eye 3D books? I came across one recently, and they are amazing!  Each book contains two-dimensional pictures that look like nothing more than random patterns repeated over and over again across the page. But – and here’s where the magic occurs – when you focus the eyes in a certain…

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Prove Yourself Wrong to Get Your Plan Right

  One of our greatest strengths as adult humans is to the ability to “prove” ourselves right.  We do it in many different ways. First, we constantly look for evidence that supports what we believe to be true. At the same time, we actively block out data that contradicts our prevailing point of view, making…

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Are You in Mental Fight or Flight?

Have you ever made a dumb management decision? One that seemed like a good idea at the time, but after it fell flat you looked back and wondered, “What was I thinking?” We all do this from time to time. But you may be surprised to learn that one cause of this particular human trait is…

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