When they look amazing, when they effortlessly overcome a challenge, how their days or life look and the things they get to do. Have you ever felt, even slightly, that you wished you had an element of what they had? Tell them. Whenever you feel a pang of envy, tell your buddy and dig into why. What is your emotion trying to tell you? W...

People overestimate what they can achieve in a year and underestimate what they can achieve in ten years. Bill Gates said this, and he’s got a point. Trying to fit too much into a year is common. Planning the next ten is rare. But it makes a lot of sense. Thinking about what’s possible in ten years means you can see how this year's goa...

The quality of your life is determined by the quality of your questions. The reason why so many people are unhappy is because they haven’t asked the question, “How could I be happy?” The reason why so many people are stuck in jobs they hate, working with people they don’t believe in, is because they haven’t asked, “What are my options?...

Are you giving away your power? Here’s how you might be: - Letting your day be hijacked by answering your phone when it rings - Waiting to see what someone says instead of planning your next move - Hearing breaking news and instinctively reacting to it - Postponing your plans until someone else has decided what they want - Letting some...

Showing up online is no fun at all if you take yourself too seriously. You have to get perspective and you have to create distance. You are not your Instagram follows. You are not your retweet count. You are not your impression tally. Metrics are useful and interesting but they don’t define your self worth or who you are as a person. I...

You might know the five chimps theory, that you can guess the personality of one chimp by looking at the five it hangs out with. But there’s more. Say you take that one chimp out the group and teach them a new, more effective way of doing something like cracking into a coconut. When the chimp is reintroduced to the old group, you might...

When you want to get a lot of stuff done, sometimes only hermit mode will do. Hermit mode is what I have started doing every so often, in six week periods, to focus on the big things and do none of the little things. During hermit mode, you ruthlessly cut out everything that doesn't contribute to your mission. That includes chatting in...

The problem with saying things like “great job” or “well done” to a team member is that it’s very likely that they wouldn’t say the same back to you. Praise tends to only flow in a downward direction, from higher level team members to lower level ones. It’s the same with criticism. A manager might criticise their team member in an appr...

Stop caring about what other people think of you by not caring about what other people do. That careless driver What someone is wearing What that celebrity did What that politician said The more you avoid passing judgment on everything around you, the less important judgment becomes and therefore the less weight you put on it. If you a...

This week it was my birthday. Journaling on my birthday is a personal tradition. I like reflecting on the year and thinking about what the next will hold. This year, this was my journal prompt: who will I be in 2023? It’s very likely that what got you here isn’t what will get you to your next stage. I feel this right now. The traits th...

It’s asynchronous. Hardly any communication will be done in real-time meetings or calls. The companies that will grow the most are the ones that can onboard clients really well without “jumping on a call.” Those that can work with customers without any real-time back and forth. Why? Because no one wants to jump on a call. No one benefi...

I was too scared to go on holiday What if my team needed me? What if our clients needed me? What if something bad happened? It never seemed to make sense. I had a business to run. Then I realised that being too available was worse than being unavailable. It created dependencies It stopped my team being resourceful It kept me trapped in...

Having successful role models can be dangerous. Role models should inspire you. Role models should not make you feel envious or jealous in any way. The power of having role models across different areas of life and business is that they make you realise that you can do it too. Anything! Not to make you feel unworthy or separate from th...

Journaling changed my life and I recommend it to everyone. If you're not sure how to get started, here are ten questions you could journal on right now. 1. What does my perfect day look like? 2. What are the things I do that I don’t want to? 3. What really matters? 4. What will I regret not doing? 5. Looking back in one year’s time, wh...

No one is an overnight success. It just doesn’t happen. For every story you hear that looks like an overnight success is happening, there were probably years and years of planning, working, banging on doors and getting rejected. It’s only from consistent action in the right direction that momentum moves and then it starts to snowball. ...

There’s little point making little plans. There is little point because no one cares. But more importantly, you don’t care. Making goals and plans that don’t fill you with excitement is pointless, because you won’t be motivated to see them through. Even if you do, you won’t care enough to celebrate or they won’t make a noticeable diffe...

The fastest way to be happy is to feel grateful for what you have. By shutting your eyes, picturing something you’re thankful to have in your life and thinking about that one thing. Then another thing. Then another. Nothing is ever so bad that you can’t find three things to be grateful for. The fastest way to be unhappy is to compare y...

If you truly believe you’re onto something amazing, that your product or service or invention can genuinely save lives or make people happy or solve a problem; dream big. Be audacious with your plans. Go after the huge goals and the achievements that you can't quite fathom coming true. It’s so often the case that doing things in a bigg...

Ask yourself this question: who is in charge? Is it your clients? Do you jump as soon as they click their fingers? Are they demanding your time, energy and headspace above what you promised? Are you working with them or for them? Are you doing your best and being appreciated or will your efforts never be enough? Is this how you picture...

If someone else didn’t prepare, and now they’re rushing around trying to sort something out, it’s not your problem. It’s so easy to get an urgent request and fall for it. I definitely have done. I have moved my plans to help someone else who said it was urgent. Until I realised that it’s their lack of preparedness that brought the dram...

You know when you’re triggered, right? Someone says something, someone does something, something happens and all of a sudden you turn into a different person. You’re riled, ready to pounce and react. What is that? It’s really easy to think it’s about the thing that just happened. So it’s that stupid driver or it’s that stupid comment t...

“It’s not for you” is what great businesses are happy saying to people who aren’t their ideal customer. For some people, the idea of turning customers down can make them uncomfortable. Rather than exclude a buyer who isn’t quite right, they bend their business around this person. They make exceptions, agree to concessions and they go a...

1. Home is wherever you happen to be 2. Overthinking is a trap that spirals until it’s too late 3. There are simple solutions to most problems 4. A decision-making crossroad is a good problem to have 5. If you can’t decide, the answer is neither 6. There’s never a downside to making people feel good 7. There is no competition, only col...

Having it easy If you had it easy, you’ve been given a gift. If you grew up in a decent neighbourhood, did well in the parent lottery, never wondered where your next meal was coming from and had nearly everything you wanted, all of this was a gift. Maybe you had a few struggles and a little drama, but nothing huge. If you live a comfor...

A truly happy person will never try to bring you down. They don’t see separation; they don’t show judgment. They are only ever rooting for your success. They are on your side. You can feel it, you can feel their energy. They aren’t trying to change you or prove you wrong or compete, they are there, next to you, working through things w...

If something is easy it’s probably not super lucrative because lots of people have figured it out and are doing it. That restaurant where it’s always easy to get a table. The publications it’s easy to get featured in. The career path that’s super simple and straightforward. All have so little to offer compared to the ones that just req...

What we hold onto is probably what holds us back. Believing that you have to keep all those sentimental possessions is holding you back from downsizing your house or travelling. Believing that you have to go to that same hairdresser might be holding you back from having great hair by a new one. Believing that you have to fulfil all the...

There is something magical about being completely unavailable. It makes you feel lighter – freer – that no one can reach you no matter what happens. The possibilities for your time are endless because only you can decide how you spend it. I believe the world would be a better place if we spent at least 50% of our waking hours on airpla...

You and I, we didn’t succeed because of schooling. We succeeded in spite of schooling. School didn’t teach us how to question, how to be resourceful, how to think for ourselves. We learned that somewhere else. School actually taught us conformity. It taught us comparison. It taught us how to stand in line and follow a syllabus to a mar...

Predicting your future is easy. Look at what you do every single day and project that forward over a year, then five, then ten. If you argue with your partner every day, where will your relationship be in a year? If you overeat, if you don’t get enough sleep, if you skip the gym, if you leave the work that matters until last. It’s obvi...