Daily Boost — Motivation and Coaching

If you study people who have had success in any area of their life, you will find they have much in common.  Not only do they follow a set of rules, they follow those rules no matter how much life gets in the way. What are those rules? The person who has the strongest "Why" wins. The person who shows up wins. The person who is most persistent wins. The person show never assumes wins. The person wh...

Have you ever found yourself stuck in the middle? I spoke with a client trying to be everything to everybody. His business was not growing. His life was not happy. He couldn’t seem to find a way to make progress.   That’s when I said… “My friend, you are stuck in the middle. Nothing good happens when you are in the middle.” In business and life, it’s okay to have low expectations and surround your...

I’ll never forget the day a mentor of mine said to me — “You have to become the person you want to be before becoming the person you want to be.” What?  So I have to fake it until I make it? Heck no! I’m not going to change who I am - no way! “No. You’re not changing who you are. It’s just that you have to understand that the future, you will have a different set of beliefs than you hold right now...

It's the time of the year when it seems almost everybody is setting new goals. It's also the time of year most folks will quickly give up on those goals. There has been a lot of research about how long New Year's Resolutions last. On the short end, most folks give up at 12 days, the most committed stay in the game for an entire month. Now, since it takes 66 days to set a new behavior, it's no wond...

I’ll never forget the day a friend called and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse - and I didn’t. Rob was an event promotor who had snagged the chance to book an up-and-coming comedian named Jerry Seinfeld into a local venue. He needed somebody to warm up the audience and introduce Jerry. I was all in when he agreed to cover my drink tab and let me hang out with Jerry before the show. It was 1986,...

Toss Your To-Do List This is the time of year when people start thinking about getting more productive in their life.  Over time, I've learned there is a significant benefit of growing older and wiser, figuring out what works in most areas of life, and learning to avoid the school of hard knocks. I'm always amazed at how much time people fritter away deciding how to be more productive— trying to k...

I can't tell you how many times I've heard somebody say— "If I knew I was going to live this long, I would have taken better care of myself and saved more money." True or true? Modern times are interesting times, and when it comes to living a long life, people either think life is too short or long. If you do things correctly, long enough is the best answer, but 200 years ago, most folks didn't ha...

My friend sent a note on a subject that profoundly resonates with me.  He asked me, "What's more important, passion or money?" Ask any person who knows me, and they will tell you that I am all about doing what makes my heart sing - PASSION!  After all, you know what they say — "Do what you love, and the money will follow!" I bet you've heard that most of your life. I will also bet that you have pe...

Let me start by saying that goal setting is powerful, and you should be doing it - but there is a good chance that you are overdoing it. It's human nature to set goals, and you do it every day without thinking. That's why it's so powerful. It's also why it's so easy to set so many goals that you can never get any of them done.  Let me define how I see goals. No matter what distracts me, I've come...

When my wife and I were first married, it wasn’t long before I learned that waking up at 5:45 AM, and every step after that, seemed to be programmed into her DNA - and I was not too fond of it. Over the years, I had grown to dislike mornings. Mostly because I found myself doing one of two things; the hustle and bustle of the daily grind or what the self-help gurus were telling me I “should” be doi...

Are you a person who always does things the same way or prefers to change things up at every chance? If you’re lucky, you are both. Traditions are the secret sauce behind the emotional connection we feel at this time of year. Family get-togethers, office gatherings, crazy shopping crowds? Yes. I know we’re in a pandemic, and not everything is as it used to be - but it is in our minds.  The traditi...

My mind is constantly searching for a simple, three-step process for anything that will help me get what I want, and that usually comes down to something I talk about a lot; making a decision.  I speak about decision-making much of my day because it’s the most dynamic tool you have in your personal development tool kit.  It should be easy — Almost everything you will ever want to do in life has al...

As we approach the most spiritual time of year, I find more and more of my thoughts are focused on what my future will bring. But instead of drafting a list of goals, my mind seems to settle into a different place— What if I could give myself a gift that would instantly give me what I want? What if I don't have to chase my dreams and start living them instead? What if there was nothing in my way -...

I can’t remember her name, but I can tell you she was not a happy person.  It was a hot, hazy, and humid Virginia day when I arrived for a class reunion. As I stepped toward the check-in table, a friend of more than thirty years locked eyes with me, broke into tears, and screamed— “Oh Scott… can you help me? I’m not happy!”  Next, she bolted out of her seat, ran around the table, and hugged me… an...

Sometime between Halloween and Thanksgiving, I found myself finishing leftover candy and bit into a Jolly Rancher - a recipe for disaster for anybody with a mouth full of dental work.  As you might have predicted, it wasn't long before I was at the dentist. I don't like dentists much. Maybe it was because as a kid, our family dentist was Dr. PAIN… uh… Dr. Payne. Still, there I was with the sound o...

Over the past few years, there has been a trend in business toward an open, communicative, friendly, and supportive environment. While I believe that’s the way it should be, there has also been confusion amongst everybody in the company and customers. Who’s in charge? Who’s the leader? Where are we heading? Without a strong vision applied to the entire momentum of the company, there will be no mom...

Is the Universe whispering to you and nudging you to move in a specific direction?  Before I go on, I need to admit that I am certainly not an expert in the Universe or it works in our life. The magic of gravity is enough to blow my mind, and the only Secret I know is that you are the only one in charge of getting what you want in your life. But what if you know that Universe is speaking to you? C...

When I began training and competing with my dog in agility, I made a rookie dog trainer mistake. I wasn't consistent, and my dog was getting confused. One day, my trainer said, "For a dog, one time means all the time. Every time you let them do something new, they're just going to keep on doing it." Now, as silly as it sounds, that came to mind a couple of weeks ago when my wife, a creature of rou...

I was on the phone with a client that was in a bit of a rut with her Real Estate business. It had been a good year, yet she found herself coasting and feeling like nobody wanted anything to do with her.  “What should I do? I know I can do more? I don’t know what to do?” I think most people feel like that from time to time. When that happens to be me, I always remember two things: “What you practic...

If you knew me as a child, one thing would be true; that I was 100% a non-adult and would maximize my time getting away with being cute and funny. That’s what kids do - and I love it. Children don’t generally ask for permission or forgiveness. That’s has nothing to do with what they want to do. It never enters their mind. It doesn’t matter if it’s a good or bad decision. Once a child decides on th...

My wife and I were looking for something on Netflix and found ourselves repeating the scroll a couple of times. Finally, the screen changed, and the graphic offered us a choice. It said, "just play something?" Yes, please. Just play something, so I can put the remote control down and get back to petting my dog. Thinking back on the moment, I was reminded of a book I read a long time ago. In 2005,...

I’ve noticed in my life that humans are hoarders when it comes to keeping stuff in their life that works and doesn’t work. They keep hanging life their life depends on it. Now, before I go on, I think there are two situations at play here: 1) Hanging on to what has worked well but needs to go so you can do more of what you want to do. 2) Hanging on what doesn’t work in hopes that it will work well...

I was riding my Harley-Davidson Road King a few days ago when my mind suddenly thought - “The Chinese Philosophical concept of Yin and yang describes how opposite or contrary forces may be complementary, interconnected, and interdependent in the natural world.” What? What? Huh? It happened right in front of the Daytona Speedway and got me thinking about advice I give my clients about slowing down....

"You need to get out of your comfort zone if you want to succeed!" I can't tell you how many times I've heard that. Thankfully, that silly advice is something I've only accepted a couple of times. I hated every second of it, ran right back into what makes me comfortable, and have never told anybody to get out of their comfort zone. "But, Scott? Isn't getting out of your comfort zone how you get wh...

Sometimes, I scratch my head when people say something that I can’t believe is true. That has happened over the years when my wife, Joi says silly things like - “I like to paint. It’s fun. I don’t like to do it all the time, but I like to paint.” I guess it’s a perspective thing.  I’m not particularly eager to paint and would prefer to pay someone to paint. Joi likes to paint and chooses not to pa...