creativity
Possibility Thinking, Part Two
Last week, I wrote about the power of Possibility Thinking, and the three things it helps you escape. In that post, I told you that I’d be back this week to tell you how Possibility Thinking helps others break free as well. Well, here I am. And I want to tell you a story of…
Read MoreMark Cole: Let The Best Idea Win
I was reminded of a valuable lesson in a team meeting recently. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss an event our team will host this year. After setting aside an entire afternoon to prepare ideas, I felt very confident about what I was bringing to the meeting. But soon after the meeting began,…
Read MoreLive on the Other Side of “Yes”
One of my all-time favorite words is only three letters long. It’s a simple word to learn, but a difficult word to master because it has the power to create life as well as diminish it. It’s the word, YES. I love the word yes because of the possibilities it contains. Yes is permission. Yes…
Read MoreCultivating Creativity in Times of Crisis
Like everyone I know, I was horrified to learn of the tragic devastation that occurred in Nepal and the surrounding region when an earthquake struck. I lived in California for many years, where earthquakes were a fact of life. But I never experienced anything like the quake that hit that region last week. The destruction…
Read MoreStopping the Dream from Slipping Through Your Grasp
Having a dream is like holding a glass figurine—it’s fragile and will shatter as soon as you let go of it. As poet Langston Hughes advised, we must “Hold fast to dreams, for if dreams die, life is a broken-winged bird that cannot fly.” What does it mean to cling tenaciously to a dream? For…
Read MoreExtra! Extra! Read All About It!
When it comes to job performance, there’s really not much difference between an ordinary person and an extraordinary person. Consider the game of baseball. Miguel Cabrera of the Detroit Tigers had the best batting average in the major leagues last season at around .350. That is, when he came to the plate, Cabrera got a…
Read MoreLoyalty: The Key to Consistent Victory
March Madness got its name because the NCAA basketball tournament provides stunning upsets each season. Unpredictability is big part of the tournament’s appeal. At any point in the competition, an unknown squad can suddenly catch fire, hitting shot after shot, to knock off a heavily favored opponent. However, if you were filling out an NCAA…
Read MoreConnecting the Clock and the Compass
“Time waits for no man.” You’ve probably heard that saying. And it’s true; time marches on, and it’s up to us to keep up with it. We need to be conscious of the clock, or we’ll never make any progress toward our goals. But I believe there’s more to success than reaching goals. True success…
Read MoreDo You Care Enough to Be Honest with Me?
As a leader, have you ever avoided confrontation with a follower for what you labelled “good” reasons? I think most of us have. And if we’re honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we sometimes give in to this temptation. Why do we do that? I believe the main reason well-intentioned leaders aren’t completely honest with…
Read MoreMaxwell Fundamentals: How I File
As a communicator, I’m often asked where I get all the great quotes, statistics, and stories that I use in my lessons and books. For over thirty years, I’ve always answered the same way: I get everything from my files! I learned a long time ago that if I was going to have something fresh…
Read More