Read this list recently. It was composed by a German philosopher Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe. They were too good not to share.  Nine keys to contentment: 1. Health enough to make work a pleasure. 2. Wealth enough to support your needs. 3. Strength enough to battle with difficulties and overcome them. 4. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. 5. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. 6. Charity enough to

A friend of mine, Valerie Marion, who is a sales leader in her organization, shared the following thought on Twitter. It said simply: “Strength to try anything, talent to succeed, courage enough to fail, wisdom to learn, and resilience to bounce…” Pretty much covers the gamut of achievement, doesn’t it? Try. Put your talent to work. Don’t be discouraged if it doesn’t work out because failing isn’t fatal. Just learn from it. Get up again

A friend of mine, Tamela Lewis, shared this quote recently: “Knowing without doing is like putting food into your oven to bake and not turning it on.” In a book called The Knowing-Doing Gap by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton, it is said that the biggest difference between companies that succeed and those that don’t are that successful ones do what they know. They did a good bit of research about it. What they found

Ken Blanchard is among the most prolific and profound leadership authors around. I was reading one of his company blogs yesterday. It discussed the two things your boss should never have to ask from you: effort and attitude. Author Randy Conley notes that the effort you give and the attitude you have are completely in your control. It is a matter of character to choose to give great effort and to have a good attitude.

Jack Nicklaus believes in “happening to the world.” The Masters, one of the premier golf tournaments in the world, is played this week. Jack Nicklaus, thought by many to be the best who ever played golf, was interviewed by journalist Charlie Rose. Nicklaus was asked what his competitive strategy was: “I play the course and I play ‘me.’ I can’t control what other players do. I can only play the course.” “So, I have to

One of our colleagues, Doug McLaulin, shared this with me: “Imagine that you had won the following prize in a contest: Each morning your bank would deposit $86,400.00 in your private account for your use. However, this prize has rules, just as any game has certain rules. The first set of rules would be: Everything that you didn’t spend during each day would be taken away from you. You may not simply transfer money into