My job. My wife and baby. My volunteering at the church. My management of two blogs. My graphic design. My personal development via books and online courses. My upkeep of stuff around the house. My sleep. My exercise routine. My eating habits. My "fun" life. My sanity. My life has gotten a little bit out of control lately, so I'm taking an intentional step back now to see what went "wrong" and re-orient where I'm going. My hope is that you can learn from my mistakes, so I'm segmenting this post around 4 central themes: fear, failure, willpower, and focus. Let's get into it.

"Keep your head down." That's probably the worst piece of advice you can possibly ever hear. When it comes to wanting a promotion at work, we have made impossible games for ourselves. Promotional systems that exist today generally have good intentions behind them: we like to create predictable growth. Predictable growth usually comes in the form of promoting certain behaviors, so companies seek to elevate those who exude certain competencies from people who helped pioneer that predictable growth. Seems smart, right? Wrong.

For as much as I love the show The Office , there was one aspect of it that would make me cringe any time I thought about it too much: what business those folks were in. This fictional company, Dunder Mifflin, sold companies paper and paper-related products on a recurring basis via a customer relations salesperson. Yup, this is what your favorite characters Jim and Dwight did every single day. Because when I think about a titillating career in selling something I'm passionate about, paper and paper-related products are the first thing I think about. ...I'm clearly dripping with sarcasm.

We all have been a victim of something at one or another point in our lives. Those situations can widely range in scale from an atrocity such as rape to being affected by a questionable change in the workplace. This post particularly addresses that latter piece and purposefully does not seek to put down great atrocities at all. (I hate having to begin posts that way because I hope you'd naturally trust me and assume that I have no ill intentions.)

We all know those folks. The people who persistently point out where a comma was misplaced, where a word was misspelled, and where something wasn't properly capitalized. Mistakes happen, and spelling / grammar is definitely important. But when a person takes it upon themselves to start correcting these minor mistakes, there is a much deeper problem going on.

A few posts back, I noted that we should focus on big things because we become preoccupied with the details of the goals we set for ourselves. So if you set the goal to lose 20 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality when if you set a goal to lost 100 pounds over 6 months, you'll adopt strategies to make that goal a reality. The time doesn't change, nor does the mentality. I'm currently reading through Mark Manson's The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  and learned about a concept called Parkinson's Law. Parkinson's Law states the following: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

Have you ever read something or been told something that hits you so hard that it virtually stops you in your tracks? Unable to write, speak, or even think? My mouthy self has spoken for eight months now on this blog, and not once has something hit me so hard as it did yesterday. The reason I'm able to continuously churn out content is because I believe wholeheartedly that, opinion pieces aside, what I have to say is true. And I've come across a lot of truth in things like books, podcasts, and videos. But there's something I've semi-unknowingly buried. And yesterday, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Back in the day, if you wanted to publish a book, you had to sign a deal with the book publisher. The book publisher would then work with bookstores, who would ultimately sell the book to the consumer. That book would get lost in a sea of other books, so the probability of somebody finding the book you wrote was really, really low. Even if they did discover your book, the bookstore and book publisher gets a cut of that revenue before you do. That's all different now.

I've gotten back into Ramit Sethi's work in a big way, and I've found a lot of his stuff has complemented previous posts on this blog quite nicely. I'm specifically referring to decision fatigue. As a very quick reminder, decision fatigue is the idea that we make poorer and poorer decisions as the day goes on because our brains just aren't wired that way. In an Art of Charm podcast featuring Ramit Sethi, host Jordan Harbinger questions Ramit on that balance between creativity and basically re-using concepts tested by other people. Ramit was all for re-using tested concepts. Why? Because he discerned that cognitive thinking should be reserved for times when creativity is needed, and creativity isn't needed in every aspect.

Spoiler alert: This post is probably going to come across as super pretentious, but I still write it because I believe every single word. I'm also not going to lie about the fact that fashion is super interesting to me. One of my favorite movies of all time is The Devil Wears Prada , and I'm such a regular at Express that I ought to be sponsored by them. If I had the money, I'd probably go shopping on a very regular basis. (My wife would tell you I already do more than enough shopping for the both of us!)

Steve Jobs is often cited as one of the greatest influencers in modern business, and rightfully so. He not only helped to establish one of the largest companies in the world but helped to resurrect that same company from almost certain death in the late 1990s. Time and time again, Jobs helped usher in a new idea via a new product that would ultimately revolutionize the industry again and again. Those familiar with the popular biography by Walter Isaacson will know that Jobs's sustained success had a lot to do with what people called a "reality distortion field". Under this "reality distortion field," Jobs had an almost magical influence to make people truly believe in anything Jobs had to say, regardless of how wacky it seemed at the time . Where some people looked at Jobs as insane because of this, history has proved in favor of Jobs with the success things like the original Macintosh, iPod, iPhone, and even the Pixar Animated Studios. So, what was it ...

Fake news. Alternative facts. It's weird to think that these are now part of our regular vocabulary in 2017. You would have thought that the information age would have ushered in an era where everybody could keep up with the latest and greatest information. Turns out that is only partially true: we're getting the latest information, but it isn't always the greatest. It certainly makes sense why this is the case. News organizations have to make money, and with subscription models like newspaper falling to the wayside, that means these news organizations have to get your attention somehow, even if that means exaggerating or straight up lying. Ryan Holiday does a great job of explaining this in more detail in his well-written book, Trust Me, I'm Lying . The good news is that there is a silver lining. At least for folks like me.

Let's take a step back to 2007. Hard to believe it's been a decade ago now! The first iPhone was just being released to the public. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter were still in their infancy. Tablets and smartwatches didn't exist. And MySpace was still a big thing. Today, pretty much the opposite is true of everything mentioned above. The Apple Watch has more than double the processing power of the first iPhone. YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are going strong along with new folks like Instagram and Snapchat. And while MySpace still exists, it is only a mere shadow of its former self. Things change. The IT industry is easy to point out because of its rapid, tangible growth, but this isn't to say other things have changed. Music artists and book authors no longer need major publishing deals to share their work. Uber and Lyft have created a whole new industry out of ride sharing. And who else remembers when McDonald's used to only have one drive thru and breakfa...

The Office is easily one of my favorite shows. While I wasn't a fan of the last few seasons, I think the first couple are absolutely timeless. Steve Carell's Michael Scott character is fantastic. For those of you not familiar with the premise of The Office , its a sitcom with the main premise being a group of regular office workers coping with the childish antics of their boss, Michael Scott. Michael is, essentially, the boss from hell. He has very little self awareness and constantly makes tasteless jokes at the expense of his associates. Things like degrading an Indian woman by mocking her culture with poor stereotypes with an equally atrocious accent. As a viewer, you can't help but question how. How did Michael Scott end up landing this position? He clearly isn't suited for the job. Well, the show actually does lightly explain it at one point, and it's a sadly believable premise that occurs regularly in many organizations today.

When the iPhone first released the App Store as a part of iOS 2.0, they pushed hard for everybody to create native applications for their phone. It certainly made sense for them. If they could create a platform where people could engage with all sorts of content on a singular device, then they could sell a lot of that device. Certain companies jumped onboard and made quite a name for themselves utilizing this new platform. I'm thinking about social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. These fundamental apps showed the potential of what a company could do with a native app, and it didn't take long for everybody else to jump on the app bandwagon. But I personally think this was a poor mindset for many companies, this idea that "We need an app because everybody has an app!" Sure, it makes sense for companies like Mojang with their top selling Minecraft: Pocket Edition, but does it really makes sense for every company? I don't think...

If you've been in the work world long enough, I'm sure you've come across SMART goals at one point or another. SMART is a conveniently created acronym to help a person build essentially "reasonable" goals. These criterion are defined as the following: Specific (simple, sensible significant) Measurable (meaningful, motivating) Achievable (agreed, attainable) Relevant (reasonable, realistic and resourced, results-based) Time-bound (time-based, time-limited, time-sensitive) At first blush, I think most anybody can agree that these are good things to hold to. I've seen them practiced in organizational performance development, and I know they were deeply espoused in my Master's degree. But I'm not sold on these criterion. When trying to recently use this formula for myself, I found myself frustrated by the limitations imposed by this method. Just like the title of this post says, I don't think SMART goals are all that smart. Let's ...

Think about the last family vacation you planned. It's exciting to think about what your family and friends might do and the places you'll travel. But there's quite a few factors that play a role in planning a vacation. Things like... Where are we going? Who all is going? How many days will we be gone? How much are we willing to spend? What form of travel will we be taking? And so on. You get the picture. This isn't a bad thing to do at all. Rarely will you find people that step out the door on a vacation with zero plan in mind. But how many people follow their very precise plans once the vacation takes place? Oftentimes, things change at the very last minute. Folks on a road trip might pass a billboard for something cool they had no idea existed. Many people will change those plans last minute and be happy they did so. Others will stick to their original plan and likely end up regretting doing so, always wondering what it would have been like to venture of...

We've come a long way with technology; it's truly amazing. Things like teleconferencing, simultaneous document editing, and virtual whiteboarding have made cross-country business a reality. Companies have begun to recognize this and now regularly hire full time teleworkers. It's weird to think that I have worked with people for years that I may never meet in person. Here's the thing, though: I'm just not convinced teleworking is the future. Where I think people are experimenting in this space now, I don't think even think advances in technology will cause teleworking to be a mainstream thing. In fact, I think we're going to see more of a swing back to collocated teams over virtual teams. Let's explore the five reasons why I think the future does not lie in teleworking.

"I can't wait to retire someday." That phrase has never sat well with me. Now, I'm not a numbers guy, but I think in this case, numbers make a big impact. The life expectancy of the average person is 80 years old. If we assume that the average person enters the full time workforce at age 22 (when people typically exit undergrad) and retires at age 62 (according to an online source), then that's precisely 40 years of full time work. Roughly half a person's life.

On the February 20, 2017 episode of The Adam Carolla Show , host Adam Carolla sat down with Scott Keneally to discuss his new documentary,  Rise of the Sufferfests , and one of the primary focuses of the documentary is the analysis of tough mudder competitions. I only recently heard about these things from a friend, so for those of you not aware, a tough mudder competition is a sort of obstacle course where people subject themselves to a long, arduous sort of trek through mud. Definitely doesn't sound like they're for the light of heart.