Mindset and Motivation Archives – Page 2 of 17

17 Mar 2016

Win-Win Always Trumps Creating Losers

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T11:44:54-06:00March 17th, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

You don’t have to make people lose to win. In fact, it is usually a bad long-term strategy.

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“You can have everything in life you want, if you will just help enough other people get what they want.“ ~ Zig Ziglar

If you have been watching Donald Trump in the news lately, you are probably quite aware that he embraces an overt and aggressive bullying technique when dealing with any opposition.

Most recently, this included attacking the credibility of a disabled New York Times reporter […]

23 Feb 2016

Starting a Business: Assume You Know Nothing

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:04:50-06:00February 23rd, 2016|Categories: Business Strategy, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

When you start to think you know it all, something will happen to make you believe you don’t know anything at all.

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“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” ~ Ygritte – The Game of Thrones

It is tempting to give people advice on starting a business. Do this and not that. As if everything is black and white, yes or no answers. If we had followed all of that advice 15 years ago, we would not have started our business […]

28 Jan 2016

The Real Person Behind the Facades of Success

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:13:30-06:00January 28th, 2016|Categories: Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Masks - Facades of Success

How our layers of roles and personas create a wall between us, happiness, and success.

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“I’ve always wanted to be a brooding, deep, dark artist, but I can never keep that facade going for more than 15 minutes.” ~ Bryan Callen

When I first started in business, we would meet other entrepreneurs all the time. The ones with some experience appeared to be highly confident and flawless. They talked about how […]

18 Jan 2016

Don’t Annoy The Bull And Other Lessons From The Field

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:05:43-06:00January 18th, 2016|Categories: Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Before you can avoid the bulls, you need to learn to spot them. With people that can be a challenge.

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“I never rode a bull – I’m not that stupid.” ~ James Caan

Some years ago we were visiting Dorothy and her spouse, friends who lived in the country near the Alberta foothills. We were city dwellers, so we enjoyed getting out of town for a little adventure.

After sitting around chatting for an hour or so, we all decided to go for a walk before […]

7 Jan 2016

3 Ways To Be Happier Than A Fly In Your Soup

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:13:43-06:00January 7th, 2016|Categories: Doug's Blog, Dream Teams, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Fly on Soup - Business Lessons

The illusion of success can trap you in a business that keeps you buzzing but doesn’t fuel your passion.

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“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ~ Howard Thurman

Sunday evening I was sitting at the kitchen table, reading a good book on my Kindle, and eating my […]

21 Dec 2015

3 Things You Can Do To Jump-Start 2016 Right Now

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:07:05-06:00December 21st, 2015|Categories: Manifast, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

How to hit the ground running in 2016. (If you are already in holiday mode, you may want to reconsider.)

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Once December hits, a lot of us are conditioned to coast through December and then hit the ground running in January.

I worked with Jeff, a government client, who actually refused to meet us in December because “no one works here until January”. So the project got parked for eight weeks.

But December is only a little more than four weeks long so how does […]

14 Dec 2015

Trying to Avoid Failure By Never Starting is a Dead-end Road

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-17T13:11:27-06:00December 14th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Leadership, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Man Stuck Deciding and Not Moving Forward

Many times we get ourselves into a mental trap where not moving forward seems safe. It isn’t.

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“There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth: not going all the way, and not starting.” ~ Buddha

We often get in our own way when pursuing success.

Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of people starting businesses because they have lost their job or fear they will lose it in the future. Some people […]

13 Nov 2015

Does Your Workplace Encourage a Culture of Codependency?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:13:17-06:00November 13th, 2015|Categories: Current Events, Dream Teams, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation|

A dysfunctional culture can doom your organization to mediocrity or outright failure. How can you tell if you should be worried?

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“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.” ~Peter Drucker

We often see a sports team that seems to have a great pool of individual talent, yet it can’t seem to win consistently and fails to get very far in the playoffs. Then we have the underdog team that surprises everyone with a playoff run, sometimes even taking the top prize.

The difference between winning and losing in […]

13 Nov 2015

An Introvert’s Guide To Personal Success

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-03T11:14:25-06:00November 13th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Doug's Blog, Mindset and Motivation, The Good Men Project|

Introvert Speaking and Reading from Phone

If the world seems to demand that you become something you’re not, don’t worry. You can be authentic and follow your own path to success.

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I remember coming out of high school straight into the military as a shy and introverted officer in training. I was so quiet a lot of people thought I would quit. I didn’t.

After studying electrical engineering for five years, I went off to serve another seven years in the Air […]

5 Nov 2015

When Do Your Strongest Success Traits Make You Codependent?

By Doug Wagner|2017-04-12T12:17:57-06:00November 5th, 2015|Categories: Business Strategy, Current Events, Leadership, Manifast, Mindset and Motivation|

Startling but true, these success-driven behaviours can be your worst dysfunctional nightmare.

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“You have that enormously positive expectation that you’ll be free, and then you realize that you are in a worse prison than before because it’s one of your own making.” ~ Michael Gerber

Entrepreneurship puts intense pressures on people, and when that happens, we dial up those success traits to the extreme, or take a few shortcuts to survive.

You’ve probably seen this yourself as the business leader or the employee.

This Could Be Your […]