In his book Where Have All the Leaders Gone? Lee Iacocca makes a great point about one of my favorite topics: Common Sense.  He says he learned it from one of his first bosses and mentors, a guy by the name of Charlie Beacham.  Mr. Iacocca describes Charlie Beacham as a “Southerner with a warm drawl, a huge smile and a core of steel.”  I don’t have a drawl, but I would be happy to be known as some with a huge smile and a core of steel.  Here is the advice Lee Iacocca got …

The Olympics are over.  I enjoyed watching them over the past two weeks.  The last sporting event of this year’s games, the USA – Canada hockey game, was really something.  I hope you got a chance to see it.  Even though my home team lost it was an exciting, well played match that went into overtime.  I also tuned into the closing ceremonies last night.  I saw something there that I want to comment on in today’s post.
If you recall, at the opening ceremonies there was a problem with the torch lighting.  The cauldron was …

Did you watch the Olympics last night?  The Americans did pretty well, winning gold medals in skiing – Lindsey Vonn, speed skating – Shani Davis and snowboarding – Shaun White.  Good for them.  Their years of training, hard work and dedication paid off.
In this post I want to focus on Lindsey Vonn.  She lives in Vail, my favorite Colorado mountain town.  I live and do my career success coaching work in Denver, so I think of her as kind of a neighbor.  More important, I find her story compelling.  Right now, she is the best …

As a career success coach, I always advise my clients to stick with it – to demonstrate their commitment to their career success to themselves and others by shaking off setbacks and moving forward.  This morning, I received an email from Katina Solomon at OnLineCollege.org telling me about a new blog post she had just done and asking me to pass it on to my readers. 
I loved this post.  It tells the stories of “50 Famously Successful People Who Failed at First.”  These people come from all walks of life.  But they shared one characteristic in …

Successful people are clear on their purpose in life – and they are committed to it.  They take personal responsibility for creating the successful lives and careers that they want and deserve.
As a career success coach in Denver, I’m always looking for ways to get my common sense message about career and life success across to my clients, people who read my blog and listen to my podcasts.  That’s why I was struck by a passage in Tracy Chevalier’s new book, Remarkable Creatures.  If you don’t know Tracy Chevalier, you should.  For my money she …

Commitment to taking personal responsibility for creating the successful life and career you want and deserve is one of the four keys to success in my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Star Power, I Want YOU…To Succeed, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.
Commitment to taking personal responsibility is simple really.  Success is all up to you, and me, and anyone else who wants it.  All you have to do is commit to taking personal responsibility for our …

The other day I saw a great quote from Margaret Thatcher…
“Look at a day when you are supremely satisfied at the end. It’s not a day when you lounge around doing nothing; it’s when you’ve had everything to do, and you’ve done it.”
Ole’ Iron Maggie really nailed it with this one.  I like this quote because it gets at the essence of commitment to taking personal responsibility for your life and career.  Commitment to personal responsibility is one of the four pillars of my Common Sense Success System.   I discuss it in several of my …

Commitment to taking personal responsibility for creating the successful life and career you want and deserve is one of the four keys to success in my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, I Want YOU…to Succeed, Star Power, Your Success GPS, and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.
You demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your success by doing three things.  First, you must take personal responsibility for your success.  Only you can make you a success.  You need to be …

Commitment to taking personal responsibility for creating the successful life and career you want and deserve is one of the four keys to success in my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, I Want YOU…to Succeed, Star Power, Your Success GPS, and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. 
You can demonstrate your commitment to taking personal responsibility for your success by responding positively to the people and events and events in your life – especially when they are less than positive.  I had …

Competence is one of the keys to success in my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; Star Power, I Want YOU…to Succeed and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. 
If you want to succeed you need to develop four basic, but important competencies: 1) creating positive personal impact; 2) becoming a consistently high performer; 3) communication skills; and 4) relationship building.  
Creating and nurturing your unique personal brand is the first step in creating positive personal impact.  While your personal brand …