Clarity of purpose and direction is one of the keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  To develop your personal clarity or purpose you need to do three things.  First, define what success means to you.  Second, create a vivid mental image of you as a success.  Once you define what success means to you personally, I suggest that you develop a clear mental picture of you …

Competence is one of the four keys to career and life success in my Common Sense Success System.  I also discuss it in some detail in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; 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) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent. 
There are four key competencies that will help you become a career and life success:

You have to …

Today is October 15, 2009 – blog action day.  Today, bloggers from all around the world are blogging about climate change.  You can read all about it at www.blogactionday.org. 
Commitment to taking personal responsibility for your success is one of the keys to career and life success that is part of my Common Sense Success System.  I discuss it in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS, and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success. 
If you want to succeed, you must commit to three things.  First, you must take personal responsibility for …

Commitment to taking personal responsibility for your success is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS, and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to succeed, you must commit to three things.  First, you must take personal responsibility for your success.  Only you can make you a success.  You need to be willing to do the things necessary to succeed.  Second, you must set high goals — and then do whatever it takes to achieve …

Competence is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success; Your Success GPS; 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) dynamic communication skills; and 4) becoming interpersonally competent.
Dynamic communicators write well, present clearly and are great conversationalists.  In this post I will deal with conversation skills.
Here is one of my favorite quotes from Dale Carnegie. 
“When …

Clarity of purpose and direction is one of the keys to career and life success that I discuss in several of my books: Straight Talk for Success, Your Success GPS and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  To develop your personal clarity or purpose you need to do three things.  First, define what success means to you.  Second, create a vivid mental image of you as a success.  Third, clarify your personal values.  Once you define what success means to you personally, I suggest that you develop a clear mental picture of you as …

Positive personal impact is a key to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to create positive personal impact, you need to do three things.  Create and nurture your unique personal brand.  Be impeccable in your presentation of self – in person and on line.  Know and follow the basic rules of etiquette.
The other day, I came across a great article on HRGuru.com called “What Professionals Should Never (Ever) Wear."  Here are the items that the authors suggested you …

Interpersonal competence is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success and 42 Rules to Jumpstart Your Professional Success.  If you want to become interpersonally competent, you need to do three things.  First, get to know yourself.  Use this self knowledge to better understand others.  Second, build strong, lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the important people in your life.  Third, resolve conflict positively and in a manner that enhances, not detracts from your relationships.
I am in Phoenix for some business this week.  The other day, I …

Interpersonal competence is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success.  If you want to become interpersonally competent, you need to do three things.  First, get to know yourself.  Use this self knowledge to help you better understand and communicate with the other people in your life.  Second, build solid, long lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with the people in your life.  Third, resolve conflict positively and creatively.  Use conflict as an opportunity to strengthen your relationships.
If you read this blog with any regularity, you know that …

Self confidence is one of the keys to personal and professional success that I discuss in Straight Talk for Success.  Self confident people have three things in common.  1) Self confident people are optimistic.  2) Self confident people face their fears and act.  3) Self confident people surround themselves with positive people.
Last week I did apost on tolerance that had some quotes from Sherman Alexie’s book The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.  I found some other great stuff in there about surrounding yourself with positive people.  Check it out…

“Something magical happened to me …