Management
Michael Mehlberg
Project Management Solution? Keep It Simple ...

Project management is among a top skill to master in any business; especially one wanting to grow.

Why?

Because without project management, business owners will unnecessarily run into common issues:

Project Management Solution? Keep It Simple Stupid
Productivity
Michael Mehlberg
Getting Derailed? Leave Room to Accommodate the ...

You often get derailed by "the unexpected.”

It’s inevitable.

You get interrupted an unexpected number of times daily. Those interruptions come at unexpected times. They each take an unexpected amount of time with which to deal.

That’s why it’s "the unexpected."

These interruptions kill your flow, destroy your focus, and force you to work on the urgent instead of the important.

So how do you deter, prevent, and deal with the problems these unexpected interruptions incur? 

Getting Derailed? Leave Room to Accommodate the Unexpected
Product Development
Michael Mehlberg
The Exact Value of Your Million Dollar Idea

I was shocked, hurt, and felt like my idea had been stolen. Though I had the idea first, Nintendo would be the star. Nintendo would make $millions. It took years before I was old enough to recognize the important lesson in this experience... 

The Exact Value of Your Million Dollar Idea
Business
Michael Mehlberg
Finding Your Value Despite the Competition

Are you second-guessing your next great idea? Are you downplaying the value you could provide to others? Are you upset that you found a competitor in the market who seems to be offering everything you want to (and seems to be finding great success doing it)?

It might be time to step back and realize a few important things.

Finding Your Value Despite the Competition
Productivity
Michael Mehlberg
On the Power and Freedom of Getting Yourself ...
On the Power and Freedom of Getting Yourself (and Your Business) Organized

Mindset

What Neuroscience Says on Why Self Improvement is So Effing Hard (and What to Do About It)

What Neuroscience Says on Why Self Improvement is So Effing Hard (and What to Do About It)

Everything you do, or experience, or think is affected by the expectations you already have.

Take your arms, for example.

With both arms intact, your brain works swimmingly. It sends signals to your limbs, they move, they provide feedback, and your brain breathes a sigh of relief that the cycle is complete. When you expect your arm to move and it does, your expectations are fulfilled. All is well.

But if one arm were missing, this feedback loop doesn’t close. A variety of sensations, including pain, can follow.

In a fascinating book Phantoms in the Brain, Dr. Ramachandran explores the world of neuroscience through people who have lost a limb. Patients experienced phantom sensations in an extremity that no longer existed; some as simple as a fleeting tickle, others as irritating as an un-itchable itch and, in the worst of cases, pain.

The patient’s brain, having sent a signal to the missing limb, would expect a response. Without receiving one, its neural pathways would get confused, causing severe phantom pain where none should be possible.

Ouch.

Or take relationships, for example.

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From Nice Guy to Respected Leader: 5 Tactics Nice Guys Can Use to Gain Respect and Avoid Finishing Last

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From Nice Guy to Respected Leader: 5 Tactics Nice Guys Can Use to Gain Respect and Avoid Finishing Last

What he said to me was, “You’re such a nice guy, Mike. The nicest.”

What he meant was, “Everyone is trampling all over you. You’re not aggressive enough. You’re never going to get anywhere in life, and you certainly aren’t going to find success in this company.”

I’ve heard it a thousand times before.

“Mike, you’re such a nice guy.”

or

“Mike, you’re the nicest. So nice.”

Which would be great if it were a compliment. But it’s not.

Of course, there’s truth to what they say. I am nice. I do treat others with kindness. I would give you the shirt of my back if you needed it.

But their so called compliments are laced with an undercurrent of misgiving concerning my ability to get ahead in life or, at the very least, avoid the wrath of distrustful, self-interested sinners who would rob me of my possessions, my honor, and my virtue.

These stabs at my character disguised as flattery are enough to make me wonder if I should be more of an asshole.

Nice guys finish last, right

5 Mindset Hacks That Make Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson So Massively Successful

5 Mindset Hacks That Make Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson So Massively Successful

Sorry, this post isn’t for you.

It’s for me.

It’s for me internalize the mindset of a big-screen hero, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. Someone who, though I’ve never met, I respect and admire.

It’s for me to capture the thinking of a giant who has been kicked around, ignored, laughed at, and ridiculed only to bust through to success in endeavor after endeavor.

It’s for me to embed an absolute can-do, break -through-walls, leap-over-obstacles kind of attitude into my psyche. 

This post isn’t for you. It’s for me. But you can read it anyway :-).

In fact, I’d love everyone read these ideas and watch the video at the end.

I want everyone to hear Dwayne Johnson’s heartfelt words and catch a glimpse of how this success-genius made his way through failures from poverty to continual and lasting success.

Because unlike so many other successful people who share what they’re doing today to be successful, he talks about the mindset he fostered in the past that led him to his present and will help him grow and win big in the future.

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Stop Feeding Your Brain Mental Garbage

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Stop Feeding Your Brain Mental Garbage

Less than 10 minutes after waking, I threw up cigar chunks into my master bathroom toilet.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise.

Twelve hours earlier, the groom and I were celebrating his upcoming wedding with a night on the town in historic downtown Leesburg, Virginia. 

As you might have guessed, this night included alcohol and stogies.

We drank and walked and talked and smoked and drank some more. We hopped from restaurant to restaurant, downing wine and beer and whiskey, all the while drawing down a box of cigars purchased at the local tobacconist.

At one point, the groom had me laughing so hard that I bit down on the cigar butt, crumbling the outer paper, which I inhaled, coughed up, then involuntarily swallowed.

I washed it down with a swig of wine—all of it came up the next morning.

Gross, I know.

But it perfectly illustrates the entire point of this article... 

Why You Can't Ever Stop Pushing

Why You Can't Ever Stop Pushing

When this thing is spinning perfectly, it looks as if it could spin forever.

That isn’t by accident. It’s precision manufactured out of pure elements, this one out of Aluminum.

It’s light, it’s sexy, and it means business.

Even so, it doesn’t spin continuously. Despite a pinpoint bottom revolving on a polished glass base, friction causes this voluptuously curved beauty to slow and eventually topple.

Such is life.

10 Things Nobody Can Take Away From You

People can steal so many things from you—your money, your attention, your time.

Here are a few things they can’t:

  1. Your Fire

  2. Your Skills

  3. Your Ideas

  4. Your Effort

  5. Your Wisdom

  6. Your Reactions

  7. Your Perspective

  8. Your Uniqueness

  9. Your Experiences

  10. Your Determination

  11. Your Self Respect

There may be others. Comment if you think of any below👇.

In the meanwhile, take caution. While nobody can steal these things from you, you can steal them from yourself.

Stay diligent, stay disciplined, and always keep building that which cannot be taken away.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

The Importance of Living by Simple Rules

The Importance of Living by Simple Rules

Every year without fail, on the first day of school, my Father would remind me to follow three simple rules:

  1. Do what’s right.

  2. Do the best you can.

  3. The golden rule.

This past week, as school started for my own children, I reminded them to follow those same three rules. They got the first two, but when asked to recall the golden rule they said, “to have fun?”

Two Words That Will Help You Bring Joy to Others

There are exactly two places in the world I feel 100% me.

The first is my home office.

I’ve worked from home for a decade, so have refined every corner of my office for optimal comfort, productivity, and happiness.

Take my typewriter, for example.

It’s my prized Olympia Spendid 66, refurbished and mailed from @mr.mrs.vintage in London. The machines curves and deep navy blue glossy finishes are beautiful. But when I start hammering those keys, it walks right off my desk.

So now, underneath, are four hidden globs of poster putty holding the typewriter within millimeters of my Game of Thrones book set (which is simultaneously on display and positioned for instant reading).

It’s not just the poster putty. Everything in my office is arranged just so. My whiteboard, my pictures, my computer, my chair, my desk. Even my samurai sword is on display, out of reach from my children, but accessible to me for the inevitable zombie invasion.

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The second place I feel 100% me is Hotel Kabuki (@hotelkabuki).

When I walk through the doors of this hotel, unobtrusively located in Japantown San Francisco, I have dreams of buying the place, moving my home office across the country, and living there with my family for the rest of my natural life.

It’s the lobby library, stocked with history books, pop culture references, and classical literature. It’s the vinyl’s in a grid on the wall decorating the front desk. It’s the black and white wall art, squared off modern furniture, fancy phones, and bonsai trees in the garden exercise room.

But what really gets me is the coasters...

For all the grand decorations, coasters seem like a trivial flourish. But the small white round cardboard with its red brushed circle gives a certain zen-like calligraphy feeling, emphasizing a message that I’ve now taken to heart:

“Shine Brightly”

When my brow is furrowed because I’m concerned about how much I’m getting done or thinking too hard about what I’m supposed to be doing next, these two words remind me to keep trying to bring joy to others and to help those near me with what I have and what I’ve learned.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.

Reset Expectations of What's Possible

Everyone knows it snows in Michigan.

I remember shuffling down the streets of Midland one October, trick-or-treating, with thick ski pants and boots covering my Halloween costume; just a kid with a pillowcase wearing a Chewbacca mask staring out from under a winter hat.

Two feet of snow. In October. And that was in the lower peninsula.

The upper peninsula? That’s no joke.

The people that live up there, lovingly referred to as uppers (pronounced yew-pers), get hammered in the winter.

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Yet, even knowing that, we stopped in awe at a lone sign in the woods. Deep into our seven hour drive, in the northern part of Michigan’s upper peninsula, we stared up at the sky where this sign, 29.5 feet in the air, marked their record snowfall.

When you grow up seeing two to four feet of snow at a time, 29 feet seems unbelievable.

But this sign didn’t lie. It was accurate, and the record it represented has been beaten since.

(Email me a pic if you’ve seen it recently, I didn’t have a camera back then and I’d love to marvel at it’s height again)

This sign, and the extreme snowfall record it represented, reset my expectations of what’s possible. It made me wonder what else I didn’t know, didn’t realize, or couldn’t imagine.

It’s easy to get used to the status quo. But that’s not how to stand out. That’s not how you make the biggest impact. That’s not how to strike awe in your customers.

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Recognizing that, it’s helpful to ask yourself a question—one that will help reframe your expectations of what’s possible:

“What am I continuing to do myself that I’m not good at?”

Think about it. Write it down. Then improve it, eliminate it, or delegate it.

Improve what you’re not good at and raise the bar on what you can accomplish.

Eliminate what you’re not good at and give yourself time to work on more important tasks.

Delegate what you’re not good at and buy yourself energy while allowing for someone more skilled to set the bar higher.

Don’t wait for a sign in the woods. Challenge what you know. Ask yourself this question monthly to reset expectations of what’s possible, what you can focus on, what’s important, and what’s holding you back.

About the Author

mike_mehlberg.jpeg

Michael Mehlberg

HUSBAND, FATHER, ENTREPRENEUR, BUSINESS STRATEGIST, AUTHOR, FITNESS NUT, ORGANIZATION FREAK, PRODUCTIVITY JUNKIE

I help high-achieving entrepreneurs live their passion and achieve their dreams by consistently saving time, getting productive, and being more efficient and organized.

Subscribe to my free, short, 60-second newsletter for tips, tricks, links, products, and other discoveries to becoming a more purposeful, passionate, and productive human.