We all have the right to have doubts about our task and even to abandon it occasionally; the one thing we must not do is forget it. Paulo Coelho.

Marching to the beat of your own drum, following your path is not for the faint of heart. Being out there on your own own takes:

• hard work
• discipline
• a razor sharp focus on your objective.

 On those days when you feel your spirit faltering, here are three self-empowering questions to ask yourself:

1. Is what I am doing right now moving me towards my goal?
2. What new information have I learned today?
3. What action am I taking today to increase my energy level?

 Knowing what you want to accomplish is one thing. To accomplish it is another. It is going to take everything you have got. Nothing less.

But you have always been a warrior. Why should it be any different this time?

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How old is old, Bernard Baruch was once asked? Old is fifteen years older than I am, he replied.

I thought about that the other day as I was standing in a line up at the cash, buying a bottle of wine for dinner. There was an attractive younger woman ahead of me, buying a bottle as well.

As she was about to pay for her purchase, the cashier politely asked her for some identification; In Ontario you have to be at least 19 years old to purchase wine or liquor.

“I hope you don’t think I’m being personal” he said. “It’s the law.”

Now, I’m not good about guessing ages but she didn’t look anymore than 35 to me. From my vantage point she is just getting started!

Her face immediately lit up. Laughing, as she handed over her ID, she replied, “Mind? Are you kidding? I’m flattered. The way the week’s going I feel like I’m 40!”

She’s not alone. At some point, we all reach an invisible – or not so invisible wall, where we begin to feel we are getting old. Or think we are.

Many today are resisting change, struggling with the new technologies, new attitudes and ways of doing things, complaining about how things aren’t like they used be… a sure sign that the clock is ticking.

The truth is, though, aging doesn’t happen at any given hour or day or decade.  The process is not biologically set in stone.

We all have a choice. It’s a personal decision. As the days and weeks fly by, we can’t stop the clock. We can remain young in spirit, getting older, yes, but not old.

I invite you to join me on Facebook, Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com

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The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think and act anew. Abraham Lincoln.

It has been almost 150 years in another time of great strife and change that those words attributed to Lincoln were uttered but they are as valid today as they were then

The very nature of work is changing. Family and personal relationships are evolving. Emerging countries are shedding centuries old traditional political and economic bonds. Nothing seems as it was.

Struggling to deal with the Social Media phenomenon, Individuals, businesses and nations are creating new rules on the go. Privacy, as we used to measure it, is a thing of the past. Today’s news is yesterday’s, seemingly as soon as it tweeted.

This is not a time for the faint of heart. Just as we have in the past so will we get through this period. It is what humankind always does.

As we bravely, resolutely pick our away through the debris of the old, seeking the road to the new, the question each of us has to ask ourselves is this:

What can I do, what must I do to safely get through the stormy present and  best engage and participate in this new world?

I invite you to join me on Facebook, Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com

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Almost always, the creative, dedicated minority has made the world better. Martin Luther King

If you are still competing with the crowd, trying to look like everyone else, matching or beating their prices and still trotting out the same old ideas that clearly aren’t working anymore, maybe it’s time to rethink your proposition.

Here are three critical questions to consider:

1. Who, specifically, are you trying to reach?

2. What story are you telling them?

3. What do you need to do to get more people to listen?

We’re in an era where the winners are coming from the ranks of those willing to step out ahead of the crowd. To grow your enterprise or advance your career in today’s hard scrabble environment, you’ve got to continually innovate, tell your own story and work smarter.

What you don’t want is to work safe.

I invite you to join me on Facebook, Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com

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Try this exercise. Think of the last great idea you had. Once you have identified it, think about where you were and what you were doing when the creative sparks started flying. 

Maybe you were in the shower, or driving out on the highway. Perhaps you were with your kids at the arena.

Where you probably weren’t was at work. That’s because work is generally a place that rewards highly logical, analytical, left brain thinking. More often than not, your work place is probably highly stressful. Environments like these are the last place where great ideas flow.

It’s when you remove yourself from your work environment that you are free to let your imagination go, to allow the right side of your brain and your intuition the space to expand and do their magic – and where you do your creative thinking.

I invite you to join me on Facebook, Twitter, connect with me on LinkedIn or email your thoughts and comments to drew@drewsimmie.com

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