Notice that none of these exercises asked for your age, height, weight, salary, title or areas of responsibility. That's because those are external factors. Self-esteem is an internal factor.

Self-discipline is the ability to do what we want to do at any given moment. For example, if we truly want to eat in a healthy manner, then our level of self-discipline is the deciding factor in determining whether or not we will be able to do it.

The exciting thing about self-discipline is it cuts across all areas of our lives. As we become more self-disciplined in eating, then we can become more self-disciplined in listening and reading and writing and following up with our customers and ...

Self-discipline is a function of commitment and skill. Commitment is made up of desire and belief, and skill is made up of understanding and repetition. If we really want to become self-disciplined, we need to identify why we want to do it (or why we would be worse off for not doing it), why we believe we can do it, and what we need to do. Then we need to repeat our actions over and over and over again until they become a habit. Warren Buffet once said, "The chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken." We are not self-disciplined in any area of our lives after one day or one month. We need to repeat the action over and over and over for an extended period of time until it becomes part of who we are.

Innovation seems to be the buzzword of the moment. Article after article is being written on this topic. Several of my clients are talking about it non-stop. In my opinion, there is a lot of confusion on this topic. It seems to me that for the most part the value of innovation is underestimated and the explanation of innovation is overcomplicated. Here are some of my thoughts on innovation:

Innovation is one of the two or three most powerful drivers of increased effectiveness. Every person in every company should know ways to generate innovative solutions. Innovation is not solving a problem. Innovation is about taking performance to a higher level than it has ever been before. Innovation is not a philosophy or a mindset. Innovation is a process. One that can be repeated over and over again.

Innovation is the process of identifying and combining opportunities together to drive significantly better results. In any innovative approach, there are three essential elements:

1. identifying opportunities
2. combining these opportunities together into new products, services, marketing initiatives, or processes
3. implementing these new ideas into action

Here is one way to identify opportunities. Make a list of all of the changes that have occurred in your organization, your industry and society in general in the past eighteen months. Then take each change and ask yourself the question, "What opportunity does this change bring to our organization?" Stretch your imagination. Come up with at least one opportunity for each change. Then look at your list of opportunities and ask yourself, "What two or more opportunities can I combine together into a new product, service, process or marketing initiative that will add more value to my clients?" Of course, talk is cheap. Once you've landed on an idea that you believe will generate better results, then you have to have the courage to put it into action. Creativity is thinking of new ways of doing business. Innovation is actually doing them.

A great book on this topic is The Innovation Formula by Michel Robert and Alan Weiss.

And here are eight management techniques for stimulating creativity from Beyond Entrepreneurship:

1. Encourage; don't nitpick
2. Be Not Judgemental
3. Help Shy People
4. Stimulate Curiosity
5. Create Necessity
6. Allow Time Away From The Fray

Hope you enjoy it!

Have a great month!!!