"If you wish others to believe in you, you must first convince them that you believe in them."
- Harvey Mackay

If you want to be a leader who attracts quality people, the key is to become a person of quality yourself. Leadership is the ability to attract someone to the gifts, skills, and opportunities you offer as an owner, as a manager, as a parent. I call leadership the great challenge of life.

What's important in leadership is refining your skills. All great leaders keep working on themselves until they become effective. Here are some specifics:

1. Learn to be strong but not rude. It is an extra step you must take to become a powerful, capable leader with a wide range of reach. Some people mistake rudeness for strength. It's not even a good substitute.

2. Learn to be kind but not weak. We must not mistake kindness for weakness. Kindness isn't weak. Kindness is a certain type of strength. We must be kind enough to tell somebody the truth. We must be kind enough and considerate enough to lay it on the line. We must be kind enough to tell it like it is and not deal in delusion.

3. Learn to be bold but not a bully. It takes boldness to win the day. To build your influence, you've got to walk in front of your group. You've got to be willing to take the first arrow, tackle the first problem, and discover the first sign of trouble.

4. You've got to learn to be humble, but not timid. You can't get to the high life by being timid. Some people mistake timidity for humility. Humility is almost a God-like word. A sense of awe. A sense of wonder. An awareness of the human soul and spirit. An understanding that there is something unique about the human drama versus the rest of life. Humility is a grasp of the distance between us and the stars, yet having the feeling that we're part of the stars. So humility is a virtue; but timidity is a disease. Timidity is an affliction. It can be cured, but it is a problem.

5. Be proud but not arrogant. It takes pride to win the day. It takes pride to build your ambition. It takes pride in community. It takes pride in cause, in accomplishment. But the key to becoming a good leader is being proud without being arrogant. In fact I believe the worst kind of arrogance is arrogance from ignorance. It's when you don't know that you don't know. Now that kind of arrogance is intolerable. If someone is smart and arrogant, we can tolerate that. But if someone is ignorant and arrogant, that's just too much to take.

6. Develop humor without folly. That's important for a leader. In leadership, we learn that it's okay to be witty, but not silly. It's okay to be fun, but not foolish.

Lastly, deal in realities. Deal in truth. Save yourself the agony. Just accept life like it is. Life is unique. Some people call it tragic, but I'd like to think it's unique. The whole drama of life is unique. It's fascinating. And I've found that the skills that work well for one leader may not work at all for another. But the fundamental skills of leadership can be adapted to work well for just about everyone: at work, in the community, and at home.

- Reprint permission granted by Dr. James M. Wendling of The Wendling Group Authored by Jim Rohn

Have you ever had a time in your life when you just couldn't get motivated? You knew what you wanted to do, you had the desire, but you just couldn't get motivated to take the first step. When your get-up-and-go has gone and you find it difficult to get motivated to take action, consider this - you may be going about it all wrong.

Experts in the field of human motivation tell us that instead of waiting until we are motivated to take action, we need to reverse the process and take action to get motivated.

Nothing makes us feel enthusiastic like acting enthusiastic. Nothing inspires creativity like getting started on a new project. Nothing gives us the energy to move ahead like taking that first step, and then another. Your emotions take their clues from your actions, not the other way around.

Many lack motivation because of fear: fear of failure, fear of rejection, fear of too much success, fear of what others might think, fear, fear, fear. It can leave us paralyzed and ineffective. What is the cure for fear? ACTION!

• If you are afraid of rejection, contact more people.
• If you fear ridicule, make your presentation audacious and dynamic.
• If you worry about failure, take action that will move you toward success.

The truth is, most of the things we worry about never come to pass. So why worry? Instead, take decisive action to cure your worry and overcome fear!

So, next time you just don't feel like it, do it anyway. Few things are as bad as we imagine they will be if we will simply jump in with both feet pretending that we can't wait to get started. Pretty soon you will feel like it. Shakespeare said it like this, "assume a virtue if you have it not." In other words, if you want to be happy, try acting happy. If you need energy, act as if you have barrels full! If you want to feel motivated, take motivated action. Ham it up! Make it fun. Without a doubt, your feelings will follow your actions and pretty soon your actions will help you feel truly motivated. Try it!

- Reprint permission granted Copyright 2007 MindPerk, Inc.

Being busy does not always mean real work. The object of all work is production or accomplishment and to either of these ends there must be forethought, system, planning, intelligence, and honest purpose, as well as perspiration. Seeming to do is not doing.
- Thomas Alva Edison

You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.
- Eleanor Roosevelt

But there is suffering in life, and there are defeats. No one can avoid them. But it's better to lose some of the battles in the struggles for your dreams than to be defeated without ever knowing what you're fighting for.
- Paulo Coelho

What if you could identify your inner motivation to achieve more of your goals more often? How would your life be different if you developed a keener sense of purpose?

A professional coaching relationship creates value through a powerful, highly tuned process of communications and problem- solving that is "co-creative" between coach and client. It focuses totally on the client's interests, challenges and goals. Coaches help you improve performance and enhance the quality of your life. Great coaching helps you self-coach more effectively, not simply by helping you solve problems; it transforms the way you solve them. Coaching will not simply improve your life; it will transform the way you live.

Clients and coaches achieve more significant results together than either could achieve alone. While some people hire coaches purely for incremental growth, increased wealth or reformation, great coaching asks transformational questions. Instead of creating or developing the potential of the person being coached, effective coaching reveals and releases untapped value.

If you recognize that you may have untapped potential, suspect a "blind-spot" in your professional or personal relationships, or simply want help in moving from "good to great," coaching may be for you. You may be ready for a coach if you seek a safe space to expand your thinking with someone who will listen and respond rather than advise or try to "fix" you.

- Reprint permission granted by Mark Sturgell, Performance Development Network