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It is the season of New Year’s resolutions, when we are tempted to make big new personal declarations – that get added to our lengthy to-do lists.  As a devoted fan of lists, I’ve concluded that long to-do lists are a bad thing.  Whether lurking in the back of your mind, on the back of a napkin or digitally in a cool iPhone app, such lists, because they are a symbol of all that is not yet done, can drain our mental energy, motivation and sometimes self-esteem – before we even begin to tackle them.  So take a pause before you add to your list of resolutions.  And perhaps even prune your list now.

I’ve heard the phrase “refuse to lose” in the media quite a bit recently to describe Olympic champions, NFL players and tennis superstars at the US Open.  It seems a perfect way to describe the conviction of champion athletes.  We don’t need the mega-dose of talent that they have to learn from their mindset and adapt it to our own goals.

My kids used to fantasize about which super power they’d want and the potential uses of each – flying, invisibility, super-speed… We’d theorize about which one could do the greatest good in as many challenging situations as possible.

There’s a high stakes legal battle brewing between Apple and Samsung around the patent protection that Apple’s iPad can claim.  Samsung asserts that many of the design concepts of the iPad were in the public domain before the release of the first iPad, such that Apple cannot claim inventor’s rights.

We all know the look of someone who seems to walk into a room and exude power.  Relying on no more than non-verbal cues, we have a sense of who wields relatively more or less truly powerful influence over those around them and is less easily threatened by their environment.  Those who naturally and visibly carry themselves with a sense of power (as opposed to powerlessness) don’t necessarily ask to be entrusted with power; to some degree, they simply claim it with their body language.  And who wouldn’t want to be able to elevate their influence in this way?

When I talk to coaching clients about weaknesses, I use the term “blind spot” as well, because their biggest problems are often in areas where they are not (yet) self-aware and they have no idea how they are perceived. Those unknown weaknesses can be more damaging than the ones they know about. Perhaps their boss does not take the time to tell them, their peers do not have the heart to tell them, and their staff does not have the guts to tell them.