“The one most important thing to do is to not try to find the one most important thing to do.” - Jared Diamond(click to tweet)We’re raised around the people most genetically similar to us. This makes it very difficult to isolate how much of our identity comes from DNA and how much is driven by our environment. To complicate things even further, the field of epigenetics has shown that gene expression can be altered by the environment around us. That’s why on today’s episode of MentorBox’s Book...

“You replace ‘Saturdays are for football’ with ‘I am someone who works on my photography business for 5 hours every Saturday.’” (click to tweet)   We know what we need to do. Start a website, get some customers, attend a few networking events—that to-do list in the back of our heads is always yelling at us. Yet for some reason, we can’t initiate the momentum to start that business, side hustle, or art project. On today’s episode of the Mentorbox podcast, we are discussing how to build...

“You will never have the energy to reach out if you’re poisoning your mind with the filth of negative friends.” (click to tweet) Look around you. Conscious or not, the personality traits of those around you will inevitably be absorbed by your own personality. While this thought might induce discomfort, it’s meant to be motivational. We have the power to choose who we become by choosing the people around us. On today’s episode of the Mentorbox podcast, we are discussing the importance of...

“On our own, we’re nothing. You may survive, though certainly you will not thrive.” (click to tweet)   Social media is complicated. It is both an invasive tumor and the most powerful tool currently available. If we’re not conscious, the meaningless life updates will crowd our feeds and our minds, paralyzing us to do anything useful with the tool. That’s why we must make the deliberate effort to curate the content we bring in. On today’s episode of the Mentorbox podcast, we are discussing...

“Patience is the key ‘how’ which unlocks the ‘what.’ It is the underlying mindset on which the rest of the edifice stands.” (click to tweet) We know the formula. If we work hard and take care of ourselves, success is headed our way. But the challenge is accepting the timetable that this sometimes takes. Patience, if harnessed correctly, is the key to unlocking your potential. That’s why on today’s episode of the Mentorbox podcast, we are talking about patience. In our world of instant...

“Create your ideal day. Create your ideal week. Then check, check, check, check, check. Become a robot.” (click to tweet) To-do lists are supposed to get checked. But so often, we transfer the unchecked onto a new to-do list, only to then half-complete that one again. This happens in all areas of life, from the gym to our side hustles, we can’t seem to get a grasp on executing the tasks at hand. The reason for this is a lack of automation. We leave too much of our day-to-day up to chance,...

Can we really find our purpose? The reality is that we have to do our jobs to make money to put food on the table to then continue working our jobs. Nowhere in that cycle is there time for “finding” our purpose. And even if we are able to carve out time on the weekend to pursue that side project, we’re then met with the tidal wave of anxiety surrounding working on something for no pay.

Dreaming is dangerous. It’s easy to make peace with our current realities by imagining how the future is going to be different. While this might seem harmless in our day-to-day, it can quickly tumble into a loop of inaction if we’re not careful. Instead of dreaming, we can seek out other ways to route our surplus of thought.

We are elegant storytellers. When left to ourselves, our minds can play the trick of justifying anything and everything. And when it comes to achieving our dreams, we often hide excuses as reasons for why we haven’t met our goals. This lying to ourselves blocks us from achieving our dreams because we can’t accurately diagnose what is and isn’t working

We all have a unique story to tell. But often times, our busy lives make it difficult to tap into that voice. We become bogged down by the minutia of our day-to-day, clouding our vision for what is possible. But if we rewind time to a simpler version of life, before the bills and responsibilities came into the picture, we can see what we’re meant to do.

Autopilot is an instinct. When our jobs and relationships become routine, our brain tends to shut off and just do the required motions. It’s not a bad thing that this happens—rather, it’s an indicator that we might not be striving to fulfill our potential. How we reverse this tendency is by building new structures into our day, so that we are reminded of what the greater purpose is.

Job security is always on our minds. As technology continues to grow and get faster and faster, we are continuously met with the fear that robots are taking our jobs. But when we examine what humans bring to organizations, we realize that it’s impossible for a computer to replicate the intangibles.

Companies are often judged by their employee retention rate. But employees who stay around aren’t necessarily the most productive workers. This complicates the employee-employer relationship. Of course, you want the employees you spend time and effort training to make that investment worthwhile by remaining loyal to the company. However, if you support your employees’ dreams to achieve their own dreams outside of the company, you actually end up with an even more dedicated and productive...

Human consciousness is our rare gift. Unlike any other organism, we have the ability to zoom out and examine our place within the greater hierarchy. However, with our busy lives, it’s easy to forget to do this. We adopt tunnel vision and lose the ability to think deeper with a purpose.

Vulnerability is in. Today, our Facebook feeds are filled with people sharing personal stories. But are the people behind these accounts being truly vulnerable? Or, are they marketing themselves as someone who is vulnerable? When we implement this filter, we can start to distinguish which of the two categories the people around us fall into, and thus—who is being authentic and who isn’t.

Employees no longer need to be at the office. Laptops, smartphones, and the internet empower the worker to be something much more powerful than he/she was 15 years ago. Thus, leading a group of these more powerful people requires a much more powerful leader. The recipe for effective management used to call for checklists and procedures, but today—the responsibility calls for something entirely different.

It’s the weekend. Common knowledge tells us that Saturday and Sunday are meant for relaxation, but the Gary Vees of the world say something else: that every minute we must be working. So, how do we know what to do with our time inside this contradictory framework?

Is there such a thing as originality? When we examine creativity, we can see that constructs like language and education have us undoubtedly building off a foundation that’s already been thought of before. This is the predicament the artist finds himself or herself in. To be truly unique is both impossible and very possible. We must understand what base we’re building on top of, while trying to transcend the limits of that foundation with energy that comes from an unknown place.

Succeeding online requires more than great content. We can spend all the time in the world perfecting the marketing video or blog post, but if search engines aren’t motivated to drive traffic there, it is a futile effort. Today, no matter the business, publishing content online is necessary for survival. But embedding SEO-rich keywords into the content is what will push you past survival into actual success.

A career is a series of lessons to learn from. But often times, it’s hard to see this big picture. At each job, we are met with new challenges that keep us up at night. The anxiety and frustration can be overwhelming, but these momentary obstacles are actually the moments that deepen our learning and understanding to become a bigger force in the marketplace.

The pet industry speaks for the changing times. It used to be that if you built a big enough business, you could just mass message consumers, and those seeking your product would become your customers. But today, a corgi owner only wants to know about corgi products. Technology has broken the messaging infrastructure, and now social media allows for niche brands to more pointedly target their audience.  

We check email, message our friends, and scroll through social media. This is the story of us using our smartphones. But the camera inside a smartphone offers something far greater than what we’re using it for. We can actually shoot professional quality visual content (photo and video) with just a few taps on our smartphone’s screen.

Doing the right thing sounds too simple. In the pursuit of self-help and self-development, we often find ourselves in the rabbit holes of complex, over analytical thinkers. But what if the best way to move through life was as simple as locking into as reductive as of a mantra as, “Do the right thing.”

McDonald’s can ask Wendy’s, “What do you think about Trump?” And then suddenly, Wendy’s has to voice its stance on the sociopolitical climate. It never used to be this way; corporations would hide behind the mechanics of the marketing and advertising machine. But today, a company must voice its authentic message to the market through the megaphones on social media.