I happen to be listening to a podcast that the Robert Greenleaf Center for Servant Leadership was hosting , and I heard an interview with author Ari Weinzweig the author of a trilogy of books entitled ” A Lapsed Anarchist’s Approach to Managing Ourselves”, “Being a Better Leader” and “Building a Great Business” all in the Lapsed Anarchist’s series. I was so taken by Ari’s approach to how he built and ran his organizations that I invited him to be on Inside Personal Growth. In this interview about his book “Managing Ourselves” Ari and I discuss the 12 Tips for more effective self-management, which are truly gems and so important to learn on our path of self discovery and personal growth. Tip one (1)  is “Get to Know Yourself”, now while this seems simple most of us spend a lifetime going deep into our soul seeking to better understand our best attributes and qualities as well as how to improve the ones that frequently get in the way and don’t serve us as becoming better human beings. The second Tip Ari speaks about is “Honoring Your Emotions.” We all know the line “leave your emotions at the door” when you go to work. As Ari states that is utterly impossible—our emotions go with us wherever we go but we can learn to monitor and manage them so they don’t get in the way of what we are trying to accomplish. The entire list of 12 tips are in his book, as well you can go to his website to learn more. I know that you will receive a lifetime of personal and business wisdom from my interviews with Ari. I highly encourage purchasing Ari’s trilogy of books and to  learning more about his organization Zingerman’s by clicking on the link here. He has also created Zing Train a training organization based in Ann Arbor, MI with a mission to help organizations better serve both their customers and employees. To learn more click here to be directed to the Zing Train website, or click here to be directed to the Zingerman’s Facebook page.

We all tap into our intuition from time to time, and wonderfully when we do it as if our lives are altered in mysterious and beautiful ways. Everyone reading this has dialed into and heard the inner voice, the voice of wisdom guiding us— if only we will listen.

“Intuition is a survival tool” write author Simone Wright the author of ” First Intelligence: Using the Science and Spirit of Intuition.” In my interview with her we discuss not only how she has been able to fine tune her own intuition, but how she works with others around the world and coaches them to more powerfully access this great power.

One of the misconceptions about intuition is that it is a supernatural power or paranormal phenomenon. Intuition is a power that we are all born with but we are not taught how to use it. It appears in different ways some people have clairaudience or clear hearing, others are gifted with clairvoyance or clear seeing, and other are clairsentience or clear feeling. No matter what your “intuitive power” it is available to access as a guidance system, states author Simone Wright ” you just need to be open to receiving ideas, and inspirations”.

I hope you enjoy Simone Wright speaking with me about her new book “First Intelligence”. If you listen carefully you will better understand how to access the power of your intuition.

If you want to learn more about Simone Wright please click here to be directed to her website, or watch the video below about her new book.

There is most likely not a person on the planet that has not run into more that one obstacle during their lifetime. The bigger question that we need to ask ourselves, is just how do we perceived the obstacles that we have encountered. Do we look upon them as negative or are we able to reframe our reference to them as learning lessons?

In my recent interview with Ryan Holiday about his new book entitled ” The Obstacle Is The Way” we discuss his journey he takes his readers through history telling stories about some of the greatest people in history and the immense obstacles many of them encountered, but more importantly the personal power the all obtained by shifting their perspective about the obstacles they encountered and seeing them as learning lessons.

In story after story Ryan shows that when failure comes— Ask what went wrong? What can be improved? What am I missing. He states that entrepreneurs are: 1) Never wedded to a position 2) Never afraid to lose a little of their investment 3) Never bitter or embarrassed 4) Never out of the game long.

If you are currently facing a life challenge around growing your business, money or personal affairs then I highly recommend reading Ryan’s new book. It is inspirational and will provide you with a completely new perspective and reframe of your perceived obstacles.

If you want to learn more just watch the great video below or click here to go to Ryan’s website and or Facebook page for the book.

Enjoy this great interview with Ryan Holiday author or “The Obstacle is the Way”.

Personal Growth can get overdone, and many of the books begin to sound the same. Similar advice, tips, to-do’s which unless applied do absolutely nothing to forward our personal transformation— whatever that is suppose to mean.

In my recent interview with Tom Oliver, about his book entitled ” Nothing is Impossible” Tom does not follow suit like the thousands of other “personal growth/mastery” books. Tom’s book is engaging, loaded with great stories, pointers and exercises that are quite valuable. Tom speaks to the reader, not at them and is gentle in his advice and guidance to attain personal mastery—should that be your desire.

Our interview covers several topics, but a couple of them I believe are so important are “Embracing Yourself” and “Overcoming Self-Doubt”. Please listen carefully to Tom words so you can understand the importance of learning how to understand yourself and focus on your strengths, not improving your weaknesses.

Also the power of removing any self-doubt that you may have allowed to creep into your subconscious. It can be a real challenge to lift yourself up, and start believing in yourself again. Defeat and failure, are just signs you are on the right path. Challenges will always be part of life, but remembering who we are and why we are here on this planet is the power to move us through all of our challenges.

I hope you enjoy this great interview with Tom Oliver about “Nothing is Impossible”. Please click here to be directed to Tom’s website.

Let’s face it, relationships can be challenging. They are a compromise and a collaboration—especially relationships with our significant others. The work we invest into our relationships can pay off in spades relative to our own happiness and the happiness of our partners.

In Naomi Bergers new book entitled “Marriage Meeting for Lasting Love” Naomi provide the reader with very sound advice with regarding a process she refers to as the “marriage meetings”. This is simply a defined meeting time weekly set weekly where we meet with our significant other using a set of guidelines to have a 30-45 minute dialogue. She suggests following an agenda 1) Expressing Appreciation 2) Coordinating Chores 3) Planning for Good Times 4) Addressing Problems and Challenges.

Naomi has been using this process in our counseling practice for years, and the results from her clientele has been amazing. If you want to add spice and more harmony to your relationship, then I would suggest you reading Naomi’s book “Marriage Meetings for Lasting Love” I am sure you will be provided with many tips for improving your love life.

If you want to learn more about Naomi, please click here to be taken to her website.

Chris Grusso is an articulate and engaging author with an important message about not only his own spiritual awakening, but how he sees the world embracing “or not” religion and spirituality.

In my interview with Chris about his new book entitled “Indie Spiritualists” we discuss up front and personal about his drug addiction and the tough times he has endured, but emerging from the ashes  the wiser, and more at peace with himself.

If all of us were to take the deep introspective look at our lives I am sure we would find people and circumstances that give us indigestion and we would like to change. Chris takes a brutally honest and radically unconventional approach in ” Indie Spiritualists”, but encourages readers to accept themselves as they are, in all their humanity and imperfect perfection.

Chris is a musician, writer, author, blogger and has a refreshing message that we all need to hear and embrace.

I hope you enjoy our interview together, and should you want to learn more please click here to be directed to Chris’s website or click Facebook to link with him there as well.

I don’t have to tell my audience about the number of books and interview I have completed with personal growth, mastery and psychology authors.

I was recently sent a book called “Smart Change” by Art Markman professor of Psychology at the University of Texas which I believe could be a game changer.

We have all read books on how to change, as a matter of fact that is what most of the personal growth books are attempting to get us to do. “Smart Change” is attempting to do the same, but in a way that I believe can and will work if people apply the simple strategies that Art talks about in our interview.

I am not going to speak about the 5 effective tools in this blog entry, but you can go to his website to learn more by clicking here. You can also download his “Smart Change” Journal, simple but masterfully thought out.

The most important tool Art refers in his book he refers to as “Tame the Go System.” This is where you identify the triggers of habits, replace old behaviors with new ones, and generate specific plans to deal with the obstacles. This single idea worth the price of the book.

I hope you enjoy this wonderful interview with a very knowledgeable and thought provoking author—Art Markman.

Alan C. Fox is the author of a new book entitled ” People Tools: 54 Strategies for Building Relationships, Creating Joy, and Embracing Prosperity.”

What I found so interesting about my interview with Alan was is intuitive grasp of just how to treat people no matter what circumstance he found himself in. Now that was not always the case for Alan for his personality used to be somewhat introverted, but he learned how to utilize the skills he writes about in his book and apply them quite masterfully.

“Successful relationships are the bedrock of successful careers, families and friendships, which in turn are the hallmarks of a successful and enjoyable life,” state Alan. “The more tools you have, and the better you understand the tools you use, the more quickly and effectively you will achieve success.”

I encourage you to listen to the words of wisdom from this author as we discuss his life, the people tools and the many lesson along his life path that molded and developed Alan Fox into the amazing man and author he exemplifies.

If you want to learn more about Alan C. Fox please click here to be directed to his book website, or click here to view his Facebook page.

I recently had the honor of interviewing my good friend Steven Kotler and an amazing resource on learning how to “hack flow”. Steven has just released a new book, hot off the press called ” The Rise of Superman”.

I bet many of you are wondering what “hacking flow” is all about. Steven has spent much of his adult career learning and personally experimenting with this concept, and decoding the science of ultimate human performance. So out with the personal growth stuff, because what Steven reveals in our interview is so powerful that it will transform your life physically, mentally and emotionally.

“Flow naturally catapults you to a level you’re not naturally in,” explained Harvard Medical School psychiatrist Ned Hallowell in an interview for the book. “Flow naturally transforms a weakling into a muscleman, a sketcher into and artists, and a dancer into a ballerina, a plodder into a sprinter, and ordinary person into someone extraordinary. Everything you do, you do better in flow…Flow is the doorway to the ‘more’ most of us seek.”

I encourage you to listen to the mind blowing podcast with an amazing researcher and author Steven Kotler.

If you would like to learn more about Steven’s research and work you can click here to be directed to his blog, or click here to go the the Flow Genome website, or here to be directed to the book landing page.