Mental toughness.   It's the ability to push through difficult (and even painful) situations while maintaining peak performance. It's what separates the elite from the above average, and is only gained through training and hard work. For entrepreneurs and business owners, it means having the grit you need to get through the hard times, and the presence of mind to avoid getting caught up in the good times.   I recently spoke about mental toughness with LaRae Quy, who...

The cost of being normal is way too high… and the price is steadily rising. Normal people follow directions their entire life, and as a result, end up living the same story as the person sitting in the classroom next to them. Normal people may have a “nice” job, live in a “nice” house, and build a loving family. Normal people need someone to create a schedule for them to come to work. Normal even need someone else (i.e. a “boss”) to set an annual salary...

My preferred working style is to have people in the room with me. I simply love the interaction and the engagement. I work best when I can look folks in the eye as I’m speaking with them. Give me a small group of people, a whiteboard and together we’ll have an energetic, insightful brainstorm that produces great ideas. But here’s my reality: I’m based in Silicon Valley, and I’m responsible for a global team of communications professionals, some who ...

When Polarr CEO Borui Wang began recruiting tech talent for his photo editing startup at the end of 2014, he quickly learned to look beyond his local circle and take the search international. Wang found himself, as others have, dissatisfied with the lack of “product design vision” in a pool of otherwise-supremely-talented, local engineers.   The growth hack to getting past this is to find someone who's both an engineer...

The first time I encountered pain that was enough to take my breath away was in my early twenties. It was shocking, really, as I had spent many years in the gym, competing in bodybuilding contests, running stairs, sprinting and swimming laps with energy that felt like it would never end. The pain in my knees and back put me in bed for days, and the depression was a darkness I don't wish on anyone.   For many years, my identity became that pain. "I have (fill in the blank...