One of the big reasons I admire athletes is that they have to perform. In front of stadiums filled with people, they have to be excellent on a schedule. To make that happen, they must be in a regular program of stretching their abilities. Pushing farther. Going beyond.

But for most of us, after high school or college, we actively avoid pushing ourselves. After that last final exam, we quietly vow we’ll never stretch quite that far again.  But you’ll never achieve your best without taking the risk of embarrassment or humiliation.

What do you need to do to take your life or career to the next level?  Become a confident public speaker? Learn another language? Increase your computer skills? Be comfortable speaking in front of difficult audiences?

The difference between pros and amateurs? Amateurs wait for inspiration, but pros just get to work.

Whatever it is, the time to start is now.  This is your wake up call. Stretch. Take a risk. Crawl out...

Today, we live in a creative economy, and the best ideas are king. Even businesses like banks, manufacturing, and service industries are all realizing the importance of creativity. So if you desire to live out a creative career, there’s no better time to be alive than right now. But the problem is, as any veteran creative professional will tell you, ideas are fragile. They often come and go without warning, and if we don’t have a good system for capturing those ideas, then we’ll never benefit from having them in the first place.

I’ve spent a lot of time working out various systems for making sure those creative ideas in my head actually have the best chance of execution. After years of different methods, here’s the system I use now. Keep in mind that you don’t have to copy the way I do it – or the way anyone else does it. The important thing is do develop a system that works for you.

The key is the realization that our memory is...