Destin Sandlin thought the task would be simple.

One of his friends had created something he called, “a backwards bike.”

The backwards bike concept is very basic:

1. When you move the handlebars to the left, the bike’s tire goes right.
2. When you move the handlebars to the right, the bike’s tire goes left.

Carl Hart woke up to screams from his parents’ room.

His father had come home from having an affair and his mother chose to retaliate by boiling maple syrup and flinging the burning hot liquid at him. 

She then bolted out the front door into the streets of Miami and fled in a car before the man could get revenge of his own. Carl and his sisters were grateful that she managed to escape, because if he caught her, he would’ve killed her.

New Year’s resolutions….more than half of us make them, but only 8% of us achieve them!

That’s right. 92% of us fail our resolutions for the New Year – and I was no stranger to that list of failures.

But rather than scorn humanity for our lack of follow-through, I wanted to learn what exactly those 8% of successes did differently than the rest of us.

Imagine that you arrive at the office tomorrow stressed and tired. 

You're worried about the responsibilities of the upcoming week, and the New Year is looking like it is going to be hectic. 

Then your boss comes into your office and offers you a promotion. The promotion will come with a $5,000 increase in salary, but it will also require even more work and responsibility.

They were shocked to hear the news.

The hotel maids – all who claimed to be the furthest thing from habitual exercisers – were given the statistics about how many calories they were burning compared to actual habitual exercisers.

Compared to a desk job, hotel maids actually get a lot of exercise. They are constantly moving. The scrubbing, vacuuming, and walking from room-to-room isn’t exactly "intense". But over the course of an 8-hour day, the calories add up.

In fact, they add up to about 900 calories burned every single day! 

As an adult, learning a new language is one of the hardest things to do.

Your brain will always tempt you to do what is easiest and stick to the language you know and understand fluently.

However, improving your English speaking is also incredibly valuable!

It can help you advance in your career.

Allow you to understand more books, music, movies and TV shows.

Help you travel to more places and communicate effectively.

And many more!

That is why you must summon the willpower to immerse yourself in the language and truly master it.

When Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was a mere 7 years of age, he began performing his music in the capitals of Europe.

He would dress up like a court minister and his sister like a princess play music to bedazzled audiences that happily paid to see the youngsters display their marvelous talents. [1]

They drew such large crowds that it was Wolfgang and his sister who supported the family – not their father Leopold who was a court musician and instructor.

In 1997, Michael Dell – founder of Dell Computer – was asked what he would do if he were the head of Apple.

“What would I do? I’d shut it down. And give the money back to the shareholders.” [1]

Apple had seemingly lost all hope. Since kicking its founder, Steve Jobs, out of the company in 1985, it had been through the wringer of CEOs that just did not understand what made Apple special.

But in 1997, with Apple seriously considering selling off its assets, the board offered the original founder his rightful position as head of the company once again.

Even with Steve Jobs back at the controls, things did not look promising.

During one of his many serious contemplations about suicide, Eric Clapton was saved by only one thought.

If he killed himself, he would no longer be able to drink. [1]

He had brief periods of addiction with coke and heroin, but neither of them were as important to him as his relationship with alcohol. After several times in which he seriously thought about ending his life, however, he finally checked himself into rehab.

After completing rehab, he remained sober for several years before one summer day.

All seemed lost for Lisa Allen.

She was overweight, unemployed, clinically depressed and addicted to both alcohol and cigarettes. Her husband had just left her for a younger, more attractive woman and she began stalking the two of them; contemplating violent action.

To make matters even worse, she was standing on over $10,000 in debt without any means of repaying it. Even before her life was completely in shambles, she had never held a job for more than a year. 

She had absolutely nothing going for her in her life. 

e could hardly hold his excitement in. His father was going to come home with 5 year-old Ray Bourque’s first ever pair of ice skates.

Then he laid his eyes on them. They were used, they were old, but they were his! He could hardly contain his excitement. 

Growing up in a poor neighborhood, in an apartment building with siblings stacked from floor to ceiling, he was just so grateful that his father was able to give him skates at all.

He was not going to let them go to waste.

At 24 years of age, Mark Cuban was far from what many would call a success.

“I was living in a 3-bedroom apartment in Dallas. I didn’t have my own bedroom. I slept on the couch or floor depending on what time I got home. I had no closet. Instead I had a pile that everyone knew was mine. My car had the usual hole in the floorboard, a ’77 FIAT X19 that burned a quart of oil that I couldn’t afford every week.”

Until that point, Cuban had been working exclusively in the service industry. His prospects were poor and he was essentially coasting through life. That all changed when Cuban landed a job with Your Business Software – the first retail software store in Dallas.

The year was 1519 and Hernán Cortés, with some 600 Spanish soldiers, had landed on a vast inland plateau called Mexico.

The Span­ish con­quis­ta­dor and his men were about to embark on a con­quest of an empire that hoarded some of the world’s great­est trea­sure. But, with only 600 unarmored men, con­quer­ing an empire as vast as Mexico was a mission that was doomed to fail.

This fact was even more clear when you look at the history of Europeans invading Mexico. Many with more soldiers and more resources had tried and failed to conquer the empire.

So Cortés devised a different strategy.

Where would you be today if you saved just $1/day every day since you graduated from high school? (Assuming a 2% interest rate)

If that was 10 years ago, you’d be $5807 richer.

If that was 20 years ago, you’d $12,887 richer.

If that was 30 years ago, $21,517 richer

And that’s just $1/day!  Those numbers would more than double if you had saved $2/day. 

“Uh Dad, Green Bay isn’t even a city on this Map.”

“Don’t worry, when I’m done with that team, it will be.”

That’s what the legendary coach, Vince Lombardi, told his daughter when he and his family were about to move from New York, to the tiny town of Green Bay, Wisconsin.

In the summer of 1990, Joanne Rowling – better known for her pen name J.K. Rowling – was on a train from Manchester to London when an idea came out of nowhere.

“I could see Harry very clearly. This scrawny little boy. And it was the most physical rush of excitement. I’ve never felt that physical reaction to anything about writing before.”

20 years later, J.K. Rowling became the first billionaire author, ever.

But her journey from that train when Harry Potter was a simple idea, to him being an international icon, written about and seen all over the world, was far from simple or easy.

The town was Framingham, Massachusetts – a simple place in the Northeastern United States with a population of approximately 68,000. It is a lovely town with a mix of old colonial ties and new developments. And in 2012, Framingham was listed by CNN Money Magazine as the 36th best place to live in the United States.

“I have 30 days of oxygen.”

That was what I told myself at the beginning of February. I had enough money to live for another 30 days and that was it. I was broke.

When I started Willpowered in October, I knew that this day was coming. I had a big circle on my calendar for March. March was when I was going to run out of the money I had saved to take the leap and fully commit to Performance Psychology.

Are you a hedgehog or a fox?

In a famous essay by Isaiah Berlin, the 20th century philosopher divided the world into 2 categories of people: Hedgehogs and Foxes. [1]

The fox knows a great many things. He is cunning and smart. He is fast and sneaky. He is willing to try a lot of strategies to beat the hedgehog and win his share of the forest.

The hedgehog, on the other hand, knows one big thing. He is simple. He knows only one strategy but executes it to perfection. Whatever the fox tries, the hedgehog defends himself with what he knows to do best. 

At 21 years of age, Jonah Hill exploded onto the Hollywood scene. His lead role in the comedy Superbad not only made audiences laugh, but also turned him into one of the most beloved comedic actors of his generation.  

It landed him many follow-up roles in movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Funny People and Get Him to the Greek. In each of these movies, Hill played the chubby, jovial, funny guy – a role that he played with brilliance. But in 2011, Hill wanted to mature as an actor and as a person.

Growing up in rural Austria, Arnold Schwarzenegger had very little chance of achieving fame or fortune. His parents were poor and his father was set on Arnold joining the military, then becoming a police officer like him. Arnold, however, had a different idea. 

As a child, he picked up a magazine with Mr. Universe, Reg Park, on the cover as the star of the new movie, Hercules. As Arnold read through the magazine, he the whole plan began to unfold for him. He was going to follow Reg Park’s footsteps, become a body-building champion and a huge movie star.

Recently, I had the pleasure of doing an interview with Lindsey Stutheit of Ditching Dumb. I thoroughly enjoyed the interview  as she asked some great questions about willpower, goals and finding inspiration!

Here is a transcript of the interview: