There is always a third party of some kind at the root of the conflicts in your life. Conflicts with others are an inevitable part of your life and career. When you analyze the conflicts in your life, you will often find that they are unjustified and created by others rather than by your own internal issues. When you identify a conflict in your life, determine whether the source is internal or external to you; once you identify the source, you will be able to quickly resolve these conflicts and remove impediments to your own career.

While Athens prioritized culture and intellectualism, the people of Sparta devoted themselves to simplicity and discipline. You need to approach your job search as a Spartan, not an Athenian; don’t retreat from the negative aspects of your life and current job, but rather make them work for you and remain focused on your success.

In this article Harrison explains how your beliefs are controlling what is happening to you. Due to our early life experiences, almost all of us develop beliefs about who we are and our relationship to the world. These beliefs end up controlling how we evaluate ourselves in relation to the world. Most of us are acting and going through life largely unconscious to what we believe about ourselves. People want their experience of the world to be consistent with what they believe. The drive for this is so strong that people will do almost everything to be right about their beliefs. The key to a successful career and life is to start choosing what to believe about the world and about yourself. You need to manage your mind and understand how your beliefs about yourself, the world and the people around you are controlling your destiny.

In this article Harrison talks about the external and internal world. We have some–but certainly nowhere near total control over what happens in the external world. However, we do have control over the internal world. The internal world is comprised of our own emotions, how we think and feel about those events that occur in the external world. It is important that we do everything within our power to control our internal worlds. We should guard our internal world and take care to use it for ourselves, and not against ourselves. Problems are always going to be there. You can’t always stop them. What you can control, however, is your response to the problems that come up. Your nature of response is a key indicator to your control over your internal world and ultimately to your happiness and well being.