At least once every three to four weeks, my telephone rings with a call from someone I know looking to make money selling something on the Internet. For the most part, these calls are from people looking to sell books, courses, personal membership sites, horoscopes, mortgages, credit cards and other associated products. Some of these people are well known, others are not.

Crisis is among the most challenging things that anyone can face, and many people cannot cope and fail in the face of it. To survive in the midst of a crisis, look to the future. Doing so will make you feel more confident about your current situation. Crises can force you to reexamine your life, and make you seek out potential opportunities. The future can always be better than the present or past, and focusing on the future can be incredibly positive and guide you out of what may have been a rut.

In any given situation, you must consistently do 10% more than those around you; this is the essence of optimization, a vital tool for career success. Self-optimization changes everything, and is one of the best ways to improve in anything you do. Even seemingly minor changes can yield major results, so pay attention to the details.

In this article Harrison discusses the importance of goal setting. Goal setting is the single most important aspect of your career. When you look at people who are at the top of their game in sports, entertainment, business and other pursuits, you’ll generally find they’ve set goals in an outstanding way. Most successful people manage their goals in a similar way. Whether you want to be President of the United States, a first class parent, the fastest runner in the world, the head of your organization, or you simply want to feel happy and fulfilled, there are certain scientific goal setting principles you can follow to take you precisely where you want to go. Goal setting is a profound discipline. Our success, the success of entire companies and even the success of entire countries comes down to how well goals are set.

The people we meet come from all different backgrounds; they live their lives according to facts that may not make sense or appear to be true. People are unlikely to change each other’s minds about their respective core beliefs. One of the biggest mistakes is opposing people from believing whatever they want. You will experience far more success by stepping back and allowing people to follow their own beliefs without questioning them.

Do not be a dabbler, or someone who turns away in the face of stress; the secret to long-term happiness is to instead confront and push through these stress factors. Do not be discouraged by difficulties, but find ways to persist and deal with the stress. Confronting problems head-on is the key to improvement, and will take you much further than the dabblers who fail to approach their careers with commitment.

In this article Harrison discusses the role of self-motivation and self management. Self-motivated and self managed people always perform well. In contrast people who are forced to follow massive amounts of procedures and rules can never perform. It is important that our rituals and sense of responsibility is internal, and something we learn to do naturally–not something we only do when it is imposed on us by people on the outside. The best people in every job are self- managed and responsible individuals. Also, the more self-managed people there are working for an organization, the stronger the organization generally is. Instead of creating problems in the workplace, you should seek out responsibilities, and ritualize your work routine. These responsibilities will drive you forward in your daily work, in your career, and in your life.