We all want to be successful and have the potential to succeed. However, many of us have had to fight limiting beliefs about success since we were children. Those beliefs may have been introduced by the education system, religion, cultural norms or, even our own parents.

Before I decided to quit my job as a business consultant and become an entrepreneur, I knew I had to overcome my own limiting beliefs. I knew my desire to succeed would not be enough as long as I did not root out the fears and misconceptions that clouded my judgement.

“Michael, do you know how I know that you’re going to be a huuuuuuge success? Because you’re too GdD#$n stupid to understand that you shouldn’t be doing what you’re doing!”

I first heard this loving declaration from my friend and mentor Tom Cain 25 years ago during my first year in business.

I had just returned from presenting to the executive board of Container Corporation of America and remember mustering a weak and confused “thanks?” to Tom’s comment.

Before you ask, yes, it’s true: one entrepreneur (and his founding team) was able to grow his business by 57,000 percent in just three years. His name is Tom Bilyeu. You may have munched on a few of his Quest bars before.

You might not hear his name as often as you hear Richard Branson’s or Elon Musk’s, but he’s certainly accomplished; Bilyeu’s company, Quest Nutrition, is the second fastest-growing private business in the U.S. Bilyeu also founded Epigenix, a nonprofit organization that works to reverse genetic disease through proper diet, targeted exercise and other modern techniques. "Inside Quest," Bilyeu’s online show, discusses transformation and passion with successful masterminds like Gabrielle Reece, Russell Simmons and Tony Robbins.

When I left my high-paying job at a successful private equity firm in San Francisco, I broke "the rules." For the first time in my life, I felt free but also very afraid. It’s every financial professional’s dream to become a partner at a private equity firm where the compensation can amount to tens of millions in a lifetime. But me? I left the partner track to move to Tulsa. No, that's not a typo. My fifth generation Native American roots were still there in my hometown where my parents had raised me 20 years before. 

Here's my pet peeve when staying at hotels: I hate having to get up in the middle of the night to adjust the thermostat. But the thing is, I really need the room to be the right temperature to get a good night's sleep. Between a cold room and thick, fluffy blankets, it's easy to be off by a few degrees. Then I'm wide awake, fiddling with various knobs on the wall or calling the receptionist to figure out why it's so darn chilly in here.

Image: https://www.fastcompany.com

EDMONTON, Alta. Aug. 23, 2016/ Troy Media/ – Urbanization may finally reach its peak as one of the most persistent economic trends in modern civilization reverses course.

There are some gigantic cities in today’s world. Tokyo-Yokohama, with 37.8 million residents, is the world’s largest metropolitan area by population. But it’s not alone. The much faster growing Jakarta, Indonesia, has 30 million people, while Delhi, India, and Manila, Philippines, both have 24 million.

Perhaps the most remarkable urbanization movement in history is underway in China. Shanghai, China’s largest city, has seen its population explode to 23.4 million. Beijing is not far behind at 21 million. And there are thousands of smaller cities in China with populations that dwarf major cities in Canada.

BOSTON, Aug. 23, 2016 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Twenty accomplished female life sciences executives will comprise the first ever cohort of Women In Bio’s Boardroom Ready program, the organization announced today. The women will spend five days this fall at George Washington University completing a new executive-level board certification training program to prepare them to join corporate Boards of Directors.

Women In Bio (WIB), an organization of professionals committed to promoting careers, leadership, and entrepreneurship of women in the life sciences, announced the new program in June and received over 70 applications from executives for 20 available seats in the initial class.

BOULDER — Jim Moscou is bullish on Boulder and the city’s innovation economy. Formerly a journalist for publications such as Newsweek and U.S. News & World Report and now a tech startup founder in the natural and organic industry, he’s been calling Boulder home off and on for the past two decades. Before founding Spiffly last year, he served as CEO of Sir Richard’s Condom Co. and as a managing director and strategist for advertising giant Crispin Porter + Bogusky. “I always tell people the American West is alive and well,” Moscou said Tuesday. “This has been a place for hundreds of years where people come to reinvent themselves.”

That doesn’t mean Boulder’s innovation economy isn’t facing some real challenges at a time when it seems the city’s brand has never been more amplified. In particular, Moscou points out the difficulty for startups to land funding in Boulder compared with larger innovation hubs such as Silicon Valley, as well as the competition for talent as the price of housing soars and nearby Denver gains its own reputation as a tech hub.

There's something missing from the conversation about lifelong learning. Many of us already know we'll need to absorb new knowledge and pick up new skills in order to stay competitive in the future job market. But it's still easy to forget that that will mean forgetting—or rather, unlearning—the skills, habits, and ideas that got us where we are. This is a process psychologists call "proactive interference," and while you may have no trouble forgetting where you left your house keys, unlearning old data and ways of doing things isn't quite so automatic. Here's why, and what discarding old habits really takes.

Image: Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Detroit Publishing Company Collection,LC-D420-2003

Most people won’t admit it, but we size up other people's characters all the time. In fact, research suggests that it takes just 30 seconds to make up our minds about someone’s intelligence and personality (we make other assessments even faster) and that these evaluations are surprisingly accurate.

In one study, researchers showed participants short videos of different couples interacting, and participants were able to detect which individuals had cheated on their partners.

Image: Flickr user Holly Lay

Brooklyn Bridge Ventures founder Charlie O’Donnell pulled out a basketball to show the Observer during a recent visit to his office in Gowanus. It’s the special basketball sold by DribbleUp, which analyzes a users ball handling with an iOS app. “It’s really hard to monetize apps,” O’Donnell said. “It’s not hard to monetize basketballs.”

He used DribbleUp, founded by a team from Midwood, as an example of how good first-time founders in New York City have become. O’Donnell said he was impressed when he met its co-founders by how many players in the local ecosystem they already knew about. “The really dumb mistakes of newbie entrepreneurs 10 years ago, you’re not seeing those,” he said.

The Business Development Bank of Canada revealed its fiscal 2016 results, boasting that it delivered its services to a “record number” of entrepreneurs.

In total, BDC committed $4.8 billion in loans to entrepreneurs for the period ending March 31, 2016 — up from $4.7 billion last year. BDC’s total portfolio now stands at $26 billion committed to at least 42,000 direct and indirect clients. The bank earned $537.7 million in net income, up from $490.7 million in fiscal 2015. BDC will pay a dividend of $68.6 million to the Government of Canada. Profits earned will be reinvested in BDC’s financing operations.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Singapore is reviewing the rules for venture capital firms as it attempts to draw more capital to the country’s financial technology startups, according to the head of Singapore’s central bank. Though Singapore rivals other major fintech centers such as Silicon Valley, London or New York in terms of startup activity and innovation, it still lags behind in terms of the firms’ access to capital, said Ravi Menon, managing director of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

Over the last decade or so startup accelerators have been a great source of inspiration, education, connections and capital for new companies. Y-Combinator, the granddaddy of them all started on March 11, 2005. Since then, just this one accelerator has churned out over a thousand new companies

Unicorns like Uber, DropBox, and AirBnB got their start in accelerators and now they have valuations rivaling high-profile companies that have been operating for generations.

Image: http://rcubedgroup.com

After decades of inconclusive results, researchers backed by Pfizer and Massachusetts General Hospital revealed that they had identified several genetic markers associated with depression earlier this month. It was the largest study of its kind, using data from more than 120,000 people.

In February, a new paper explored the role that genetics plays on an individual being a morning person or a night owl, and in April another study looked at resilience to Mendelian childhood diseases, such as cystic fibrosis.

Image: Unsplash user Daniel Alvarez Sanchez Diaz

Last week, a group of Googlers did something strange: They quietly revealed a new operating system that theoretically competes with Google's own Android OS.

Dubbed Fuchsia, the open-source OS-in-progress could run on everything from lightweight, single-purpose devices (think ATMs and GPS units) all the way up to desktop computers. But unlike Android, Fuchsia isn't based on Linux, nor is it derived from any of the other software that underpins nearly all personal computing and communications today. Instead, it's an attempt to start from scratch.

Image: Flickr user Adikos

A Johns Hopkins professor is in elite innovation company.

The MIT Technology Review honored engineering professor Muyinatu A. Lediju Bell as one of its 35 Innovators Under 35. Previous honorees include folks you’ve probably heard of like Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Larry Page and Jonathan Ive.

The 32-year-old was honored in the inventor category, and the Review noted that her work is centered around “what makes some ultrasound images blurry.” Here’s how JHU describes Bell’s work, which cuts across disciplines and technologies:

Image: Johns Hopkins engineering professor Muyinatu Lediju Bell. - courtesy of Johns Hopkins University

As the price of healthcare rises and safety lapses persist, developed countries are seeking ways to lower costs and improve quality. Many are finding the solution in digital innovation.

Health systems in developed countries face a twofold challenge: ensuring financial sustainability and improving quality. Digitization can help health systems achieve both these objectives and unlock substantial value through lower spending and superior healthcare delivery.

Before we start, long time readers know, we have no interest in trying to influence your political views or voting allegiance (not that we could). So please don't look for "hidden meanings" or agendas.  If we have something to convey, we will come right out and say it.   

We could have done several SBIR Insiders over the eight weeks, but none of them would have had much value because every time I thought we had something important to report, the story would change and the relevance of the Insider issue would have been moot.  

I don't want to burden you with a bunch of tripe, so let's get on with it. 

Young companies created nearly all of the 1.6 million net new jobs in Australia from 2003 to 2014, new research shows.

Large firms created more jobs but also shed more jobs, making little contribution to total employment at the end of the 11-year period, research by the federal Department of Industry shows.

Image: Department of Industry, Innovation and Science secretary Glenys Beauchamp said Australia lags badly in global innovation surveys and trails other rich economies in other key areas. Vince Caligiuri