LATEST BLOG POSTS

I’m pleased to appear on Dan Zehner’s Anthem of the Adventurer podcast. In a refreshing diversion from most of my recent podcast appearances, we talk about adventure, challenge, growth, and how to create them. Click to his site or listen below: His notes describe our conversation well: Episode Summary Today, we talk with Josh Spodek, who lives a life full of adventure while teaching at NYU. He’s got some amazing[…] Keep reading →

I met some friends in Central Park today — teammates I went to college nationals with in 1989 — to throw a disc around. I started walking there from my place in Greenwich Village just past noon. We tossed until about 3:30, then I went food shopping (at the 4th Street Coop), and walked home from the Lower East Side. It was in the low 80s and sunny. I put[…] Keep reading →

People say they value diversity. Business school leadership classes taught me that diversity of opinions in decision-making processes led to better outcomes, though the diversity introduced into that process produced divisive conflict. I didn’t ask the professors for the research they based their teaching on, but it’s consistent with my experience. But there is a greater issue than that conflict. I suggest to people things like, “If you want diversity,[…] Keep reading →

Mark and my second conversation it about happiness, pleasure, meaning, and purpose, though it sounds like it’s about personal growth, food, and environment. In our first conversation, he didn’t really connect on the environment at the start. This time you’ll hear it resonates with him, largely through health and food. I see the pattern over and over: people protect themselves from saying the environment means much to them but when[…] Keep reading →

Outside the MBA world, not everyone knows McKinsey. Within it, and at the upper echelons of business and government, McKinsey advises some of the largest and most influential organizations, including governments and the world’s largest companies. If a company wants useful advice, it has to share everything, which means McKinsey is privy to the secrets of the most influential people and companies. McKinsey is hierarchical. After business school people start[…] Keep reading →

For at least 20 years, I always had ice cream in my freezer and pretzels or potato chips in my cupboard. Somewhere inside, I knew I didn’t want them. I told myself I couldn’t help buying and eating them, but I could. I didn’t stop. When I bought them, I would tell myself why buying them was okay, even though I thought I shouldn’t. How addicts think Addicts tell themselves[…] Keep reading →

We’ve seen pictures of heavy pollution like this in Beijing: We’ve seen similar images for New Delhi, Mexico City, and so on. When I talk to people about polluting less, many talk about situations like them and suggest the third world has to clean up more than we do. Concentrations of pollution as high as in the picture above result from geography, like being in a valley where pollution can’t[…] Keep reading →