Despite getting lucky that my computer dying ended up with a simple solution (turns out you can put an old hard drive into a different computer and it works fine), seeming to lose something important, which my computer has become to me, helps you realize what’s important and what isn’t. Losing a computer used to paralyze me with fear. Now it’s a problem, but not debilitating. Things might change if[…] Keep reading →

Disaster! My computer won’t start. Can I ask you a favor? Since my password to log into my web page is on the computer and I can’t access my backup hard drive while my apartment renovations finish, as my web guy, you’re my best hope to post something today. I have to meet a client for a full-day coaching session so I can’t work on my computer until tomorrow. Would[…] Keep reading →

Monday I spoke at NYU-Stern with a group called GiveGetWin on Leadership and Entrepreneurship. Judging by the number of attendees who asked questions and went out for drinks with us after, the event went great and they invited me to speak at Harvard today. Sorry for the last-minute notice, but I wasn’t sure I could make it work in my schedule. The details are that I’ll talk about leadership and[…] Keep reading →

Most of your identity is the culmination of the choices you’ve made. You choose all day every day. Many people have trouble making big choices, for some choosing is even debilitating. If you do, you’re holding yourself back from living your life more fully. I used to dwell on decisions too. In my second year of business school I saw many of my classmates dwelling on choices between different job[…] Keep reading →

You’ve probably heard or read about the experimental discovery of gravity waves, a major and historic discovery in science with widespread implications, in the news lately. Understanding those implications is difficult. So is understanding the experiment. What’s not hard to understand is the effect of hearing about the experimental results on someone who does understand its meaning and who explored this part of nature for decades. This video shows the[…] Keep reading →

Welcome to my series on turning rejections into motivations. Click on the Table of Contents entries to the left to read the posts in the series. I’ve learned to view what many people call failure as experience and lack of failure as not experimenting enough. If you avoid failure absolutely, I would guess I would sound annoying to me. Not that I’m special in this way. The entrepreneurial community celebrates[…] Keep reading →

I’ve learned to view what many people call failure as experience and lack of failure as not experimenting enough. If you avoid failure absolutely, I would guess I would sound annoying to me. Not that I’m special in this way. The entrepreneurial community celebrates failure, at least among those who learn from it despite the pain. So do sports and plenty of other places. A major part of my failures[…] Keep reading →

Ordering a burrito the other day the server asked me what “protein” I wanted in it. I got the same question ordering a potato not long before. Has calling food by once-highly scientific terminology become standard? I guess protein has become a standard word. It used to be a scientific word. That means originally almost nobody knew what it meant. I think people still don’t know what it means, but[…] Keep reading →

I see nothing wrong with someone being fat, despite popular conception. Take Mario Batali, for example. He knows a lot about food and I presume about nutrition and something about health. As best I can tell, he loves eating and consciously and deliberately lives a lifestyle that makes him fat. I don’t know him, but I presume he’s happy with his choices. If so, I respect him. Fat people with[…] Keep reading →