“You! You cannot do that here!” A voice in a stadium of 20,000 people told my friend he was breaking a rule. The man yelling pointed at my friend and sounded angry. A man next to the first saw what he was pointing at—my friend—and pointed and yelled he couldn’t do that here too. Then another, another, and another. Soon a whole section was pointing at him, angrily yelling at[…] Keep reading →

Another coach emailed me about my posts about the bankrupt concepts of introversion and extroversion, which he described as That binary thinking you highlight is the bane of my working life! People who escape from that kind of thinking discover great freedom in their thoughts, which they usually use to create better lifestyles, relationships, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. They also find great tools to lead others. People who don’t escape[…] Keep reading →

For some reason my blog has gotten tons of hits to my post on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, “Secret silly confession.” I don’t know why, but it put it on my mind so now I’m going to write about it more. Also I recently read a would-be humor piece poking fun at people who care about the environment, implying they’re just following trends, want to act holier-than-thou, don’t know[…] Keep reading →

“Do you use your education?” People ask me this question all the time when they hear I got a PhD in physics. I feel like they don’t understand physics or science, at least not like I do. I didn’t either, but I love it more now that I do. What is physics? Look at the world. Everywhere you look are patterns. The sun always rises and sets. The sky is[…] Keep reading →

On a note of remembrance, many years ago, when I lived in Paris, my friend volunteered at the English Language Library for the Blind there. She told me they valued American accents in the readings there and asked if I would read a book for them. I agreed and decided on Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, who died yesterday. The librarian suggested starting with a[…] Keep reading →

Why do you read business books? I’ve asked people that question lately and a common theme runs through their answers. They read business books to improve their performance. They read them to get this feeling, like when the read something like that mastery takes ten thousand hours of dedicated effort: “That’s a useful piece of information [or technique]. Now that I know it I can use it to get ahead.”[…] Keep reading →

Do you have performance reviews at work? Do you want your next one to look great? A great way to make that happen is to get your manager or whoever rates you on your side, motivating them to evaluate you more positively. How do you do that? First, recognize they benefit from you doing well. The better their reports do, the better they do. Even if you think your manager[…] Keep reading →

Exploring and expanding your boundaries and horizons creates freedom and comfort in your life. Doing so can be challenging—“getting out of your comfort zone,” as many put it—but creates results and emotional reward. The more experience you have in it, the more you can lead others to do the same, creating freedom and comfort in their lives. I’ll illustrate the process with some simple diagrams. I find visualizing would-be complex[…] Keep reading →

Here’s my talk at Harvard. I talked about not dwelling on deciding, when appropriate, and instead moving toward execution, a major part of leadership. Someone in the front row recorded it with a small camera, so I hope the casualness of the recording doesn’t distract.