The context: an organization is considering hiring you, maybe as an employee, maybe as a consultant or freelancer, maybe just to collaborate. The challenge: if you read my blog, you don’t just want a job where you punch a clock. You want to contribute meaningfully, meaning your vision extends beyond the immediate task they’re thinking about. The conflict: if you don’t talk about your vision, you don’t know how well[…] Keep reading →

Last week I led a webinar for Ivy Exec. They posted the video on their blog, “Great Leaders Inspire from Within“. Check it out!

You can learn a lot from a cherry. Enjoying my first half-pound of these sweet, tangy, juicy wonders of nature of the season reminded me how much nature teaches us about life. Sorry to my southern hemisphere readers. “Multitasking” makes you do multiple things poorly. Focusing on one thing gives you quality. I was about to start reading while eating. But wait! Why would I allow something to divert my[…] Keep reading →

Nobody likes feeling judged when they didn’t ask for it. We like people to support us. We know others don’t like feeling judged either. Yet we all feel like we judge others. When someone walks into a room we judge what they wear, whom they’re with, how they act, and so on. When we walk into a room we decide who we consider worth talking to and who doesn’t. When[…] Keep reading →

Science Magazine’s daily web page, reported research that “Lectures Aren’t Just Boring, They’re Ineffective, Too, Study Finds.” I agree, especially after decades of learning from teachers lecturing on me compared with inquiry-driven project-based learning, which I wrote about recently, “Inquiry-driven project-based learning rocks!,” and have been learning about for years. I shared the following on an online discussion about that article. I used inquiry-driven project-based learning — https://joshuaspodek.com/inquiry-driven-project-based-learnin… — to[…] Keep reading →

The scene: Greenwich Village, crossing the street to my building. A windy rainy spring afternoon. I’m hurrying home. As I cross the street I see a woman, maybe in her 70s, about five feet tall, struggling with an umbrella in the wind. She also has a cane and a handbag. Three things, two hands, and wind. I stop, turn around and ask her if she could use a hand. Yes,[…] Keep reading →

If you don’t know about General Assembly, you should. They started as an incubator for startups in New York, then found offering courses met a larger demand and transformed into an educational institution and community, now all over the country, Europe, and Asia. Very exciting, dynamic, entrepreneurial, and building community. They’ve invited me to speak on leadership next Thursday in Manhattan, 6:30-8pm. Below is the announcement of the event. I[…] Keep reading →

Remember I found a guy in England who did a one-year burpee “ladder” in my post “A burpee brother?” A burpee ladder means one burpee on the first day, two on the second, three on the third. A one-year ladder means you go until you do 365 on the last day for a total of almost 70,000 in the year. I’ve meant to do 365 burpees in a day since[…] Keep reading →

Referrals help get things done. After all, your network is often your greatest asset in any project and referrals increase your network. More valuable than a single referral is someone who will refer you again—a goose that lays golden eggs. You want people like that in your world and you want them motivated to refer you more. Sometimes people get so enamored with a new connection they forget what created[…] Keep reading →