An actor told me about a time he forgot his line on Broadway in front of about a thousand people, some who paid hundreds of dollars for their seats. He was in his forties and had acted for decades. Still, sometimes you forget your lines. What do you do when a thousand people are watching you and you don’t know what to say? Most of us have faced not knowing[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on the Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity (SIDCHA). If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Here are two videos of people who learned to dance by doing it every day. So much more photogenic than burpees and writing here daily. I don’t know[…] Keep reading →

A reader responded to “Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms” to describe the idea already in action in San Francisco: Hello Joshua, I want to share with you the concept of property and business improvement districts and how one in San Francisco beautified the plaza around the Castro Street subway station. I’m sharing this as a real-world example you might find interesting. The gist is that a[…] Keep reading →

A few years ago some TV producers almost picked me to be on their reality show. In the process they asked me what music I wanted them to play to represent me when I walked on camera. I came up with the songs below. With all I write about creating emotions, how have I not written about music, one of the greatest ways to create emotion? I guess because I[…] Keep reading →

Here’s another post in my Genius Business Idea series. My goal in this series is to show how entrepreneurial opportunities are everywhere, contrary to the common myth people who say they want to start a venture but don’t: that they haven’t found a great idea yet. This project is challenging, more for bureaucratic reasons than technical, but there is ample precedent of people overcoming similar challenges in New York. Read[…] Keep reading →

Once in college, where floor living means shared bathrooms, as I brushed my teeth, a guy walked up to the sink next to me, turned on the water full blast, calmly brushed his teeth as gallons of water flowed out the faucet completely unused, and then, on finishing brushing, turned the water back off. A lot of people live this way. I can’t believe people live that way. I mean,[…] Keep reading →

This clip wonderfully shows the effects of feeling understood about a passion—that is, a powerful emotion. You see how cathartic it feels for the person sharing the passion and how important it is for someone leading the person. Context: In a long interview, Dustin Hoffman is talking about the challenges of growing up under a stern father and how he escaped through movies, which evolved into acting. He starts to[…] Keep reading →

The more I teach and coach leadership and entrepreneurship, the more I see them as sets of behavioral skills anyone can learn. Behaving in certain ways results in people choosing to follow you. Behave otherwise and they won’t. There’s no magic to it. The question isn’t if you can behave like effective leaders do. The question is if you choose to learn and if you find effective learning technique. Your[…] Keep reading →

Over beers a colleague raised my eyebrows by beginning a sentence with, “So I walked in the Oval Office…” like walking in the Oval Office was just a casual thing everyone does at some point. It turns out he acted as a science advisor for two Presidents. And not just a meeting with a cabinet member here or there, but regular meetings lasting more than an hour. I decided to[…] Keep reading →