Doing business based on a handshake with someone you share mutual trust and working habits is such a joy. Working relationships like that rank with the best relationships you can have. Trust, as I don’t have to tell you, can take years to build but you can lose it in seconds, sometimes impossible to rebuild. Today I’m not going to talk about lessons. Only to commiserate on how awful doing[…] Keep reading →

I met with a friend I’ve known over a quarter-century. Like everyone, we’re getting older. You can see the younger person you first met in them. You’re reminded of your aging too. So I’ll share a few thoughts. If you’re a younger reader and this doesn’t resonate yet, one day it will. First, aging has become my main source of learning acceptance and celebration — recalling my tenet that anything[…] Keep reading →

I’ve noticed this pattern: People who suck at things tell you how awesome they are. People who are awesome at things tell you about the disasters they went through to get their skills. And those stories are usually funny, though you can feel the pain they must have felt when they happened. I think it happens more among geeky types, which I know a lot of and am one, but[…] Keep reading →

Here’s how to never look back at your life with regret. Do what you love. Conserve resources as much as you can so you don’t get distracted from what you love. Stick with it until you’re done. Ignore people who tell you to do something more reasonable. Be confident knowing that if you love it, others will love it too. Not everyone, but enough to form community. Then when you[…] Keep reading →

Wired Magazine recently published a piece by Bill Gates called “Here’s My Plan to Improve Our World — And How You Can Help.” He wrote 40 percent of Earth’s population is alive today because, in 1909, a German chemist named Fritz Haber figured out how to make synthetic ammonia. Another example: Polio cases are down more than 99 percent in the past 25 years, not because the disease is going[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday I wrote about how leadership creates community, which, if you persevere, leads to living freely and by your values and experiencing deep emotional reward. Your life improves by doing so. It creates effects I can only call problems, but they are problems you want to have because they help you learn and grow even more. The “problem” with knowing how to make your dreams come true — in making[…] Keep reading →

Remember when I wrote “You can’t “create your world” but you can do better“? I’ve been meaning to expand on this aspect of leading your community. The more you learn to lead, the more you can make your community how you want it. The more you do so, the more your behavior, thoughts, and beliefs take on two properties. You behave, think, and believe more freely and more by your[…] Keep reading →

People talk about things being right, wrong, good, or bad as if these properties had absolute or objective standards. They don’t and it matters to leaders and anyone else trying to influence someone with different values. If you want to motivate someone you disagree with and you call them wrong or bad, you can bet they don’t consider themselves wrong or bad. They consider themselves right and good. Your suggesting[…] Keep reading →

As part of this page’s new functionality, today I introduce its first series: “Communication skills exercises for business and life.” Click the link to view the series as a single page where you can jump between posts without losing the page or having to reload it. Posts in that series rank among the most read on this page. If you haven’t read them and you want to improve your social[…] Keep reading →