Education

Education / Nature

In honor of the author of one of the great books of science of the twenty-first century

I wrote about the book, Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, before. I consider it one of the best science books in recent times and recommend it to anyone. The author recently died and his publisher posted the following (I only copied the text. You have to go to the original site for the pictures). I know most people won't read about science, but I hope reposting this motivates some people to read the book, which is available by free download. David JC MacKay: a publisher's memories of a remarkable man and his remarkable book In 2008 UIT Cambridge published David MacKay's book, Sustainable Energy - without the hot air. I have worked with him as editor and publisher and known him as a…

May 5, 2016

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 4

Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Leadership / Models

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 4

Here is an interview with a student who took my online leadership course, Chris, a born salesman and entrepreneur. Hear how the leadership course increased his business while calming his life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzm7iL6reFY Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

May 3, 2016

Education / Entrepreneurship / Events / Exercises

See me in Princeton, May 12: “How To Think and Act Entrepreneurially (even if you never have before)”

I'm speaking at the Princeton Tech Meetup, May 12, 6:45pm. My last talks at Princeton got lots of positive feedback. Register here! From the site: Become an entrepreneur or intrapraneur in straightforward, manageable steps based on Josh's popular and highly experiential course at New York University. This seminar will give you the blueprint to start an operating business with little or no experience, creating a community of supportive people, including valuable members of your target field, vested in your success. Unlike other entrepreneurship courses, this one does not require you to come in with a big idea—or any idea at all. Josh will show how generating ideas is a skill that can be learned and practiced, and that the idea of a lifetime can come…

May 2, 2016

Education / Inc.com / Leadership / Relationships / Stories

Six Lessons I Learned at Lunch With the Best Leader in America

My post on Inc.com today, "Six Lessons I Learned at Lunch With the Best Leader in America," begins Six Lessons I Learned at Lunch With the Best Leader in America Experience trumps everything in leadership and she has more than you do. From the Girl Scouts to the White House. IsÂ Alan Mulally, former CEO of Ford, whose stock price went upÂ 18 timesÂ under his watch, a fair judge of good leadership?Â How aboutÂ Peter Drucker, the "founder of modern management"?Â How aboutÂ Marshall Goldsmith, named the #1 leadership thinker in the world in 2015? If we can accept them as reasonable judges, they all named Frances Hesselbein--advisor to the U.S. Military Academy atÂ West Point,Â fourteen-yearÂ CEO of the Girl Scouts, holder of almost two dozen honorary degrees, and more--as the best leader…

April 29, 2016

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 3

Awareness / Education / Exercises / Freedom / Habits / Leadership / Nonjudgment

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 3

Here is an interview with a student who took my online leadership course, Isabeaux, an undergraduate at NYU who hadn't taken an experiential course before, which initially threw her, before she came to find it led to more growth than she'd ever seen, despite going to an elite university. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fxo-msa9dGQ Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

April 28, 2016

Video: What an entrepreneurship course can deliver, part 2

Education / Entrepreneurship / Models / Relationships

Video: What an entrepreneurship course can deliver, part 2

Here is an interview with a student who took my online entrepreneurship course, RJ, who is an undergraduate at NYU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9B7ds-Z1jUA Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

April 25, 2016

Video: What my entrepreneurship course, leadership course, and sidchas can deliver

Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises

Video: What my entrepreneurship course, leadership course, and sidchas can deliver

Here is an interview with a client who did the exercises in my online entrepreneurship course and my online leadership course. He also created sidchas in his life and did them with diligence and dedication. Among other things, he recently checked off a major life goal of finishing his first marathon. Then a second about a week later! ... less than a year after founding a new company. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBs4TqOl3Us Reach your potential in business and life. What he achieved for himself you can too for yourself. My courses will help. They don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and…

April 23, 2016

Op/Ed Friday: Science and technology does not equal innovation

Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship / Visualization

Op/Ed Friday: Science and technology does not equal innovation

I came across the infographic below and disagree with how it categorizes innovation and how it draws its conclusions. It categorizes innovation by "marketable contributions to technology-intensive industries as award-winning innovators and international patent applications." Then it concludes we should support STEM more. I agree we should support STEM more, to have a more educated population. They haven't supported their conclusion at all. I consider myself innovative. With a PhD in physics and having helped build a satellite successfully working in space I consider myself educated in science, technology, engineering, and math. I have met many scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. Very few of them have done what I would consider innovation. I have also met many non-STEM people and found them innovative. Huge innovations come…

April 22, 2016

Education / Exercises / Leadership / Models / Stories

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 2

Here is an interview with a student who is taking my online leadership course, Ellen, who is an entrepreneur who recently sold her latest business. As you'll see, she is also finding that the lessons she's learning apply to other deeply challenging areas in life.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnblmP_VlHg Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

April 21, 2016

Video: What an entrepreneurship course can deliver, part 1

Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises

Video: What an entrepreneurship course can deliver, part 1

Here is an interview with a student who took my online entrepreneurship course, Sofia, who is an entrepreneur in Greece and got her Masters degree in Technology Management at NYU. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH2jabUGdMk Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

April 19, 2016

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 1

Education / Exercises / Leadership / Models

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 1

Here is an interview with a student who took my online leadership course, Bethany, who is an Associate Partner at IBM and has an MBA from Columbia Business School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoL4zWav8Hw Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

April 18, 2016

Education / Entrepreneurship / Leadership

If you think business is about money, people will control you with it. If you offer value, they’ll want to hire you.

If you think business is about money, people will control you with it. If you want money and they have it, you'll do what they want. What do you think looking for a job is? It's finding people with money and asking them what you can do for them. It reminds me of a student of mine at NYU who came to me asking for referrals for a job. After a short conversation explaining that I didn't find that method of looking for a job helpful, I suggested doing something to give to a community. We decided to organize a panel with panelists from the community she wanted work in. Organizing the panel would give her reasons to talk to people in the community but,…

April 12, 2016

Hustling

Education / Entrepreneurship / Leadership / Models / Stories / Visualization

Hustling

What do you do when they cancel your flight? In the late 70s, a man and his fiancÃ©e were visiting the Caribbean. They found themselves stranded in an airport when their airline canceled their flight to Puerto Rico. The man was disappointed, but based on his experience running a record business that he had founded, he took initiative to solve the problem. Noticing other people from the same flight were also stranded, he called a chartering company to find the cost to charter a plane. $2,000. He agreed to charter it. He divided that cost by two less than the number of seats in the plane, wrote a sign to show that price for a seat on a chartered plane to Puerto Rico, walked around…

April 9, 2016

Education / Exercises

How to teach, or how I teach

I've written before how I avoid lecturing. Instead of trying to give students the answers, which lecturing does, I try to give them experiences that will lead them to discover the answers for themselves. Instead of organizing a syllabus around the how to order presenting information, I organize it around exercises and projects. I find that when students discovers an answer, they remember it longer, know how to apply it, and feel more motivated to continue.

April 8, 2016

Education / Perception / Relationships / Tips

Use fewer words

Extra words water down what you say. "Go ahead and..." for example. People with lower status use more words to say the same thing. People who feel insecure keep talking and explaining more than they need. I think people are afraid of implying they're equal to people they see above them. Is that what you want for yourself? Speak more succinctly and see if weathering the challenge leads you to grow.

April 7, 2016

Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Tips

Want to Succeed as an Entrepreneur? Learn This One Lesson From ‘The Martian’

My Inc. article today "Want to Succeed as an Entrepreneur? Learn This One Lesson From 'The Martian'," begins Want to Succeed as an Entrepreneur? Learn This One Lesson From 'The Martian' Think The Martian was about solving technology problems? Those were the details. You missed the big picture that ties it all together. Though engineers andÂ space aficionadosÂ probablyÂ loved The Martian, entrepreneurs had the most to love and learn. We got the forest. Everyone else got trees. It wasn't special effects. It wasn't references to getting to Mars soonerÂ or feeling like you were there. In fact, the most exciting parts--where Matt Damon's character solved each engineering challenge, handling the teamwork challenges of rescuing him, the space walks--only built the foundation for the story's biggest lesson. Most viewers…

April 6, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Entrepreneurship / Leadership

My courses will lead students to leave traditional, lecture-based universities — to greater success and reward

I loved university. Studying physics, universities are about the only places to learn it. I value university for many things. They do a lot of valuable things better than any other institution or alternatives---the hard sciences, for example. It's not right for everyone and it does some things terribly. Places other than universities do some non-academic activities so much better than school. Experiential learning---how I teach leadership, entrepreneurship, sales, and hustling---is so much more effective at teaching leadership, entrepreneurship, sales, and hustling, than traditional, lecture-based education, that you could consider the latter counterproductive. Moreover, experiential courses where students create major projects can sometimes lead them to their life's great passion. I spoke with such a guy the other day. The first experiential class he took…

March 30, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Entrepreneurship / Fitness / Models / Perception / Relationships

I’ve been catching up my whole life

School Doing a gratitude exercise recently, writing my undergraduate advisor who helped me figure out how to major in physics starting my second semester junior year. Physics is intense so most of my classmates were younger, having known their major since high school. So academically, I was catching up with classmates from when I chose my major. I just finished the major in my last semester and got into Penn for graduate school, so I felt caught up. Graduate school brought a new level of classmates. Many of them came from abroad, where their educational systems had them take only math and science classes from fifteen or sixteen years old. Some of them had taken forty math and science classes. Columbia is a liberal arts…

March 29, 2016

Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Tips

Overview of my experiential course in entrepreneurial thinking and behavior

How does a course get student reviews like these? "This is one of the greatest classes I have ever taken. It was engaging, thought provoking, challenging, and fun. Josh is an incredible teacher, mentor, and friend to everyone in the class who is passionate about the subject matter. If I could take this class all over again, I would" — "10/10 would take again! I loved every second of this class, but what's cooler, is that I think I may have loved the homework even more." — "As a senior, this was the first course that challenged me, asking me to think outside my comfort zones. Yet, it is also where I developed a strong network of supporters through group projects." — "I cannot even…

March 24, 2016

Education / Exercises

The problem with business and personal development books, inadvertently described in the New Yorker

This week's New Yorker's article reviewing a book on personal and professional development was annoying and snarky, but revealed the problem with books on professional and personal development. The book the article reviews, whose name doesn't matter for this post, has a format that's familiar in contemporary nonfiction: exemplary tales interpolated with a little social and cognitive science. The purpose of the tales is to create entertaining human-interest narratives; the purpose of the science is to help the author pick out a replicable feature of those narratives for readers to emulate. The article then complains that the book mainly points out common sense, like determination and focus help. The problem is not repeating common sense. What seems common to one person, another is hearing for…

March 23, 2016

Learn Feedforward with me in London, Monday March 14!

Education / Events / Exercises / Leadership / Nonjudgment

Learn Feedforward with me in London, Monday March 14!

Want to learn and practice one of the most effective leadership techniques? Then join me for a workshop, Monday, March 14th at 6:30pm. Click here to register! I look forward to seeing you there. From the announcement: Feedforward by Professor Joshua Spodek Interesting Talks is incredibly excited to welcomeÂ Joshua Spodek. Joshua is professor at New York University and is visiting London. We are lucky enough to have him speak at our group. This will set out FAST! We are truly honoured to have a speaker of this stature visit our group. Feedforward by Professor Joshua SpodekÂ What if you could remove the conflict and fear from performance reviews, instead making them positive and mutually productive? Some 30 years ago, the renowned executive coach Marshall Goldsmith…

March 11, 2016

Webinar: How to Make Meaningful Connections, Sunday 1pm EST

Education / Leadership / Relationships / Tips

Webinar: How to Make Meaningful Connections, Sunday 1pm EST

After teaching, coaching, studying, and practicing leadership for twenty years, I announced my online leadership course, "Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere." I'm hosting a series of free webinars on the most actionable, useful, effective, and exciting parts of the course. My webinars will always deliver exclusive, valuable lessons you can use that day and how to build for the long term. Attend my fourth webinar, free, this Sunday, March 6, 1pm Eastern Standard Time! All you need is an internet connection. How to Make Meaningful Connections If you want to lead or influence others in business and to have meaningful relationships everywhere in life, you need to create meaningful connections. If you're like me, you were born shy and awkward. You can…

March 3, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises

How can you find passion if you don’t try, even if you don’t know where to try?

Everyone wants to find a passion---something that engages them so much they love doing it and working on it doesn't feel like work. Most of us hold back from trying because we aren't sure what we might feel passion for. We know we don't feel passion for anything now. Maybe this, maybe that. Unsure which, and afraid of picking something we'll later learn we don't feel passion for, we don't try. Teaching people to behave entrepreneurially, I see people hold back a lot. They don't realize they're holding back, protecting their vulnerabilities. They just feel like they don't know what they want. One of the students in my online entrepreneurship course, after doing all but the last exercise, realized he wanted to take a different…

February 27, 2016

Education / Entrepreneurship

Almost nothing inspires more than helping others so much that they pay you for it

I'm getting good at leading students to inspiration. I can't wait to release my online entrepreneurship course (contact me if you're interested in taking it), which is where I'm seeing all the inspiration. I'm not talking about short-term feelings of inspiration. If you want to build muscle, quotes from Arnold Schwarzenegger from his Pumping Iron days may make you feel inspired, but you'll still have to keep motivating yourself to go to the gym. Teaching entrepreneurship has shown me that when someone identifies a problem, the people feeling it, and a way to solve it, and they engage themselves in implementing the solution, they get more than temporary feelings of inspiration. They get enduring passion, like they can make a meaningful difference in others' lives…

February 25, 2016

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Education / Models

Op/Ed Fridays: How higher education risks going the way of the dodo

An Op/Ed piece in the New York Times, "What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us," illustrated a perspective that will turn higher education into a dinosaur if it doesn't learn some new perspectives. It begins COLLEGE course syllabuses are curious documents. They represent the best efforts by faculty and instructors to distill human knowledge on a given subject into 14-week chunks. They structure the main activity of colleges and universities. And then, for the most part, they disappear. Do you see the dated perspective? The key words for me are "knowledge" and "activity." What's wrong with knowledge and activity? Aren't they good? Read on for a broader perspective, one that I hope and expect will overtake theirs. Regarding knowledge, centuries ago, when most were illiterate,…

February 19, 2016

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