I keep hearing people say that if only they lived in a time of greater crisis, they could have achieved more. They look at George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and other famous leaders and notice they emerged through crises. I read a Harvard Business Review article implying people have to go through crucibles to develop as leaders. You don’t have to overcome adversity to achieve a lot.[…] Keep reading →

A friend and colleague visited a couple weeks ago. He invited me to breakfast with another friend of his who happened to be an incredibly successful founder and CEO of a business related to a project of mine. You don’t expect to make such valuable connections. We made a great connection and may find ways to collaborate. I met the visiting friend in the first place through another guy I[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] You wouldn’t believe how much access you have to people, both the number of people and how[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Even Thomas Edison, with over a thousand patents, only produced a handful of products that stood the[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] The most common reason I hear from people who want to start projects or companies but don’t[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] People with great soft skills seem to dominate many areas in business . I think of leadership[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] I’m developing a course on how to get a job doing what you enjoy. Like the leadership[…] Keep reading →

Notice this pattern and you’ll know how to improve it. It applies to an activity. I’m thinking of exercise when I write it, but many activities fit it. The pattern When you’re not about to do it, you think of it as something you generally want to do. When you’re about to do it, you feel anxious, maybe to the point of fear. You have to overcome that anxiety and[…] Keep reading →

Coco and Breezy Prince wore their sunglasses — from his album cover — on Saturday Night Live. Beyoncé showed them in her video. Vogue labeled them “fashion icons”. Rhianna, Serena Williams, and more wear their accessories, sold in twenty countries and growing, as well as at cocoandbreezy.com. Find out how these twins from Minnesota started their brand in their teens … with a thousand dollars between them. I didn’t mention[…] Keep reading →