Over a drink the other night, a guy I met told me his record for 100 burpees was 7 minutes. He does cross-fit a couple times a week. I couldn’t help trying this morning. I did them in 9:21. I wrote him: I couldn’t help trying to see how fast I could do 100 burpees. Just did 100 in 9:21. Getting to 7 minutes seems hard, almost impossible, but now[…] Keep reading →

A reader wrote to ask about choosing not to meet or make connections with people. I thought others might find the answer useful. Hey Josh. I was just wondering. You seem to place a lot of value on having relationships with people. Are there times you don’t want a relationship with someone? I suppose in negotiations it is in your own interest to have a good relationship for at least[…] Keep reading →

I finished the 2014 New York City Marathon with my best finishing time for the race and my second best time ever! Philadelphia, where I got my best, is flatter and has fewer people, which makes faster times easier. New York, with its hills, crowds, and turns, never gives great finishing times—just an unparalleled running experience, with dozens of bands, hundreds of neighborhoods, and probably over a million fans. My[…] Keep reading →

[I wrote a new introduction to my SIDCHA series. I’m happy enough with it to share it as a regular post.] Most people seem to want improve themselves, personally or professionally. Reading, watching, and listening to people tell you how you can develop yourself professionally or personally doesn’t change anything beyond give you a bit of information. People don’t succeed because they have more information. They succeed because they act.[…] Keep reading →

There is a one-hundred percent chance I will work out this morning. It’s raining. I’m cold. I’m hungry. I have a lot of work to do. I have emails to catch up on. So many distractions. How do I know I’m going to exercise? Because I put on the lycra shorts I wear when I row on the rowing machine and every time I wear them I row. They aren’t[…] 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 →

An attendee from a recent seminar asked a common question I get about learning other people’s passions: How do you motivate someone who claims to have no motivation? He did the exercise in this post, “How to make someone feel understood: the Confirmation Cycle,” where you ask the other person their passion. He wrote: How do you deal with the “I don’t know” when you ask people what they enjoy or[…] Keep reading →

If I did my math right, today is my one-thousandth day of burpees, starting at one set of ten per day, now up to two sets of twenty-five per day. That’s somewhere over 40,000 burpees. I’ve done them in North Korea, China, and across the U.S. Following the principle that if you miss one day you can miss two, if you miss two it’s all over, I haven’t missed one[…] Keep reading →

I woke up this morning with pain in my back. I felt it yesterday morning too. It had woken me up both nights before, I guess when I moved in ways that caused it to hurt more. Then this morning when I did my burpees the pain got searing. I had to stop at seven. The pain was bad enough I had trouble breathing. The pain was in the same[…] Keep reading →