Exercises

Exercises / Habits / SIDCHAs

Why I get out of bed and make it in under a minute every day

Each morning since November, from my alarm going off to my turning it off, I've gotten up, made my bed, and crossed the room to where my phone is. I wrote more about it in "How I Wake Up in Under 1 Minute Every Day: After decades of morning sloth, for 7 months I've gotten out of bed in under 60 seconds each day and loved it" (EDIT: and "“Olympic Swimmer Caeleb Dressel Says the Key to Success Is Making Your Bed”"). For a while I did it as a challenge, or to create a habit. Lately I realized I did it for a new, more valuable reason. Non-issues First, I want to cover something others might expect to be relevant that isn't---the comfort of…

0 Comments
August 10, 2017
Join my workshop at the New York Public Library, Saturday September 9
Education / Events / Exercises / Leadership

Join my workshop at the New York Public Library, Saturday September 9

You've heard about my book, Leadership Step by Step, its 60+ 5-star reviews, and how its exercises change lives. I may have told you about the standing ovations I get at workshops. Now you can see me at a public workshop where I'll cover one of my book's most popular (and fun to learn) exercises. Here are the details. Be sure to register! (You can buy a copy of Leadership Step by Step first to prepare for it and for me to sign there.) Meaningful Connection: A Workshop Time: Saturday, September 9, 2017, 3 - 5 pm Location: Tompkins Square Library, Basement   Register Now for: Meaningful Connection: A Workshop   Meaningful Connection: this workshop practices the skills of creating a meaningful connection with anyone…

0 Comments
August 8, 2017
Nelson Mandela on sidchas
Nelson Mandela Boxing
Exercises / Favorites / Fitness / Freedom / Leadership / SIDCHAs

Nelson Mandela on sidchas

Yesterday was the 100th anniversary of Nelson Mandela's birth. I've waited to share something I discovered reading his autobiography a few months ago. First some context. It's the day of your release. You're a revolutionary, fighting Apartheid, imprisoned for 27 years, much of it in an 8 foot by 7 foot cell or, if outside, breaking rocks. Meanwhile, you've become a global celebrity. Over 200 million people watched your London birthday event in absentia. Meanwhile, you're a 72-year-old man, recently recovering from tuberculosis and have barely seen your family for decades. On the day of your release, what do you do? Quoting Nelson Mandela's autobiography: I awoke on the day of my release after only a few hours' sleep at 4:30am. February 11 was a…

0 Comments
July 19, 2017
How to Step Up Your Leadership Game With Storytelling
Audio / Creativity / Exercises / Stories

How to Step Up Your Leadership Game With Storytelling

Park Howell hosts the Business of Storytelling podcast. Today he released our interview about storytelling and how to improve your storytelling for business. Everybody agrees on the value of storytelling in all human communications. All the more in business. Listen to the conversation! Bonus that I missed saying in the interview By the way, when you listen, there's one part where Park said, "You don't want to know what's in my head." I missed an opportunity and, as much as I try to avoid interrupting, I should have interrupted to say to him, We do want to know what's in your head. We love to hear that inside story, that inner monologue. Everyone thinks his or her inner monologue is dark before doing the exercise.…

0 Comments
July 10, 2017
How to coach leadership and executives actively and experientially [video]
Exercises / Leadership

How to coach leadership and executives actively and experientially [video]

I led a webinar at this year's World Business and Executive Coach Summit (WBECS) online summit earlier this month. If you coach, you'll find value in the annual summit and my talk in particular. My talk, "Experiential Learning and Coaching," was popular, with nearly 5,000 registrants. I put the video below. I find this active, experiential way of coaching helpful. If you learn from the video and practice it, please let me know your results. About WBECS: With more than 20,000 attendees from 150 Countries in 2016, WBECS is the world's largest online gathering of business and executive coaches. Our aim and mission is to consistently deliver outstanding value, provide the most innovative content in the industry, help increase the overall quality of coaching provision…

0 Comments
June 30, 2017
What is Wrong with Leadership Training for Sustainable Success?
Chris Salem interviews Joshua Spodek on the Sustainable Success radio show
Audio / Education / Exercises / Leadership

What is Wrong with Leadership Training for Sustainable Success?

Chris Salem hosts the Sustainable Success radio show on Voice America, Wednesdays at 11am. He interviewed me yesterday and posted the interview. Live radio means no retakes or editing, which makes everything more dynamic. Also, we practice the Meaningful Connection exercise from Chapter 17 of my book and leadership course, so if you're working on them and want to hear it in action, listen to this episode. Here's the episode description: There is the knowledge of leadership and then actually how it is applied in a real world environment. Everyone talks about what it takes to be an effective leader but not the actual process to become one in real life. Joshua Spodek discusses real world exercises how existing leaders or those aspiring to be…

0 Comments
June 29, 2017
#2 on Amazon in Category
Leadership Step by Step is #2 on Amazon in Communications In Management
Education / Exercises / Leadership

#2 on Amazon in Category

Leadership Step by Step is #2 in "Communications in Management," with almost 4 times more reviews than the book above. Buy it on Amazon, or just click to read the 56 5-star reviews Here's the screen shot: Buy it on Amazon, or just click to read the 56 5-star reviews

0 Comments
June 4, 2017
Exercises / Habits / SIDCHAs

Sidchas lead to achievement like nothing else

Interviewers tend to ask me two questions: What's with all the burpees? How did you do all the accomplishments? They don't realize that doing the sidchas is what achieves the accomplishments. I wouldn't have expected that connection before starting the sidchas. I can't really explain it now, but I know that doing the sidchas gets the other things done. From the outside you might see sidchas as taking time and attention from what others value and can measure. On the contrary, what gets difficult things done isn't time, money, or other resources. What gets difficult tasks done is the same as what creates time, money, and other resources: Intent Discipline Inspiration Dedication Perseverance Resilience Practice and skills like that. No one is born with those…

0 Comments
May 29, 2017
Reinvention Radio with Steve Olsher interviewed me
Reinvention Radio with Steve Olsher interviews Joshua Spodek
Audio / Education / Exercises / Leadership / Relationships

Reinvention Radio with Steve Olsher interviewed me

I'm honored and privileged for Reinvention Radio with Steve Olsher to have interviewed me. There's nothing like live radio to make a conversation exciting and spontaneous. We did exercises from the book on the air. Now the conversation is online for you to listen to at your leisure. About Reinvention Radio: Reinvention Radio … Obliterates the limits of possibility Boldly reinvents average Unequivocally expands your knowledge Massively impacts the trajectory of your business (and your life) Where ‘normal’ comes to die; ‘mediocrity’ meets its final demise; and, ‘the status quo’ is unabashedly dismantled. Each guest boldly reinvents average, obliterates the limits of possibility, challenges the accepted, and forges daring, cutting-edge paths. Steve and Mary’s no-holds-barred, unapologetic exploration of what’s new, what’s now and what’s next…

0 Comments
May 21, 2017
Audio / Education / Exercises / Fitness / Leadership / Relationships

The Inspirational Chronicles with Emilio Ron, parts 1 and 2: Building Discipline and Become an Exceptional Communicator

I met Emilio Ron at an event for public speakers. We started talking and he invited me to be a guest on his new podcast, Inspirational Chronicles. The following fits into the conversation we recorded: He invited me to record in the studio he set up. Somehow, despite living in Manhattan, I agreed to take the train---not even the subway, but the Long Island Railroad---all the way out to Long Island, where he had to drive me from the station to the studio. Manhattanites expect the world to come to us! Once I saw the studio I could tell he cared about his project and knew I'd enjoy the conversation. I enjoyed it from before we started recording. In the end, I'm honored to have…

0 Comments
May 20, 2017
Learning social and emotional skills is hard but worth it
Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises / Leadership / Relationships

Learning social and emotional skills is hard but worth it

Ultimately all the advice in the world leads to one simple starting point: You have to act, practice, and rehearse new skills to get their benefit and those first acts, as with any new skill, will be clumsy, embarrassing, and full of other challenges that will lead the novice to feel bad. If you try, you will fail and feel bad, worse than if you never tried, but if you stick with it, you can overcome the failures. You'll never lose access to the skills you now have it you don't want to feel or act social, but you can when you want. The reward for overcoming those failures, in my experience at least, is so much greater than the struggle to reach that reward,…

0 Comments
May 9, 2017
Awareness / Evolutionary Psychology / Exercises

A catalog of inner monologue thoughts

If you pay attention to your inner monologue, as the exercise I call The Most Effective Self-Awareness Exercise I Know leads you to, you'll notice patterns. Songs get stuck in your head. You judge people. You judge yourself. You try to figure out the best order to do things in. You play out arguments you might have with others. Sound familiar? Years ago I had the idea to catalog the types of thoughts you repeat. Before doing the exercise, I thought we could think about anything. After doing the exercise enough times and hearing how much others' thoughts resembled mine, I concluded we think in patterns, and not as many as we'd think. I suspect the types of patterns emerged through evolution, so most patterns…

0 Comments
May 3, 2017
High praise no one would have told me before
Exercises / Relationships

High praise no one would have told me before

The host of a podcast we just recorded emailed: Again, I so enjoyed our conversation today. Thank you for bring your whole self to the table. ... I loved it. (and I know my audience will love it too.) I never used to hear that I brought my whole self to anything. On the contrary, as I'll share below, I spent the first few decades of my life only able to do the opposite. One of the most popular exercises in Leadership Step by Step---both the book and the online course---is the Authentic Voice exercise. Students tell me how it enables them to speak more authentically than ever, and that doing so leads others to speak newly authentically back. In other words, they learn to…

2 Comments
April 15, 2017
Awareness / Exercises / Leadership / Models / SIDCHAs / Stories

Absurdly Useful Leadership Tactics That You Can Use Today: the second interview with Jim Harshaw

I don't know if the interviewers are getting better, if I'm developing in conversation, or if I'm just enjoying podcast conversations more, but it feels like the interviews are getting better all the time. Yesterday, Jim Harshaw (scroll down to learn more about him) of the Success Through Failure podcast posted our second conversation. Second conversations lead to greater comfort, depth, trust, and intimacy, so I recommend listening. We cover a couple exercises from the book, connecting leadership to everyday living, sports, and more. Jim was a division 1 athlete and coach, among many other achievements so he knows leadership from multiple angles. He's taken on and overcome challenges many of us don't even try. All this comes out in his podcast. When you don't…

0 Comments
March 27, 2017
90,000 burpees!
Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Inc.com / SIDCHAs

90,000 burpees!

I decided to post my regular 10,000-burpee increment update on Inc. first this time. I'm only supposed to sample the beginning of the article when it first goes up. So click to my Inc. post, "90,000 Burpees Today," which begins 90,000 Burpees Today I started my daily burpee habit in December 2011. Today I hit my 90,000th. I'm a 45-year old man and I've done burpees every day since December 21, 2011, inspired by a New York Times article by Gretchen Reynolds in which a fitness expert, Dr. Martin Gibala, suggested them as a candidate for the single best exercise. Neither of them expected anyone to do just them, but I did. I've written about them here and on my blog. I consider myself in…

2 Comments
March 10, 2017
Awareness / Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Tips

The shockingly valuable life lessons of vigorous exercise

With five Ivy League degrees, especially the PhD in astrophysics, experience teaching at Ivy League and other elite schools, and a father who was a tenured professor in history, I think I'm qualified to know the value of intellectual knowledge. The more I learn through physical experience, the more valuable I find it. The intellectual world, especially schools and universities, value the intellect so much, I don't think they realize the value of learning through experience, especially vigorous exercise. Case 1, superfically: deadlift form The other day my physical trainer friend was over. I asked him to evaluate my form on a few exercises. He pointed out that on my kettle bell deadlift, my right knee went inward. It's a common mistake, but the relevance…

0 Comments
March 9, 2017
Exercises / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs

My health-related activities

A podcaster and I were emailing about the possibility of doing an interview. He said his podcast was mostly health related. As I summarized for him my health-related activities, I felt that what I was writing would summarize well here, so wrote it more comprehensively than I normally would have. I like sharing these practices. Note that they are things anyone can do. I mean, if you're wheelchair bound, you may not be able to do burpees, but you can do some equivalent. My point is that none are things like jumping out of a balloon ten miles above the Earth, where you need teams of people, millions of dollars, equipment few people have access to, and so on. I swam across a river and…

0 Comments
March 1, 2017
Leadership Step by Step spotted in the wild!
Exercises / Leadership

Leadership Step by Step spotted in the wild!

Seen at the Barnes and Noble in Union Square! Some are in the business section, aside Richard Branson, some are downstairs, on the first floor, center. If you're looking for a copy of Leadership Step by Step, and you should get one if you don't, I recommend buying these copies. I signed them. I have to say, most of the stages I've passed---signing an agent, signing a publisher, finishing drafts, getting blurbs from prominent people, going on sale online---were meaningful, but seeing it on the shelf at a bookstore, and on a table, surprised me most with the intensity of feeling at seeing them. In other news, the Amazon reviews are up to 35, all 5-star but one 4-star. Still averages 5.0.

2 Comments
February 22, 2017
The Benefits of Experiential Learning for Leaders with Rocket Scientist Joshua Spodek
Audio / Awareness / Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Habits / Leadership / Perception

The Benefits of Experiential Learning for Leaders with Rocket Scientist Joshua Spodek

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-DZIZxl1IM Mark Bidwell, founder and podcast host of Innovation Ecosystem, posted today a wonderful interview about Leadership Step by Step, experiential learning, exercises, and more. I can only describe Mark as someone who gets it. He ascended the corporate ladder, where he drove innovation, built teams, and so on, then found there was more to life and is creating resources to enable others to. If you are looking to improve your leadership, social, and emotional skills, Mark gets to the heart of how to, covering techniques that work, as well as the problems of traditional education that suppress learning these things. Listen to the interview! A few words about Mark and the Innovation Ecosystem podcast: We interview remarkable and thought-provoking guests about innovation, leadership and…

0 Comments
February 21, 2017
How To Lead Better Through Practice: Watch a video with me and David Burkus
Education / Exercises / Leadership

How To Lead Better Through Practice: Watch a video with me and David Burkus

David Burkus is a writer, speaker, and coach on leadership and creativity. A mutual friend put us in touch and he's helped me with my book, coaching, and writing since. He's also hosting the Work Smarter Summit, an online summit of speakers, interviews, teachers, and thought leaders. I'm one of the speakers! ... That means it's quality. Here's a screen shot: My conversation with him is full of useful information, background, and tips. Here's a screenshot of my talking to him: Click here to view the video, which covers leadership techniques, perspectives, and a lot of what is in my book but live and interactive. I describe a few exercises from Leadership Step by Step and demonstrate a few with him. Then click here to…

0 Comments
February 20, 2017
Amazon ships Leadership Step by Step today!
Education / Exercises / Leadership

Amazon ships Leadership Step by Step today!

Several milestones mark a book's publication. Amazon.com is the dominant book retailer and today they officially started shipping my book, Leadership Step by Step. Early reviews look promising: 27 5-star reviews and 1 4-star. Here's a screenshot The book has jumped to 472nd place in leadership, an auspicious beginning. Still, 471 places to go. I recommend reading the reviews and buying copies for everyone you know ;). Thank you! Reaching this point took a lot of work from many people, too many to list. But I have to thank my agent Melissa, who ushered me from drafts whose poor writing hid the ideas she saw and nurtured into a much more readable proposal, and the editor, Stephen, who signed me at Amacom who had faith…

0 Comments
February 16, 2017
Struggling To Find Your Authentic Voice As A Leader? Try These Exercises
Exercises / Leadership

Struggling To Find Your Authentic Voice As A Leader? Try These Exercises

My guest post, "Struggling To Find Your Authentic Voice As A Leader? Try These Exercises," posted today on the American Management Association's AMACOM Playbook. It begins What is an authentic voice and why does it matter? I’m asked this question a lot because my company has developed an exercise called “Your Authentic Voice.” First, let’s look at the benefits of an authentic voice and the costs of not having one. Shortly after the presidential election, I led a leadership workshop where all the attendees happened to have supported Hillary Clinton (common in Manhattan). I asked them to forget whether they agreed with or believed the candidates, but to identify which they thought spoke more authentically. All agreed on Donald Trump. By contrast, when I ask…

0 Comments
February 15, 2017
Forbes profiles three graduates of my course!
Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Stories

Forbes profiles three graduates of my course!

Forbes's Carrie Kerpen profiled three graduates of my entrepreneurship course in, "Three Important Lessons Women Learn Early In Their Careers." The three students---Nikita, Grace, and Nahima---did the course's exercises with diligence and discipline. None of them knew how experiential the course would be and didn't expect to create projects that impassioned them or their customers as much as they did. In other words, they didn't have secret or magical skills you and I don't. They had direction and worked at it. You can too (shameless plug: if you take my course). Her story begins: I often write about the wisdom I’ve gained from women with long, successful careers. But I’ve learned just as much from young women at the very start of their journeys, too.…

0 Comments
February 14, 2017
Join my workshop at the New York Public Library, Sunday February 19!
Education / Events / Exercises / Leadership

Join my workshop at the New York Public Library, Sunday February 19!

You've heard a lot about my book, Leadership Step by Step, its 5-star reviews, and how its exercises change people's lives. I may have told you about the standing ovation I got at Saturday's workshop with Marshall Goldsmith. Now you can see me at a public workshop where I'll cover one of my book's most popular (and fun to learn) exercises. Here are the details. Be sure to register! (You can buy a copy of Leadership Step by Step first to prepare for it and for me to sign there.) Meaningful Connection: A Workshop Time: Sunday, February 19, 2017, 2 - 4 p.m. Location: Jefferson Market Library, First Floor   Register Now for: Meaningful Connection: A Workshop   Meaningful Connection: this workshop practices the skills of…

0 Comments
February 7, 2017

End of content

No more pages to load

Newer Posts
Older Posts