Freedom

Awareness / Freedom / Models / Nature / Perception

How to use space travel to make mangoes taste better

This passage interviewing a guy who walked in space, plus some context, can help you enjoy life more, even---especially---if you can't get to space but expect you'd love the experience. From the article: In the 1960s, he says, "astronauts were celebrities. They were invited on JFK's boat. If you wanted to go to space, you had to become Neil Armstrong." Today, however, space-travel companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are creating new opportunities for engineers. I imagine most people would find the Earth from space one of the most beautiful sights imaginable. Many would love being celebrities who get to hang out with Presidents. Astronauts lost their 60s status long ago. Charles Lindberg was once famous for crossing the Atlantic. So was Christopher Columbus. Thousands…

March 26, 2016

Want to run leaner? Waste less. Literally: produce less waste.

Awareness / Freedom / Habits / Leadership / Nature

Want to run leaner? Waste less. Literally: produce less waste.

The videos below aren't glamorous. They're about trash---regular household trash. Our world is swimming in garbage. The business world is obsessed with reducing waste and improving efficiency, but only for what it accounts for, which rarely includes actual physical waste, which taxpayers pay for carting away to landfills, where it slowly seeps out to the ecosphere. Most of us wish businesses were held accountable for other forms of waste, like pollution. How about you and your personal waste? Do you hold yourself accountable for your waste? Most people, when asked to account for their waste---how much they pollute---point out how others pollute more or something to deflect exposing how much they pollute. People also confuse caring about pollution with caring about trees or abstract ideals.…

March 17, 2016

Exercises / Freedom / Tips

I don’t swim much, but when I do, it’s a mile in open water

On vacation over the winter, I found myself swimming in a pool. I realized I don't swim much. As best I remember, it was the second or third time I swam since swimming across the Hudson River in 2008, pictured at the top of this page. I took a few surfing lessons in the meantime. I don't know if I should count when I have something that floats with me. I'm sure I forgot a few other times. I'd never swum in open water before then, which is harder than in a pool since the waves get in your mouth and the current takes you directions you didn't expect faster than you'd think. I mention the infrequency of my swimming to underscore the accessibility of…

March 15, 2016

Awareness / Fitness / Freedom / Habits / Nature

The obesity gut-punch

Gallup reported yesterday "U.S. Obesity Rate Climbs to Record High in 2015." You can read the report for yourself, but adult obesity rose from 25.5% in 2008 to 28% last year, over six million adults. That's self-reported, which means the rate is higher. 11.5% have diabetes. As much as we've grown accustomed to these perennial increases, last year's increase felt like a bigger gut-punch to me. My 2015 food results: Better taste, lower cost, feeling more full, easier preparation, healthier Anyone who talked to me in the past six months knows 2015 was probably my best year regarding food. I couldn't stop talking about the combination of Eating more delicious food Spending less money on food Eating more healthily Feeling more full Polluting less from…

February 13, 2016

Awareness / Creativity / Freedom / SIDCHAs

Why I love jet lag

Some of the best ideas of my life have come to me while jet-lagged, lying awake in bed for hours before the sun rises. I end up having incredible ideas and thoughts but can't act on them, so I let them flow, sometimes turning the light on briefly to write them, partly to remember them, partly to free my mind from trying to remember them so it can go on to new things. I find falling asleep during the day a small price for the joy of these long stretches of time to think freely. Showers lead to ideas too, but they only last a few minutes, though I came up with Sidchas during a shower, and a cold one at that. Lying awake before…

January 19, 2016

Speaking authentically, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and Vietnam

Exercises / Freedom / Leadership

Speaking authentically, Martin Luther King, Muhammad Ali, and Vietnam

Few prominent Americans spoke as authentically as Martin Luther King. Still, even after winning a Nobel Peace Prize, he struggled to speak out publicly against the Vietnam War after he privately came to oppose it. Today I'm sharing how Muhammad Ali led Martin Luther King, despite not being a statesman or politician. On the contrary, he simply spoke authentically---that is, without the filter many people use to keep from saying things they might regret. Ali had no relevant credentials. He only spoke with conviction. Even then he spoke simply, with nowhere near the depth or breadth that King later did. Anyone can speak so bluntly if they have the experience speaking authentically. We may, today, forget the risks a public figure had to take then…

January 18, 2016

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Freedom / Habits

I haven’t settled into a routine. I created a platform to get things done.

When I got home from traveling last week, I found myself returning to many patterns and habits that traveling forced me to suspend. As I'm approaching middle age, I started to wonder if I was getting set in my ways. I want to stay young, vibrant, and effective. Could these habits mean I'm ossifying and becoming sedentary? While I could look at it that way, I find that I've found patterns that help me get things done, stay healthy, stay calm, and so on. They also relieve me of mental struggles, freeing me to solve problems that I care about, not trivial things like what to eat for breakfast. The novelty of seeing new things that comes with travel is exciting and can be fun,…

January 16, 2016

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Freedom / Habits / Relationships

You have too much garbage

Jack Welch said that most of his work was keeping his company entrepreneurial, preventing it from ossifying with red tape and other bureaucracy. He was very successful, in his workplace as much as outside it. I call that stuff garbage. The waste we produce as side effects of what we want. I guarantee your work life has garbage you haven't been able to get rid of. Same with your personal life. You have relationships that aren't working for you that you haven't gotten rid of and the garbage is holding you back from forming new ones. You have old processes and habits that aren't working for you. You haven't gotten rid of them either and the garbage is holding you back from forming new ones.…

January 15, 2016

Leading Colonels, Majors, and other Officers In Charge

Events / Freedom / Leadership / NorthKorea

Leading Colonels, Majors, and other Officers In Charge

I had the chance to lead a leadership workshop at the United States Army Garrison Yongsan in Seoul, South Korea. This was my first chance to work with the military, though I felt particularly motivated after lunch with Frances Hesselbein last summer, who has worked with West Point and the White House for decades and holds many there in the highest regard, and after interacting with an NYU-based project with the New York Mayor's Office of Veterans Affairs to teach entrepreneurship to returning veterans. I was gratified to see the dedication among the troops and to interact directly with the different culture. It's as bureaucratic and stratified as any large company, but different in a way I can't immediately put my finger on. For one…

January 11, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Exercises / Fitness / Freedom / Habits / Leadership / SIDCHAs

Sidchas when you’re tired and exhausted? Especially!

I can't tell you how exhausted I was when I got home yesterday. Traveling meant about five hours of sleep in the forty-eight leading to last evening's sleep. Telling a client about burpees and Sidchas recently, when I mentioned doing them when tired, drunk, or otherwise discouraged, he asked, "wait, you do them then too?", implying that for a long-term activity, you don't have to be a stickler for rules every time. After all, how much does one instance matter out of many? On the contrary, the value of the combination of the activity being self-imposed, challenging, and daily arises when faced with doing them when you don't want to. Anyone can do easy things, even some challenging things. Any one can captain a ship…

January 9, 2016

Awareness / Freedom

Do you have a One Ring? If so, what is it?

Temptation is a powerful emotion. It comes from expecting to feel good from something we'll regret. We know we'll regret it, but we still want to do it, often unable to shake the thought of it. I'm not a huge fan of the Lord of the Rings, but I think one of the parts of it that stands the test of time so much is the One Ring, a concept that I think rings true for everyone. Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky, Seven for the Dwarf-lords in their halls of stone, Nine for Mortal Men doomed to die, One for the Dark Lord on his dark throne In the Land of Mordor where the Shadows lie. One Ring to rule them all,…

January 2, 2016

Freedom / Leadership / Models

Op/Ed Friday: How every politician and nation, now matter how belligerent, justifies its attacks

No politician or nation, no matter how belligerent, considers itself the attacker---not the most authoritarian dictator any more than the most democratically elected leader. One simple statement, used by nearly every one, summarizes the trick: We will not attack first, but if attacked, we will defend ourselves. Every leader says it their own way. Once the population believes it, they can feel justified in attacking, feeling and claiming innocence. Neither population has to believe the other, only their own leader. All both leaders have to do is point out any infraction from the other side, no matter how small, to justify escalating. Once the escalations begin, to the extent each population accepted the original belief, both can keep escalating as much as they want. Populations…

December 31, 2015

Freedom / Models

Was the U.S. founded on religious tolerance?

As a kid I learned that the early European settlers whose communities played large roles in founding this country left Europe to escape religious persecution in favor of religious freedom here. I rarely thought about it since but looking at a lot of religious views particular to the U.S., I wonder if these settlers weren't more religiously intolerant and therefore had trouble staying in Europe. I'm not a historian. For all I know I just wrote something painfully ignorant, but I see a lot of intolerance here that I don't see in Europe.

December 15, 2015

Freedom / Leadership / Perception

Op/Ed Friday: Acting against equality, part 2 of “Almost nobody is acting for equality, which is why we aren’t getting it”

A couple weeks ago I wrote about how almost nobody is acting for equality in "Op/Ed Friday: Almost nobody is acting for equality, which is why we aren't getting it." Many people talk about wanting equality. Many believe they are acting for it. That post describes how not many are, despite their belief. Since I write about leadership, I'm looking at the leadership results of people talking about one thing and doing another. Here is an example of a prominent figure, a former Member of Parliament of Norway, promoting inequality: "No to female conscription." In response to Norway involuntarily drafting women, she argues that women should not be drafted. She doesn't argue no one should be drafted, only women. Her reasoning follows what I described…

December 4, 2015

Exercises / Freedom / Habits / Leadership / Nonjudgment / Relationships

Why people like Donald Trump

One of the exercises my leadership students like most is the Authentic Voice exercise. I've written about it at least four times here, including examples from great masters of speaking in their authentic voice, like Muhammad Ali and Robin Williams. Communications skills exercises, part 10: Your Authentic Voice Your authentic voice The great masters of speaking with authentic voices Communications skills exercises, part 10b: another example of voicing your self-talk Most students in my full course are scared of the exercise before doing it but emerge transformed after a week of practicing it. They find it easier and more natural than they expect once they get it and love it. They find themselves able to say things they never could before, with an authenticity they…

November 28, 2015

Awareness / Freedom

Needing less gives more freedom than having more

Mainstream society sabotages us by trying to sell us that having more---money, stuff, connections, etc---improves life. How having more improves life it doesn't say, but it's usually through images of people enjoying themselves, typically when getting the stuff, which doesn't represent the costs of paying for the stuff, maintaining it, putting on weight from eating it, the pollution it causes, and so on. I've found two opposites of what mainstream society promotes more valuable for my life. First, as much as I value emotions I like, I don't find temporary emotional states valuable goals. I value emotional skills to create the emotions I want deliberately, which relying on external things for my emotions undermines. So I value freedom to think and act how I like…

November 24, 2015

Education / Freedom

Why America body-slams kids in school, in video

Continuing yesterday's post on why we body-slam kids in school, I wanted to reiterate the role of the United States' overall culture---you and I included---in creating school environments where cops body-slamming kids is inevitable. Three movies illustrate our culture's views on violence and kids. American Sniper First, watch the closing scenes of American Sniper, which show real-life footage of the main character's funeral. You don't need to have seen the movie to get that he's a military man. He was conflicted, but served his country. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-nbnCFeq3A His popular support was incredible. Large numbers of people came out to support him. Municipalities shut down public roads and spent a lot of money showing more support. Look at all those American flags. Now here's my question: Could…

November 3, 2015

Education / Freedom

Why cops body-slam children in schools

You saw the video of the cop slamming the student in a grade-school classroom. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C39aib3nkvM Everybody is quick to talk about race and belligerent cops. What everyone is missing We're so accustomed to regimented schools, we miss what an anti-educational environment we've made our schools into. Notice that during this violent interaction, none of the other students or the teacher acts with shock, to defend her, or to do anything but comply with docility to the authority of a badge. The environment was more like a prison than what I think of as what is natural for kids, let alone a place for kids to learn. What is natural about kids sitting in rows for hours every week day, not getting to play or move…

November 2, 2015

Education / Entrepreneurship / Fitness / Freedom / Habits

Interviewed by Columbia Business School on Endurance Sports and Business Success

Do you like business success? Then read "Going the Distance," in Columbia Business School's alumni magazine, on how sports contribute to business success in an interview of me. Here is part of the interview, to whet your appetite: Skills mastered through endurance sports fuel success in business, says marathoner and serial entrepreneur Joshua Spodek '06. [...] First things first: why run?Â One of the attractions of running is that there's a freedom to it. Pair of shoes, socks, shorts — and you're free. What is the biggest challenge you face when running long distances?Â You're not doing this for physical pleasure; you're doing it for this emotional reward. To me, that mental challengeÂ — thinking about it as an emotional reward — is just as hard…

October 29, 2015

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Models / Perception / Stories

Do you trap yourself in mental jails?

"Nice guys finish last." Alone, this thought has probably condemned many men and women to abandon being nice. Accurate or not, combined with another belief, that the alternative to being nice is to be a jerk, further condemns people to being jerks. Jerks---people with one type of poor relationship skills---even when materially successful, seem likely to face emptiness in intimacy, what many consider the most important parts of their lives. We don't like jerks around us, so we don't want others to consider us jerks and shun us. But if the alternative of finishing last seems worse, we feel rational in choosing it. Whether nice people finish last or not, you can't much control. After you try your best, competitive outcomes depend on many factors,…

October 22, 2015

Exercises / Freedom / Stories / Tips

I bought two books

I hope long time readers are asking, "What?!" Five years ago, in my fifth post on this blog, I wrote "Less, please," which founded one of my most fundamental practices, one I recommend to everyone. That post described reducing my wall of books to about ten, learning about my values and discovering freedom where I used to feel weighed down. I've since gotten rid of more books and more other stuff, finding yet more freedom and learning more about my values. I still read a lot of books, maybe two a month. I just don't value possessing the material product. I have a public library across the street from me I can have books delivered to. I have two books (on social entrepreneurship) on my…

October 20, 2015

Awareness / Fitness / Freedom / Nature

Op/Ed Fridays: Get your hands and mind dirty if you want to be healthy

I think everyone I know knows this, but trying to keep yourself healthy by disinfecting everything you touch, thinking all bacteria and other life weakens your immune system and makes you less healthy. People misunderstand bacteria and other life. They aren't exclusively unhealthy, though some are, and don't only exist in a few places. Most of them are symbiotic and are everywhere all the time, including in us, even ones our immune systems have to battle. If our bodies didn't handle them all the time, we'd lose the ability to and an unexpected infection could kill us. The parents I've talked to tell me you get healthy children not by protecting them from every risk but though active, outdoors, dirty play. Get their hands dirty.…

September 25, 2015

What about Tiger Woods? Why was he pilloried?

Freedom / Habits / Leadership / Nonjudgment / Perception / Relationships

What about Tiger Woods? Why was he pilloried?

After writing about bad boys, success, and discipline yesterday, you might ask, "What about Tiger Woods? Why was he pilloried? He is full of discipline. Why didn't society accept of him something many successful athletes do?" I'm no expert on public relations, but I see two main issues. First, the lesser issue. He doesn't have a bad boy reputation. His is clean cut and respectful, or looks that way to me. Charles Barkley throwing a guy through a bar window fits within his image as a physical player. By the time he did it, he had already done many similar things. He plays basketball physically and hard. James Dean driving dangerously risks innocent people's lives, but he raced cars already. Second is the bigger issue.…

September 24, 2015

Bad boys, success, and discipline

Exercises / Freedom / Habits / Perception

Bad boys, success, and discipline

America loves and hates bad boys. The media vilify and attack small transgressions. Take Howard Dean. He wasn't even a bad boy and the media destroyed him after he expressed too much joy and he went from first place to no chance. Yet others who break more stringent rules become icons---in fact, some of our most highly regarded and lauded. Why the difference? Why did Howard Dean go down while others rose to fame for less forgivable behavior? Successful bad boys Let's look at some of America's highly regarded bad boy icons and see why some men who seem to break our society's most stringent rules, instead of suffering in the public eye, rise. I've written about Charles Barkley, who threw a man through a…

September 23, 2015

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Perception

More education doesn’t make you less capable, but universities make you think so

Academia has some serious problems. I give a lot of talks to graduate students on what they can do after graduate school, though the following applies to undergraduates too. Many of them are worried about finding jobs. I grab their attention every time with this question: When I was getting my PhD in physics, I thought the only fields I could go into were academia to become a professor, industry to work probably on something military-industrial, or wall street. I didn't want to do any of those. I felt trapped. You've all heard about people who drop out of school, maybe to start a company, and succeed? With more education, shouldn't you be better prepared than they are? So why do you feel worse prepared…

September 5, 2015

End of content

No more pages to load