Immigration is a wedge issue in the U.S. It gets a lot of media attention. I’m going to admit that I don’t understand the controversy around illegal immigration. If the nation decided on laws for how many immigrants to receive, why the support for people who came here illegally? Should the laws change? I would support laws changed through a reasonably democratic process. Otherwise, what’s the point of immigration laws?[…] Keep reading →

Why do people say “Excel spreadsheet” instead of “spreadsheet”? They say “I’ll email you an Excel spreadsheet,” wasting words, while they would never say “I’ll drive my Ford car to the store.” The pattern is different than using names like Kleenex to mean a tissue. People say “Can you hand me a Kleenex,” not “Can you hand me a Kleenex tissue.” As a Linux user who dislikes proprietary software, I[…] Keep reading →

From the New York Times (my emphasis): STOCKHOLM — “Sex must be voluntary — if it is not, then it is illegal.” This is the straightforward language of a new Swedish law set to change the way rape and other sexual crimes are prosecuted in the country. It is the first law in the country that acknowledges sex without explicit consent as rape I normally don’t write about this topic,[…] Keep reading →

I’ve quoted Martha Graham many times. At last I got the video of her saying the words. She describes how a performer achieves freedom through conforming and discipline better than anyone, in my opinion. I believe what she says holds for any active, emotional, expressive, social, performance-based field, including leadership and entrepreneurship. The dancer is realistic. His craft teaches him to be. Either the foot is pointed or it is[…] Keep reading →

RJ and I talk about the early success of LEAD Palestine, the organization he began to teach leadership to youths that most of the world abandoned in Palestine. Where their environment made it natural to respond with hopelessness and what comes from it—desperation to the point of aspiring to blow oneself up—RJ is bringing social and emotional development to create hope themselves. They happen to have been born into a[…] Keep reading →

Who doesn’t have a dream car? If you can afford it, especially if you’ve aspired to it your whole life, isn’t owning and driving your dream car one of the great joys and well-earned accomplishments in life? What if you found something better? What if what you liked better was not having the car? Does the idea of getting rid of one of your highest value sound crazy? That’s the[…] Keep reading →

Joshua Spodek Joshua Spodek is author of Leadership Step by Step and host of the Leadership and the Environment podcast. An adjunct professor at NYU and leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, Joshua currently lives in New York City. What is your morning routine? To the untrained eye my morning routine (and all my other routines) seems to take away what it actually gives me: freedom. But[…] Keep reading →

Morning Routines and Success You show me a successful person and I’ll show you one with daily habits. MyMorningRoutine.com brings today’s successful people’s habits. You show me a successful person and I’ll show you one with structured daily habits. The more successful, the more self-imposed, challenging, relevant, and active his or her habits. Even bad-boy athletes, apparently self-indulgent rock stars, and counter-cultural artists have habits. Rather, the long-term successful ones do. The[…] Keep reading →

I rarely drink coffee—about a cup per decade, maybe. Partly I don’t drink it because I see how dependent people get on it, and how much they spend. Partly because the caffeine affects me so much. I drink it to stay awake only when I consider the reasons I was up late and had to get up early worthy. Otherwise I don’t drink it since I don’t want to reward[…] Keep reading →