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[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

Damn, it feels good to lift. Since starting this blog, I’ve run a marathon, done over sixty-thousand burpees, developed well-defined abs, won summer league finals playing Ultimate Frisbee, rowed on the stationary rower the equivalent of the distance to Pittsburgh from New York, and a few other active things. But I haven’t lifted weights in that time. Except I have a few times lately, and, man, does it feel good.[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday began my fifth year of daily burpees, never missing one! I love the fitness they create. More importantly, the practice of integrity they create leads to me not skimping in other areas. My routine has expanded from ten burpees total to include stretching, back exercises, and ab exercises—one set in the morning, another set in the evening. I’ve also started other SIDCHAs. I’ve written before about their benefits, which[…] Keep reading →

Would you feel weird to eat the peel of an orange? I don’t know about you, but I would have thought people would consider me weird to peel an orange and then eat any of the peel. It turns out the peel has most of the fruit’s vitamin C, nearly all of its fiber, a decent amount of calcium, and almost no calories. It’s healthy and comes free with the[…] Keep reading →

A student in the online entrepreneurship course I’m creating asked about distractions. When he wants to work, he often gets distracted. I think me answer will help others so I’m sharing it here. Most life-long valuable things have long-term, non-urgent reward. Things that have immediate reward or urgency will distract. For example, if you want to do well at school, the reward for working on a project may come days[…] Keep reading →

If you want to learn, find an experience to teach you and make it happen, not just the answers written out. Let the experience create the answer for you. When I wanted to learn something, I used to get a book and read about it. We learn more through experience. I teach that way. I also realize I’ve adopted the habit of trying to do things to learn. If I[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →