Frances invited me to her office. The first day I went, I approached the front desk. The security guy was friendly. As he processed my ID he said, “Oh yeah, Frances gets big visitors. Sometimes Generals come in. Four stars, ones from TV. They all have to wait for her.” Impressive! Her office is in a big Park Avenue high-rise office building in the 50s. The lobby had fifty-foot ceilings,[…] Keep reading →

A reader and friend wrote about his SIDCHAs: Hey Josh, How’s it going? I was reading your blog and found your SIDCHA example and explanation post. Really enjoyed the distillation of it all, especially as my insecurities have many times led me to search for info rather than action. One thing I have been (attempting to) do is a Daily Review. It’s just a checklist of all the SIDCHAs I[…] Keep reading →

Somewhere around today I hit 60,000 cumulative burpees since starting in December 2011. I don’t keep track rigorously, I only know I haven’t missed a burpee. Sometimes I do a few extra, like to show someone how to do them, if I lose count and want to make sure I do enough, or if I want to make up for eating candy. What started as ten burpees per day has[…] Keep reading →

I did someone a favor and didn’t get thanked. No big deal. I’m not offended, but I’m not inclined to help them again. I read about leaders who send handwritten notes to people in their teams and the loyalty and dedication such little shows of appreciation create. I’ve written “how to get a mentor in two easy steps that work.” Showing appreciation influences people a lot. It doesn’t take much[…] Keep reading →

After driving a smelly twenty-seven-year-old pick up truck with wobbly steering and a barely functional clutch all night from my cousin’s wedding outside Pittsburgh to my friend’s networking day-long workshop in Manhattan, one of the session leaders asked the attendees to describe ourselves. I was too tired for small talk. He gave us paper and crayons do illustrate our descriptions. I asked if I could demonstrate instead of illustrate. He[…] Keep reading →

I can’t believe the changes in how I see food my last two changes in food habit created. And I can’t believe how easy and cheap the changes were. The changes were to buy a farm share, where I pick up fresh vegetables from a drop-off place near me each week, and the other was my two-and-a-half-week experiment not buying food where I had to throw away packaging after. Each[…] Keep reading →

The New York Times wrote about a woman who ran, swam, or biked every morning at 6:30 for thirty years in “On the Trail, Every Day for 30 Years.” She has over a quarter-century on my burpee sidcha! The article begins: Just after 7 a.m. on a sunny Wednesday in June, a 61-year-old woman darted in front of taxis in Columbus Circle outside Central Park. A few seconds later, she[…] Keep reading →