I simplify complex or mysterious terms to make them easy to understand and act on. The professional and personal development fields seem to prefer click-bait titles—what sells over what works. Talk about failure and success is filled with clichés (“It’s the journey, not the destination,” “everything happens for a reason”) and grandstanding (“fail early and often,” “I failed many times before succeeding”) that I haven’t found helpful for someone facing[…] Keep reading →

Talk about leading people and a lot of people will talk to you about convincing people as a way of leading them. I recommend against this strategy. Convincing someone implies logically debating. Changing someone’s behavior means changing their motivations, which means changing their emotions. Logical argument evokes emotions of debate. Convincing motivates people to disagree. They also feel like you’re trying to impose your values on them. If you disagree[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post’s exercise for how to speak authentically, I wanted to give a couple more examples illustrating mastery of speaking authentically. People who speak authentically can say things others can’t, meaning they have more freedom. We respect them not for their technical mastery of some craft but that they speak without that. A great master today is Charles Barkley, whom I wrote about the other day. He’s famous[…] Keep reading →

Here is every TED talk ever in 99 seconds.

It seems the New Yorker is following me, or at least fishing for stories in my blog. Witness the evidence in this week’s issue. Item 1 In week’s article “Swim, Swam, Swum,” Ben McGrath writes about some people thinking about swimming in the Hudson River. Four years ago, three guys had an idea: that it might be nice to swim in the East River. “It came about pretty simply,” one[…] Keep reading →

I read and recommend Steve Martin’s memoir, “Born Standing Up.” He writes honestly and concisely. He persevered through a challenging life. Unlike many people we admire, he didn’t overcome obstacles that befell him. My list of inspirations on my “Resources and Inspirations” page includes three big ones for me who overcame outside challenges that they couldn’t have foreseen and have to handle—Victor Frankl, Jean-Dominique Bauby, and Mark Zupan. Overcoming challenges[…] Keep reading →

After the game in the picture below I couldn’t help myself emailing a friend about it the following. I don’t know if I’m more proud or ashamed and if it’s from the high score or the poem. Look on my high score, ye mighty, and despair! You met a geek from an antique land Who emailed: “Sixteen small and colored numbered tiles Stand on my screen. Near them, on my[…] Keep reading →

“You! You cannot do that here!” A voice in a stadium of 20,000 people told my friend he was breaking a rule. The man yelling pointed at my friend and sounded angry. A man next to the first saw what he was pointing at—my friend—and pointed and yelled he couldn’t do that here too. Then another, another, and another. Soon a whole section was pointing at him, angrily yelling at[…] Keep reading →

This quote by the actor in the video below reveals such profound lack of awareness, you can only imagine the denial that could resolve the conflict between accepting direct government aid and welfare while decrying government aid and welfare and saying nobody helped him. I don’t know if the programs he talked about help or hurt society or him. I don’t know his situation. I only know what he said[…] Keep reading →