What do you do when they cancel your flight? In the late 70s, a man and his fiancée were visiting the Caribbean. They found themselves stranded in an airport when their airline canceled their flight to Puerto Rico. The man was disappointed, but based on his experience running a record business that he had founded, he took initiative to solve the problem. Noticing other people from the same flight were[…] Keep reading →

My latest Inc.com story “Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker and Most of Academia Got Wrong” begins Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker, and Most of Academia Got Wrong If you want to be resilient, not just know about resilience, research and the media won’t help you. [the story starts with a picture of an athlete covered in mud, struggling to make it] You’re covered in[…] Keep reading →

I loved university. Studying physics, universities are about the only places to learn it. I value university for many things. They do a lot of valuable things better than any other institution or alternatives—the hard sciences, for example. It’s not right for everyone and it does some things terribly. Places other than universities do some non-academic activities so much better than school. Experiential learning—how I teach leadership, entrepreneurship, sales, and[…] Keep reading →

My Inc. post today, “Trump: Why Voters Love Him and What You Can Learn From Him (Even If You Hate Him),” begins Trump: Why Voters Love Him and What You Can Learn From Him (Even If You Hate Him) Love him or hate him, he’s effective at something and you can learn what works from his technique. An example confusing people trying to understand Donald Trump: the picture above shows[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

Entrepreneurs solve problems. So do leaders. If you don’t understand the problem, you won’t know how to solve it. If you want help from others, if you don’t understand the problem, you’ll lead people to give you useless advice. People feel like solutions make them heroes, so they focus on what they consider solutions, but if you don’t understand the problem from the perspective of people feeling it—that is, your[…] Keep reading →

I hear people talk about how much people fear failure, but also that you have to learn to handle failure. They talk about it like it’s abstract—just not achieving a goal you want to. Like if you want to start a business and you end up not making money. Or you want to achieve some other goal and don’t. We don’t like not achieving goals, but we don’t fear such[…] Keep reading →

Want to learn and practice one of the most effective leadership techniques? Then join me for a workshop, Monday, March 14th at 6:30pm. Click here to register! I look forward to seeing you there. From the announcement: Feedforward by Professor Joshua Spodek Interesting Talks is incredibly excited to welcome Joshua Spodek. Joshua is professor at New York University and is visiting London. We are lucky enough to have him speak at[…] Keep reading →

Here is the video from Sunday’s webinar on How to Make Meaningful Connections, which, as I describe in it and you’ll find if you practice the exercise in it, is about how to develop compassion. The exercise in this webinar teaches some of the most valuable skills you can learn about relationships. Every leader I’ve ever heard talk about compassion describes it as critical, up there with empathy and self-awareness.[…] Keep reading →