Models

Fitness / Models / Nature / Perception

“Eating healthy is expensive and takes too much time” is wrong

I just read yet another post of someone saying eating healthy takes more time and money. I can't believe how wrong that view is, at least by my experience. Living in New York City means I have access to some of the best restaurants in the world. I can afford to eat at them. Yet my past year's cooking has disillusioned me in them. I find them disappointing. Their food still tastes that same. They're just as convenient. Their food just doesn't taste as good as what I can make at home and cooking, eating, and cleaning at home takes less time than eating out our having it delivered. I like cooking at home first and foremost because it tastes better. Next because it takes…

0 Comments

April 13, 2016

Education / Entrepreneurship / Leadership / Models / Stories / Visualization

Hustling

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 also stranded, he called a chartering company to find the cost to charter a plane. $2,000. He agreed to charter it. He divided that cost by two less than the number of seats in the plane, wrote a sign to show that price for a seat on a chartered plane to Puerto Rico, walked around…

0 Comments

April 9, 2016

Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Leadership / Models / Perception

“Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker and Most of Academia Got Wrong” (My Inc. story)

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 mud, exhausted, bruised, and have a long way to go. Disaster or glory? Any leader or entrepreneur knows it's how you look at it. The active among us find ways to motivate ourselves and our teams. Resilience is a hot topic. It's valuable to know to handle challenges and recover from adversity. Those who can…

0 Comments

April 1, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Entrepreneurship / Fitness / Models / Perception / Relationships

I’ve been catching up my whole life

School Doing a gratitude exercise recently, writing my undergraduate advisor who helped me figure out how to major in physics starting my second semester junior year. Physics is intense so most of my classmates were younger, having known their major since high school. So academically, I was catching up with classmates from when I chose my major. I just finished the major in my last semester and got into Penn for graduate school, so I felt caught up. Graduate school brought a new level of classmates. Many of them came from abroad, where their educational systems had them take only math and science classes from fifteen or sixteen years old. Some of them had taken forty math and science classes. Columbia is a liberal arts…

0 Comments

March 29, 2016

Models

A rising tide doesn’t lift all boats

I write about beliefs and mental models. We humans have a weird pattern that we will often believe something that's catchy just because it sticks in our heads. "No pain, no gain," for example, rhymes, so sticks in our heads. We often choose not to do painful things, as if the statement were true. Commercial jingles often work this way. Another examples is "a rising tide lifts all boats." It's a nice belief and often accurate for many boats and tides, but not all. And there's no reason to believe that what holds for boats holds for economies, any more than the behavior of dominoes held for Southeast Asian countries. For that matter, it doesn't hold for all boats. A big enough tide could submerge…

0 Comments

March 28, 2016

Awareness / Freedom / Models / Nature / Perception

How to use space travel to make mangoes taste better

This passage interviewing a guy who walked in space, plus some context, can help you enjoy life more, even---especially---if you can't get to space but expect you'd love the experience. From the article: In the 1960s, he says, "astronauts were celebrities. They were invited on JFK's boat. If you wanted to go to space, you had to become Neil Armstrong." Today, however, space-travel companies like Virgin Galactic and SpaceX are creating new opportunities for engineers. I imagine most people would find the Earth from space one of the most beautiful sights imaginable. Many would love being celebrities who get to hang out with Presidents. Astronauts lost their 60s status long ago. Charles Lindberg was once famous for crossing the Atlantic. So was Christopher Columbus. Thousands…

0 Comments

March 26, 2016

Entrepreneurship / Models / Nonjudgment / Tips

Don’t “Become an entrepreneur.” Solve people’s problems so well they pay you for it.

Teaching entrepreneurship, I often hear people say they want "to become an entrepreneur," "to be their own boss," and "to run their own company." I have to distinguish between thinking and behaving entrepreneurially and "becoming an entrepreneur." Thinking and behaving entrepreneurially means identifying problems that people would pay you to solve, figuring out how to solve them, creating sustainable models to implement the solutions, attracting teammates, marketing and selling the solutions, and so on. Note that everything here emerges from the problem and the people feeling it. They come first, not you. You serve them. The solution and everything after, depends on the problem and the people feeling it. "Becoming an entrepreneur" means you want to start a company or be your own boss, so…

0 Comments

March 19, 2016

Art / Choosing/Decision-Making / Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Models / Perception

My Inc. piece today: How Beatles Producer George Martin Succeeded Where Every Label Failed

My post at Inc. today, "How Beatles Producer George Martin Succeeded Where Every Label Failed," begins: How Beatles Producer George Martin Succeeded Where Every Label Failed George Martin signed the Beatles in 1962 after every British label rejected them. How the experts missed the opportunity happens more than you think. I played Abbey Road until the stylus on my child's cheap record player destroyed each groove from Come Together to Her Majesty. I've never stopped loving The Beatles' music and still consider them my favorite musicians. George Martin, the band's producer, died yesterday at 90. It's hard to imagine that every British record label rejected them before him. It's hard to imagine music today without "The most popular and influential rock act of all time,…

0 Comments

March 9, 2016

Awareness / Leadership / Models / Nonjudgment / Perception / Relationships / Visualization

Video: The Worst Problem in the World

I've shown this representation of what I call The Worst Problem in the World at many seminars. I wrote about it about five years ago. Now you can see the video. Watch all the way through to see some solutions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUycXlo4OX8 Take my course if you want to get beyond it and resolve it in your life, mainly by doing the exercises in it to develop compassion and empathy.

0 Comments

March 7, 2016

Creativity / Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Models

Inc.com Today: This Insidious (and Subtle) Innovation Myth is Killing Your Creativity

My post today on Inc.com, "This Insidious (and Subtle) Innovation Myth is Killing Your Creativity," begins: This Insidious (and Subtle) Innovation Myth is Killing Your Creativity This specious myth is so commonly held enough that few challenge it. Yet overcoming it is easy and rewarding. Thomas Edison was an outlier. For someone to invent so many products and succeed with so many, even accounting for his failures, just doesn't happen, before or after him. Elon Musk, with several innovations, is still an outlier. It's rare that someone could come up with multiple ideas, let alone to succeed with even one of them. Jeff Bezos, while more financially successful than most, is more typical in terms of innovation. Most of us would be lucky to come…

0 Comments

March 4, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Models / Visualization

(Video) How to achieve long-term goals: The Samurai Walk

I wrote a few years ago about the Samurai Walk, a great way to plan and achieve goals. I recommend reading that post. It's visual, so I did a video on it recently. Once you get it, I predict you'll use it, and I bet you'll find yourself getting more done with less effort, remaining more calm. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irKDx6hIbr4

0 Comments

March 2, 2016

Fitness / Inc.com / Models / Perception / Stories

Inc.com Today: How to Win an NBA Championship as a 66-Year-Old Grandmother of Five

My post today on Inc.com, "How to Win an NBA Championship as a 66-Year-Old Grandmother of Five," begins: How to Win an NBA Championship as a 66-Year-Old Grandmother of Five Knowing your values and living by them enables you to achieve the value of what others only dream of. This is a post about values, living by them, and achieving more through it. You read Inc.com. You value achievement. Let's talk about overcoming challenges and winning. Marathons I've run a few marathons. One year an 88-year-old woman finished the same race. For fun I teased my mom that she could train for twenty years and still be younger. She laughed but said she was past marathons. She grew up on a farm, so knew exertion, but had never run more than a…

0 Comments

February 26, 2016

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Education / Models

Op/Ed Fridays: How higher education risks going the way of the dodo

An Op/Ed piece in the New York Times, "What a Million Syllabuses Can Teach Us," illustrated a perspective that will turn higher education into a dinosaur if it doesn't learn some new perspectives. It begins COLLEGE course syllabuses are curious documents. They represent the best efforts by faculty and instructors to distill human knowledge on a given subject into 14-week chunks. They structure the main activity of colleges and universities. And then, for the most part, they disappear. Do you see the dated perspective? The key words for me are "knowledge" and "activity." What's wrong with knowledge and activity? Aren't they good? Read on for a broader perspective, one that I hope and expect will overtake theirs. Regarding knowledge, centuries ago, when most were illiterate,…

0 Comments

February 19, 2016

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Models / Perception / SIDCHAs / Tips

Discipline doesn’t enable you to do things. Doing things consistently makes you disciplined.

[This post is part of a series on the Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity (SIDCHA). If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] People keep getting it backward when they congratulate me on the five years of daily posts, four years of daily burpees, and other disciplined achievements. They say, "You must have a lot of discipline to do that," implying that before I started I had some special trait that enabled me to do what they couldn't. They have it backward. No baby is born able to do multi-year projects. We all have to develop discipline like anyone else. Doing daily exercises develops discipline just…

2 Comments

February 16, 2016

Choosing/Decision-Making / Education / Leadership / Models

How to Decide Without Regret in business and life

After teaching, coaching, studying, and practicing leadership for twenty years, I announced my online leadership course, "Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere." I'm hosting a series of free webinars on the most actionable, useful, effective, and exciting parts of the course. My webinars will always deliver exclusive, valuable lessons you can use that day and how to build for the long term. Attend my second webinar, free, this Sunday, February 14, 1pm Eastern Standard Time! All you need is an internet connection. How to Decide Without Regret ... in business and life Click to register! From the registration page: What You'll Learn in The Webinar Why deciding is hard, and it's not what you think! How to make deciding easier, even something to…

0 Comments

February 12, 2016

Audio / Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Education / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Leadership / Models / Nonjudgment / Relationships / Tips

Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere

If you read this blog, you know I care about leadership and how to improve yours---in business, personal, family, and every other part of your life. I presume you do too. As much as you've learned from the blog, you can learn more from doing. If you want to improve because you're moving up the corporate ladder, just finished school, starting your own projects, or any other reason that you have to lead people and teams, developing leadership skills from practice will improve you most effectively. Anyone can improve their ability to lead, and the most effective improvement comes from experience, not books, lectures, or case studies. Or even my blog. I created what I believe the most effective course in leadership you can find…

0 Comments

February 2, 2016

Awareness / Models / Visualization

Stop before you ruin things, part 2: a reader’s additions

Last week in "Stop before you ruin it: Math that improves your life," I posted about not confusing behavior like this: with this: I gave examples of saturation: money and happiness, material stuff and happiness, nutrients and health, exercise and fitness, and time together and enjoyment. A reader wrote in a few more examples. She specified the x-axis but not the y-axis, though I think you can figure out the dependent variable in each Thinking too much (without doing anything) Solitude Drinking, Desserts, Hygiene Watching TV Organizing things, Cleaning Doing nothing I agree with most, from experience. Can you think of others?

0 Comments

January 7, 2016

Awareness / Fitness / Models / Nature / Visualization

Stop before you ruin it: Math that improves your life

Do you hate doing things that take effort and get you no results? You're probably doing it a lot without realizing it, especially if you don't understand this simple concept I'll illustrate below. If you'd like to stop wasting your time, energy, and other resources on things that don't help your life, read on. Some things work like this: If the temperature goes up in Fahrenheit, it also goes up in Celsius. If you work more hours and you get paid by the hour, you'll get paid more. It illustrates cases where what you put in, you get out. We call it "linear" because it looks like a line. Not everything works this way. If you don't get enough vitamin C, your health improves when…

0 Comments

January 1, 2016

Freedom / Leadership / Models

Op/Ed Friday: How every politician and nation, now matter how belligerent, justifies its attacks

No politician or nation, no matter how belligerent, considers itself the attacker---not the most authoritarian dictator any more than the most democratically elected leader. One simple statement, used by nearly every one, summarizes the trick: We will not attack first, but if attacked, we will defend ourselves. Every leader says it their own way. Once the population believes it, they can feel justified in attacking, feeling and claiming innocence. Neither population has to believe the other, only their own leader. All both leaders have to do is point out any infraction from the other side, no matter how small, to justify escalating. Once the escalations begin, to the extent each population accepted the original belief, both can keep escalating as much as they want. Populations…

0 Comments

December 31, 2015

Creativity / Entrepreneurship / Leadership / Models

Technology comes from teams of people

Many people look to technology to solve problems. Technology has solved many problems. It helps us travel around the world, communicate with people anywhere instantly, makes amazing special effects in movies, and all that stuff that dazzles us. I think a lot of people see technology as something that sprouts out of laboratories or the minds of people so unlike them they call them geniuses and consider them superhuman. I see it differently. Technology comes from people. And almost never one person, so teams of people. The more you can manage and lead people, the more you can create technologies to solve problems. If your goal is to get rich with technology, knowing how to work with and lead people can get you rich with…

0 Comments

December 28, 2015

Awareness / Exercises / Models

My beliefs from a week of writing them

Here are the results of doing the exercise from this post, "An exercise in knowing your beliefs; so you can change them." for a week. I wrote beliefs down each day, then put them on a file on my computer. I didn't keep track of what order I wrote them in, so the numbers don't mean anything. I just use them for reference. I'm including my word-for-word results to show that the exercise output—what you will create when you do the exercise—is only sixty-odd sentence fragments. They may not make sense to anyone else, but I expect you'll find you'll write in your shorthand too. What you write only has to make sense to you. There were a few I wrote but didn't include here…

0 Comments

December 22, 2015

Entrepreneurship / Leadership / Models / Perception / Relationships

When someone says “America is losing ground to China or India,” watch your wallet

Politicians tell you America is "losing ground" to other countries all the time. A search on "America is losing ground to China India" returns tons of results, many fear-mongering. This language comes from a misguided belief that business and trade are zero-sum competitions, that if someone elsewhere gets a deal then you lost it. If you want votes and don't mind sowing fear, anxiety, and xenophobia, great. But people succeeding elsewhere doesn't have to mean you are losing. On the contrary, you could see people succeeding elsewhere as increased opportunity for more business and trade. In other words, people always have problems and I can always help them with them enough for them to pay me for it. Other countries prospering means I can help…

0 Comments

December 19, 2015

Freedom / Models

Was the U.S. founded on religious tolerance?

As a kid I learned that the early European settlers whose communities played large roles in founding this country left Europe to escape religious persecution in favor of religious freedom here. I rarely thought about it since but looking at a lot of religious views particular to the U.S., I wonder if these settlers weren't more religiously intolerant and therefore had trouble staying in Europe. I'm not a historian. For all I know I just wrote something painfully ignorant, but I see a lot of intolerance here that I don't see in Europe.

0 Comments

December 15, 2015

Models / Tips

Life lessons from fruits and vegetables

You're born liking fruit. Even if you liked candy more than fruit as a kid like I did, you still like it. If someone gives you a mango, you'd rather eat it than not. You aren't born liking vegetables. At least I wasn't. Until adulthood, if someone gave me a cauliflower, I'd rather not eat it, no matter how healthy they told me it was. The problem is that you can't live on fruit. You can live on vegetables (I'm including legumes and all the other non-fruit plants I've lived on the past twenty-five years). So you have to find ways to enjoy eating vegetables if you want to live a healthy life. As I've matured, I've found I like vegetables more. I still love…

0 Comments

December 10, 2015

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Fitness / Models / Perception

You have two options in life

You have two options in life. Option 1 is to try, meaning actively trying at things that matter to you. If you try, things won't always work as you want and you will sometimes feel bad. Not bad like your fell and scraped your knee. Bad like what's-the-point?-Every-time-I-try-I-fail-so-why-keep-trying?-Why-bother-going-on-at-all?-I'm-a-failure-and-always-will-be bad. As far as I know, feeling that way is inevitable if you try. Option 2 is to eat cookies and ice cream and watch TV, meaning to entertain yourself passively. Your passive entertainment may come in many forms besides literal cookies and ice cream, as long as you don't have to try and make yourself vulnerable to pain. This route doesn't lead to feeling bad in the way the first option does. Some who favor actively…

0 Comments

December 8, 2015