If this doesn’t sound like leadership and the rest of what I usually write about, it is. It’s about awareness, perception, discovery, and living your life. Increasingly I see food and how you eat as fundamental to leading yourself. Cabbage is delicious! I grew up thinking it was supposed to taste bad. I thought maybe when I grew up I would “acquire the taste for it.” I never bought cabbage[…] Keep reading →
Extra words water down what you say. “Go ahead and…” for example. People with lower status use more words to say the same thing. People who feel insecure keep talking and explaining more than they need. I think people are afraid of implying they’re equal to people they see above them. Is that what you want for yourself? Speak more succinctly and see if weathering the challenge leads you to[…] 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 →
Everyone says they care about the environment. Talk is cheap. How they behave tells you what they care about. If they choose themselves over something they say they care about, that tells you their priority. I talk a lot about how I try to avoid flying because the pollution it causes hurts people. When people talk about how much more first-worlders pollute more than others, flying contributes a lot. But[…] Keep reading →
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[…] Keep reading →
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[…] 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 →
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 →
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[…] Keep reading →
