Stories Archives - Page 10 of 10

Old man still got it

My team won the first sports tournament I played in on Sunday that I remember since college (which I don't remember that well). I may have won some tournaments playing with the elite teams I played on in club and the co-ed team I went to Nationals with in 1998. There's nothing like the feeling of winning a hard competition. It was just summer league, more of a fun league than competitive, but it still counts. There are points in close games where, if you want to win, you have to put the players on the line who will win the game. In college and even sometimes in clubs, that meant me. However nervous inside, I walked on the field confidently, or as confidently as…

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August 11, 2015

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Leadership / SIDCHAs / Stories

SIDCHAs in the wild

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 liked the idea. So when my turn came to describe myself, I brought everyone into a circle, told them my burpee-starting and SIDCHA stories, and had everyone do a few burpees. Everyone loved doing burpees. They get the blood flowing and your lungs breathing. In a group they're fun. Afterwards, people thanked me for making…

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July 29, 2015

Creativity / Education / Freedom / Stories

Learning to communicate beyond words and talking

I once read that the difference between activities that cool kids do and uncool kids do is that uncool kids' activities tend to be based in rules and cool kids' less so. I don't know how you'd verify the idea, but I found exploring it told me about myself. Uncool kids play chess, which has clear rules. You can count the possible states. Cool kids play football. Football has rules, but loosely describing the boundaries, not the state of play. Football players shine when the strategy falls apart and they have to improvise. Uncool kids dance partner dances with structured rules. Cool kids dance more free style and make things up as they go. A lot of structured partner dances probably emerged from cool kids'…

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July 28, 2015

Creativity / Education / Nature / Stories

The hardest problems I’ve solved

How did it begin? After the first two years of classes in graduate school I had to take Qualifying Exams to continue to research. Columbia's Qualifying Exams are three days of about six hours a day. You get eight problems and have to solve six of your choice. They can cover any physics subject covered in classes to that point. If you remember high school or college physics being difficult, graduate problems are harder. Since they can ask questions on any subject you can't focus on one area. You have to study everything. What was the process? First you read all the questions. Some you can see how to solve right away. Some you can't understand the question. I solved the ones I knew I…

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July 27, 2015

Education / Leadership / Stories

This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 2

Once in high school some of the popular kids picked on me. It humiliated me. That evening I talked to a friend on the phone who told me that many people in the school felt for me and looked down on them. On the phone, I felt I had their support and started developing an idea: I would confront the kids who picked on me in a public venue, like the cafeteria, where the mass of other students would see me taking charge. They would rally behind me and we would rise victorious somehow, winning the confrontation. I didn't know how and even now I have trouble thinking what I could do, but I knew it would be dramatic and everybody would love it. Looking…

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July 1, 2015

Choosing/Decision-Making / Events / Relationships / Stories

See my talk at Stand Up For Passion

In March I performed a story at Stand Up For Passion, a growing series of events where people tell stories about passionate events in their lives. They posted the video of my story and here it is. I hope you like it. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vrg4QetU3QU The events are happening increasingly all over the world. The next one in New York City is October 6. I recommend attending one. Here are the speakers from my event: Here are some other stills:

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June 23, 2015

Education / Leadership / Models / Perception / Relationships / Stories

“You’re too f-ing cheap to by my book?!”

My professor cursed: "You're too fucking cheap to buy my book?!" This was an Ivy League business school. I was stunned. Class just ended and I was asking him a question, as students do. Other students probably heard as they packed their bags and left the room. He had assigned his own book for the class. A couple weeks before, the bookstore clerk told me the book would come out soon in paperback and that I could save money if I waited. The cursing came in response to my telling him this, and that I was using the library copy in the meantime. I don't remember how I reacted in the moment. I know I felt shocked, which soon turned to offense and outrage. I…

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June 19, 2015

Habits / Stories

Less unsolicited advice, more stories, and public accountability

Few people like unsolicited advice. People of every culture love stories. Mostly I write posts about observations based on my perspectives on leadership, but I think a lot of it reads like unsolicited advice. Meanwhile, I don't tell many stories. In other words, my behavior is inconsistent with my beliefs. I've meant to write more stories, especially the stories that led me to the observations and perspectives I'm trying to share, that I think help people lead themselves as others. I haven't changed like I want to. Public accountability motivates and changes habits more effectively than most methods. So I'm writing here to hold myself accountable to start changing.

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June 13, 2015

Awareness / My Favorite Posts / Stories

When I was mugged at knifepoint in Amsterdam

I talked my way out of a guy threatening me with a knife. Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe the girl earlier in the night, maybe the physics, but something gave me the courage. As we both walked away I kept looking back, worried he might come after me, but he never did, and I went to my friend's place to sleep. The year must have been 1998 or 1999 because I was close to finishing the lab research part of my thesis. The x-ray observational satellite I was helping build and calibrate was sponsored by the European Space Agency---ESA, Europe's counterpart to NASA---and I had presented my results in Utrecht. The results came from years of research and lab work culminating in a few…

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September 11, 2014

Leadership / Stories

People who succeeded despite adversity: the series

I can't stand people who give up too easily. I never want to be like them. People who overcome adversity to achieve greatness inspire me. They remind me I don't need external advantages to succeed. If they could do it, so can I. So when I hear of someone's greatness coming despite adversity, I take note of them and when I can I record them here---their names, achievements, and the adversity they overcame. They include some of the greatest achievers you can think of and their adversities far outweigh those of nearly everyone reading this page, meaning anything you might complain about, someone handled something bigger and succeeded beyond what you probably have. Click the Table of Contents to see the entries, feel inspired, and…

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April 28, 2014

Stories

Growing up in a bad part of town

I was watching Chris Rock on Inside the Actors Studio. He talked about how growing up in dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn helped form him. Personally, I highly value the self-made-ness of a self-made man or woman. I think most people do, especially compared to someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth. His description of his childhood in a bad neighborhood reminded me of a neighborhood I spent some time growing up in. I started writing this post about my self-made-ness, but realized it's more about my mother's. I looked up the name of a street my mom moved to not long after my parents divorced -- Rockland Street in Philadelphia. In the 70s it was, to say the least, an economically depressed neighborhood.…

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August 26, 2012

Art / Blog / My Favorite Posts / Stories

I love the West Village

Greenwich Village, my home, is the best place on Earth. You may love a place more. I love the beauty of raw nature, untouched by human hands, that New York City no longer offers. But I love people and the art, music, culture, and community we create too and I've never seen the equal of the West Village. After living abroad and visiting amazing growth, ancient cultures, new cultures, and new ways of seeing, I wondered how coming home would feel. Coming out of the subway to my home, seeing my neighbors, the neighborhood, the buildings, the restaurants, the people of the Village, and whatever visitors are here overwhelmed me with its diversity and vibrancy. I write prose on life and leadership, not creative writing.…

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August 17, 2012

Redefining Possibility: My mom ran her first marathon at 67 years old.

Mom, around mile 7 in Brooklyn. (The "Fox" on her shirt is for the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the charity with which she ran)

Awareness / Blog / Fitness / Freedom / My Favorite Posts / Stories / Tips

Redefining Possibility: My mom ran her first marathon at 67 years old.

I've run a few marathons. In New York they publish the finishing times in the paper the next day. For some reason I would look at the later finishers to see the oldest ones. I don't know why. I guess I found it inspirational. In the ones I've run a 91 year old man and an 88 year old woman finished. I used to tease my mom: "You could train for twenty years and still be younger than a woman who finished one I was in." At the finish of my last one, the only one she had been able to attend, overcome with emotion, she said she would train for one. The farthest she had run by then was five kilometers, ten years ago,…

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October 1, 2009

Awareness / Blog / Education / My Favorite Posts / Stories / Tips

Less, please

I used to view books like most people seem to. Books reflected who I was, they added to my home, let people know more about me, were good to have for quick reference, etc. I went through an experience that changed that. It started innocently enough. I decided to get rid of only the most useless books I had. The ones I would never miss and had for no good reason in the first place. Looking at my shelves it was easy to figure out those from the ones worth keeping. Actually there were some borderline ones. I decided to be conservative so I kept all the borderline ones. I still got rid of a good portion of my books. Some time later I found,…

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April 12, 2009

Awareness / Blog / Humor / Stories

My Cash Machine Heineken Story

Friday night I was out with a few friends in the East Village. At the end of the night it was time to go home. Leaving the last bar I started walking home. One guy suggested a slice of pizza, then we could split a cab home. I didn't want to pay cab fare at all, but everyone was going so why not. Walking in the pizza place, I noticed a couple girls at an in-store cash machine with one of those giant keg-shaped cans of Heineken. After a few moments at the counter ordering pizzas I happened to glance toward the ATM. The girls were gone and there was a $20 bill sitting in the machine! I picked up the bill and showed it…

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February 23, 2009