Stories

Education / Exercises / Leadership / Models / Stories

Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 2

Here is an interview with a student who is taking my online leadership course, Ellen, who is an entrepreneur who recently sold her latest business. As you'll see, she is also finding that the lessons she's learning apply to other deeply challenging areas in life.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnblmP_VlHg Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

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April 21, 2016
Hustling
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…

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April 9, 2016
“Stuff,” challenging your values, and freedom
Choosing/Decision-Making / Freedom / Stories

“Stuff,” challenging your values, and freedom

I find material things beyond the basics become a burden. What constitutes "basics" depends on everyone's unique values, but I find the more I get rid of, and the more free I feel as a result, the fewer things I need as basic, which lets me get rid of more. The less "stuff" I have, the more freedom I have, mental and physical. I value few things more than freedom. I think Thoreau said it well: "Simplify, simplify, simplify." Getting rid of unnecessary things starts simple. Nearly everyone has junk they already know they want to get rid of. Each piece of junk gotten rid of leaves the remaining possessions more valuable, so getting rid of each next thing becomes more challenging. What's the challenge?…

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April 4, 2016
Product review: Webinarninja embarrassed me in front of customers. One of the worst products I’ve used.
Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Stories

Product review: Webinarninja embarrassed me in front of customers. One of the worst products I’ve used.

EDIT: I've started using Webinarjam, which has worked flawlessly so far. I recommend it instead. I haven't compared it with others beside Webinarninja, which failed me miserably and whose customer support wasted my time, so I can say it works. It's possible there are better alternatives, but I'm happy with it. To see my use of Webinarjam in action, check out my recurring webinar describing my leadership course, which as of January 2016 runs weekly on Thursdays. Click here to register and see it (you can unsubscribe after watching it). I am pleased to promote products and services that deliver or overdeliver, such as a remarkably helpful flight attendant, my thirty-year-old-and-still-going-strong rice cooker / vegetable steamer / miracle appliance, and the pressure cooker that has…

36 Comments
March 21, 2016
Awareness / Entrepreneurship / Exercises / Leadership / Relationships / Stories / Tips

Video: How to Make Meaningful Connections

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. Scratch that. Every successful person, not just leaders. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9h3gNZ3rl4 If you want your questions answered, attend the webinars or contact me. By the way, I'm still getting to the questions people responded to in my poll on what your most important question about leadership is. If you haven't responded to it, please do, at this…

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March 8, 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…

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February 26, 2016
Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Stories

Why Disaster Was the Best Thing to Happen to Me as an Entrepreneur

My post today on Inc.com, "Why Disaster Was the Best Thing to Happen to Me as an Entrepreneur," begins: Why Disaster Was the Best Thing to Happen to Me as an Entrepreneur You want experience in people you hire and yourself too. Only the more useful the experience, the more painful it is to gain. Do you know how to tell how good at something someone is? I've learned: Clueless people brag about how great they are. Masters tell you the disasters they overcame on the way to mastery. The masters' stories are more fun and educational. I hope you enjoy and learn from mine. You Value Experience, But Not Any Experience When you hire, you look for experience, but not any experience. Anyone the same age has the same…

2 Comments
February 23, 2016
Inc.com Today: 2 Questions To Ask in Every Interview So They’ll Want You Back (Video)
Inc.com / Leadership / Relationships / Stories / Tips

Inc.com Today: 2 Questions To Ask in Every Interview So They’ll Want You Back (Video)

My post today on Inc.com, "2 Questions To Ask in Every Interview So They'll Want You Back," begins: Instead of trying to show off, making you look like a commodity, use these techniques to make interviews two-way conversations where they'll want you back. Isn't that what you want from an interview? If you want one thing most from an interview, you want the interviewer to want you back. If you want a second thing, you want to know if you want to work there--do you like the people, the culture, and everything else about working there. What not to do in an interview Most people undermine both goals by trying to show off. Telling them about your features feels like it should work, but since everyone does it you…

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February 5, 2016
Awareness / Entrepreneurship / Inc.com / Leadership / Perception / Relationships / Stories

Inc.com Today: Why You Should Never Let Anyone Call You ‘Smart’ in Business

My post today on Inc.com, "Why You Should Never Let Anyone Call You 'Smart' in Business" begins: Intelligence is good so entrepreneurs should like being called smart, right? Wrong. People call you smart when you have nothing they care about more. Look at who doesn't care if you're smart in business: Customers value products and services that solve their problems. Employees want to pay their rent and enjoy their jobs. Suppliers want to get paid. But the big concern is investors. Read the rest at the site: Why You Should Never Let Anyone Call You 'Smart' in Business

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January 27, 2016
Awareness / Fitness / Habits / Perception / SIDCHAs / Stories

Forty-eight point nine

[This post is part of a series on Cold Showers. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] I haven't written about cold showers lately, probably because the water hasn't gotten below fifty degrees since last winter, but this morning it did, so I am. The thermometer said the water was 48.9F (9.4C) this morning. People ask me why I do it. Other people who do cold showers understand. Taking them develops skills and perspectives that apply elsewhere in life---actually, everywhere in life. I like hot showers, which account for three-quarters of the showers I take, but physical pleasure isn't everything in life. I can't explain…

3 Comments
January 20, 2016
Awareness / Fitness / Habits / SIDCHAs / Stories

A reader’s SIDCHAs

An attendee at my Harvard talk wrote me about his starting a couple Sidchas. I asked him if I could share his experience because it illustrates how we grow when we challenge ourselves. Making a challenging daily habit stick not easy, but I find that knowing that others face the same obstacles and that overcoming them is just as hard for everyone else makes it easier. You'll also see that the challenges aren't what most people expect and prepare for, like physical fatigue or having the right clothing or equipment. The main challenges are your emotions and emotional system, especially empathy gaps, where the motivation you feel when planning a challenge goes away, replaced with complacency, lethargy, feeling like you already did enough, and so…

2 Comments
November 13, 2015
Relationships / Stories

Thesweeten.com created one of the worst problems in my life

Years ago a then-friend and practicing architect visiting my apartment suggested that he could redesign it so it would look so great it would belong in a magazine. We had been friends for years. I knew about big projects he'd done. He said that he would find me a great contractor. He cofounded a company called thesweeten.com, through which we worked. Instead they delivered poor quality work with an incompetent contractor who went over budget (by more than double) and over time (by more than five times) and they disappeared from managing the project in the middle. The sweeten.com created one of the worst problems in my life because I can't fix it without making things worse again. Every day I have to live with…

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November 4, 2015
Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Creativity / Entrepreneurship / Freedom / Models / Perception / Stories

Do you trap yourself in mental jails?

"Nice guys finish last." Alone, this thought has probably condemned many men and women to abandon being nice. Accurate or not, combined with another belief, that the alternative to being nice is to be a jerk, further condemns people to being jerks. Jerks---people with one type of poor relationship skills---even when materially successful, seem likely to face emptiness in intimacy, what many consider the most important parts of their lives. We don't like jerks around us, so we don't want others to consider us jerks and shun us. But if the alternative of finishing last seems worse, we feel rational in choosing it. Whether nice people finish last or not, you can't much control. After you try your best, competitive outcomes depend on many factors,…

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October 22, 2015
Exercises / Freedom / Stories / Tips

I bought two books

I hope long time readers are asking, "What?!" Five years ago, in my fifth post on this blog, I wrote "Less, please," which founded one of my most fundamental practices, one I recommend to everyone. That post described reducing my wall of books to about ten, learning about my values and discovering freedom where I used to feel weighed down. I've since gotten rid of more books and more other stuff, finding yet more freedom and learning more about my values. I still read a lot of books, maybe two a month. I just don't value possessing the material product. I have a public library across the street from me I can have books delivered to. I have two books (on social entrepreneurship) on my…

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October 20, 2015
Perception / Relationships / Stories

My odd race story

I have friend who is very charismatic. He makes up catch phrases and says them in a way people enjoy and associate with him. One of them, which he used as a greeting, was "Word word word." As in, you'd be at a bar and he'd show up and greet everyone with a big "Word word word!" It didn't mean much more than he felt friendly. At least as far as I knew. I'd never heard anyone say anything like it. Sometimes I'd say it to friends in other circles, not thinking much of it. I should mention that this friend is white. I didn't think anything of his skin color when he said it, but it matters later. Around the time he said "word…

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October 8, 2015
Awareness / Models / Perception / Relationships / Stories

Confusing perception and reality will make even experienced leaders cry

A coaching client was in tears during a call not long ago. She lives in another time zone so the call was in the evening, after work. I took the call in my home. She called from hers. I felt for her, but my job was to coach her through the situation---to enable her to make herself feel better, resolve the cause, and know how to resolve similar future situations. The issue was that she was trying to reach a high-status person who was also a gateway to a big project for her. Without him, she would have trouble proceeding. He had returned her emails a few times a few months ago but stopped. She hadn't heard from him in months and concluded he dropped…

1 Comment
October 7, 2015
Maturity and pasta
Fitness / Nature / Stories / Visualization

Maturity and pasta

I used to think of pasta and rice as staples---that is, the basic food of a meal to put everything else around. Over the years I've decreased the pasta, rice, and other staples in favor of vegetables. Now that I see restaurants' goals less to healthily nourish you and more to entertain your mouth and eyes, I see so-called staples as ways to increase their profit at the expense of your health. I want more vegetables and they want to give me less. Here is a visual tour of my view of how we mature, in pasta. Like many, I liked Spaghettios as a kid. Sweet and hardly any substance. More marketing gimmick than food, I'd say. They don't look that much more appetizing outside…

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October 2, 2015
Education / Entrepreneurship / Evolutionary Psychology / Stories

Cockroaches and equality

A couple weeks ago I was in NYU's "eLab," a space that promotes entrepreneurship. Besides a few administrators who work there, it's mostly students there, mainly connected with tech startups. That morning there weren't many people there. I sat on a couch near the entrance and the staircase downstairs. Twenty or thirty feet away, across the open meeting area to my left, a few students worked on their laptops in the booths. The place was pretty quiet. Morning light poured in the big windows. Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on the floor. A large cockroach creeped slowly across the meeting area---large like a few inches long, between the size of a thumb and the size of a palm. I don't…

1 Comment
September 30, 2015
Jalapeños, contact lenses, and dedication
Choosing/Decision-Making / Stories

Jalapeños, contact lenses, and dedication

The sting of jalapeño on my skin after chopping it always reminds me of my dedication to playing ultimate frisbee. Lately the farm supplying my vegetables this summer has delivered a lot of jalapeños. I'm enjoying them. I like spicy food and I enjoy their flavor more than cayenne pepper. One afternoon in my junior year of college, it was time to get ready for frisbee practice. That year the team made it to the finals of nearly every tournament and won a few. We took it seriously. Everybody made every practice, at least among the first-string players. Packing my bag drilled a short mnemonic into my thoughts that I still think when packing to play: "lights, darks, cleats, contacts," meaning bring a light shirt…

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September 26, 2015
Relationships / Stories

Why not compliment someone who deserves it?

"Nice throw!" I was throwing a frisbee with a teammate this summer. We were warming up on a big grassy field some Monday or Wednesday evening this summer before our summer league game. If you don't know the sport of ultimate frisbee and you think of frisbees as something you casually throw at the beach or to a trained dog, then we have a misunderstanding. Ultimate is challenging and intense, more than most sports. Among the top skills you need to play ultimate well is to throw a frisbee well. Throwing well involves choosing which throw, reading the wind, throwing it accurately, and a ton of other things. In a game, these things depend in your strength, your receiver's speed, his or her defender's speed,…

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September 15, 2015
I touched my toes for the first time in over twenty years!
Exercises / Fitness / SIDCHAs / Stories

I touched my toes for the first time in over twenty years!

In college I could put my legs in front of me, keep my knees straight, bend forward and touch my toes with my fingers. It was easy and I thought nothing of it. I don't remember the last time I could do it after college until last night. Why did I do it? It took me two or three months of twice-daily stretching to get there. I'd been embarrassed for decades at how un-limber I was. A few months ago I started trying to do an L-sit, which means doing this: I read L-sits exercised your abs well and I've developed enough definition in my abs that I wanted to work them more. I couldn't do the exercise if my hamstrings were too tight. I'm…

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September 10, 2015
Exercises / Leadership / Relationships / Stories

Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 5/5

"What do I say to a 99-year-old woman?" "What do I say to a famous person?" "What do I say to someone who could help my career without seeming selfish?" All I could think to ask was what it's like to be 99, which seemed irrelevant and the same question people have asked her for a decade. I don't like when people find out I don't eat meat and ask me where I get my protein. Again? How unimaginative and boring. Do they not realize how many people ask the same question? I'm sure people ask you similar annoying questions. I don't want her thinking that of me. How do you prepare to talk to someone important that you hardly know? Who hasn't frozen at…

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August 25, 2015
Leadership / Stories

Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 4

What do say about yourself when you've hung out with half a dozen Presidents of the United States, won a Presidential Medal of Freedom, learned from Peter Drucker, been called the best leader in the world by CEOs of Fortune 100 companies, befriended four-star Generals, and things like that? Do you keep it to yourself, as modesty would suggest? How do you mention those things without bragging, or sounding like you are? Frances talked about them throughout the conversation. She didn't go out of her way to, nor did she sound like she was bragging, but she did. I noticed only one other person I could think of did that, Marshall Goldsmith. He grew up in Kentucky, so I thought his motivation was like a…

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August 24, 2015
Habits / Leadership / Relationships / Stories

Lessons in leadership from Frances Hesselbein, part 2

Frances invited me to her office. The first day I went, I approached the front desk. The security guy was friendly. As he processed my ID he said, "Oh yeah, Frances gets big visitors. Sometimes Generals come in. Four stars, ones from TV. They all have to wait for her." Impressive! Her office is in a big Park Avenue high-rise office building in the 50s. The lobby had fifty-foot ceilings, or something really high, and clear glass walls looking out on Park Avenue. Her executive assistant came down to tell me that there was nothing serious, but Frances had to go to the doctor that morning after being on her feet all day at West Point the day before. She took me up to the…

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August 21, 2015
Fitness / Leadership / Stories

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…

4 Comments
August 11, 2015

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