A client asked about something in his personal life. He does things one way that most parts of society do differently. To be clear, his way harmed no one and was in no way illegal, but he was concerned that people who learned about it might freak out. Sorry I have to keep the details to a minimum, but we all recognize his situation is universal. We all have things[…] Keep reading →

Leadership and acting have a lot in common. Both crafts require practitioners to be aware of and to manage their emotions and those of people around them. They evoke different emotions — leaders generally don’t try to get people to cry and actors generally don’t get people to work weekends — but their crafts overlap nonetheless. I’ve linked to Inside the Actors Studio before and I’ll keep linking to them.[…] Keep reading →

You learn leadership through experience. I’ve had occasion to recall some of the most challenging and educational experiences of my development. I’m not proud of them. I wish they had never happened. But they formed me as much as anything. The painful experiences I co-founded Submedia in the late 90s. By the early 2000s we had nearly run out of money and were having trouble paying our debts. My PhD[…] Keep reading →

Almost daily I face what I see as the key misunderstanding between how to lead your life to everything you want from it and how to follow what society tells you to. If you’re lucky the latter will bring you what you want. You’re guaranteed to produce for others, but you may never create what you want for yourself. By contrast, the former — leading your life based on your[…] Keep reading →

I came across some quotes from astronauts who had seen the Earth from space that increased my sense of the beauty and fragility of life here — as far as we know, the only life at all. The quotes surprised me partly because I think of astronauts as cowboy- and engineer-types. That surprise strengthened the feeling of the quotes, because you don’t expect cowboy engineers to promote protecting the environment,[…] Keep reading →

A recent conversation with a friend who also coaches highlighted some important observations of mastering your emotions and improving your life. We were talking about my Model and Method and how you can predictably and consistently create the emotions and motivations you want. He described how he started putting this stuff into practice. He had learned techniques to change emotions — basically to choose new environments, beliefs, and behaviors. He[…] Keep reading →

The pattern: overly intense emotions We’ve all experienced someone losing their cool around us. People flip out. They scream or raise their voices. Or, alternatively, sometimes they withdraw and act depressed or powerless. They make rash decisions. They get difficult to be around, etc. Sometimes you’re the one whose emotions get out of control. Some people describe the pattern as “being emotional.” Since I say people are always feeling emotions[…] Keep reading →