For my third post on George Clooney’s Inside the Actors Studio interview, here he speaks on being yourself in challenging situations. I’ve written on the overlap I see between the art and craft of leadership and acting, how both deeply involve being aware of knowing and managing your emotions so you can know and evoke emotions in others. I think the training of leaders can benefit from the more mature[…] Keep reading →

Some advice sticks with you more than others. I still remember words a great friend of mine told me in college. I remember he said it while consoling me over a breakup with a girlfriend, which would have put it in 1989 or maybe 1990. Something that stands the test of time like that, I think speaks for itself. He said There are few shoulds in life. I’ve written at[…] Keep reading →

I just read a post by a young entrepreneur called “About not owning sh*t” with a similar theme to some posts I wrote. On another forum I posted what I intend as constructive criticism. I applaud his lifestyle, but the post reminded me of an insightful joke. Q: How do you know when someone doesn’t have a TV? A: They tell you. Again, I like his decisions. I hope I[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post, when I talk to people about something they judge, like torture, the topic that motivated yesterday’s post, some of them point out that once you decide something is torture or right or wrong, you can do something about it. People like labeling things because labels mean so much. If you don’t call a behavior torture, they think, people don’t know what it means. Once you call[…] Keep reading →

I just watched Zero Dark Thirty and read a bunch of stuff about torture. People often ask about morality and ethics — is such an action right or wrong, good or bad. Asking the morality of actions and behavior doesn’t change them. I don’t see categorizing, judging, and  labeling things helping. Calling something good, bad, right, wrong, etc does no more than label them (tomorrow I’ll write more on why[…] Keep reading →

Today I’ll give an overview of the series I just finished on understanding the six key concepts of this web page:  leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion. What is value? What are values? What is value? What are values? (short version) Understanding others’ value and their values What is meaning? How do I create more meaning in my life? What is purpose? How do I create more purpose in my[…] Keep reading →

Next on the list of concepts under my name at the top of this page is leadership. See earlier posts for values, meaning, purpose, importance, and passion. Unlike the other concepts, leadership intrinsically involves other people. At first that complexity makes it seem harder to understand, but I think it gets simpler in the end. I start my “Leadership through emotional intelligence and self-awareness” seminars by asking what leadership is,[…] Keep reading →