Greetings from Beijing and another amazing North Korea trip! This time we visited places few (no?) Americans or non-North Koreans have visited in decades. We also saw the incredible beauty of the country outside Pyongyang and the DMZ. Pictures and stories to come! By the way, I tag this post with leadership because, as you’ll see, we did a lot more than just tour around. We interacted directly with many[…] Keep reading →

My friend Sebastian organizes Lectures on Strategy, strategy talks to entrepreneurs and other strategists in Beijing, and invited me to speak to his group. If you’re in Beijing, see me speak April 22 at 4pm, near the Shuangjing subway stop. RSVP to me or Sebastian (sebastian at sebastianmarshall.com) for details. I’m basing it on my talk at Columbia Business School last month, using mostly the same slides. He plans to[…] Keep reading →

Once I was waiting for a bus in Queens. I had work to do, but no way to do it while waiting, and I didn’t know how long I’d have to wait. People typically feel frustrated or bored in situations like that. I did. But I noticed people on vacation sit around doing nothing too. So I thought to myself “what’s the difference between doing nothing while waiting for a[…] Keep reading →

EDIT: the site I linked to changed their post so I removed the link on “America’s Fat Future.” Sorry for any inconvenience. Americans eat too much and keep getting fatter. Here’s a graphic a reader sent on “America’s Fat Future.” Our government can’t stop itself from spying on us. Here’s a graphic on the unchecked growth of one part of the government spying on us. I post these images not[…] Keep reading →

Today I’m just linking to a radio interview on a man born and raised in the North Korea prison camp system. Prepare yourself before listening since it gets serious. It speaks for itself. I understand the North Korean government generally states it has no prison camps. Visiting North Korea through the government tour, you would see no evidence of this story. Reading Nothing to Envy, you find out more about[…] Keep reading →

I saw a snippet of a talk pointing out that Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and others design software from the ground up to spy on you. Sometimes a blatant statement of a problem reminds you of it. People are learning about the problems with large corporations and governments having so much information on you, though they don’t know what to do about it because they have no alternatives. Gmail benefits[…] Keep reading →

Here’s an old story that comes in many versions (here are seven), but I learned from Srikumar Rao‘s book Are You Ready to Succeed (text from this blog). An old man lived in a valley with his son, a handsome and dutiful youth. They lived a peaceful life despite a lack of material possessions. They were very happy. So much so, that neighbors began to get envious. One day, the[…] Keep reading →

When I first saw this picture, reading in the New York Times how “In South Korea Visit, Obama Visits Border and Warns North,” I thought little of it, until I thought back to my earlier post on leadership opportunities for U.S. Presidents. I consider visiting a militarized border admirable and addressing North Korea important. But standing behind bulletproof glass is nothing like the speeches of Kennedy and Reagan. Maybe North[…] Keep reading →

I expect to log into Facebook once more — to message my connections there that they won’t be able to find me there, why, and where to find me instead — then I’ll leave for good. Why leave? I knew I wanted to leave after Facebook made its privacy policy too intrusive for my tastes. I felt they had too much control over my personal data. Facebook is creepy, getting[…] Keep reading →