Our guides took us to see the children’s performance palace (I forget its official title), where they put on display groups of children whose performances were incredible. I wrote and posted images of them before. Who knows what training they’ve had or what motivates them to get to this level. I think the usual first guess of people who are critical of North Korea is that the government coerces them[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday I wrote about the quintessential I’m-right-you’re-wrong-and-I’m-going-to-convince-you-of-it-no-matter-what-it-takes situation with extreme escalation by Walter in the Big Lebowski. The last edit I made was to add the parenthetical comment in “What makes this clip so funny and brilliant (besides the movie’s running jokes, like the Vietnam references) is…”. I couldn’t help but notice, if you don’t look too carefully, that you could understand the Vietnam conflict from this perspective, with the[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post on George Clooney on living well, I sampled another clip from the same interview in which he talked about accountability. The context is his winning an award for his work on Darfur. I think the clip illustrates how to keep focused on results, not accolades. And even to remember that the results you can achieve don’t necessarily mean results that you want to achieve in the[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post on how so many great actors, at least among those I saw interviewed on Inside the Actors Studio, faced so many challenges before their careers took off (and many after, as well, given the challenges of celebrity), I looked up one in more detail. I also covered how acting and leadership both require self-awareness, emotional-intelligence, and ability to manage your and others’ emotions. I think the[…] Keep reading →

I’ve watched a lot of episodes of Inside the Actors Studio. I’ve referred to it before and I’ll keep referring to it as a resource for leadership because actors and leaders share this common element to their craft: part of our jobs is to recognize and manage emotions in ourselves to communicate them and create and inspire emotions in others. Actors tend to inspire laughter, tears, and catharsis whereas leaders[…] Keep reading →

This model is one of my most important ones I think about almost daily. It fits with my practice of having low standards the first time. It also enables you to act on the perspective most successful people I know of realizing the importance of failing. The scene is a martial arts class. A few students learning from a great master. The students ask the master how he never loses his[…] Keep reading →

Everybody faces tasks they don’t want to start, know they have to do, but also know won’t take that long — things you might characterize like pulling teeth, holding your nose and taking your medicine, or grinning and bearing it. We all want to learn to motivate ourselves better. Examples include talking to your boss about a raise, talking to a significant other about a problem that’s been bothering you[…] Keep reading →