Two days ago a guy named Satya Narayan Goenka died. Who was Goenka and why should I care? First, I’ll mention how I found out about him. I had no experience with meditation when a longtime friend I hadn’t seen in a while suggested I try it. The idea made no sense to me because meditation made no sense to me. I didn’t know or care about it to that[…] Keep reading →

I find Americans try to get precise and scientific about food and exercise, in contrast to how incredibly unfit the country is. I write “try to” because I don’t think they succeed in being precise or scientific. The term carbohydrate, for example, used to have a specific scientific meaning. I think it still does, but I think in standard American usage it means “bad” or “evil,” like the term fat[…] Keep reading →

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You don’t have emotional intelligence, you were born with it, or you developed it. If you developed it you started sometime, like I did. If you don’t have it, you can start too. Here’s my start. I don’t pretend I’m the world master of emotional intelligence, but I’ve come a long way and I know anyone else can. I hope sharing the story motivates others. Context Before business school I[…] Keep reading →

Brought to you by the Distinguished Leaders committee of the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York (copying the following announcement from that site): Leadership Through Self-Awareness and Emotional Intelligence In a weekend, learn how to develop your personal leadership skills, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence through the latest advances in cognitive behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology. While business schools and corporations are increasingly focusing on personal leadership,[…] Keep reading →

How can you expect to lead others if you can’t lead yourself? This post, like most of mine, is about leadership. If you can’t lead yourself, how can you expect to lead others? If you don’t understand your emotions and motivations and how to create the ones you want in yourself, how do you expect to do so with others? Alternatively, the better you can lead yourself, the better you[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before about on opening up, allowing yourself to be vulnerable in business and personal relationships, and the risks involved, mainly to your emotions. Probably the most important one was on my experience that choosing to care about something and to act on that caring means you’ll hurt. And the more you care the more you risk getting hurt. I wrote that post, “Leadership, personal development, choosing to care,[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on people who succeed despite adversity. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Ask yourself which helps more — having advantages or learning to overcome adversity? I base this series on noticing how many extremely successful people had problems that mediocre people claim[…] Keep reading →

When the topic of meditation came up the other day I heard the same thing I’ve heard many times before. I’m sure you’ve heard and said similar thing for similar activities: “Oh, I can’t meditate. My mind is too frantic. I wish I could.” Maybe you’ve heard or said it in this form: “Oh, I can’t go to the gym. I’m too out-of-shape. I wish I could.” or: “Oh, I[…] Keep reading →