Today’s post will sound like it’s about food, but it’s about a lot more. The other day I was at a party with a great spread — rich, delicious food and a lot of it: cheese, crackers, chips, cake, ice cream, and so on. I liked eating some, but realized I didn’t want to eat too much. But everyone was talking around the food table and I find it hard[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. 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.] How do you handle miserable days? I think today started like many people’s does. I don’t know how most people handle down days, but I’ll share[…] Keep reading →

How would you like for your body to weaken for no reason and become unable to do simple things you once could; where you stumble and fall just jogging; to have your weakness on display to the world so everyone sees you deteriorate; then to find out your body will continue weakening until you can’t use your arms and legs or any other muscles, and that you’ll die in a[…] 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 →

I’ve written about my models for how to motivate doing things you aren’t good at. Such skills are important in many fields, but especially so in leadership. More than having to motivate yourself to do things for the first time, you often have to motivate many others to do things they haven’t done. One is my practice of having low standards the first time I do something, which motivates doing[…] Keep reading →

I just read that Sweden is separating their trash so effectively, they’re buying garbage from other countries. That is, their reducing-reusing-and-recycling programs work so well, their waste-incineration program is running low. Needless to say, reducing waste reduces pollution more than incinerating garbage, so one program starving the other helps the environment. According to Phys.org, Europe’s average amount of trash ending up as waste if 38 percent. Sweden’s is 1 percent.[…] Keep reading →

In September, 2001, the company I co-founded, Submedia, was installing its first display in Atlanta for our first big launch. We anticipated a lot of press. Giving away part of how the story ends, we did get a lot of media attention. The night before launch was crazy — we had a few hours to finish installing the display, we had to prepare for the Fire Marshall’s inspection the morning[…] Keep reading →

A scene from the inspirational docudrama Apollo 13 based on the true rescue of a disaster in space illustrates a great example of how different models and beliefs can motivate different motivations and behavior. The scene is the control room after a lunar mission suffered an explosion and three astronauts’ lives were in peril as their ship hurdled through space with little chance at recovery. The characters are a fictional[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on internal objections and blocks and how to overcome them. 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.] Objection I don’t think you can significantly change your life, at least not at the beginning, without thinking something like I’ve been working on this for[…] Keep reading →