There was a book written about entrepreneurial success by Bo Peabody called Lucky or Smart? that springs to mind whenever I read books by "successful" CEOs and entrepreneurs. Peter Thiel obviously has some pretty good credentials, and it's easy to conflate that success with wisdom. Too often celebrity professionals don't back up their ideas because they don't have to - we just assume that because they are successful they must be right. I think Zero to One skirts this nebulous zone. I wouldn't read this as a "how-to" book, but rather as a way to meditate on what it means to create in the business world. Big Thought Building a start-up … [Read more...]
Why My Zumba Classes Aren’t on My LinkedIn Profile
I'm going to tell you a secret: I'm a Zumba instructor. That's right, Zumba, the Latin-dance aerobic fitness classes. I don't teach often, at most once a week. But when my travel schedule allows, I love to jump around a gym to some salsa or reggaeton music. It's a blast! That might not be something you would expect from a professional-development author and speaker. I Don't "Lead" with My Fitness Activities And in fact, if you read my LinkedIn profile, you wouldn't find any mention of my Zumba career. Is that because I am embarrassed? Am I ashamed? Not at all. So why isn't there any mention of my "rico y suave" moves on … [Read more...]
The Starfish and the Spider – Ori Brafman and Rod A. Beckstrom
This article was originally published on August 6th, 2009 at the RockStar Success Library. And decentralized organizations continue to multiply! The Starfish and the Spider is very obviously a love story. In mapping out how decentralized organizations have evolved, Ori and Rod take great pains to show how the decentralized organization (DO) is nimbler, faster, and more efficient than the lumbering oaf that is the centralized organization. They point out how new technologies (especially in communication) allow the DO to be much more robust and powerful by creating flexibility and adaptability. They submit that decentralized … [Read more...]
A Mathematical Argument for Mindfulness
Human beings are wired to notice novelty. It's a really helpful trait to develop - it helped our ancestors become aware of changes in their environment and the people around them. That's useful when you notice things that might indicate threats, like the quiet that meant a tiger was stalking us by the watering hole. Mindfulness or Novelty? These days, though, with few threats to our daily lives (beyond the existential), our devotion to novelty finds itself without something to attach to. So we constantly buy new clothes, go to new restaurants, and even look for new partners. It also pushes us to look for our happiness in the "next" big … [Read more...]
Monday Morning Mash-Up – Han Shot First
You might have noticed (from the total marketing onslaught) that there is a new Star Wars movie coming out. As someone who jumped around his living room with an imaginary lightsaber when he was five and inwardly wept at how bad the last trilogy was…I have mixed feelings. But it was great seeing my favorite character in the trailer: Han Solo. In hindsight it’s easy to forget that Han isn’t an inherently good guy. He’s a smuggler, he hung around with mobsters like Jabba the Hutt, and he shot Greedo first. That's right. He did. George Lucas, in one of his many revisionist faux pas, tried to spitshine Han by re-cutting the famous scene in … [Read more...]
The Six Secrets of Change – Michael Fullan
This article was originally published a few years ago at the RockStar Success Library. I have to admit, I was a little surprised by The Six Secrets of Change. I’m usually pretty leery of any book that has the word “secret” in the title or has a number in the title (that smacks of “prescriptions” for success i.e., short cuts that don’t work). Michael Fullan undercut my fears, though, in his introduction, when he suggests his secrets as ideas that people already know, but don’t engage with fully. In doing so, he presents an interesting theoretical study of how to effect organizational change. What makes The Six Secrets of Change so … [Read more...]
Mind the Mind
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