This article was originally published on February 25th, 2009. There are more and more ronin about as the workplace continues to change. Based on the title, it would be easy to mistake this book for a treatise on wandering samurai warriors. What Beverly Potter has done instead, is use the idea of the ronin, or wandering knights of medieval Japan, as a metaphor to describe the role of today’s independent professional in the changing economy. Similar to Dan Pink’s ideas in Free Agent Nation, and my idea of the New Entrepreneur, Beverly writes that the fundamental structure of the economy is shifting, and she submits that the “ronin” of the … [Read more...]
The Power of Full Engagement – Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz
This article was originally published on April 26th, 2010. How are you at managing your energy? Big Thought Energy is the fundamental currency of high performance. The source of personal and professional success is learning to effectively manage your energy, not your time. [Tweet "The source of personal and professional success is learning to effectively manage your energy"] Ideas, Implications, and Questions 4 Principles of Full Engagement: Full engagement requires drawing on four separate but related sources of energy: physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual. Because energy capacity diminishes both with overuse and with … [Read more...]
How – Doy Seidman
This article was originally published on July 7th, 2007. I'm more and more convinced that we need to start connecting the reasons for what we do with what we actually do - in business, leadership, and life. I love the random ways books come into my life – especially the ones that I normally would have never picked off of a shelf. I picked up How outside of a bookstore that was giving its advance copies away for free. It sat on my night stand for a year before I picked it up and started reading it – at the exact perfect time to do so. You gotta love syncronicity. In How, Dov explores the power of what I would call organizational … [Read more...]
The Power of Habit – Charles Duhigg
To paraphrase the quote, the secret to happiness and success lies in developing good habits and then letting them be your master. But the question that has come after that for millennia continues to avoid an easy answer: How do you create those good habits in the first place? And what if you have bad habits? How do you get rid of those? The Power of Habit provides an interesting overview of what research has shown us so far. It peels back some of the layers in the human decision-making process, and while it doesn't have as many answers as the title might imply, it's a useful guide along the path. Big Thought "Habits can be changed, … [Read more...]
Hot, Flat, and Crowded – Thomas Friedman
This article was originally published on January 9th, 2009. The global situation hasn't gotten any better... Go read this book. Right now. Then we’ll talk about it. OK, now we can dive in. There are few books that I’ve read in recently that have affected me as strongly as this book. A few years ago, I read Thomas’s The World is Flat and found that it was thoroughly researched and its arguments relatively sound and well-presented. He does the same thing in Hot, Flat, and Crowded, and the topic is much more critical then just economic globalization. In the course of my lifetime (32 years) I’ve watched the idea of being “green” … [Read more...]
The Science of Fear – Daniel Gardner
This article was originally published on March 2nd, 2009. Unfortunately, fear hasn't disappeared in the last 5 years... We all understand fear. Even if we can’t clinically explain what fear is, we could tell someone what makes us afraid – and we could come up with that list quickly. It would be easy to explain how it affects us physically and emotionally. But what really causes fear, and why does it seem that when we are safer than ever we are more afraid than ever? Based on the title, I was expecting the Science of Fear to examine the inner workings of the mind - the neurobiology and physiology in the brain. What I got was … [Read more...]
Zero to One – Peter Thiel
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...]
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