This article was originally published on November 21st, 2011. It still comes up in conversations with friends, clients, and colleagues. Good stuff (even if Dan is now schilling financial services...good on him for making a few bucks!). Happiness is the ever-elusive holy grail that we keep chasing – and it seems after all of our efforts, we’re not getting any closer to achieving it. The problem, as Daniel Gilbert points out in the beginning of Stumbling on Happiness, is that we even struggle to even define what happiness is! Stumbling on Happiness is one of the few books that I’ve read that tackles the question of our happiness from a … [Read more...]
Renewal in the Wilderness – John Lionberger
This article was originally published on July 25th, 2008. John is still a good friend and every conversation we have is insightful and fun. When I played in a band, I learned an interesting quirk of human nature – when we played a gig with other bands, the degree to which we liked the people in the band influenced how much we liked the band’s music. Reading Renewal in the Wilderness by John Lionberger was a fun experience for me, as I am lucky enough to call John a friend of mine. He’s “good people” and someone I’ve gotten to know over my career. So I admit that I’m a little biased. When I gave him feedback on the book, the highest … [Read more...]
The Black Swan – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
This article was originally published on May 29th, 2010. Since then, Nassim has continued to be controversial and thought-provoking. And I like having my thoughts provoked! Big Thought Definition of a black swan event: “First, it is an outlier, as it lies outside the realm of regular expectations, because nothing in the past can convincingly point to its possibility. Second, it carries an extreme impact. Third, in spite of its outlier status, human nature makes us concoct explanations for its occurrence after the fact, making it explainable and predictable. I stop and summarize the triplet: rarity, extreme impact, and retrospective … [Read more...]
Purple Cow – Seth Godin
This article was originally published on June 30th 2010. And Seth keeps pumping out insightful ideas on current marketing! Big Thought Because the modern consumer is overwhelmed by information, the most effective way to market is to create products and services that are remarkable and stand out – leading people to want to talk about them.[Tweet "The most effective way to market is to create products and services that are remarkable"] Ideas, Implications, and Questions It’s interesting that Seth focuses on a “holistic” view of marketing: instead of seeing marketing as something separate from the product development, what the product is … [Read more...]
Outliers – Malcom Gladwell
This article was originally published on April 10th 2009. If you haven't read Malcolm's stuff yet - go read it! You won't be disappointed. The 10,000 hour idea that he popularized only holds up for mastering in highly-competitive fields and doesn't translate to most activities (watch this TED talk on how long it really takes to learn a skill). Still, it's great food for thought. Malcolm Gladwell has an uncanny ability to pick a small, below-the-radar aspect of human experience and use it as a jumping off point for an exploration of how our brains work. In doing so, he usually goes well beyond the initial topic and invariably ends up … [Read more...]
Influencer – Kerry Patterson, Joseph Grenny, David Maxfield, Ron McMillan, Al Switzler
This article was originally published a few years ago at the RockStar Success Library. One thing that I've realized in the interim is that we are all influencers - and it's a skill worth working to improve! I started reading Influencer for two reasons. One, it had a really cool big, green font on the front cover (really). Two, it was written by the same team that had written Crucial Conversations, a book highly recommended by a friend. Apparently, there was a third reason I didn’t even know about- it is really relevant to what I do for a living. The main focus of Influencer is that “People will attempt to change their behavior if … [Read more...]
Relationship Selling – Jim Cathcart
This article was originally published on April 23rd 2008. Sales skills are still a critical component of career success, no matter your title, position, or role! It’s pretty obvious that there are a lot of sales books on the market. If there is any doubt in your mind, just look at the bookshelf full of them at your local Barnes and Noble. I tend to read less and less of them, because once you’ve read twenty, you realize they all say the same thing. I picked up Jim’s book because I was recommended to it by a client. Most of my work is focused on improving the person beyond the sales process, but it’s still important to look at the … [Read more...]
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