Non-obvious actions taken in obvious moments, difficult decisions that might be easier to avoid, responses instead of reactions, and most of all, the choices we make when it does not even seem like we have a choice --all of these, taken together, define who we are and the impact we make. "I had no choice,"…
What will you do next? What can you learn tomorrow? Where will you live, who will you connect with, who will you trust? Are questions better than answers? Maybe it is easier to get a dummies book, a tweet, a map, a textbook or a checklist than it is to think hard about what is…
One reason people who spend a lot of time thinking about and working on a problem or a craft seem to find breakthroughs more often than everyone else is that they have failed more often than everyone else. Find your greatness, slowly drip by drip by drip... if you stumble, make it part of the…
Black Friday was a deliberate invention of the National Association of Retailers. It was not only the perfect way to promote stores during a super slow news day, but had the side benefit of creating a new cultural norm. Any media outlet that talks about Black Friday as an actually important phenomenon is either ignorant or…
I used to be a great fan of comic books and comic strips on newspapers. I recently learned how life works in comparison to comic books. The secret of the comics is not what you see in each frame. It's the little gutter, the space in between the frames. Because the artist does not draw…
“What do you do here?” That’s question I often ask people in organisations. It’s interesting to hear people describe their roles, their jobs, their sets of tasks. Some people are self-limiting (“I sort the debtors accounts reports every Thursday”), while others are grandiose (“I’m responsible for our company culture”). Almost no one says, “I start…
Its not surprising that we hesitate. Starting increases the chances of ending up being wrong. Here's the nightmare and it's a vivid one: The boss finds someone who did something wrong and she hassles/disciplines/humiliates/fires her. If you are not wrong, the above is not going to happen to you. On the other hand, there is…
Three years ago I started this journey of typing words on a website and sharing it with others. I never thought this simple act will last for three years but I'm glad it has. I have learned so much for blogging and continue to learn more. I have not done this longer than any professional…
In action movies, the starring, (the hero) does not mind destroying the aircraft, road or bridge he just crossed, because it is always a one-way trip. Retreating armies used to burn bridges as they crossed them so those in pursuit could not follow them. And that very mindset, the mindset of, "I am so focused…
Virtually every crisis at its core is a failure of imagination. The greatest crisis of our lives is not economic, intellectual, or even what we usually call religious. It is a crisis of imagination. We are getting stuck on our paths because we are unable to re-imagine our lives differently and better than they are…
One way that entrepreneurs make an impact is by displaying confidence. Consumers figure that if an entrepreneur is confident in their offering, they ought to be confident in the entrepreneur in return. We often assume that confidence means that something big is on offer. The problem with swagger is that if you are the swaggering…
A study in 2007 titled "obesity loves company" shows that obesity is contagious. If your best friend gets fat, your chances of gaining weight more than double. Malcolm Gladwell fans will recall his reporting that suicide among teenagers can be contagious as well. So is terrorism, of course. And spamming. And creativity. [And becoming a millionaire, getting…
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