It’s almost a cliche among woodworkers and others that create with their hands. The difference between the right tool and the wrong one is time, money and safety. The satisfaction of having a… | Continue reading
Just about everyone knows how to drive a car. Very few of us know how to build one. For almost all of history, expertise wasn’t really a factor. If you were raised with the other hunter-gathe… | Continue reading
Big company CEOs get paid ridiculous amounts of money, but the good ones also do something that most of us avoid. They make decisions. In fact, that’s pretty much the core of the job. Whether… | Continue reading
Big company CEOs get paid ridiculous amounts of money, but the good ones also do something that most of us avoid. They make decisions. In fact, that’s pretty much the core of the job. Whether… | Continue reading
One way to cause forward motion is to help people see that they were right all along. “The person you were hoping to hire, that’s me.” “The car you were hoping to buy, it… | Continue reading
If your roof is leaking, the water in the basement will gradually move up until you’ve got a full-blown flood. And for most humans, for twenty years, each day we get a little taller. It’… | Continue reading
Hiring phone salespeople and giving them a script used to make sense. Throw enough human spam at the population and sooner or later, you might make a profit. The person who responded to my web quer… | Continue reading
Tug boats don’t usually tug. They push. That’s because pushing is more mechanically efficient than pulling. When we pull, there’s tension and slack in the ropes, and the attachmen… | Continue reading
Every kid knows that no two are the same. The thing is, at appropriate magnification, if we’re paying attention and deciding to care, that applies to just about everything in the natural worl… | Continue reading
You can’t run the microwave with the door open. There’s a cut-off switch that won’t let it turn on until the door is closed. On the other hand, there’s nothing at all keepin… | Continue reading
You can’t run the microwave with the door open. There’s a cut-off switch that won’t let it turn on until the door is closed. On the other hand, there’s nothing at all keepin… | Continue reading
It contains about 20 of my books, some obscure titles, as well as free bonus videos and recordings you might not have seen before, including one from the Julliard school and a few old-school keynot… | Continue reading
Hiring phone salespeople and giving them a script used to make sense. Throw enough human spam at the population and sooner or later, you might make a profit. The person who responded to my web quer… | Continue reading
In the US, Thanksgiving is right around the corner. Despite what you might see around you, it’s not a holiday that exists to mark the beginning of shopping season. It celebrates the harvest, … | Continue reading
“Will this be on the test?” is a question invented by industrialists. It’s the cornerstone of traditional schooling at scale, because it is such an effective way to indoctrinate k… | Continue reading
No one is going to steal it. Not if it’s actually a big idea. One thing that big ideas have in common is that they’re almost impossible to give away. You could have bought Amazon stock … | Continue reading
No one is going to steal it. Not if it’s actually a big idea. One thing that big ideas have in common is that they’re almost impossible to give away. You could have bought Amazon stock … | Continue reading
“Will this be on the test?” is a question invented by industrialists. It’s the cornerstone of traditional schooling at scale, because it is such an effective way to indoctrinate k… | Continue reading
It feels odd to hear the flight attendants remind us to put on our own mask before helping others. That’s backward, isn’t it? The theory is that if you can’t breathe, it’s p… | Continue reading
We generally adopt a posture of optimism or pessimism as a response (or reaction) to external events. We see how things are unfolding and make a decision about what to expect. We feel like we need … | Continue reading
At first, we sold our labor. That was 10,000 years of history. You traded sweat for food. Eventually, people figured out that they could build an organization. And an organization made things, whic… | Continue reading
If you don’t ask the question, you probably won’t get the answer. The microwave in my office has a button that says, “add a minute.” That’s not helpful, as there are p… | Continue reading
There is almost certainly life on other planets in the universe. And, by definition, there are flying things that are difficult to identify. But it doesn’t follow that unidentified flying thi… | Continue reading
I hope you have dreams. Dreams are precious, and they open the door for what happens next. Some dreams are tactical. They’re very specific executions of a possible future, designed to create … | Continue reading
There are two confusions. The first is that the next big idea must be fully original. The second is that it have no competition. This is almost never the case. Henry Ford didn’t invent the ca… | Continue reading
Most of the challenges we face are things we’ve faced before. It might be a personal situation or a business one, but it’s not new. If what you’ve done before works, it’s no… | Continue reading
Voting with a capital “V” is fraught. It happens rarely, it’s fairly permanent and thus momentous. We bring identity and media and politics into a swirl, spending billions of dollars to create some… | Continue reading
It’s such an odd thing to say. The benefit of the doubt is withheld from many of us, options are unevenly distributed and indoctrination is real. And yet… no matter where we begin, we e… | Continue reading
This is almost never true. For just about any issue, behavior, company or movement, the vast majority of people are neither. They might be unaware, they might be unconcerned, they might have a diff… | Continue reading
Most of the challenges we face are things we’ve faced before. It might be a personal situation or a business one, but it’s not new. If what you’ve done before works, it’s no… | Continue reading
From, “Pay attention, I want you to buy what I made.” to… “I’ve been paying attention, and I think I can offer you what you want.” | Continue reading
The best way for a movie studio to outperform is to attract and encourage creators with vision, drive and commitment. And yet, the key executives might be spending their time and focus and effort o… | Continue reading
When the cost of topping off your battery is less than the catastrophic risk of running out of juice, it pays to add to your reserves. That’s the entire point of having a tank. Going near emp… | Continue reading
Quality is defined as consistently meeting spec. A measurable promise made and kept. Effort is what happens when we go beyond our normal speed. When we dig deep and exert physical or emotional labo… | Continue reading
A feeling of entitlement is hard won. You suffered to get to this spot. You were mistreated. You worked hard. You paid your dues. You were treated unfairly. It’s your turn. Justice demands it… | Continue reading
A feeling of entitlement is hard won. You suffered to get to this spot. You were mistreated. You worked hard. You paid your dues. You were treated unfairly. It’s your turn. Justice demands it… | Continue reading
There’s a road near my house that was built early in the automobile era. It was built so that early adopter car owners would have something to do with their cars–a parkway that went now… | Continue reading
(Customer service is expensive) Of course it’s expensive. You’ll need to hire people inclined to be empathic and kind. You’ll need to provide systems and training and support. You… | Continue reading
There’s a road near my house that was built early in the automobile era. It was built so that early adopter car owners would have something to do with their cars–a parkway that went now… | Continue reading
Art (movies, plays, fiction, paintings, poetry…) exists to create a change. Often, that’s a change in the viewer, and sometimes, powerful art changes the culture. Art with no intent can… | Continue reading
We’d probably be better off if we could simply say, “I’m afraid.” Our culture has persistently reminded us that the only thing to fear is fear itself, that confessing fear i… | Continue reading
This might be the workplace question of the decade. Does the boss buy your time or your productivity? In the pre-industrial age, when we worked from home (“cottage industries”) workers … | Continue reading
Twenty years from now, you will have new skills. New customers. A new title and a new kind of leverage. All of this forward motion requires a less celebrated element–all the things you’… | Continue reading
The first mindset is pretty common. Take good notes. Make tiny changes. Repeat. Improve. Incrementally move along the asymptote. Test and measure. The other mindset is rare indeed. Do things that m… | Continue reading
The first mindset is pretty common. Take good notes. Make tiny changes. Repeat. Improve. Incrementally move along the asymptote. Test and measure. The other mindset is rare indeed. Do things that m… | Continue reading
That’s the report from the band on the audience’s reaction to the first live performance of Stairway to Heaven. They bombed. The audience wanted hits, not something new. Every good idea… | Continue reading
Successful small businesses often stumble when they seek to get to an entirely different scale. It’s easy to believe that things are dramatically better when there’s more. More customer… | Continue reading
Insufficient effort creates work that’s wasted. If you do a slapdash job, then the roof leaks, the food is inedible, the car doesn’t start. Insufficient effort is a shortcut that wasn&#… | Continue reading