The first 10 years of my career were both blessing and curse. A blessing because I had the opportunity to work with truly talented people around me in just about every position. Even those that were complete PIAs had skills that are top 2%. A curse because for a long time I thought that I…
Yesterday I had a holiday in the middle of the week: a day with no conference calls.
At 9a I found myself checking my Outlook calendar again because surely there was a mistake. Somehow I found myself without a single scheduled conference call or meeting or reminder on my calendar. When I had gone to sleep that hadn’t been the case. I’m certain I didn’t deserve it, I didn’t even try for it….
Sometimes all you can do is succeed at not failing.
Success and failure are not opposites. It’s possible to succeed while failing and it’s possible to fail hard while succeeding. This may sound stupid, but trust me, it isn’t. Think it through, sometimes the best outcome is to fail. If the only way to kill a bad idea is to have it fail then that…
What do you write when you don’t have anything in mind?
Sometimes no topic comes to mind. Maybe I waited too long in coming up with posts for this week. Maybe I just don’t have anything in particular to say this moment. Sometimes it’s a good thing to have writer’s block and sometimes it’s not. I’m not sure whether my inability to find a topic today…
Understanding nuance is an important part of the education process.
An interesting fact of life is that the more experienced you get, the less facts matter. That’s not to say that math, science, literature, philosophy and other subjects aren’t important. In fact, they are table stakes for most things that you would want to succeed at. Simply knowing things becomes not as important because everyone…
When something is working as expected, others will come out to join in.
This title may sound positive but it isn’t always. The bandwagon effect is well established. When a team is winning, others want to be part of that success. But those others that come in bring with them their own issues, dilemmas, and drama. In the world of sports, this isn’t so bad because those bandwagon fans…
Are your design principles forcing you to favor one medium over another?
The mighty smartphone currently rules all information gathering mediums. I much prefer to read the news on my phone versus my computer. I strongly prefer facebook on my phone versus a computer. About the only thing I prefer a computer for is for writing and video. Too often people confuse a larger screen with the…
Deliberate practice versus just showing up.
A friend of mine over at A Game Sport Psychology Consulting posted a reminder about the 10,000-hour rule. Mainly, it was a reminder that there is no such thing as a blanket 10,000-hour rule. The actual theory comes from a paper titled The Role of Deliberate Practice in the Acquisition of Expert Performance (link opens…
What is your meeting trying to achieve?
We all know the curse of too many meetings. It’s that event that causes you to hold your head in your hands as you realize that you no longer control your own schedule. Often, it can feel as if most meetings don’t hold much value. But there’s a fallacy in believing all meetings are bad….
Mastering the art of saying nothing in 1,000 words.
Marketing and corporate blogging are the gifts that keep on giving. If you want to see people who are great at sounding really smart but not actually saying anything of value, go check out corporate blogs that talk about Big Data, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, or any of your other favorite modern buzzwords. You’ll find…