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Showing Up is Half the Battle

It seems silly to say this, but showing up is the first key to out-performance. Sometimes, this means at all. Get there. Sometimes, it’s about timing. Get there first. Sometimes, it’s about consistency. Show up more often. Sometimes, it’s about intensity. Bring more to the game. What’s true is you can’t win if you’re not […]

The Second Arrow

There is a Buddhist teaching called the two arrows. Our lives are full of “stuff happens.” Some of it we like, some of it pains us, and some we hardly notice. It’s the rhythm of life. The first arrow is the pain or discomfort we experience from something we don’t want or like. It’s enough […]

Who Will Help?

You can’t do this alone, and more to the point, you don’t need to. If you don’t have these kinds of people in your life, get busy and get some . . . Angels believe in you and want to help just because it’s you. Their energy and encouragement are priceless. Pioneers are people willing to go […]

The End of the World, Again and Again

Without thinking too hard about it, I can recall thinking that each of the following events, all of which happened during my working life, were something like the end of the world. Black Monday (1987): On October 19, 1987, global stock markets experienced a massive crash, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 22.6% in […]

Carry On

There is a point in every big deal when it looks like it will all fall apart. There is a point in any creative project where you become convinced that the work is crap, and it should be thrown away. There is a point in any writing project where the bank page just won’t stop […]

Triple Bottom Line

The best jobs live at the intersection of three values . . . Good economics Good work Good relationships There is no objective definition for those terms. We get to decide. If you’ve been around long enough, you realize how rare a “triple bottom line” is.  When you find yourself loving all three, be sure […]

Plan Like a Pessimist, Work Like An Optimist

We plan, prepare, work, worry, work some more, use our skills, and employ our tactics and strategies, all in service of bringing about a positive outcome. Myriad causes, conditions, and often competitors add to the soup of our intentions. We like to think we have some measure of control over how things will turn out, […]

Interested. Committed. Obsessed.

Interested. Committed. Obsessed. I heard someone the other day talk about the difference between these ideas . . . about the step-change in focus, persistence, and potential outcomes. Without saying more, I’m sure you can parse the differences. Perhaps you’ll do what I did: I made a mental list. What are the things that interest […]

It’s Not Over Until It’s Over, And Even Then . . .

It’s a jittery time of year. I’m not talking about elections. I’m talking about baseball. In 2023, Major League Baseball teams played 2,471 games. At the end of each, some people went home happy, some disappointed, and presumably some just went for the peanuts and hot dogs and didn’t care. The intensity of those feelings […]

50/10,000,000 is Not Reality

The human brain takes in roughly 10 million bits per second (Mbps) of visual information. Right alongside, it processes another 100,000 bits per second of auditory information, along with a lesser volume of touch, taste, and smell data. By way of reference, the 4k camera on your mobile phone processes about 6,000 Mbps. So what […]