“Be Organized” is the fourth of my Six Simple Rules. I am organized in countless ways and have long felt I'm a naturally organized person. But it wasn't always that way for me. My organized life is made up of a collection of small habits I've adopted over time. What I…
I was reading The Undoing Project, the latest book by one of my favorite authors, Michael Lewis. It’s about two psychologists / behavioral economists, Amos Tversky & Daniel Kahneman. I’ve written here before about their work after I read Kahneman’s amazing book, Thinking Fast and Slow. This excerpt from the…
I recently read The Power of Having Fun, the brand-new book by Dave Crenshaw. I am a big believer in taking time off to make time for yourself and for your family. I've had the good fortune of having taken that time over most of the past 20 years. I…
Earlier this year, I attended a meeting with nearly 100 people to discuss the future direction of a religious institution where I am a member. It was expected that attendees would have varying, and possibly contentious, opinions. The meeting’s facilitator began by spelling out some valuable ground rules for everyone…
If you haven’t seen the HBO documentary, Becoming Warren Buffett, I highly recommend it. The “Oracle of Omaha,” legendary for his investing prowess, is an amazing person from whom, and from whose example, much learning is available. A couple of my favorite takeaways from the film: If you were given…
One my mentors, the business coach Arnie Rintzler, wrote to me after reading one of my newsletters. Arnie often writes nice notes to me about my posts, and this time he had nice things to say, adding, “…there is a missing element. You focus on behavior when there is much…
On a TED Radio Hour podcast episode, I listened to an interview with Richard Thaler, a behavioral economist who co-wrote Nudge, a book about changing behaviors. His message: If you want to encourage people to do something, make it easy. For example, to get people to save money in their…
I heard an interview with star poker player Annie Duke. She said something quite profound about happiness. When something happens to you, ask yourself, “If this happened to me a year ago, how would I feel about it today?” Then, come “back to the future” and act accordingly. I love…
One thing that bothers most people, is the experience of not remembering why you just walked from one place to another—for example, walking from one room to another in your house, or from one part of your workplace to another. As we get older, we begin to worry if that…
This is a guest post by Sara Jacobs Growing up, the kinds of respect I was initially taught were not helpful to me later in my life. For example, I was supposed to respect teachers who would hit me, which made it seem like respect was born out of fear.…
I’m not a big drinker. I never have a drink at lunch (I would be too tired at work if I did that) and I have one drink at most when I go out to dinner (almost always wine or beer). I'm a "lightweight" drinker and when I have more…
Someone sent me an article about a company that purposely made some decisions they knew would make them less profitable. The goal was to impact the environment in a more sustainable way, and the author wrote about the various ways to define success. The person who sent me the article…