The other day I gave a lift to two kids who were walking to school. I was very saddened by the distance they had to cover walking to and from school. I could see that they were wearing worn out school clothes but they were not that much worried about that. Poverty strips you of…

It’s the question that’s on the mind of every business-owner, CEO, and entrepreneur: how do we make our products and services stand out from the crowd? While this idea has always been relevant to some degree, never before has the fate of our success relied so heavily on distinguishing ourselves from the competition. What’s the…

Understand the urgency of the situation. Half-measures simply won't do. The only way to grow is to abandon your strategy of doing what you did yesterday, but better. Commit to being different. Remarkable doesn't mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to me. Am I going to make a remark about it? If not, then…

  Initiating a project, a blog, a start-up, a family journey, these are things that don't come naturally to many people. The challenge is in initiating something even when you are not putatively in charge. Not enough people believe they are capable of productively starting something. More often we are told to do something, follow…

Talk shows, from Noeleen, Oprah or shows such as the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, have always been about spectating. Comedy, TV, graphic arts, business leadership, politics, they have been sold to us as spectator sports. Selling spectatorhood is pretty easy. It’s safe and fun and easy. You hit the remote. You pretend you have…

The way we do business is changing fast and in order to keep up, your entire mentality about work has to change just as quickly. Unfortunately, most people aren't adapting fast enough to this change in the workplace The recession in which jobs are being lost is becoming endless, this current "recession is a forever…

Perhaps this sounds familiar: When it's time to write your cv or talk to a boss or discuss a project glitch with colleagues, the instinct is to spin, to avoid a little responsibility, to sit quietly. Put a best face forward, don't set yourself up. When reviewing just about anything you have done with yourself…

The media-pundit-advertiser industrial cycle has discovered that turning life into a sporting event (with winners and losers, villians and heroes and most of all, black and white issues) is profitable. By turning our life into a game and our issues into drama, the media-industrial complex profits. And the rest of us lose. Politics get this…

  Bullet points, step by step processes that are guaranteed to work overnight, proven shortcuts... If it was easy, everyone would do it. Worth noting that doctors don't sign up for medical school because they are told that there is a simple, easy way to do open heart surgery. It's not that we are unable…

  This is the one that was made before you even showed up for the meeting. This is the one that sets the agenda, determines the goal and establishes the frame. The decision before the decision is the box. It makes you believe you have the freedom to think and successfully recommend ideas whiles it…

...competent, inspiring, passionate, obsessed, provocative, impatient, hungry, driven, adoring, inspired, an innovator, an artist, a genius, someone who cares...? With all these remarkable, powerful, important options available to each of us, why do so many of us default to competent?

It might not be warranted, but you won't get far without it. Don't bother going to that meeting or reading that book unless you can momentarily assume the message comes from a place of goodwill and generosity. Skepticism does not help you hear. Once you decide to be skeptical, it becomes difficult to see things…