Back in 2009, Stanford prof Tina Seelig split students in the school of engineering into teams and gave them an envelope containing $5. Teams had only two hours to generate as much money as possible. Each team would get three minutes to present their project to the entire class. Here is Tina’s own article explaining the experience: The $5 … Read more
…is much better than making “correct” decisions On making Committed Decisions… A committed decision is much more powerful than a “correct” decision. A committed decision takes full responsibility. A committed decision knows that there are risks and challenges that you will have to find a way to overcome. A committed decision changes your life. More … Read more
Are you overwhelmed with the weight of the world? Are too many problems weighing you down and making life feel heavy? Are you tired? I heard this story on the Tim Ferriss podcast recently, and I found it quite profound for such a seemingly “simple” story. It reminds me of another video that I made … Read more
We have a wonderful capacity to mess up our lives through lazy or fantasy thinking. We make blanket black and white statements… rather than seeking the shades of grey. “I hate my job” -> what parts exactly? Life is richer than black and white. You don’t hate every single part, activity, person in your job… … Read more
This week we had Xavier Marcet as the keynote speaker for our anual Vistage all-member event on the subject of Humanistic Management. Xavier Marcet has a regular column in the la Vanguardia newspaper that regularly gets up to a million views. He shares thoughts about “humanistic management” and has published 3 books – the last … Read more
Our emotional experience of life can depend on the time horizon we choose to look at our lives. If you look at the progress of your life each day, there are many wild swings. If you look at the progress of your life over longer time horizons, the wild swings blur into the background and … Read more
“I’ve never met a rich optimist” Russell Kane I heard this quote this morning on the High Performance podcast, and it made me stop and reflect. I was an optimist for the first 40 years of life… and I’m working hard to change… Optimism is good for happiness, but not for taking disciplined, difficult actions … Read more
Over 15 years ago, a book was written by Eduardo Ponset called “the formula for happiness”. I don’t remember the formula, but I do remember something that had great importance for me. One of the elements of the formula was a “B” for “busqueda” – the spanish word for “searching”. The feeling you get when … Read more
Yesterday I had the privilege of spending an hour with the former Chairman and CEO of PepsiCo as she spoke with the global Vistage community. The title of her talk was “Leadership in Times of Crisis”. Indra shared her 5 “C”s of leadership in organisations: Competence – “you have to have at least one ‘hip … Read more
In 1972, a plane carrying rugby team from Uruguay crashed in the high Andes. 25 passengers survived the crash… and then found themselves trapped high on a glacier. Initially they waited for search parties to arrive. On day 10, they heard on the radio “the search has been called off”. This day they realised that … Read more