What’s something you need in order to feel OK? What keeps you balanced? Is it approval from others? Your health? Productivity? Being organized? Being right? Winning? Financial security? All of these can be good things. But because you need that thing to stay balanced, you’ll run into a problem when someone starts to pull it
I got in the Lyft at 2:52 pm near Providence, Rhode Island. My immediate thought was Can I trust this guy? The driver, Joe, was a strong, heavy guy with sleeves rolled up exposing his fully tattooed arms. He wore a beanie style winter hat and was playing Motley Crue loud in his old, worn
About ten years ago, our company decided to make MLK Day a company holiday. (Many companies in the U.S. elect to work on this day.) We intentionally made this choice to honor and reflect on the character, example, and message of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. And so this week, my family and I watched
I have this recurring nightmare. It’s like the one where you are late for class or show up at school in your underwear. In my dream, I’m presenting to a large group of people and no one can hear me — or wants to. Everyone in the audience is either distracted, obscured behind physical barriers,
Eighteen months ago, I woke up in the middle of the night with a racing heart and shortness of breath. Cash reserves at our company were falling. We’d made large investments to expand our successful business, but they weren’t paying off fast enough. There was no end in sight. The investments we’d made weren’t bad;
In the US during the 1960s, soldiers returned from war with government financial support to complete their schooling. The problem, though, was that schools weren’t prepared for it. Control Data Corporation and the University of Illinois began researching how technology could solve the problem by extending the capacity and reach of learning. Those researchers could
Each week I allocate 90 minutes to write these posts. Last week, like many others, I wasn’t totally satisfied with my work when I hit the 90-minute mark. It could be better, I thought. Nonetheless, I’d reached my time limit, so I published something that wasn’t ideal in my mind. It was simply the best
Perhaps you’ve heard about the historic feat climber Alex Honnold accomplished on June 3rd. He became the first person in history to free solo climb (by himself with no ropes or equipment) El Capitan in Yosemite, which is a 3,000-foot vertical wall up the Freerider path. He did it in under four hours. Mind-blowing. I
I worked for my dad for about ten years, during which time he persistently asked me this question: “How is your system working for you?” As he explained it, “Successful people develop a structured approach to their work. They are successful because they consistently work their system.” But for years, I frankly had no idea
Early in his career, one of my university professors set a constraint on how much money he would ever make in one year. He established a modest fixed cost of living amount, adjusted for inflation each year and gave away the rest. Incredible, I always thought. Especially because he was the highest rated professor in
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE