At 21, I remember thinking, “Now, I’m free from the worry of getting into trouble for having a glass of champagne at a wedding.” I felt victorious for skirting any potential recriminations for drinking when it wasn’t legal to do so, although back in those days, the consequences for underage drinking didn’t feel nearly as […]
A fully sighted company anticipates and “sees” the obvious and the not-so-obvious events, dynamics, and influences that are critical to success versus ignoring it. According to author Margaret Heffernan who wrote Willfull Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril says such blindness happens when there are things we should know, could know, but […]
Eyes speak louder than words, if anyone’s looking. In my weekly newsletter, Packets and Pauses, about communication and presentations, I’ve been talking a lot about eye contact. How important it is, how to use it, how we screw it up. Recently, I had lunch with Some One who has an even bigger eye problem than […]
When asked to prove if something is true or false, people tend to focus on confirming “the rule” as stated, rather than falsifying it. Humm that’s sort of a brain twister, isn’t it? As a result, even supposedly smart people can be quite illogical. That is, according to research psychologist Keith Stanovich, a prof […]
Dozens of psychological and personality tests provide insight, they insist, into how we think and act. They pronounce with authority that we do or don’t so this or that well. According to one highly regarded test, I’m “gifted” as an ” attorney, ski instructor, forester, geologist, carpenter, minister, physician, writer, architect, fine artist, musician, dentist, […]
No matter how old you are, no matter how much you’ve experienced, the river of life inevitably takes you into waters you’ve never seen or experienced before. And if those waters are especially turbulent, you might have a tendency to snatch at every tree growing along the river as you try to […]
I haven’t been posting much lately not because there was nothing to say. To the contrary, I’ve been up to my ears in thoughts and activities. For example, I was in Morocco during the Egyptian crises. It was an extraordinary trip. If I can get a foto or two downloaded here, I shall do […]
Until yesterday, when I heard David Eisenhower discuss his grandfather’s iconic 1961 farewell speech, I never fully grasped the full wisdom of President Dwight Eisenhower‘s words. David, in his new book Going Home to Glory, a memoir about life with his illustrious grandfather, puts the famous Military-Industrial Complex speech into a broader context, explaining why […]
These are the magical numbers every fan of tennis now recognizes. It was a game for the ages when, at last, American John Isner defeated France’s Nicolas Mahut at Wimbledon today – after three days and more than 11 hours of play. Yesterday, people in my office were constantly interrupted with friends and family calling […]
If you don’t define yourself, others will. This often-quoted concept is not one I thought particularly applicable to military officers until I read the May 2010 Vanity Fair article on General David Petraeus, a man I’d never thought too much about. Sitting on an airplane headed to a conference to Ft. Lauderdale, I learned […]