Please Tell Me Who I Am: Supertramp’s The Logical Song
The other day, I posted about how children start life as red cards: creative, playful, connected. But as we age and learn to fit in and be successful, we start to collect black cards: logical, organized, systematic. The question I posed was: Who are we really? Here’s a link to the blog post. Driving home […]
A Brand is Not Your Colors or Logo
Many years ago, I was friends with Tom Peters’ brand manager. I asked him for his definition of a brand. He gave me six simple words: “What your customers say it is.” It’s not your logo. It’s not your colors. Those things change. Your brand is the promise you make to your customers, and how […]
Who Are We Really?
Somewhere along the way, most of us stop being who we really are. After my Personality Poker session last night, I spoke with an attendee in his 60s, a semi-retired grandfather. He picked mostly red cards, the ones about people, creativity, and play. Then he told me, “If I had played this game 20 years […]
PEOPLE POKER – The Game Show Chuck Barris Couldn’t Sell to ABC
Chuck Barris, the creator and host of The Gong Show, was one of my childhood heroes. I always wanted to be like him, a game show host with big, quirky ideas. Although my TV career never happened, I do get to play game show host every time I run my Personality Poker experience on stage. […]
Maybe I’m Not Playing with a Full Deck
Have you lost your mind? That’s what people were saying when I posted about writing another book. I suspect people will lose their minds when I tell them they can’t buy the new book—now or ever. Yes, I’m still in the writing and editing stage, and that will take a while. But even when it’s […]
You’re Not Playing with a Full Deck!
Call me crazy… I just re-released the Personality Poker book last week. And yesterday? I started working on my next book, planning to publish it this year. Have I lost my marbles? Maybe. The current book is 45,000 words of rich, deep content. But let’s be honest: Personality Poker is meant to be fun, playful, […]
Getting People to Read Books
Most authors think they have a sales problem. They don’t. A colleague told me, “If more people bought my book, I’d get more speeches and coaching gigs.” My response: “You don’t have a sales problem. You have a reader problem.” I’ve given away thousands of books. It didn’t matter. The real challenge isn’t getting books […]
What’s in a Title?
When I founded my business in 2001, my title was “Innovation Speaker and Author.” Descriptive but boring. In 2010, I switched to “Innovation Evangelist” (and sometimes “Chief Innovation Evangelist”). It was more interesting, but some event organizers were not crazy about the word “evangelist.” By 2015, I landed on “Innovation Instigator.” I never loved it, […]
When a Dream is the Wrong Dream
When I was a kid, I had a dream: I wanted to be a game show host on television. That dream is gone, but not forgotten. Thirteen years ago, it came close to happening. I was in the pitch rooms of nearly a dozen major cable networks. I had a world-class agent who represented some […]
Author Proof of the Personality Poker Book!
Big milestone today—I just received the author proof for the new edition of Personality Poker! Holding it in my hands is both exciting and surreal. This updated version brings the concepts to life in a fresh way, making it easier than ever for teams and individuals to discover their unique “hand” and how to play […]