Book Cover – And Subtitle Reveal
On April 21, 2026, my 8th book, You’re Not Playing with a Full Deck, will be published. After months of effort and hundreds of iterations of the cover, I am thrilled to share the final cover and new subtitle for the book. One night, I woke up and realized that being an “ace up the […]
Should You Trust Your Gut?
Right now I am working on the cover design for my next book. The designer gave me five different concepts to choose from. Immediately, my gut reacted. One cover stood out to me as clearly better than the rest. Still, I wanted to sanity-check myself. So I asked a few dozen people to share their […]
Book Launch April 21
It’s official. April 21, 2026 marks the launch of my 8th book: You’re Not Playing with a Full Deck: Why the People Who Drive You Crazy Also Drive Breakthrough Results I am looking for people who want to help me with the launch. The time commitment is minimal – close to nothing. And it would […]
Are You Playing with a Full Deck?
Most of us, in fact nearly all of us, are not playing with a full deck. What do I mean by that? No one succeeds on their own. We all need the perspectives of others. For example, I am creative yet scattered. I generate a lot of ideas. Some are good. Many are not. Creativity […]
Can a Business Run Without Goals?
Twenty years ago, I wrote Goal-Free Living with a controversial premise: our personal lives are better without goal obsession. So can this work in business? Absolutely. I’ve seen it firsthand: → Clients selling more after eliminating sales goals → Companies boosting innovation by giving greater flexibility → Organizations increasing performance by reducing output targets Harvard […]
Happy New Year!
Wishing you a 2026 where everyone is playing with a full deck. Happy New Year!
For 2026, Set Resolutions That Can’t Fail
It’s that time of year when we set resolutions for 2026. But maybe one resolution should be to stop making resolutions! Twenty years ago, Wiley published my Goal-Free Living book. The premise is that goals are not the key to happiness. Joy does not live in the future, but rather in the current moment. According […]
Article in SHRM Magazine
Most teams don’t struggle because they lack talent. They struggle because they surround themselves with people who think the same way. This was my message to 800 leaders at the SHRM Linkage Institute, where we played Personality Poker. After the event, Olivia Gebreamlak did a great job of capturing the essence of what we explored […]
When Do You Trust Your Gut?
When do you trust others, and when do you trust your gut? In 2011, Portfolio Penguin bought the rights to two of my books. The working title of one of them was The Little Book of BIG Innovation Ideas. The publisher loved it. I hated it. The publisher was the expert, so I should trust […]
Steve Jobs and Creativity and Innovation
Steve Jobs gave a brief but powerful speech at The Academy of Achievement in 1982. Here is a transcription of a portion of that speech – edited for space and emphasis. It’s about the creativity and making connections… Have you ever thought about what it means to be intelligent? It seems to me that a […]