Monday Morning Movie: The Hot Tub Principle

Yesterday on my blog, I announced 3 new regular features, including the Monday Morning Movie. Today,  my video comes to you from a hot tub in Orlando. I discuss how you get new insights by reducing how hard you think. This video was shot with my 2nd generation iPoad nano.  Some videos will be shot […]

Turn Everything Upside Down

I love to take baths as home.  But the water never seemed deep enough. When I would fill the tub up with 9 inches of water, the overflow plate would prevent more water from entering the bath. I tried a number of ways to cover the drain hole, including Saran wrap, duct tape, and plastic […]

Ignore All Advice

I decided to get with the 21st century.  Starting today, in addition to my regular writing, I will be recording videos for this blog.  Today’s video is a rant about a topic that has been on my mind lately.  Although, this covers content from earlier blog entries, I am going into a bit more detail […]

Study Failures, Not Successes

I recently attended a meeting where we were going to be taught the secrets of becoming a “7-figure” professional speaker.  That is, we would learn how to make $1,000,000 a year.  The presenter is part of an elite group of speakers who earn at least this much every year.  His presentation was based on the […]

Reframe Tedious Experiences

I have now spoken in 43 countries (#44 coming soon).  As you can imagine, I spend a lot of time in airports and going through security.  TSA Pre is amazing, and has sped up how quickly I get through the lines. One of the (many) nice things about TSA Pre is that you don’t have […]

Focus on Usefulness, Not Validity

About 10 years ago, I developed the Personality Poker® system. Since then, I gathered a mountain of anecdotal evidence supporting its value.  But one question remained in my mind: Is Personality Poker truly valid? That is, do the words actually measure what they are supposed to measure? Or is it just a fun game? To help assess […]

7 Ways to Outsmart Your Brain And Be More Innovative

You are alive today.  You were alive yesterday.  You were alive the day before that. This is good news from a survival perspective.  Unfortunately it is bad news from an innovation perspective. Your brain is wired to keep you alive. Your brain makes the assumption that because you were alive yesterday, what you did previously is […]

What is Your Deep Structure?

The other day I was speaking with a CEO who wanted me to help facilitate a conversation around the crafting of the company’s purpose statement. I asked her, “Why do you want to do this?” She explained that she wanted everyone on her team to fully understand and be aligned behind the purpose of the […]

Beyond the 4-Hour Workweek

The 4-Hour Workweek (by Tim Ferris) is the ultimate book title.  Who doesn’t want to work only 4 hours a week?* I was hooked by the title, but disappointed by the premise. In a nutshell, the book suggests that if you work 50 hours a week, you should outsource 46 hours, leaving only 4 hours of […]

TopCoder is Tops

TopCoder is one of the best-kept secrets in open innovation.  I had the pleasure of spending time with them.  They are a fun bunch that is passionate about what they do. After a full-day deep dive in their Connecticut offices, I traveled to Orlando to spend two days at their “TopCoder Open,” a competition they […]