What ever happened to details? The red sole of a Louboutin shoe, or the elegant tag on a pair of Tom’s? The sweeping fenders of a Porsche 911 or the needless complications of a fancy watch… Today, …

The hall of fame, any hall of fame, is an odd thing. On one hand, it celebrates the status quo and scarcity. On the other, it’s a mark of transitions, evolution and diversity. The people indu…

In every field, extraordinary benefits go to those seen as being in the top five percent. One out of twenty. Sure, the biggest prizes go to the once-in-a-generation superstar. But that’s larg…

On one hand, Uncle Ben’s rule makes great sense: “With great power comes great responsibility.” The essence of the rule is that once you have great power, you need to take the res…

There’s a common safe place: Being busy. We’re supposed to give you a pass because you were full on, all day. Frantically moving from one thing to the other, never pausing to catch your…

I don’t agree with Oscar Wilde on this one. In fact, almost no one else is taken. You definitely can’t (and shouldn’t) be someone who already exists, but the number of slots left …

These are the decisions that are forced on us, the ones that feel unfair, the ones where there are no seemingly good outcomes. How to proceed? Acknowledge that it sucks. That you’d rather not…

There are two polar opposites: Staying still and Breaking. It's easy to visualize each end of the axis, whatever the activity. In between is stretching. Stretching is growth. Extending our rea…

That’s how we choose who to work with. We want someone who’s good at their job. And the ones we pass up are usually labeled as, “not good enough.” And we label ourselves as …

At some point, grown ups get tired of the feeling that accompanies growth and learning. We start calling that feeling, “incompetence.” We’re not good at the new software, we resis…

When your ideas are spreading, when your work is remarkable, when your organization has built a social ratchet that works, one of the side effects will be a significant social media presence. Peopl…

People don’t hire you, buy from you or recommend you because you’re indifferently average and well rounded. They do it because you’re exceptional at something. What if you investe…

Anyone can be busy. All you need to do to feel busy is to try to get two things done at once–or seek to beat a deadline that is stressing you out. Productivity, on the other hand, has little …

Here it is, tested, effective and worthwhile: Stop chasing shortcuts. Personal finance, weight loss, marketing, careers, beating traffic, relationships, education–everything that matters to s…

(Unless they want to) Humans are unique in their ability to willingly change. We can change our attitude, our appearance and our skillset. But only when we want to. The hard part, then, isn’t…

Persistence is sort of annoying. Consistency, on the other hand, is the happy twin brother of persistence. Consistent with your statements, consistent in the content you create, consistent in the w…

Professionals understand that the project is the whole project, not simply the fun or urgent or interesting part of the work. There are countless productive shortcuts along the way. But not finishi…

But first, let’s understand some words… Bitcoin is not the blockchain. If the blockchain is a printing press, Bitcoin is a kind of paper money. There are countless things that one can do with a pri…

There’s nothing in the dentist’s office that was there fifty years ago. Every device, every compound, every technique has been changed. Bit by bit. Involving thousands of people and org…

We’re all so busy doing our work that sometimes we fail to build a skill worth owning. If you invest 100 hours in a rare skill, you’re likely to acquire it. If you could learn to sharpe…

Is popular the same as good? Is popular possible? Is popular your goal? There are tens of thousands of humans spending their days trying to be popular on Instagram, buying outfits, wearing hats and…

A generation ago, there was a real worry: privileged parents, those with time, education and money, were giving their kids access to the tools of the net while other kids were missing out on the we…

Twelve years from now, your future self is going to thank you for something you did today, for an asset you began to build, a habit you formed, a seed you planted. Even if you’re not sure of …

Soap is 85 cents a bar or two for a dollar. Which should you buy? It depends. It depends on how much space you have, whether you like this brand, how full your cart is and whether or not you’…

Alert readers of my last two posts have probably guessed what this one is about. The control/responsibility matrix (click to enlarge) People make choices about their preferences for control and for…

Every choice has a price. If you have $100 to invest and you buy this stock instead of that bond, the interest you gave up in making your choice is your opportunity cost. At the dinner buffet, you …

A cherry can’t grow without the pit. The drupe works because it uses the pit as instigation, a foundation to go forward from. The same is true for the way most of us engage with a coach. That…

That doesn’t mean I don’t like you. The difference is critical. It’s impossible to be a productive professional if you insist on conjoining them. Here are two useful things to con…

We don’t pay surgeons by the hour. And if the person who cuts the lawn shows up with a very fast riding mower, we don’t insist on paying less because they didn’t have to work as h…

Then improve it. Then write something else. Repeat this process until you have a post. Then post it. Then repeat this process. There’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s sim…

“Offer me something I’m passionate about and I’ll show up with all of my energy, effort and care.” That’s a great way to hide. Because nothing is good enough to earn y…

If your team is up by thirty points at halftime, it’s not optimistic to expect that you’re going to win–it’s a realistic assessment. Optimism is an attitude and a choice. It…

It doesn’t make any sense to spend your life proving them wrong, it’s a losing battle. Far more effective is the endless work of building connection, forming alliances and finding the v…

If you share a pizza with a large crowd, no one will be very satisfied. But if you share an idea with a group, it creates cultural impact and becomes more valuable as it spreads, not less. Most of …

Consider two loading docks at small companies. At the first, a tractor-trailer filled with heavy boxes shows up. The sole worker on the dock is tasked with unloading the trailer, asap. He puts on h…

Those emergencies from a year ago (and a month ago), they’re gone. Either they were solved, or they became things to live with. But emergencies don’t last. They fade. Knowing that, know…

It’s probably not completely original. It’s probably not breathtaking in scope. It’s probably not immediately popular. But… it’s definitely worth pursuing, consistentl…

A mistake is something you learn from… you did it wrong, you’ll do it better next time. A marketing failure is a mismatch between what you built and the market. And a problem is an invention waitin…

Why do educated people too often fall for foolish scams and conspiracy theories? The problem is that no one taught us to understand. Instead, we are pushed to simply to memorize. To be educated eno…

They didn’t reject you. They rejected an application. They rejected a business plan. They rejected a piece of paper. They don’t know you.

The unskilled cost accountant might suggest you outfit your new hotel with cheap shower curtains. After all, if you save $50 a room and have 200 rooms, pretty soon, we're talking real money. O…

Decorating a car with bling, mudflaps and an airhorn is a form of signalling. You can show your peers that you have the resources to waste on superfluous adornments. (Did you see what I just did th…

You will encounter real limits. You can’t turn yourself invisible, bench press 3,000 pounds or do a heart transplant with a steak knife. But real limits are easy to identify. We rarely have a…

If an Apple upgrade breaks your phone and you switch to Android, it costs Apple more than $10,000. If you switch supermarkets because a clerk was snide with you, it removes $50,000 from the store&#…

“People like us do things like this.” Social media understands this. It also knows that people like points, likes and something that feels like popularity. The social media companies op…

If you’re a gardener, planting orange trees in Ottawa, and nothing’s growing, it’s possible to beat yourself up, burn yourself out and say, “I’m a bad gardener.”…

More than ten, actually. Millions of books will be published this year and for good reason. People rarely regret the effort. Everyone has their own, but here are some of the reasons to get you star…

Our society separates them. Somewhere along the way, we decided that one interfered with the other. Go to school for 8 years to become a doctor–most of that time, you’re learning about doctor…

“I can’t afford it.” “I don’t have the time.” …almost always means, “this is not a priority.” When we care, it’s amazing how much we can get done. One way to choose to care …

The 10x programmer, the 10x strategy expert, the 10x surgeon. This is something we are always in search of. The human who is playing at a different level, generating work that changes everything. T…

Everyone who wants to be busy is busy. But not everyone is productive. Busy is simply a series of choices about how to spend the next minute. Productive requires skill, persistence and good judgmen…

It might be the biggest misconception in all of advertising. The Super Bowl has reach. Google has reach. Radio has reach. So? Why do you care if you can, for more money, reach more people? Why woul…

Discipline, rigor, patience, self-control, dignity, respect, knowledge, curiosity, wisdom, ethics, honor, empathy, resilience, honesty, long-term, possibility, bravery, kindness and awareness. All …

We skew our thinking based on the first feedback we get. That’s the moment of maximum fragility, and so our radar is on high alert. But the math doesn’t hold up, and this high alert can…

If you wait until you really want an avocado, the market won’t have any ripe ones. You need to buy them in advance. If you eat an avocado that’s not quite ripe, you won’t enjoy it…

Here’s a hint: your work might not be what you think it is. A doctor might think her job is to cure diseases. But in fact, that’s not what gets and keeps patients. The cure is a goal, a…

Broken systems get worse when we confuse the loud voices with the important ones. Spend a lot of time listening to the loudest complaints and you will elevate those voices to importance, because yo…

A sports fan, a zealot and a hack all look at the outcome before they decide if they’re happy with the process that led to it. On the other hand, a scientist, an engineer or anyone searching …

Leaders create the conditions where people choose new actions. The choices are voluntary. They’re made by people who see a new landscape, new opportunities and new options. You can’t ma…