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There are no black and white personality traits. Most of us all fall somewhere on some kind of spectrum. And that’s a good thing. Being a healthy and integrated person means embracing all elements of our identity, not just the specific categories we think best describe who we are. I’ve been an extrovert my whole life. Being around other people gives me energy. Interaction is perhaps my greatest source…

In economics, a doom loop is the phenomenon where weak banks destabilize governments that support them, and over indebted governments push banks that hold their bonds over the edge. It’s a negative spiral. A virtueless circle that keeps inflicting crises on the public unless arrested. This term was first introduced in the eighties, and has since been researched and in numerous fields including psychology, systems thinking and organizational management….

Startups exist in a fast paced, fast changing world of extreme uncertainty. This means that an employee’s ability to do things like handle stress, wear multiple hats, solve problems and energize coworkers is far more valuable than executing formulas on spreadsheets. And don’t get me wrong. Excel is a wonderful program. But using it is also a technical skill that you can train a drunk monkey to do. Whereas…

Barnum was the greatest showman because he knew how to create a bold strategy to conjure up a storm of interest in his work. Media referred to his shows as humbugs, which weren’t lies, but events put on to arouse public curiosity. According to his biographer, he put on glittering appearances and novel expedients, by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear. Barnum…

Draper, television mad man extraordinaire, made an entire career out of ethical lapses. On the first episode of the show, he switched the dog tags of a dying soldier during the war and assumed that man’s identity back home. Then, for the remainder of the series, he lied his way to the top of the ad agency with numerous morally ambiguous business practices. My favorite scene is when a…

During a recent family holiday dinner, our poodle shaggy plume of a tail knocked my drink onto the hardwood floor. Splattered everywhere, including onto my shoes. My mother about had a heart attack, while a few other relatives gasped audibly. But for some reason, it didn’t bother me. Not even in the slightest. There was no pet scolding, hand wringing, pulse racing or expletive screaming. While continuing my conversation…

Despite being the world’s foremost expert on nametags, labeling is something that I try to stay away from. Not physically, obviously, as there has literally been a label on my shirt every day for over twenty years of my life. But the practice of mentally, intellectual and emotionally labeling myself, that’s a different story. It’s just so tempting to grossly dismiss my own value by virtue of slapping a…

Harvard’s business journal published a fascinating article written by a professor of psychology. Markman writes that when something has gone wrong at work, people blame lack of communication. The assumption is that greater access to information is the solution. But before you leap into action, and in the process create a lot more work for yourself, let me suggest that you think of the complaints about communication problems as the canary…

How long does one nametag last? For a question people ask me so often, there’s no good answer. Calculating the average shelf life of a single sticker is basically an unsolvable equation. There are simply too many variables to consider. First, there’s the issue of waste. I reuse my nametags on multiple shirts during the week, since it conserves paper. And so, there’s no way to properly track each…

A commonality among unhappy people is, they don’t pursue their values with sufficient intensity. They continuously fail to live up to their own ideals. And without that foundation of true nature, it becomes very difficult to build a fulfilling life. Everything feels like an uphill battle. Turns out, though, that when our ambitions are married to our highest values, that becomes the positive driving force that enables us to…