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According to various personality inventories, my psychological orientation is intuition. That means my artistic, abstract brain is wired to pay the most attention to impressions or the meaning and patterns of the information presented to me. I tend to remember events more as the impression of what it was like, rather than actual facts or details of what happened. Compare that to the opposing orientation, which is sensing. If…

Companies spend millions of dollars every year on customer service education. And it really works. When I was in the corporate training business, many of those organizations hired me to conduct workshops for their staff, and customer service scores almost always increased within a few weeks of the programs. But what amazes me is how little time and energy is focused on the reverse. Nobody really teaches us how…

Travel is humbling, as it reminds us the world is full of things that have nothing to do with us. Traveling gives us perspective, as it allows us to look at our own life from a far. And travel ignites imagination, as it disrupts our routine, introduces novelty to our brain and reactivates reward circuits. But let’s be clear. There is nothing in this world that we can’t turn…

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…