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Leveraging means using something to our maximum advantage. Increasing the rate of return of an investment. Exponentially improving our odds with minimal effort and friction. If that sounds cold and clinical and corporate, you’re absolutely right. But that doesn’t mean we can’t use the phenomenon of leverage to dramatically improve our lives. The secret most of us miss is, our highest leverage comes from anticipating rather than reacting. Otherwise,…

Here’s an unscientific but fascinating personality test. How many keys are on your keychain? How many of them do you actually use? And how many of those keys are total mysteries to you? Maybe your chain stays lean and clean. Just the basics. House, car, office, mailbox. Or maybe you’re someone who saves old keys from a former jobs and relationships that you keep around for sentimental value. Then…

We don’t fear change, we fear loss. That’s why we say that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t. Because it’s far easier to continue with the status quo than face something new. It’s far easier to convince ourselves that the unknown is far worse than our current situation. Consider the overworked and underpaid employee whose job makes him miserable day after day. At least…

The value proposition of online dating websites is, they take the lottery out of love. In fact, many of them work so well, they guarantee it. Match famously states that if you don’t find someone special within six months, they’ll give you an additional six months free. Terms and conditions apply, of course, but the offering is legitimate. It certainly convinced me to sign up for the service during my…

Generosity has historically been at odds with marketing. Firstly, from an economic perspective. Anytime we give something away for free, whether it’s an idea, a product or a service, scarcity ceases to exist. The balance of power shifts. Value perception plummets, since people believe they get what they pay for. And because everybody wants things that other people can’t get, they no longer feel special. By giving things away…

A common piece of criticism people give me about wearing a nametag every day is, well you’re just doing it for attention. And my short answer is, you’re absolutely right. That is exactly my reason for doing it. The attention is great. But my experiment is not quite as narcissistic as it may initially seem. Because while someone wears a name tag to get attention, they also wear it…

Buber saw the path to divinity through human contact. He speculated that a person could not approach the divine by reaching beyond the human: God is not in me and not in you, god is simply what is between us. God is the collective involuntary nervous system of human beings. The electricity that surges amid physical bodies. Anytime one person relates to another, and relates also to that relationship,…

Most of us are uncomfortable making decisions when we don’t have a lot of information. The idea of moving forward with very few data points is a terrifying prospect. Better to do additional research and get feedback and run a few more tests and then we can think about the possibility of maybe taking action. But the thing we forget is, we learn by making all decisions, even bad…

Dilbert once said that strategic planning is hallucinating about the future and then something different happens. It’s like work but without the satisfaction of completing anything. You have meetings and talk about the company’s strategy in vague, emotional terms. And then you sit in a room with inadequate data until the illusion of knowledge is attained. Anyone who’s ever sat on a board of directors can relate to this…

Like the kid from the horror movie who saw dead people, I see friendly people. They’re everywhere. And the really spooky part is, my body warns me right before it happens. One millisecond before some stranger sees my nametag and says hello, there will be a twinge in my stomach. It’s the strangest thing. Like having my own spidey sense, except instead of an extraordinary intuitive ability to sense…