We’ve been sold a lie. Work hard. Keep your head down. Follow the plan. Delay gratification. And somewhere down the line, you’ll get to enjoy life. That approach might get you a steady paycheck, but it won’t get you fulfillment. I believed this lie for the first 25 years of my career. Until a 20-minute conversation shifted everything. It helped me see that I had never once asked the most important question in my career: What do I want? Not: * What am I qualified to do? * What’s the next...
8 months ago • 1 min read
I finished last in every high school track meet. It hurt my ego. I struggled to face my teammates with my head high. Of course I didn’t change my training regimen… I blamed the coach for putting me in the wrong race: 2-miles for goodness sake! I stuck it out, but I promptly quit when the season ended. Fast forward 30 years. My son started running high school cross country and track… favoring the 2-mile race. He was not a natural talent, finishing in the slower half of the pack each race. But...
9 months ago • 1 min read
The call started off badly for Krishnan. It was a final interview, and The audio was muffled. The team on the other end couldn’t hear him. It was a crisis moment. Instead of panicking, Krishnan calmly hung up, called IT, and moved to Plan B. He redialed the U.S. line directly from his cell—at international rates that cost him $50 out of pocket. They hired him. Later, when he asked why, they said: “Because in a crisis, you figured it out. That’s all we needed to know.” That’s mindset in...
9 months ago • 1 min read
Alex feels pushed around by people with big egos. He’s normally confident, outspoken, and an effective communicator. But when faced with someone who doesn’t listen, and is sharp and short, Alex backs down. There’s one particular person that is a challenge for Alex. The CEO. He’s the kind of quick talking, very smart, arrogant person… bordering on rude. Alex has even seen the CEO snap his fingers & tell others to “shut up”. In recounting this story to me, Alex told me something interesting. He...
9 months ago • 1 min read
Stress is my pet peeve. It’s not the feeling. Feeling stressed is a normal part of life. It’s how people accept stress instead of doing this one thing to manage their stress. From a neuroscience standpoint, stress is activation of your fight-or-flight nervous system. It’s a normal human reaction to a perceived threat. The problem isn’t the emotional response. That’s normal and uncontrollable. The problem is how you describe stress. Most people use stress almost like a badge of honor, or maybe...
9 months ago • 1 min read