The Curious Engineer

Joshua Spodek

2013–2015

1,156 posts

← 2008–2012 2016–2018 →

2015 367

December 2015

  1. Iron
  2. The United States Constitution, leadership, and why I try to minimize my polluting
  3. Technology comes from teams of people
  4. The value of science education
  5. The opposite of leading
  6. What is the opposite of leading?
  7. Another reason to say no to a lot of good things to have a great life
  8. Four years of burpees!
  9. My beliefs from a week of writing them
  10. The value of dramatic theater
  11. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Must I Pretend to Like My Artist Friend’s Work?
  12. When someone says “America is losing ground to China or India,” watch your wallet
  13. Caring what others think about you
  14. How to Make Meaningful Connections Workshop: January 26 in Brooklyn
  15. Power in playing the victim
  16. Was the U.S. founded on religious tolerance?
  17. How orange peels free you from shame and ignorance
  18. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: What Should I Have Done After an I.V.F. Mix-Up?
  19. To meet more valuable people, spend less time with people you know
  20. Restaurants keep disappointing more the healthier I eat
  21. Life lessons from fruits and vegetables
  22. Everyone gets distracted. Here’s how to overcome it.
  23. You have two options in life
  24. How to learn
  25. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Marry the Son of a Crook?
  26. You don’t learn from someone telling you the answers like you do through experience
  27. Op/Ed Friday: Acting against equality, part 2 of “Almost nobody is acting for equality, which is why we aren’t getting it”
  28. Improve your networking at ConnectorCon, next Saturday, Dec. 12 in Manhattan
  29. Taking responsibility for my airplane flight’s pollution
  30. Academia and fitness

November 2015

  1. Enjoy, don’t need
  2. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should My Rich Friends Apply for Financial Aid?
  3. Why people like Donald Trump
  4. A coaching client started her firm and rang the opening bell of the New York Stock Exchange
  5. Is it the hardest thing you’ve ever done?
  6. Would you rather be you or have been born a Rockefeller?
  7. Needing less gives more freedom than having more
  8. Still running
  9. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can My Workplace Ask Me for a Donation?
  10. Sugar’s profit
  11. Op/Ed Friday: Almost nobody is acting for equality, which is why we aren’t getting it
  12. A book that influenced beliefs I thought fixed more than nearly any other
  13. Inspiration in education
  14. The opposite of SIDCHAs helps show their value
  15. Learn and practice Marshall Goldsmith’s Feedforward, December 1 in Manhattan
  16. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Tell My Friend’s Husband That She’s Having an Affair?
  17. Failure is how you feel about your results
  18. A reader’s SIDCHAs
  19. Does this bottle disgust you?
  20. Advice to a young man on food
  21. Why leadership and entrepreneurship training can learn from acting training
  22. See me at Connectorcon, December 12 in Manhattan
  23. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: How Much Can We Spend to Keep Our Dog Alive?
  24. Abraham Lincoln and the unintended side-effects of leading through authority
  25. My Harvard and MIT SIDCHA talk
  26. A reader’s success with my email advice
  27. Thesweeten.com created one of the worst problems in my life
  28. Why America body-slams kids in school, in video
  29. Why cops body-slam children in schools
  30. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Must a Quaker School Care for Its Neighbors?

October 2015

  1. Business successes that looked sure to fail at first
  2. Business plan competitions undermine entrepreneurship
  3. Interviewed by Columbia Business School on Endurance Sports and Business Success
  4. Confidence and pride in your body feels better than chocolate tastes
  5. Two thousand posts!
  6. Conflicting emotions don’t cancel out.
  7. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Set the Record Straight About a Suicide?
  8. Are U.S. universities today like U.S. automakers in the 70s and 80s?
  9. A problem I don’t see how to solve. Can you help me?
  10. Do you trap yourself in mental jails?
  11. The laggard manifesto
  12. I bought two books
  13. Following up a reader’s comment on food, eating, and exercise
  14. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: How Do I Handle a Claim of Sexual Assault by a Close Friend?
  15. Restaurants make “entertainment for your mouth,” designed for profit, not health. Same with packaged food.
  16. A reader’s question on food, eating, and exercise
  17. Yoga, attention, nuance, and subtlety
  18. Someone not returning your emails? Here’s a polite tactic that gets responses.
  19. Technical solutions rarely solve social problems
  20. Seeing my inspiration, Inside The Actors Studio, live
  21. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Is My Neighbor Obliged to Report Me to Immigration?
  22. The problem with “We need more women leaders / in tech / in STEM fields / etc”
  23. A miracle contender
  24. My odd race story
  25. Confusing perception and reality will make even experienced leaders cry
  26. Flowing water on Mars?
  27. If you want your car to run better, learn about engines and brake systems, not car noises. If you want to lead, learn about emotions and motivations, not how people annoy you
  28. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: What Should an Ethicist Tell His Readers?
  29. Close-minded talk on food
  30. Maturity and pasta
  31. Everyone is positive (from their perspective)

September 2015

  1. Cockroaches and equality
  2. Recycling doesn’t pollute much less than throwing stuff away
  3. How to make less more
  4. How to give your life meaning
  5. Jalapeños, contact lenses, and dedication
  6. Op/Ed Fridays: Get your hands and mind dirty if you want to be healthy
  7. What about Tiger Woods? Why was he pilloried?
  8. Bad boys, success, and discipline
  9. How do I make new friends?
  10. I don’t have time for the elevator. I take the stairs.
  11. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Help a Classmate Who Sexually Harassed My Friend Get a Job?
  12. Read about my entrepreneurship course at the Princeton Tech Meetup
  13. Op/Ed Fridays: Banning billboards and outdoor advertising
  14. Leaders and tools
  15. Learn and practice one of the most effective leadership techniques in person — September 30 in Manhattan
  16. Why not compliment someone who deserves it?
  17. The farm where most of my food this summer came from
  18. People who push addictive substances on us
  19. Blaming someone for shaming you implies your emotions are out of control
  20. What can you recover from?
  21. I touched my toes for the first time in over twenty years!
  22. Don’t reward yourself with unhealthy things, or anyone
  23. Join me for a workshop on entrepreneurial thinking and behavior over a delicious meal at a FED talk
  24. I don’t earn fitness, I enjoy it. It’s not about deprivation, it’s about doing what you want.
  25. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Lie to My Father About Being Gay So He Will Pay for My College Education?
  26. More education doesn’t make you less capable, but universities make you think so
  27. Op/ed Fridays: Academics studying leadership versus leadership
  28. It’s not what you know OR whom you know. It’s your skills to make connections
  29. How to worry less? WINDETIT!
  30. A reader simplifies his life. You can too.

August 2015

  1. Why I want fewer people in my life
  2. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Wear Jewelry If I Don’t Support Its Origins?
  3. I’m lucky: I put on fat immediately and lose it slowly
  4. Op/Ed Fridays: Drugs have won the drug war. New and different education can stop us losing.
  5. “I’m offended!” and “I’m outraged!” … What that means.
  6. Schedule your follow-up when you email!
  7. Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 5/5
  8. Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 4
  9. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Handling a Racist Remark in the Workplace
  10. Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 3
  11. Lessons in leadership from Frances Hesselbein, part 2
  12. Lessons in leadership from Frances Hesselbein, part 1
  13. “Get in touch with your masculine/feminine side” misunderstands and undervalues men and women
  14. “To convince” means “to provoke debate” and rarely works
  15. Where do you see yourself in five years?
  16. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: How Do I Handle the Towel Saga Next Door?
  17. Which should I change: belief, behavior, or both?
  18. How do you justify polluting?
  19. A reader’s SIDCHAs
  20. 60,000 burpees!
  21. Old man still got it
  22. Leaders rarely work in absolutes
  23. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Is It Wrong If a Friend Sells My Hand-Me-Downs?
  24. Programmers work with computers and leaders work with people
  25. Op/Ed Fridays: “How Much Is a C.E.O. Worth?” misses the point
  26. Want someone to help you more? Show appreciation!
  27. Do you need to overcome a huge challenge — a crucible — to lead or reach the top?
  28. More ineffable truth and beauty of regular life
  29. The ineffable truth and beauty of regular life
  30. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: What Can I Do About a Neighbor’s Partying Child?
  31. Language, communication, evolutionary psychology, and leadership

July 2015

  1. Op/Ed Fridays: The misunderstanding behind “There ought to be a law against hate”
  2. The nature of emotional challenges
  3. SIDCHAs in the wild
  4. Learning to communicate beyond words and talking
  5. The hardest problems I’ve solved
  6. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Ask My Secretary to Fix Her Teeth?
  7. How media represent and misrepresent leadership: A reader’s questions
  8. Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 5
  9. Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 4
  10. Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 3
  11. Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 2
  12. Summer Institute Reflections
  13. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Post a Photo of a Bad Driver?
  14. Some people eat to support working. I think they have it backwards.
  15. Are you motivating people for their benefit or yours?
  16. Aristotle, then and now
  17. Justified! Research confirms that restaurants aren’t that healthy.
  18. Angry people giving life advice
  19. People want recognition
  20. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Respond to My Mechanic’s Racist Poster?
  21. Eating at restaurants seems weirder the more healthily I eat. Same with pre-prepared food.
  22. Op-Ed Friday: Men and learning leadership
  23. How to live a life of luxury and indulgence
  24. A 30-year Sidcha: running, swimming, or biking every morning
  25. Why leadership and entrepreneurship exercises work
  26. See me speak on entrepreneurship: Princeton, July 16
  27. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Do Another Woman’s Marriage Vows Bind Me?
  28. July 4, 1939: “I consider myself the luckiest man on the face of the earth”
  29. Learning about relationships ruins most movies and TV
  30. This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 3
  31. This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 2

June 2015

  1. This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 1
  2. First empty inbox in at least a year!
  3. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: How Do I Counter My Sister’s Abuse Claims Against Our Father?
  4. Recycling doesn’t pollute much less than throwing things out compared to not using stuff in the first place
  5. Learn inquiry-driven project-based learning from experienced experts this July!
  6. Increasing awareness: Why you get anxious when you’re late
  7. The opposite of passive aggression is active compassion
  8. See my talk at Stand Up For Passion
  9. If you can’t improve it, spending time on it wastes your time
  10. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Taxicab Confessions
  11. Personal change and changing friends
  12. “You’re too f-ing cheap to by my book?!”
  13. Mistakes and problems build and strengthen relationships
  14. Recovering from mistakes helps more than striving for perfection
  15. How to make a phone call with someone you don’t know but want to help you
  16. Making a habit stick makes other habits stick easier
  17. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Do I Have to Keep a Secret About a Family Member’s Health?
  18. Less unsolicited advice, more stories, and public accountability
  19. I don’t listen to people who talk science about nutrition.
  20. Today’s problems were yesterday’s solutions. Today’s solutions will be tomorrow’s problems.
  21. Your past isn’t a restriction
  22. Bad news sucks
  23. Student feedback on my leadership class
  24. Can you tell me about John Taylor Gatto?
  25. Have you striven for excellence?
  26. How a different model can change everything: genius, shoes, planets, the universe, humans, gods, and sex
  27. How a dramatically different model can change everything: addiction
  28. An experiment in delegating authority: Having students grade themselves
  29. Leading versus coercion
  30. Big chairs and the world we live in

May 2015

  1. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Do I Have to Tell About a Co-Worker’s Rape?
  2. We interpret leaders gloriously leading the charge backward today
  3. Why do actors and entertainers become leaders more than the other way around and what can we learn from the pattern?
  4. Your degree isn’t a restriction
  5. How to get a mentor in two easy steps that work
  6. Closing remarks to my leadership class
  7. When were you last out of breath?
  8. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: May I Lie to My Husband to Get Him to See a Doctor?
  9. First half-marathon of the year
  10. Advice to a young person considering their eating habits
  11. Plants are made of air
  12. Questions to raise your self-awareness
  13. How to enjoy every day, with no bullshit
  14. Universities, academics, and fitness
  15. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Change My Name to Avoid Discrimination?
  16. Central Park in the Spring
  17. Philosophy off the rails and how to get back on
  18. Make your habits stick! My new seminar.
  19. Leading people in a field is different than working in that field
  20. Bought first food with packaging after 2.5 weeks
  21. On the value of feeling bad
  22. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: What Should I Do About a Nanny Who Drinks?
  23. How much time did you waste on that project you loved?
  24. Pain I like
  25. Buying no food with packaging, eighteen days and counting
  26. Better than what used to be good
  27. More basics with Michael Jordan, Ray Allen, and Kobe Bryant: more simple and valuable than you think
  28. The basics: more simple and valuable than you think
  29. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should I Lend Money to My Irresponsible Parents?
  30. How to teach or influence
  31. How lecturing is the opposite of how we learn

April 2015

  1. Why avoid polluting when air conditioning is more comfortable?
  2. Where greatness shows itself
  3. The progression of performance-based skills
  4. How you benefit yourself by leading others
  5. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Slaughter for Hire
  6. Why the rules of government prevent people who want to govern from doing what they want
  7. The two meanings of exhaustion
  8. Want to lead? Look for a leadership vacuum
  9. Thoughts from recent talks I gave at MIT and Princeton
  10. You have the same potential for passion as anyone
  11. Avoiding food packaging
  12. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can a Colleague ‘Donate’ My Lost Money?
  13. Peace versus personal freedom
  14. What “processed” means in processed food
  15. How my indulgences have become more indulgent
  16. Not everyone who is busy is annoying
  17. If you have “too much to do” or “not enough time,” you’re not getting more done. You’re annoying.
  18. Fashion and Leadership
  19. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Hire Someone to Write My Résumé and Cover Letter?
  20. The beauty of Godfather 3
  21. Passion versus skill
  22. Emotional awareness ruins television dramas
  23. Run on solid ground
  24. What is fundamental?
  25. Winter vegetables
  26. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Profit From Accidentally Obtained Information?
  27. Why are there no men’s relationship advice columns?
  28. What makes relationships last: resolving conflict
  29. Look forward as you learn to lead yourself
  30. Exercising authority isn’t leading

March 2015

  1. How would you behave during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
  2. You don’t have to overcome adversity to achieve a lot
  3. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Must I Drive My Friend to Have an Abortion?
  4. Know your antagonist
  5. Know your geese!
  6. The last time you interviewed someone
  7. The great masters of speaking with authentic voices
  8. Your authentic voice
  9. A reader comments on why people associate empathy with feeling down
  10. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Do You Tell a Friend His Daughter Is Sexually Active?
  11. Freedom, from speech
  12. Emotions and sharp knives
  13. Calling emotions negative is like calling fire or pain negative
  14. People don’t behave consistently with the world, your version of it, or what they say about it
  15. A quarter century of Free Software
  16. Calmness, focus, determination, and presence—an easy way to increase them
  17. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Shop at Hobby Lobby?
  18. Insightful BBC video on mental models, beliefs, and how your mind perceives
  19. Leaders ask advice. Non-leaders think they lead when giving advice, but they aren’t.
  20. Involving people attracts and engages them. Pitching makes them evaluate.
  21. The idea of a lifetime comes once a month
  22. Better than a great idea is an okay idea plus listening to your market plus flexibility
  23. More important than personality is skills you can learn
  24. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Hide My Beliefs During Jury Selection?
  25. Four principles of creating ideas people want to help you with
  26. Why convincing rarely works and usually backfires
  27. Instead of “How does winter affect your mood,” how about “How do you create the emotion you want?”
  28. Why do people always associate empathy with feeling down?
  29. Meet the Global CEO of Deloitte, Barry Salzberg, March 19!
  30. What do you think when someone acts not how you want
  31. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Stay Out of an Estate Dispute?
  32. Star Trek blunders

February 2015

  1. Want the latest news on food? I don’t.
  2. How different beliefs lead people with identical motivational systems to behave differently
  3. A reader takes on cold showers
  4. Close to cold shower record
  5. The death spiral of thinking you understand someone when you don’t
  6. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Can I Ask My Neighbors to Quiet Their Baby?
  7. My rice cooker / vegetable steamer / miracle appliance
  8. Stand Up For Passion
  9. Don’t look for blame but take responsibility for improving things to the extent you can
  10. Habitualize it
  11. Geeking out: new high score on 2048
  12. My next Leadership Workshop, Sunday March 1
  13. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Dorm Wrecker
  14. Why readers like my fast posts
  15. New series: Mental models, beliefs, and an exercise to identify and change yours
  16. Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours
  17. Some “The most helpful self-awareness exercise” comments
  18. Nobody says “You care too much what other people think” when you care what *they* think
  19. Why do readers like the posts I write the fastest so much?
  20. Fundamentals and technique: what you do when you don’t know what to do
  21. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: The Hazards of Other Planets
  22. See me at Stand Up For Passion, March 3 in New York!
  23. Passions, you create
  24. To start a habit, focus on emotions
  25. Why I live where I do
  26. This pattern improves your life
  27. New category: visualizations!
  28. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: His Qualifications — and Mine
  29. 50,000 burpees!

January 2015

  1. You won’t believe this marathoner
  2. See Fashion Entrepreneurs Coco and Breezy with Columbia Business School’s Alumni Club
  3. Hear me interviewed on Join Up Dots!
  4. Influence and persuasion class starts Saturday
  5. Watching TV is great if you have nothing better to do
  6. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Two Cents, Too Late
  7. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview!
  8. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 9/9
  9. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 8/9
  10. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 7/9
  11. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 6/9
  12. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 5/9
  13. Malcolm X speaking
  14. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Try This at Home!
  15. Prince, Oscars, Olympians, and one of the world’s greatest leaders
  16. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 4/9
  17. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 3/9
  18. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 2/9
  19. Listen to the results of my online leadership course: the full interview, part 1/9
  20. Highlights from interviewing the first student of my new online leadership course
  21. New to the public: My Sales course!
  22. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: The Case for Throwback Baseball Uniforms
  23. After Innocence: a documentary painful to watch and recommended
  24. Op/Ed Fridays: Serpico on cops today
  25. Integrity in successful leaders: Stella Adler scrubbed the floor
  26. The overeager salesperson and why just understanding someone can undermine you leading them
  27. A seminar attendee inspires me back with his TEDx talk
  28. I don’t remember feeling this much passion for a project since co-founding my first company in the late 90s
  29. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: D-List Doppelgänger
  30. Some science on where fat goes when you lose it
  31. I take responsibility for my emotions and no other adults’
  32. Why party

2014 376

December 2014

  1. The stages of developing empathy and compassion
  2. The value of technique in leadership
  3. My next seminar, January 12 at The Yard in NYC!
  4. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Your World Cup Ethical Questions, Answered
  5. How you lose weight
  6. A reader asks about integrity and self-control
  7. Protecting the environment improves your life
  8. Why feeling understood feels so good and feeling misunderstood feels so bad
  9. More inspirational SIDCHA videos
  10. Three years of burpees
  11. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: A Boy Named Dana
  12. Particle Fever
  13. An unhealthy gift
  14. The Meaning of Leadership — the class
  15. Rappelling down a three-story wall!
  16. A corporate perspective on global warming and pollution
  17. You learn behavior through experience, not people telling you what to do
  18. The Model: the series
  19. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: The Perks of Being a Layabout
  20. Is effective leadership manipulation?
  21. I like judging people
  22. I don’t know what to call it but I can’t call it food
  23. Hold yourself accountable with precision. It gives you freedom.
  24. You need to read this post
  25. One year of cold showers
  26. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: A Survey Course in Campus Ethics
  27. Less dessert, more appreciation
  28. Questions for job interviews
  29. Value people who refer and recommend you!
  30. A leader we can learn from
  31. How you feel when you feel misunderstood
  32. My scientific and engineering view of coaching and teaching leadership

November 2014

  1. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Should Free Office Food Be Taken Home?
  2. You don’t need six months to prepare. You need an hour.
  3. Exercise in minimizing
  4. Happy Thanksgiving
  5. More effective than willpower
  6. My first Community-Supported Agriculture shipment
  7. What happens when you develop empathy and compassion skills
  8. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Sorry, No One’s Sitting There
  9. Join Joshua Spodek’s leadership workshop, Saturday December 6 in Soho
  10. Another successful testimonial
  11. What are you doing that’s exciting?
  12. Almost everyone I spend time with loves what they do
  13. 100 burpees: 9 minutes 21 seconds
  14. A reader shares a genius business idea in action
  15. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: What if an Athlete Wants to Bet on Himself?
  16. The natural beauty of Brazil’s Fernando de Noronha Island — Pictures and videos of dolphins
  17. Two videos from one of the best books I’ve read on the environment, our impact on it, and what we can do about it
  18. Asking “Are leaders born or made?” doesn’t help you develop as a leader
  19. Why I plan never to visit Brazil again
  20. Now I understand meat eaters asking weird questions — they don’t know what they’re talking about
  21. The problem determines the solution
  22. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Why Can’t I Clean My Boyfriend’s House for Pay?
  23. “You can live cheaper in New York City than any place in the world”
  24. My current biggest failure
  25. Minimum effective behavior
  26. When to choose not to connect with people
  27. How you develop social skills
  28. Joshua Spodek’s 2014 New York City Marathon Results
  29. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Is It Wrong to Divulge a Secret to Protect Someone’s Honor?
  30. Marathon burpees

October 2014

  1. A successful testimonial on leading someone so she wanted to be led again
  2. New SIDCHA series post
  3. Music to make a day enjoyable
  4. Why I am inspired to learn leadership
  5. Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms
  6. Sunday Nonjudgmental ethics: Is It Cheating to Compete Against Younger Runners?
  7. “You haven’t even failed”
  8. The smallest effective difference
  9. Successful behavior comes from little tricks more than lofty ideals
  10. Motivation = expectation of success compared to now, research shows
  11. Two readers ask about confirming and anchoring in relationships
  12. Risks in relationships, rock-climbing, and ratcheting
  13. Sunday Non-judgment: Why Tell Koko About Robin Williams’s Death?
  14. The rewards, pleasures, and life lessons of running fast
  15. I love my breakfast!
  16. No time to exercise? I bet you do, but you don’t want to make the effort.
  17. Defining moments
  18. Why Are Americans So Fascinated With Extreme Fitness?
  19. Ran last half-marathon to train for this year’s marathon yesterday
  20. Non-judgmental Ethics Sunday: Tourist Retractions
  21. Cooking from scratch means less garbage
  22. Op/Ed Fridays: Americans’ distorted view of wealth
  23. Why do you freak out when you’re late?
  24. Nonjudgmental ethics: Is It Wrong to Watch Football?
  25. See Joshua Spodek on leadership at General Assembly, Sunday October 19
  26. If we taught piano like we teach leadership
  27. Sunday non-judgment: Coffee for young mormons?
  28. Eisenhower on deciding, resolving conflict, and uniting a divided team
  29. Dustin Hoffman on feeling understood about a passion and how it helps a leader
  30. How to start to lead
  31. Not the ethicist, part 5

September 2014

  1. Phil Jackson on Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Shaquille O’Neal
  2. Reminder: International Entrepreneurship Panel, October 6 at NYU
  3. Not the ethicist, part 4
  4. Not the ethicist 3
  5. Not the ethicist 2
  6. Not the ethicist
  7. New series: Non-authoritarian non-ethics
  8. Judging doesn’t annoy people. Imposing values on others does.
  9. Olympians, Nobel Laureates, Oscar winners, and others I’ve met
  10. Hustlers and clowns
  11. Emotions have (at least) two components: motivation and feeling
  12. What makes an emotion a passion?
  13. How do you motivate someone who claims to have no motivation?
  14. When the best way to solve a problem is to solve it, not analyze it forever
  15. International Entrepreneurship Panel, October 6 at NYU
  16. 1,000 days of burpees
  17. Video: How to make selling fun and effective
  18. Grunt work and sales leads to leadership roles
  19. How to promote yourself without bragging or leaving information out
  20. See Joshua Spodek on leadership at General Assembly, Sunday September 28
  21. When I was mugged at knifepoint in Amsterdam
  22. Pain, discipline, and self-reliance
  23. Video: Sam Harris on consciousness and internal monologue
  24. Six reasons to learn leadership skills even if you don’t want to lead
  25. Handling leadership issues when you don’t have authority, follow-up
  26. Why I avoid sending resumes: people say no to resumes, they say yes to people.
  27. Cold Showers — The Series
  28. Simplifying personal development
  29. If you have to force something you think others will like, rethink it. You can probably do it easier.
  30. An exercise to help make you more aware of yourself when you need it most
  31. Why I don’t think much of TED talks
  32. Exploring boundaries means you cross them sometimes. But regrets pass.

August 2014

  1. An exercise to help you understand your world and become more aware of yourself
  2. See Joshua Spodek at Cole Haan, Flavorpill, and General Assembly’s Inspiration Workshop, September 6
  3. An exercise to help you understand others, reduce arguments, and become more aware of yourself
  4. Funny: Every TED Talk ever in 99 seconds
  5. Myers-Briggs doesn’t help you, it helps your manager, if anyone
  6. Want to change something big and complex? Start simple and long term.
  7. How to handle leadership issues when you don’t have authority
  8. Want to start a habit? Here’s the best instruction to start — SIDCHA style
  9. The incredible value to a leader of making people feel understood
  10. Advice I ignore. Advice I take.
  11. How to get the body you want, never buying another fitness or diet book
  12. How inspiration feels, in depth
  13. Learn more leadership, motivation, and influence Saturday!
  14. A friend my age, a married father of three, and his cancer
  15. My plan to solve executive pay
  16. Why I chose to study science
  17. People who say you think about it too much are telling you they willfully misunderstand you
  18. How inspiration feels
  19. Crunch time strategy
  20. Problems with learning leadership skills only on the job
  21. A problem with teaching high-level principles
  22. Exhaustion rocks! … and relaxes
  23. Op/Ed Fridays: Building roads creates congestion. What does increasing the food supply do?
  24. Another way to drain energy from a conversation
  25. One way to drain energy from a conversation and how to avoid it
  26. Lessons in freedom and self-expression from a high school student in a project-based learning school
  27. How to manage your manager: the main concepts
  28. Understand your anger to develop compassion
  29. How to make more, deeper, and closer friendships
  30. “Wheat Belly:” Almost as worthless as Quiet
  31. Common traits among leaders and successful people across industries, fields, and disciplines

July 2014

  1. How to discipline a friend, an example
  2. I want skills, not inborn talent, intelligence, wishes, or hope
  3. Is the New Yorker following me?
  4. Six pack pic for accountability
  5. See Joshua Spodek on leadership at General Assembly, August 23
  6. There’s no point in trying to figure *everything* out
  7. 40,000 Burpees!
  8. Read my blog, learn about yourself, get hired
  9. Student-driven inquiry-driven project-based learning rocks!
  10. Logic and convincing don’t motivate: an example
  11. The sadness of “I wish I could have a life like yours”
  12. More value of low-level instruction for leadership: Margaret Thatcher
  13. Op/ed Fridays: “Free speech zones” undermine free speech
  14. “Slow and steady wins the race” is garbage
  15. “Should I go to graduate school?”
  16. What’s not “practical” about fun?
  17. What you’re thinking
  18. Suffering in silence hurts yourself
  19. Making burpees friendly
  20. Inspiration from high school entrepreneurs
  21. Making fitness inevitable
  22. The risks of saying “I need…”
  23. How to increase empathy, part 2: a model and strategy
  24. How to increase empathy, part 1: why it seems so hard to
  25. My strategy for success
  26. Everybody got made fun of and feels emotions from it today
  27. Op/ed Fridays: Independence Day: Are we the British?
  28. How not to lose your composure: Rational Emotion
  29. The most important part of exercise: starting with knowing what emotion you want
  30. Explaining “I’m just being honest” is usually a jerk move deceiving only the speaker

June 2014

  1. Unnecessary pollution
  2. Everybody has a cringeworthy past
  3. Half-marathons and cold showers
  4. Op/ed Fridays: Does “Stay in school, work hard” produce mediocrity? Can it produce greatness?
  5. High status and living by your own rules: Jack Nicholson at the U.S. Open
  6. Why people get fat, from a systems perspective
  7. Why do people who say “You can do anything you can dream of” or “You can make your dreams come true” not fly or cure AIDS?
  8. Do you rely on authority to lead?
  9. How to engage people you lead
  10. How to turn anxiety into excitement
  11. Posture!
  12. You don’t have to talk about what you don’t want to
  13. Have you ever experienced nature?
  14. Why is “know thyself” hard?
  15. Thoughts on reading “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”
  16. Use social gaffes to strengthen relationships
  17. Thoughts on reading Steve Martin’s memoir, “Born Standing Up”
  18. What I call great teaching
  19. Intelligence? Emotional Intelligence? I’ll take someone with skill over intelligence
  20. Leadership without trying to control and change people
  21. Calling any emotions negative shows you don’t understand emotions
  22. Do you want to be miserable?
  23. If someone tells you the world around you isn’t real or what you think it is, watch your wallet!
  24. Two posts by others I recommend
  25. Op/Ed Fridays: Applying “A rising tide lifts all boats” to the economy is stupid or malevolent
  26. Know your emotions: jealousy isn’t envy
  27. The evolution of a coaching client
  28. Rejected lately (or ever) and looking for encouragement?
  29. Does lecturing turn schools into prisons?
  30. Read more deeply: a list of my longer posts

May 2014

  1. Clear your desk every afternoon, clear your mind every evening
  2. Op/Ed Fridays: military leadership and conscientious objection
  3. Four ways coaching helps
  4. Visualizing reactivity and freedom, part 2: how to improve
  5. Visualizing reactivity and freedom, part 1
  6. Hard work is never easy. You can love hard work.
  7. A student’s testimonial
  8. 113,792 points in 2048 with the 8192 tile!
  9. “Why we store fat” doesn’t make sense
  10. What to say when an organization is considering hiring you
  11. See my Ivy Exec talk
  12. What a pound of juicy, ripe cherries teaches you about life
  13. Judging is inevitable. You choose if you communicate it.
  14. Why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach
  15. I helped a little old lady cross the street
  16. See Joshua Spodek lead a leadership workshop at General Assembly, May 22
  17. 370 Burpees in one day! 100 the next.
  18. How to follow up a referral
  19. See my webinar at Ivy Exec at 12:30pm today!
  20. After ten days with no internet, phone, reading, writing, or talking
  21. Ten days with no internet, phone, reading, writing, or talking
  22. My semester at NYU
  23. Where value, important, meaning, and purpose come from
  24. Want to influence someone? Understand them and make them feel understood
  25. “Want to eat more” and “tastes good” aren’t the same feeling
  26. Personal development: take your training wheels off after you learn to ride
  27. People who succeeded despite adversity: the series
  28. Patience before sending saves relationships
  29. People who succeeded despite adversity, part 4
  30. SIDCHAs are a floor you won’t drop below and they don’t depend on others
  31. Treat people like machines and they’ll work like crappy machines. Treat them like people and they’ll do their best

April 2014

  1. When and how polarizing helps
  2. The better my life, the less I plan ahead
  3. People who succeeded despite adversity: the series
  4. How to get job offers without looking for a job
  5. 2048 high score: 60,400 with a 4096 tile
  6. See the April 21 NYU panel on Women in Entrepreneurship video
  7. How to make relationships last
  8. What is entrepreneurial marketing and why should I care?
  9. Leadership, adulthood, responsibility, empathy, and consequences to one’s actions
  10. How to win over a stadium of 20,000 angry African soccer fans
  11. Binary thinking that ruins your life
  12. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the world we live in
  13. What is science? What is physics?
  14. Gabriel Garcia Marquez
  15. The problem with business books, and a solution
  16. How to make your next performance review shine
  17. Explore and expand your boundaries and those of people you lead
  18. See my Harvard talk on not dwelling on decisions
  19. Memories and getting rid of stuff
  20. The value of low-level instruction
  21. Specifics: more general than generalities
  22. See my New York Academy of Science interview!
  23. Seminar testimonial: tears of gratitude from leading an employee so they want you to lead them again
  24. See an NYU panel on Women in Entrepreneurship April 21!
  25. Home
  26. A burpee brother!
  27. Four-and-a-half months to two years of helplessness
  28. If they’re talking, you’re winning
  29. Bored at work? Looking for a new job means you’re probably looking in the wrong place
  30. Adam Smith: Life is more than materialist
  31. Michael Jordan: fair to middling?

March 2014

  1. A reader responds on the concepts of introversion and extroversion
  2. Creativity — The Series
  3. Creativity — The Series
  4. The 2014 New York City Marathon!
  5. Op/Ed Fridays: Bloomberg’s most infamous legacy?
  6. See Coco & Breezy at NYU Monday!
  7. A testimonial from “How to Lead People So They Want You to Lead Them Again”
  8. A testimonial from Harvard talk on Friday
  9. How meditation helps
  10. Computer problems are difficult but teach you resilience
  11. If you miss one day you can miss two. If you miss two it’s over
  12. See Joshua Spodek at Harvard today!
  13. How to Choose
  14. A human perspective on quantum gravity
  15. Motivating Rejections — The Series
  16. Motivating Rejections — The Series
  17. If you talk about protein, dopamine, seratonin, carbohydrates, and other big words you probably don’t know what you’re talking about
  18. Fat people with diet books
  19. Emotional skills versus emotional intelligence
  20. Instead of connecting to a higher purpose, try a more personal purpose
  21. The Origins of “How to Lead People So They Want You to Lead Them Again”
  22. Overcoming Objections and Blocks — The Series
  23. Read KQED’s story about Joshua Spodek adopting inquiry-driven project-based learning at NYU-Poly
  24. Four myths that discourage you from entrepreneurship and how to overcome them
  25. Four myths that discourage you from entrepreneurship and how to overcome them—The Series
  26. My Q&A with a Nobel Prize winner
  27. Meeting my fourth Nobel Prize winner
  28. “I can talk to my brothers and sisters again” — coaching client
  29. The value of entrepreneurial skills for artists and vice versa
  30. See Joshua Spodek on a distinguished panel on Entrepreneurship and Leadership at NYU March 27
  31. Show, don’t tell
  32. How managing your manager helps your relationship with your spouse, boyfriend, or girlfriend
  33. How to make yourself look good all the time in two simple steps that always work
  34. Inquiry-driven project-based learning rocks!

February 2014

  1. “How to Lead People So They Want You to Lead Them Again” My March 15 Leadership Seminar in NYC
  2. Suffering in silence for someone creates problems. Getting the credit you deserve helps the relationship or keeps you from wasting your time.
  3. What you can learn from a film director
  4. How I keep from feeling depressed
  5. What if I told you the least you could do was also the most effective?
  6. The connection between physics and self-awareness and emotions
  7. I’d rather know the subway train was ten stops away than not know where it is when it’s closer
  8. “Passionless” people?
  9. What does the current rate of global warming mean?
  10. Overcoming childhood anxieties and fears: nerd and geek are just elements of your style
  11. Another genius business idea: The construction broker
  12. Another genius business idea: Luxury staycations at home
  13. The Joshua Spodek Ten
  14. My boss sucks. How do I manage my manager?
  15. Improve your life by rejecting mental models that inhibit freedom, joy, and other reward
  16. Op/Ed Fridays: the news forcing its irrelevance on us
  17. Context, Action, Result (CAR): answering interview questions and describing experience effectively
  18. How to overcome creative avoidance, destroyer of motivation
  19. “You don’t understand me so I’m leaving you” happens in business relationships too
  20. How to make someone feel understood: the Confirmation/Clarification Cycle
  21. Talk to a misbehaving boss like you talk to a misbehaving child
  22. The understanding handshake: skipping it undermines your ability to lead
  23. Op/Ed Fridays: “I’ve been on food stamps and welfare. Anybody help me out? No!”
  24. How to set your angel free
  25. See “The Business of Movies with Director Corydon Wagner, winner Golden Lion Cannes 2012” February 27, 6-8pm
  26. A history of the universe in eight hundred words
  27. Things you never get bored of
  28. People who succeeded despite adversity, part 3: Superbowl Edition
  29. What are your tricks?

January 2014

  1. Write a book! Feel your own book in your hands.
  2. Brittle beliefs are easy to change
  3. Secret silly confession
  4. Willpower is like a starter motor. Emotions are like an engine.
  5. How to lead your manager or boss
  6. How to create a mentor
  7. Technical solutions generally don’t solve social problems
  8. Four reasons to see your colleagues as people first and places on organization charts second
  9. Different perspectives
  10. The top sign of a successful seminar series?
  11. Thank you, attendees and organizers!
  12. More inspiration from Martin Luther King, especially if you haven’t achieved much yet
  13. Top 16 tips for starting habits you want and stopping habits you don’t
  14. Slides for How to Lead People So They Want You to Lead Them Again, CBSACNY, January 18, 2014
  15. Indulging
  16. Sold to capacity
  17. The 3 best tricks to get rid of things
  18. Empathy Gaps — one of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done and how to overcome it: the series
  19. How not to help people
  20. A leadership position doesn’t make someone a leader
  21. Empathy Gaps — one of the most insidious barriers to getting hard things done
  22. Master introversion AND extroversion
  23. Don’t let rigid or stupid beliefs make you stupid or rigid
  24. Op/Ed Fridays: “Do Women-Only Initiatives Really Help Women?”
  25. 30,000 burpees!
  26. Quiet garbage: a feel-good book on introversion that promotes complacency and limiting beliefs
  27. The perfect comfortable life — how to live without injury or risk
  28. The 42.3 degree shower (5.7 Celcius): Trading fleeting discomfort for long-term reward and growth
  29. How to bring happiness and emotional reward to your life by analogy with pleasure — the series
  30. “How to Lead People So They Want You to Lead Them Again” — My January 18 Leadership Seminar in NYC
  31. How to bring happiness and emotional reward to your life by analogy with pleasure—the series
  32. Introducing the joshuaspodek.com Archives
  33. 30 days of cold showers review: Lessons in discipline and pleasure
  34. The Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity (SIDCHA) series
  35. A list of Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activities (SIDCHAs) you could do

2013 413

December 2013

  1. An inspirational SIDCHA video
  2. SIDCHA properties — The best tool to improve your life: the Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity
  3. After a difficult decision affecting your team: Eisenhower and the paratroopers before D-day
  4. Willpower, how to understand and use it — the series
  5. Eisenhower, D-Day, and keeping teams strong while making hard choices
  6. Willpower, how to understand and use it — the series
  7. The number one best tool to improve your life: the Self-Imposed Daily Challenging Healthy Activity (SIDCHA)
  8. Make every day a holiday
  9. Cold shower — 49 degrees!
  10. Eliminate guilt and blame for good — the series
  11. Eliminate guilt and blame for good — the series
  12. The complete simplicity of T. S. Eliot
  13. Burpees — the Two Year Review!
  14. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on John Wooden — one of the best basketball players on one of the best coaches
  15. A simple practice to free your mind so you can focus
  16. The Method: the series
  17. The Model — the series
  18. Hate a job you can’t leave? Improve it.
  19. The Joshua Spodek podcast interview on Developed Life
  20. The Method: the series
  21. Adrenaline-rush activities you can do right now that beat jumping out of planes
  22. Op/Ed Fridays: Is overpopulation a problem?
  23. Eating cookies is easier than exercising and always will be. What to do about it.
  24. “Running is bad for your knees” and other stupidity fools can’t stop spouting
  25. Making changes stick by starting with emotion, then everything else
  26. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Two months in Tibet
  27. USA morale down because of NSA — Washington Post
  28. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: For changes to stick, change both beliefs and behavior
  29. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Assertiveness does not mean aggressive, domineering, or trying to influence
  30. Op/Ed Fridays: Obesity and wonder drugs
  31. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Common coaching topics
  32. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Manage Expectations
  33. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Use your teammates
  34. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: Practice!
  35. Coaching highlights from coaching Columbia Business School students: School protects you so you can try new things
  36. Get leadership coaching like an Ivy League business school

November 2013

  1. Get leadership coaching like an Ivy League business school
  2. Op/Ed Fridays: Our broken criminal justice “system”
  3. Annoyed by people you can’t avoid?
  4. Why choose one media source over another?
  5. Burpees — unbeatable for fitness and my best habit — the series
  6. 8 harmful consequences of confusing your beliefs with reality
  7. If you’re trying to solve a complex problem, write it down
  8. 14 proven ways to make you and people around you miserable
  9. Op/ed Fridays: A living death: laws that remove judges and juries undermine justice
  10. Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 2
  11. Introversion is not the opposite of extroversion, part 1
  12. A thought-provoking essay on how we interact with our environment
  13. Undermining trust sucks
  14. A few thoughts on aging
  15. People who suck at things tell you how awesome they are. People who are awesome at things tell you about the disasters they went through to get their skills.
  16. How to never look back at your life with regret
  17. Op/Ed Fridays: Challenges in helping the planet even if you’re the world’s richest person
  18. Some “problems” you want to have
  19. Leading people creates community, which feels like creating your world
  20. More in favor of consequences of actions undermining being judgmental
  21. Communications Skills for Business and Life Series
  22. Communication skills exercises for business and life
  23. Coaching works.
  24. The Onion, burritos, short-term pleasure, and long-term happiness and emotional reward
  25. The route to quality is through quantity
  26. Want to be less judgmental? Then realize “thinking positively” is as judgmental as “thinking negatively.”
  27. A challenge in starting a technology company in New York City
  28. “Why does the universe exist” and why I prefer living life to philosophizing about it
  29. 2013 New York City Marathon plagued by injury (for me)
  30. On seeing your folks
  31. Convenience at what cost?
  32. Op/Ed Fridays: Dating

October 2013

  1. A risk that paid off and learning from it
  2. Choose easier by visualizing choices, part 2
  3. Choose easier by visualizing choices, part I
  4. How many Mozarts, Galileos, or Aristotles are there today?
  5. You have to say no to a lot of good things to have a great life
  6. The shells we put around ourselves
  7. Method acting, leadership, and improving your life, from James Lipton
  8. How you know when a deal is done
  9. Reject every belief in my book but learn to create your own before adopting mine without learning that skill
  10. The two meanings of competition
  11. The problem determines the solution, not what you’re good at, not what you want to do, not what you can do.
  12. Near New York City? Watch the marathon November 3!
  13. Integrity in successful leaders: Gandhi cleaned toilets
  14. How to lower executive pay
  15. Leadership, community, and how I got Hacker News’s second-highest average karma
  16. You tell me what you do best. I’ll tell you what you do worst.
  17. Insensitive, compassionless people
  18. A book I haven’t finished and why I recommend it
  19. Three changes you’ll see in your relationships when you change yourself
  20. A reader responds: A Question to Help You Intuitively Prioritize and Stop Procrastinating
  21. Why don’t we ask people we care about how we can be better with them?
  22. Choosing idealism in the face of contrary evidence of what works is a recipe for disaster
  23. People join good projects and leave bad management
  24. ReModel: Create mental models to improve your life and lead simply and effectively
  25. Silent Spring
  26. Some things come naturally, some don’t.
  27. We all feel emotions all the time
  28. New page design!
  29. Redefining failure
  30. How I got my web page professionally redesigned at no cost and made a friend in the process
  31. My first public presentation
  32. Goenka and 10-day meditation retreats

September 2013

  1. I never take responsibility for someone else’s emotions.
  2. Jack Welch’s Gardening Model of Leadership
  3. A doubly improved representation of Flow-related emotional states
  4. Oops! Haha … did I say four miles? … Uh, I meant seven.
  5. Start with emotions if you want to motivate yourself … or anyone else
  6. An example of effective, understated leadership
  7. Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness, September 21-22, CBSACNY page
  8. “Getting the hang of” working in big companies taught me to keep starting companies
  9. My start with emotional intelligence and self-awareness
  10. How would you improve the world if you had supernatural powers?
  11. How do you decide when your decision affects other people? Involve them in the process.
  12. One of my top principles for business relationships: After the project, I want teammates glad to work with me and wanting to work with me again
  13. One of my top principles for business relationships: No surprises
  14. The benefit of blocked cable
  15. Reminder: See my leadership seminar this weekend!
  16. Twenty-one miles!
  17. Healthy food mostly replaced my unhealthy food. Here’s how.
  18. Encouraging reader feedback I couldn’t help but share
  19. Handling life’s biggest challenges
  20. I’d rather be rejected for who I am than accepted for who I’m not
  21. Taking on the New Yorker on the English Major
  22. People who succeeded despite adversity, part 2
  23. Do you confuse a reason to do something with an excuse not to?
  24. One of the most important lessons I learned in business school didn’t come from a teacher and it applies everywhere in life
  25. A systems perspective on population growth
  26. Experience guides us more than philosophy.
  27. When did walking three miles become a health risk?
  28. Advice to someone starting a long-term project
  29. Everyone has insecurities. Why don’t some people seem insecure?
  30. Nobody likes a know-it-all
  31. An essay on money, part 2
  32. A mental model on disease and dying

August 2013

  1. Just showing up can be the best strategy: One of my life’s greatest moments
  2. Leadership problems today and a call to action
  3. You call exercise torture? I call it glory.
  4. Who is today’s King George III? Who are today’s patriots?
  5. Another awesome success — Museum Hack and Nick Gray
  6. More benefits of burpees
  7. A model leading to “Nice Guys”
  8. The false dichotomy of the nice girl and the bitch and what to do instead
  9. The false dichotomy of the nice guy and the jerk and what to do instead
  10. Insults describe the person giving them more than the person receiving. How you can learn from yourself when you insult.
  11. Why basketball players are tall and how tyranny emerges
  12. Meaningful connections and valuing friends for their values
  13. Once you start composting, you can’t go back
  14. The Grand Illusion — why it’s one of my favorite movies
  15. See me on Leadership through Emotional Intelligence and Self-Awareness
  16. Soreness and exhaustion feel great!
  17. Writing emails from the inside out, making them more effective even if you aren’t particularly sensitive or a people person
  18. You probably blow smoke in kids’ faces without realizing. You can stop.
  19. A visual model to understand passion and attraction: The Passion-Attraction Model
  20. How and why I made the Passion-Attraction Model graphs
  21. Review and conclusions from the Passion-Attraction Model
  22. Relationship risks in the Passion-Attraction Model, part 2
  23. Relationship risks in the Passion-Attraction Model, part 1
  24. The Passion-Attraction Model as you gain experience
  25. The basic Passion-Attraction Model in one relationship
  26. Introducing a new model: Passion and Attraction
  27. Do you decide rationally or emotionally?
  28. A counterproductive pattern of success
  29. Do you want new beliefs and models?
  30. A curious way to measure intimacy and an effective way to increase it

July 2013

  1. How to hate less and grow in the process, simply
  2. Today’s Harvard student versus 176 years ago
  3. A discussion I started last week
  4. Three stages of understanding how ancient Egyptians built the pyramids
  5. “That’s not art. I could do it.” — A new interpretation that activates art and yourself
  6. Sometimes going the opposite way works best
  7. How experience often beats creativity, originality, and intelligence
  8. The risks of someone calling you smart and how to avoid them
  9. When to get rid of things
  10. “Sin” is a made-up concept.
  11. Birthdays!
  12. More ways to annoy someone you’re talking to
  13. What kind of leadership is this: Obama fighting for less accountability and more centralized power
  14. 120 burpees yesterday! 10,000 burpees at 2×20 per day!
  15. Another reason to share your passions
  16. “Why are you getting hung up on just one word?”
  17. Hidden assumptions in “Jobs Americans won’t do” and systems thinking
  18. Napoleon, Pasteur, and luck
  19. A model to help stop acquiring stuff
  20. Some things you have to do yourself
  21. Things aren’t as bad as they seem when they seem worst
  22. Communications skills exercise 12: Avoiding starting responses with “No,” “But,” or “However”
  23. Men, women, attraction, and power
  24. What are your beliefs and models?
  25. Daily models and beliefs that work
  26. Who or what is a Cathedral-builder and why should I care?
  27. A giant rainbow over Greenwich Village
  28. Restore the Fourth
  29. Managing difficult teammates, managers, employees, and people
  30. Morality and the development of language
  31. People who succeeded despite adversity

June 2013

  1. Communication skills exercises, part 11: Quick and dirty escapes from conversation lulls
  2. How failure creates success
  3. A question to ask all the time: “Is this making my life better”
  4. Columbia’s 2013 Commencement
  5. Leadership and United States’ spying
  6. “Needs as understood”: How to start sales presentations — and conversations where you want to influence someone
  7. Google, strategy, and what your strategy says about you
  8. A beautiful spring day
  9. What is morality?
  10. Why dislike patents?
  11. A model for one of the most valuable skills related to beliefs
  12. A model for learning potentially painful, embarrassing, challenging skills
  13. More thoughts on centralized power without accountability
  14. How do you know the Earth is round?
  15. Communications skills exercises, part 10b: another example of voicing your self-talk
  16. Video on creativity
  17. Leaving LinkedIn is easy and fun
  18. My main problem with centralized power without accountability
  19. Ad hominem attacks are easy but counterproductive and best ignored
  20. A reader’s testimonial
  21. Edward Snowden — Whistleblower
  22. A model that all models are flawed but inevitable
  23. A model for intuition, especially in complicated times
  24. A model for balancing pushing myself with enjoying life
  25. A model for what improves life the most
  26. A model for a great lifestyle
  27. Four models on entrepreneurship that counter discouraging myths
  28. A model for the mechanics of how you change your beliefs
  29. A model for strategy
  30. A model to make sense of complexity

May 2013

  1. A model that makes changing beliefs easier
  2. A model to tolerate when people pre-judge me
  3. A model to help live and let live
  4. A model to identify the parts of your life most ripe for improvement
  5. A model and strategy to lead people so they appreciate and thank you for being led
  6. A model of emotional intelligence and self-awareness
  7. A model to cover life’s basics
  8. A few models that don’t improve your life that effectively
  9. A model that will bring you happiness
  10. A model to replace jerks with people who improve your life
  11. A model for what makes a great story
  12. A model that explains why your enthusiasm when planning disappears when doing
  13. A model to think deeper
  14. My Seminar on Leadership Through Emotional Intelligence and Self-awareness in four evening sessions starting June 17, 6:30pm-9:30pm in New York
  15. A model to help you get more out of traveling and to save money traveling at the same time
  16. A model to help get you in better shape
  17. A model to get more sales and to stay calm under pressure
  18. A model to get in fewer arguments and influence more effectively
  19. A model to help accept things without judgment or feeling sorry for yourself
  20. A model to live like beautiful people do
  21. A model for consistency: If you miss one day you can miss two. If you miss two it’s over.
  22. A model to keep from being scammed
  23. A model to keep you from being manipulated by the media
  24. A model to handle pain
  25. A model to help you stay calm and ward off anxiety
  26. Free short-term coaching from me!
  27. A belief to help you let go when you want to
  28. What happens when you change beliefs
  29. A model to help create the life and relationships you want
  30. A model to remove limits from your life
  31. A model to find reward anywhere, anytime
  32. A model of where value, meaning, importance, and purpose come from
  33. A model to implement the answers to all of life’s most important questions

April 2013

  1. A model that answers all of life’s most important questions
  2. A model for direction in leadership and personal development
  3. A model to promote responsibility
  4. A model to make you more intelligent and free
  5. A model to simplify
  6. 2013 New York City Marathon!
  7. A model to avoid or overcome frustration
  8. Creativity Class Handouts
  9. A model to enjoy things more and promote future success
  10. A model to find the best in someone, including yourself
  11. A model to make problems go away
  12. A model to improve your environment
  13. A model on the foundation of personal freedom
  14. More about becoming more creative
  15. A model for living every moment to its fullest
  16. A belief to promote integrity and authenticity
  17. How to become more creative — proven! … Wednesday April 24, 6pm-9pm, Manhattan
  18. Model to motivate putting in the effort to get good at something
  19. A model to rid your life of guilt and blame in favor of getting things done
  20. A model and strategy for getting things done
  21. A model to prioritize things
  22. A model to free yourself from being categorized
  23. How to win an NBA championship if you’re a 66-year-old grandmother
  24. A model to motivate success instead of feeling sorry of yourself
  25. A model to motivate physical and emotional fitness
  26. A model on achieving goals: The Samurai Walk
  27. A model for stress that calms you down
  28. A model to get people to show up on time for you: everybody gets fifteen minutes
  29. A model to allow yourself to fail, which gives you freedom to succeed
  30. A simple, effective strategy for improving yourself — probably the best I know, and it’s totally free: Feedforward
  31. Top models and strategies for negotiating
  32. A belief to choose without getting mired in indecision
  33. A belief to motivate trying new things
  34. Should you change your beliefs? Or at least consider alternatives?

March 2013

  1. My experience doing yesterday’s exercise and what it means to you
  2. An exercise in knowing your beliefs; so you can change them
  3. On giving unsolicited advice
  4. How not to overspend on things you don’t want
  5. We proved each other wrong… and right.
  6. How to avoid temptation
  7. What makes a world-class speech
  8. I felt miserable this morning. Then I got out of it.
  9. More on John Wooden
  10. A few minutes on one of the best leaders in U.S. history
  11. Choosing your beliefs; a life and death example
  12. Unexpected skill for improving yourself
  13. The limits of what you can achieve
  14. Don’t take things personally when they aren’t
  15. Insight into what you’re good at and why from Evolutionary Psychology
  16. One way to help prevent unhappiness
  17. Paper shredders and making changing beliefs and values easier
  18. “I am a freedom junky” — David Allen’s inspiring words that simplified my life
  19. Summary of North Korea Videos
  20. Do you think leadership is an all-the-time thing? Are you now a great leader?
  21. Pick a great historical leader. The leader you know didn’t do what you think they did. And what that means for you now.
  22. The Barnes Foundation!
  23. Your life wouldn’t be better if your world was worse
  24. How to ruin getting useful feedback on customer service
  25. Video: Teaching our North Korean guide colloquial English
  26. Redefining possibility again
  27. North Korean tour guide singing
  28. Kingpins of Silicon Alley: meeting entrepreneurial luminaries and supporting entrepreneurship in New York City
  29. Video: North Korean subway museum
  30. Video: Little boy and his mom with pop-gun by Arc of Triumph in Pyongyang, North Korea
  31. Personal development, achievement, and freedom
  32. Video: Interviewing Joseph of the American in North Korea blog
  33. Video: Ben dresses as an ancient Asian warrior on the North Korean movie set
  34. Personal development and achievement
  35. Video: Surrounded by North Korean soldiers and flowers
  36. Video: Weddings in a North Korea park under a giant Kim Il Sung Statue
  37. Stephen King on motivation
  38. Video: Incredible kids in a North Korean country schoolhouse
  39. Video: Incredible kids in Hamhung, North Korea
  40. Video: On seeing North Koreans seeing Kim Jong Un speak for the first time
  41. Milestone: post number 1,001!
  42. Video: Fireworks over Pyongyang celebrating the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth
  43. Video: North Korea’s incredibly talented and rehearsed children performers — and comparison with some Americans
  44. Video: Getting the block and game-winning goal in North Korea’s first Ultimate Frisbee tournament
  45. Don’t be Walter: an example
  46. Video: Mansudae Hill, location of 20-meter tall statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il
  47. Video: North Koreans after a parade

February 2013

  1. If you think you’re right and they’re wrong, you’re probably annoying someone, illustrated
  2. Video: Reflections on the Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery at the celebration for foreigners
  3. Video: Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery on the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth
  4. Video: An amusement park in Pyongyang, North Korea and some cute girls there
  5. George Clooney on being yourself in the face of adversity
  6. Video: North Korea’s War Museum and differences between expectations and experiences
  7. Video: On the unexpected beauty of the land of North Korea
  8. Video: Bringing peace sooner: High-fiving North Koreans in Kim Il Sung Square, part 2
  9. Video: Bringing peace sooner: differences between expectations and experiences
  10. George Clooney on accountability
  11. Video: Bringing peace sooner: High-fiving North Koreans in Kim Il Sung Square
  12. Video: Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea: boats, a bumpy road, and a shooting range
  13. Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea: a glass factory
  14. Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea: two more fly-throughs of models
  15. Video: Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea: a steel factory
  16. George Clooney on Living Well
  17. Video: Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea
  18. Bringing peace sooner: videos of North Korea
  19. Zoetropes in a fourth grade science fair
  20. More on leadership and success from Inside the Actors Studio: what anyone overcame, you can too
  21. Observations on leadership and success from Inside the Actors Studio
  22. My cowboy joke
  23. There are few shoulds in life
  24. A great model to allow yourself to fail
  25. An exercise in doing what you have to even when you don’t want to
  26. A question nearly every investor asks that you, the entrepreneur, can almost never answer
  27. If you want to retire early, why? Is financial independence your goal or a means to an end?
  28. Dustin Hoffman on Picasso on persistence and dedication
  29. When to act
  30. How to take risks
  31. Criticism I deserve myself?
  32. Creating false memories is easy
  33. When models don’t work
  34. You don’t find passion, you create it
  35. You won the Tour de France as many times as Lance Armstrong
  36. Leadership in garbage we can learn from
  37. An entrepreneurial example of leading by example
  38. Life lesson in unintended consequences of being right
  39. Why football is better than soccer. Actually, why any sport is better than soccer.
  40. What is your model for leadership?, part 2
  41. What is your model for leadership?, part 1
  42. How you look at things solves problems, NASA-style
  43. This weekend’s leadership development seminar in Shanghai sold out

January 2013

  1. Motivating with compassion but without empathy: telling someone to let go doesn’t help them let go
  2. Common objection 12: I’ve worked so long and hard but feel like I’m getting nowhere or going backward
  3. Sports in the rain and values changing
  4. An Example of Great Parenting
  5. How to decide among close options
  6. Exercise helps everything
  7. Monkey Mind
  8. Schindler’s List, brought to you by Ford
  9. Martin Luther King, copyright, and the content of his children’s character
  10. More on Martin Luther King and leadership
  11. Previously Unreleased Interviews with The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from WNYC
  12. Lance Armstrong: A one-man Breaking Bad
  13. Responsibility and accountability: expect stagnation without them
  14. What’s the relationship between eating and working for you?
  15. See Michael Feiner in New York, February 19
  16. Joshua Spodek on Leadership Development in Shanghai
  17. Why labels and symbols don’t change things; and what they are effective at
  18. Instead of calling something right, wrong, good, or bad, consider the consequences of your actions
  19. Life has never been more stressful, nor less; happiness never harder to achieve, nor easier
  20. Sometimes all you have to do is show up
  21. Jon Kabat-Zinn, mindfulness, meditation, and ordering and simplifying your life
  22. Comparing biology and physics from a business leadership perspective
  23. Rules are other people telling you what to do; Breaking rules lets you excel
  24. Richard Feynman on fooling yourself not helping you
  25. Fooling yourself doesn’t help you
  26. Cigarette smoke is annoying
  27. What color is a mirror?
  28. What I think about when I exercise
  29. Overview of Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion — six key concepts of this web page
  30. What is leadership?
  31. What is passion? How do you find your passions?
  32. What is importance? What makes something important? How do I have more important things in my life and less junk?
  33. Understanding leadership, values, meaning, purpose, importance, passion — Interlude on writing on emotions and emotional awareness so much

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