Archive for the ‘Wisdom from everyday life’ Category
Tuesday, November 1st, 2011 |
When was the last time your company made a daring, bold decision that turned out to be wildly successful? Not that recently? Not ever?
But how likely is it that your company’s boring, middle-of-the-road decisions will ever turn out to be wildly successful? Probably never.
Steve’s newsletter challenges you to “Quiver in Your Boots” from time to time– only risky moves have the chance for great reward!
Read the newsletter: “Quiver in Your Boots”
And here’s a link to Apple’s famous “1984″ ad referenced in the newsletter.
Posted in Creativity, Invent Your Future, Observations, Wisdom from everyday life | 2 Comments »
Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 |
As Shakespeare wrote in Twelfth Night, “some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them.”
In our day and age of meritocracy, greatness usually comes only from achievement, not from birth or happenstance. So, we then have the question: “How do you achieve success?”
In today’s newsletter, To Achieve Success You Need To Create Success, I share a an insight I heard recently that sheds light on this question. On the surface, it’s simple, but, then again, sometimes the most important ideas are simple.
Read the newsletter: To Achieve Success You Need To Create Success
Posted in Invent Your Future, latent profit, Wisdom from everyday life | 3 Comments »
Friday, September 16th, 2011 |
Here’s a recent post I wrote for tompeters.com, titled Size Matters. The point: Humans didn’t evolve to merge into ever bigger and bigger groups. We evolved to split up our organizations when we got too big, staying in group sizes where members could all relate to each other.
Posted in Wisdom from everyday life | No Comments »
Monday, May 2nd, 2011 |
Which organization is likely to go out of its way for customers, a for-profit business in a very competitive marketplace, or a government bureaucracy charged with catching bad guys?
It depends.
It depends on the individual employees who are interacting with customers. It’s about the people, not the institution.
Read a story in today’s newsletter that shows how close enough for government work can sometimes be closer than you might think … as long as an individual person takes the initiative to look out for the customer.
Posted in Brand Harmony, Customer Encounters, Wisdom from everyday life | 2 Comments »
Tuesday, March 1st, 2011 |
Why do people with all of the facts often fail to communicate?
My father, Shelby Yastrow, coined a wonderful metaphor to describe this. Check out today’s newsletter, “You know all the words, but not the music.”
Posted in Conversation, Wisdom from everyday life | No Comments »
Sunday, December 13th, 2009 |
Over the last few years we’ve heard about new conditions such as “BlackBerry Thumb.” Human evolution did not prepare us for the way we overuse our hands to send text messages and write emails on our smart phones, and this leads to pain and ailments that we haven’t had to endure in the millions of years since we developed opposable thumbs.
Makes sense. I got my first cell phone in 1987, and in the last 22 years my hands have been subjected to gymnastics they hadn’t seen in the previous 22. It often hurts.
Something even more sinister is happening to our brains. Human beings evolved to deal with the social issues of small clans and the vocational challenges of the hunter gatherer. As time went on and civilization progressed, we began to encounter much more information, and by Elizabethan times the data an educated person was exposed during his or her entire lifetime had expanded to equal that of a current weekday edition of the New York Times. Now, of course, the information we are inundated in our contemporary lifetimes has multiplied well beyond that.
BlackBerry Thumb is nothing compared to the mental tendonitis we’re inflicting on our brains. We live in a constant state of information overload and time poverty. We feel the only option is multitasking and multithinking, but our frontal cortices, with their limited capacity of dealing with about 40 bytes of information each second, aren’t very good at multi-anything. The result is that we’re often distracted while interacting with people, as our minds hyperlink from topic to somewhat-related topic, and every few seconds remember that we’re supposed to be in a conversation.
The people with whom we’re speaking recognize that we’re not engaged, leading to another ill of modern life: People repeating themselves over and over, because they don’t have confidence they’re being heard. This leads to a pernicious feedback loop, as the listener listens even less as the speaker repeats himself, leading the speaker to repeat even more and the listener to listen even less. It’s frightening to think how often things we say to people in person get as much true attention as a random tweet.
Hyperlinking has become a model not only for distracted thinking but for disjointed group conversations. I spend a lot of time facilitating group discussions, and I often see people try to “click” on a phrase in someone else’s sentence in order to jump to a related topic. I’ve learned reel them back by clicking on an imaginary “back” button.
Our modern world is busier, more fragmented, more crowded, more disjointed and noisier than anything we were made for. We’re not going to change the world we live in – in fact, we love it and we wouldn’t want to change it. But let’s recognize that we’re not prepared for it, and be aware of the challenges it imposes on us. Let’s try to filter the noise and use our amazing, highly-evolved mammalian brain in a way that leverages its strengths, not in a way that taxes its powers.
Otherwise we’ll end up with a severe case of mental tendonitis.
Posted in Wisdom from everyday life | No Comments »
Tuesday, November 17th, 2009 |
Imagine if you could think about your business for the next hour with the focus and intent of a person deep in prayer. Think you’d come up with some great ideas? You bet you would!
Have a look at today’s newsletter, Strategic Kavanah, for thoughts on bringing direction and intention into your business thinking.
Please share your comments below.
(P.S. Happy birthday to Caroline!)
Posted in Invent Your Future, Wisdom from everyday life | 9 Comments »
Monday, April 6th, 2009 |
Copies in hand, I left FedEx Kinko’s yesterday at about 6:15PM. Within five minutes I realized that I didn’t have my phone. I returned to Kinko’s less than 10 minutes after I left, but my phone wasn’t there. I searched the parking lot at dusk, as a wet, cold early Spring snow was poured down on me. I went back into Kinko’s again. I searched the parking lot again. I looked under the seats of my car about seven times.
No phone. I went to my cousin’s house and called my wife, Arna, to ask her to be on the alert for a call if someone found my phone – after all, she’s first on my speed dial. By the time I talked to her she had already received a call from a woman who found my phone, in Kinko’s. ”I didn’t trust leaving it with the people at Kinko’s so I took it home with me,” the woman said.
“Where do you live,” asked Arna.
“Schiller Park.”
Schiller Park is more than a half-hour away, 45 minutes in this wet, slippery snow.
Think about this for a minute. She was a customer of FedEx Kinko’s, but didn’t trust their employees enough to leave a stranger’s phone with them. She thought I would be better off driving an hour and a half round-trip than risking that a FedEx Kinko’s employee might steal my phone.
What about the FedEx Kinko’s experience made this woman, who obviously is human and caring enough to want to get my phone back to me, not trust them at such a basic level?
Could it be as simple as cold, transactional, perfunctory customer interactions? Is there nothing FedEx Kinko’s could have done to earn the lowest threshold of trust from this person? Or, could they do a better job of putting a human face on their employees, so customers won’t think they are potential criminals?
Posted in Wisdom from everyday life | 7 Comments »
Thursday, March 26th, 2009 |
1. You did it last year.
2. Your competitors are doing it.
3. You think “getting the word out” is the answer to all of your problems.
Posted in Brute Force Branding, Wisdom from everyday life | No Comments »
Tuesday, October 21st, 2008 |
I address the headline’s question in today’s newsletter - Dealing with a harsh economy: The Window and the Mirror.
The newsletter’s premise is simple: Is the current economic crisis an excuse to hide or a call to action? Are you looking “out the window” for the reasons you can’t succeed, or looking “in the mirror” to focus on the things you can control?
Of course, what happens out the window matters. But the real issue is how you will deal with it.
I was talking with my friend Miguel Latronica about the concept of the Window and the Mirror the other day. Today he sent me this picture, which captures the concept beautifully:
Miguel took this picture looking into the mirror in his laundry room, which sits opposite a large window. He sees himself and the world outside the window reflected together.
What happens outside the window is real, but by looking in the mirror to see it, you can’t use it as an excuse. You can only help but see yourself, and be challenged to think about the actions you can take to help yourself.
Please have a look at the newsletter, and share your comments below. Are you ready to look in the mirror?
Posted in Wisdom from everyday life | 4 Comments »
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