The 6 essential lessons of a satisfying, productive career
Just in time for graduation season, Johnny Bunko is here to remind you of the 6 essential lessons of any satisfying, productive career: 1. There is no plan. Make decisions for fundamental, not instrumental, reasons. 2. Think strengths, not weaknesses. What do you consistently do well? What gives you energy rather than drains it? 3. It’s not […]
Is your focus prevention or promotion? 5 questions for Halvorson & Higgins
On the cover of Focus: Use Different Ways of Seeing the World for Success and Influence are a red light and a green light. The symbols nicely capture the central idea in this fascinating book (Buy it on Amazon, BN, 800CeoRead, or IndieBound), which debuts today. Heidi Grant Halvorson and E. Tory Higgins, who together […]
Why givers (often) succeed: 5 questions for Adam Grant
Every so often a book comes along that changes the way you see the world. Give and Take: A Revolutionary Approach to Success, which comes out today, is one of those books. In 305 insightful pages, Wharton professor Adam Grant recasts our notions of what it takes to succeed. Talent is a factor, of course. […]
8 Business Lessons from Roger Ebert
Phil Rosenthal has a great column in the Sunday Chicago Tribune arguing that one of the late Roger Ebert’s greatest legacies is as a businessman and pioneer of the “brand called you.” You should read Rosenthal’s entire piece, but here’s a summary of the lessons he’s distilled from Ebert’s life. 1. Know your identity. Even […]
The secret to feeling like you have more time
Here’s a great 3-minute video about the powerful but often overlooked emotion of awe. Stanford PhD candidate Melanie Rudd explains what awe is and why it can help us feel more “time affluent.”(For more, check out Rudd’s paper, written with Kathleen Vohs and Jennifer Aaker.)
30 Life Lessons From 1,000 Older Americans
Back in April, I blogged about 30 Lessons for Living: Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, which turned out to be one of my favorite books of 2012. Cornell human ecology professor Karl Pillemer spent five years interviewing more than one thousand Americans older than 65. Then he distilled their wisdom into lessons […]
The 24 rule for new ideas
In his recent New York Times interview with Adam Bryant, venture capitalist Tony Tjan, CEO of CueBall, offers an amazingly simple and sensible approach for responding to new ideas. As he puts it: “When someone gives you an idea, try to wait just 24 seconds before criticizing it. If you can do that, wait 24 […]
Ask Gretchen Rubin anything you want — only on Office Hours
Happiness. It’s what we all want, right? But what does it look like? How do we find it? And is the joy in the pursuit or in the realization? For answers to these and other questions, tune in to Office Hours tomorrow (Friday, 12 October 2012), when our guest will be Gretchen Rubin, author of […]
Search Inside Yourself with Chade-Meng Tan
Chade-Meng Tan is an amazing guy. He started out as an engineer at Google, but his current title is Jolly Good Fellow with a job description that reads, “Enlighten minds, open hearts, create world peace.” As part of that mission, he developed a personal growth curriculum at Google called “Search Inside Yourself.” With his new […]
How are free agents doing these days?
A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I wrote a book about the rise of people working for themselves. A lot has happened since then — a historic recession, the emergence of widespread broadband, the explosive growth of smart phones, the further erosion of job security, lower barriers to entry for small […]