Last week I flew to tiny Dawson Springs, Kentucky, to help rebuild houses destroyed in the devastating tornadoes that ripped through the state a year ago. As a totally unskilled volunteer for an organization called Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders, I am not sure I made much of a contribution. But I returned home to California with unexpected jo...

There's an old joke about two babies who were placed side-by-side in a hospital maternity ward. They lay there staring at one another. Decades later, in their 90s, the two recognized each other when they found themselves sharing the same hospital room. One of them says to the other, "So how'd it go?" These days, the Baby Boom Generation seems ...

Canadian Wayne Gretzky, the winningest ice hockey player of all time, was once asked the secret of his success. "Simple, he replied. "I don't skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it's going to be." If you're a regular reader of this newsletter, you know our focus is on skating to where the opportunities will be in the future — and positi...

You don't need a crystal ball to see that we’re in a period of mass acceleration right now. “It’s as if we’re driving the fastest race car ever imagined through unknown, unmarked terrain,” observes Fareed Zakaria in Ten Lessons for a Post Pandemic World. “But we never bothered to equip the car with airbags.” We didn’t get insurance. We have not ...

I once asked Elon Musk if he ever felt he was spreading himself too thin. This was years ago when we were both speakers at the Economist Innovation Conference at U.C. Berkeley's Haas School of Business. Musk had already gained a reputation for being a serial entrepreneur, and for an incredible work ethic. Seventy-hour weeks were not uncommon. Bu...

If you've participated in one of my workshops, or watched my videos on YouTube, you've heard me riff on the importance of environment in the creative/innovative process. You put a person in one setting - let's say, a basement windowless conference room in the Days Inn — and they underwhelm you with the ideas they come up with. You take that same...

It is one thing to "Monday morning quarterback" the missteps of companies like Kodak, Blockbuster, Nokia, Neiman Marcus and others who were fatally disrupted. It is quite another to put forth what you would do if you were leading an organization in the crosshairs of a disruptive threat, such as the PGA Tour just now. For those of you who don't f...

Did you notice what just happened? After two tumultuous, tragic years, Covid 19 has finally receded into the background. The crisis is no longer Topic A. Here in California, where I live, the kids are back in school, masks are disappearing in public places; people are getting on with their lives. What a vastly different world we are living in no...

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. After working remote for two years, knowledge workers were said to have learned a lesson. They vowed to never fully and completely get back on the hamster wheel, to take their work-life balance with them back to the workplace. Instead, I’m hearing from managers that the pressure has never been more intense, an...

When I taught in the Writers Program at UCLA in the early '80's, I'd often assign a writing exercise that really got students creative juices flowing. Design an ideal day for yourself 10 years out, I'd instruct. Give specifics and provide details. Describe the view over the breakfast table. What are you doing in your life that's bringing you joy...