When ‘The Voice’ Cameras Are Off
Anyone who has watched Blake Shelton on NBC’s hit singing competition show, The Voice, knows he’s a competitor who takes great pride in his protégés’ wins. But long after they’ve taken home their trophies, Shelton continues his mentorship. Not only does he stay in touch with his three winners (Jermaine Paul, Casadee Pope and Danielle […]
4 Steps to Becoming Internet Famous
Whatever your specialization, you can enhance your authority as an expert via online sharing. These methods have worked for me. 1. Write a blog. Post at least one thoughtful article each week on a subject helpful to your readers. You may soon be invited (or you can offer) to contribute to other blogs, thereby expanding […]
Dominating Business Like a #GIRLBOSS
When she was 5 years old, Sophia Amoruso picked up a red string and ran outside with it flying behind her. She told the rest of the neighborhood kids it was a kite. “Soon everyone had red strings and we all ran together, our kites high in the sky,” she writes in her debut book, […]
Reading List: How to Kill a Unicorn
Innovation consultancy Fahrenheit 212’s mission is to find ways to “turn breakthrough innovation from a hopeful hit-and-miss… into a more predictable growth engine,” writes Mark Payne, the firm’s co-founder and president. To illustrate how Fahrenheit’s underlying principle plays out, he opens with a lively anecdote about a meeting with the team tasked with figuring out […]
4 Leadership Lessons from the Kansas City Royals
The Kansas City Royals had just lost their third game in a row to the Boston Red Sox 6-0, but if you looked around the clubhouse on July 20, you wouldn’t have seen a team that looked like they had just lost their ninth game in 12 days. Instead, you would have seen group of […]
Reading List: Take Command
Sgt. Jake Wood served four years in the Marines, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. But it wasn’t until the former sniper and decorated soldier left the military in 2009 that he decided to form an “army” of his own, one able to rapidly deploy to natural-disaster zones to swiftly and efficiently set up aid […]
4 Great Ways to Make Breakthroughs
Steve Jobs, Apple’s maverick co-founder, once said, “Creativity is just connecting things…. Creative people… connect experiences and synthesize new things…. They were able to do that [because] they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” This presents us with an interesting dilemma. We are taught that we should […]
How to Encourage Introverts in Meetings
Remember the kids in fourth grade who constantly and frantically raised their hands, eager to dominate class discussions and flaunt their knowledge? When they grew up, they probably overwhelmed a brainstorming group. University of Texas at Arlington professor Paul Paulus says that having group members write their ideas at first and then pass them along […]
Reading List: Uncontainable
In 1978 Kip Tindell and his partner were 20-something entrepreneurs who passionately believed that if they built a brick-and-mortar store selling inventive organizing solutions, the customers would come. When The Container Store first opened in Dallas, customers did come—by the dozen (most were friends and family). Soon the dozen became hundreds… then thousands and millions. […]
Is Poker the New Golf?
About 40 women (and a few men) are gathered in midtown Manhattan to nosh, network and practice their poker face—not the Lady Gaga song, the Texas Hold ’em version. “Learning how to play poker helps women enhance their business and life skills,” says Ellen Leikind, a former corporate executive and founder of POKER-prima-DIVAS. An avid […]
Reading List: Mind Gym
How we interpret the world around us has an “enormous effect on how fortunate or unfortunate you are,” write Sebastian Bailey and Octavius Black, the co-founders of Mind Gym, an international firm that teaches people the art of using their minds more effectively and productively. To prove the value of thinking differently, the authors present […]
John C. Maxwell: A 1-Week Leadership Listening Challenge
In a TED Talk I viewed recently, economic development expert Ernesto Sirolli told the story of working to develop sustainable agriculture in Africa for six years during the 1970s. Sirolli said his first project seemed simple enough: Plant a garden and teach the local Zambians how to grow tomatoes and zucchini. Initially they made great […]
