I’m thinking back on all the projects I did with a partner. What qualities made for an ideal collaborator? They were passionate about ideas. Their ideas were different from mine. They have skills I didn’t have, and that the project needed. They were good at arguing without becoming nasty. They understood what a logical argument…
God is testing you. But maybe not the way you think. I am betting you are a committed person. The values you hold close are sacred to you. You put a lot of energy into living and sustaining those values. But that is not always easy. There will come a moment when you are tested….
You want to win. Is there a better way to be a winner? Earlier in my career I worked for a startup software company. I was in product management. Then, as now, there was a shortage of qualified engineers, so the company paid a generous bounty if they hired someone you referred. Rachel was a…
I was featured in an article in The New York Times today. The point was that some people have actually felt more comfortable during the pandemic than with their lives before — a sentiment that applies, at least partially, to me. My ability to control my environment and be close to my immediate family is…
People younger than you know stuff you don’t know. So do people older than you. So learn to listen better. You shouldn’t engage with politics unless you are also engaged with reality. The things you know about people will still be true decades later. The things you know about things will be obsolete in a…
I get complaints about how my advice is insensitive to certain types of humans and living things. I will not turn my advice into mush. I like it crunchy. Most of you do, too. If you don’t like it, read somebody else. Here are my responses to the complaints people have made or may be…
Here is a story that will tell you something about me. I am in my first month at a new job. I am surrounded by a few colleagues who are the smartest people I ever worked with. The conversation turns to people’s history. We come to realize that all of us have felt like a…
I used to be an expert in marketing. And yesterday, I skipped the Super Bowl and didn’t watch a single $5 million commercial. I must be a fraud. Here’s a secret: I don’t know all that much about marketing. (Shh, don’t tell anyone.) So how the heck did I get to be an “expert?” I…
I want you to imagine that you’ve been invited to a casual party at my house. Here’s who will be in the room: A guy near retirement who has cofounded some of the most disruptive entertainment companies of the 21st century. A young Black woman with a cache of stories about unusual and accomplished people…