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04 Dec How a 10-Year-Old Taught Me the Ultimate Lesson in Leadership

It’s sometime after midnight, and I can’t sleep. J starts seventh grade in the morning, and the nervous energy coursing through my body forbids my eyes from closing. His burden has become mine. Earlier that night over cheese pizza and watered down red drink J acted cooler than usual—as if tomorrow were just another day, as if it didn’t matter at all. But I knew better. So I laid it on extra thick, joking with him until he reached across the table and shoved my arm. Jerking back, I spilled my drink and we both exploded with laughter. Life it seems is less about what happens and more about how you deal with those happenings.

19 Sep The Calamity of Shipping Good Work

“Well, are you excited?” she asked, expecting, of course, an affirmative answer. “I’m not sure ‘excited’ is the right word,” I shot back with the kind of nervous candor reserved for these types of conversations. “It’s in the right family of words, but I don’t actually think it’s the correct word for this particular situation. ‘Skittish’ might be closer. ‘Edgy’ is probably more appropriate. 'Terrified' isn’t too far off.”

18 Sep Teach Others How to Use You

Shortly after starting my consulting firm, one of my close friends made a confession. “I’m jealous,” she revealed. “You’re working with all of these great companies and nobody has approached me about working together. I’m happy for you, but I can’t help but feel a little resentful about it.” I laughed.

12 Sep Larry Page and Sergey Brin Didn’t Invent Google For You to Be Unprepared

I’m always a little surprised when someone I’m meeting with seems to know absolutely nothing about me. It’s not an ego thing; I just can’t understand why anyone in the digital age would walk into a meeting cold.

09 Sep The Secret to Excellence: Do Ten Percent More

Most people do exactly what it takes. Most people work relatively hard, show up pretty much on time, and do what's generally asked of them. In by 9? No problem, boss. But for the rest of us, the goal isn't to be like most people; the goal is to excel beyond what it takes, to put in more effort, to see more of a return. The goal isn't to be good; it's to be frickin' great.

07 Sep Earn Your Termination

Corporate America is infested with the kind of employees who think about losing their job more than actually doing their job. It’s an epidemic that has the potential to rot an organization from the inside out. Some of the best decisions never get executed, or even heard, because of this debilitating paranoia.

27 Aug Intensity is the Currency of Progress

I was born a month premature because I had better things to do than sit in a womb all day and waste my time. True story. My impatience—a quality I’ve yet to outgrow—was not, however, without some pretty significant repercussions. In my haste, I came into this world with a condition called transient tachypnea and was forced to spend 10 days in an incubator.