Perversely, the more we listen to the flood of things going on around us, the less we really listen to anything. We are overwhelmed by the roar of everything going on everywhere.  We have lost the ability to differentiate, to ignore the irrelevant, the unimportant, that which drags us...

Regular readers will notice that this missive is coming out Wednesday morning rather than its usual Tuesday morning. I generally write this early Tuesday morning but sometimes write the evening before or even days earlier depending on my travel and appointment schedule. This week, having some time Monday evening, I decided...

There seems to be quite a bit of interest in language right now. Many people, including me, have believed for years that words are powerful in that they not only pass along a message but also shape the way you think.  Or perhaps the way you think shapes the...

I've always thought that a background in the liberal arts was a good foundation for just about anything. Spending some time thinking and wandering around in a variety of unconnected fields gets your synapses going. It teaches you to consider all kinds of random ideas that seem to have no...

Most of us think too much. In sports we call it "choking". It's that experience of standing over the winning putt and being unable to shut off that voice giving you instructions. It's the situation where your inner chatter gets in the way of smooth execution. Unthinking is the ability to...

Recently I have been in quite a few conversations about honesty. I am pleased to report that I seem to know people who are just as disgusted as I am with those who seem to lack this character trait. I tend to feel you are either honest or you...

As you look around at the many poor decisions that have been made by business and political leaders over the last few years you will notice that many of them share a basic flaw: they were based on believing things that were incorrect and dismissing all information to the...

As Gareth Penny, former boss of De Beers, the global diamond company, says, "the role of the CEO is to simplify the complexity and stick to a few themes."  Easier said that done. We all are faced with a complex world, and the complexity is growing as we are inundated...