My first love is learning, which is why I keep my brain on autopilot when it comes to absorbing everything around me and extracting lessons from what I see and hear. It borders on an addiction. Extracting knowledge, however, is not enough. You must be able to apply what you’ve learned to other situations, including […]
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In my recent Path to Power teleseminar series, I made it clear from the outset that I was not talking about power over others. My focus was on self-empowerment — a.k.a. personal power. But there are people who do aspire to have power over others. And there’s not a person on this earth who hasn’t […]
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I’ve always thought I’d be a much smarter tyrant than Saddam Hussein. Now I’m sure of it. When I watched him sitting in court, waiting to be sentenced to death, I have to admit I was thinking, “I told you so.” Ever since the U.S. invaded Iraq to save the Kuwaitis, pundits have labeled Saddam […]
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I recently saw an interview with the legendary Yanni (Yiannis Chrysomallis), a giant in the entertainment industry. It was another reminder of the efficacy of going against conventional wisdom. Yanni had no formal training and, as a result, could not even read music. Nevertheless, he became a world-famous composer by developing a sort of musical […]
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Life is filled with paradoxes. Example: You spend decades learning the rules of the game. Then, just about the time you’ve managed to accumulate some meaningful wisdom, the game ends. Example: Children are one of the greatest joys known to mankind. But raising children takes more time and effort, and brings more grief, than perhaps […]
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Today, while looking through some old boxes, I happened across a newspaper clipping titled “Common Mistakes that Cause Business Failure.” Judging from its condition, I would guess it’s been in the box for at least 35 years. The list includes 17 items, most of which I agree with. But one that I’m not so sure […]
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The “don’t be evil” mantra that Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin have long used as an obvious poke in Bill Gates’ eye is looking just a bit suspect of late. By going along with the Chinese government’s insistence on censoring Google in China, the search-engine prodigies suddenly look remarkably the same as every […]
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Regarding my article last week titled “Converting Years into Months,” reader Dan Stuenzi of Omaha, Nebraska wrote: “I’d like to offer a different perspective about working on our weaknesses. Let me first say that I am in 100 percent agreement that a writer needs to be fluent in Microsoft Word or some other word-processing software. […]
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I feel morally obliged to constantly remind you — and myself — that the world continually changes. And it’s now changing at a rate that no one could have dreamed of as recently as the 1970s. The cellphone is one of an endless number of hi-tech toys that are changing at an accelerating pace. Most […]
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It’s funny how things work out in life. Sometimes, you end up with a positive result from something that appeared to be a complete failure. My evolution as a computer user is a good example. I go back to the days of the Xerox 860, which was considered to be the premier dedicated word processor […]
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