Musings and Links

Sometimes I take a break from the normal and publish a post with a few quick topics.  I’ve done this before.  Here are some musings and links I find interesting as we approach mid-week.

Wisdom
This is a curious week. A week of both excess and denial, parades and prayer, champagne and ashes. Of course, we humans have always enjoyed Mardi Gras more than Ash Wednesday and only need to read one of Seneca’s letters to Lucilius, written two thousand years ago, to see how true that is.

I recently spoke with someone who had just had a colonoscopy – and yes, I’m about to make a connection between a Roman philosopher and colonoscopies. Of course, colonoscopies are infamous for the prep, which involve 24 hours on a clear liquid diet along with other indelicate activities. We were talking about how there is probably some advantage to going on a clear liquid diet for 24 hours every now and again. We doubted that either of us would starve to death if we did it, plus there likely would be health advantages.

Seneca knew this, and he knew something even more profound: if we force ourselves to live a life of poverty, if only temporarily, than our fears about the future, about wealth and status, dissipate as we confront the fact that we can withstand privation. I’m always amazed when the voice of people from centuries before us knock us over with how on-point they are in the 21st century. Take a read through Seneca’s letter here.

Books
Speaking of our appetites, we all know that they can run ahead of our ability to eat. I am currently having this problem with books, where I’m ordering them a bit faster than I can read them, and when I say “a bit faster”, I mean “a lot faster”. Since I spend most of my waking hours in front of luminescent electronic screens large and small, I find the tactile reality of a physical book to be easier on my eyes and a whole lot more enjoyable. Here are some good links for book lovers.

• For a good post from Michael Hyatt on how he views the advantages of physical books, go here.

• I am an occasional visitor to Bill Gates’ blog, where he has an excellent section on books he has read. I maintain that he will be remembered by generations to come more as a great philanthropist than a software innovator. His first-rate curiosity and intellect are on display when you see the number of books he consumes – and let’s be honest, Bill’s schedule is a bit more complicated than yours and mine, so no excuses. Check out his book section here.

• I’ve been reading a lot of books lately that have to do with cognition and effectiveness. I had coffee with a couple people recently when one of them astutely said “I read these books but have a hard time finding time to actually implement the ideas”, to which I say “amen”. I am trying to read slower and set aside time to consider how I implement an idea, but that doesn’t exactly help the book backlog. So you probably should consider the source when I offer this advice, but I’ll bet you’ll experience greater return on reading books of the “motivation/effectiveness” genre if you read a little less and implement a little more.

• I can probably accelerate the reduction of my book backlog by following some tips from Peter Bregman in this interesting HBR post How To Read A Book A Week.  It looks like Peter has a podcast which I’m going to check out.

Leadership
I enjoyed this short TED presentation.  It is an incredible story of how a chance meeting can make all the difference in the world.  It also underscores how each of us can make an impact on someone who made an impact on us simply by telling them.  For a post on the topic of expressing gratitude to those who have impacted us, go here.

Elections
Although this blog is focused on leadership, innovation and effectiveness, I also write a few columns a year for a local newspaper. Since those columns show up on an editorial page I generally am taking a position on something. Like many of you, I often watch our presidential election process and think we never would have designed it like this if we were starting with a fresh sheet of paper. I wrote a column that was published last weekend that reflects upon the absurdity of the current system.  You can read it here.

Comments
Some of you have reached out to me and asked why the comments section has been disabled from the blog. I simply decided to disable it because I saw a lot of the comments happening in other social media rather than on the blog itself. I don’t feel strongly about it and could revisit it later. Feel free to contact me if you have an opinion on this.

Luck
My favorite definition of luck is “when preparation and opportunity meet”.  I reflect on this saying, and many others, in my ebook entitled True North.  It is available to subscribers for free.  The sign-up form is on the top of the right sidebar.  All you need to enter is your first name and email address.  You’ll receive the ebook from there and get updates as I post content here.  Thanks!