Can your brain come up with truly creative ideas that overpower your built-in confirmation bias? Or does your experience with “good” solutions in the past negate your ability to come up with “great” ideas? Scientific American released a special edition magazine this year focused on “Mysteries of the Mind.” Beginning on page 29, there was […]
Category Archives: Decision Making
Reverse Brainstorm To Great Insight
In July, I teach two weeks at the Graduate School of Banking at the University of Colorado (GSBC). One of my students once showed me a great video called “7 Ways to Maximize Misery.” The idea is to get people to focus on happiness by showing how absurd it is to embrace being miserable. I […]
An Example of a Thoughtful Response
I am in Seattle, Washington and have just finished a keynote address based on my book, Grounded (Little River Publishing). This is the first annual Emerging Leaders conference conducted by Western Independent Bankers and I am honored to have had the leadoff spot. These are not just the future leaders of their respective financial institutions; […]
Using a Storm to Improve Success
When the family needs beach time and an infusion of saltwater living, we head to Alligator Point in Northwest Florida. It’s just over a two hour drive away and has miles of beach access on the Gulf of Mexico. On one particular trip, we rented a house that was just 20 paces from the water. […]
You Got to Know When to Fold Em …
It is always a crapshoot answering your mobile phone from a number that you don’t recognize. In one particular instance, what I thought was a phone call from a recently signed client, turned out to be a cold call from an organization that had reached out to me via LinkedIn previously. Their LinkedIn message had […]
I Got Caught with a Coke
I was on my way out of the store with a 16-oz Coca-Cola in my hand on a Saturday morning when I spotted my cardiologist walking into the store. We made eye contact, and both exchanged a brief greeting, the nondescript kind that involves no personal information when two people know they know each other, […]
Does OK Mean I Agree or I Understand?
Words matter. They convey a specific meaning, both to the speaker and to the listener, but the meaning sent is not always the meaning received. Picture a husband or wife coming in the door to his or her home after a hard day of work. Their spouse is in the kitchen, busily preparing dinner. “Hi […]
Jamaican Blue Coffee
While I was in Jamaica for the Destination Experience event, I took the opportunity to learn more about Jamaican coffee production. As an owner of an artisan coffee roasting business (www.thebeanery.com), I try to learn as much as possible about coffee production. Since I was in Jamaica, I wanted to connect with someone who makes […]
Eliminating Out-of-the-Box Thinking
You have most probably heard of the phrase, “thinking out of the box.” This comes from a classic exercise where a diagram is presented in this manner: If you have never done this exercise, see if you can following the rules and complete the challenge before reading on. How did you do? In order to […]
Insights into Influencers
I had a chance to meet the fascinating Jon Levy at the Destination Experience. He said, “I’m a behavior scientist. When I’m not consulting, doing research out of C Lab or speaking, I spend my life convincing strangers to cook me dinner and I travel around the world studying the science of adventure.” Sounds like […]