Author, Investor, Speaker, Mentor
One of the perils of living in Silicon Valley is the way it encourages us to develop a fixed mindset. Our vocabulary uses the language of traits. Someone is a “Rockstar Engineer,” or an “A Player.” Companies like Google scrutinize candidates’ resumes, discarding those who didn’t attend the right universities. Even successful entrepreneurs aren’t exempt. … Continue reading I Am Not My Talent
Most of us have the desire to be consistent. In general, this is a good thing. Think of how frustrating it is to deal with someone who is always changing his mind. As just one example, look at how we treat politicians who can be branded as flip-floppers. “I was for it before I was … Continue reading Lazy Consistency and Denial
Humans love to be surprised (as long as the surprise isn’t a nasty shock). As thinking creatures, our ability to develop an accurate working model of the world depends on our ability to spot the unexpected. Surprise is a great mechanism for rewarding that ability. Wharton conducted a study of viral videos. They had research … Continue reading The Power of Surprise
People have this concept of a Dream Job. Yet they go about getting their dream job in exactly the wrong way. Most people chase their dream job like the protagonist in a romantic comedy chases their “true love”: A frantic effort to find The One. Yet getting a job doesn’t determine your job. Rather, you … Continue reading You get the job you train others to give you
Even though I believe that one good conversation beats 100 business cards, collecting cards still has its place. First, while people won’t necessarily remember you after a single encounter, my philosophy is that you need three casual encounters to build familiarity. Even if a person doesn’t remember you after an initial meeting, it still counts … Continue reading Why collecting business cards makes sense
I’m on my way to an VIP advisory board meeting in another city. The annual meeting stretches out over two days–Wednesday evening and all day Thursday–which means that many people won’t get in until Thursday. Networking newbies probably think, “I need to be there on Thursday, when there are more people.” But I know that … Continue reading Network at small events, not big ones
The research finding of the day comes courtesy of Eric Barker and Bakadesuyo: “Ed Diener and Martin Seligman screened over 200 undergraduates for levels of happiness, and compared the upper 10% (the “extremely happy”) with the middle and bottom 10%. Extremely happy students experienced no greater number of objectively positive life events, like doing well on … Continue reading Happiness Doesn’t Depend on Events
Here’s a great item from Eric Barker’s Bakadesuyo blog: http://bit.ly/HxinYf “People were asked how much they trust others on a scale of 1 to 10. Income peaked at those who responded with the number 8. Those with the highest levels of trust had incomes 7% lower than the 8′s. Research shows they are more likely … Continue reading Trusting Too Much Is Better Than Trusting Too Little
I work hard to be trustworthy. Partly, this is because it’s the right thing to do (darn my inconvenient morality!), but partly this is because it has real business benefits. When most of us think about the value of being trustworthy, we think that the key driver of value is that people believe us. In … Continue reading The Power Of Being Trusted
I read a recent IO9 blog post about the superiority theory of laughter with some interest: http://bit.ly/1gQfZJl “The most dominant theory about why people laugh at each other also happens to be the meanest theory. It’s called the superiority theory of humor, and it goes all the way back to the classical Greeks. (Everyone knows … Continue reading Humor is about Superiority…and Inferiority