You should stop what you’re doing and watch this video. If you’ve already seen it, watch it again. That’s Fernando Mendoza, the quarterback of the Indiana Hoosiers football team, being interviewed after Indiana defeated Ohio State to win the Big 10 championship and become the undefeated nationally top-ranked college team heading into the playoffs. Prior
I loved my first job out of college developing and integrating corporate technology systems. Many days were spent either alone or with teams enabling business processes and getting systems to “talk to each other.” We learned to think in conditional (if-then) statements and Boolean logic (it’s this AND that, OR that NOT that). In other
A group of clients and I were casually standing around talking as I impulsively told another funny story. It may have been the third story I’d told them in the time that we’d been talking. They laughed…and then I realized that I was the only one telling stories. I chided myself: You shouldn’t try so
I’ve been consuming lots of podcast content over the past year. The show that’s captivated me the most is called What It’s Like to Be…with Dan Heath. It’s fun and thought-provoking, but what I find most fascinating is Dan Heath’s self-restraint. His understated, concise questions get his guests to say the most unguarded and interesting
A leader recently asked me: What type of person is a bad candidate for a coaching or training program? He had someone on his team who he suspected might be a bad candidate. He didn’t want to make an investment and not see it pay off. I love this question because it also implies the
It was almost exactly seven years ago that my mentor challenged me to sit in silent contemplation for five minutes every day. Every day, I’d set the timer on my phone, close my eyes, and pay attention to insights or ideas that would come to the surface of my conscious mind, such as: Your anxiety
Last week a client who leads HR for her company said to me, “I did a hundred things today. Why didn’t anything happen?! I got insurance cards out, reset logins, answered emails, sat through meetings…but I don’t think I drove any meaningful progress.” Ah, the tyranny of the urgent, the whirlwind of demands. It’s a
I work closely with a company that designs and manufactures expensive boats. One of their long-time customers, a large boat dealer, asked for a meeting with them to discuss boat design improvements they believe are needed to sell more boats. The dealer has a long pattern of harsh criticism and negativity. At the same time,
Last winter I received an email about coaching my daughter’s 10-year-olds fastpitch softball team. I was one of three parents who got the request to step up and be the “head” coach. Since one of the other parents was new to our town and the other was new to coaching, I jumped in to take
Recently I worked with a group of struggling managers who have been under pressure to boost results within their teams. These managers care about their work, and they have several opportunities to influence the people they lead — meetings, leading by example, email/text correspondence. But none of these opportunities has the focus and depth of a
Matt Norman is president of Norman & Associates, which offers Dale Carnegie Training in the North Central US. Dale Carnegie Training is a global organization ...READ MORE