Last week the Indiana Pacers were trailing the New York Knicks by 14 points with less than three minutes remaining in Game 1 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals. Then they did something no team that is losing by so many points with so little time remaining has done since the NBA started tracking play-by-play
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
Monks practice their faith with self-denial and dedicated simplicity. The original Christian monks lived in the Egyptian desert. One day, Abbot Macarius said to his fellow monks, “Brethren, flee.” Confused, one of the monks asked, “How can we fly further than this, seeing we are here in the desert?” Macarius placed his finger to his
When it comes to not winning a championship, Minnesota is number one. It’s currently in the unenviable position of having the longest dry spell of any U.S. pro sports market. The drought has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. For example, after the Minnesota Vikings won 14 of the first 16 games of the 2024 regular season,
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
At a conference recently, I had an opinion on the discussion topic that I wanted to share. But two alarms went off in my head. First was whether I should share my opinion at all. Maybe my colleagues wouldn’t care about what I had to say, or maybe they’d think I was too opinionated. The
Any coach or educator knows that growth varies by person. Adult training programs, for example, receive a range of ratings on learner impact. Same trainer, same content, different outcomes. As for why this variability occurs, a number of reasons have been given, and some of them have been proven to be false. For instance, some
Over the holidays, I observed many people on work calls during their “time off.” Family members and friends often watched and waited, or just went off on their own. One daughter mindlessly scrolled her phone while she waited for her dad to finish his call, pausing every five minutes to signal her impatience. A friend
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
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