Blog Archives

I have a lot of Practice

I am about to sit down to practice the guitar.  I take lessons once a week and I practice daily.  I run scales, play songs from sheet music and I improvise solos over backing tracks that my teacher provided on CD or

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Mind Maps for Meeting Notes

Mind Maps are a non-linear method of capturing thoughts.  They work like our minds work, in a web of interconnected thoughts, ideas, concepts.  Here’s a Wiki on them if the process is new to you.  They are great way to

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We’re surfing not sculpting

I read something today that essentially said ‘we can’t control anything, what looks like mastery is really just cooperating with what is’. It looks like control because it is happening in real time. We are alert, aware, supple and responsive.

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Posted in Leadership, personal productivity

We Fail to Learn

One of the fastest ways to learn is to fail. Information, instruction and feedback in the context of an experience of failure is more useful than abstractly presented curriculum in no particular context other that the learning environment itself (classroom).

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Suffer the Fool

In literature, the Fool is the character who can tell the truth at all times. He has that freedom because his medium is humor. Add to that an acute level of self-deprecation.  He doesn’t take himself too seriously, nor hold

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There is no Try part 2

An employee of mine once gave me a paperweight with the following question etched on it: “What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?” That has been an inspiration to me.

Posted in personal productivity

Chakras and Productivity

In Yoga and other practices there is a knowledge of energy systems called Chakras.  I think of them as a system of reservoirs and locks that work much as a system of canals like the Panama or Suez canals.  There is not

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Quote of the Day

“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one

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Posted in personal productivity, Quotes

Passin Thru

Yesterday afternoon I was listening to the radio station of Columbia University here in NYC. They were playing three hours of music by a favorite sax player of mine named Oliver Lake. One of the tunes was called Passin’ Thru.

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There is no Try

In this clip Yoda teaches the greatest lesson. Don’t try! Do! Line up your action with your intention and there is no trying (which means no struggle, no trial as in testing or inquisition). If you watch the rest of

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Posted in personal productivity, Quotes