My Solar Experiment to Go Off the Electric Grid in Manhattan Continues

Months ago I bought a battery (used off Craigslist) to power my apartment. They call them power stations, partly to sound more impressive, partly since they can receive and deliver electric power in many ways. The process started years ago, when I started reducing my electric power demand to where a battery would suffice, and I dropped my demand to a couple dollars worth per month. The other day I bought the solar panels (also used off Craigslist). Portable ones like I bought cost more than the bulky ones most people put on their homes, but I anticipated carrying mine…

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How Biden can pass his program with bipartisan support. With global support.

Joe Biden can lead in a lot more ways than using authority, which is the least effective tool of a leader. The President of the United States is not some guy on the street. He's at a leverage point of a system, with great influence. Imagine if Biden stood with the protesters of a pipeline. Imagine he simply took an inventory of his personal waste and minimized it and showed the inevitable increase in productivity and effectiveness people don't believe until they experience it. Maybe it sounds crazy or like it may not work, What he's did didn't work either.…

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297: RIP James Lipton, a huge influence and inspiration

James Lipton, who started and hosted the show Inside the Actors Studio, died yesterday. Here are the notes I read from for this episode: I could talk about how much I enjoyed the episodes, his humor, and a few things I learned from his guests that only his interviewing could have elicited but I will go deeper, to share how fundamental his work has been to mine. Many times I've said that if my courses existed before I went to business school and someone were teaching them, I would have taken them instead of business school and gotten more of…

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Why Every Parent Should Watch This Movie

Have you noticed how many of today's most successful people chose to leave our educational system--Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs, Richard Branson, Mark Zuckerberg, Erin Brockovich, Elon Musk, Sean Combs, Lauren Hill, Michael Dell, Whoopi Goldberg, Larry Page, and Sergei Brin, to name a few. Ever wonder why people who chose to leave mainstream education became so successful? Why did breaking the once-standard advice "stay in school" not work for them? As a professor of entrepreneurship and leadership at NYU, their consistent success drove me to learn and practice what works that school misses. My recent piece Why Every…

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“Punch A Nazi”? You couldn’t help them more.

There's a phrase out there "Punch a Nazi." Here's a video of someone acting on it. What effect do you think it has on people who agree with the guy being punched? Or people attracted by his message? I submit that punching the guy overall advanced his cause. When I search "Punch a Nazi," the top results ask the ethics and morality of doing it. Talk about ethics, morality, and judgment are guaranteed to generate clicks. Don't you want to click these headlines? The 'punch a Nazi' meme: what are the ethics of punching Nazis? Yes, It is always OK…

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Martha Graham on Freedom Through Discipline and Conforming

I've quoted Martha Graham many times. At last I got the video of her saying the words. She describes how a performer achieves freedom through conforming and discipline better than anyone, in my opinion. I believe what she says holds for any active, emotional, expressive, social, performance-based field, including leadership and entrepreneurship. The dancer is realistic. His craft teaches him to be. Either the foot is pointed or it is not. No amount of dreaming will point it for you. This requires discipline, not drill, not something imposed from without, but discipline imposed by you yourself upon yourself. Your goal…

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Genuineness and authenticity: What it takes

I finally watched Gone With the Wind. People routinely rate it one of the top movies. Watching it, you automatically rate it by the standards of its time. But watch the acting these iconic scenes. The morning after watching the movie, I woke up realizing how ungenuine and inauthentic the acting was. Sure, by the standards of its time, the acting was probably great. But watch this scene, the opening scene of the movie. Do you not see what are supposed to be grown men behaving like caricatures of children? At 0:56 the man shows his happiness by dancing. What…

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Blurbs and Endorsements for Leadership Step by Step

Reviews of Leadership Step by Step By Joshua Spodek Buy Leadership Step by Step on Amazon! https://youtu.be/3n2gecJha6o Great leaders aren’t born with a ‘leadership gene’; great leaders develop the necessary skills and gain confidence through practice and hard work. In Leadership Step by Step Joshua Spodek presents a thoughtful approach to becoming a highly effective leader that emphasizes the importance of experiential learning. It will serve as a valuable resource for leaders at all levels in any profession. Indeed, Joshua’s practical exercises will help prospective, as well as experienced leaders, to master their craft and ultimately to succeed in leading…

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Reflections on writing

One of my online communities had a thread on writing a book this year. It led me to reflect on writing in a way that might help someone where I was before starting to write. I consider what I wrote relevant to practicing any craft or developing one's passion. Here's what I wrote: Last year was my big year for writing and finishing my book, Leadership Step by Step. It launches on Amazon a month from tomorrow. I got my first hardcovers from the printer a couple weeks ago. Last week I learned that Booklist is giving it a starred…

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Looking for a mastermind group?

Do you have ideas or potential you're looking to develop? Do you find having others help while you help them spurs more creativity and action? Then you may want to work with a mastermind group. My friend and fellow coach, Silvia Christmann, is leading two eight-week curated groups, one starting September 15, the other September 20. While I coach, I don't have any stake in her work. I can tell you that if you like my perspective and how I work, you'll like working with her too. She has helped me through difficult times with sensitivity and caring. She has…

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The Unmistakable Creative podcast interviews me

Listen to the podcast The Power of Experiential Learning with Joshua Spodek The Unmistakable Creative podcast just released its interviews of me. The interview covered leadership, entrepreneurship, education, and a bunch of my life and growth. Their lead quote from the interview: "No one who is learning to play a musical instrument, no one who wants to learn a musical instrument would ever take a class where they would lecture you for a year on theory for putting it into practice. And in fact if you did want to learn piano theory or music theory, you still learn to play…

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Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere

If you read this blog, you know I care about leadership and how to improve yours---in business, personal, family, and every other part of your life. I presume you do too. As much as you've learned from the blog, you can learn more from doing. If you want to improve because you're moving up the corporate ladder, just finished school, starting your own projects, or any other reason that you have to lead people and teams, developing leadership skills from practice will improve you most effectively. Anyone can improve their ability to lead, and the most effective improvement comes from…

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Technology comes from teams of people

Many people look to technology to solve problems. Technology has solved many problems. It helps us travel around the world, communicate with people anywhere instantly, makes amazing special effects in movies, and all that stuff that dazzles us. I think a lot of people see technology as something that sprouts out of laboratories or the minds of people so unlike them they call them geniuses and consider them superhuman. I see it differently. Technology comes from people. And almost never one person, so teams of people. The more you can manage and lead people, the more you can create technologies…

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Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 5

I’ve written about inquiry-driven project-based learning and learning leadership and entrepreneurship. It’s a style of teaching that’s one of the main foundations of how I teach and coach leadership. It’s different than lecturing. Here’s why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach. This week I’m attending Science Leadership Academy’s intensive Summer Teaching Institute. Science Leadership Academy is a school founded on inquiry-driven project-based learning, so it’s one of the best places to learn it. To help reflect and share what I learn, I’m posting daily notes here. Day 5 Presentation Revise vision statement Today we presented our unit plans.…

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Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 4

I’ve written about inquiry-driven project-based learning and learning leadership and entrepreneurship. It’s a style of teaching that’s one of the main foundations of how I teach and coach leadership. It’s different than lecturing. Here’s why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach. This week I’m attending Science Leadership Academy’s intensive Summer Teaching Institute. Science Leadership Academy is a school founded on inquiry-driven project-based learning, so it’s one of the best places to learn it. To help reflect and share what I learn, I’m posting daily notes here. Day 4 Agenda Exercise: Make passive course exercises they gave us (like…

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Summer Teaching Institute Reflections, day 3

Day 3 Today's agenda: Nature versus nurture interactive exercise Unit flow Solo work on unit plan Talk about rubrics Described deliverables: Friday we'll present our unit plans to the group. Tomorrow we'll do some exercises but mostly work on the unit plans More solo work on unit plan Unit flow Do they know what's coming next? If not, maybe you lead them through steps with exercises, materials, data, etc. If so, are they figuring out what to do? You plan stages. Students need a rationale to do it, why should they care? Can work backward from what you want them…

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The progression of performance-based skills

Any performance-based skill development follows a similar pattern. I'll describe it for playing guitar, but it follows for leading, acting, sports, any other musical instrument, singing, etc. The instrument: First you have to learn the instrument. If you don't know its parts and how it's assembled, you can't do anything with it. Your skill: Next you have to learn how to move your fingers. You can't play music until you know scales or chords. The music: Only when you can take for granted how to move your fingers without thinking about them can you play music. Your feelings: Only when…

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Better than a great idea is an okay idea plus listening to your market plus flexibility

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] The most common reason I hear from people who want to start projects or companies but don't for why they don't is that they haven't come up with a great idea. I've written about this common myth of entrepreneurship. People look at successful companies and project based…

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More important than personality is skills you can learn

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] People with great soft skills seem to dominate many areas in business . I think of leadership and sales first, though also entrepreneurship. People erroneously see people who succeed in those areas as born, not made. Or they at least ask if great leaders or salespeople are…

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A reader shares a genius business idea in action

A reader responded to "Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms" to describe the idea already in action in San Francisco: Hello Joshua, I want to share with you the concept of property and business improvement districts and how one in San Francisco beautified the plaza around the Castro Street subway station. I'm sharing this as a real-world example you might find interesting. The gist is that a group of commercial properties (or even residential ones) vote to form a district, levy an assessment on themselves, and form a board of directors to manage it. The district concept…

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The problem determines the solution

"Which is more important as a leader, to work alone or to work in groups?" I heard that question asked of a panel of business leaders last week. The panelists all answered something like "in this day and age you have to be able to work in groups. That's where you get everything done" with some acknowledgment that you had to be able to work solo too sometimes. As soon as the moderator asked the question I thought, "You're asking about solutions in the abstract. The problem determines the solution." You can best solve problems that take solo work to…

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Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms

Here’s another post in my Genius Business Idea series. My goal in this series is to show how entrepreneurial opportunities are everywhere, contrary to the common myth people who say they want to start a venture but don't: that they haven't found a great idea yet. This project is challenging, more for bureaucratic reasons than technical, but there is ample precedent of people overcoming similar challenges in New York. Read below for a list of examples. If you don't live here, I expect you'd have an easier time than we would. This one came from talking to a city employee…

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Dustin Hoffman on feeling understood about a passion and how it helps a leader

This clip wonderfully shows the effects of feeling understood about a passion---that is, a powerful emotion. You see how cathartic it feels for the person sharing the passion and how important it is for someone leading the person. Context: In a long interview, Dustin Hoffman is talking about the challenges of growing up under a stern father and how he escaped through movies, which evolved into acting. He starts to talk about how his exploring and understanding his relationship with his father and unexpectedly realizes he is revealing something deeply personal about his preparation for that role. What to look…

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See Joshua Spodek at Cole Haan, Flavorpill, and General Assembly’s Inspiration Workshop, September 6

Post-event update: see a write-up and video of the event here -- http://flavorwire.com/477424/history-begins-here-starting-a-legacy-in-nyc. Everybody who attended it seemed to love it. My event had a packed room with enthusiastic participants. I made several great connections at my event and the others I attended. I hope to see you next time. See me next weekend The event is free and there's lots more than just me presenting on leadership. My part is next Saturday, September 6, 12:30pm-2:30pm. I'll talk on leadership and lead attendees through some exercises to develop leadership skills. People describe more workshops as inspiring and I teach others…

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How to win over a stadium of 20,000 angry African soccer fans

"You! You cannot do that here!" A voice in a stadium of 20,000 people told my friend he was breaking a rule. The man yelling pointed at my friend and sounded angry. A man next to the first saw what he was pointing at---my friend---and pointed and yelled he couldn't do that here too. Then another, another, and another. Soon a whole section was pointing at him, angrily yelling at him he couldn't do what he was doing. But what was he doing? My friend didn't understand what was going on. He and two of his friends had decided to…

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