My next two leadership seminars: October 23,30 and November 5,6 at the New School

  LEADERSHIP THROUGH SELF-AWARENESS AND EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE In a two-day seminar, learn how to develop your personal leadership skills, self-awareness, and emotional intelligence by utilizing the latest advances in cognitive behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology. The course is open to all area business school students, alumni, and colleagues. In the past the seminars have sold out quickly, as such we are currently offering two courses.  Below you will find the dates of the courses and a link that you can follow to sign up. If you have any questions feel free to contact me. Schedule: (Note both sessions…

Continue ReadingMy next two leadership seminars: October 23,30 and November 5,6 at the New School

The Model: what is freedom?

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Ask people -- yourself! -- what they value and freedom will rank near the top. What do they mean by freedom? I bet…

Continue ReadingThe Model: what is freedom?

The Model: strategize, then enjoy

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] A quick followup to yesterday's post on first learning to manage your emotions, then enjoying the freedom mastery brings you. Here is some…

Continue ReadingThe Model: strategize, then enjoy

Should you get a coach?

If you're reading my blog you may be considering getting a coach, maybe even considering me. I've observed that the people who perform best at things tend to have coaches whereas the people who don't do so well remark that they don't need coaching or bristle at the prospect of getting help. Derek Jeter has multiple coaches. Forty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs have personal coaches. This week's New Yorker features a long article on coaching. While not scientific, it covers many of the important points one might want to consider on coaching, describes observing successful coaching describes the author's…

Continue ReadingShould you get a coach?

The Model: more functional views of emotions

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Our society cripples us by presenting too narrow a view of emotions. Today let's consider other views that let us be more free.…

Continue ReadingThe Model: more functional views of emotions

The Model: characteristics of emotions

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Besides your emotional system's consistency and reliability, each emotion you feel has several characteristics relevant to its function. I have found four characteristics…

Continue ReadingThe Model: characteristics of emotions

The Model: perception and belief in more depth

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Let's look at the next element in the cycle after the environment -- perception and belief. Perception means how you look at or…

Continue ReadingThe Model: perception and belief in more depth

The Model: our emotional system is outdated

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] I think everybody knows the following, but I have to say it anyway just in case. The human emotional system evolves at the…

Continue ReadingThe Model: our emotional system is outdated

The Model: your emotional system is consistent and predictable

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] The Model predicts the human emotional system to be consistent and predictable. How so? People often contrast emotions with reason, which they consider…

Continue ReadingThe Model: your emotional system is consistent and predictable

The Model: our emotions transcend “nature red in tooth and claw”

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Two days ago we covered a few examples of emotional cycles. Some are obvious, like hunger when low on food and thirst when…

Continue ReadingThe Model: our emotions transcend “nature red in tooth and claw”

The Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Yesterday's last example illustrated an important distinction I left implicit so far: the feeling of reward or punishment is independent of the emotion…

Continue ReadingThe Model: emotional reward differs from the emotion that brought it about

The Model: examples of emotional cycles

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] In our Model, each emotion you experience manifests itself in the emotional cycle of the model. Example 1: let's consider an example of…

Continue ReadingThe Model: examples of emotional cycles

The Model: where emotional cycles came from

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] We've presented all the elements of the Model, barely scratching the surface of what it all means or how to use it. Let's…

Continue ReadingThe Model: where emotional cycles came from

The Model: reward, happiness, and pleasure

[This post is part of a series on The Model -- my model for the human emotional system designed for use in leadership, self-awareness, and general purpose professional and personal development -- which I find the most effective and valuable foundation for understanding yourself and others and improving your life. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Two days ago we first saw the complete Model. Now we'll begin discussing it. First let's clarify the central points of pleasure, happiness,…

Continue ReadingThe Model: reward, happiness, and pleasure

Dropping friends who bring you down can hurt, but improves your life

Today I'll take a short break from my thread on the Model to share advice to a client with a common problem: he has grown and changed and a former friend hasn't. The former friend now holds him back. He wants to move on, but doesn't know how. His description of the situation described incident after incident of counterproductive behavior from the friend (and him accepting it), only briefly mentioning what held them together -- their music (also going out to meet girls together). I felt the musical success had more long-term value, so I started there. First, congratulations on…

Continue ReadingDropping friends who bring you down can hurt, but improves your life

How to stop boring everyone you meet

Some people ask the same boring questions of everyone they meet. They are so stuck in their ruts they don't see what they're doing. They guide conversations to small talk they've heard before and don't care about, then wonder why people aren't more interesting. By far the most boring, in my opinion, is So what do you do? You've asked it. You've been asked it. You've answered it too many times to count. Maybe at a trade show or networking event this question could be interesting. Any other time you are treating them as an employee before than as a…

Continue ReadingHow to stop boring everyone you meet

How to stop being so judgmental

Nobody likes feeling judged. We don't like other people feeling so high and mighty as to judge us. I bet you're more judgmental than you realize. Here's how to raise your awareness of it, reduce it, annoy people less, and share more about yourself. I bet you don't realize how judgmental you seem to others, even if you don't intend it. Nor, I bet, do people making you feel judged realize how much they seem judgmental. Why not? Because judgment is in our language. It doesn't have to, but it often is. My exercise on avoiding judgmental words from a…

Continue ReadingHow to stop being so judgmental

Business school’s first major lesson: how to resolve ethical dilemmas

One of my most important lessons from business school came before the first class began. It's been useful for me since. Columbia emphasizes ethics. Orientation included a class on ethics. The case was an employee who witnesses someone breaking a rule. Reporting it would potentially harm him and certainly someone else for something that may have been minor. Not reporting it would benefit himself, but at the cost of becoming complicit. The first thing I learned in this case (not the main lesson) was to understand the case as an instance of a general class of ethical dilemmas where a…

Continue ReadingBusiness school’s first major lesson: how to resolve ethical dilemmas

You don’t know your values until you test them, part II

Yesterday's post described how interacting with a former Austrian soldier, now friend's grandfather led me to examine my values. Such interactions lead you to expand your understanding of others and of humanity as well. Let's understand the situation. Comparing people to Nazis has become an internet joke (perhaps insightful) called Godwin's Law. This situation isn't that. This man was a Nazi foot soldier, proud of some aspects of it. I'm not comparing or judging, only using the real-life situation to examine values from a perspective beyond most people's every day experience. I posted this anecdote because it's been on my…

Continue ReadingYou don’t know your values until you test them, part II

You don’t know your values until you test them

You may think you know your values. Until you test them, you probably don't. Understanding their boundaries helps you understand them better. Testing them in controlled situations prepares you for surprises others aren't prepared for. Preparation like that makes for effective leadership of yourself and others. If you never plan to reach any boundaries, you may not expect to benefit from examining them. But then if you never examine them, you won't do well when you do things outside going to work, watching TV, and buying things in malls. I've thought about values -- my own and values in general…

Continue ReadingYou don’t know your values until you test them

How to choose between nearly equal but incomparable options

Someone I'm coaching wrote the following: I will be graduating from college in May, and I am trying to decide which two cities I should move to after graduation. I've been wanting to move to NYC ever since I first visited in high school and been going there ever since. On the other hand, everyone that I know tells me that I should move to LA instead and think I would be better off there. I've only been to LA once when I was younger, (visited Manhattan Beach and Santa Monica) but I did have a great time there. I…

Continue ReadingHow to choose between nearly equal but incomparable options

People join good projects and leave bad management

Professor, author, and former former Chief People Officer at Pepsi, among other impressive feats,  Michael Feiner said one of the most valuable statements I've ever heard about why we choose, like, and don't like our jobs. People join good projects and leave bad management. It's one of the most valuable lessons I learned in business school. It applies to a remarkable number of situations -- nearly every time I've heard of someone leaving a position since I first heard Michael say it. I recommend not just enjoying the statement for its wittiness. You can make it acting by playing with…

Continue ReadingPeople join good projects and leave bad management

Independence Day

It's still July 4th in the States as I'm writing this even though it's July 5th in Shanghai. Of all our national holidays, I value and celebrate Independence Day perhaps the most. By value and celebrate I don't mean I go to the biggest barbeque I can, though a couple years ago I went to an amazing July 4th party only being an alumnus of an ivy league business school or something similar can get you. And this year I had to pass on an invitation to a monster event with some crazy and amazing people for this trip to…

Continue ReadingIndependence Day

Leaders take responsibility

One last behavioral trend to round out a few recent posts on behaviors that correlate with importance. The others were on leaders having the least stuff, being the least hurried, and the most common route to becoming CEO. People know this one, though they don't always act consistently with it. Look throughout an organization. The higher you move in the organization chart, the more responsibility people have. Having responsibility because of your position isn't the same as choosing to take responsibility. But people who choose to take responsibility become more important in their communities. Likewise, people who shirk responsibility lose…

Continue ReadingLeaders take responsibility

The most common route to CEO

"What is the best route to become CEO of a corporation?" For people driven to reach the top it's a common question. A classmate asked it of Ralph Biggadike, professor of Top Management Processes, which, when I was at Columbia Business School, was the class in highest demand. Ralph is an excellent teacher, as knowledgeable about top management as you'd expect one of the top professors at one of the top business schools to be. I expect most of the students in the class were driven to reach the tops of their planned professions. As I recall, most of the…

Continue ReadingThe most common route to CEO