What I do

A friend read my book, ReModel, and asked me: Josh, what's your model about yourself? He clarified: You wrote about how people can be Cathedral-Builders instead of being miserable. What's your equivalent of being a Cathedral-Builder? "Cathedral-Builder" refers to the parable of The Three Stonecutters: Many years ago, a passerby saw three workers cutting stones in a quarry. Though they were doing similar work, one looked unhappy, another looked content, and a third looked overjoyed. The passerby asked them what they were doing. The unhappy stonecutter replied, “I’m doing what it takes to make a living.” The content one answered,…

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These two surprisingly touching Vince Lombardi quotes reveal the source of his winning leadership

For Vince Lombardi's birthday, I wrote in Inc.com, "These two surprisingly touching Vince Lombardi quotes reveal the source of his winning leadership." The piece begins These two surprisingly touching Vince Lombardi quotes reveal the source of his winning leadership For the great coach's birthday, how to create winning traditions in your teams. I'm writing this article exhausted and sore because two days ago I started researching for this article. Having hurt my leg running, I decided to skip a workout to recover. Then I read Vince Lombardi. His birthday is tomorrow. Most people think of him as a hard-core tough…

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A student interviewed me!

My in-person leadership course, being project-based, has a project. One of my students last semester for his project created a web page---partly to express himself, partly to meet and interview people he wanted to create connections with, partly to share with the world his passion for marketing. Here he is: His name is Joe Yaqian Zhang. His blog is here. He shares his perspective on marketing things and interviews relevant people. Here is his post on interviewing me, "Tips from the Pros: Joshua Spodek." I hope he doesn't mind my sharing the video here. It's not yet professionally edited, but…

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Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 4

Here is an interview with a student who took my online leadership course, Chris, a born salesman and entrepreneur. Hear how the leadership course increased his business while calming his life. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzm7iL6reFY Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

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Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 2

Here is an interview with a student who is taking my online leadership course, Ellen, who is an entrepreneur who recently sold her latest business. As you'll see, she is also finding that the lessons she's learning apply to other deeply challenging areas in life.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnblmP_VlHg Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials…

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Video: What a leadership course can deliver, part 1

Here is an interview with a student who took my online leadership course, Bethany, who is an Associate Partner at IBM and has an MBA from Columbia Business School: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qoL4zWav8Hw Reach your potential in business and life. My courses don't take time from the rest of life. You work with people in your life that you care about on projects that you care about without distracting from the rest of your work and life. Learn more about the course and register here Read testimonials about my courses here I look forward to having you aboard.

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Hustling

What do you do when they cancel your flight? In the late 70s, a man and his fiancée were visiting the Caribbean. They found themselves stranded in an airport when their airline canceled their flight to Puerto Rico. The man was disappointed, but based on his experience running a record business that he had founded, he took initiative to solve the problem. Noticing other people from the same flight were also stranded, he called a chartering company to find the cost to charter a plane. $2,000. He agreed to charter it. He divided that cost by two less than the…

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“Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker and Most of Academia Got Wrong” (My Inc. story)

My latest Inc.com story "Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker and Most of Academia Got Wrong" begins Resilience: What The New York Times, New Yorker, and Most of Academia Got Wrong If you want to be resilient, not just know about resilience, research and the media won't help you. [the story starts with a picture of an athlete covered in mud, struggling to make it] You're covered in mud, exhausted, bruised, and have a long way to go. Disaster or glory? Any leader or entrepreneur knows it's how you look at it. The active among us find ways…

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Video: The Worst Problem in the World

I've shown this representation of what I call The Worst Problem in the World at many seminars. I wrote about it about five years ago. Now you can see the video. Watch all the way through to see some solutions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUycXlo4OX8 Take my course if you want to get beyond it and resolve it in your life, mainly by doing the exercises in it to develop compassion and empathy.

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How to Decide Without Regret in business and life

After teaching, coaching, studying, and practicing leadership for twenty years, I announced my online leadership course, “Introducing the most effective leadership course available anywhere.” I’m hosting a series of free webinars on the most actionable, useful, effective, and exciting parts of the course. My webinars will always deliver exclusive, valuable lessons you can use that day and how to build for the long term. Attend my second webinar, free, this Sunday, February 14, 1pm Eastern Standard Time! All you need is an internet connection. How to Decide Without Regret ... in business and life Click to register! From the registration…

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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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Op/Ed Friday: How every politician and nation, now matter how belligerent, justifies its attacks

No politician or nation, no matter how belligerent, considers itself the attacker---not the most authoritarian dictator any more than the most democratically elected leader. One simple statement, used by nearly every one, summarizes the trick: We will not attack first, but if attacked, we will defend ourselves. Every leader says it their own way. Once the population believes it, they can feel justified in attacking, feeling and claiming innocence. Neither population has to believe the other, only their own leader. All both leaders have to do is point out any infraction from the other side, no matter how small, to…

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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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When someone says “America is losing ground to China or India,” watch your wallet

Politicians tell you America is "losing ground" to other countries all the time. A search on "America is losing ground to China India" returns tons of results, many fear-mongering. This language comes from a misguided belief that business and trade are zero-sum competitions, that if someone elsewhere gets a deal then you lost it. If you want votes and don't mind sowing fear, anxiety, and xenophobia, great. But people succeeding elsewhere doesn't have to mean you are losing. On the contrary, you could see people succeeding elsewhere as increased opportunity for more business and trade. In other words, people always…

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Op/Ed Friday: Almost nobody is acting for equality, which is why we aren’t getting it

If you don't act for equality, it doesn't matter how much you want it, you aren't going to get it. Almost nobody is acting for equality so we aren't getting it. Many people think they are acting to create equality, but their behavior is counterproductive to equality, despite their intent. Why do I say people aren't acting for equality? What are people doing if they aren't acting for equality? Many people belong to groups that they feel are disadvantaged. They feel they don't have the same opportunities. Or that social structures are holding them back. I should say we because…

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The problem with “We need more women leaders / in tech / in STEM fields / etc”

Teams with members with diverse experience and skills outperform teams without diversity, as I understand research shows. My experience is consistent with that view. I am a huge fan of diversity, and, for that matter, equality. Many people promote having more women in areas where there are fewer---in leadership, in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), in college, and so on. Searching on the topic on the web shows plenty of results. The internet's preference for promoting women in leadership becomes more stark when you search on needing more men leaders, where the top seven links promote women, not men,…

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Language, communication, evolutionary psychology, and leadership

A client who knows I've applied a lot from evolutionary psychology to leadership and self-awareness wrote: What's your opinion of the theory that language serves primarily as persuasion? In its raw form, I'm currently telling you that you are an authority by asking a question. And that sentence might seem like it's an authoritative statement, but instead it is clarifying my question, which in its clarification is a neediness to be understood on my part, and distancing us even further. Does that make sense? I read the Red Queen and I don't know what to think anymore. Noting that [an…

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This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 3

"Just do what I say." "Do it now." "John, do X. Sally, do Y. I'll do Z. Then we'll met and put everything together." Wouldn't leadership be easy if we could tell everyone what to do and they'd do it? It never seems to work like that, though, does it? Most people understand that problems come up. They don't always realize that command-and-control leadership often discourages people from working with would-be leaders who work with it. Why do people still order people around? I think one reason is how much popular media show leaders working with it. It's simple and…

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This is not leadership. It makes people think it is and that’s part of why we have poor leaders, part 1

"You don't understand me!" "I wish I'd never been born!" Who hasn't yelled something like that at their parents? I'm sure I did. I argued with my parents like all kids. I've grown since then and don't argue like that any more. I still disagree, I just try more to seek understanding, not to confront so adversarially. I was just in a line and overheard two workers argue. They weren't yelling, but they weren't getting anywhere near resolving their conflict. They were adults but as best I could tell hadn't grown past a juvenile way of dramatizing conflict, trying to…

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“You’re too f-ing cheap to by my book?!”

My professor cursed: "You're too fucking cheap to buy my book?!" This was an Ivy League business school. I was stunned. Class just ended and I was asking him a question, as students do. Other students probably heard as they packed their bags and left the room. He had assigned his own book for the class. A couple weeks before, the bookstore clerk told me the book would come out soon in paperback and that I could save money if I waited. The cursing came in response to my telling him this, and that I was using the library copy…

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We interpret leaders gloriously leading the charge backward today

Today's world presents leaders leading a group of people like a king or glorious leader, like Mel Gibson in Braveheart. It inspires people to seek that glorious position where they feel people look up to them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdlL65LD6I4 We misunderstand that view, the more I think about it. When armies went into battle then, the first person charging took the biggest risk. He made himself most vulnerable to attack, risking his life. It made sense for people to see him as a hero. Once he charged into battle, others could follow him, now safer. He supported them. Today, leaders don't take…

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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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Emotions and sharp knives

Yesterday I compared emotions to fire and pain---things we don't enjoy feeling but we can use to improve our lives if we know how to use them. Calling them negative leads us to suppress and deny them---the opposite of self-awareness---which takes away our ability to improve our lives. I call that counterproductive. I think sharp knives might make a more helpful analogy. I might call sharp knives negative if I handled them clumsily and threw them around carelessly. You don't let children handle sharp knives because they don't have the dexterity to use them without hurting themselves. Chefs train to…

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Why convincing rarely works and usually backfires

People often suggest one role of a leader is to convince people to do something. I disagree. People seem to associate the act of convincing with the outcome they want. If convincing worked as people wanted, I would associate them too, but I see it work differently in practice. If someone disagrees with you, using logic to convince someone still depends on your premises. So if the person doesn't agree with you, you have different premises. They'll see your attempts at convincing as imposing your values on them and push back, leading you to convince more, and so on. Argument…

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Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours

[EDIT February 2020: I gathered, edited, and compiled all the posts I listed below into my book ReModel, which I recommend if you prefer a more curated experience with less clicking. Either way, I recommend doing the exercise. It gives a new way of seeing the world that costs nothing and takes little time.] This series covers my doing my Write Your Beliefs exercise, which I've found one of the more valuable self-awareness exercises that my clients, my students, and I have done. It builds on the Inner Monologue exercise, which I also call "The most effective self-awareness exercise I…

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