Poker and Cooperation
I play Texas Hold 'em in a casino for the first time in a very long time. It was very surreal being surrounded by a bunch of strangers, who are all being very polite to one another but battling for chips, and all the while I'm trying to use everything that I had read in poker books in the heat of the moment. I can see why people develop a habit of playing poker. There's...
Looking for Gold
When asked about how he built his steel empire and managed to turn over three dozen people he had hired to work for him into millionaires (quite an accomplishment for the 1930's), Andrew Carnegie replied: "Men are developed the same way gold is mined. Several tons of dirt must be moved to get an ounce of gold. But you don't go into the mine looking for the dirt." Wise words coming from one of the...
Master Lock
I went looking for a combination lock at the local grocery store, like the ones we all had to buy in middle school for our lockers. I found this lock sitting right by the typical three-number combination lock. Here's how it works: you put your thumb on the round lump in the center, and you can slide it one of four directions: up, down, left, and right. (Easy.) In order to open it, you slide...
Thank the Infamous
Fame occurs when a person has more inbound attention then they are able to respond to. It's when a person can no longer answer every single email they get, just because there aren't enough hours in their day. Or when a person goes out in public and there are strangers asking for interactions with you with a lack of an interpersonal relationship. We all have a tendency to seek out the attention and validation of...
"It's Safe To Assume..."
Any assumption that starts out like that is potentially one of the most risky assumptions you can make. Lots of charities aggregate donor and volunteer contact information when they're pitching in or generously cutting them a check. Why? Because it's safe to assume that because they helped you once, or gave to you one time, that they'll want to get an email newsletter or direct mailing from your organization once a month for the rest...
Treasure Hunt
The drunks over at Modern Drunkard Magazine (yep, that's a real thing) came up with an interesting idea a few years ago. They're based in Denver, so they filled up a chest full of booze, stashed it someplace public in the city, and then created a series of clues which they published in their magazine. If you deciphered the clues (which would make sense only to a Denver resident), it would lead you on a...
The Print Filter
Traditionally, publishing houses are supposed to act like one giant filter. Lots of authors want to get published, but only a few can. There's a limit to the number of trees we can cut down the shelf space at your local Borders. So Doubleday has to make tough decisions about which books to invest in and which to ignore. At some point literary agents made careers for themselves by acting as the go-between, adding another...
Fourth Wall Violation
In theater parlance, a character in a movie acknowledging the awareness of, or speaking to the audience directly, is known as "breaking the fourth wall". It's not what John Cusack did in High Fidelity or Steve Carell talking to the camera in "The Office", but instead one of the actors breaking character and addressing the audience at some point in the story when it's unexpected. In real life, breaking character is a useful learning tool....
The Secret
I think it's called The Secret because it's meant to be somewhat ironic. If you're talking about using something concrete (the so-called "vision board") as a means of helping you visualize and define your goals, then there's nothing "secret" about it. Speakers like Dale Carnegie and Zig Ziglar have been advocating techniques like these for decades now, because they're very effective at helping people achieve their goals. But often times, people buy the package and...
What You Already Know
I had a friend of mine recently ask me what I thought of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. As with most political questions being asked of me, I was completely stumped. That's not to say that I didn't have an opinion on the matter, but I still haven't learned to how respond to people when they ask me questions to which they already know the answer. Of course, he wanted me...