Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

Show Notes: Consider two axes, one or importance (of a job, career, project, relationship) and the other of courtesy. Thus, we run from unimportant to important, and rude to polite on the two continua. If something is important and it is performed with courtesy and consideration, it is effectively done. Consider the flight attendant ensuring that seat belts are fastened or the server apologizing for a poorly prepared meal and quicky replacing it. If something is relatively unimportant but politely done, it’s a gracious encounter. This might be the coffee shop worker delivering your order and thanking you for your business, or someone ahead of you holding a door and smiling. When something is important but people are impolite you have a nasty individual. I’ve met immigration officers who are simply surly and disrespectful, and bank tellers who ask for identification from people they already know quite well. And when something is unimportant and people are rude, you have malice—someone looking for trouble. The

Lisa Miller is an expert and thought leader in efficiencies and effectiveness in health care, including how to sell in changing environments to health care executives (and avoid procurement, for example). In this rapid-fire conversation, we discuss the pros and cons of AI, the multitude of options, the projected shortage of physicians, the ability to obtain fast, comprehensive results, and much more. Can you see yourself in a "mini-Mayo Clinic" where machines evaluate, diagnose, and prescribe in one brief visit? Are you using the "portals" now available to quickly access test results and to confer rapidly with your physician without delayed visits and messages relayed through assistants? AI is proving to be fast and accurate with diagnoses, but it's incapable of hearing a random patient comment that might be more important for the patient's medical condition than the patient thinks, and that a doctor might well pick up immediately if present. When doctors are departing or changing their practices to escap

A "battleground state" in a US election is a state where either candidate might win depending on the appeal to voters and for whom the majority votes. This is the essence of democracy. Shouldn't every state be a "battleground state"? The same should apply to Congressional and Senate Seats. We have Senators serving longer than many European monarchs. Will people with that kind of sinecure ever vote term limits for themselves. Let me go out on a limb and say, "Never!" The European monarchies were cast aside by democracies. We seem to be going in the opposite direction, with democracy subordinated to Senate monarchs. You think I'm kidding? The late Robert Byrd served in the Senate for 51.5 years. The currently serving Chuck Grassley has been sitting there for 50 years. Queen Elizabeth II reigned for 70 years, but the average tenure of a British monarch has been 25 years, and only 17 if you remove her unnaturally long reign. The French monarchs have averaged 20 years, but less if you remove the 72-year reig

War’s End? We’ve honored the character and acts of Jimmy Carter upon his death, as we should. But most of the honor was due to his works after he left his one-term presidency, defeated by Ronald Regan. People voted for a starkly different candidate (as they did with Trump after both Obama and Biden). One of Carter’s great blunders was his handling of the Iranian hostage crisis, that lasted for over a year. While there was international pressure and economic compromises, the overwhelming pressure was probably from that election of Ronald Regan, who was seen as someone who would be far more forceful than Jimmy Carter. Regan fired the air traffic controllers who illegally went on strike. Now we apparently have a cease fire in the Israeli/Hamas war which seems to be due to the same factor: In this case, a threatening Donald Trump replacing a wavering and weak Joe Biden. It isn’t unreasonable to believe that Ukraine will settle its war with Russia in a similar fashion. There will be pressure for concessions,

We made four significant charitable contributions to the arts at year end. Two of the the group’s management called to thank us. Whenever I see a positive mention about me on social media, I write in to simply say thanks for the generosity. I thank bussers and gas station attendants. I thank my trainer each time. It doesn’t matter whether I’m paying them or not. People get unduly upset when people in other cars don’t express thanks for being able to turn, but I don’t let them turn in order to be thanked. And they may be preoccupied. But people always say “thanks” when you hold a door, I think because of the physical proximity. I thank my doctor and dentist and attorney. I thank people who pay me. It’s more than a common courtesy, it’s a symbol of respect and dignity. Removing used plates and leftover food is an important service in terms of a dining experience, as is standing out in the elements and pouring gas into my car. A great many people, believers and non-believers, reflexively say “Thank God” w

Show Notes: Predictions • Both wars will run out of steam and end, officially or unofficially. • There will be insurrections in Iran. • Neither the Dodgers, nor the Celtics, nor the Chiefs will repeat. • Electric car requirements and limits on ICEs will be lifted or eased. • Retinal scanning and fingerprints will allow many to circumvent TSA. • Attempts to copyright and/or trademark AI composites of text and images will eventually reach the Supreme Court. • A betting scandal will rock professional sports. • As China’s economy weakens it will engage in more limited military actions against Taiwan. • Universities will face a perfect storm: AI will enable cheating and plagiarism, students and parents will revolt against huge tuitions, government forgiveness of tuition debt will end, there will be attempts to fire tenured professors who teach radical and biased political views, and large cuts will have to be made. The biggest threat: Remote learning which will dramatically lower tuition and enable a greater choi

Forget resolutions that are broken in 90 minutes. Try to focus on the good things that you do and that happen to you. Try a personal journal. You don’t have to be compulsive, but keep it handy, electronically or physically, to easily record things. These may be good acts done for you by others or good acts you perform, especially spontaneously and “in the moment.” Record experiences that were unplanned yet rewarding: a deer staring at you from the woods, a quick-reflex escape from someone else’s driving error, a baby smiling at you on a plane. We tend to default to the negative: what didn’t work, what disappointed us, what we did to disappoint others. Reverse that, and make note of the positives and the emotionally rewarding. Have you worked out without missing a session for 90 days; have you refrained from entering into a senseless argument with a family member; have you thanked someone seldom thanked who was appreciative of your recognition? Every so often, you can review your journal, not necessarily re

These are times of astounding incivility, harassment, and dismissiveness. These acts are based on a posturing of moral superiority, as if mere disagreement denotes an inferior being. There is a line in Morris West's The Navigator that states: "And that's the terror of the high place and the high man. Is it God he hears or the echo of his own mad shouting?" Hillary Clinton most probably sealed her election defeat with the observation that those who would vote for her opponent were the "deplorables." This time, it was Joe Biden calling Trump supporters "garbage." The arrogance of such statements and such positions is appalling. I'm not taking a political position, but rather a social one: We understandably reject people who feel our opinion is not to be respected but immediately rejected because it originates in some lower intelligence. But we are mostly filled with hubris. We live in an indeterminate universe, acting as if we understand infinity, light years, and black holes. We know virtually nothing of i

Are you looking where it's easy or where you're more likely to succeed? We content ourselves with people who can say no and can't say yes. We seek affection and not respect. Remember "looking for love in all the wrong places"? You won't find love in a bar. A woman told me all the really appealing men in bars are married or gay! If you want to catch fish, go where no one else is fishing, not where all the fishermen (and bears) are. When you try to get into the fastest lane on a crowded highway, you usually wind up in worse shape. You won't find high-level buyers trolling the web. Cold calling is absurd. Email is surrounded by scammers, spammers, and noise. Most claims on the internet about building a business are bogus. Most certificates and initials after your name are worthless. This podcast is the right place because no one else is telling you this. Search for your keys where you dropped them. Use your iPhone to shine a light in your life.

We seem to have a sense of entitlement. We believe we’re being “ghosted” (a ridiculous term) when people don’t return our calls because we didn’t sufficiently impress them or excite them in our earlier interactions. We’re not entitled to: • Clients who never change a schedule • Not having an opinion on business practices • Using non-validated testing instruments • Always ignoring the dinner check • Deducting the family car as a business expense • Using a client’s logo without permission • Showing me your “smile sheets” to impress me • Expect a client refund on a non-refundable ticket • Use or refer to others’ work without attribution • Expecting well-known people to be on your podcast • Contact people through an assistant for a favor • Coach for months with no results We seem to shift the blame for unpleasantness to the client, our family, the environment, technology, and the family dog. Dogs can bite. So, this attitude can bite you right back. Take some accountability. In fact, assume all of

You steer into a skid; you don't try to get out of it because then you lose control. We have to exploit opportunities and deal with setbacks resiliently—"bouncing forward." Blaming and complaining are for children and immature adults. Never let up. The key is to be at your best when you're under the maximum pressure.  We should be able to make minor and major adjustments in our lives and work and constantly innovate to grow. The key is to never be complacent and to ask why we didn't succeed when we expected to (even with clients). This is how the best players can consistently make free throws in basketball. Why the best of us can improvise and extemporize. We can create historical memory where we are reinforced as "winners." We should seek respect, not affection.  And never be embarrassed by winning.

Relativism holds that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, and/or historical context and are not absolute. I’m not so sure (nor are a lot of other people). Let me speak of relativism today. There is an old Monty Python skit where a one-legged man auditions for a theatrical role as Tarzan. After some awkward movements, the people in the dark of the theater say, “Thanks, we’ll get back to you.” The man plaintively asks, “Do I have a chance at all of being considered?”  “Well,” answers a producer, “I supposed we would come to you first before a man with no legs at all.” In Rhode Island, there are two public schools that stand out among all the others in terms of grade-point averages, performance on standardized tests, and admission to colleges. They are hailed as the avatars. Yet neither is in the top 100 of such schools nationally. A great many high school all-stars can’t make the team in college, and most college all-stars never make the pros. Some people snidely point out

The post-mortems from those who did not back the winner in this presidential election seem to be two-fold. On one hand, we have a group of insightful people asking, “What did we do wrong, and how can we improve?” On the other, we have people whose heads are exploding in vitriol and venom.  The latter’s basic premises are that those who voted for the winner were fooled, are ignorant and poorly educated, and are “f…ing” morons. The amount of profanity seems to be in direct proportion to the lack of an intelligent argument.  The overwhelming number of people who didn’t vote for the Democratic candidate are not misogynistic, racist, or any other epithet. They just did not prefer that candidate.  Perhaps “woke is broke.” Perhaps the price of consumer goods, the lack of any cogent immigration policy, and persistent, independent polls indicating that Americans didn’t like the direction of the country shouldn’t have been ignored.  There’s too much arrogance around, too much self-illusion that one’s opinion is mo

We all need friends, but not the same ones! Friends need to evolve as we grow, mature, and change. Marshall Goldsmith and I wrote Lifestorming together, and we somewhat disagreed on this, but he wrote the terrific book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, so I think this applies to friends, as well! Your spouse is your best friend? That’s a cop-out.  You need people who will push back, tell you the truth, mourn with you, and celebrate with you. I’d prefer an honest critic to a lying friend. We don’t need our egos protected, we need to grow. Long-time friends can poison you with their poverty mentality, “guilting” you about your spending, habits, or lifestyle. They can insist on the same places and the same experiences “for old time’s sake.” “When it’s cold,” said Hemingway, “home is where you go, and they have to take you in.” Fair enough. But with friends, they don’t have to take you in, but they choose to do so. Have you been to school reunions? If so, you’ve found that people are basically the same

This election reflects a totally flawed Democratic strategy: • Painting your opponent as toxic but not having positive policies. • A candidate who cannot speak without a teleprompter and memorized sound bites. • A morally superior attitude that conveys people voting for the opposition are less educated, dumber, and morally inferior. • Rallying celebrity support, media support, Hollywood support, and academic support—which actually was terribly off-putting. • Somehow maintaining the paradox that their candidate was superior in every way yet claiming the election would be close, thereby implying half the population was stupid. • Transgender and DEI focus pales next to prices, immigration, and a sense of security in a turbulent world. • Calling illegal aliens “undocumented” and the homeless “unhoused” is simply disingenuous, like calling rioters “undocumented shoppers.” The overwhelmingly liberal newsreaders on election night were actually grimacing and shaking their heads in disbelief at the results, having pr

The turning point in the American Civil War—and probably world history—occurred in Gettysburg on a rise called Little Round Top. At that place, at that time, a Union general saw a vast threat, and a Union Colonel and his regiment averted the threat through the brilliance of a single command. We need more courage in our lives because, unlike Gettysburg, no one is shooting at us. We are too easily placed on the defensive by bullies, the economy, regulations, normative pressure, or simply fear. But we can easily regain control of our circumstances by playing offense instead of defense, by being assertive instead of timid, and by being bold instead of afraid.  This is the true story of a relatively few people doing what they were expected to do, under great pressure, and with great courage.  I remind you, once again, that no one is shooting at us. 

We all get the kind of government we deserve. If you voted for the winner of the election, that’s good until such time as you feel promises aren’t being kept. If you voted for the loser of the election, that means not enough people in the right places agreed with you, and you have to submit to the system. However, you’re still free to protest, be surprised by some things that are advantageous to you, and wait for next time. If you didn’t vote at all, then you simply have to accept the government that other people voted for, and you have sacrificed your right to complain about it. If you didn’t vote, you obviously don’t feel strongly about anything enough to try to affect the election. (The US ranks 31st of 50 countries in voter turnout, albeit 22 of them mandate voting, so you could make a case we’re high on the list, but with 40 million not turning out, that number would easily sway an election one way or the other.) To be somewhat cynical, we have no good metrics for politicians because most of them put t

Bill Russell, in Second Wind, defines pressure and performance. For example: - Brady coming back from 25 points down in the second half of the Super Bowl. - Houston, we have a problem (Apollo 13). - Sully Sullenberger landing in the Hudson River.  The need is to really stay calm. - Three Mile Island as opposed to Chornobyl. - Bluffing in poker (vs. the “tell”). - Is Mickey Mouse a dog or a cat? - Police overreaction. - The basketball player’s wink. Keep perspective, the world isn’t watching. Most pressure is self-generated. Think of Philippe Petit and the six feet. Use some humor. It’s usually not fatal if you fail. Puncture the pressure balloon.

Many people in Rhode Island have never been to Boston, let alone New York. I’ve coached a very successful entrepreneur who has never been to New York and doesn’t wish to go. Most people can’t locate Bolivia or Laos (or Nebraska) on a map. When Americans in a survey were asked the three most famous Japanese they could think of, it was Bruce Lee, Yoko Ono, and Godzilla. Or not? Through my travels abroad, I learned: - To eat “European style.” - People are far more multi-lingual than we are. - Computers in foreign airport restrooms tell you how many stalls are available, and you can rate the cleanliness. - Floating markets of Thailand (and the Cayman). - The immensity of the Great Wall (some of which can’t be fixed today). - The Acropolis uses the same machinery today to repair it as was used to build it. - The exquisite wines of Chile don’t travel well. - The modernized airport immigration systems. - There is better first class (Emirates, Air Singapore). - Some lamps are older than our country. - The timel

Esteem means respect and admiration. Hence, self-esteem would mean respect and admiration for yourself. Self-worth and self-esteem are the same thing to me, whereas self-confidence is your faith (or lack thereof) that you can do something: efficacy. Pride is feeling proud of your accomplishments, but vanity is insisting that others hear about them, as well. The pandemic, foreign wars, polarization, AI, demographic change, and climate change are all contributing to the diminishment of self-esteem. People feel as if they’ve lost control, need too much permission (TSA), and lack power. Pandemic approaches seemed to be more about politics than medicine. And the internet is rife with conspiracies and misinformation.  How do we resolve this and reclaim our power and esteem? • Be healthy. Exercise, have a reasonable diet, and get medical checkups. • Love yourself. How can anyone else love you if you can’t love you? • Don’t jump to conclusions and make assumptions. Find the facts. • Don’t fret. Find ways to take