I did not know her age, but she looked to be in her mid-fifties. She was weary and there were care worn lines in her face. It was hot despite the air-conditioning and her make-up was running. She had a huge pile of quarters in a casino bucket in front…

On a recent Monday morning meet Marshall Goldsmith raised an intriguing question. Why do people stop doing something when it has been proven to work? Two MG100 coaches had instituted practices that led their companies to unbelievable success. …

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog inviting readers to think that they were living in a friendly universe. A universe that was aware of their existence and one that was well disposed toward them. A benevolent universe. I received many responses. Each detailed something that had happened to…

Have you ever seen a snow globe? It generally has a picturesque scene with pretty houses and neat roads. Shake it and it grows hazy as if snow was falling. …

There is an ancient saying, attributed to Lao Tzu, that did not make much sense to me when I first heard it. I knew it had truth embedded in it, so I filed it away. I could not understand it, but I sensed that there was great value in it. …

Are you bothered about the state of the world? Heat is unrelenting in many countries and soaring temperatures are making life a misery for those without air-conditioning. And those who do have air-conditioning are stuck in their houses and not particularly happy. There is economic turmoil, financial instability, and political…

Einstein supposedly said that the most important question you could ever ask is “Is the universe friendly?” We all know persons who believe that the universe is set up to frustrate them and engineers this in the most ingenious ways. …

Will Bachman took my course, Creativity and Personal Mastery, at Columbia Business School nearly two decades ago. He was a McKinsey consultant then and has since launched Umbrex.com, a site that helps you find a consultant for virtually any kind of project. …

In my course, Creativity and Personal Mastery, I have an exercise called Becoming Nobody. “When I was growing up, I used to be somebody. We were all in somebody training in those days. You become somebody, and then you tell everybody who you are. You hand out business cards, and…