1: The rowing team from Great Britain had not won an Olympic gold medal since 1912. 

“By all measures, they didn’t have a good rowing program,” Dan Sullivan and Ben Hardy write in their book The Gap and The Gain: The High Achiever’s Guide to Happiness, Confidence, and Success.

Then everything changed. 

During the training for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, the members of the British rowing team began … continue reading

1: One evening, author Ben Hardy had a realization.

He and his wife, Lauren and their six children lived in Orlando, Florida. 

“In my mind, we would live in Orlando for the next 2–3 years until I reached a certain place in my career, and then we’d move on to the next place,” Ben reflects in The Gap and the Gain, which he co-authored with Dan Sullivan. 

He … continue reading

1: There are two ways we can measure our progress.

The first way is to compare where we are now against our ideal, Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in The Gap and The Gain.

“Ideals are like a horizon in the desert,” the authors write. “No matter how many steps we take forward, the horizon continues to move out of reach.” 

When we measure this way, we are living … continue reading

1: Trevor Lawrence was one of his generation’s outstanding high school and college quarterbacks.

He had 52 wins and 2 losses as a high school five-star recruit. As the quarterback at Clemson during the 2018, 2019, and 2020 seasons, he won 34 games and lost only two. 

In April of 2021, as the projected #1 NFL draft pick, he told Sports Illustrated he didn’t “need” football to feel worthy as … continue reading

1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations.  On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.

1: Hi, this is Drew Clancy.  My RiseWithDrew blog is all about learning, growth, and development.  I call it: Getting better at getting better.

Creating an engaging workplace culture … continue reading

1: “If it bleeds, it leads,” is the old adage regarding newspaper headlines.

And, it’s more true than ever today.

Yesterday, we looked at the data regarding deaths due to terrorism.

“Though terrorism poses a minuscule danger compared with other risks, it creates outsize panic and hysteria because that is what it is designed to do,” Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and … continue reading

1: “We are living in the safest time in history,” best-selling author and Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker writes.

And he understands the “incredulity” these words evoke.

“In recent years, highly publicized terrorist attacks and rampage killings have set the world on edge and fostered an illusion that we live in newly dangerous times,” he notes.  

“In 2016, a majority of Americans named terrorism as the most important issue facing the … continue reading

1: The short answer: No.

In fact, far from it.  According to the data, the opposite is true: We live in the safest time ever. 

In prior RiseWithDrews, we’ve celebrated the dramatic decline in violent deaths, including homicide, automobile accident, plane crash, accidental deaths due to falls, drownings, fire, ], and death resulting from workplace accidents.

But what about so-called “Acts of God,” Steven Pinker asks in Enlightenment … continue reading

1: Headlines regularly lament the decline in the number of manufacturing jobs.

“With the shift from a manufacturing to a service economy, many social critics have expressed nostalgia for the era of factories, mines, and mills,” Steven Pinker writes in Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress.

“[P]robably because they never worked in one,” he notes.

There is, however, powerful good news regarding workplace safety.

In … continue reading

1: Getting better at getting better is what RiseWithDrew is all about.

Monday through Thursday, we explore ideas from authors, thought leaders, and exemplary organizations. On Friday, I share something about myself or what we are working on at PCI.

The last several Fridays, we’ve been looking at the strategic importance of being a great place to work.

The problem?

Our assumptions around group culture are mostly wrong, Daniel … continue reading