1: Fred Kofman was in Shanghai.  It was Day 2 of a workshop he was leading for executives at a financial services company.

“Before I could say ‘good morning,’  one of the participants said he wanted to share something,” he writes in his book The Meaning Revolution.  He was so eager that I gave him the floor.”

One of the topics the group had explored the prior day was … continue reading

1: Skip was complaining to his boss, Fred Kofman, that he wasn’t getting the service he needed.

Earlier in his career, Fred Kofman had cofounded Axialent, a consulting firm. Skip was the manager of the Sydney-based Asia Pacific subsidiary.

“The firm’s operations center was located in Buenos Aires,” Fred explains in his book The Meaning Revolution, “where we ran administration, finance, marketing, executive assistance, and materials production. It was … continue reading

1: That’s what the Total Quality Management proponents say.  

“In the same way that a fever alerts us that something is wrong with our bodies, a defect alerts us that something is wrong with our businesses—or the domain of our lives in which the defect appears,” Fred Kofman writes in his book The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.  

When a problem occurs, our tendency is to fix … continue reading

1: Stu was mad as hell.  

“We got screwed,” he told Fred Kofman, Fred relays in his book  The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership.  

Stu was a sales executive for an enterprise software company. Fred served as an advisor to the firm and was leading a workshop with the sales team.

Several months earlier, the company had introduced a highly-anticipated new version of its core product.  … continue reading

1: “Invert.  Always invert.” Charlie Munger loved to quote the great algebraist Carl Jacobi.

Inversion is defined as: “A reversal of position, order, form, or relationship.”

Charlie is telling us the power of “turning the question backward.”  Because “many hard problems are best solved only when they are addressed backward” he writes in  Poor Charlie’s Almanack. 

So that was his approach when he was invited to give a … continue reading

1: Science defines identity as “a well-organized conception of the self, consisting of values and beliefs to which the individual is solidly committed.”

Our identity is based on two things. 

First, the story we tell ourselves about ourselves.

And second, the standards or commitments we hold for ourselves.

“Put simply, our identity as a person is what we’re most committed to,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in 10x Is … continue reading

1: Steve Jobs once observed: “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards. . . Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path.”

This week, we’ve been exploring strategies to go 10x. Rather than 2x. Which is our default mode. Do what we’re doing. … continue reading

1: There are two ways to approach any situation. Two ways to approach life.

Are we playing a finite game? Or an infinite game?

“A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,” writes Dr. James Carse in his book Finite and Infinite Games. An infinite game is played “for the purpose of continuing the play. . . Finite players play within boundaries; infinite players play with boundaries. … continue reading

1: The research is clear. When we feel our lives and work are a calling, good things happen.  

We “experience greater overall subjective well-being or happiness as well as greater career success than those who view their work as a job or career,” Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy write in 10x Is Easier Than 2x.      

A calling is defined as “a sense of purpose, [that] we’re doing what we … continue reading

1: Salomon Brothers CEO John Gutfreund was about to get fired.

The year was 1991. A major scandal had rocked the prestigious Wall Street investment bank.

And, it was all so unnecessary, Charlie Munger writes in Poor Charlie’s Almanack.

Charlie should know. He had a front-row seat to all the action as Vice Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, then Salomon’s largest shareholder.

2: The scandal happened when Salomon’s traders submitted … continue reading