1: Did you know that Babe Ruth began his baseball career in 1914 using a 54-ounce bat?

“That’s a big bat,” Erik Peterson and Tim Riesterer write in their powerful book Conversations That Win the Complex Sale.

“For those of you who are not familiar with what’s ‘normal’ for baseball bats,” the authors note, “most professional baseball players today use a bat that weighs between 31 and 35 ounces.”… continue reading

1: “There’s wind and then there’s a typhoon, there are waves and then there’s a tsunami,” Andy Grove writes in Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company.

The same is true in business.

“There are competitive forces and then there are supercompetitive forces,” he notes.

Andy calls it a “10X” change.

2: Harvard Professor Michael Porter identified the various forces that determine … continue reading

1: There are two traps CEOs and leadership teams fall into regarding innovation.

Trap #1: “The minute we think we truly understand the customer and can take our attention off discovering what matters, we’re dead,” Panera founder Ron Shaich writes in Know What Matters: Lessons from a Lifetime of Transformations.

“Sooner or later,” Ron notes, “even the most brilliant and innovative concept will fall behind the times and become … continue reading

1: One summer night in Milwaukee, the San Francisco Giants lost to the Brewers in a brutal late-inning collapse.

Bruce Bochy, the team’s manager, found himself sitting alone in his office, brooding over the loss.

Still restless, he decided to walk back to the team’s hotel.

“It was maybe four miles, and it was late, and the Brewers’ stadium is not exactly pedestrian-friendly,” Rustin Dodd writes in his post … continue reading

1: “Fortune favors the curious,” Sahil Bloom writes in his book The 5 Types of Wealth.

As it turns out, curiosity is an actual “Fountain of Youth.”

Yesterday, we looked at how curiosity makes us healthier as we age—both mentally and physically.  

The bad news? “Unfortunately, that raw childhood curiosity we’re born with slowly atrophies throughout our adult lives,” Sahil writes.

We begin our lives brimming with curiosity. … continue reading

1: Researchers at Harvard and MIT analyzed the moods and behaviors of 28,000 smartphone users.

What did they learn?

“When people felt down,” Rachel Barr writes in How to Make Your Brain Your Best Friend, “they tended to seek out activities that promised instant gratification, like watching TV or drinking wine.”

When the participants were in a good mood, however, “they leaned toward more productive activities,” Rachel notes, “that … continue reading

1: We stare at the screen.

“Slowly and painstakingly formulating half a sentence, reading it over, deeming it to be inadequate, deleting it, staring at the screen some more, then trying again,” Oliver Burkeman writes in Meditations for Mortals.

The writing coach Stephen Lloyd Webber once noted that it’s ironic that we call this activity “writing,” since much of our time is spent not writing, not deleting what we’ve … continue reading

1: When couples divorce, one of the main reasons they give is, “I didn’t feel appreciated.”

If creativity were our love partner, do you think it would feel appreciated?

That’s one of the provocative questions Gay Hendricks asks in The Genius Zone: The Breakthrough Process to End Negative Thinking and Live in True Creativity.

He encourages us to examine the relationship we have with our creativity.  We can ask … continue reading

1: This week, we’ve been exploring Dan Martell‘s concept of the “Perfect Week,” where we regain complete control of our day by planning our upcoming week.

We create a templatized weekly plan that allows us to utilize every minute of our days effectively. We batch similar tasks together into time blocks. We commit to starting and ending meetings and activities on time. We eliminate buffer time where … continue reading

1: In 2018, Oprah Winfrey provided Harper’s Bazaar with a detailed overview of her average day,  Dan Martell writes in his book  Buy Back Your Time.

7:01 a.m.: Wakes up surrounded by nature at her home in Montecito, California.

8:00 a.m.: Brushes teeth and takes her five dogs outside. Makes her favorite espresso.

8:30 a.m.: Enjoys a series of spiritual exercises like meditating, reading, and silence.

9:00 a.m.: Works … continue reading