The Seven Pillars of Success: John Donovan
I often read about highly successful people. They’re successful in a myriad of different ways–professionally, financially, physically, and in terms of popularity, family, networks, etc. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to formulate the common traits that successful people seem to embody regardless of the type of success. I think I have them [...]
7 Random Road Trip Tips and Thoughts
Back during a time when I was making many road trips for my first–and last–long-distance relationship, I wrote an entry about how I’d pimp my ride for long trips if I could. Today I have a few follow-up tips and thoughts for long road trips, particularly those for which you’re alone for 10+ hours. Crunchy [...]
When Was the Last Time You Asked a Really Good Question?
I think the world is missing people who ask good questions. I’ve been away from the blog the past few days (and last week) at a family reunion and a separate soccer tournament back in Virginia. It was a good trip, one that involved some quality soccer with old teammates (some of whom were much [...]
The Breakdance Story
I used to be a breakdancer. Thirteen years ago when I was entering college, I was a terrible dancer. To most people that wouldn’t be an issue. But my perception of college was that dancing would be really important. I envisioned an ongoing series of dance parties–both frat and ballroom–and possibly a number of West-Side-Story-style [...]
The 3 Best Things About Your Job
I don’t know anyone who thinks they have the perfect job. Sure, there are plenty of people who love their jobs (and plenty who loathe them), but everyone has something to complain about. I enjoy my job, but it has its frustrations. Sometimes those frustrations overwhelm me a bit. I think it’s okay to vent [...]
Leadership Tactic #40: I Am Responsible
I read an article the other day on how to apologize to someone. The best part was that it’s not a true apology there’s a “but” in there. “I’m sorry I’m late, but traffic was terrible.” Nope. That’s an excuse. For an apology, you remove the second clause. No but. When I was a teenager, [...]
Management Tactic #37: Funerals
A coworker once gave me some simple advice that I’ll never forget: You may regret not going to a funeral or wake, but you’ll never regret going to one. Remember this advice. You will need it, because you will rarely be eager to attend a funeral. You’ll avoid it. You’ll find excuses not to go. [...]
The 3 Things You’d Change About Your College Experience If You Had a Time Machine
Knowing what you know now about the real world and college and yourself, what are three things you would do differently if you could redo your undergraduate years of college? My three: I would take only the classes that really interested me. I’m glad I went to Wash U. It’s a great school, the quality [...]
Does Having More Friends Make You Happier?
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you know that I’m fascinated by the idea of happiness. What makes us happy? How can we be happier? What’s really important when it comes to personal happiness? Thus I was rather intrigued to find an article online that listed 10 keys for determining happiness. The [...]
Rework Contest and Survey
Two things happened to me almost simultaneously a few weeks ago: I had a really interesting idea for a new type of job search website, and I began reading a fantastic book about starting a business and being creative. The book is called Rework, by 37Signals CEO Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, and I [...]
Prank Wars
As I’ve written about before, I love a good prank. Some sleight of hand where you have someone thinking one thing while something else is going on. Something that doesn’t offend or inconvenience the target, but it fools them for some amount of time. Thus it’s no surprise that I love College Humor’s Prank Wars. [...]
Management Tactic #5: Be. On. Time.
This may be the most important leadership post I’ve written so far. It’s not getting the #1 slot because I’m sure there’s something better for that, and slots 2-4 are already taken. So #5 it is. I’m going to share two things with you in this post: One, why you shouldn’t be late. Two, the [...]
Change for the Sake of Change
This past fall, I moved out of my condo for a few months. I gave about a fourth of what I own to Goodwill after I packed all the stuff I really wanted. Then I moved back into my condo two months later, still feeling like I owned too much “stuff,” but lighter and less [...]
If I Could Pimp My Ride…
If I could pimp my ride, I’d retrofit it to be the ultimate long-distance vehicle. Prior to last year, I was horrible at long-distance driving. I’d get stiff, bored, and tired after about 2 hours in my Camry. But last year I had a long-distance relationship that resulted in several 8-hour trips to West Virginia. [...]
Management Tactic #19: Always Accept the Cake
Have you ever been at a birthday party at work and one person makes a fuss about not eating the cake? I’ve seen this several times in my illustrious career. Someone goes out of their way to make or buy a cake for a birthday, everyone’s really happy about it, and yet one person “isn’t in [...]
Management Tactic #23: Too Good to Be True
The year was 2002. I had returned from my junior year abroad in Japan having resisted buying any tiny, fancy Japanese laptops that wouldn’t have worked at all in America. I needed a laptop, though, because I wanted to take typewritten notes in class. (Which, by the way, I never did. How many people actually [...]
Management Tactic #6: Say Your Phone Number Like You Just Learned It
I get a lot of voicemails on my office phone. I’m up from my desk a lot, and it seems there is a 100% chance that people will call me when I’m in the bathroom (which is in my office, so I can hear the phone ring). When I listen to voicemails, I always have [...]
Management Tactic #34: Dress Up When You Go Up
People treat you differently depending on what you wear. Try going to a job interview dressed in slacks and a blazer, and then try the same thing in a nice suit. An interviewer knows that you’re taking him seriously when you dress in the suit, and he’ll take you seriously in return. I consider airline [...]
Treat Your Customers Like Potential Girlfriends
Last Monday I sent a project proposal for TypeTribe web development to a company called Intridea. 6 days later, and I still haven’t heard anything from them. Not a word. Not even a confirmation of receipt. In this economy. This absolutely, positively bewilders me. Most business spend a significant portion of their operating budgets trying [...]
The Fourth Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here, the first entry in the series here, the second entry here, and the third entry here. Today’s entry concludes the series. The last entry of [...]
The Second Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here and the first entry in the series here. The second category I’m going to talk about is where these experiences happen. [...]
The First Secret to Extreme Happiness
This week I’m exploring the secrets to extreme happiness based off a list of the happiest, most gratifying, most joyous, most awestruck experiences of my life. You can read more about the premise here. The first category I’m going to delve into is when these experiences of extreme happiness happened. There are a few that [...]
The Secret to Extreme Happiness
Recently I wrote about the idea of spending 15 minutes a day doing something creative that has no chance of being profitable (see here). Since I wrote about that, I’ve seen two things online that gave me an idea for such an activity. One of the blog entries was about one man’s “wow” experiences–moments that [...]
Management Tactic #17: Compliments
I have a simple lesson to teach on today’s blog: How to accept a compliment. It’s rather simple. If someone gives you a compliment–at work, at home, on the field, wherever, whenever–all you have to say is this: “Thank you.” That’s it. Don’t deflect the compliment, don’t immediately compliment the other person, and for goodness [...]
