Join the Great Turtle Race, Race Across the Pacific

The Great Turtle Race, which I co-founded with George Shillinger, is underway for year II and you are encouraged to visit at www.GreatTurtleRace.com and cheer on a turtle.

Leatherback Turtles are amazing animals (as big as your kitchen table), have been around 100 million years, but may have only 10 years left.

The race has been heralded for its combining the new 3 C's of cause marketing: Contest, Comedy, and Charity.

Jump In. With Friends. And Save Your Local Water Hole.

This is my commencement speech to the Pinewood 8th Grade Class:

1) Avoid Self-Doubt. From ages 15 - 30, you are actually a smarter, stronger, more capable person every day!

2) When faced with uncomfortable new challenges (like jumping off a rock into water 30' below):

• Jump In. New experiences make life richer and make you more interesting (to yourself, to others, to employers).

• With Friends. Your greatest wealth is your gathering collection of friends and the best way to make friends is to undertake a shared struggle (the more difficult, high-anxiety, low probability the better!)

• Swim without Splashing. You have good habits which propel you forward. And bad habits which keep you in place.

• Save Your Local Water Hole. The great things in your community need to be saved from human greed and carelessness.

3) Engage Others.

You will often be asked "How are you doing?" Respond, and then ask the other person, "How are YOU doing?" And then inquire about a passion they have, or about how they look, or about past activity (what did you do last weekend) or future plans (what vacation plans do you have).

Humans thrive in connecting on each other's passions.

Personalities of US regions

This article offers interesting theory that humans can be sorted by 5 attributes: agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness to experience. And that these attributes naturally cluster by different US regions.

"Greater Chicago is a center for extroverts and also a leading center for sales professionals. The Midwest, long a center for the manufacturing industry, has a prevalence of conscientious types who work well in a structured, rule-driven environment. The South, and particularly the I-75 corridor, where so much Japanese and German car manufacturing is located, is dominated by agreeable and conscientious types who are both dutiful and work well in teams.
The Northeast corridor, including Greater Boston, as well as San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and Austin, are home to concentrations of open-to-experience types who are drawn to creative endeavor, innovation, and entrepreneurial start-up companies."

See more at: http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/05/04/where_do_all_the_neurotics_live/

It takes 10,000 hours to be a master

I read recently that it takes 10,000 hours to master anything. Piano, acting, sports, whatever, you have to train you mind and muscle memory to perfection.

This sounds daunting, but it equates to about 10 years of dedication at about 3 hours per day and it matches well with the "mentorship" model throughout history of taking 12 years olds and dedicating them to the skilled profession of the times for about a decade.

It also sparks an interesting question -- what are you a master at (e.g. have spent 10,000 hours on)?!

Meetings and hyper-connected audiences

A modern problem in meetings is lack of attention among attendees due to blackberries and portable computers (attendees checking email, the internet, and who-know-what-else!).


Much of this is due to bad meeting culture (i.e. meetings are too long, have too many people, should not be happening, or are poorly run). But if the meeting is important and the attendee list is correct, then full attention is needed.


I know of several ways to deal with this:


1) At Microsoft, I have heard there is a culture to sit-at-the-table if you're paying attention and sit-back-from-the-table if you are handling other urgent matters through email.


2) Some meeting managers can simply say "I'd like your full attention. If you want to use the internet to find out more about some of these topics great. But I ask that you to use it only for that purpose." (Some cultures would set up some kind of bounty - free drink if you catch someone on off-strategy.)


3) I have collected phones from participants and handed them to an assistant to check. The message is "I would like your full attention on this important topic. If you get an urgent call, my assistant will answer for you and pull you out of the meeting."

A culture of few, short meetings is the best of all solutions.

4 Attributes of Successful Leaders

I attended an interesting talk last night by Egon Zehnder executive Claudio Fernandez Araoz, author of "Great People Decisions." He suggests there are 4 attributes of a successful leader:

1) Genetics - health and IQ, to name but a few
2) Place/Era - if you are in China, things are good right now (if in sub-prime mortgage industry, not so much)
3) Career Choice - the quality of the companies that you keep
4) Ability to hire good people

His talk make good points that companies spend lots of time on certain activities (e.g. accounting, budgetting) but not nearly enough on the process of hiring people.

Work is important to life

Work offers people 3 important things: 1) a way to structure your time; 2) a sense of community; and 3) a sense of shared purpose.

Author John Trauch says that you need to recreate these conditions in retirement (also when between jobs, it would seem).

Another author, Alan Bernstein, says that even after a honeymoon period of travel/golf/etc, you need to take steps to build purpose into your life. Activity ideas from a 3rd author, Tamara Erickson, include philanthropy, volunteer work, going back to school, changing your career, teaching, or starting a business.

--- From New York Times "Career Couch"