Advice

3 Essential Truths About Startups and Investment

May 11, 2012

Today I’m answering, with this post, a lot of similar questions I get often in email, where somebody is asking me how to get connected to or hooked up with or recommended properly for angel investment. Here are some unpleasant and unpopular facts about startups and investment. Only friends and family believe in you and [...]

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Surprising Truths About Motivations

January 9, 2012

Do you know the RSA Animate technique? Have you seen it before? This is a great example, and it’s also a good business lesson, about motivation. What’s surprising? Well, to start out, money doesn’t motivate people to do thinking tasks better. It does for simple mechanical tasks — people work harder for more money — [...]

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Thanksgiving: Gratitude is Good for Your Health

November 24, 2011

Today is the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States. It’s supposed to be about getting together and giving thanks. My contribution to the Thanksgiving holiday is to recommend a Google search on the correlation between gratitude and health. It turns out that there are indications that being thankful is good for us all. Of course [...]

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Turn the Negative of Worry into the Positive of Planning

October 25, 2011

Worrying is a waste of time, stress, and effort. It ties knots in your soul. Forget the worry. Turn that energy into a positive: planning. I just read Seth Godin’s brilliant small post, from last weekend, asking In When is it okay to start worrying? With apologies to Seth for quoting the whole thing (but [...]

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My Niece’s Question About God

October 7, 2011

What a week. Steve Jobs, may he rest in peace. On Wednesday we distributed my stepmother’s ashes. That same day my brother’s wife buried her father. After our ceremony in Cape Cod, my brother said his daughter had asked: “why does God make people get old and die?” Nobody there could answer that question. Several [...]

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Steve Jobs on How to Live Before Dying

October 6, 2011

I’m really sorry that people have to get old and die. This is my tribute to Steve Jobs. If you don’t see it here, please click here for the original.

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Reflections on Fake Reviews and Review Credibility

October 4, 2011

Last month the New York Times ran this story on fake reviews all over the web. I was a late comer to Angie’s list. You’ve probably been using it for years, so you already know what I just discovered. It has no anonymous reviews. How refreshing. And, how much more useful. In case you aren’t [...]

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So You Think You’re Smart? Prove It.

September 20, 2011

I’ve become increasingly more convinced that the best sign of real intelligence is being able to see both sides, or all sides, or any argument. You might call that having an open mind. You might call it listening. And you might call it having the good sense to say “I don’t know” a lot. I [...]

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Do You Know The Single Most Powerful Word in Business Writing?

September 8, 2011

Whether it’s email, Twitter, Facebook, or — going back to the ancient days — even business letters and proposals, the single most powerful word in business writing is “you.” Whatever else happens, if you start with “you” then you are on the right track. You asked me … You missed this … You suggested … [...]

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Are Spelling and Grammar Obsolete?

August 31, 2011

Am I being too critical? Do you react like I do to blatant spelling errors? Do they spoil messages for you? Glaring grammar and spelling errors distract me. Yesterday I received an email from somebody asking me to help him find an “inverstor” because he’s had “alot” of interest and he “truely” believes he could [...]

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