What drives people to commit evil actions? Is it mental disease, fanaticism-fueled terrorism, rebellion against authority? Is it the outcome of bad parenting, eroding national values, the breakdown of faith and family? Or is it something else altogether? I think there is a more fascinating question: What drives people to acts of heroism and kindness? What is it in people that drives them to put the interests and sometimes even the lives of others before their own? What force in people allows them to set aside their primal instincts for survival to care more [...]

The golden hours of the early morning are precious. With a clear mind and no distractions I accomplish more in the early hours than during the entire day. I know that the earlier I start my mornings  the more I achieve, but often I start them  later than I would like.  I stay up too late the night before and allow my late nights to rob me of my morning glory. Like most people I go to sleep either when I have finished what I have to do or when I am [...]

In Oklahoma, the seasons can seemingly change in an evening, with the golden fireworks of autumn leaves acquiescing to the isolating omniscience of winter with one heavy snowfall. In November of 2002, however, autumn persisted day after day and the leaves clung to their family trees as strong, dry winds ripped through the prairie state. A young Navy ensign became a hero on one of those days. Driving down the road amid those same falling leaves, he and a companion nearly ran over a bag of money lying in the road. And [...]

As business leaders we evaluate the past and forecast the future. We focus so much on the past and on the present, and we need to. But we take our eye off the present at our peril. How a leader shows up in the moment, each moment, every moment, is what will determine the future and create the past. The present moment is all we control, yet it is often the moment in time to which we pay the least attention. Now is the present. Now is a present…a gift. Now [...]

Something caught my eye in my FaceBook newsfeed this morning. The picture of a little girl. She’s about to start her first day at school.  (It’s South Africa and the school year is just beginning.) She’s standing at the gate of her school dressed in full school uniform – a crisp white blouse and an emerald green skirt. She looks a little apprehensive, but with hands on her hips somewhat defiant and ready for what lies ahead. She looks so proud. But the shoes? She has no shoes on. She’s barefoot! The [...]

Please don’t tell me we are going to reduce the Sandy Hook School shooting (and the several other recent cases of mass shootings) to a debate about gun control and leave it at that. Of course gun control is a central part of the debate, but we seem to do everything in our power to avoid the real problem: our unwillingness to say, “No!” to ourselves and to one another. The real problem lies at the root of American society and is responsible for more than the horrible mass shootings we [...]

The following is an excerpt from the book Lead by Greatness. By analyzing our differences we uncover our purpose. When you envision your purpose clearly, things that you thought of as mere coincidences reveal themselves as miracles, and seemingly random events may begin to appear to you as a deliberate string of fortune. Say, for example, you decided that climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania at the end of the year is an important step in fulfilling your Personal Purpose. Once you have made the decision to undertake the trip, you will [...]

Approaching LAX (Los Angeles International Airport) last Friday, the captain pointed out the NASA Boeing 747 escorted by two US Airforce fighter jets piggybacking Shuttle Endeavour to its final resting place at the California Science Center. The site was beautiful, nostalgic and a source of pride. But the metaphor went further: Here was a craft capable of taking dozens of people on 26 flights hundreds of miles into space and back again but needing to be piggybacked to get from Florida to California. The aircraft carrying the Shuttle is not able [...]

The art of simplicity is genius. Simple people see as simple what others see as complex. In classical Hebrew, the language of the Bible, the word for simple and for perfect are the same, because perfection lies in simplicity not in complexity. I was 24 years old when I started my first job in business as a trainee trader in a global commodity trading organization. I knew nothing about international trading at that time, in fact I knew nothing about business altogether! . During my induction I was exposed to countless [...]

Recently, I posted the first of this series on the ABCs of Leading by Greatness. In that post, I discussed the importance of authenticity. This week I’d like to talk about mastery. As I define it in the book, leaders who lead by greatness master their defensive instincts and are always able to choose an appropriate response to the most testing of challenges. I thought about this as I read through a post that relates to the most testing of leadership challenges departing employees. In this post, Dave Balter portrays how valuable mastery is [...]