OK last post about Steve Jobs, I promise. But something else in Steve Jobs’ biography struck me. Even after Apple became the dominant player in the market, Jobs continued to see himself, and his company, as the underdog, having to defend itself against the dominant players. It was as if everything in his world was still Microsoft and he, and his company, were the rebels. He carried this with him, even when it ceased to be true.

In one of his last battles before his death, Jobs fought to keep apps off of the iPad that he deemed in any way pornographic, obscene, or defamatory. He was very serious about it, and in fact, banned some political ads that were too raunchy, a gay travel guide that showed too much skin, and some mainstream German newspapers that had topless photos. (more…)

Which path to choose?

Happy new year. This year a lot more space and time opens up for me, as I step down from my role as the director of training at the Process Work Institute. But I’m finding that the freedom of having more space and time comes with a huge challenge. Do I use this time for what’s most important?  How do I know which one, of the many paths, I should pursue? (more…)

And yet another good podcast from a reader.  Hellene Gronda from Melbourne sent me this podcast following some of the posts I wrote this past summer on making, keeping, and breaking habits. One of the points I made was that feelings couldn’t be trusted when it came to both starting and stopping habits. For instance, waiting till you felt like working out probably won’t work. You have to just do it, even if you don’t feel like it.

Which raises the issue, that contrary to a lot of popular psychology, trusting our feelings and instincts often times just leads us to make poor choices. The reason? Psychologist and lecturer at Harvard Medical School, Deirdre Barrett says, we’re better coded for threats that are happening right now than threats in the future. Listening to your body, following your gut is good for some things, but not a universal panacea. A great interview with Barrett on her book, Supernormal Stimuli: How Primal Urges Overran Their Evolutionary Purpose, can be heard here, on ABC (Australia).

Some good articles came across my desk this morning, dealing with some of the issues I’ve been writing about of late: cognitive errors or thinking fallacies, overestimating the power of government, and learning how to learn.

In the New York Times yesterday, David Brooks talks about overestimating one’s ability to solve complex, messy problems, and suggests focusing on discrete, rather than systemic good.

And another great article in the New York Times by Paul Tough whom I’ve  written about before. Tough wrote Whatever It Takes: Geoffrey Canada’s Quest to Change Harlem and America, about  Canada and his work with the Harlem Children’s Zone. This article focuses on teaching children how to learn, not how to succeed, and the fine art of  learning from failure.

Enjoy.

I came across these two stories on the same day, and though these two women are worlds apart in who they are, and what they are about, they struck me as similar in their courage

Patti Smith belongs to my youth. Because the Night was an electrifying anthem to something I felt but couldn’t name. She was to me a punk Janis Joplin for my generation, raw and honest but unlike Joplin, showed a comfort and confidence in herself. Smith just published Just Kids about her relationship with Robert Maplethorpe, their friendship and devotion, to each other and to their art. In Maureen Dowd’s piece on it, Because The Night Belongs to Her, she quotes Smith, who wrote to Maplethorpe when he was dying of AIDS. Smith reminded him that he once said to her art “was like ‘holding hands with God.’ Urging him to grip that hand hard, she concluded: ‘Of all your work, you are still your most beautiful.’”

Flash forward a few decades. Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, whose credentials include serving as Chief of Staff to then U.S. Secretary of Treasury Larry Summers in the Clinton Administration, gave this TED talk below on the disheartening statistics of women at the top. Statistics show that progress for women (and Blacks, and other minorities) is not just lagging, but in some cases, moving backwards. Something is clearly not working. I like what Sandberg says. It’s time to look at hidden factors, at things we might be missing, including ourselves. Sandberg focuses on how women think about themselves. It’s not punk rock, but it’s bold and controversial because her critics could say she’s putting the blame on women. Like Smith, this is honest and real, and shows real devotion to her ‘art.’ When things are clearly not improving, it’s not time to play it politically correct, but to leave no stone unturned in finding solutions.

I’m doing my end of year planning for 2011, and as I do every year, I struggle to carve out time for creative work, while trying to satisfy the demands of my work life. Writing, for instance, requires a lot of time for cooking and cogitating. It just can’t be done between 2 and 3 on Thursday afternoon. It needs long stretches of uninterrupted time.

There are some wonderful sites out there that offer tips on productivity, not just how to get things done, but how to carve out time for creative work, work that requires time to think, ponder, stew and meditate. The site http://the99percent.com/ is full of articles on creative productivity, or how to make creative ideas happen. Another great source of inspiration is the work of Jason Fried, co-founder of 37Signals (I’m a huge fan of their web-based applications Basecamp for project management and Backpack, their tricked-out to-do list application). Fried is also something of a social activist intent on changing the landscape of the work place, and challenging the status quo on how work gets done, and how it can be restructured to allow for more creativity and productivity. He wrote Rework, and recently gave this Ted Talk on “Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work.”

What are your secrets for being more creatively productive?

Last March I posted The Reading Roundup. I got a lot of comments and suggestions from readers, and so I’d like to make this a regular feature, perhaps once a quarter, provided I’ve actually read enough.

So, here is a list of some books I’ve enjoyed since the last Roundup, though a few which I forgot to include in the last list. As I did with the first Round Up, I’m including here where and how I came across the book. And, still, all non-fiction. Not sure what that means. Except that there’s an awful lot of good non-fiction out there. (more…)

I read a lot, not as much as I’d like, which I would like to blame on the super-addictive UFC, Guy Frieri, not to mention the time-consuming tasks of Facebook, Twitter, and well, OK, I admit, the occasional spider solitaire game (sigh). Though in spite of such vices, I do manage to get through several books a month. And this past year I’ve read some truly outstanding books. There is an art, I think, to finding and choosing great books. It’s actually not so easy. No matter what reviewers say, I have specific interests, and no amount of praise can interest me in, say, books about a recent election. And even if the topic does draw me in, I’m a slave (as we all are) to my particular thinking style, and I get easily impatient with how some authors think. And for reasons unknown, some things just won’t stick, no matter how riveting the topic is. What I’ve discovered is that in my search for good reads, how I find the book is a good clue to whether or not I’m going to love it. So for anyone a bit like me, I’ve included in my list below how I got tipped off to the book. So, here we go, a round-up of the best books I’ve read in the past year, in no particular order, and a note on how and where I found it. (more…)