“Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.” — Pablo Picasso What’s nice is when someone can strip out the peripheral and the extraneous and distill the situation down to a basic set of facts that can then be addressed. Now, let me ask you a question: Are you a Thought Leader? The reason I ask …
“The average voter has to hear a point seven times before it registers.” — Paul Weyrich At The Educated Authority, we talk a lot about stories. We spend a lot of time constructing them, refining them, and improving them. We polish them until they sparkle like a diamond. Yeah, it’s a lot of time and …
“The two words ‘information’ and ‘communication’ are often used interchangeably, but they signify quite different things. Information is giving out; communication is getting through.” — Sydney J. Harris The skills of everyone, especially an Authority or Thought Leader, can be categorized into two basic groups: The clinical/technical/trade skills you employ to do your job. The …
One Skill Category Will Make You Money, The Other Will Make You Rich. Read More »
“If you can’t describe what you are doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” — W. Edwards Deming Kind of harsh? No, not at all. At least not if you want to be considered a Thought Leader. Have you ever thought about how much you deal with that you don’t understand? We …
“Without promotion, something terrible happens… nothing!“ — P.T. Barnum The same scene in my life has played out for about 20 years: an expert at one thing or another says, “I need you to handle the sales and marketing of my stuff so I can do my thing, and I’ll give you part of the …
“We’re living in primate heaven. We’re warm, dry, we’re not hungry, we don’t have fleas and ticks and infections. So why are we so miserable?” — Steven Pinker I think one of the most common mistakes an Authority or Thought Leader can make is to overestimate the mood and general condition of their audience. They …
“Nothing is invented and perfected at the same time.” — John Ray Let’s talk about doing stuff. Writing, for example, but it could be anything. The opportunity for endless revisions are practically infinite. Actually, there are infinite opportunities to avoid even getting started, too. There’s the thinking about it, the planning, the getting ready to …
“Comedy is the most palliative way to make a point. People are more willing to listen if they can laugh.” — Judy Gold Of course you want to help and teach your fellow humans. But there’s one thing that has to happen first before you can help anyone… They have to listen to you. Know …
“Teaching is really very, very important. I always tell my students that you should find an opportunity to teach. When you teach others, you teach yourself.” — Itzhak Perlman Think you’re not ready to teach? Good. Now is the time to start teaching. Don’t wait. The thing is, you will always learn more by being …
“In the country of the blind the one eyed man is king.” — Desiderius Erasmus One of my favorite quotes! That are a lot of really smart people out there who avoid doing “thought leader stuff” because they don’t feel “ready.” They think their audience has the same level of expertise that they have. That’s …