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If Gold Is Our Destiny If Gold Is Our Destiny: How a Team of Mavericks Came Together for Olympic Glory by Sean P. Murray Oreder Your Copy Today Leadership lessons from a gold-medal winning team You’ve heard of the Miracle on Ice, the improbable victory of the U.S. hockey team over the Soviet Union at the Lake Placid Olympics in 1980. And maybe you’ve heard of the Boys in the Boat; the 1936 U.S. crew team that stunned the world by beating the Germans at the 1936 “Nazi” Olympics in Berlin. Well...

Steve Jobs on the Creative Process

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It’s been ten years since Steve Jobs died and to commemorate his death, Jony Ive, Jobs’ longtime friend and collaborator at Apple, wrote a short piece in the WSJ.  It’s a beautiful reflection on their friendship – it’s obvious the two men had a deep respect for one another – but it also describes how Jobs approached the creative process and reveals insights we can apply to our own creative endeavors. Creativity begins with curiosity.  To imagine something new and bring it into the...

7 Leadership Lessons from Winston Churchill

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Winston Churchill (1874-1965) was a soldier, writer and statesman who led England and the Allies to victory over Nazi Germany in World War II. His life spanned from the Victorian Age to the Space Age. He authored 37 books, producing more words than Shakespeare and Dickens combined. When Western Civilization was threatened by the ominous expansion of totalitarianism, Churchill defended liberty against tyranny, exuded a confidence in victory and provided something freedom-loving people across...

10 Lessons from Benjamin Franklin on Wisdom

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The investor Mohnish Pabrai was having lunch with Warren Buffett, and he asked him, “if you could have lunch with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?” Buffett replied with a smile, “I’d love to have lunch with Sophia Loren.” But then he got serious and he said, “scratch that answer. I’d really like to have lunch with Isaac Newton.” Mohnish probed Buffett further and asked him “why Isaac Newton?” Buffett replied, “Isaac newton is probably the smartest guy who ever walked this earth. It...

5 Tips for Better Decision Making from a Professional Poker Player

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Every decision we make is a bet. A bet is essentially an investment in a future outcome that is uncertain. That investment could be money, time, attention or some other resource. When we think of decisions as bets, we are more likely to think probabilistically, adopt an open-mind, consider diverse options and learn from our mistakes. If every decision is a bet, then we can learn to become better decision makers by studying the ultimate betting game: poker. People often compare life to chess...

Setting A Goal this Year? Make it a Process Goal

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Source: Reference-Dependent Preferences: Evidence from Marathon Runners It is the distribution of marathon finishing times collected from over 9 million runners. You might expect to see a smooth bell curve centered around the average time, but that is not what is depicted here. The general outline of the bell curve is evident, but it is punctuated with discrete spikes. At each major time interval, there is a peak of finishers followed by a lull. Anyone who has ever run a road race knows exactly...

When Your Wave Comes, Ride It

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Laird Hamilton surfing Teahupoo on August 17, 2000.  Photo: Tim McKenna   On August 17, 2000, Laird Hamilton was surfing a famous break off Tahiti called Teahupoo. The break at Teahupoo already had a fierce reputation, but on this day, Laird and his friend Darrick Doerner saw a wave approaching unlike anything they had ever seen before or since.  Doerner was on a jet ski, towing Laird into the wave when the magnitude of the wave hit him: “I towed him onto this wave and it was to the...

How My First Boss Saved Me From Failing

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I was 23 years old, in my first professional job and I was failing big-time. My boss had recently handed me a list of five-hundred names and phone numbers and instructed me to cold call them. I picked up the phone and started dialing. I felt a palpable sense of fear and anxiety as I reached for the phone to make each call. I experienced a wave of rejection the likes of which I had never before seen. I was demoralized. My boss could see I was floundering and ready to quit. After a few days, he...

What We Can Learn from Jeff Bezos about Decision Making

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For the past few years Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has shared his approach to decision making in his annual letter to shareholders. Given Amazon’s ability to innovate, and its meteoric rise to retail dominance, there is much we can learn from Bezos and his tips for better decision making. Type 1 vs. Type 2 Decisions Bezos categorizes all decisions into two types. Type 1 decisions are big, strategic and consequential. These decisions must be made very carefully and methodically. They are irreversible...

7 Leadership Lessons from a CEO

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I recently had an opportunity to hear Gail McGovern speak to a group of high-potential leaders at the American Red Cross headquarters in Washington, DC. She shared her personal history from her early career at AT&T where she started as a computer programmer and rose to Executive Vice President. There were a lot of lessons learned along her career journey, and here are seven she shared with the next generation of leadership at the Red Cross: 1. Pick the best people. Attract, retain and...

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