Be An Innovator: Here’s How

We are a nation of conformists. Something gets invented (the smart phone, the microwave oven, the seatbelt, the calculator, Velcro) and we behave like we have reached the pinnacle of possibilities with that invention. And we settle. We conform. We become complacent. Here’s a thought: You – yes you – can be an innovator. You […]

In our pursuit of achievement, we set goals. We do so in order to rack up a steady stream of accomplishments. That is what forward-thinking people, like readers of Uncommon Sense, do in an effort to keep self-development front and center in their lives. In my early years of self-development, say, in my 20s, I […]

We have a moral obligation to develop ourselves. That’s what this entire column, found in each issue of Uncommon Sense, is all about – developing ourselves in myriad ways, be it physically, intellectually, financially, spiritually, socially, or in other ways. One of the reasons it is a moral imperative to develop ourselves is because by […]

Leo Long was something of a phenomenon. After attaining All American honors on the Track & Field team at Stanford University in the Javelin, he started coaching at Los Altos High School in Northern California, where he built a Track & Field dynasty, winning the Santa Clara Valley Athletic League (SCVAL) championships every single year […]

I was preparing for some traveling recently. I was going to take a road trip but I wanted to find a gym to go to so I wouldn’t miss my workout routines. I Google-searched the gyms located in the area where I would be and called the first one, which happened to be a Planet […]

I don’t compete with others as a general rule. Instead, I compete against myself. As a young sales professional early in my career, I was given a sales quota of $600,000 for the year. Knowing the nature of the sales realities I was dealing with allowed for the possibility of closing business every week (as […]

All of us, from time to time, get into a sort of funk. We lose our focus. We get “writer’s block.” We get lethargic. We lose our momentum. I know an easy way to stay productive. When you have a list of tasks that need to get accomplished, you undoubtedly write them down somewhere. Some […]

When I was very young, a man would come around the neighborhood with a grindstone on his back ringing a large bell. He would settle on a corner and sharpen knives and scissors for five cents each. Women, of course, were home, and would send their kids down to provide the man with their blades […]

I was speaking to a group of college students this week, and during part of my presentation, I did a Q&A. Lots of questions were coming my way, and all them were more or less thoughtful and intelligent questions. But my favorite question was this: “Knowing what you know now, what advice would you give […]

Recently I was the opening speaker at a conference. I was to be followed by another speaker who would close out the conference. Happily, I was prepared. I had crafted a powerful message, had rehearsed it carefully, and when it came time to deliver it, I did so in a compelling manner. It was a […]