Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

Primary and secondary 1 End the “warehousing” of children • Chronology is silly and hundreds of years old • Socialization is important, but not at this cost • Move kids as they learn • Measure learning by outcomes: application, tests, etc. 2. Stop defaulting to college educations • Prepare for a range of employment opportunities • I sat next to too many duds in college • Teach life skills: civics, account management, do-it-yourself repairs (remember shop and home economics) • Growing tendency to hire competence and not credentials 3. End the teachers’ unions control of schools • Introduce carrots and sticks for teachers • The Rubber Room in New York City • Albert Shanker’s quote • Randi Weingarten’s $600,000 • The customers are the parents and kids, not teachers • Make the job rewarding and also demanding • Recreate school “open houses” • End the mainstreaming of behavioral problems • End the inclusion on non-English speakers • My experience with Tourette’s Syndrome • Teachers have lowest grade point avera

Not just about the government or the banks or big Pharma, but even sports when YOUR team loses! “The refs were crooked, it was rigged.” 9/11 was an “inside” job, and we never landed on the moon. Key elements: belief in a pattern underlying the event; provocative and deliberate plans; coalitions or groups are involved, even disparate ones; there is a clear and present danger; secrecy that is hard to justify or believe by non-conspirators. Groups blamed are typical targets: wealthy, politicians, business leaders (especially bankers), historically stigmatized minorities, such as Jews or Roma. Conspiracists defy pragmatism and evidence, e.g., “Princess Diana actually killer herself or faked her death.” The threat of lack of control forces insecure people to find cause and effect outside of their control that explains their fate. (THEY are out to get me/us.) Paranoia is a key element, involving perceived victimization, social isolation, and the refusal to admit that others succeed by their talents and hard wo

The more pressure you feel, the more your talent is “masked” and the worse you perform. You control pressure. You can’t allow yourself to feel “judged” every time you speak, write, or perform. And when and if you do need feedback, never accept it from unsolicited sources, which is always for the sender’s benefit, not yours. Seek solicited feedback from trusted people you respect. It’s fine to feel anticipation and eagerness to proceed, which should heighten your performance, but not fear and dread which will diminish it. The greatest athletes are who they are not because of their everyday performance, but because of how well they perform in championship games, under maximum pressure from the other team, the media, and fans. Maintain perspective. No one is shooting at you. You should fear a tornado in Kansas in a storm, but not a question in a conference room during a meeting. We too often create pressure on ourselves by comparing our intended performance against great performances we’ve seen, and therefo

Do you need shoes that you can put on without touching them, without bending down, without even sitting down? Barring those whose illnesses or conditions prohibit bending, just how lazy are the rest of us becoming? Skechers sells some shoes which have a patented device near the top of the heel that allows you to slip into them without manipulating the shoe: no shoehorn, no wiggling, no close proximity at all. (Of course, you have to have the mental capacity to know your toes go in first.) I can understand this if you’re, say, 90. But they’re advertising this for everyone. How lazy are we becoming? Our luggage has wheels these days. People can gamble on their smart phone apps and talk into their wrists. We may think that garage door openers and TVs “must” be remote, but why fireplaces? You no longer build a satisfying fire any more, you program one. How lazy are we becoming? Vacuum cleaners now self-clean, and lawn mowers self-mow. Cars can self-park. Gym trainers assist their customers in lifting weights.

Some things we can control, some we can influence, and some we can neither control nor influence. It’s important to understand the differences, and it’s vital to never cede control nor underestimate our abilities to control. Facing a prospect for the first time, what do you think you can control, influence, or affect neither? (Listen to the podcast to hear the examples.) Do you tend to surrender control because the prospect is powerful or wealthy? Do you sacrifice personal time, change important personal appointments, and inconvenience your family over client issues that the client could easily change? You can control where your kids go to school, what kind of insurance you carry, where to go on vacation, and how to deal with colleagues. You can certainly influence the boss, clients or prospects, or suppliers, a lot more than you think (or currently are). If nothing else, consider this: language controls discussion, discussion controls relationships, and relationships control business. The larger and mor

We’re going to need tens of millions of electric charging stations to satisfy goals for electric cars in six years set by the government. It looks like we might have 500,000. Electric cars might represent zero carbon footprint improvement. The mining of lithium is dirty and expensive and requires a lot of energy. Disposal of the batteries presents similar problems. Fires are a danger and are harder to extinguish. Hertz is returning or cancelling orders for a thousand electric vehicles because they are not in demand for rentals and are hard to maintain. Ford has pulled back investment in battery plants. Toyota has committed solely to hybrids. I’ve driven in them and driven them myself. Meh. Not a big deal, and still limited ranges. We’re going to have to overcome our own hubris and realize that climate change isn’t going to be reversed and maybe not even halted. We can’t build (and insure) housing on the water’s edge or in forests. We can’t expect to ban internal combustion engines, gas stoves, and gas

I send out • Daily video • Monthly video • Weekly podcast • Monthly newsletter • Weekly newsletter • Blog 7 days publicly • Blog 7 days to community • Post on X 7 times per week • Post on LinkiedIn 3 times per week • Send out monthly promo piece That’s 1,651 potential contact points with clients and prospects annually That’s why I receive unsolicited referrals and purchases People can always unsubscribe, I’m never offended How long does this take me: Total is three hours a week or half a day. I don’t self-edit or cover up mistakes I use self-effacing humor I tackle some tough issues I have a huge net, so I only pull out the fish I desire I have offerings at various levels for everyone I market before I create content I rely on external resources for technology, etc. I’m faster at both quality and quantity than ChatGPT Does this really work? Well, you’re listening right now, right?

The pandemic is a milestone event. Even if the medical effects have been ameliorated (which is debatable), the social impact is huge and continuing. Some of the evidence: • Some people continuing to wear masks, which also serve as a “warning” to others, and is an extreme behavior if one isn’t otherwise medically compromised. Covid transmission interpersonally would require someone in very close proximity for an extended period of time. Also, masks prompt people to keep touching their faces, which can cause further disease spread. • “Live” business meetings have been hugely reduced, from conventions of thousands to conferences among a few people. • Business travel has been commensurately reduced with remote meetings preferred. • People are suffering from mental health issues being in isolation in their homes, even with family, because of the inability to have lunch or a drink with co-workers. • Work pressures have mounted as leaders try to figure out how to assign and measure productivity among people who are

Jeff is the publisher of Performance Magazine which has featured interviews of and articles from people as diverse as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Shaquille O’Neal, Sir Richard Branson, Joan Rivers, and Larry King, among hundreds of others. In this conversation we talk about the effectiveness, and lack thereof, of the media; the major issues on the minds of executives post-pandemic; how to convince people to accept an interview even if they haven’t heard of you or the publication; and why Jeff, living in Vegas with plenty of Super Bowl invitations, will be on an airplane heading to a National Guard operation in New England to work with the leadership. Jeff is controversial (he will not pursue an interview with the current occupant of the White House) and outspoken. He feels that the pandemic, even now, has caused a seismic shift in global business and leadership, and that promotions are based on being seen frequently in order to be known. One of his clients says, “If I don’t know you, I can’t promote you, an

I’ve met Rudy Giuliani. We belonged to the same cigar club in New York (which has since lost its lease). Those were the days when he was still in the afterglow of “America’s Mayor” from the way he led after 9/11. And those were the days when crime in New York was way down. He and the police commissioner, Bill Bratton, instituted tough approaches to “minor” violations, believing they would lead to arrests and halting of major violations. So there were penalties for blocking intersections (today in Manhattan, city buses block intersections with impunity), for jumping turnstiles in subways, for the guys who tried to wash car windshields at red lights. And crime greatly diminished. Today, we have district attorneys and other highly progressive politicians who have either made “minor” crimes acceptable or have refused to prosecute them. Here’s the simple math for those of you who never majored in math (I certainly didn’t): When shoplifters steal from stores without any worry about being prosecuted, fined, or jaile

How do you create a million dollar idea and begin earning on it in one weekend? Noah Kagan is one of my buddies and a guy I greatly admire. He’s founded and sold several multi-million dollar enterprises—and readily admits to his share of failures, as well—and he’s put together an approach, summarized in Million Dollar Weekend, which is a clear recipe for success. I know about how to make millions of dollars in consulting, for example. Noah has accelerated that process for most of you. He makes fascinating points about quantity winning over quality, in that quantity tends to find many more powerful solutions. He talks about how the Rule of 100 will get you started, and stresses something we all know but don’t practice nearly enough: You don’t get if you don’t ask. So join us here as he explains how he simply asked people to board their private jet, and wound up flying to Boston without any luggage or plans and then was terribly disappointed in flying home again commercially! Listen to what he says about ma

Isn’t Starbucks just a tad affected when the have “baristas” and sizes like grande and venti and trenta and Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Is it possible not to want to body slam a “barista” who informs you they don’t like to put whole milk in a cappuccino because of “poor frothing”? I saw a couple enter a diner for breakfast carrying takeout Starbucks coffee. That level of self-absorption can cause implosion. When it’s ten degrees with a wind-chill of minus 15, why do women in skirts and dresses have bare legs? Is that really comfortable or just a concession to fashion that can cause serious illness? When I buy shoes, I can wear them right out of the store. Women, a year later, are still complaining about the pain (and apparently some hire other women to “break them in”). Talking to the movie screen or to performers on stage in a theater is not a cultural manifestation. It is simple unbounded rudeness. Trying to pay a dinner bill proportionately (“We didn’t have an appetizer and I only had one drink”) is the ha

One of the major issues with a lack of success is that people don’t hold themselves accountable. They fail to meet deadlines, fail to fulfill obligations.  They put more work into making excuses than they would have doing the actual work. The old “dog ate my homework” is now “there was traffic,” “we have child care issues,” “my internet was down.” There are no consequences for our failing our own accountabilities, and no rewards for meeting them. I’ll get around to it, unless I decide not to. Symptoms include lateness, unpreparedness, seeking last minute help or replacements, begging for more time. If you don’t think this is systemic as well as individual, think of Pearl Harbor (or 9/11, when flight schools had Muslim pupils who wanted to learn how to take off, navigate, and fly, but not land). We are unorganized and rarely penalized for it. We are able to blame others or the system of the deep web or some conspiracy, somewhere. Occupy Wall Street, Soak the Rich, down with Big Pharma. And, eventually, the

If you want to see writing exhaustion, this is the series. After two pretty decent seasons, the show devolved through the ensuing six as if the writers had become deprived of oxygen. Every time someone knocks on a door, the response is, “What are you doing here?” It’s not, “Good to see you,” or “How can I help you?”, or “Are you lost?” People discussing matters in a private office are interrupted with a solution or dramatic new information by a colleague simply traipsing in from the halls. There are continuing confrontations and apologies, prefacing further confrontations and apologies, between and among the same people, often multiple times per show. People hard to reach are ambushed in the streets—outside their offices, at hot dog carts, in public garages—as if they were on a schedule and could easily be found. Similarly, people barge into private offices in other buildings without bothering to go through security or secretaries or assistants. And the person being accosted says, of course, “What are you d

• We’re seeing huge changes in healthcare. •  About 25% of patients used telehealth last year, far exceeding the 5% who accessed care this way before the pandemic. • Pharmacies with physicians present (like pet stores with vets present) • Physicians in private practice greatly reduced. • The share of doctors who worked in practices wholly owned by physicians fell from 60.1% to 46.7% from 2012 to 2022. • More people seeing nurse practitioners • From 2016 to 2021, the number of primary care physicians billing Medicare declined each year, from 142,000 physicians in 2016 to 135,000 physicians in 2021.  • Physicians tell me that the paperwork, reimbursement bureaucracy, and corporate demands are terrible. Example: 5-8 minutes allowed for patient questions during visits. • Some exceptions: dermatologists have modestly increased. There are no midnight emergencies for dermatologists. • Faith in the medical establishment has been undermined by the conflicting medical and political decisions during and after COVID. •

• Cut your expenses: virtual assistants, subscription software, subcontracting (even in the Philippines). • Move work to the client. • Focus on advisory work, not project work. • Increase number of sales. • Increase amount of sales. • Increase duration of client relationships. • Increase solicited referrals. • Create community evangelism. • Produce new products and services for existing clients. • Reduce marketing expenses. • Reduce time waste (internet). • Stop overdelivering/providing what wasn’t requested. • Track your time in a journal. • Get paid in advance. • Never tolerate delayed payments. • Focus on total days to cash. • List and evaluate all possible expenses (e.g., office rent at home, medical).

When you have a great talent on stage, do we really need dancers, other singers, flashing lights, and magic tricks? What does Starbucks gain giving us all those choices in its own strange language? Have you ever noticed how visitors from Europe are astonished at the size and number of our restaurant dinner courses? Have you ever tried to quickly find something in a car’s owner’s manual? Can you read all the menu options at Dunkin’ Donuts drive through window before the person in the car behind you becomes homicidal because they haven’t had their coffee? Do you love being “pitched” to buy credit cards on airplanes (which probably all lower your credit score)? Can you really decipher the bond issues you’re asked to vote upon with their triple negatives and boiler plate language? We tend to provide so many options to appear as if they raise the overall quality of our offerings. Or the lawyers insist we cover all the ground we can and leaver out nothing. Maybe the customers are at fault—do we need instruction

•The American Council on Education reports that 33% of universities and colleges have female presidents. • In the Ivy League it’s six of eight. Several for the first time ever. • The three women in front of the congressional committee were clearly over their heads, ill prepared, stunned, and soon reversed some of their testimony. • We’re focused on identity, not talent. • Boards used to seek academic excellence and a track record of outstanding leadership. • Now they want the first woman, or minority, or trans person, or whatever. • When Biden promised a black, female Supreme Court nominee, he found Ketanji Brown, by all accounts an excellent jurist. • But he had reduced her to the “best black female” available, instead of the “best candidate available.” That’s demeaning. • The Boston Association of Female Marketing Executives. Why me? Best role model. • Your freedom stops at my nose, I think John Jay. • When you advocate the mass murders of 9 million people, already attempted to begin with beheadings, rap

I find the use of profanity is the last resort for the inarticulate. It’s supposed to be “daring” and “shocking” but it’s actually just lazy. I sometimes surf through the comedy channels and hear standup comedians simply repeating m…..f….. over and over. There is no intellect there, and intellect and pain are actually the basis for almost all real comedy. Putting profanity on a book cover is boring, but it beats trying to come up with an appealing title. But most alarmingly, it’s simply entered the vernacular as adjectival alternatives. I hear parents in restaurants and at home over meals say s..t at in front of their kids. WTF is used by the more delicate, but it’s profanity nonetheless. Teachers and the “elite” often use it to show they’re “hip” and “down to earth,” which is the absolutely last thing they are. At my gym, where we have personal trainers, the music is very often rap with profound profanities, n….. for blacks, and “bitch” or far worse for women, yet there are black people there as well as wom

Have you ever wondered about how other people might see this society? The proliferation of “tip jars” when virtually no service is performed; the intense scrutiny of head injuries in football, while players who make great plays deliberately bang their heads together; cars that can go almost four times the speed limit, manufactured and sold despite it. Why do we smuggle dogs into restaurants, refuse to merge in traffic, and think AI will become sentient and rule us when we still have to unplug and replug electronics as the primary repair principle? Laugh tracks, scripted reality shows, “influencers”: Why do we kid ourselves with this stuff? I wouldn't mind Wolfgang Puck giving me advice on menu selections, but I resent my life trickling away while a waiter tells me his or her favorite dishes. Why do tennis and golf professionals require total silence, but quarterbacks, basketball players, and boxers do not? Why do we talk too much and too loudly in public areas, but we’re mute in elevators? My guess is that