Why do we avoid making decisions? In some cases, it has to do with the choice architecture of the thing to be decided upon. We might not have any opportunity to practice our options.  Thaler and Sunstein say, "Practice makes perfect (or at least better). Unfortunately, some...

A little story time. A few months back, Damien took one of our vehicles in for its annual state inspection to a local place that does inspections, but it’s primary business is tire sales. It passed inspection, and he drove it home. On the way home, he noticed that the tire...

At the beginning of this quarter, one of my ABC Model goals was to write no less than three and no more than five posts per week (one of the tactics from Effortless that I wrote about in Book Brew 43). While I have written a few posts so far this quarter, they haven’t been...

Damien and I have had many conversations about our upbringings and how vastly different they were. In one of our recent conversations, we got on the subject of how those around us, while we were growing up (and in some cases even still today), tend to put up walls. We were...

Some days, I read passages in these books and can sit down and write out my thoughts right then. Then, there are other times when the passages are so thought-provoking that I need time to digest and reflect on what I have read before putting my thoughts onto paper. The...

Sometimes, you’ve just had a day.  But these always seem to be the days that everyone wants to test your patience via email.  You can only respond so many times before you snap and type what you really feel.

I have written two blog posts (Book Brew 33 and Book Brew 66….too bad this one isn’t #99 for a cool pattern—though I suppose 76 is still a neat number... if you squint.) on the topic of empathic listening and effective communication, so you would think I have said all...

I just finished reading the section of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People on the fourth habit of Think Win/Win. While reading through it, I had to stop quite a few times to sit and reflect on what I had just read because it was very insightful into some of the...

Eugene Schwartz is a legendary direct-response advertiser.  If you do anything with marketing, advertising, copywriting, etc., you are probably using one of his strategies or tactics.  

Why is it that more often than not, when we are given good advice from someone who has more knowledge, expertise, and/or experience in the area than we do, we don’t follow said advice? This has been heavy on my mind for the past few days, and I am putting this out there in...