Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

Why do people immediately leaving a church service proceed to cut you off in the parking lot or, immediately before it, park in “no parking” fire zones? Don’t you think Bernie Madoff’s entire family figured out he was crooked and simply ignored what they knew? Politicians curry favor with popular positions but then feel free to change positions once elected and safe. The pandemic was, I believe, d...

According to Google, the average college/university tuition in the US is $26,000 a year, but they range up to nearly $90,000 per year. We know this, these are statistics. Philosophy majors in the US make an average of $62,000 per year. The same for history majors. English majors average $56,000. All teachers in public schools average $65,000 (private schools $50,000). We know this, these are stati...

What are the major concerns of leadership in the near future? • Managing the transient worker • Metrics for true performance and not “presence” • The 40 hour week myth • The environment for intrinsic motivation • Voids of personal fulfillment • The loss of travel • Volunteerism • Abandoning guilt for not adhering to archaic work standards • Pushing accountability down and over to the individual •...

• Gratification is pleasure • Immediate means done at once • Why do we seek this: ° To avoid delay in important matters personally/professionally. Evolutionary need for food, protection ° A fear of opportunity lost ° Impulsivity. Especially as we age. If not now, when? ° Intellectual curiosity. ° Poverty, desperation ° Boredom. Here’s a new shiny object. ° The alternative of long hard work (I can...

Here’s how I saved the entire $450,000 tuition bill for my kids by not having an office. I’ve never needed nor desired employees for my strong, seven-figure business. I want help that’s “in and out” very quickly, no long-term obligations. I use very good outside firms because I believe in investing money to save money. My worth isn’t based on “virtual assistants” whom I find virtually worthless. O...

Bonanza: A situation or event that creates a sudden increase in wealth, good fortune, or profits. It was also a TV show in the heyday of westerns, and ran from 1959 to 1973, second only to Gunsmoke in longevity. It’s still shown in reruns on a variety of cable channels. By accident, I happened to see one the other day with a disclaimer on the screen, citing racial stereotyping on the show and to b...

The Second Smartest Guy in the Room by Alan Weiss

We are in the midst of the largest transgenerational shift in wealth in the history of the country. Part of this are the maturing retirement funds created under the Reagan administration, and part is the succession of small business owners from founders to the second (or third) generations. Barry Banther has worked with hundreds of family businesses, from $50 million to $500 million in revenues. H...

Is an economically disadvantaged kid better off because of an insistence on how many black film editors, or baseball executives, or executive chefs receive awards? Is climate change really helped by expensive legislation that kills jobs and causes inefficiencies? (The prohibition of gas-powered anything.) Virtue signaling is the public expression of opinions or sentiments intended to demonstrate o...

Jeff has been representing me for over 30 years, and was responsible for acquiring publishers (McGraw-Hill, Wiley, Macmillan, AMACOM, et. al.) for my four best-sellers, including the 30-year, 6-edition Million Dollar Consulting. He is responsible for thousands of published works and hundreds of authors’ happiness. For example, he represented the famous Why Bad Things Happen to Good People. We talk...

I received a letter from someone who had subscribed to one of my newsletters for $250 annually. He was late, but I accepted him, and he demanded—not requested—that I send him all the issues he has missed. I did that and he complained that they weren’t always in the same format, although I think that was a matter of his equipment, not mine. Now he’s complained that he didn’t get the final (August)...

Elin Hilderbrand has a new book called Five Star Weekend. In my view, it’s awful, not at all up to her earlier work, predictable, with paper-thin characters and a dumb plot. You may disagree with me, most people do according to the reviews on Amazon. But I posted a very critical review. Amazon accepted it. However, after accepting it, someone clearly complained, because I received this obtuse comm...

An “old fashioned” is a fabulous cocktail. The official origin of the drink is still heavily debated. While the Waldorf-Astoria in New York by way of the Pendennis Club, a private social club in Louisville, KY has been crested as the birthplace of the cocktail as we know it today, the publication of Modern American Drinks, by George Kappeler, in 1895 mentions the recipe for the Old Fashioned Whisk...

In 1973, D. Keith Mano wrote his only science fiction book, The Bridge. It takes place in 2035, over 60 years since its original publication, but only 12 years from today. It is about radical environmentalism run amok with a “green” socialist government.  The government decides to give earth back to nature, after already protecting all animal and plant life, but the fact that we destroy microbes e...

When we see an empty ballroom, or stadium, or theater, we can see unlimited possibilities if we have any creative juices at all. We can stage performances, meetings, athletic events, entertainment, networking opportunities, and so forth. But then we think of our fictitious “business life” and “personal life” duality, and we bifurcate that huge space with a wall right down the middle, a line of dem...

Let me harshly deal here with people who provide you with feedback you didn’t ask for, don’t require, and can’t use. That applies to feedback which is too positive as well as too negative. We talk here about the trivialists, the hypocrites, the projectionists, and the general pains in the ass. Those who claim the only thing to do with feedback is to consider it are directing you toward the life of...

Seth Magaziner and I met when he ran for, and served as, Rhode Island State Treasurer for eight years. I asked that we make this conversation non-partisan, to which he agreed, and as always was gracious with his time and accessibility. We talk about his view of the three biggest issues he sees facing America: climate change, income and opportunity inequality, and the rise of non-democratic movemen...

What do you mean? What do we mean? What is “meaning”? We seem to be engaged existentially in some search for meaning. The Beatles were famous for a spiritual odyssey with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. We seek such spiritual guidance in many (often strange) forms: sweat tents, therapy, 12-step programs, trodding on hot coals. The meaning in our lives needn’t be religious or spiritual, but one would think...

I could share theater stories with Tony all day long. As both an actor and director of great stature, his knowledge of the theater and its strengths and weaknesses is impressive. We talk about the myth of the “dying” theater and the “aging” demographic. Tony points out that both the theater and the audiences have been “dying” since birth, to be replaced by new cohorts. His view is that people most...

Remember “the benefit of the doubt”? That was meant to convey the belief that, when something was in doubt, give the other person a break. Don’t assume guilt, or fault, or ulterior motive. Maybe it was just a mistake, or an accident, or your misunderstanding. So we tended to ask, “Is that what you meant to say?” or “Why exactly did you do that?” or “Perhaps I’m not understanding this correctly.” W...

Randy told me once that you don’t end poverty by creating more of it. He’s an independent thinker on prosperity and success. He doesn’t connect prosperity solely to financial well-being, but rather to an intelligent combination of factors, happiness being one of them. He very pessimistic about our news sources and you’ll be fascinated by his personal, daily routine. He actually times himself on Tw...

Guido and I have known each other for a quarter century. He introduced my concept of value-based fees in Germany in building his multi-million euro boutique consultancy. We talk here about the post-pandemic atmosphere in Germany and in Europe. These issues include: • labor shortages • remote vs. in-person work • post-Brexit realties • existential vs. pragmatic issues We discuss what his clients ar...

How much have times changed in the past 50 years? What is the difference in view point, expectation, and options for college graduates today versus those in 1968? Of course, 1968 was no picnic. The Tet Offensive raged in the Viet Nam War, Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, and the inner cities burned. But in ’68, seniors in college became engaged and married soon after graduat...

50s: Constancy, GI Bill, Levittown, Sputnik, Korean War, Univac, DNA discovered, Joe McCarthy, Hungarian uprising, Montgomery bus boycott 60s: Kennedys shot, King shot, Woodstock, the Beatles, Watts riot and cities burn, Cuban missile crisis, Viet Nam, Bay of Pigs, first televised presidential debate, USSR had hydrogen bomb 70s: Kent State shootings, Watergate, Nixon and Agnew resign, Mars landing...

Chris gave up his commission as a full Colonel in Afghanistan to assist three, four-star generals and two Secretaries of State to try to negotiate with the Taliban. He was the only combat officer ever asked to do so. The lessons he learned he’s applied to both business and charity. Chris specializes in helping leaders, entrepreneurs, and our “wounded warriors.” We talk about the readily-transferab...