Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

A "battleground state" in a US election is a state where either candidate might win depending on the appeal to voters and for whom the majority votes. This is the essence of democracy. Shouldn't every state be a "battleground state"? The same should apply to Congressional and Senate Seats. We have Senators serving longer than many European monarchs. Will people with that kind of sinecure ever vote...

War’s End? We’ve honored the character and acts of Jimmy Carter upon his death, as we should. But most of the honor was due to his works after he left his one-term presidency, defeated by Ronald Regan. People voted for a starkly different candidate (as they did with Trump after both Obama and Biden). One of Carter’s great blunders was his handling of the Iranian hostage crisis, that lasted for ove...

We made four significant charitable contributions to the arts at year end. Two of the the group’s management called to thank us. Whenever I see a positive mention about me on social media, I write in to simply say thanks for the generosity. I thank bussers and gas station attendants. I thank my trainer each time. It doesn’t matter whether I’m paying them or not. People get unduly upset when people...

Show Notes: Predictions • Both wars will run out of steam and end, officially or unofficially. • There will be insurrections in Iran. • Neither the Dodgers, nor the Celtics, nor the Chiefs will repeat. • Electric car requirements and limits on ICEs will be lifted or eased. • Retinal scanning and fingerprints will allow many to circumvent TSA. • Attempts to copyright and/or trademark AI composites...

Forget resolutions that are broken in 90 minutes. Try to focus on the good things that you do and that happen to you. Try a personal journal. You don’t have to be compulsive, but keep it handy, electronically or physically, to easily record things. These may be good acts done for you by others or good acts you perform, especially spontaneously and “in the moment.” Record experiences that were unpl...

These are times of astounding incivility, harassment, and dismissiveness. These acts are based on a posturing of moral superiority, as if mere disagreement denotes an inferior being. There is a line in Morris West's The Navigator that states: "And that's the terror of the high place and the high man. Is it God he hears or the echo of his own mad shouting?" Hillary Clinton most probably sealed her...

Are you looking where it's easy or where you're more likely to succeed? We content ourselves with people who can say no and can't say yes. We seek affection and not respect. Remember "looking for love in all the wrong places"? You won't find love in a bar. A woman told me all the really appealing men in bars are married or gay! If you want to catch fish, go where no one else is fishing, not where...

We seem to have a sense of entitlement. We believe we’re being “ghosted” (a ridiculous term) when people don’t return our calls because we didn’t sufficiently impress them or excite them in our earlier interactions. We’re not entitled to: • Clients who never change a schedule • Not having an opinion on business practices • Using non-validated testing instruments • Always ignoring the dinner check...

You steer into a skid; you don't try to get out of it because then you lose control. We have to exploit opportunities and deal with setbacks resiliently—"bouncing forward." Blaming and complaining are for children and immature adults. Never let up. The key is to be at your best when you're under the maximum pressure.  We should be able to make minor and major adjustments in our lives and work and...

Relativism holds that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture, society, and/or historical context and are not absolute. I’m not so sure (nor are a lot of other people). Let me speak of relativism today. There is an old Monty Python skit where a one-legged man auditions for a theatrical role as Tarzan. After some awkward movements, the people in the dark of the theater say, “Tha...

The post-mortems from those who did not back the winner in this presidential election seem to be two-fold. On one hand, we have a group of insightful people asking, “What did we do wrong, and how can we improve?” On the other, we have people whose heads are exploding in vitriol and venom.  The latter’s basic premises are that those who voted for the winner were fooled, are ignorant and poorly educ...

We all need friends, but not the same ones! Friends need to evolve as we grow, mature, and change. Marshall Goldsmith and I wrote Lifestorming together, and we somewhat disagreed on this, but he wrote the terrific book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, so I think this applies to friends, as well! Your spouse is your best friend? That’s a cop-out.  You need people who will push back, tell you...

This election reflects a totally flawed Democratic strategy: • Painting your opponent as toxic but not having positive policies. • A candidate who cannot speak without a teleprompter and memorized sound bites. • A morally superior attitude that conveys people voting for the opposition are less educated, dumber, and morally inferior. • Rallying celebrity support, media support, Hollywood support, a...

The turning point in the American Civil War—and probably world history—occurred in Gettysburg on a rise called Little Round Top. At that place, at that time, a Union general saw a vast threat, and a Union Colonel and his regiment averted the threat through the brilliance of a single command. We need more courage in our lives because, unlike Gettysburg, no one is shooting at us. We are too easily p...

We all get the kind of government we deserve. If you voted for the winner of the election, that’s good until such time as you feel promises aren’t being kept. If you voted for the loser of the election, that means not enough people in the right places agreed with you, and you have to submit to the system. However, you’re still free to protest, be surprised by some things that are advantageous to y...

Bill Russell, in Second Wind, defines pressure and performance. For example: - Brady coming back from 25 points down in the second half of the Super Bowl. - Houston, we have a problem (Apollo 13). - Sully Sullenberger landing in the Hudson River.  The need is to really stay calm. - Three Mile Island as opposed to Chornobyl. - Bluffing in poker (vs. the “tell”). - Is Mickey Mouse a dog or a cat? -...

Many people in Rhode Island have never been to Boston, let alone New York. I’ve coached a very successful entrepreneur who has never been to New York and doesn’t wish to go. Most people can’t locate Bolivia or Laos (or Nebraska) on a map. When Americans in a survey were asked the three most famous Japanese they could think of, it was Bruce Lee, Yoko Ono, and Godzilla. Or not? Through my travels ab...

Esteem means respect and admiration. Hence, self-esteem would mean respect and admiration for yourself. Self-worth and self-esteem are the same thing to me, whereas self-confidence is your faith (or lack thereof) that you can do something: efficacy. Pride is feeling proud of your accomplishments, but vanity is insisting that others hear about them, as well. The pandemic, foreign wars, polarization...

The rate of failures of small businesses is astounding: 20% fail during the first two years, 45% during the first five years, and 65% during the first ten years.  While there are myriad reasons, such as succeeding generations of ownership not being as motivated or competent, most of these fail under the original founders and owners. That’s because they tend to think of their business and tasks and...

Some suggestions to build credibility with a buyer during the initial meeting. (This assumes you’re meeting with a true economic buyer who controls the budget.) 1. Assume a peer mentality. Don’t allow yourself to be cast in a “dog and pony show.” (I suggest you never show up with visual aids for this very reason.) Adapt an attitude that the two of you are peers mutually exploring a working relatio...

There are 330 million people in the US that we know of. There are 12,500 school districts, 18,000 police departments, 17,000 libraries, 400 different languages spoken, 45,000 flights per day, 5 million privately and commercially owned vehicles, 200,000 dentists, and 641 amusement parks.  There are nation-states (Japan, Korea), multi-state nations (Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait), and multi-nation st...

This is a marketing lesson for the Catholic Church. I’m a lector and a Eucharistic Minister in the Church and converted 18 years ago. As some of you know, I’ve also spent a great deal of my coaching and consulting career in the field of strategy and have written two commercially published books on the topic. The average age in the church my wife and I attend is north of 60. Young people are not dr...

The agenda of inequality and wealth focused only on the richest might not reconcile with reality. There have been increases in home ownership (even though buying always has its difficulties, from interest rates to inventory). There is a record of intergenerational wealth transfer from retirement savings and the Regan-era IRA legislation. In the West, family prosperity is higher than ever: assets,...

Just tell me what I want to know. People instead tell you everything that they know. College professors are reading their dissertation notes. Electricians are telling you about high and low voltage, amps, and watts. The tree guy tells you about diseases of poplars when you asked if he could prune some dead branches on an oak. The auto guy explains why a repair isn’t as easy as it looks because of...

Even in truly tough times and horrible market segments, there are winners and strong companies. You have to play the hand you’re dealt, and you have to play it well. If anything is happening to you more than two times out of ten, it’s you, not them. With high interest rates, houses are still being sold. With food being expensive, people are still dining out. But you can’t expect yesterday’s ideas...