Alchemy For Life

The right and the wrong way to approach a networking event Most of my episodes are about experimental psychology, how to deal with and manage time, energy and resources, or a unique concept I’d like you to consider. Sometimes the episode is a purely business-related show. This is one of them. The excruciatingly hilariously wrong way to handle a networking event. The wrong way to approach a n...

Advice Who doesn’t like giving advice? Who doesn’t like receiving it? Wait, put your hands down, that was rhetorical. In all seriousness sometimes we need to ask for advice (we can’t all be in a bubble) and we are lucky that someone values our wisdom enough to ask us for our advice. I certainly am honored when that happens and it makes me feel validated (see The Status Game II )....

The olden days of voice only In the olden days when people wanted to collaborate they would jump on a conference call vs. jumping on a video call. It was extremely common to have a number of calls during any given week, and the larger the business the more conference calls there were. How many is too many? There is an upper limit to how many meetings you can constructively have, and it’s not...

Sometimes you get the chance to see something from two perspectives. Sometimes both perspectives come from the same person. Sometimes that person is you. The fun part Here’s a quick 10-minute episode on how and why this happens, and how you can use it not only on yourself but to understand others (and maybe help them understand you!)

Remember the How Do You Have Time For This? episode? If not, check it out. I talked about how more than once I’ve been asked “How do you have time for that” when I chat about books, speaking, podcasts, projects, etc. And my answer to them is always “That’s the wrong question.” The question should be, “How do you have energy for that.” Energy over tim...

Parasympathetic Nervous System The network of nerves that creates the system that’s known for the ‘rest and digest’ feelings is the parasympathetic nervous system. This system is what aids in digestion, slows your heart rate and give you general feelings of well being . I want that. I want a lot of that. I bet you do too. Sympathetic Nervous System The opposite is the Sympathetic...

Stroke support Group Recently, I sat in on a stroke support group. The group was for both the individuals who experienced strokes as well as their caretakers/family members. I had the blessing of the admin staff to do so. Was it uncomfortable? Yes did I feel out of place? Sort of. Did I learn something very powerful? Absolutely. I always do. Comfort zone We all stay in our comfort zones because th...

Knowing your strengths Do you know your strengths some people do and some people don’t. If you do know your strengths, there is something about them. You may not realize and that’s the subject of this podcast. Stretching too far Sometimes when we approach a goal or a task, we look for a way to do it that makes sense. We learn new skills and get better at our approach. Just keep doing i...

What is an iteration? An iteration is an updated version of something built upon its previous version. But, and iteration can also be another separate version. Examples of iterations When someone bakes a cake, they can create a cake that has chocolate filling, vanilla frosting, and multicolor sprinkles on the outside. They can assess that cake and then realize that it would be better with raspberr...

Type A Personalities The phrase type a refers to a pattern of behavior and personality associated with high achievement, competitiveness, and impatience. Does this sound like you? Does this sound like most C-level employees? Does this sound like most entrepreneurs and creatives? If you’re listening to this podcast you most likely are. Productivity and meaning You probably derive a lot of mea...

White Space The first known use of ‘White Space’ was back in 1946, and it means the area of a page without writing or pictures. It’s the part between the words, the part that allows us to pause and consider. it allows us to compartmentalize one set of thoughts from another. Social Media and the looooooong post Have you ever noticed posts on social media sometimes people post a fe...

Coach So what is a coach? And what is a life coach? “Life Coach” never really generated positive professional images in my mind, even though I’m considered to be one. It appeared out of nowhere and came with baggage. At least to me. But now it seems that everyone is a coach, and each one has a different flavor. Even those that focus on a very specific task are coaches. Words You know I like me the...

Three words There are a number of words that can cause an emotional reaction. I won’t use the word ‘trigger’ because that’s overused. We’re not going to go over all of those words, but we’re going to do three of them: fault, responsibility, and ownership—and we’re going to explore the positives of those words. There’s a positive version of fault ?! A...

Passion Everyone talks about passion. For a long time, you were told to follow your passion. I talked about passion in Job, Career or Calling a few years ago. Obviously passions are good as they give us that energy we need, but there are a lot of things we are not told about them. Multiple passions But what if you have more than one passion? And what if you have more than one like? And what if you...

Google Gemini Gemini is Google’s version of ChatGPT . It’s a large language model (LLM) that thinks and responds naturally. You can have conversations, ask for advice, ask it to play a part, and even ask it to generate images. That’s where my journey began. I asked it to generate a few images. This led to a discussion about Bias. Bias You see, Gemini’s handlers have you cov...

Down days It’s normal for people to have down days, to have times in which they become less than motivated. it’s also normal to find yourself without purpose here and there. Sure, you have a purpose—you have good old Maslow’s hierarchy of needs to keep you going. Are ya hungry? In pain? Do you need to make money? Do you need a hug today (the answer is always yes). But there are m...

Did I catch you in time? Every year I tell you not to make resolutions—not because I don’t want you to set goals, but because resolutions (at least the style of setting goals) traditionally have a fantastic failure rate. So, before you make them (or if you’ve made them, before you try to execute them) listen to this, and it may be what actually allows you to make it happen. In fact, I&...

AI & ChatGPT* A language model uses a special kind of learning to conduct a ‘probability distribution’ over words used to predict the most likely next word in a sentence based on the previous entry. Language models learn from text and can be used for producing original responses (both short and very long), predicting the next word in a text, speech recognition, optical character re...

There are a lot of lists out there for how to obtain happiness, productivity, etc. As you know Alchemy for Life™ is exactly about that too. So, I’d like to not only share some of these principals, but tell you about my real world experience with them as well as what you will encounter by utilizing them. In other words, what the reality is of these things. Ikigai – the intersection of a...

“There’s no wrong way to do it…” Have you ever been given that advice? Did it make sense to you? Did it set you at ease? No, me neither. Let me tell you why that is the worst advice you can give someone who is trying to improve their craft, and why you NEVER hear it from anyone who is accomplished at what they do. Let’s talk about creatives, getting better at what you...

Do you have a catalog? if you call yourself a creative, then it is important to catalog your work. In that, I mean to take a step back and see the various foundations you’ve built. It’s a good idea anyway to take a step back, as many creators have to ask Does This Suck? (See the podcast episode of the same name if you’re having this issue). My catalog – putting aside my fic...

Attitude is everything That’s one of those phrases we have heard to death and to the point that it’s lost any real meaning, hasn’t it? If you’re like me you might even cringe at it and just wave it off as mind-over-matter kind of nonsense—even if it has made a difference in your life. I want to talk about that, but specific to consuming media, and even more specific to read...

Triangulation Triangulation is the process by which you use more than one location to find the location of something. I point gets distance, two points gets position on the ground, three points gets altitude. That’s exactly how GPS works—the more satellites the better the accuracy. Imagine Limiting Belief You hear this all the time in the motivational and coaching circles. When you hear that...

Start with awareness As with every episode we start with an awareness. In this case it’s an awareness of the fact that we are always gathering knowledge. Thermostats My thermostat tells me the humidity if I walk over to it, but even though I can ask and manipulate the temperature, I can’t ask about the humidity. So it has the knowledge, but it can’t impart it. You’re a huma...

Great storms announce themselves with a single breeze, and a single random spark can ignite the fires of rebellion.  Bishop of Aquila – Ladyhawke (1985) A great quote from one of my all-time favorite movies. You may even say it was an influence on The Sword and the Sunflower . But that statement really makes you think about a major event, and how it “announces” itself. That...