Ted Tuesday: Julian Treasure— ‘How to Speak So That People Want to Listen’

"Every human being needs to listen consciously in order to live fully."

Good Morning Folks

At FSO, listening to our clients needs is paramount to (re)IMAGINING their future. Ironically we win because our competitors fail in listening.

With that in mind and 3,591,725 combined Ted and YouTube views that have come before your own…. Julian Treasure's talk, "5 ways to listen better" is sure to enlighten you.

There are seven deadly sins of speaking, according to sound consultant Julian:

• Gossiping
• Judging
• Negativity
• Complaining
• Excuses
• Exaggeration
• Dogmatism

It can be difficult to stay away from these conversation killers, but Treasure says there are plenty of ways to make sure you don’t lose your listener. In this TED Talk, he shares tips to speak powerfully—and with a purpose.

The first step is to hail, an exercise in using honesty, authenticity, integrity and love to give your words meaning. Treasure says these things allow you to be clear in what you’re saying—to be straightforward in a way that establishes trust.

After you’ve nailed down what to say, you have to think about how to say it. That’s where the human voice comes into play. Treasure says using different vocal inflections and rates of speech can add an extra layer of meaning to your words—and really drive a point home.

“You have an amazing toolbox. This instrument is incredible, and yet this is a toolbox that very few people have ever opened,” Treasure says.

Is your voice giving you the presence you need? Here are some of the best tools in the box:

1. Register
“If you want weight, you need to go down here to the chest…. We vote for politicians with lower voices, it's true, because we associate depth with power and with authority. That's register.”

2. Timbre
“It's the way your voice feels. Again, the research shows that we prefer voices which are rich, smooth, warm, like hot chocolate.”

3. Prosody
“People who speak all on one note are really quite hard to listen to if they don't have any prosody at all. That's where the word monotonic comes from, or monotonous, monotone.”

4. Pace and Pitch
“I can get very excited by saying something really quickly, or I can slow right down to emphasize…. Of course, pitch often goes along with pace to indicate arousal."

5. Volume
“I can get really excited by using volume…. Or, I can have you really pay attention by getting very quiet. Some people broadcast the whole time. Try not to do that.”

By teaching the next generation to listen and to be empathetic, they will have a better chance at creating an understanding world, and ultimately a more peaceful world.

“Conscious listening creates a world of connection, of understanding and of peace.”

Watch Julian’s talk here:

Thanks to Success magazine for their insights that contributed to this post, to TED and most of all to you for listening. 

Let's all go make things happen today. I look forward to seeing you soon.


Love Life!

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form.TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE. 

Ted Tuesday: Alan Iny— Reigniting Creativity In Business

"True creativity requires you and your company to constantly doubt your current boxes and eventually replace them with new ones. In an ever-changing environment, no idea is good forever."

Good Morning Folks,

The face of business is changing and whether an individual or corporation, the pressure is on to innovate. Employment in America is increasingly operating in a new reality. The constancy of change requires today's career employee to think and act differently, because the path to the American Dream is no longer a guaranteed right of passage.

Creative disruption is shaking every industry. Global competition for jobs is fierce. The employer-employee pact is over and traditional job security is a thing of the past.

CREATIVITY is key to surviving and thriving against all odds. Alan Iny's Ted talk is very much aligned to our way of thinking.

That's why FSO's core strength is to (re)IMAGINE new and better ways of doing business. To give our clients the people, solutions, technology, and cost efficiencies to ensure a fundamental transformation from the back office as we know it today

It’s a paradox. Creativity has never been more essential to competitiveness in the business world, but the critical approach to practical creativity in organizations is often lacking. Alan Iny offers a key to the well-meaning exhortation to “think outside the box:” Apply doubt to the very models and philosophies that make up the box itself.

Even the greatest minds know the frustration of trying to come up with a brilliant idea but constantly ending up with boring thoughts and a trash can filled with wasted paper. Alan Iny suggests a new perspective for reviving creativity in your business. Believe it or not, says Iny, the key to creativity is doubt. Watch this fascinating talk that encourages viewers to adopt a new approach to thinking “outside the box.”

As the senior specialist for creativity and scenarios, Alan Iny has trained thousands of executives and BCG consultants on how to think creatively. A member of the firm’s strategy leadership team, he has vast experience in advising companies worldwide in innovation, scenarios, transformation, organization design and change management across industries. In 2013, Alan launched “Thinking in New Boxes: A New Paradigm for Business Creativity,” written with Luc de Brabandere, and published by Random House.

Here is an excerpt that was originally published in The Economist Group’s Lean back marketing blog.

Seeking new insights into who your markets and customers are, what they really want, and how best to reach and engage them requires thinking in new boxes. A “box,” in our definition, is a belief, concept, working hypothesis, or other mental model you use to interpret the world in front of you. 

True creativity requires you and your company to constantly doubt your current boxes and eventually replace them with new ones. In an ever-changing environment, no idea is good forever. 

The brain’s hardwiring will tend to lead you and your organization to hold on to tired assumptions and constraints. You’re likely to be seduced by a natural bias toward ideas that confirm, rather than contradict, your current way of seeing things.

Henry Ford famously failed to heed even obvious market signals (and insistent colleagues) suggesting that customers were evolving to want different styles and colors after the phenomenal success of his simple all-black Model T. In the 1970s and 1980s, executives at Hindustan Lever Limited assumed that customers for laundry detergent in India were primarily affluent individuals willing to pay for Surf; they didn’t notice that Nirma, a low-cost competitor, appealed to a growing segment of lower-income customers who hadn’t used any detergent before. 

As you seek to understand your organization’s customers and market, stay open to multiple interpretations of the data you collect. There are different plausible segmentations of any customer group, many legitimate ways to break down the market, and multiple ways of perceiving the underlying desires of your customers. 

Consider listing and then challenging your most fundamental beliefs about your customers and markets. Who do you currently think of as your most loyal customers? Ask bold questions that take you and your colleagues outside of your comfort zone. If you are one of the world’s largest designers and retailers of lingerie, what if 10 years from now, 95 percent of your customers were men? If you lead the world’s most popular online search engine—think Google—what if, just 10 years from now, most of your customers were looking to you instead for driverless cars? 

The first step to practical creativity is challenging some of your existing boxes. If you manage this, then you can arrive at a very successful new box simply by changing the way you think about your customers, your competitors, or your own company.

Watch Video: Have a look at Alan's short 8-minute talk, which is accessible by this link which will take you directly to the Ted site.

TED@BCG was an event produced by TED in conjunction with their partner, the Boston Consulting Group.

At FSO all of us strive to be remarkable, not average. FSO provides an environment that rewards innovation, is rich in resources, and respects the incredibly talented team we’ve built over the last six years. Personal, Passionate and Productive, we get the job done to perfection every moment and every day.

Have a GREAT day as I look forward to seeing all of you soon.

Mitchell D. Weiner

Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

Ted Tuesday: Diana Nyad- "Never Give Up"

"Everyday of our lives is epic....Never ever give up...You can chase your dreams at any age...It looks like the most solitary endeavor in the world and in many ways it is, and in other ways and the most important ways it's a team...When you achieve your dreams, it is not so much what you get, but who you have become..."

Good Morning Folks.

A record-setting long-distance swimmer, Diana Nyad writes and thinks deeply about motivation. If you have a dream, and you have obstacles in front of you, believe in perseverance and find a way!

In the pitch-black night, stung by jellyfish, choking on salt water, singing to herself, hallucinating … Diana Nyad just kept on swimming. And that's how she finally achieved her lifetime goal as an athlete: an extreme 100-mile swim from Cuba to Florida — at age 64. Hear her story.

For ten years (1969-1979), Diana Nyad was known as the greatest long-distance swimmer in the world. In 1979, she stroked the then-longest swim in history, making the 102.5-mile journey from the island of Bimini (Bahamas) to Florida. She also broke numerous world records, including what had been a 50-year mark for circling Manhattan Island, setting the new time of 7 hrs 57 min. She is a member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame and the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

At age 60, having not swum a stroke in decades, she began planning for her white whale of distance swims: the 110-mile ocean crossing between Cuba and Florida. She'd tried it once, in her 20s, and severe jellyfish attacks had defeated her then. But now, with a strong team and a new commitment to her vision, she stepped back into the salt. She spoke about this second attempt at TEDMED 2011. And at TEDWomen 2013, in December, she talks about how it feels to have finally done it.

“It's the fifth time I stand on this shore, the Cuban shore, looking out at that distant horizon, believing, again, that I'm going to make it all the way across that vast, dangerous wilderness of an ocean. Not only have I tried four times, but the greatest swimmers in the world have been trying since 1950, and it's still never been done.”

Within the first few seconds, and with these few words, Diana Nyad has painted a picture and set a mood about her challenge; to swim from Cuba to Florida. She has also established herself as someone you want to listen to, to trust that she is telling the truth, and to find out what happened. What a powerful start.
Motivation aside, so what can you learn and apply about presentations from Diana Nyad’s TED talk?

==> Show passion.
You can instantly hear the passion in Diane’s voice. As you listen, look away from the screen and just listen for a few moments. You can clearly hear the passion in her cadence, and in her vocal inflections. Notice that she is telling you a story, not reciting a stream of facts or numbers. You hear how meaningful and emotional this journey was. Now think of your own presentations; are you focused on the story, the meaning, or the facts and figures? What would happen if you let a little more passion into these talks?

==> Make it real.
Did you see the sharks? Did you feel the frigid water and experience the solitude of the pitch dark? Did you hear her singing John Lennon's "Imagine" – 200 times? These are not mere details. This is the concrete description that makes her story so tangible. You can't fake this, at least most of us can't. What you can do is go to that place where what you are talking about is real and immediate, and then describe what you are seeing and feeling. (If this is difficult for you, contact me about learning the skills of being in the moment and completely focused.)

==> It's not about your slides.
Did you miss seeing bullet points, charts and graphs, or photos? I don't think you did. In fact, I didn't notice until the end that there nothing but Diana and the world she created verbally. Slides would have been so distracting and even irritating as you wanted to hear this story from her lips. Now, if you don’t want to go completely without slides, at least try to cut back and see what happens. Then cut back some more. Use fewer slides, and put less and less on each one. Or start and end you next talk without slides, using them only as needed.

==> Keep it short.
This talk is about fifteen minutes. She could surely have talked for an hour, or many hours, but she told her story in a compelling way in a fairly short timeframe. Your audience is probably too polite to tell you, but they wish you would be a little more concise. Take out unnecessary "padding." Strip the story down to its basics. Tell enough to make your point. Then end it well.

Make it into a story. Note that Diana takes you from standing on the shore ready to set forth at the beginning, and ends with the crowd cheering and her speaking with reporters at the end. This is classic story style. As a bonus, she added three big takeaways as the final thoughts. Use storytelling structure to make your talks more memorable. And make sure you don't blow off your beginning and endings; these are key targets you must hit.

Take a few pointers from Diana Nyad. Never ever give up. Keep working to make your presentations, speeches and informal talks more concise, compelling and genuine. And, once you get to TED.com, look around. There are many speeches you can learn from, and I will be continuing to write about the ones I think have lessons for us all.

Thanks to Applause Inc for leading me to this which delivered it to you.

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

TED Tuesday: Lorrie Faith Cranor- What’s wrong with your pa$$w0rd?

"So passwords are something that I hear a lot about. A lot of people are frustrated with passwords, and it's bad enough when you have to have one really good password that you can remember but nobody else is going to be able to guess. But what do you do when you have accounts on a hundred different systems and you're supposed to have a unique password for each of these systems? It's tough."

Good Morning Folks,

Abner Goodwin's job title is Systems Specialist so like most IT people he should know best about security right? We'll even some folks in IT can procrastinate changing their passwords longer than filing their income tax. So don't feel bad, but use today's talk to set your browsing on a more secure path.

Abner blogs, "I’ve been an Internet user for about half my life now. That’s been enough time to collect many, many accounts. I have at least 3 email accounts, accounts on the usual social networking sites, and a slew of random accounts for online stores and services. I figure that I have somewhere around 30 personal accounts that I’ve set up over the years. There are many others that I’ve lost track of, consigned to the briny depths of the web to be forever forgotten."

"It’s time for a confession dear readers: I have committed a grievous evil. I have re-used passwords for multiple personal accounts with wild abandon. On top of that, before this article, I had not changed passwords on some accounts for years. What’s worse is I know better than this; I follow best practices for passwords in my professional life obsessively. Seriously, there was an intervention and everything. I guess it would be at this point where I’d say something about the cobbler’s son having no shoes."

"This was pretty much the extent of my super sophisticated personal password scheme. Luckily, I kept the post-it note under my keyboard where no one would ever find it."

"Continuing down this cliche’d path, I’ve heard that people don’t change until the pain of staying the same is greater than the pain of changing. For me, the pain came just a few days ago when I received an email from a forum that I belong to. The email stated that they’d been compromised and that the attacker had gained access to their database of usernames and encrypted passwords."

Lorrie Faith Cranor is a Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-director of the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc. She has authored over 100 research papers on online privacy, usable security, and other topics

Lorrie Faith Cranor studied thousands of real passwords to figure out the surprising, very common mistakes that users — and secured sites — make to compromise security. And how, you may ask, did she study thousands of real passwords without compromising the security of any users? That's a story in itself. It's secret data worth knowing, especially if your password is 123456 ...

I found this video on some research Lorrie is doing on the subject very interesting and insightful

Says Lorrie:

 "I always cringe whenever people talk about choosing passwords, but this has some interesting insights into the strengths and weaknesses of various techniques, and it even mentions some I've not heard of before." 

e’ve all heard the common password advice: Choose a random password with a lot of characters, include digits and symbols, don’t use a dictionary word, don’t write it down and change it often. While some of this advice is useful, some of it is counterproductive and probably even harmful. 

Next Friday I will be giving a Game Changer talk at the IAPP Global Privacy Summit in which I will discuss research results—from my own research group at Carnegie Mellon University as well as from others—that demonstrates that what most people thought they knew about passwords is wrong. 

Most humans are not very good at memorizing random things, and they don’t enjoy doing it. While we are impressed by the talent of spelling bee champions, most of us would rather not spend our time on rote memorization. 

It turns out we’re also not very good at coming up with random things, let alone memorizing them. We like to think of ourselves as unique, but we actually think alike more than we want to admit, and we tend to be rather predictable. 

So, when we’re asked to come up with a random password, we do something that seems random to us but is actually what a lot of other people do. We think of some song lyrics, the name of our pet, a cartoon character, a TV show, a sports team or even the name of a friend or family member. Or maybe we trace our fingers on a keyboard and type in a sequence of keys that appear next to each other—maybe diagonally down one column and then up the next, because that seems more random than just going left to right across. If we have to add a symbol, we type an exclamation point at the end. If we have to add a number, it is most likely a 1. And if a capital letter is needed, it goes at the beginning. 

And because this was so much work to not only choose, but to remember, and because we know we’re not supposed to write our passwords down, the next time we have to create a password, we just use the same one we already created.
But what happens when you log in and are told that your password has expired and you have to choose a new one? Chances are you increment the 1 to a 2 or add another exclamation point to the end."

Research shows that forcing users to change their password on a regular basis does not actually increase security. In fact, it encourages users to create weaker passwords and increment them according to a predictable scheme. So, not only does password expiration annoy users, it likely makes their passwords more vulnerable to attack. Have a look:



Here are a few highlights of Lorrie's talk:

• Long passwords with simple requirements can be easier to use and just as strong as shorter passwords with complex requirements.
• Password meters can encourage users to create stronger passwords, but most password meters used on websites today provide positive feedback prematurely.
• Passphrases seem like a good idea, but users don’t find random passphrases more usable than passwords.
• Monkey is the most popular animal to include in a password and among the most popular words to include in a password.

So it seems that at the end of the day, when we make passwords, we either make something that's really easy to type, a common pattern, or things that remind us of the word password or the account that we've created the password for, or whatever. Or we think about things that make us happy, and we create our password based on things that make us happy. And while this makes typing and remembering your password more fun, it also makes it a lot easier to guess your password. So I know a lot of these TED Talks are inspirational and they make you think about nice, happy things, but when you're creating your password, try to think about something else.

Have a GREAT Day,

Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

..................................................

"The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are."
 ~ Carl Jung

..................................................

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

About Lorrie Faith Cranor

Lorrie Faith Cranor is a Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-director of the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. She is also a co-founder of Wombat Security Technologies, Inc. She has authored over 100 research papers on online privacy, usable security, and other topics. She has played a key role in building the usable privacy and security research community, having co-edited the seminal book Security and Usability (O'Reilly 2005) and founded the Symposium On Usable Privacy and Security (SOUPS). She also chaired the Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) Specification Working Group at the W3C and authored the book Web Privacy with P3P (O'Reilly 2002). She has served on a number of boards, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation Board of Directors, and on the editorial boards of several journals. In 2003 she was named one of the top 100 innovators 35 or younger by Technology Review magazine. She was previously a researcher at AT&T-Labs Research and taught in the Stern School of Business at New York University. In 2012-13 she spent her sabbatical year as a fellow in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University where she worked on fiber arts projects that combined her interests in privacy and security, quilting, computers, and technology. She practices yoga, plays soccer, and runs after her three children.

Ted Tuesday— Yves Morieux: How Too Many Rules At Work Keep You From Getting Things Done

"Productivity is not everything, but in the long run, it is almost everything."

Good Morning Folks,

Today I am sharing a great TED talk which shows that even having best people doesn't guarantee great results. More often than not, the team, able and willing go the extra mile will take the victory.

This talk very much reminded me of the advantage FSO has serving our clients as an outsourced partner. Being on the outside, looking in, we are not mired by the bureaucracy and internal politics that can impede teams from cooperating fully.

Modern work - from waiting tables to crunching numbers to dreaming up new products - is about solving brand-new problems every day, flexibly, in brand-new ways. But as Yves Morieux shows in this insightful talk, delivered at TED@Boston Consulting Group London and since viewed over a million times line— too often, an overload of processes and sign-offs and internal metrics keeps us from doing our best. He offers a new way to think of work - as a collaboration, not a competition.

Yves Morieux thinks deeply about what makes organizations work effectively. A senior partner in BCG’s Washington D.C. office and director of the BCG Institute for Organization, Morieux considers how overarching changes in structure can improve motivation for all who work there. His calls his approach "Smart Simplicity." Using six key rules, it encourages employees to cooperate in order to solve long-term problems. It isn’t just about reducing costs and increasing profit -- it’s about maximizing engagement through all levels of a company. Morieux has been featured in articles on organizational evolution in Harvard Business Review, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal, Fast Company and Le Monde.

Yves believes that our organizations are wasting human intelligence. They have turned against human efforts. When people don't cooperate, don't blame their mindsets, their mentalities, their personality -- look at the work situations. Is it really in their personal interest to cooperate or not, if, when they cooperate, they are individually worse off? Why would they cooperate? When we blame personalities instead of the clarity, the accountability, the measurement, we add injustice to ineffectiveness.

We need to create organizations in which it becomes individually useful for people to cooperate. Remove the interfaces, the middle offices -- all these complicated coordination structures. You, as leaders, as managers, are you making it individually useful for people to cooperate? The future of our organizations, our companies, our societies hinges on your answer to these questions.

Have a look:

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: Bel Pesce— 5 ways to kill your dreams

"If you have dreams, it's your responsibility to make them happen."

Good Morning Folks,

All of us want to invent that game-changing product, launch that successful company, write that best-selling book. And yet so few of us actually do it. Brazilian entrepreneur Bel Pesce breaks down five easy-to-believe myths that ensure your dream projects will never come to fruition

What do you suppose they are? Those things that’ll kill your dreams?

You can’t believe they can be yours?  Your dreams that is.

What about I don’t believe I can be that person.

Or there’s always I‘m not good enough to have my dreams come true?

These come under the category of doubt and yep that’ll do it. Doubt is a great way to repel anything that might otherwise be drawn to us.  All those beautiful desires, burned out by the flame of doubt.  

So sad.

When we join the Doubting Thomas crew you can be sure we’re uncertain and distrusting.  Uncertain of what?  Distrusting of what?  Us?  The creative laws of the universe that are ours to operate to our heart’s content?  What the heck’s with that?  What are we focused on here…certainly not the fulfillment of our desires.  Once again we’re back on that old arguing for our limitations bandwagon.

But really, one of the biggest killer of our dreams is inertia.  Join it with fear and you have an awesome twosome, in the worst sense of the phrase.  The terrible twos.

Our challenge is that there are times when the status quo is too damned comfortable.  We don’t want to rock the boat, no, not even to experience our greatest dream, because what if….

It doesn’t work out…

I can’t do what I need to do to have what I want…

I might actually succeed and then what?

The best way to kill your dreams? Listen to the advice of others, rather than following your own best instincts.

Often, our goals in life can only be reached with the cooperation of others. Lacking that cooperation, goals may not be met because they cannot be achieved alone.

Tells Bel, "I myself have a story in Brazil that people think is an overnight success. I come from a humble family, and two weeks before the deadline to apply to MIT, I started the application process. And, voila! I got in. People may think it's an overnight success, but that only worked because for the 17 years prior to that, I took life and education seriously. Your overnight success story is always a result of everything you've done in your life through that moment."

Here's Bel....

Wise words Bel. I'm a big fan of yours :) What a great talk Bel Pesce, very motivating and inspiring.

It really gives people courages as well as telling things are not easy in real life. Love all the points especially No 1 about overnight success and no 5 about the journey. We are all waiting for that magic moment but actually success comes when we actually enjoy the journey. This is powerful. I hope more and more young people can come to understand life in their own positive way.Taking hard work as one of very fabulous success for us to persuit in our life

So, believe in overnight success, believe someone else has the answers for you, believe that when growth is guaranteed, you should settle down, believe the fault is someone else's, and believe that only the goals themselves matter. Believe me, if you do that, you will destroy your dreams.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

.......................................................................

"Destiny is not for waiting. Destiny is for achieving."

...........................................................................

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: Stanley McChrystal: Listen, learn ... then lead

“One of America’s greatest warriors.” — Secretary of Defense Robert Gates

Good Morning Folks,

If you want to be a better leader, today's Ted talk is going to be quite remarkable for you. This is a good speech on leadership from one of the finest Generals of our time, General Stanley McChrystal.

General Stanley McChrystal is the former commander of U.S. and International forces in Afghanistan. A four-star general, he is credited for creating a revolution in warfare that fuses intelligence and operations.

Four-star general Stanley McChrystal shares what he learned about leadership over his decades in the military. How can you build a sense of shared purpose among people of many ages and skill sets? By listening and learning — and addressing the possibility of failure.

Says McChrystal, "I was raised with traditional stories of leadership: Robert E. Lee, John Buford at Gettysburg. And I also was raised with personal examples of leadership. This was my father in Vietnam. And I was raised to believe that soldiers were strong and wise and brave and faithful; they didn't lie, cheat, steal or abandon their comrades. And I still believe real leaders are like that. But in my first 25 years of career, I had a bunch of different experiences."

"And I learned personal relationships were more important than ever. We were in a difficult operation in Afghanistan in 2007, and an old friend of mine, that I had spent many years at various points of my career with -- godfather to one of their kids -- he sent me a note, just in an envelope, that had a quote from Sherman to Grant that said, "I knew if I ever got in a tight spot, that you would come, if alive." And having that kind of relationship, for me, turned out to be critical at many points in my career."

"I stood in front of a screen one night in Iraq with one of my senior officers and we watched a firefight from one of our forces. And I remembered his son was in our force. And I said, "John, where's your son? And how is he?" And he said, "Sir, he's fine. Thanks for asking." I said, "Where is he now?" And he pointed at the screen, he said, "He's in that firefight." Think about watching your brother, father, daughter, son, wife in a firefight in real time and you can't do anything about it. Think about knowing that over time. And it's a new cumulative pressure on leaders."

Have a look:

Concludes McCrystal: "That was my journey. I hope it’s not over. I came to believe that a leader isn’t good because they’re right; they’re good because they’re willing to learn and to trust.

This isn’t easy stuff. It’s not like that electronic abs machine where, 15 minutes a month, you get washboard abs.

And it isn’t always fair. You can get knocked down, and it hurts and it leaves scars.

But if you’re a leader, the people you’ve counted on will help you up. And if you’re a leader, the people who count on you need you on your feet."

Thank you General. Any day our Future Leaders need more inspiration I encourage them to watch this and then watch it again.

Good leaders are able to get others to buy into a common cause and to give others a sense of purpose, which is what this talk was about. Leadership is needed to communicate. He says that they must build trust and confidence in order to communicate with the people. I think that a true leader is trying to fit the characteristics. Thanks for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

.......................................................................

"Leaders can let you fail and yet not let you be a failure."

...........................................................................

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.

Ted Tuesday: Margaret Heffernan- Dare to Disagree

"The truth won't set us free until we develop the skills and the moral courage to use it."

Good Morning Folks,

Good disagreement is central to progress.

Being honest and true to self is not always easy but it's more conducive to positive change.

Most people instinctively avoid conflict, but as Margaret Heffernan shows us, good disagreement is central to progress. She illustrates (sometimes counter intuitively) how the best partners aren’t echo chambers — and how great research teams, relationships and businesses allow people to deeply disagree.

The former CEO of five businesses, Margaret Heffernan explores the all-too-human thought patterns — like conflict avoidance and selective blindness — that lead managers and organizations astray.

Probably my favorite Ted talk ever. Speak truth. Because if you don't it will run over you.

Here's Margaret:

Thanks to you for listening.

Have a GREAT Day,



Mitchell D. Weiner
Chief Happiness Officer  

Ideas are not set in stone. When exposed to thoughtful people, they morph and adapt into their most potent form. TED Tuesdays on MitchWeiner.com highlights some of today's most intriguing ideas. Look for more talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more— HERE.  

About FSO Onsite Outsourcing
Recognized on the Inc. 5000 list of the nation's fastest growing companies for the third consecutive year, and lead by industry pioneer, Mitch Weiner, FSO's growth and success can be attributed to making a positive and powerful impact on their clients' bottom lines, as well as their employees' careers and lives.