Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

The pandemic is a milestone event. Even if the medical effects have been ameliorated (which is debatable), the social impact is huge and continuing. Some of the evidence: • Some people continuing to wear masks, which also serve as a “warning” to others, and is an extreme behavior if one isn’t otherwise medically compromised. Covid transmission interpersonally would require someone in very close proximity for an extended period of time. Also, masks prompt people to keep touching their faces, which can cause further disease spread. • “Live” business meetings have been hugely reduced, from conventions of thousands to conferences among a few people. • Business travel has been commensurately reduced with remote meetings preferred. • People are suffering from mental health issues being in isolation in their homes, even with family, because of the inability to have lunch or a drink with co-workers. • Work pressures have mounted as leaders try to figure out how to assign and measure productivity among people who are

Jeff is the publisher of Performance Magazine which has featured interviews of and articles from people as diverse as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Shaquille O’Neal, Sir Richard Branson, Joan Rivers, and Larry King, among hundreds of others. In this conversation we talk about the effectiveness, and lack thereof, of the media; the major issues on the minds of executives post-pandemic; how to convince people to accept an interview even if they haven’t heard of you or the publication; and why Jeff, living in Vegas with plenty of Super Bowl invitations, will be on an airplane heading to a National Guard operation in New England to work with the leadership. Jeff is controversial (he will not pursue an interview with the current occupant of the White House) and outspoken. He feels that the pandemic, even now, has caused a seismic shift in global business and leadership, and that promotions are based on being seen frequently in order to be known. One of his clients says, “If I don’t know you, I can’t promote you, an

I’ve met Rudy Giuliani. We belonged to the same cigar club in New York (which has since lost its lease). Those were the days when he was still in the afterglow of “America’s Mayor” from the way he led after 9/11. And those were the days when crime in New York was way down. He and the police commissioner, Bill Bratton, instituted tough approaches to “minor” violations, believing they would lead to arrests and halting of major violations. So there were penalties for blocking intersections (today in Manhattan, city buses block intersections with impunity), for jumping turnstiles in subways, for the guys who tried to wash car windshields at red lights. And crime greatly diminished. Today, we have district attorneys and other highly progressive politicians who have either made “minor” crimes acceptable or have refused to prosecute them. Here’s the simple math for those of you who never majored in math (I certainly didn’t): When shoplifters steal from stores without any worry about being prosecuted, fined, or jaile

How do you create a million dollar idea and begin earning on it in one weekend? Noah Kagan is one of my buddies and a guy I greatly admire. He’s founded and sold several multi-million dollar enterprises—and readily admits to his share of failures, as well—and he’s put together an approach, summarized in Million Dollar Weekend, which is a clear recipe for success. I know about how to make millions of dollars in consulting, for example. Noah has accelerated that process for most of you. He makes fascinating points about quantity winning over quality, in that quantity tends to find many more powerful solutions. He talks about how the Rule of 100 will get you started, and stresses something we all know but don’t practice nearly enough: You don’t get if you don’t ask. So join us here as he explains how he simply asked people to board their private jet, and wound up flying to Boston without any luggage or plans and then was terribly disappointed in flying home again commercially! Listen to what he says about ma

Isn’t Starbucks just a tad affected when the have “baristas” and sizes like grande and venti and trenta and Huey, Dewey, and Louie? Is it possible not to want to body slam a “barista” who informs you they don’t like to put whole milk in a cappuccino because of “poor frothing”? I saw a couple enter a diner for breakfast carrying takeout Starbucks coffee. That level of self-absorption can cause implosion. When it’s ten degrees with a wind-chill of minus 15, why do women in skirts and dresses have bare legs? Is that really comfortable or just a concession to fashion that can cause serious illness? When I buy shoes, I can wear them right out of the store. Women, a year later, are still complaining about the pain (and apparently some hire other women to “break them in”). Talking to the movie screen or to performers on stage in a theater is not a cultural manifestation. It is simple unbounded rudeness. Trying to pay a dinner bill proportionately (“We didn’t have an appetizer and I only had one drink”) is the ha

One of the major issues with a lack of success is that people don’t hold themselves accountable. They fail to meet deadlines, fail to fulfill obligations.  They put more work into making excuses than they would have doing the actual work. The old “dog ate my homework” is now “there was traffic,” “we have child care issues,” “my internet was down.” There are no consequences for our failing our own accountabilities, and no rewards for meeting them. I’ll get around to it, unless I decide not to. Symptoms include lateness, unpreparedness, seeking last minute help or replacements, begging for more time. If you don’t think this is systemic as well as individual, think of Pearl Harbor (or 9/11, when flight schools had Muslim pupils who wanted to learn how to take off, navigate, and fly, but not land). We are unorganized and rarely penalized for it. We are able to blame others or the system of the deep web or some conspiracy, somewhere. Occupy Wall Street, Soak the Rich, down with Big Pharma. And, eventually, the

If you want to see writing exhaustion, this is the series. After two pretty decent seasons, the show devolved through the ensuing six as if the writers had become deprived of oxygen. Every time someone knocks on a door, the response is, “What are you doing here?” It’s not, “Good to see you,” or “How can I help you?”, or “Are you lost?” People discussing matters in a private office are interrupted with a solution or dramatic new information by a colleague simply traipsing in from the halls. There are continuing confrontations and apologies, prefacing further confrontations and apologies, between and among the same people, often multiple times per show. People hard to reach are ambushed in the streets—outside their offices, at hot dog carts, in public garages—as if they were on a schedule and could easily be found. Similarly, people barge into private offices in other buildings without bothering to go through security or secretaries or assistants. And the person being accosted says, of course, “What are you d

• We’re seeing huge changes in healthcare. •  About 25% of patients used telehealth last year, far exceeding the 5% who accessed care this way before the pandemic. • Pharmacies with physicians present (like pet stores with vets present) • Physicians in private practice greatly reduced. • The share of doctors who worked in practices wholly owned by physicians fell from 60.1% to 46.7% from 2012 to 2022. • More people seeing nurse practitioners • From 2016 to 2021, the number of primary care physicians billing Medicare declined each year, from 142,000 physicians in 2016 to 135,000 physicians in 2021.  • Physicians tell me that the paperwork, reimbursement bureaucracy, and corporate demands are terrible. Example: 5-8 minutes allowed for patient questions during visits. • Some exceptions: dermatologists have modestly increased. There are no midnight emergencies for dermatologists. • Faith in the medical establishment has been undermined by the conflicting medical and political decisions during and after COVID. •

• Cut your expenses: virtual assistants, subscription software, subcontracting (even in the Philippines). • Move work to the client. • Focus on advisory work, not project work. • Increase number of sales. • Increase amount of sales. • Increase duration of client relationships. • Increase solicited referrals. • Create community evangelism. • Produce new products and services for existing clients. • Reduce marketing expenses. • Reduce time waste (internet). • Stop overdelivering/providing what wasn’t requested. • Track your time in a journal. • Get paid in advance. • Never tolerate delayed payments. • Focus on total days to cash. • List and evaluate all possible expenses (e.g., office rent at home, medical).

When you have a great talent on stage, do we really need dancers, other singers, flashing lights, and magic tricks? What does Starbucks gain giving us all those choices in its own strange language? Have you ever noticed how visitors from Europe are astonished at the size and number of our restaurant dinner courses? Have you ever tried to quickly find something in a car’s owner’s manual? Can you read all the menu options at Dunkin’ Donuts drive through window before the person in the car behind you becomes homicidal because they haven’t had their coffee? Do you love being “pitched” to buy credit cards on airplanes (which probably all lower your credit score)? Can you really decipher the bond issues you’re asked to vote upon with their triple negatives and boiler plate language? We tend to provide so many options to appear as if they raise the overall quality of our offerings. Or the lawyers insist we cover all the ground we can and leaver out nothing. Maybe the customers are at fault—do we need instruction

•The American Council on Education reports that 33% of universities and colleges have female presidents. • In the Ivy League it’s six of eight. Several for the first time ever. • The three women in front of the congressional committee were clearly over their heads, ill prepared, stunned, and soon reversed some of their testimony. • We’re focused on identity, not talent. • Boards used to seek academic excellence and a track record of outstanding leadership. • Now they want the first woman, or minority, or trans person, or whatever. • When Biden promised a black, female Supreme Court nominee, he found Ketanji Brown, by all accounts an excellent jurist. • But he had reduced her to the “best black female” available, instead of the “best candidate available.” That’s demeaning. • The Boston Association of Female Marketing Executives. Why me? Best role model. • Your freedom stops at my nose, I think John Jay. • When you advocate the mass murders of 9 million people, already attempted to begin with beheadings, rap

I find the use of profanity is the last resort for the inarticulate. It’s supposed to be “daring” and “shocking” but it’s actually just lazy. I sometimes surf through the comedy channels and hear standup comedians simply repeating m…..f….. over and over. There is no intellect there, and intellect and pain are actually the basis for almost all real comedy. Putting profanity on a book cover is boring, but it beats trying to come up with an appealing title. But most alarmingly, it’s simply entered the vernacular as adjectival alternatives. I hear parents in restaurants and at home over meals say s..t at in front of their kids. WTF is used by the more delicate, but it’s profanity nonetheless. Teachers and the “elite” often use it to show they’re “hip” and “down to earth,” which is the absolutely last thing they are. At my gym, where we have personal trainers, the music is very often rap with profound profanities, n….. for blacks, and “bitch” or far worse for women, yet there are black people there as well as wom

Have you ever wondered about how other people might see this society? The proliferation of “tip jars” when virtually no service is performed; the intense scrutiny of head injuries in football, while players who make great plays deliberately bang their heads together; cars that can go almost four times the speed limit, manufactured and sold despite it. Why do we smuggle dogs into restaurants, refuse to merge in traffic, and think AI will become sentient and rule us when we still have to unplug and replug electronics as the primary repair principle? Laugh tracks, scripted reality shows, “influencers”: Why do we kid ourselves with this stuff? I wouldn't mind Wolfgang Puck giving me advice on menu selections, but I resent my life trickling away while a waiter tells me his or her favorite dishes. Why do tennis and golf professionals require total silence, but quarterbacks, basketball players, and boxers do not? Why do we talk too much and too loudly in public areas, but we’re mute in elevators? My guess is that

The opposite of evolution is devolution. Merely moving forward in time chronologically doesn’t guarantee higher standards, better performance, or improvement. Our speech has declined. People support this, claiming that speech must “evolve.” But does evolution include mindless, ubiquitous profanity, unintelligible statements, and confusing grammar? The arts haven’t made great strides, and on television and in the theater we see a procession of diluted revivals and low quality spinoffs. Athletes showboat over a tackle when their team is down three touchdowns. Service levels in most hotels are down, as they are on most airlines, and the latter fly smaller and smaller jets on longer and longer flights to make money despite passenger discomfort. Traffic is terrible in most large cities—incomprehensibly bad in LA— and if you replace every single internal combustion car with an electric car tomorrow, you’d still have the same number of cars on the roads with the same traffic jams! Civility is lower than ever,

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, dishonestly manipulated by politicians and the medical community which led to more illness than necessary, harsher restriction than required, and more public acrimony than would otherwise have been the case. Learn here examples of why both John Denver and Nancy Pelosi have been inauthentic. False praise is far more harmful than honest, negative feedback. If you lie enough on your resume, you eventually begin to really believe the lie, which is why business executives, military leaders, and academicians often face humiliating ousters late in their glorious careers. President Biden has been caught in lies about awar

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 statistics. Apart from a very wealthy family supporting you, how much debt can you incur and pay off (while paying for housing, insurance, raising a family, etc.) in what amount of time given your loans and your intended occupation? If you can’t make those numbers work without defaulting on loans or begging the government for help that others didn’t receive, maybe you need to rethink college. Or, at least, private schools. And, of course, maybe the government needs to rethink a ridiculous system in the public sector, at least, before it implodes.

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 • Triaging customers • Finding honest and authentic communications • Embracing true diversity not virtue signaling diversity • Coming to grips with the false promise of retirement • Physical, psychological, and emotional health • Embracing technology with proper proportion • The speed necessity • Thriving in ambiguity, disruption, volatility • Alleviation of excess stress • Being an effective avatar • Knowing how to create personal meaning

• 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 make money selling cars now, being an engineer would take six years.) • The trouble is that it is often temporary. (The dog toy breaks.) Other people have the same thing. The novelty wears off. • Often generates anti-social behavior—breaking into a line, theft. • In the longer term is unfulfilling, creating more disappointment. • Undermines all patience even when required: recovering from an illness, waiting for a delayed plane, even waiting at the deli counter. • Impulse purchase items are placed near the cashier in stores or at the end of aisles. • Can cause health problems (stress, ulcers) waiting for an acc

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. Observe the “total days to cash” dynamic, and improve your cash flow by collecting early, not late, on your terms, not the client’s terms. Remember, it’s not what you make, it’s what you keep. You can do this without sacrificing well-being: first class air, hotel suites, and limos. That’s because you charge clients basic and reasonable expense rates but can afford to upgrade yourself. But you have to eschew fanaticism. You don’t need version 4.1ab.7-a of anything. I learned the nonsense of ridiculous backups in pre-computer Prudential Insurance. Never “automatically upgrade.” Do I drive the last of the blazing

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 be aware of it. My first reaction was that this racial and gender stereotyping was all-too-common in the past. My second, however, is that wouldn’t a viewer know that and understand how far we’ve come and how far we still may need to go? (I don’t readily recall stereotyping on Bonanza, although maybe their Asian cook was the problem somehow.) I believe we’re all adults above a certain age, imbued with intelligence and judgment, which allows us to hold jobs, drive cars, and feed ourselves. (If a child were watching that rerun, somehow, would the kid understand the “trigger warning”?) Is this a legitimate warning or