Steve Jobs is a hero of mine. Thanks to quarantine time, I finally got around to reading Steve Jobs, the epic authorized biography by Walter Isaacson. The beautifully written book chronicles the astounding story of […]
Category: Leadership
These posts contain my ideas, tips, and strategies for leading and managing groups of people in modern organizations.
Demma’s Notes: Bob Iger’s The Ride of a Lifetime
I stan few companies as much as I stan Disney. I’m not ashamed of this even a little. When I saw that the greatest Disney CEO since old Walt himself had a new autobiography out, […]
How Will You Deal With Change? Reading Taleb’s Antifragile…
I just started listening to Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Antifragile and I wanted to share some quick thoughts from the opening chapters. Taleb defines fragility as that which is adversely affected by volatility. In other words, […]
2019 Recap and my 200th Post
Happy New Year everyone. This year we’re thankful to have wrapped up a relatively peaceful year, which was a goal of ours after many years of nearly constant major life changes like I wrote about […]
Quick Take: Loserthink and How To Know if You’re Right or Wrong
I’m really enjoying Scott Adams’s new book Loserthink, and I wanted to quickly share one key insight with you. I’m a big fan of Adams’s previous books. I wrote a Demma’s Notes summary on my […]
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker: Review, Thoughts, and All 9 Skywalker Films Ranked
WARNING: Spoilers ahead for Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, including details about the ending, story, and plot twists. If you haven’t seen the movie yet STOP reading and come back later. I took Jack […]
Servant Leadership: Key Concepts
People have a need to be engaged in purposeful work. We want to feel like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves, and that our work makes a difference in the world. Maybe that’s why […]
Quick Read: Better?
Here’s a short thought experiment about the difference between better and good. Imagine you’re driving a big truck along a highway. You see a sign that says low overpass ahead. 13′ clearance. You realize you’re […]
The Secret Formula for Building a Winning Culture
The challenge with growth companies is to figure out how to scale the culture as the size and complexity of the business grows. How do you grow the business without breaking the culture that made the business great to begin with?
Demma’s Notes: My 3 Favorite Concepts from How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams
What could a cartoonist possibly have to teach you about living your life? That’s the question I had before starting Dilbert creator Scott Adams’ book How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big. By the end of the book, I was an Adams disciple. It turns out there’s so much more to Mr. Adams than Dilbert.
Disney World: The Super Bowl of Parenting
This is it. The moment I’ve been training for. We’ve got one more FastPass+ to hit before our lunch reservation on the other side of Magic Kingdom. The hot Orlando sun beats down heavy. The […]
Demma’s Notes: Limbo. A book about working class kids who migrate to the middle class.
Limbo, by Alfred Limbrano, is an eye-opening book about what it’s like to be raised in a working class family, be the first in your family to go to college, and then migrate to a middle class world.
Forgiveness
Jack is going through the sacrament of First Penance and Reconciliation next week. This is the Catholic ceremony of the first confession in which a child examines their conscience, asks for forgiveness for their sins, […]
Christmas Vacation and 2018 Recap
We just got home from our 2018 Christmas adventure. It started with a night in Fairfax, VA where Gracie was starring as a snowflake in the Moscow Ballet’s Nutcracker. From there we drove up to […]
Demma’s Notes: Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future
“There’s a starman waiting in the sky, he’d like to come and meet us, but he thinks he’d blow our minds.” – Bowie Elon Musk has been grabbing more headlines than usual lately: for announcing […]