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Beyond the Resume: Embracing the Whole Person in a Work-Life Integrated World

“Everyone has a story.”

There are differing thoughts on how much our personal and professional lives should be balanced. I have evolved through my career to firmly believe in “Work/life integration” vs. “Work/life balance.” The conversation and prevalence of integrating our work and personal lives have been more acutely discussed since the escalation of remote work resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic starting in 2020. In my life, work/life integration was the key to my survival. My son Ryan’s diagnosis of childhood cancer in 1996 demanded a personal commitment and an understanding from my employers and colleagues that is unthinkable in most professional environments. Yet, I was profoundly blessed to have the necessary professional support to survive personally and professionally.

A byproduct of the support I received was that In my leadership roles, I have always sought to understand that we all have stories and challenges in our lives that no one knows about. Caring about others and the macro-level demands they are facing in their lives is an intelligent business strategy, but more importantly, it is the right thing to do. We all are in this life together. In my in-person and social media interactions, I strive to understand the “complete person” regarding their interests, personality, and demands outside their professional roles. A resulting benefit is the building of more productive and genuine relationships. This is the world I want to live in.

As you will note in my blog posts, I fully embrace and share my life experiences. These experiences have shaped me into the person I am today, and they enhance my personal and professional lives.

Through my blog at BillTomoff (dot) com, I have written 71 blog posts from 2017 through July 1, 2024. I share personal and professional thoughts and am interested in helping others. The posts have been compiled in a PDF document, and then I collaborated with Claude AI to summarize “my story” based on my blog content. Anyone desiring to learn more about me could gain insight into my interests, expertise, and personal beliefs (i.e., let’s be kind to each other), and my style may resonate with others. These are the people I want in my tribe to engage and collaborate with!

#TwinzTalk Encouragement – Always be learning and do your best!

Below are my prompt and Claude AI’s [edited] response. Claude did an incredible job providing me with content to start working with. The summary shared is the essence of my life and beliefs, which I am dedicated to living and practicing for the rest of my life.

Prompt:

“Please read and review the attached PDF of blog posts. You are an expert ghostwriter, and I would like you to tell me what is important to the author based on his writing content. Take a deep breath and take your time responding.”

Response:

“Based on a thorough review of the blog posts, here are some key themes and values that appear to be important to the author, Bill Tomoff:

  1. Personal Growth and Continuous Learning: The author emphasizes personal development, lifelong learning, and consistent dedication to improving oneself. He regularly encourages reading, attending courses, and seeking new knowledge.
  2. Family: Family is a central priority for the author. Many posts reference his wife Terri, son Ryan, daughter Olivia, and twin brother Don. His family’s journey through his son’s cancer diagnosis and five-time cancer battles and treatment has profoundly shaped his worldview.
  3. Resilience and Post-Traumatic Growth: The author often discusses the concept of growing stronger through adversity, particularly with his son’s cancer experience. He believes in the possibility of emerging from difficult experiences as an improved, kinder, and more compassionate person.
  4. Kindness and Compassion: Treating others with gentleness and kindness is a recurring theme. The author frequently encourages readers to be tolerant, patient, and understanding of others, as everyone is fighting their own battles.
  5. Gratitude: The author emphasizes the importance of a grateful outlook on life, even during challenging times.
  6. Time Management and Prioritization: Many posts discuss the importance of using time wisely, focusing on what truly matters, and learning to say no to less important commitments.
  7. Stoicism: The author frequently references Stoic philosophy and its principles, which he strives to apply to challenges in his daily life.
  8. Helping Others: There’s a strong emphasis on using one’s skills and experiences to benefit others, whether through professional work, volunteering, or everyday interactions. “We rise by lifting others.”
  9. Technology and Innovation: The author and his twin are passionate about leveraging technology to enhance personal and professional effectiveness and create a greater possibility of making a more significant contribution to the world.
  10. Health and Self-Care: Physical health and mental well-being are recurring themes, with the author emphasizing the importance of self-care practices.
  11. Professional Excellence: The author does not prioritize career over family but values doing one’s best work and continually improving professional skills.
  12. Community and Connection: The author values and encourages participation in supportive online and in-person communities (social media and communities of practice).
  13. Writing and Reflection: Writing itself is an important practice for the author, serving as a tool for processing experiences and sharing insights.

These themes interweave throughout the blog posts, painting a picture of an individual deeply committed to personal growth, family, kindness, and positively impacting the world around him.”

Through sharing my story in my blog posts, I’ve realized that our personal and professional lives are intricately intertwined. All of our experiences can bring more value to our lives and others. The experiences that have shaped me have profoundly influenced my approach to work and life. Being open about these experiences will inspire a world where we see each other as individuals with meaningful lives beyond our professional roles. We can create more genuine connections by embracing kindness, continuous learning, and a willingness to help others. As we move forward, let’s remember that everyone has a story – and by taking the time to understand these stories, we can build a more compassionate and integrated world, both in and out of the workplace.

What is your story?

2024-03-13 – Bill Tomoff with Four Memoirs Written
April 15, 2023 Family in London Attending Tottenham Spurs EPL Game
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The Power of No: Reclaiming Your Time Through Intentional Decision-Making

Let’s empower ourselves by recognizing the critical importance of our choices with the time we are blessed with. In my blog post, Time Wealth: Prioritizing Mental Bandwidth in the Knowledge Economy, I discussed my time crisis and the resulting awareness that my choices of priorities were essential to surviving my son Ryan’s battles with childhood cancer and beyond.

Shortly after, a Daily Stoic email resonated deeply with the core of my message. The post, titled ‘Do You Dominate the Battlespace?‘ by Ryan Holiday, echoes the importance of our mental battlespace. He urges us to take control. He explains:

“All of these things are vying for what military strategists today would call “the battlespace.” Our mind is a contested bit of territory, with many people seeking to control what we call “the empire between your ears” – Why? Because your brain, your attention, is valuable. People want you to think about certain things and not think about certain things–because it’s good for business, because it makes you easier to control.”

“So you must dominate this battlespace. It is you who must assert yourself over yourself.”

“We too must grab the reins of our mind, set up boundaries against distraction, push away intrusive thoughts, tune out nonsense and noise. That’s what Stoicism is, as we wrote recently, it’s the gladiator stepping out into the arena of the mind, dominating the battlespace, controlling their own mind…because the alternative–letting the enemy dominate, letting your mind be controlled by someone or something else–is just unthinkable.”

This passage sums up well that our mind is under our control. Yet, too often, we give away our time by allowing our minds to be engaged in meaningless or dangerous activities. This is why we must be aware and establish boundaries to protect our mental well-being.

In addition to maintaining healthy boundaries around where we are willing to apply our precious time and minds, we must strive to continually learn and grow in ways that permit us to maximize the use of our time and mental bandwidth.

I have discovered several posts that resonate with the importance of managing our minds and being judicious about where we prioritize our time. Rajesh Setty is a favorite follow on my LinkedIn. This post, “One Approach to Cultivate a Beautiful Mind Garden,” was inspiring and thought-provoking. I encourage you to follow Rajesh and read his entire post, but consider this insight he shared:

“A beautiful garden has good plants and trees that bear fruits and flowers. It also lacks weeds that grow easily on their own. Removing weeds takes effort. If you don’t maintain the garden, weeds will grow, requiring more time to remove them. This means less time for nurturing the beautiful parts of the garden.

The same goes for the mind. Information doesn’t come with nutrition labels. When information enters your mind through news, ideas, conversations, projects, and work, there’s usually no filter. Your mind will use it’s previous capacity to process this unfiltered information even to determine the nature (good, bad, relevant, irrelevant etc.) of it. In the world where both people and machines are creating content at breathtaking speed, you can easily get carried away in one or the other content rabbit holes.

To make a beautiful garden of the mind, use the power of curation. In my life, I prioritize curation highly. I don’t watch news or read newspapers unless someone points out something relevant to the projects I am involved and something that’s within my sphere of influence. Occasionally, I let my mind wander by design to ensure that there is room for some surprise and serendipity.”

In addition to remaining aware and informed of our choices to prioritize our mind share, we should filter what we dedicate our time and energies to as best as possible. Here are a few steps to quickly help in assessing choices:

  1. Do I need to be involved? Eliminating unnecessary involvement of your energy is the number one time hack.
  2. If I need to be involved, how can I maximize my impact with the least mental energy and time commitment?
  3. Will my involvement allow me to grow and help others in the future? Note that having opinions, being judgemental, and expending energy toward gossip and mainstream news are time sucks, taking away from making a meaningful contribution to ourselves and others.
  4. Once I dedicate my time, am I prepared to make the best use of it, or am I doing something I love, like spending time with family and hobbies? Think of the Pareto Principle, also known as the 80/20 rule.

A few additional resources that have resonated with me:

A Learning a Day blog shared two concepts that are worth understanding. For many decisions, we must be aware of the time we commit and contemplate, “What is the minimum viable information I need to get moving and get comfortable with a decision?“

Directional Answers and Precise Answers

“I use a simple rule of thumb for the difference between attempting to convert a directional answer into a precise answer—10x+ time investment.”

In our lives and with our #TwinzTalk initiative, Don and I have given ourselves a disproportionate advantage by seeking directional answers to get us moving forward. Technology testing and adoption have always started with a vision of the potential rather than a precise answer to the ultimate benefit. Seeking directional insight vs. [often unattainable] precision, we can reach more learning opportunities and possibilities to leverage technology.

Tanmay Vora Sketchnote – Move and the Way Appears

Satisficers and Maximizers

“Barry Schwartz’s research showed that people tend to fall into one of two groups when making decisions – he called these groups satisficers and maximizers. Maximizers desire the best possible result, while satisficers desire a result that is good enough to meet some criterion. That doesn’t necessarily mean satisficers settle for crap. Their criteria could be lofty – but, as long as it meets that criteria, they don’t care about it being the best.

Barry Schwartz argues that satisficers tend to be happier than maximizers as maximizers spend a lot of time and energy on many decisions that just don’t matter as much.”

Don and I both share the satisficer tendency. We have saved ourselves time and energy, while also being content with our decisions. Talk about a win-win!

Maximizing everything is time-consuming. The number of choices available to us is overwhelming. Settling on “good enough” is a gift we can give ourselves. If you have yet to see Barry Schwartz’s TED Talk, The Paradox of Choice, prioritize time to watch it. I guarantee a few laughs and several “aha” moments.

In today’s world, where information is everywhere and everything moves fast, managing what we think about and focus on is important. By understanding how valuable our time and attention are, setting clear limits on what we let in, and being careful about what we think, we can live a more focused life, get more done, and feel more satisfied. The secret is making smart choices on purpose. Our most valuable thing isn’t money or material possessions – it’s our limited time and brain power. If we focus on what’s really important and let go of the rest, we can build “time-wealth.” This means we have time to grow, do good things for the world, and live happier lives. We all have the power to control what goes on in our minds – so let’s make wise choices. 

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Personal Connection: How One Question Transformed an Advanced Excel and Generative AI Presentation

I have joined an initiative with Katy Dalgleish, Julie Rains, and my wife, Terri. We meet virtually once or twice weekly to discuss Seth’s lessons in “This is Strategy.”

While we quickly cover a lot of ground, and Seth’s messages deserve greater focus and discussion, I enjoy the process from the perspective that “we never know where thoughts/ideas will collide,” and a practical use application will surface.

During a drive to Ocean City, MD, for the Maryland Government Finance Officers Association (MDGFOA) conference, I was contemplating Seth’s video five, which highlighted “16 questions to begin” as we approach the work of strategy.

While Don and I find our personal development work very compelling, convincing others of the value of committing their time to investing in themselves is a huge obstacle. As Seth notes in video five, “They don’t know what you know. They don’t want what you want.” These two sentences sat with me while we were driving and talking about the presentation Don would share over three and one-half hours starting at 1:00 PM.

How could we modify the presentation to turn the attention of the attendees and emphasize our mission is to enhance their professional performance and ability to contribute exponentially?

June 26, 2024 | Don and Bill Tomoff at Maryland Government Finance Officers Association Conference

Within the 16 questions, the following five reminded me that answers to these questions might help inspire the attendees to dedicate themselves to embracing personal growth. With each question, I have added brief thoughts on how our work impacts those on the receiving side:

Am I changing someone’s status quo?

Learning and development do change someone’s status quo. Embracing the initiative of personal growth is a commitment and a change that many find difficult. It often involves discomfort and requires time prioritization involving tradeoffs we would rather not deal with. The easy answer is to avoid changing anything in our daily lives that is already working for us.

Why would anyone voluntarily choose to be part of this work?

If you ask anyone, “Would you like to improve your critical thinking, skill set, and ability to contribute more significantly?” Most people would respond with a resounding “YES!” Choosing this more challenging yet rewarding path of personal development will change your life as the daily effort compounds over time, and the gratifying reward of growth becomes a part of your daily life.

What will they tell their colleagues?

Don and I think the magic can begin when word of mouth spreads to colleagues. As we learn and experience the rewards of learning, helping others must become an individual practice. Avid learners love to help others by sharing their expertise. And when we teach, we learn more.

Who gains in status, affiliation and power by supporting this work?

When personal development is embraced, the enhanced talents are noticed in the long run. By their example, learners inspire others to learn and can be recognized for their contributing abilities. The learner reaches levels of performance that are noticed by others. As learners are noticed, their status, affiliation, and power will grow.

Will early support translate into more support later?

Early support and the possible success that others achieve can elevate word-of-mouth and create a snowball of support as even more learn about successes achieved because of an individual decision to invest in themselves. Witnessing the growth of others and the successes they reach is very gratifying for Don and me. 

We hoped to change the “vibe” of the presentation, so we started with a heartfelt question. This start was as if we were sitting down and sharing a sincere conversation, saying, “We are on your side, and we want to help you.”

“Before we get started, I would like everyone to take a minute and reflect on the following: “What are two or three of the most important things in your life? Not only professionally, but overall.”

Posing this question and the ensuing brief conversation about “What is important to YOU?” made the audience more curious and receptive.

The responses we have received were in line with our thoughts and included the following:

  • Family
  • Focusing on self-care
  • Enjoying hobbies
  • Making a difference
  • Feeling a greater purpose

“Our goal today? We want to help you reclaim your time to enable you to prioritize more time for the most important aspects of your life.”

Then, towards the end of the day, to wrap the session, Don reiterated:

“Remember, the overall theme of what we are doing today: We want to help you reclaim your time for the most important things in your life.”

The session and the audience engagement were inspiring. Had our last-minute modification to starting the presentation made a difference for the entire day? We believe so and plan to continue using and refining this change in future presentations!

During our debrief of the presentation, Don and I agreed that starting with the personal question, “What is most important to you?” changed the tone of the entire day. The attendees’ engagement during the session and one-on-one discussions afterward led us to conclude that we must build this momentum into the future!

To help evaluate and evolve the approach in the future, I collaborated with ChatGPT to assess our thoughts and then asked for suggestions for improvement. The response from ChatGPT has spurred our creativity. The prompt and response are provided below.

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Collaboration with ChatGPT

Prompt:

My twin Don and I are working on modifying the kickoff to our discussions about technology and gen AI adoption (e.g., ChatGPT) when making presentations. Focusing on the audience and asking them to consider what is most important in their lives is a way to increase interest and curiosity and ultimately encourage the adoption of our suggestions.

Please read the revision below and let us know your thoughts. You are an expert presenter who can inspire others to take action. Please take a deep breath and carefully think before you respond. This change is significant, and we want it to have the maximum effect on the success of our efforts.

“Before we get started, I would like everyone to take one minute and reflect on the following: “What are two or three of the most important things in your life? Not only professionally, but overall.”

Started the session with this question. Posing this question and the brief conversation about “What is important to YOU?” made the audience more curious and receptive.

Responses included:

  • Family
  • self-care
  • hobbies
  • greater purpose

“Our goal today? We want to help you reclaim your time to enable you to prioritize more time for the most important aspects in your life.”

to wrap the session:

“Remember, the overall theme of what we are doing today: We want to help you reclaim your time for the most important things in your life.”

Response:

Your revised approach for the kickoff of your technology and AI adoption discussions is well-crafted and focuses on what truly matters to the audience. Here’s a refined version to enhance clarity, engagement, and the impact of your presentation:

Opening:

“Before we get started, I’d like everyone to take a moment and reflect on this question: ‘What are the two or three most important things in your life, not just professionally, but overall?'”

Pause for reflection.

“Take a minute to think about it. What truly matters to you? Responses included:

  • Family
  • Self-care
  • Hobbies
  • Greater purpose

Starting our session with this question often makes everyone more curious and receptive.”

Transition:

“Our goal today is to help you reclaim time to prioritize what’s most important in your life.”

Wrap-up:

“Remember, the overall theme of what we are doing today is to help you reclaim your time for the most important things in your life.”

Thoughts and Suggestions:

1. Engagement: Starting with a reflective question is a great way to engage the audience and make the session personal. This strategy fosters a connection between the technology you’re discussing and the audience’s personal lives, making your message more relatable and compelling.

2. Clarity: By clearly listing typical responses, you guide the audience in their reflection and make it easier for them to relate.

3. Consistency: Repeating the theme of reclaiming time throughout your presentation reinforces your message and keeps the audience focused on the ultimate benefit of adopting the technology.

4. Empathy: Your approach shows empathy and understanding of the audience’s needs and values, which can increase their openness to your suggestions.

This refined structure ensures your presentation is engaging, clear, and impactful, helping you achieve your goal of fostering curiosity and adoption of your recommendations.

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Embrace Boring: Consistency and Unnoticed Discipline are the Keys to Compounding Growth

Summary – Collaboration with Claude AI

What is truly important to me is putting in the daily effort to refine my talents and develop my skills. The key to superior performance is quiet, steady dedication practiced for the long term when no one is watching.

I’ve learned many valuable life lessons through competitive sports participation. I credit competitive distance running with developing my willingness and ability to take the long view. My twin brother Don and I are obsessed with personal development and continual learning. We’ve pushed each other to invest time and money into our growth.

When my son Ryan was diagnosed with childhood cancer in 1996, my ability to tenaciously focus on core priorities was tested beyond imagination. My wife Terri’s memoir tells our family’s story of this challenging journey.

Over the years, I’ve pursued initiatives that exemplify my commitment to consistent effort and self-improvement. These include a daily planking streak with Don that has lasted 2,277 days so far, cofounding our #TwinzTalk initiative to share personal development tips, and dedicating myself to writing during the pandemic, completing four unpublished memoirs since June 2020.

I believe that to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world. Dedicate yourself to improving and helping others through small, consistent efforts practiced long-term. Find a tribe to encourage and inspire you on the journey. With commitment and belief, the compounding impact of your focused dedication will amaze you. 

What matters most to you? Whatever it is, pursue it relentlessly, for that is the path to growth and fulfillment.

Full Original Writing

What is important to you? Is it important enough that you are willing to work on refining your talents and developing your skills every day? Every day, in incremental effort, where progress is not felt or noticed? Yet, the key to superior performance is the daily dedication performed quietly for the long term, done in the quiet of your life when no one is watching.

The best hack is to realize that there are no shortcuts to success and commit yourself to the steady drip, drip, drip effort to enable you to reach your best level of preparation. The process is a life-long adventure.

I believe that competitive sports participation teaches many lessons that carry forward into the game of life. I wrote about this in my April 2024 blog post titled “From Setback to Comeback: My High School Running Adversity to Overcoming and Growing for Life.”

The following Daily Stoic and Seth Godin blog posts resonated with me, and I hope you find them inspiring as well.

The Daily Stoic: 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living by Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman meditation for June 8, “Brick by Boring Brick.”

“You must build up your life action by action and be content if each one achieves its goal as far as possible—and no one can keep you from this.”

–Marcus Aurelius

“If you follow The Process in your life—assembling the right actions in the right order, one right after another—you too will do well. Not only that, you will be better equipped to make quick work of the obstacles along that path.”

Seth Godin’s June 16, 2018, blog post, “The danger of not good enough,” reminds us that it is a trap to dismiss others or ourselves as “not good enough.” The more accurate sentiment should be “not good enough yet.” Seth’s closing sentence is a thought we should hold onto:

“It’s true that you’re not good enough yet. None of us are. But if you commit to trying hard enough and long enough, you’ll get better.”

If you commit to trying hard enough and long enough, you’ll get better. If you are committed to the deliberate and steady process of investing in yourself, you will progress.

“Today, I will do what others won’t, so tomorrow, I can do what others can’t.”

–Jerry Rice

“Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.”

–Tim Notke

With a willingness to work hard (and smarter), you WILL exceed many more talented peers. You control your willingness to prepare. In matters of importance to you, be relentless in your dedication and daily focus.

The greatest attribute I have been blessed with and embraced throughout my adult life is a willingness to put forth consistent effort that is matched by few. My twin Don and I share this attribute and have pushed each other throughout our lives. Above, I mentioned competitive distance running as a prime contributor to developing my willingness and ability to take the long view throughout my life. Examples of deliberate focus and effort, as a lifestyle of investing in myself, include:

  • After graduating from college in 1981, I inherently knew that continual learning and development were imperative to my career and life success. Don and I have shared an obsession with personal development. We believe in investing personal time and money into learning. When portable computers were first available, I remember spending weekend nights in the office (Coopers & Lybrand public accounting in the early 1980s) tinkering around with VisiCalc spreadsheet software. This moment started a love of technology that Don and I have shared and leveraged throughout our lives. In our early to mid-twenties, we were alone in the office on a Saturday night while many of our peers indulged in more ordinary entertainment choices. With our dedication to competitive distance running (a serious endeavor until age 25) and professional personal development, we were comfortable on the less traveled road!
  • My dedication and preparation to find a better way to work became a career and life survival imperative when my son Ryan was diagnosed with childhood cancer on October 17, 1996, at the age of two years and two months. My ability to tenaciously focus on my core priorities was tested beyond anything I could have imagined. Terri Tomoff’s memoir The Focused Fight: A Childhood Cancer Journey: From Mayhem to Miracles, published in March 2021, tells Ryan and our family’s story.
July 2021 – The Focused Fight – Cleveland Reception
  • On March 25, 2018, Don and I started a 30-day planking challenge. What started as a unique challenge to help our physical conditioning has become a part of our lifestyle. As of June 18, 2024, we have done a daily plank for 2,277 days. On March 26, 2023, I wrote a blog post celebrating five years of continuous planking!
April 2018 – NYC Central Park Planking
  • On April 16, 2018, Don and I cofounded our #TwinzTalk initiative, where we share personal development encouragement and tips to help others in our network. Tip One was dedicated to highlighting our amazing friend, Rich Flanagan. Since then, we have shared almost 1,300 tips on LinkedIn, and we receive great joy and fulfillment from sharing our knowledge and expertise to help others.
  • On June 8, 2020, a few months after the COVID-19 Pandemic started spreading across the United States, Terri and I joined an online writing initiative called Writing in Community. While Terri dedicated her time to completing her memoir, The Focused Fight, I pursued writing my unpublished personal memoir, “Living Life…Off The Track.” I have now written four unpublished memoirs. Four years later, we consider ourselves writers and have met many inspiring, kind, and generous people who share the love of writing and being in a community of practice. On the other side of the pandemic, we believe our lives have been profoundly enhanced through our writing efforts and community relationships!
2024-03-13 – Bill Tomoff with Four Memoirs Written

“If you desire to make a difference in the world, you must be different from the world.”

–Elaine S. Dalton

What is important to you? Dedicate daily effort to improving yourself and then helping others. You will be amazed at the compounding impact of small efforts consistently performed over the long term. Find your tribe that will inspire and encourage you. You got this. Believe. 

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Nils and Jonas Salzgeber | Part 2 of 3: Coach John Wooden

The Salzgeber brothers’ focus on personal development resonates with Don and me. Taking the initiative for personal growth and committing to continual learning is our north star, and we strive to help others and bring them along on the adventure. Bringing our best selves to the world is critically important work that we must embrace and not leave to the judgment of others.

Since reading (and sharing often)The Little Book of Stoicism, I now receive their email newsletter and periodically review the blog posts (as I write this in April 2024, I note the last blog post was in November 2022) on their website. I discovered two blog posts that resonated with me, and they reminded me of two recommended books in the #TwinzTalk personal development agenda – Benjamin Franklin’s Biography by Walter Isaacson and Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success by John Wooden and Steve Jamison. Below, I am sharing excerpts from Nils and Jonas’s blog posts and references to the books that Don and I recommend. We hope these topics inspire you to prioritize time for your personal development!

John Wooden

As Nils and Jonas note:

“John Wooden was a legendary basketball coach at the University of California, Los Angeles. During his last 12 years as a coach there, he won 10 championships, including seven in a row, and including an 88-game winning streak.

Some people say he was the greatest basketball coach ever. Some say he was the greatest coach in the 20th century. Others say he was the greatest coach of all time. Period.

John Wooden himself would not have bothered about such titles – that’ll get clear to you after reading some of his quotes below. He was much more concerned about the process, about putting in the work, about doing everything he could to become the best he could be. He was a truly inspiring man and a role model for me personally. Here are 35 timeless life lessons we can learn from him.”

The 35 life lessons shared in the blog post are all nuggets worth reading and holding onto. We can learn much from the wisdom of John Wooden. A few of our favorites include:

  • Number 5: Politeness and Courtesy – “…being a good person isn’t necessarily something we do for other people, it’s something we do for ourselves. We don’t need to expect anything in return. We’re getting paid well enough.“

  • Number 13: Stop Looking for Shortcuts – “If you spend too much time learning the tricks of the trade, you may not learn the trade. There are no shortcuts. If you’re working on finding a short cut, the easy way, you’re not working hard enough on the fundamentals. You may get away with it for a spell, but there is no substitute for the basics. And the first basic is good, old-fashioned hard work.”

  • Number 24: Don’t Compare Yourself to Other People – “It’s simple. Don’t compare yourself to somebody else, especially materially. If I’m worrying about the other guy and what he’s doing, about what he’s making, about all the attention he’s getting, I’m not going to be able to do what I’m capable of doing. It’s a guaranteed way to make yourself miserable.”

  • Number 28: Adversity = Opportunity – “Most people have heard of post-traumatic stress disorder. But did you know that the opposite also exists? It’s called post-traumatic growth – the phenomenon of people becoming stronger after a tragedy or trauma. They don’t just bounce back, but they bounce higher than they were before.”

  • Number 29: Want Peace of Mind? – “I believe one of the big lessons of sports for dedicated individuals and teams is that it shows us how hard work, and I mean hard work, does pay dividends. The dividend is not necessarily in outscoring an opponent. The guaranteed dividend is the complete peace of mind gained in knowing you did everything within your power, physically, mentally, and emotionally, to bring forth your full potential.”

  • Number 31: Strive to Maintain Self-Control – “Complaining, whining, making excuses just keeps you out of the present. That’s where self-control comes in. Self-control keeps you in the present. Strive to maintain self-control.”

  • Number 34: Improve the Team by Improving Yourself – “If you want to change the world, start by changing yourself. For the best way to improve the world is to improve yourself. Joseph Campbell said it best, “We’re not on our journey to save the world but to save ourselves. But in doing that you save the world. The influence of a vital person vitalizes.””

John Wooden’s book on leadership, Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success, is an inspiring read. In addition, check out the downloadable image of Wooden’s The Pyramid of Success on the John Wooden website.

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable.”

-John Wooden

 
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ChatGPT Lite Part 6 of 6 – Sample Use Cases to Inspire Your Creativity for Personal Use

This is part 6 of 6 posts introducing ChatGPT and a path forward to consider for adoption and learning growth. 

  1. Part 1 of 6 (Introduction) can be found here. 
  2. Part 2 of 6 (Description of GenAI framework and ChatGPT “fit”) can be found here. 
  3. Part 3 of 6 (Steps to Getting Started) can be found here. 
  4. Part 4 of 6 (High-Level Concepts to Understand) can be found here.
  5. Part 5 of 6 (Resources for Learning: Influencers and Online Learning courses) can be found here.

Don and I think it is important to reemphasize the mindset that whether or not you adopt GenAI and LLMs such as ChatGPT is YOUR DECISION. Studying these new tools and challenging yourself with personal use cases is a path available to everyone. You will benefit and be of greater value personally and professionally because of the knowledge attained and skills developed. Embrace a mindset of curiosity and possibility while also paying attention to the inevitable risks that arise. Learning is your secret weapon.

To stimulate your thinking, below are several use case examples that the Twinz have used. Once you have experienced the potential of immediate, ad-free feedback, we promise your creative juices will start flowing in ways ChatGPT Plus can compellingly contribute to your life.

  1. Visiting a new location? Ask ChatGPT to provide suggestions for must-see highlights. During a 2023 trip to Normandy in France, ChatGPT was my companion for questions about the D-Day invasion.
  2. Planning a vacation (i.e., My family of four is planning a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida – please suggest an itinerary for a six-day, five-night trip).
  3. Ask ChatGPT to create a QR Code.
  4. Using the Vision functionality, ask ChatGPT to explain the details of a product you have a picture of.
  5. Ask ChatGPT to adopt a specific persona and then ask a relevant question where that expertise is required. An example would be to ask for estate planning thoughts from the persona that ChatGPT is “an attorney with expertise in estate planning.”
  6. Specific questions regarding technology – such as “Please provide a brief introduction to prompt engineering and why it is important to prioritize time to understand the nuances of prompting when working with ChatGPT.”
  7. One of my favorite uses includes asking ChatGPT to summarize and, often, provide bullet-point highlights of specific writing content I created. An example is my blog post “The Art of the Epitaph: Conveying a Lifetime in Ten Words or Less.”

Once you have found your own use cases, we would love to know how ChatGPT has contributed to your life. Personal use alone will change and enhance your life experience. Wishing you the best in your adventure!

BONUS: Custom GPTs

While Don and I encourage adopting “start narrow” and experiencing specific use cases for ChatGPT Plus in your world, it is critical to understand AI is rapidly evolving with new features and possibilities. The potential to feel overwhelmed and unsure where to focus your energies is likely.  Please start, embrace ambiguity, pay attention to experts in the space, and accept that no one has all the answers to where the technology will evolve to in the future – only that it will evolve.

Within ChatGPT Plus, an exciting development announced on November 6, 2023, from OpenAI is the ability for users to create GPTs. OpenAI has created a store where users can sell GPTs. The GPT feature is not discussed in this ChatGPT Lite introduction, but if you made it this far, we are sharing the awareness of GPTs! Per the article linked below:

What are these GPTs?

“GPTs are custom versions of ChatGPT from OpenAI, its business partners, and thousands of third-party developers who created their own GPTs.

Sometimes when people encounter ChatGPT, they don’t know where to start. OpenAI calls it the “empty box problem.” Discovering that led the company to find a way to narrow down the choices, Turley said.

“People really benefit from the packaging of a use case — here’s a very specific thing that I can do with ChatGPT,” like travel planning, cooking help or an interactive, step-by-step tool to build a website, Turley said.

Think of GPTs as OpenAI trying to make the general-purpose power of ChatGPT more refined the same way smartphones have a wealth of specific tools. (And think of GPTs as OpenAI’s attempt to take control over how we find, use and pay for these apps, much like Apple has a commanding role over iPhones through its App Store.)”

ChatGPT: Here’s What It Is, How It Works and How It’s Evolving – CNET

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ChatGPT Lite Part 5 of 6 – Resources for Learning: Influencers and Online Learning courses

This is part 5 of 6 posts introducing ChatGPT and a path forward to consider for adoption and learning growth. 

  1. Part 1 of 6 (Introduction) can be found here. 
  2. Part 2 of 6 (Description of GenAI framework and ChatGPT “fit”) can be found here. 
  3. Part 3 of 6 (Steps to Getting Started) can be found here. 
  4. Part 4 of 6 (High-Level Concepts to Understand) can be found here.

Once the core suggestions are adopted (install ChatGPT and purchase the Plus monthly subscription) and you have started to work with the platform (“kick the tires“), the process for learning, creativity, and skills growth is to embrace a personal dedication to investing in yourself. No one can tell you an exact path to follow or the right or wrong ways to develop yourself. When technology is brand new, there is good news and bad news to accept:

  • Good news – you get to touch and experiment with the tool to find what is compelling for you. The TwinzTalk duo loves touching and experimenting with tech tools, and we have been early adopters throughout our lives.
  • Bad news – you must walk your own path of assessment and growth. You are responsible. No one can give you exact answers on what works for you.

While YOU are responsible for deciding your path forward (Don and I strongly discourage the decision to dismiss the technology as not relevant to you), resources exist to accelerate learning. In this section, we are sharing resources on influencers and online learning that we have identified and have been invaluable to our growth in using ChatGPT Plus. We hope some of these resources are valuable for you.

Influencers

Conor Grennan

  1. Website – https://www.ai-mindset.ai/
  2. The AI Mindset Newsletter – https://www.ai-mindset.ai/newsletter
  3. The Truth About Prompting – https://www.ai-mindset.ai/ai-mindset-newsletter/truth-about-prompting
  4. LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/conorgrennan/
  5. YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@ConorGrennan

Allie K. Miller

  1. Website AI with Allie – https://www.alliekmiller.com/
  2. The AI with Allie Newsletter – https://aiwithallie.beehiiv.com/ (subscribe and receive 50-page FREE ChatGPT Guide)
  3. AI with Allie – Becoming an AI-Enhanced Human (FREE 5-day educational email course) – https://www.alliekmiller.com/becoming-an-ai-enhanced-human
  4. LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/alliekmiller/
  5. YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@AKMofficial

Ethan Mollick

  1. LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/emollick/
  2. Substack – https://substack.com/@oneusefulthing
  3. NPR Interview ‘Everybody is cheating’: Why this teacher has adopted an open ChatGPT policy – https://www.npr.org/2023/01/26/1151499213/chatgpt-ai-education-cheating-classroom-wharton-school

Paul Roetzer

  1. Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute – Founder Paul Roetzer – https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/about/paul-roetzer
  2. Marketing AI Institute – Paul Roetzer blog – https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/blog
  3. The Marketing AI Show – Paul Roetzer and Mike Kaput weekly (Tuesday) podcast – https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/podcast-showcase (insightful and always timely – highly recommend!)
  4. LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulroetzer/

Courses

Listed below are courses I have completed and found helpful. Coursera, Udemy, and LinkedIn Learning are my favorite go-to sources for free or nominal personal development courses. We recommend browsing these platforms and locating topics you want to learn more about. The barrier to entry is often low (free or nominal cost), and the available content is spectacular. The hard part? Making the commitment to invest in your growth. You are in control. As Seth Godin would encourage, “Go. Make a ruckus.” Dedicate yourself to learning and then share your learning with others.

Coursera – Prompt Engineering for ChatGPT- Instructor Dr. Jules White, Vanderbilt University 

Coursera – ChatGPT Advanced Data Analysis – Instructor Dr. Jules White, Vanderbilt University

Udemy – ChatGPT, Midjourney, DALL-E 3 & APIs – The Complete Guide – Instructors from Academind (Maximilian Schwarzmuller)

LinkedIn Learning – courses are free with a paid LinkedIn subscription

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Personal Development | Introduction of Three-Part Blog Series Inspired by Nils and Jonas Salzgeber

Personal development has been a lifelong passion for my twin brother Don and me, born out of our competitive college years and desire to be our best selves. What started as self-serving during our college years has evolved into striving to bring out the best in ourselves and others.

Introducing the Inspiring Work of Nils and Jonas Salzgeber

In Part one of this series, I’ll share the background of Don and my personal development journey and introduce you to brothers Nils and Jonas Salzgeber. Their mission of personal mastery through their newsletter and website, NJLifeHacks.com, resonates with us. They combine ancient wisdom like Stoicism with modern science to help people become better versions of themselves.

I’ll also preview the three book recommendations that are covered in this blog series:

  1. Coach Wooden’s Leadership Game Plan for Success by John Wooden and Steve Jamison
  2. Benjamin Franklin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
  3. The Little Book of Stoicism by Jonas Salzgeber

Part two dives deeper into the timeless life lessons we can learn from legendary basketball coach John Wooden. His wisdom on hard work, staying in the present, and improving yourself to improve the team is powerful.

Part three explores Benjamin Franklin’s 13 Virtues that were key to his success and pursuit of self-improvement. These character traits like temperance, sincerity, humility, and others are relevant today. Walter Isaacson’s insightful biography of Franklin is also referenced.

I hope this series inspires you never to stop learning, improving and becoming the best version of yourself. Let’s go on this adventure together and help bring out the potential in each other along the way. Stay tuned for part one coming up next!

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ChatGPT Lite Part 2 of 6 – Description of Generative AI (GenAI) and how ChatGPT fits into the framework of GenAI

This is part 2 of 6 posts introducing ChatGPT and a path forward to consider for adoption and learning growth. Part 1 of 6 (Introduction) can be found here.

A brief description of GenAI and ChatGPT is provided below. “Zooming out” to take a higher view helps to clarify where the ChatGPT LLM fits into the picture of the larger theme of GenAI.

Prompting ChatGPT with “Please describe the concept of generative AI and how LLMs such as ChatGPT fit into the concept,” this helpful explanation was generated:

“Generative AI refers to a type of artificial intelligence that can generate content, whether text, images, music, or any other form of media. It’s not just about analyzing or processing existing information but creating new, original content based on the data it has been trained on.

Within the realm of generative AI, Language Models (LMs) like GPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) are specialized in understanding and generating human-like text. These models are a subset of generative AI focused explicitly on natural language processing (NLP), the domain concerned with the interaction between computers and human language.

ChatGPT, a variant of the GPT model, fits into the concept of generative AI as a state-of-the-art language model. Here’s how:

  1. Pre-training on Diverse Corpus: ChatGPT, like other LMs, is pre-trained on a vast and diverse text corpus. This pre-training allows the model to understand language patterns, grammar, context, and writing styles.
  2. Generative Capabilities: ChatGPT can generate coherent and contextually relevant text based on the input received after pre-training. It’s not just retrieving answers from a database but generating them, often creating content that didn’t exist before.
  3. Fine-tuning for Specific Tasks: While the base model is already powerful, ChatGPT can be fine-tuned for specific tasks or exhibit certain stylistic or thematic preferences in its output. This makes it highly versatile and adaptable to different domains.
  4. Understanding and Generating Contextually Relevant Content: ChatGPT, especially in its latest iterations, is adept at understanding context and generating relevant content. It can continue a conversation, answer questions, write stories, code software, and much more, often in a remarkably human-like way.

In the broader picture of generative AI, LLMs like ChatGPT represent a significant leap forward in our ability to automate and enhance various text-based tasks and interactions. They are key players in the ongoing evolution of AI, pushing the boundaries of what machines can understand and create in terms of human language.”

Ernst & Young overview – GPT component of Artificial Intelligence

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AI Wisdom from Seth Godin: Embracing the Dumb-Yet-Useful Tools That Are Transforming Our World: ChatGPT and Beyond

On February 14, 2024, I introduced an initiative that #TwinzTalk Don and I kicked off – getting started with AI and ChatGPT referencing an overview document titled ChatGPT Lite: How to Get Started. We have been engaging with ChatGPT Plus and other AI Large Language Models (LLMs), such as Claude AI, starting in December 2022, shortly after Open AI introduced ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.

The future of work changed instantly with the availability of LLMs for the mainstream consumer.

Seth Godin shared an insightful blog on April 20, 2024, titled ChatGPT is dumber than it looks. Seth accurately notes:

“The reason AI language models are dumb is that they don’t actually know anything, the model is simply calculating probabilities. Not about the unknown, but about everything. Each word, each sentence, is a statistical guess.

I’ve switched mostly to claude.ai because it’s more effective and less arrogant, but it’s still guessing.

If a guess is good enough, you’re set. If it’s not, plan accordingly.”

“Don’t ignore AI because it’s dumb. Figure out how to create patterns and processes where you can use it as the useful tool it’s becoming.“

Don and I have emphasized from the beginning:

  1. A mindset of curiosity, optimism, and possibility, balanced with realism, is imperative. Learn and grow with the tools.
  2. Know what you are expecting to receive from prompts. Domain expertise is critical for evaluating output that needs to be specific and accurate.
  3. Approach AI results critically, and educate yourself on the limitations, considering the results you seek.
  4. Although not perfect, embrace the possibility of AI to enhance thinking, creativity, and productivity exponentially.

We created a visual, shown below, to consider the potential uses for anyone. This is not a question of “how can this help me professionally?” Please think at a more macro level: “How can this help me, and how can I then help others by bringing more value to the world?“

TwinzTalk Framework – GenAI and ChatGPT

Embrace the possibilities and create value for your world!