Learning to Be Excellent

EXCELLENCE is a mindset. The right mindset is what differentiates top performers from others. A mindset is simply the way you approach the circumstances you are faced with. It is a chosen approach to life that either propels you forward or leaves you drifting. Your mindset is a choice. Choose wisely.

In Learned Excellence, Eric Potterat and Alan Eagle say that “learning excellence starts with developing a deeper understanding of ourselves: how we act, why we act that way, and what drives us.” In other words, our identity. Too often we worry too much about what people think of us, and it affects our performance. Our focus should be on our identity—what we value—and our reputation will take care of itself. Behave from our values, not our reputation.

Eric defines his personal identity with ten words: wonder, stay hungry, stay humble, stay connected, loyalty, listen, laugh. He adds, “I have used it to guide every important decision of my life, and I counsel my clients to do the same.”

Our identity defines our mindset. But how do you practice the mindset you’ve chosen?

My answer: the controllables. Among all the top performers I have worked with or interviewed, the ones at the top will talk about controlling what they can control and not worrying about the rest. This is a skill that is difficult to master, but in my experience, it is through the controllables that one can best evolve into and practice a mindset.

What can you control?

There is attitude: the way you think about a thing or person. There is effort: how hard you work. And there is behavior: the actions you take. That’s it, that’s all you can control: your attitude, your effort, and your behavior. The rest, ignore. To live your mindset, you need to activate it through all three controllables simultaneously; two or one out of three won’t cut it.

Get good at controlling the controllables and ignoring the rest. Easier said than done at times.

Eric’s advice is to stay in the circle—what you can control—attitude, effort, and behavior. Everything else—what you can’t control—is outside the circle.

Attitude:

It is easy to focus on the negative. “The best way to practice the first controllable—attitude—is to manage your self-talk. As you go through your day and encounter various challenges (the conversation that doesn’t go your way, the failed opportunity for that glib one-liner, the little mistakes of life), observe what you tell yourself about yourself. Filter out your chatter about others (That jerk just cut in line!) and notice your chatter about yourself (How could I let him do that? That’s just like me, being too nice.) When you talk to yourself, are you a critic or a coach?”

Flip that negative self-talk to positive and affirming statements about your circumstance. Observe like a friend would and speak in second person. For example, not “I am…” but “You are…”to distance yourself and create the space for an objective look.

Effort:

You have to put in the work to succeed.

Effort is perhaps both the easiest and hardest aspect of mindset to practice. Easy because you know what needs to be done: more practicing, more studying, more exercising, more time. Hard because: more work! For some people (and many high performers), hard work is innate. They keep at it naturally; they don’t have to make themselves do it. But most of us are what I like to call ‘human’: we have a limit. When we reach that fork in our day when we could spend an hour practicing that thing we care about or rot our brains watching viral videos or reality shows, too often we opt for the videos. We’ll practice tomorrow. We suffer from (or benefit from, depending on whether you are sitting comfortably on your couch or not) an intention-behavior gap. We intend to do something, but we don’t do it.

Recognize when the intention-behavior gap—the knowing-doing gap—surfaces and make the choice to bridge it.

Behavior:

Behavior is our mindset manifested in our actions. Behavior reflects what we really think about ourselves and the world around us.

Create habits that embody your chosen mindset. Think about the mindset, observe people who exhibit it, and practice the things they do that help them live it. How you express yourself, both internally and to others, is a powerful way to practice mindset. Notice and avoid using language that does not embody your chosen mindset.

Life will not go as planned, and when it doesn’t, how you react to it will define you. Excellence is about how you respond to life. No one is born excellent; it is something you learn. And constructive feedback from people who have our best interests in mind is critical to that learning process.

American historian, writer, and philosopher Will Durant wrote, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.” Make it yours. Learning excellence starts now.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 08:37 AM
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AI Likes Kissing Up to You

Personal Tech columnist at The Wall Street Journal, Nicole Nguyen, wrote in Why I Told My Chatbot to Stop Kissing Up to Me, “AI is trained in part on what people like, and people prefer the brown-nosing, says Myra Cheng, a computer-science Ph.D. candidate at Stanford University and lead author of a March study on agreeable AI. Participants rated sycophantic AI responses significantly higher in quality and, after interacting with a more obsequious model, said they were more likely to return to the AI.”

The study found that “AI affirmed users’ actions 49% more often than humans, even when queries involved deception, illegality, or other harms. In three preregistered experiments, even a single interaction with sycophantic AI reduced participants’ willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, while increasing their conviction that they were right.”

This is foreboding. If you take AI to be an authority in your life, the pressure to take responsibility and self-correct is muted. If you are always right, the incentive to take your cues from AI will drive you to return again and again at your own peril.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:06 AM
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Mastering Uncertainty

WE all face uncertainty. The question is: how can we keep performing when faced with the disorder of uncertainty? Life will not happen according to our expectations. Peak performance at all times is not realistic. Instead, success is about optimal performance.

Rich Diviney states in Masters of Uncertainty that “True success in life and business hinges instead on optimal performance, which means delivering your ‘best’ in the moment, whatever your best looks like in that moment. Sometimes your best is about persevering, moving forward step-by-step in the midst of challenges, embracing the messy, grueling, and unpolished reality.”

Diviney’s Mastering Uncertainty Method comprises three steps: Move Horizons, Keep Going, and Stay Cool.

Move Horizons

Asking what I know now and what I can control keeps you in the here and now without overthinking and spiraling into negative thinking. Levels of uncertainty are determined by three key factors: Duration (How long will this situation last?), Pathway (What should I do next?), and Outcome (What is the goal?).

“Moving Horizons is a process where you remain anchored in the present while actively shaping your own Duration, Pathway, and Outcome. Life’s unpredictability often leaves us without clear timelines, defined steps, or guaranteed outcomes for our challenges.” It’s how we best deal with uncertainty one step at a time. Through this process, “you sequentially grow the sphere of what you know and control.”

Keep Going

As you progress, keep setting goals that are not too big but just outside your comfort zone. A rightly sized goal will keep you going. Staying focused on the current situation, you will find that sometimes a goal will involve a detour. That’s OK.

Stay in the present moment. “Refocus on what you know and what you can influence right now. The old saying ‘Keep your eyes on the prize’ is often touted to hone focus and stir passion. However, fixating on the end goal isn’t necessary to make progress or to maintain zeal.”

Stay Cool

Keep your mind on the big picture. Take a panoramic view. It will help you avoid becoming overstimulated. “When a threat looms and autonomic arousal begins to rise, focused vision activates, and vision tends to narrow. This natural response heightens the ability to concentrate on the critical circumstance demanding attention. In extreme cases, this can lead to ‘tunnel vision,’ where perception is limited to the threat itself, and all else falls away.”

Facing uncertainty is easier when you know yourself—what you are good at and what you are not. “Use your strengths to your advantage, and find ways to counterbalance your weaknesses.”

Your identity – how you see yourself and how you interact with the world around you – plays a large part in how you respond to uncertainty. Our identities give us guideposts as we navigate our world. Diviney recommends that we “seek, if possible, perspective or help from others who have different identities. Make space for yourself to consider alternative strategies or to take things slower. Often, simply committing to slowing down while you set horizons can help you see beyond the instincts you carry.” Another perspective can go a long way to bringing down our anxiety level.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 07:47 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 20, 2026

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Creator of the iPod, iPhone, Tony Fadell on building a company:

“I needed to learn. And the best way to do that was to surround myself with people who knew exactly how hard it was to make something great—who had the scars to prove it. And if it turned out to be the wrong move, well, making a mistake is the best way to not make that mistake again. Do, fail, learn.

“The critical thing is to have a goal. To strive for something big and hard and important to you. Then every step you take toward that goal, even if it’s a stumble, moves you forward. And you can’t skip a step—you can’t just have the answers handed to you and detour around the hard stuff. Humans learn through productive struggle, by trying it themselves and screwing up and doing it differently next time.”

Source: Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

II.

Maynard Webb on finding inspiration:

“Inspiration often starts with frustration. It begins with what seems like intractable problems—and then an unwillingness to accept that there are not any answers. I keep these intractable problems in my head and keep a lookout for answers or insights that can come from anywhere.

“Even if you do not have the answers you need right now, I promise you that your solutions are all out there. You just need to acknowledge that you have a sticky issue, commit to solving it, and go about your journey with an air of wonder and an understanding that magic can and will happen.”

Source: Dear Founder: Letters of Advice for Anyone Who Leads, Manages, or Wants to Start a Business

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 12:37 PM
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Quickpoint: The 3Cs of Self-Reflection

PROFESSOR of Management and Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management, Harry Kraemer, Jr., explains the 3Cs of self-reflection in Your Values-Based Legacy. He says we self-reflect to examine our pasts for clues about our future journeys. We are influenced by our connection, our community, and our choices. “When enhanced by self-reflection, these three Cs enable us to gain clarity about what we’re currently doing, what we’d like to do, and how all the aspects of our lives come together with a sense of purpose.”

There is no right or wrong way to engage in self-reflection. The key is to find time when you can be silent and contemplate what matters most. In these quiet moments, I look back on the day and ask myself:

• What did I say I was going to do today, and what did I actually do? If what I did was different than what I planned, what were the reasons?
• What went well, and what did not?
• How did I treat people?
• Am I proud of the way I lived this day?
• If I had the day to live over again, what would I do differently?
• What did I learn today that will have an impact on howI live the next day, the next week, and going forward?

Why do this?

• Only by being self-reflective can I truly know myself.
• If I don’t know myself, I cannot lead myself.
• If I can’t lead myself, I cannot lead other people.

These statements always point me deeper into self-reflection to clarify my values and priorities.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:40 AM
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Does AI Lie?

WE’RE used to living with small lies.

I was confronted by this fact when, recently, as I was preparing for a dinner party, I climbed onto a step-stool and reached into the liquor cabinet. One by one, I pulled down bottles that were nearly empty. Not surprisingly, at some point over the years, my young adult kids had helped themselves.

As they were growing up, we navigated our share of lies. We had conversations about drinking. We had rules. And still, like all children, they lie at times.

But I’m invested in them anyway. I love them, and I trust them. I understand that we won’t always tell each other the full truth. That isn’t dysfunction. It’s human.

Human lies are tangled up with relationships. People stretch the truth out of fear, protection, embarrassment, ego — even kindness. When I caught my kids lying, it revealed something deeper — discomfort about independence, boundaries, identity. The lie isn’t the whole story. It’s a signal.

And now we say AI “lies.” The claim in this context is misleading. Human lies involve intent — someone knows the truth and chooses to distort it. AI has no such awareness. What we call an AI “lie” is usually something subtler: an answer that sounds authoritative but turns out to be incomplete, outdated, or overly certain.

That difference matters.

AI does not lie in the moral sense, but it also has no loyalty to the truth. It generates confident responses without reliably signaling uncertainty and makes it easier for us to accept incomplete truths. Sometimes the information is simply wrong. More often, complex questions are presented as if the answers are settled.

And yet, we’re beginning to treat these answers the way we treat the small distortions of everyday life: we let them pass.

It’s easier — and often more convenient — to accept the answer and move on than to question it. In fact, in a controlled 2025 study on human reliance on AI-generated advice, participants followed incorrect AI suggestions more than half the time (52.1%), even when they were told the system was frequently wrong. Simply warning users about AI’s limitations didn’t meaningfully reduce this reliance. Confident, incomplete answers are surprisingly easy to accept as truth.

We might think of this as a kind of convenience bias — a tendency to accept answers that are fast, clear, and complete enough, rather than pause to test whether they’re fully true.

That raises a simple but urgent question: When does the truth matter more to us than our own convenience?

The difference becomes clear when the stakes are high.

My friend had been caring for a loved one with pancreatic cancer. Wanting to stay informed, their family began using an AI tool to understand the latest treatment options and research developments. They asked what therapies are most effective and whether newer experimental approaches are worth considering. The AI’s response was clear and reassuring: standard chemotherapy protocols remain the most reliable treatment. Experimental therapies, it explained, are still early-stage and uncertain. The path forward sounded straightforward — follow established care.

But cancer researchers and oncologists know that the reality is more complicated. There are promising clinical trials exploring targeted therapies and immunotherapy combinations. The field is evolving quickly, and specialists often weigh the evidence differently depending on the patient’s condition and goals.

The AI’s answer wasn’t fabricated. It referenced real, established treatments. But its false certainty presented a complex, evolving field as if the answer were settled.

This is one of the most common ways AI “lies” — not through malicious intent or obvious error, but by sounding certain when the truth is much muddier. AI’s answers can be outdated, off-target, or too narrow — shaped by incomplete data, algorithmic limitations, and even the way our own queries are interpreted. In a culture that increasingly rewards speed, those answers can feel especially easy to accept.

And unlike a human expert, AI doesn’t express humility. It rarely says, “this is evolving,” “experts disagree,” or “the evidence is limited.” Instead, it delivers smooth, confident responses that make even contested information sound resolved. When uncertainty is hidden, we’re less likely to question what we’re being told.

It also can’t distinguish, in a meaningful way, between strong evidence and opinion. It can present both with the same tone of authority. And perhaps most importantly, AI can’t judge when the truth matters more than convenience. It answers a casual curiosity and a life-altering question with the same polished confidence.

That’s the risk.

The liquor cabinet wasn’t empty because my kids lied. It was empty because I assumed everything was as I expected. I didn’t check. I ran out to the store minutes before guests arrived because I’d relied on an assumption rather than verification.

We’re doing something similar with AI. In everyday life, small distortions can be absorbed. But in financial decisions, medical guidance, legal advice, or academic work, the cost of unexamined confidence is higher.

So what does it mean to use AI well?

The solution isn’t to use AI less. It’s to use it more carefully — and more actively.

Most of us already know how to do this when we want better answers. Many parents learn that asking a child, “What did you do today?” produces the unhelpful reply: “Nothing.” But a more thoughtful question — “What was the best part of your day?” or “Teach me something you learned” — draws out richer, more accurate responses.

Research supports this instinct. The way a question is framed shapes the quality of the answer. More specific prompts lead to more thoughtful and accurate responses. Better questions don’t just produce better answers — they guide the thinking that makes better answers possible.

The same principle applies to AI. The quality of AI’s output is directly tied to the quality of our input.

Here are ways to produce better AI answers by asking better questions:

1. Ask detailed questions. Broad prompts produce generalized answers. More precise questions about trade-offs, limitations, and disagreements push the system toward more useful responses since real-world decisions rarely come without disagreement, uncertainty, or competing perspectives. Simplicity can be a signal that something important is missing.

2. Ask for sources. When we have the sources, we can review them directly and assess their credibility. Are they recent? Are they based on rigorous research or opinion? Do multiple sources support the same conclusion?

3. Resist treating our AI usage as a single transaction. High-stakes questions require iteration: ask broadly, challenge the answer, verify the evidence, and ask again from another angle. In the case of my friend researching pancreatic cancer treatments, that might mean asking for summaries of the latest clinical trials, identifying which experimental therapies show early promise, and probing what uncertainties remain.

4. Recognize AI’s limits. No artificial intelligence tool can replace the judgment, experience, and nuance of an oncologist or cancer researcher. AI can help you locate experts. It can’t replace them.

There’s no prompt that guarantees truth. There’s no magic question that forces AI into honesty. And in all our concern about AI hallucinations, we may be missing the sharper point: AI doesn’t threaten the truth. It threatens our habit of checking. It exposes how easily we trade truth for convenience.

Our human edge won’t come from rejecting these tools. It will come from knowing when a confident answer deserves a second look — and how to search for the fuller truth.

The problem isn’t that the bottles are empty. It’s that we stopped checking.

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Cheryl Strauss Einhorn is the creator of the AREA Method, a decision-making system for individuals, companies, and nonprofits to solve complex problems. She is the founder of the decision-sciences company Decisive, offering leadership training, curriculum, coaching, and professional development services, and is an adjunct professor at Cornell University. An award-winning author, her new book is The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI (Cornell Publishing, May 15, 2026). To learn more, check out her TED talk and visit areamethod.com.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 09:52 AM
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The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently

TO make the best decisions, we need to expand our view and think through a wider range of experiences and opinions. See panoramically.

Increasing change and complexity require that we get more complete and diverse information and look outside of our usual suspects. We need panoramic intelligence.

In The Panoramic Leader, Cornelia Choe and Marshall Goldsmith say that “panoramic intelligence is about training yourself to see through more than just your own lens. The real power is when you move beyond simply noticing others and start to see the world through their eyes, understanding the experiences and beliefs that shape their maps.”

The lenses we choose to see the world determine the reality we see. The authors have identified three lenses—inner, outer, and relational—that allow us to see more fully.

The inner lens helps us to gather self-awareness through self-reflection. It impacts how we see the world through our outer lens. The outer lens expands our view through our interaction with others, “taking in the systems, perspectives, and shifting conditions that define the world around us.” The relational lens creates insights between our inner and outer perspectives and transforms each with the insights gained from that enhanced perspective. We grow from the intersection of each lens.

The relational lens gathers the insights we develop internally and shines that light back outward to our stakeholders through our outer lens, expressed in dialogue and leadership. This continuous refraction of insight—taking in light and returning it transformed—is what distinguishes panoramic leaders. They do not merely absorb understanding from all sides; they refract it back outward toward their stakeholders, shaping conversations and aligning teams.

This model highlights the need for feedback. Feedback helps to remove blind spots from our inner lens. If you are not getting input from outside yourself, you will not see clearly what is going on around you. It has always been the case, but especially today in a rapidly changing world, if you are not adjusting and experimenting, you will become irrelevant.

Many of us continue to cling to outdated mental maps because they’re familiar and comfortable, even if they lead us to constant disappointment because they don’t take us to where we want to go.

They suggest we ignite our courageous curiosity, question ourselves, and to know our map and keep adapting it.

I love this question: Who’s not at your table? Who should we have join us? Inviting people in that we normally don’t associate with opens us up to new perspectives and ideas. Developing panoramic leadership requires that we “go beyond understanding stakeholders to building meaningful relationships with them and staying attuned to their evolving circumstances and views.”

As we work with others, we find where their perspective or map aligns with ours and how they might fit together. Where other people’s maps are different or contradictory to our own can reveal areas where we need to pay closer attention and find previously unseen opportunities.

For panoramic leaders, differing perspectives are the raw material of better judgment. They help us sort through the information we collect, clarify priorities, and anticipate risks. They test assumptions and reveal how various stakeholders’ perspectives can be integrated into a coherent picture. By engaging with conflicting views productively, leaders uncover blind spots, refine their priorities, and navigate growing complexity with sounder judgment.

Combining maps requires that we interpret their perspective and microtranslate our perspective for them. In this way, we learn from one context so that we can apply those lessons to our own. We begin to see where our maps may be incomplete and fill in our blind spots.

Another component to consider, as we evaluate what insights we should add to our own and which ones to leave out, we should identify not only what loyalties our stakeholders have but what loyalties we have that might be swaying our judgment. They suggest that we ask ourselves: “To whom do I feel most responsible? Who would react most vigorously if I did something out of the routine? Whom am I trying hardest to please or impress? Who would I most disappoint? Whose support do I most need?”

We can never allow complacency to creep into our worldview. The world continues to change around us, and, like explorers sailing to uncharted lands, we must constantly adjust our maps accordingly.

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:26 AM
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Leading Thoughts for August 13, 2026

IDEAS shared have the power to expand perspectives, change thinking, and move lives. Here are two ideas for the curious mind to engage with:

I.

Bill Burnett and Dave Evans on detachment:

“A state of mind that is fully engaged but calmly detached is the best place from which to do design. When you are fully engaged in any task—really buckling down and getting the work done—you have the best chance of unlocking a great solution. However, most of us can’t shake off the fear of a bad outcome, and this tends to stifle our creativity and burden our actions. But when you can cultivate a mindset that is detached from outcomes, which are ultimately out of your control, you are the freest and most creative. When something goes as hoped for, you’re pleased. When something unexpected or negative happens, you’re bemused and happy to learn from the experience (which is why you come to think that just about everything is a prototype).”

Source: How to Live a Meaningful Life: Using Design Thinking to Unlock Purpose, Joy, and Flow Every Day

II.

Gary Hamel on decision-making:

“Paradoxically, as decisions get bigger, the ranks of those able to challenge the decision maker get smaller. Hubris, myopia, and naivete can corrupt decisions at any level, but that risk goes up when the decision maker’s power is, for practical purposes, incontestable. Give someone monarch-like authority, and sooner or later there will be a royal screw-up.”

Source: What Matters Now: How to Win in a World of Relentless Change, Ferocious Competition, and Unstoppable Innovation

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Posted by Michael McKinney at 11:58 AM
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