Advertise on podcast: Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

SHOW NOTES: The airlines’ major frequent flyer programs began with American Airlines back in 1981 (thought Texas International Airlines had one in 1979). Everyone quickly followed. Travelers fell in love because they were earning free trips without paying anything extra for the ticket. You may feel the travelers were and are silly. Well, the average major airline today has a liability of about $7-10 billion if these points were all cashed in. Although there are attempts to squelch this with blackout periods and restricted seats available, this is none the less a very real monster under the bed. However, many people never cash them in or they the points may expire. Airlines and hotels figure the points won’t all be used. This is called “breakage,” believe it or not, and it’s the monster-slayer. Another example of this is the US Postal Service, which prints about $14 billion in postage stamps each year. But it’s estimated that over half of this amount is never used for postage because it goes into collections so there’s no attendant labor involved. I provide “unlimited access” to me for my top clients, both corporate and individual. That seems like it can’t be fulfilled, and many people ask how I can do it. It’s simple, virtually no one abuses the privilege. In fact, many people apologize for “bothering me” or ask if they can have an appointment. One year I had 36 corporate clients, and these days I have hundreds of these top echelon clients globally. They call when there’s a need and, since they’re so successful, the needs are relatively few and reasonable. This is my monster multiplier. Even successful solo consultants don’t generally offer this, and I’m probably the most approachable and reachable person at my level in the world. Use your airline points. Collect stamps if you like. But provide unlimited access. Then go sit on the beach.

SHOW NOTES: "Josephine Victoria 'Joy" Behar is an American actress, playwright, comedian, and television host. She's best known for co-hosting the ABC talk show The View, where she won a Daytime Emmy Award in 2009. Behar is known for her sharp wit and asking questions that others might avoid, such as asking Chris Christie if he was too overweight to be president. She's also hosted her own shows, including The Joy Behar Show on HLN and a call-in radio show on WABC. She is 83." The above is a PR document from ABC about her. In fact, Behar is rarely humorous. She's rather dour and absolutely inconsolable when anyone violates her political positions. She recently refused to appear on The View with her colleagues because a guest was Carrie Underwood, the great singer and American Idol winner who has a garage-full of Grammys. Behar's tantrum was that Carrie had sung at a Trump event. That's it: She had the temerity to appear and sing as an expression of her right of free speech. This is Behar's consistent behavior, she's walked off other shows as some kind of political protest even when the person involved is there for another reason. This is what's appearing in the media as "celebrity." You don't have to agree with someone else politically, but to simply ignore them and disappear is the nadir of intellectualism. Comics are supposed to be very bright. I guess there are clear exceptions. Joy Behar makes about $7 million a year to walk off the set whenever she likes. If you need to walk out because you can't deal with people intellectually, then STAY OUT.

SHOW NOTES: • Two great American novels: Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. • She championed “objectivism” and individual accomplishment. • It’s not subtle, and it’s not modest. It’s a full-throated defense of reason, individualism, and self-interest—often misunderstood because people hear “selfishness” and stop listening. • Today we have “soak the rich” and “tax the rich” and “occupy Wall Street” and people defending Luigi Mangione who killed an insurance executive on the streets in New York. • I don’t think a company needs a Jim Anderson of Coherent making $100 million as CEO. I do think that any founder of a company deserves whatever money he or she can make. • We’ve moved from a society that prized innovation and initiative and the wealth that ensues to one where entitlement is a prevailing belief. • Yet we idolize red carpet movie stars, athletes, and simply rich celebrities without discernable talents, like the Kardashians. • We find excuses not to succeed, such as “toxic workplaces” which, if they do exist, are probably caused by toxic employees who are not pulling their weight yet demanding more and more. • We blame the “boomers” as having taken everything and not replaced it, which is total hogwash. The boomers created jobs and entire industries. • I’ve always believed in “healthy selfishness,” meaning you can’t help others (with money, time, ideas, coaching, emotional support, and so forth) unless you possess the resources that allow you to do so. • A great many people who take ultra-progressive stances, from Bernie Sanders to the women on “The View,” themselves are so wealthy that no amount of their espouse government taxation will seriously cause them discomfort. • Unless we reward creativity and jobs creation (along with star athletes and performers and “celebrities”) we won’t have the opportunity creation for everyone else. • Australia’s “tall poppy” vs. my Rolls Royce. • We need to take care of our homeless, and ill, and incapacitated, but not people who are able but unwilling to work. • States creating “millionaire taxes” are losing taxable citizens at an alarming rate. Massachusetts and along with them $4.2 billion in adjusted gross income. • You don’t eliminate poverty by creating more of it. I’m for a version of Ayn Rand’s healthy selfishness.

SHOW NOTES: • If you’re in love with golf, and especially hitting a ball into a bed sheet, I suggest you don’t listen to this. • Is watching multi-millionaires hit balls into a screen and then in a confined stadium with undulating greens really interesting? Is it really a sport? Are they really “athletes”? • Maybe the Americans should focus on trying to win a Ryder Cup out in the real world before trying to excel in a virtual world. • Are we ruining tennis, baseball, football with endless algorithms and technological toys while purging them of judgment? • Do you need a veteran sports manager to read computer output? • We’d never develop today a Ted Williams, Willie Mays, or Sandy Koufax. • I understand the weekend duffer who spends four hours with buddies and then goes for drinks and cigars. I don’t understand what’s so fascinating about watching millionaires, who have caddies and perfect courses, competing to make more millions when there’s such a strong factor of luck involved.

SHOW NOTES: Learn how to learn from ducks, geese, otters, herons, egrets, turtles, osprey, and fish. They're bolder than many of you. Of course, they have to eat to live, but so do you...

SHOW NOTES: Higher education is going extinct. Tuitions are sky high forcing parents to take out second mortgages or kids to mortgage their future by owing $300,000 to teach history in high school for $60,000. Brick and mortar is giving way to remote learning. Government is increasingly intervening in college admissions, curricula, and hiring. The Epstein and other sexual scandals are undermining (and ending the careers) of faculty and university officials. The president of Ohio State just resigned because it was revealed that he had a sexual liaison with a woman bidding to do business with the school. The next president will be the fourth in five years. Ideology rules the classroom among tenured professors who can't be fired short of committing arson. Today and tomorrow, competence is trumping credential. Harvard had to create A+ to differentiate among all the A's everyone automatically receives. Is that really a valid degree? Think twice before you go into hock to send your kid to college. Look around. This decision does not require a college degree.

SHOW NOTES: INMJ (It’s not my job.) Some people define their job as the absolute minimal effort to be expended and not be penalized. It’s about laziness, lousy attitudes, and low esteem. Some people define it as pleasing and delighting the customer. It’s about pride, resourcefulness, and helping the organization. I’ve just returned from an eye doctor who is magnificent and has a great personality. But her technical assistant is a drip, with no personality who never utters a word like “please” or “thank you.” I tolerate her only because the doctor is so good. There are no consequences for her dull personality. This is all a matter of choice and it can determine repeat business, referral business, or no business. I don’t like virtual assistants and other third-parties because there are rarely consequences to perform well and not to perform poorly. If you own a boutique firm, I suggest you test with your clients how they believe they’re treated when dealing with your employees, who may be pleasing around you but can be like dark clouds with everyone else. It’s your money.

SHOW NOTES: •There are no "humble" jobs •The less on Downton Abbey •The doers vs. the administrators •Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night •Blue is trumping white •AI isn't plowing your driveway •Maybe your daughter should marry a cowboy

SHOW NOTES: Alysa Liu won the woman's gold medal for figure skating a couple of days ago, our first in 24 years! Watching her and listening to her prior, during, and after her final performance (she was in third place at the time), she exhibited a carefree and total joy in her skating. It wasn't about competition or medals, it was about sheer delight. Scottie Shuffler is about sheer delight on the golf course (Tiger Woods was strictly about competition), Sinatra singing on stage, Helen Mirren acting, Zig Ziegler teaching sales skills, Phil Donahue hosting a talk show, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner creating comedy. It's not about 10,000 hours, though some people may choose to invest those five years. It's about being unafraid of failing, using your own metrics for success, and refusing to bow to the external pressures of the moment. I have shelves of awards in the house. I didn't pursue any of them. I've pursued my passion, which is helping others succeed and prosper. Most rewards occur not when you're thinking about them, but when you're not thinking about them.

SHOW NOTES: The winter Olympics had a boring opening ceremony except for Andrea Bocelli. Some of the events seem duplicative, especially figure skating and skiing. Some seem like efforts to avoid death or injury, and not just competing—skeleton, luge, giant slalom, ski jumping, distance skiing. Skiing in ruts is rather boring, and then the women collapsing over the finishing line and gasping for air is frightening. The giant slalom hits about 85 MPH. Luge and skeleton runs are between 80 and 100 MPH. On the ice, men are tossing women around who have knives attached to their feet. The French judge in figure skating obviously downgraded the American and inflated the French scores so that the latter pairs won. That judge has been known to have done this throughout the last year. Now onto curling, which is a game played with stones and brooms, has suffered cheating accusations for the Canadians “double touching” the stone on launch. After a profane, long outburst by the accused, slow reply showed he, indeed, did commit the infraction. In a manner of speaking he “gave them the finger” before tongue lashing them with obscenities. So much for the Olympic spirit. (And for Canadians being nice people.) At the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan-Cortina, Canadian curlers Marc Kennedy and Rachel Homan were accused of "double-touching" (illegally touching a stone after its initial release) in separate matches. Sweden's Oskar Eriksson initiated the allegation against Kennedy on Feb. 13, while officials flagged Homan on Feb. 14. Curling is basically the same as shuffleboard, which older people play in retirement villages, or bocce which specifically older Italian people play on dirt. Then there’s the cousin, English Lawn Bowls, which I’ve never been able to finish watching without falling asleep. Johnny Weir, the former Olympic figure skater and NBC commentator, is renowned for his highly, flamboyant, and gender-neutral fashion choices while broadcasting, often featuring makeup, jewelry, and avant-garde, designer clothing. He and Sarah Lapinsky are worth the time spent watching people jump around on ice. Yes, it is true that the Olympic Village at the 2026 Milano Cortina Winter Games ran out of free condoms within the first three days, according to reports in La Stampa and The Guardian. Approximately 10,000 contraceptives for about 2,900 athletes were depleted quickly, prompting emergency restocking due to higher-than-expected demand. Now THAT’S the competitive spirit!

SHOW NOTES: Maybe you have this "bucket list" thing all wrong, where you can never fulfill your expectations. Here's a distinctly contrarian view.

SHOW NOTES: • Suddenly we have “toxic workplaces” (and need “psychological safety” and have “unhoused” people and “food insecure people). • We try to wallpaper over real problems with euphemisms and ideologically-biased language. • Can you have a “toxic workplace” without toxic employees? Chicken and egg? • On social media we see complete nonsense such as “52% of all workplaces are toxic,” which is preposterous and without any valid study. • Can we have so many successful businesses with such malicious management? • I’ve witnessed the opposite: Leadership doing its best to deal with underperforming and entitled employees. • The story of Burlington Industries and Bill Klopman. • If people want to do the job but don’t know how, they need skills training. • If people don’t want to do the job even if they do know how, they need coaching (attitude adjustment). If they still refuse to do it, they need firing. • It’s an entitled age, and people demand certain treatments and conditions that please them, but may not please others, and don’t help the business or its customers. • My work at the post office. • “Toxic” often means “I’m asked to do too much, to meet deadlines, to fulfill commitments.” • There are, of course, bad bosses, and hungry people and homeless people. Let’s not conflate the truly bad with those who are merely discontents. • I have to conclude here, I feel “food insecure” so I’m going out for lunch, which would make me, for the moment, “unhoused.”

SHOW NOTES: • Parents and kids were united in what was watched, experiences, and enjoyed in the early 50s. Gunsmoke, Soupy Sales, MASH, Bonanza, Sink the Bismark. • Then came Dick Clark and American Bandstand. • The 60s saw the Beatles, Sex/Drugs/Rock and Roll. • Viet Nam and campus occupations. • A man on the moon. • Assassinations of John Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King. • Woodstock. • The Cuban Missile Crisis. • The Schism has evolved into polarization. • We don't trust each other anymore. • We feel entitled. (You can't give an activist enough, ever.) • What can unite? Comedy, trust, tolerance, art, forgiveness? • Unlike climate change, which is highly existential, this is immediate and grave. This is a threat that we need to handle now. • The alternative is chaos.

SHOW NOTES: • The point is to live with imperfection. • Free of mistakes, we’re free of critique and ridicule is false • Perfectionism leads to huge stress • It’s a fictitious expectation (dining, travel, relationships, etc.) • We think it protects us, but it ruins us • It’s based on the fear of being imperfect—and human!! • Engage in vulnerable conversations and actitivies • Accept results of a task that are “OK” • My wife’s formula for long-term marriages • Perfectionism assumes control you don’t have • Why I don’t guarantee my results • Strong esteem nullifies perfectionism • Self-compassion, the same sensitivity you’d offer others • My “therapy” of trains and models • Small “chunks” of change, not mammoth ones • At extremes we have OCD • Experience rather than orchestrate • Ironically, caused by not feeling worthy or good about yourself • The critical distinction between efficacy and self-worth

SHOW NOTES: • Defined as moral and mental qualities; strengths and reputation. • It’s a matter of self-worth, or esteem, of personal dignity. • Also a matter of our willingness to help others, to have an abundance and not a scarcity mentality. • It’s a quiet confidence, not braggadocio. • It’s legitimate and earned, not bogus or borrowed. • The lessons of the Ritz-Carlton. • It’s also with whom we choose to spend our time. • It’s refusing to cheat at golf but trying to cheat in football. • There is the issue of cause and not blame. • There is innate respect for others and not envy or acrimony. • You give back the mistaken, excess change. • Entire cultures can lack character. • The ongoing struggle of politicians to remain in power undermines character. • Yet this is an age of obfuscation, of mistrust, of deep fakes and phony news. • Thinking peoples with opposing views are somehow morally inferior is reflective of poor character. • Intolerance is an absence of character. • “Character” is also about occupying a role, being performative. • Are you real, or just playing a character in your own illusion of reality?