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

SHOW NOTES: The CVS clerk who had to be fired. Not related to status, income, or hierarchy. Why strategies are undermined by lack of accountability. The corruption of "that's not who I am." The $15 billion high speed chimera. Why politicians never answer honestly. It is not generational, but it is about entitlement. Strong leaders, strong followers, weak leaders, weak followers. The "dead man switch" on trains and the workaround. Ghosting is cowardly. Origins of "saved by the bell." Misplaced: Not a notice from manufacturer, but parental guidance. If not now, when, well if not you, who? Or do we rely on being saved by the bell?

SHOW NOTES: •Generosity should coexist with healthy boundaries. •Giving should. not require neglecting your own well-being. •Generosity is most meaningful when it comes from freedom rather than guilt or obligation. •Sometimes the most generous thing you can offer is honesty, accountability, or helping someone become independent. Generosity as a philosophy is the belief that life becomes richer, more meaningful, and more fulfilling when we approach others with a spirit of giving rather than scarcity, competition, or self-interest. It goes beyond giving money or possessions. It is a way of thinking, living, leading, and relating to others. Creates a mindset of abundance. Generosity shifts your perspective from "There isn't enough" to "There is value in what I can share." It encourages confidence, gratitude, and openness rather than fear of losing what you have. Deepens relationships and trust. Generous people tend to create stronger emotional connections. Giving time, attention, encouragement, and understanding builds goodwill and often inspires reciprocity. Encourages personal growth. Giving often requires us to stretch beyond our comfort zones. Sharing knowledge, offering forgiveness, or helping someone succeed can deepen our wisdom and emotional maturity. Improves leadership and influence. Generous leaders share credit, develop others, listen carefully, and create opportunities. This can strengthen loyalty, collaboration, and long-term organizational success. Creates freedom from materialism. Generosity helps us recognize that wealth and possessions are tools rather than ultimate measures of success. It encourages us to value relationships, experiences, contribution, and meaning. Gives life a greater sense of purpose. Perhaps the deepest benefit is the recognition that a meaningful life is not measured only by what we accumulate, but also by what we contribute to the lives of others.

SHOW NOTES: Wherein the people in real or petty power learn what it's like for others to have to follow the often asinine rules that the former create. And why followers on social media are so easily outraged at what the rest of us realize is mundane. And why you can be so full of yourself than you can implode in public.

SHOW NOTES: If you're sensitive or overly partisan about politics, don't listen. Alan takes on the lying, cheating, obfuscation, and essentially greed that is the shame of both major parties.

SHOW NOTES: Have you noticed how we're drowned with ills and maladies and their cures and remedies? During the unceasing bombardment (arthritis, incontinence, cognitive decline, diabetes, breathing issues, lack of mobility/flexibility, hair loss, facial lines and wrinkles, vision deterioration, muscle aches, skin discoloration, and on and on) I think many of us start to believe we have conditions that we don't! This is called "recency bias," wherein something you're hearing repeatedly makes you suddenly begin searching for the condition. Instead of simply misplacing your car keys, you think it's the onset of dementia. Instead of a mole, you think it may be melanoma. You have infrequent indigestion and believe it may be a heart problem. Doctors are telling me they're seeing too many patients who see their advertisements, self-diagnose over the internet, and come in demanding tests and medical responses that are unwarranted. And, of course, all of this is well worth it despite possible spoken and written side effects of public urination, committing arson, gangrene, and suicide ideation!

SHOW NOTES: • More cheats, frauds, schemers, liars and thieves than ever in our perception. The turning point was internet access. • Men's and women's sob stories are followed by glam shots. • Drugs and gizmos for the aging are hyped until people get wise: tinnitus, incontinence, arthritis, hair loss, hearing decline, cognitive issues, constipation. • Book deals for the ego needs of prospective and new authors. • False identify for editors from major publishers. • "Tricks" to bake cakes, seal pipes, preserve food, fix toilets. • Phony endorsements from people who don't really exist. • I told one scammer that he was obviously a foreign, spamming, scammer who had no quality and the intent was theft. He said, "I'm a citizen of the Czech Republic, why are you making this so personal?!" • I can understand the elderly, perhaps, who lack proper advice and family, for falling for this stuff. But really, holding a metal object next to your ear to cure tinnitus? • My doctors tell me too many people are self-diagnosing and coming in with preferred treatment suggestions. • Vacations aren't fulfilled or people are left stranded or in run-down facilities. • Of course, I could afford all of this if those Nigerians just delivered on the $5 million they found in my name in a Swiss deposit box, awaiting for US air mail.

SHOW NOTES: There is a great deal of work being done today around what's called "difficult conversations." I think the work is important and needed. In my experience, I've witnessed, been part of, and had to deal with more poorly done performance evaluations than good ones. I've had to help people gain the courage and proper language to talk to colleagues, let alone customers and prospects. The basic issue is that we don't want to endure the "pain" of dealing with a tough or sensitive issue: performance, relationships, behavior, lies, failures. So we live with a long-term ache instead of facing the short-term pain. It's like avoiding the dentist and the needle and drilling to cure a toothache, and instead living with the discomfort endlessly. Of course, the same applies to people in long-term, very unhappy marriages, who dread the pain of divorce. Divorce IS painful, but it's temporary, and horrible, continuing bad marriages can destroy your health and your soul. Pain is temporary, suffering is voluntary. Don't avoid the difficult only to create the debilitating.

SHOW NOTES: AI isn't perfect or infallible. It is subject to construction by human and human user error. It's ideal to help you consolidate and remind you of your own IP. It can easily lead you into unintended plagiarism by answering inquiries and not providing attribution for its answers. It will eliminate jobs, but also create jobs. Look around you for social proof, don't just listen to unsupported claims. Never use it when you need high touch. Use it for high tech, but validate. It is not a terribly personally creative tool, and it's substitution for what is supposed to be original work will soon be easily exposed...by AI. Use AI in your work, but don't organize your work to support AI.

SHOW NOTES: • Plastic cup lids that pop off and spill all over you. • Cheap plastic water bottle with tiny, cheap caps that you twist, squeeze the bottle, and it squirts all over you. • European bottle caps that are connected and hit you in the nose or the eye. • Cheap straws that rip or break up. • European insanity about air conditioning. • Only 43% of US households participate in recycling where it's available, and only 21% of potential is actually recovered. Bottom line, only 5-9% of residential plastic recycling potential is actually recycled, and the rest remains as plastic waste. • Drucker's rule about laws resulting from a single person's actions. 8Electric battery fires are extremely hard to extinguish. • They card me for a beer at Fenway Park. • When my wife's metal knees trigger the alert, even after she tells them, they check her for gunpowder residue. • The CYA of banks ignoring their best customers and making them to conform to limits on remote deposits, ID checks with tellers, etc. • Entering a theater they peak into bags which could still be hiding a bomb or hand grenade. • No matter how great your chef is, you can't make a bad cut of cheap meat into a legitimate $50 entree.

SHOW NOTES: •Influencers have been found (by the NYT) to be changing their tune from objective recommenders to shills for politicians. Josh Green and Carlos Eduardo Espina and Avery Cyrus are singled out for accepting substantial amounts of cash, Mr. Espina alone over $400,000. •We're just talking about another form of political graft. •But many of you are also following "influencers" for clothing, vacation, and relationship advice, as well as absolutely frightening medical advice. •We've lost our faith in our judgment to the extent we're not even using Astrology or Ouija boards but simply charlatans looking for money without any particular expertise or authority—or even candor. •We have the media stars and politicians who have been caught making invidious racial, ethnic, homophobic, transphobic, and religious slurs who then informs us, "That's not who I am." •There are the hard-to-believe retreats into institutions to "rethink" their lives and addictions. •There are the ridiculous excuses, placing the blame askew: Remember Kevin Spacey actually declaring his sexual prowling habits were caused because he was a gay man coming out of the closet? •Ronal Reagan said, "Trust, but then verify." With the people who now occupy the media spotlights, I'd edit that admonition to, "Don't trust, verify, and then verify again, and then doubt." •I've received no pay for my comments here, but my dogs continue to provide me with unconditional love (although in return for housing, food, health care, and recreations—let's not kid ourselves).

SHOW NOTES: •People who walk into a breakfast restaurant carrying Starbuck's coffee. •Those too lazy to use directional signals. •The demand for "spiced rocks." •Deleting the tax before calculating the tip. •The clumsy line cutters. •Internet ads with phony products capitalizing on illnesses. •Waiting weeks for appointments because the service provider books solidly without accounting for errors and emergencies. •Politicians who send texts recounting their being war hero's, lifeguards, eagle scouts, and vowing to fight Trump (how about improving the schools and lowering prices instead). •People screaming outside of voting cities. •The belief that "soak the rich" will help cut costs and more than pouring ice over your head will help reduce diseases. •Changing all the damn clocks twice a year because of farm issues in the 1940s. •All the ecological waste from pages of legal warnings in bills, notices, agreements, bank statements and so on because that's how lawyers make money and that's why CYA has become as common as respiration. •People linking with me to solicit me on LinkedIn. •The spammers who expect people to do financial business or even virtual assistant business with strangers, often in another country. •Sorry, but I hate it when the automated phone message is "press 1 for English." •Politicians who send a newsletter a week before the election, as if they're keeping you informed when you haven't heard a damn thing from them at any other time. (Politicians in office making money on stock trading ought to be impeached and criminally charged.) •People who keep submitting letters to newspapers espousing their partisan position without letup or surcease. I'd rather be listening to Mr. Ed, rather than his other end.

SHOW NOTES: Two major sentiments about how the US (and most countries) treat the citizenry and how to finance and provide the funding. Every person deserves a minimum quality of health care, safety in the streets, educational opportunity, and access to employment. The corollary is that we need the opportunity and support to help people to innovate, create, and build organizations that provide that employment, further advancement, and significant taxes. Do we do this through "tax the rich, occupy Wall Street, millionaire taxes"? Or do we do so by reducing excess spending and reallocating resources toward such basic human needs. Rhode Island is 8th highest in expenditure per student, yet our reading proficiency is only 34% in math 30% in English. No high school in the state is in the top 150 nationally, despite that high expenditure. What's the cause? Politicians don't talk about it. The current US debt is $40 trillion. Our gross domestic product in $30 trillion annually. Who pays most of the taxes? The top 1% pay of earners pay 40% of federal taxes, the top 5% pay 60%. About 35% of all adults in the US pay zero taxes. We need to end the entitlements created to gain votes, the costs of which have doubles in the past ten years from $24 trillion to $4.4 trillion. We need to end the boondoggles created to gain votes. California's attempt at a high speed train created a $100 billion funding gap, yet no train exists. Mississippi clean coal gasification cost $75 billion and was abandoned. Fraudulent pandemic claims cost hundreds of billions according to the government, which failed to monitor the disbursements adequately. Bankruptcy: It's not taught in school, where we don't teach civics or personal finances. That's because we've apparently forgotten how.

SHOW NOTES: Signs of the self-centered: •Every conversation is turned back to themselves. •They pause to discuss the play in the middle of the theater exits. •They stop to look around at the bottom of descending escalators. •They never signal for a turn or lane change. •They will wear a hat in any seating arrangement, not caring if others can't see. •They talk over you. •They make noises in public when they yawn, stretch, or belch. •They start sentences with, "Let me explain to you...." •The constantly exaggerate, "I have the best doctors in the world," "We had the best meal imaginable," "My blood pressure is perfect." •They turn to talk to someone else while a person is in the middle of a story. •They will spoil the punch line of someone else's joke. •They inflate experiences: "This had to be at least a two-star Michelin restaurant" (it actually had no stars). •They never discuss or converse, they lecture. •They don't have the most expensive car in the lot because "they really didn't want it." •If they can't have something that others have, they deride it: "Coach gets there the same time as first class," or "Your kid was accepted into Cornell? I assume that was her backup school?" •They ask people to come to the bar to have a drink, but once a crowd has developed and before the bill is presented, they disappear. •Everything their kids do is "gifted": "Did you see how he blocked the ball with his head? That's a gifted move." •They point out that great success of others are basically from luck, or connections, or sexual favors granted. •They constantly critique the government, but don't bother to vote.

SHOW NOTES: I've consulted with, coached, and advised a huge diversity of people over the decades. They include executives, entertainers, politicians, athletes, military officers, entrepreneurs, and philanthropists. The most successful of them, both at the outset and after development, had the courage of their talent. Let me define the term which I coined several years ago and which has developed into an entire book. Courage is not fearlessness, but rather the ability to accept fear and/or pressure and nevertheless perform at the top of your game. Talent includes the innate traits, abilities, and behavior which help us to master challenges and to lead. Some are highly relevant (for a consultant, communication skills) and some are irrelevant (for a consultant, perfect pitch). Psychologists call this "efficacy." The best performers are able to focus as much and as many of their talents as possible on their "callings," and might provide for the rest in hobbies and personal interests. When people can't apply the preponderance of their talents on a job or career and receive recognition—both monetary and interpersonal—for them, they become frustrated, resentful, and less productive. This dynamic is often mistakenly cited as a "toxic workplace" as though the organization is always at fault. But in reality, high performers find callings that embrace their talents and reward them handsomely. We have more power to accomplish this than we think. I began my career at Prudential Insurance, realized that the work bored me, merit wasn't necessarily promoted, and I wasn't about to become an executive anytime soon. I then took a job with a consulting firm in Princeton, learned that profession, but after leading the major profit centers was weary of the politics and infighting. From there I obtained the presidency of a consulting firm in Providence, but was fired by the owner when we starkly disagreed on his attempts to inject his ideology into the business. Finally, I founded my own firm which is still without other employees, after 41 years. I have the strongest solo consulting brand in the world, and I love doing this. We need to control our lives in a world which, both purposely and accidentally, is trying to deny us control, to remove our power, to enforce often inappropriate normative pressure. It's absurd to abide by "influencers" who have no real motive except to make money. We need to be our own "influencers." There's no secret here, no "12 steps," no weekend retreat. It's as simple as this: •Identify what you love doing and are great at •Determine how best to market and monetize it •Rejoice in the courage of your talent You don't need the Wizard to give you courage, as he did for the lion in The Wizard of Oz. Because what the Wizard actually did was to show the lion the courage and talent already resident in his heart and soul. Find yours. Alan Weiss is a global, award-winning consultant, coach, speaker, and author—with 57 books, and 16 additional editions in 15 languages. He's the only non-journalist in history to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Press Institute, a Fellow of the Institute of Management Consultants, and an inductee in the National Speakers Association Hall of Fame®. His newest book is The Courage of Your Talent (Taylor and Francis, 2026). Advance purchases: amazon.com/Courage-You-Talent-Self-Esteem-Constantly/ebook-dp/B0GXRNT7DY

SHOW NOTES: The Bishop of Fall River, MA, told me an interesting story recently in Nantucket. It seems he was present during a memorial service held in a huge airplane hangar for families who lost loved ones in a terrible airplane crash off the coast. People were grieving and forming small groups to offer each other consolation. There was even some laughter among the tears as they exchanged stories about loved ones. Clergy from varying faiths, along with psychologists were there to provide clinical help. One woman among the hundreds was notable because she was weeping uncontrollably, not staying with any groups, but going from one to another. Finally, a priest took her aside and asked if he could help. Listen to the podcast to hear what she said and think about her reply.