• Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

  • By: Alan Weiss
  • Podcast

Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

By: Alan Weiss
  • Summary

  • Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth® is a weekly broadcast from “The Rock Star of Consulting,” Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.
    All rights reserved
    Show More Show Less
Episodes
  • Predictions
    Jan 5 2025
    Show Notes: Predictions • Both wars will run out of steam and end, officially or unofficially. • There will be insurrections in Iran. • Neither the Dodgers, nor the Celtics, nor the Chiefs will repeat. • Electric car requirements and limits on ICEs will be lifted or eased. • Retinal scanning and fingerprints will allow many to circumvent TSA. • Attempts to copyright and/or trademark AI composites of text and images will eventually reach the Supreme Court. • A betting scandal will rock professional sports. • As China’s economy weakens it will engage in more limited military actions against Taiwan. • Universities will face a perfect storm: AI will enable cheating and plagiarism, students and parents will revolt against huge tuitions, government forgiveness of tuition debt will end, there will be attempts to fire tenured professors who teach radical and biased political views, and large cuts will have to be made. The biggest threat: Remote learning which will dramatically lower tuition and enable a greater choice of institutions. • As the population ages and the Millennials rise in business, the country becomes more conservative and centrist in its views and voting. • There will be more intensive recruiting and higher pay for police officers. • Two more members of Congress will be indicted for corruption. • The Taylor Swift phenomenon will begin to wane. • The largest contribution to population growth in the US will be from legal immigrants. • Hacking will accelerate, and will include all kinds of organizations. The government will grant immunity to convicted hackers to help them combat other hackers. • The smart Democrats will realize that it wasn’t that “their message didn’t get out,” but rather that most people didn’t like the message. • Not a prediction, but a wish: Term limits for all of Congress so we can finally end the incestuous power grabbing that has undermined progress for the people. • Happy New Year.
    Show More Show Less
    9 mins
  • Replacing Resolutions
    Jan 2 2025
    Forget resolutions that are broken in 90 minutes. Try to focus on the good things that you do and that happen to you. Try a personal journal. You don’t have to be compulsive, but keep it handy, electronically or physically, to easily record things. These may be good acts done for you by others or good acts you perform, especially spontaneously and “in the moment.” Record experiences that were unplanned yet rewarding: a deer staring at you from the woods, a quick-reflex escape from someone else’s driving error, a baby smiling at you on a plane. We tend to default to the negative: what didn’t work, what disappointed us, what we did to disappoint others. Reverse that, and make note of the positives and the emotionally rewarding. Have you worked out without missing a session for 90 days; have you refrained from entering into a senseless argument with a family member; have you thanked someone seldom thanked who was appreciative of your recognition? Every so often, you can review your journal, not necessarily reread it all, but randomly choose some pages to remind yourself of the rewards in your life and the kindnesses you bring to others. We need to escape our “doom loop” mindsets and the normative pressures that attempt to make us feel guilty and unworthy. While it’s important to rely on others, it’s also important to rely on ourselves, and our recall isn’t always sufficiently complete or accurate. Did you throw your first snowball of the season, call a friend you haven’t spoken to in quite a while, or leave social media platforms that are simply irritating and unfulfilling? What did you do for your family, your business, your community, and yourself? Some people might call this a journal of gratitude, but I prefer a journal of reality and accomplishment. Life is not a slow crawl through enemy territory nor a random walk in the dark. It’s a thoughtful journey in what light we have.
    Show More Show Less
    4 mins
  • December 25, 2024
    Dec 26 2024
    These are times of astounding incivility, harassment, and dismissiveness. These acts are based on a posturing of moral superiority, as if mere disagreement denotes an inferior being. There is a line in Morris West's The Navigator that states: "And that's the terror of the high place and the high man. Is it God he hears or the echo of his own mad shouting?" Hillary Clinton most probably sealed her election defeat with the observation that those who would vote for her opponent were the "deplorables." This time, it was Joe Biden calling Trump supporters "garbage." The arrogance of such statements and such positions is appalling. I'm not taking a political position, but rather a social one: We understandably reject people who feel our opinion is not to be respected but immediately rejected because it originates in some lower intelligence. But we are mostly filled with hubris. We live in an indeterminate universe, acting as if we understand infinity, light years, and black holes. We know virtually nothing of its origins or nature. (A "big bang" before which there was nothing? "Nothing" has no meaning if there isn't "something" to which to compare it.) When praised for discovering universal laws of the cosmos, Einstein replied, "Yes, but the question is really who made the laws?" During a recent scientific journey in Peru's Alto Mayo region in the Amazon rain forest, researchers identified 27 new species of animals and indications of another 48, all previously unknown to science. And, of course, we have very little idea of what lives in the abysmal depths of the great oceans. We do know that we live on a hunk of rock speeding through a vacuum at 85,000 miles per hour, around an exploding star. Don't tell me you have no faith. I'm not proselytizing, not suggesting a belief in a deity is required, though I would remind everyone that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I am suggesting that the arrogant, polarizing behaviors extant in the land are basically caused by low esteem, the fear of trying to confront the unknowable, and the comfort of kidding ourselves that we truly understand the arcane solar systems and galaxies. A little humility might go a long way this holiday season, and it just may be developed and instantiated during this time of purported tolerance and forgiveness, of presents given and received, and of church bells ringing and choirs singing, "Joy to the World." From Maria and me, my friends, whatever your beliefs, in the true spirit underlying it: Merry Christmas!
    Show More Show Less
    4 mins

What listeners say about Alan Weiss's The Uncomfortable Truth®

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.