Wowsers
Wowsers
Meet Your Host, Alan Weiss
Alan Weiss is one of those rare people who can say he is a consultant, speaker, and author and mean it.
His consulting firm, Summit Consulting Group, Inc., has attracted clients such as Merck, Hewlett-Packard, GE, Mercedes-Benz, State Street Corporation, Times Mirror Group, The Federal Reserve, The New York Times Corporation, Toyota, and over 500 other leading organizations. He has served on several boards of directors in various capacities.
His prolific publishing includes over 500 articles and 60 books, including his best-seller, Million Dollar Consulting (from McGraw-Hill) now in its 30th year and sixth edition. His newest is Your Legacy is Now: Life is not about a search for meaning but the creation of meaning (Routledge, 2021). His books have been on the curricula at Villanova, Temple University, and the Wharton School of Business, and have been translated into 15 languages.
Get to know AlanShow Notes
You’ve known wowsers. They’re always trying to be the “second smartest person in the room,” and they correct you even though you’re correct to begin with.
They are official “killjoys.” They are critical of others’ pleasures and accomplishments. Lacking expertise doesn’t inhibit their critiques and corrections. They never converse; they lecture as perpetual professors. They’re distraught if they think someone else is having a better time than they are (and most people are).
Wowsers are dismissive according to their own biased criteria. “You smoke cigars, so you don’t make good life choices, so your opinion on the climate is flawed.” For them, everything they do is the best, no matter what: The trip was the most thrilling, the play was the most sensational, the restaurant was seven stars, and the restroom was the cleanest.
They announce awards and honorifics no matter how transparently unimportant they are. “I’ve been named as most likely to write my first book within four years in my zip code.”
Knowing next to nothing, they are cynical and cite memes and fragments of others’ expertise: “Well, consider the ‘establishment clause,’” “They might invoke the 27th Amendment….” These are the people who scream, “Get in the hole!” after every golf shot and call into the tournament if they spot a violation on TV.
They call people over to the bar to have drinks and then disappear before the bill arrives. You know who I’m talking about.
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.
Introduction to the show recorded by Connie Dieken
