5 Minutes To New Ideas With Phil McKinney

As a society, we have a problem. 

Some years ago, the late Nobel Prize winner Dr. Albert Schweitzer was asked by a reporter, “Doctor, what’s wrong with people today?” The famous doctor was silent f…

On January 13, 2018, the people of Hawaii woke to a shocking alert on their phones and TVs. An incoming ballistic missile was on its way and that the warning was not a drill. It was 38 minutes later …

It is normal that no two people are exactly alike. Not even twins. So the word normal should not be confused with the word average. If you leave your fingerprints on something, you might as well leav…

My grandfather had an old saying when I was growing up, “Never burn a bridge." At the time, I thought it was a strange saying. It was only later that I realized what he was saying. No matter how some…

The world is made up of ‘yes’ people and ‘no’ people. We need more optimistic -- more hopeful people who find a way to say yes to non-obvious ideas.

During Thomas Jefferson's presidency in the early …

When I was growing up, one time my grandmother baked a fantastic German Chocolate cake. I can see it now -- that moist chocolate cake and rich icing. It was great and everyone in the family let her k…

I find it interesting that we usually get from other people exactly what we expect of them. If we are looking for friendship, we will likely receive it. If our attitude is that of indifference, we wi…

There is an old saying that goes something like this, “Speaking with passion but without the facts is like making a beautiful dive into an empty pool.”  

As John Adam’s famously said, “Facts are stub…

As a result of some digital spring cleaning I was doing, I found and was listening to old shows from 2005 - the first year of my podcast. Honestly, given what I know now, I wish could have re-written…

I was looking through some of my old idea notebooks and came across a quote that I wrote down. It is one of those quotes that cause you to pause and contemplate. To question your own personal motivat…

Some have put forth what I believe is a false premise -- that creativity and innovation are for the young. Silicon Valley has clearly bought into this premise. If you are over 40, some could rightly …

I’m not sure who said it first but I’ll give credit to Tony Robbins for the now famous quote -- “You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with”

With a slight tweak, you can appl…

As it says in Psalm 90:10, we are allotted threescore and ten years to do with as we please. Of that, we will spend the equivalent of twenty-three years and four months of it asleep. We will work nin…

Your idea was rejected. Criticized. Dumped on. You were told to give up.

I have yet to find anyone who likes to have their ideas rejected. But if you want to succeed in innovation, you have to put yo…

Want to know the secret to take ideas and make them real innovations? It is what I call the “daffodil principle” which I learned/stole from an article published by Jaroldeen Edwards.

In one of the sm…

Twelve words. Millions of 11-year-old boys, and now young girls, learn it when they join Boy Scouts. It was something that I had to memorize in order to earn my first step along the way to my Eagle S…

I really enjoy getting behind this microphone. It is my personal creative outlet that is separate from the day job. What was it that got me to start back in 2005?

Like all things, I got inspired. My …

The inspiration for innovation takes all forms. For some its music. For others its art. And for others its data.

When I was CTO, Mark Hurd, the CEO at HP at the time, had a quote that was ingrained i…

Great leaders - in business, government or society, know that when it comes to others, there is always more than meets the eye.

Earl Nightingale once shared a story that reminds us to look beyond wha…

Any writer, syndicated cartoonist, innovator or perhaps a podcast host; sooner or later will run into what some would call writers' block. They find themselves drawing a blank. They have a deadline r…