1. I have attention deficit disorder, it is a real condition, I have been diagnosed including having radioactive isotopes through my brain to map my development and yet I’m a leader, I have accomplished much, I did well in school and went on to earn a master’s degree and I can actually concentrate when I want to. I wasn’t even aware that I had ADD until I was 40 (I’m now 47) and knowing it has changed my life for the positive. I don’t believe it’s a disease – it’s simply a slow-functioning prefrontal cortex. Essentially – it’s just the way your brain is wired. It’s both your curse and your secret sauce. Embrace it.

It isn't easy to innovate in governance. Bureaucracy can be hidebound. The private sector's lean startup model, with its "fail forward" ethos, is antithetical to government as we know it. Electorates are not tolerant of failure, and voter confidence in government is at an all time low. In a 2013, more people listed government dysfunction as the problem they believe is the country's most serious challenge. Given these headwinds, it's not surprising that many officials resist the experimentation and risk necessary to innovate.

“Steve Jobs,” the movie about the late entrepreneur behind Apple, bombed at the box office in its first weekend of release. And critics’ reviews have been mixed. But the movie may be best remembered for its interesting take on what it means to be an entrepreneur. In fact on fairly strong supporter of the film is Jobs’ former Apple partner Steve Wozniak. As it turns out, Wozniak was one of the few people who actually enjoyed the film, saying that although fictional, it captured Jobs’ personality quite well. But it’s also worth noting that he was a paid consultant for the movie.

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SAN FRANCISCO — THE enduring credo of Silicon Valley is that innovation, not money, is its guiding purpose and that world-changing technology is its true measure of worth.

Wealth is treated as a pleasant byproduct, a bit like weight loss after rugged adventure travel.

The tech world is home to some of the planet’s wealthiest entrepreneurs and most dynamic philanthropists, 21st-century heirs to Carnegie and Rockefeller who say they can apply the same ingenuity and zeal that made them rich to making the rest of the world less poor. San Francisco also has one of the highest levels of income inequality in the nation, with the wealth distortion most concentrated among the very people who are driving the economy as a whole.

On Monday, the World Health Organization’s cancer research agency exploded into the news with a report claiming that processed meats cause cancer and red meats probably do as well. The report was released by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) and was authored by a panel of 22 experts, who compiled it using data from more than 800 studies on the link between meat and cancer.

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I have met several young people in business recently who believe that they are natural born entrepreneurs, and actually seem to feel that traditional training and experience may be a detriment to their success in this new world. I concede that some natural born disciplines do exist, but more often I tend to agree with Peter Drucker, who said “It’s not magic, it’s not mysterious, and it has nothing to do with genes. It’s a discipline, and like any discipline, it can be learned.”

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Working for a startup can be fun, and it can also be terrifying. But for all the media emphasis on cool perks and crazy hours, the employees who really thrive in a startup setting don't accept the job because of free snacks or midday ping pong. They accept the job because it's a great way to kick-start their career and make a bigger impact.

As anyone who has read my investigation into what’s happening with LightFreq’s crowdfunding campaigns will know, when you back a project, you’re not always guaranteed to get what you expected.

If you haven’t read it, go and do that now.

Shortly after I published that, a reader got in touch to point out that Devon also defaulted on his home before the Kickstarter campaign.  This Zillow listing shows some of the interiors seen in the LightFreq demo videos, too.

This week, the UK entrepreneur community came together at its first event on the rise of the corporate accelerator. Over 200 people attended, with representation from around 10 corporate accelerators and 70 corporations, including Amazon, Dell, Unilever and Virgin.

Last week I watched the movie Unbroken, which recounts Louie Zamperini’s story of survival during World War II as he drifted at sea on a raft for 47 days after his bomber was shot down and was subsequently picked up by a Japanese destroyer and sent to a P.O.W. camp where he spent two years struggling to stay alive.

“Survival. Resilience. Redemption.” was the marketing slogan for the movie, meant to capture the spirit of Zamperini’s magnificent tale. The movie was excellent and the slogan struck a chord with me as I thought about the industry full of people (including myself) who’ve been eagerly awaiting the SEC’s crowdfunding rules, which were made public today after a three-year delay. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not comparing waiting for these rules to the trauma endured by Zamperini. But the syntax of that slogan certainly resonates.

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A new NASA study says that an increase in Antarctic snow accumulation that began 10,000 years ago is currently adding enough ice to the continent to outweigh the increased losses from its thinning glaciers. The research challenges the conclusions of other studies, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2013 report, which says that Antarctica is overall losing land ice.

Image: http://scienceblog.com

Chemical changes in brain cells caused by disturbances in the body’s day-night cycle may lead to the learning and memory loss associated with Alzheimer’s disease, according to a University of California, Irvine (UCI) study.

People with Alzheimer’s often have problems with sleeping or may experience changes in their slumber schedule. Scientists do not completely understand why these disturbances occur.

A study of the brains of mice shows that structural deterioration associated with old age can be prevented by long-term aerobic exercise starting in mid-life, according to the authors of an open-access paper in the journal PLOS Biology yesterday (October 29).

Old age is the major risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease, like many other diseases, as the authors at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, note. Age-related cognitive deficits are due partly to changes in neuronal function, but also correlate with deficiencies in the blood supply to the brain and with low-level inflammation.

University of Cambridge scientists have developed a working laboratory demonstrator of a lithium-oxygen battery that has very high energy density (storage capacity per unit volume), is more than 90% efficient, and can be recharged more than 2000 times (so far), showing how several of the problems holding back the development of more powerful batteries could be solved.

Lithium-oxygen (lithium-air) batteries have been touted as the “ultimate” battery due to their theoretical energy density, which is ten times higher than a lithium-ion battery. Such a high energy density would be comparable to that of gasoline — allowing for an electric car with a battery that is a fifth the cost and a fifth the weight of those currently on the market and that could drive about 666 km (414 miles) on a single charge.

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Bill Briggs of Deloitte Consulting makes his living being on top of tech trends. He offers tips for how entrepreneurs can start harnessing the potential of going digital and analytics.

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Motivated teams are the key to success at every startup, yet I still know entrepreneurs who gave an inspirational speech to kick off the quarter but haven’t been heard from since, or don’t realize that their actions are often more demotivating than inspirational. The result is a huge loss in productivity and morale and potentially the death of a promising startup.

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In 1890, the US government began tracking workers' hours. The average workweek for full-time manufacturing employees was a whopping 100 hours.

Seventy-five years ago, on October 24, 1940, the eight-hour day and 40-hour workweek became standard practice in a range of industries. It was a long, drawn-out battle between workers and government officials.

When Leif Babin was training to become a US Navy SEAL officer, he didn't expect to spend so much time working out combat mission briefs in Powerpoint presentations, he explains in his new book "Extreme Ownership: How US Navy SEALs Lead and Win."

It was a common feeling, and the reason why in training sessions, he and other officers-in-training had a tendency to create briefs with the intention of impressing their instructors, as opposed to crafting plans that would actually be valuable to an entire team.

Image: Courtesy of Jocko Willink and Leif BabinImage

Veterans know that the hardest job they’ll ever have is in the rearview mirror, but that doesn’t mean entrepreneurship is a cakewalk.

Undoubtedly, your active-duty experience — especially in a combat zone — prepares you for a lot of the challenges that entrepreneurs face. The “hard work” of entrepreneurship pales in comparison to filling sandbags in 100-degree heat while in Mission Oriented Protective Posture 2.

I received a thoughtful, heartfelt email from a 24-year-old gentleman a few weeks ago. In his email, he listed the books about entrepreneurship he's read, the instructional videos he’s watched and the inspirational events he’s attended. He had decided to quit his corporate job at a large accounting firm in New York City, he told me. He was ready to take a leap of faith. He wanted to become an entrepreneur and invent products.