Who would expect beautiful beaches in North Korea? Visiting that far north in April, we didn’t find warm sunny beaches, but the Earth is beautiful and it’s hard to hide that. Some of the beachfront hotels looks nice, almost Mediterranean, from afar. Up close you saw the hotels couldn’t have been seriously maintained in decades. One hotel had zero hot water. We had to heat water by dropping a heating[…] Keep reading →

I think of a certain piece of advice almost daily in maintaining my daily routine. I find it invaluable. When I started this page I asked a friend with a successful blog how often he wrote — only weekdays, daily, now and then? He said words that stuck with me well. If you skip one day you can skip two. Once you skip two days it’s over. Conclusion: don’t skip[…] Keep reading →

It’s hard not to think little or disparagingly of “leaders” who ruled and gained position not through merit but by accident of birth or through having little confidence (I read Russia installed Kim Il Sung over others more competent). Through no malevolence, you wish they could have known or even experienced some of the suffering they contributed to, even if they didn’t intentionally create it, let alone if they intentionally[…] Keep reading →

Many people who dream of starting businesses tell me their greatest obstacle is having a great idea to start with. I call this belief my number one entrepreneurship myth and wrote about it and productive beliefs that can help more than the myth. Besides the productive alternative belief that a good idea plus listening to your market succeeds more than trying to make an idea perfect, another counter to this[…] Keep reading →

I doubt many people would expect to see much natural beauty in North Korea. I was surprised to see a lot once we got out of Pyongyang. You could only call most of the land stark. Little of it was arable. I don’t claim to be an experienced photographer — see Joseph’s blog for that quality of picture — but I saw some great stuff. My pictures don’t do the[…] Keep reading →

Devoting yourself to something means emotions can get attached. This happens as much in professional leadership as in personal lives. In professional environments you can choose to care deeply about your work or not. Entrepreneurs can devote themselves so much as to lose everything in a project. Athletes and teams that come in second often seem more crushed, despite being the second best in the world, than those who merely[…] Keep reading →

Pyongyang could become beautiful I think when the city opens up it has the potential to become very beautiful. So much of it is held back from lack of maintenance. But it also has grand open spaces. If advertisers and developers don’t get to it first, they could be made beautiful and accessible to the public. Department store oddness Our tour took us to a department store, or at least[…] Keep reading →

Acceptance, tolerance, and hope — among the top virtues can you have, right? I disagree. Disagreeing with what the mainstream considers virtues may sound bizarre, but I’ll show you their shortcomings and how you can do better. While I prefer them to nonstop rejection, intolerance, and hopelessness, and agree they help society remain civil, these practices show gaping holes in your life if you hold them as high ideals. Each[…] Keep reading →

Okay, this post has almost nothing to do with North Korea, but I learned how to do the trick to make images look like miniatures, called tilt-shifting or miniature faking. I did it with an image of Pyongyang from the Juche Tower. The top, though low resolution, shows the original. The bottom shows the retouched version. Click for larger versions. Anyway, it’s just for fun and practice. I think the[…] Keep reading →