The one person you can never see from another person’s perspective is yourself. Ironic because that’s the one person you’d most like to see from another person’s perspective. Everyone else sees you that way, so it would be nice to see how other people see us. You always hear stories about people who think they’re great leaders, but unknown to them, they always scowl or their voices don’t sound like[…] Keep reading →

Kim Il Sung Square hosts the big rallies with the soldiers marching in huge numbers past whichever great leader is in power. We visited the day before the big hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth. The day was cool and foggy. We had one of the most amazing experiences of our lives. See all those groups of people in the second picture? I’m not sure why they were there[…] Keep reading →

Following up yesterday’s post on rules, here are some views on them, and lack thereof, from Calvin and Hobbes. Click the images to see them full size. I’ll let you figure out for yourself how deep and meaningful you find their take on life, how valuable their freedom from constraints other people can’t get around, and how much they enable you to behave as freely. Anyway, I consider them great[…] Keep reading →

I believe a king lived here and that the building dates from around 1400, but I don’t remember. Still, it’s one of the few historical buildings they have or architectural references to a leadership other than the Kims. Sorry I don’t remember the details (perhaps a reader who knows can remind me), but you start tuning out the guides and the stories glorifying the Kims and their regime sometimes, even[…] Keep reading →

Speaking of superstars, they seem to play by their own rules. Most of us wish we could. How do you get to play by your own rules, not someone else’s? Today I’ll look at rules from a few different contexts and ask a few questions about them. A rule describes how people should behave. Context 1: Mutually agreed-on rules When I think of playing a game, rules make sense. We[…] Keep reading →

More images of North Korean monuments… I think this sphere and orbit building was part of a technology museum on the road to and from the airport. We didn’t enter it though we went near it. I suspect it’s not in active uses. We saw this church, one of the few religious things outside of the government’s state sponsored religion. I don’t know if it has active serviced or is[…] Keep reading →

I wanted to comment on a quote in yesterday’s post about becoming a superstar that illustrates an aspect important for the aspiring star — you. And, again, superstardom can mean breakout success in any area — starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc. A musician I quoted yesterday commented that American Idol’s shooting-the-moon style isn’t really about music. It’s about all the bad aspects[…] Keep reading →

North Korea likes to do things big and nationalistic. Here are some images of their bigger monuments. Above is the (in)famous Ryugyong non-Hotel, started in 1987 for completion in 1989 but never finished. When the Soviet Union collapsed, North Korea had insufficient resources to finish the building, which was costing 2% of the country’s GDP at the time. I’ve read that using too-low-quality concrete and crooked elevator shafts make the[…] Keep reading →

This post is about breakout success in any area — starting a company, making CEO, being a superstar boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse, etc — but I’ll put it in the language of entertainment superstardom. I’ll leave translating it to the language of the field you want to succeed in as an exercise. But I guarantee it applies. Superstars make it look so easy. They dress how they want, say what[…] Keep reading →