If you’ve read Alex Haley‘s great book Roots, you know the incredible emotion you feel when after telling the stories of many people who came or were brought to America from Africa — gripping stories — and seemingly out of nowhere in the middle of a story about some woman she gives birth to him!, Alex Haley himself. It’s an amazing literary transformation from history to memoir that makes history[…] Keep reading →

Everyone kid gets asked what they want to be when they grow up. Do you remember what you said? Did it happen? Somewhere in the mid-2000s, I remembered a vignette from my childhood for the first time in decades, which was someone asking that question of me and my response, which was to say I wanted to be an inventor. I didn’t remember it in the meantime because of what[…] Keep reading →

People misunderstand culture shock. They talk about it happening when they go to a new place, but that’s not when you really get culture shock. When you go to a new place you expect things to be different so differences don’t shock you that much. You get culture shock when you return after having been away and having adoped foreign standards without realizing it. Then what used to be normal[…] Keep reading →

Has anyone ever told you you were thinking about things too much? Was it an annoying thing for them to say, perhaps dismissive? When someone says that to me I usually point out how I like to play with ideas. Ideas to me are like blocks for a kid — I like to put them together in different ways to see what they look like together, I build structures with[…] Keep reading →

Someone I’m coaching wrote the following: I will be graduating from college in May, and I am trying to decide which two cities I should move to after graduation. I’ve been wanting to move to NYC ever since I first visited in high school and been going there ever since. On the other hand, everyone that I know tells me that I should move to LA instead and think I[…] Keep reading →

Now that I’m out from China’s firewall of the popular social media sites, I could play with video. I figured out how to host and show my own videos inline, as opposed to posting them to another site and linking to them. So today I converted a few of them. Since I’m using new software, please let me know if videos don’t play for you so I can fix any[…] Keep reading →

Professor, author, and former former Chief People Officer at Pepsi, among other impressive feats,  Michael Feiner said one of the most valuable statements I’ve ever heard about why we choose, like, and don’t like our jobs. People join good projects and leave bad management. It’s one of the most valuable lessons I learned in business school. It applies to a remarkable number of situations — nearly every time I’ve heard[…] Keep reading →

It’s still July 4th in the States as I’m writing this even though it’s July 5th in Shanghai. Of all our national holidays, I value and celebrate Independence Day perhaps the most. By value and celebrate I don’t mean I go to the biggest barbeque I can, though a couple years ago I went to an amazing July 4th party only being an alumnus of an ivy league business school[…] Keep reading →

Yesterday’s post on developing empathy started with me writing about traveling, which ended up being today’s post. Nearly everyone tells me they love to travel. The top reason they give for it is to experience new people, places, and cultures. I get that appeal, but my goals are different. My main goal in life is to continue improving it. My travel goals are to contribute to that goal. Learning about[…] Keep reading →