When I got home from traveling last week, I found myself returning to many patterns and habits that traveling forced me to suspend. As I’m approaching middle age, I started to wonder if I was getting set in my ways. I want to stay young, vibrant, and effective. Could these habits mean I’m ossifying and becoming sedentary? While I could look at it that way, I find that I’ve found[…] Keep reading →

Many people look to technology to solve problems. Technology has solved many problems. It helps us travel around the world, communicate with people anywhere instantly, makes amazing special effects in movies, and all that stuff that dazzles us. I think a lot of people see technology as something that sprouts out of laboratories or the minds of people so unlike them they call them geniuses and consider them superhuman. I[…] Keep reading →

Theater has been around forever even though people don’t attend performances that much. Most people I know see more paintings and read more books than they see performances on stage. Have you ever wondered … why theater has stood the test of time as an art so much? … why so many cultures have theater of some sort? … why Shakespeare ranks so highly among cultural icons? … why we[…] Keep reading →

“Nice guys finish last.” Alone, this thought has probably condemned many men and women to abandon being nice. Accurate or not, combined with another belief, that the alternative to being nice is to be a jerk, further condemns people to being jerks. Jerks—people with one type of poor relationship skills—even when materially successful, seem likely to face emptiness in intimacy, what many consider the most important parts of their lives.[…] Keep reading →

I once read that the difference between activities that cool kids do and uncool kids do is that uncool kids’ activities tend to be based in rules and cool kids’ less so. I don’t know how you’d verify the idea, but I found exploring it told me about myself. Uncool kids play chess, which has clear rules. You can count the possible states. Cool kids play football. Football has rules,[…] Keep reading →

How did it begin? After the first two years of classes in graduate school I had to take Qualifying Exams to continue to research. Columbia’s Qualifying Exams are three days of about six hours a day. You get eight problems and have to solve six of your choice. They can cover any physics subject covered in classes to that point. If you remember high school or college physics being difficult,[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about inquiry-driven project-based learning and learning leadership and entrepreneurship. It’s a style of teaching that’s one of the main foundations of how I teach and coach leadership. It’s different than lecturing. Here’s why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach. This week I’m attending Science Leadership Academy’s intensive Summer Teaching Institute. Science Leadership Academy is a school founded on inquiry-driven project-based learning, so it’s one of the[…] Keep reading →