I figure most people have seen this quote before. It’s scary — particularly for how matter-of-fact it is. You get the idea he has no doubt of the effectiveness of his strategy, probably from years of trial and error. It’s scary not just for its historical roots, but for how well it seems to work in more mundane but still important contexts — particularly with national leaders. People as individuals[…] Keep reading →

Back when Occupy Wall Street was making more news and I was writing about it and leadership and on it and responsibility, I had an idea about corporate control of our lives I thought would be interesting. As an entrepreneur and inventor, I felt the control closer to those areas of my life. I’ve written about how the patent and copyright systems have created monopolies and oligopolies that distorted their[…] Keep reading →

I’ll post today’s topic as a question. I’ve asked it of people who know more about Buddhism than me for more than ten years. No one has given me an answer I’ve found satisfactory. Though I put it in Buddhist terms, I hope no one gets hung up on the details of one religion or philosophy. I mean the question in a general way because his actions and philosophy, while[…] Keep reading →

When you think of great orators, Winston Churchill has to be near the top of the list. His speeches include I would say to the House as I said to those who have joined this government: I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat. We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on “Mental models and beliefs: an exercise to identify yours.” If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] When I worry about a difficult choice I have to make I think of a parable. Some martial arts students ask their teacher how he always[…] Keep reading →

When I talk about freedom here I usually mean your mental freedom to think and believe what you want. I consider this freedom more fundamental than, say, political freedom, not that I see much point in comparing them. Everyone benefits from both and few, if anyone, has to choose between either. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search For Meaning described how fundamental he considered the freedom to believe what you want, the[…] Keep reading →

Despite my posting on how I find asking “so what do you do” a boring question, apparently everyone I meet hasn’t read every post on my site, so they keep asking me what I do. It’s hard to answer the question when you know they want to know your work when work is such a small part of your life. You can talk about making art, writing, travels, etc, but[…] Keep reading →

I’m going to present an over-simplified case related to issues many of us face in much smaller contexts. The goal is to learn from simple hypothetical cases to build experience for more complex, real-life cases. Normally I separate my North Korea posts from leadership ones, but they overlap here, along with my being in China now. One of the greater challenges the world faces is how to bring some kind[…] 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 →