My post today on Inc.com, “Why You Should Never Let Anyone Call You ‘Smart’ in Business” begins: Intelligence is good so entrepreneurs should like being called smart, right? Wrong. People call you smart when you have nothing they care about more. Look at who doesn’t care if you’re smart in business: Customers value products and services that solve their problems. Employees want to pay their rent and enjoy their jobs.[…] Keep reading →
You get chances to do cool things: classes to take, hobbies to try, relationships to develop, books to read, movies to watch, and so on. How do you decide which to do? Most people look at the new thing and ask if it’s worth doing. I recommend not asking that question. There are many things worth doing in the abstract. Too many. I recommend instead asking what you’d have to[…] Keep reading →
[This post is part of a series on Cold Showers. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] I haven’t written about cold showers lately, probably because the water hasn’t gotten below fifty degrees since last winter, but this morning it did, so I am. The thermometer said the water was[…] Keep reading →
Returning after nearly a month always leads to thoughts on things you take for granted when you’re home. The first is that no matter how comfortable a hotel bed, no matter how well a maid prepares it, and no matter how jet lag keeps you up at night, no rest matches sleeping in your own bed. While I’ve always preferred sleeping in my bed, my past year was my first[…] Keep reading →
When you think, do you consciously decide what to think? I think most people do. But if you pay attention very closely to your thoughts, do you notice different parts of your mind working differently? I mention this because there seems to me to be a part of the mind that generates thoughts and another part that observes the thoughts. The part generating the thoughts seems to work on its[…] Keep reading →
Politicians tell you America is “losing ground” to other countries all the time. A search on “America is losing ground to China India” returns tons of results, many fear-mongering. This language comes from a misguided belief that business and trade are zero-sum competitions, that if someone elsewhere gets a deal then you lost it. If you want votes and don’t mind sowing fear, anxiety, and xenophobia, great. But people succeeding[…] Keep reading →
As soon as I saw this scene in the movie Boyhood, I knew I had to post about it. Any man who grew up with a sister experienced the frustration you learn to live with of society (represented by parents in the context of a family) considering you guilty first and responsible for problems. His sister taunts him. When the mother enters, his sister fakes tears and victimhood and their[…] Keep reading →