People often ask if graduate school was worth it. I’ve made it work for me. As someone who left his field of graduate study, I wrote the following on graduate school to someone asking if it will suck out your life power, you’ll have no social life, no free time, low pay, a lot of stress etc. I got a PhD in physics at Columbia in 2000. I helped build[…] Keep reading →

I’ve never had a flat stomach with definition—a six-pack—but I’m close to it now and I’m amazed at how well getting close to it motivates me to eat healthily and exercise. It’s not the first time I’ve felt motivation to get fit. Earlier times led to long-term changes nothing like what diet books seem to recommend. While I didn’t grow up fat, I was chubby enough that my step-brother made[…] Keep reading →

Why do people not get this? If something takes hard work, only hard work will attain it. And hard work is hard. Sure, some work is easy, but some things take hard work. I talk about how much I enjoy doing burpees. More precisely, I like doing them in principle, I like the effects they have on my physical condition and motivation skills, and I like just having finished a[…] Keep reading →

You’ve heard the reason why we store fat. You probably never questioned it. Have you noticed it doesn’t make sense? You’ve heard the following from any number of sources. Have you ever questioned it? The reason our bodies store fat goes back to the earliest of times. Fat storage was a tool of survival for humans. When food was plentiful people ate as much as they could. The extra food[…] Keep reading →

Do you notice the difference between something tasting good and something making you want to eat more of it? If you want to eat healthy, you’ll care about the difference because companies that make junk food know the difference and use it to manipulate you. You end up spending money on unhealthy things that are profitable to them and you lose control of your eating habits. Most of the time[…] Keep reading →

Moving back into my apartment after renovations, I’ve been unpacking things packed for a year or two. I packed some of those things fourteen years ago when I moved here and it seems I packed some of those things before then. I’ve tried to come up with definitive conclusions on dealing with old things that connect with memories, but haven’t. I’m getting rid of stuff, but it’s harder than I[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. 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.] Has an interviewer ever begun a question with “Can you tell me a time when …” or asked you about your experience? Such questions arise in job interviews,[…] Keep reading →