I don’t know if I have to explain how shopping for, preparing, and eating food qualifies as fundamental to self-awareness and therefore leadership. A few years ago I would have considered food shopping irrelevant to self-awareness. I’ve changed. I’ll start with an aside on how big an effect just gardening can have with Victory Gardens. During the World Wars, when mainstream food production dropped, governments promoted their citizens planting so-called[…] Keep reading →

Today’s post derives from a lesson I learned from Professor Rao, whose class I took in business school and whose lessons I’ve written about often here. I’d try to improve on it, but he did a great job of it. His book mentioned that all the stress in your life comes from one place. I remember reading that concept thinking, “how can that possibly happen? I have so much stress[…] Keep reading →

Anyone who knows me knows my tendency to talk too much. I find most people seem prone to talk too much in certain situations. So how do you learn to reign yourself in? People usually don’t like when someone else dominates a conversation, so it helps to learn when you are talking too much and how to stop doing so. Talking a lot doesn’t necessarily mean talking too much. Some[…] Keep reading →

People seem to want to change a lot about them. I see them trying to do the opposite of what they are trying to change. Sometimes it works. More often trying to do the opposite of what they want to stop reinforces doing it more. Food For example, overweight people often think if they eat too much they should try the opposite and try to eat less. But dieting seems[…] 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 →

Writing about growing up in a bad part of town reminded me of a summer experience. I had the opportunity for a summer in Paris after my first year in college. I couldn’t afford to stay without some income, but didn’t speak enough French to do much. I searched as long as I could until my money was about to run out — probably about a week — then took[…] Keep reading →

I was watching Chris Rock on Inside the Actors Studio. He talked about how growing up in dangerous neighborhoods in Brooklyn helped form him. Personally, I highly value the self-made-ness of a self-made man or woman. I think most people do, especially compared to someone born with a silver spoon in their mouth. His description of his childhood in a bad neighborhood reminded me of a neighborhood I spent some[…] Keep reading →