A couple months ago I posted a question on awareness, non-attachment, caring, and motivation I’d been thinking about for a decade or so, unable to answer it in all that time. I came up with an answer I like, that satisfies my curiosity, and helps me understand more. First let me remind you of the question. It came when I was learning in college about Buddhism. I learned the story[…] Keep reading →
(Working on a presentation, I had to rewrite a post from a couple months ago. It’s very similar to the original, but I thought there’d be value in posting a slightly different way of putting it. I hope that value is more important than the repetition). If you read this blog you know about the researchers who asked people who won huge lotteries and people who just had accidents leading[…] Keep reading →
Here is a deep question about values, spontaneity, risk, adventure, the best things in life, and your appetite for them. The context It begins with my mom’s garden years ago when she lived in Nebraska. Now I’m not that big on tomatoes, like some people are, and less so then than now. But when I tasted the cherry tomatoes from that garden they tasted like sunshine. I couldn’t believe how[…] Keep reading →
Preface: I started writing this blog about how cutting personal costs (of any resource, including time, money, energy, attention, etc) improves your personal life. Rereading it I realized it overlapped so much with what leaders can do in business, I’ll tag it leadership too. Translating the post into business-speak I’ll leave as an exercise to the reader. You can probably do it on the fly. People who know me in[…] Keep reading →
My physics training tells me economics views some things in a weird way. In physics, if your theory predicts something to happen a certain way and it happens differently, you say your theory is wrong, at least partly, and you work to improve it. Nature is always correct. You try to get your theory to predict what nature does. When economics predicts people to behave some way and they don’t,[…] Keep reading →
Life is full of difficult decisions. People struggle over them, sometimes for years, even people living great lives. You probably have one or two or more. I’ve had my share. A couple questions people asked me recently got me to figure it out. If your questions are reasonably similar, read on. Typical life questions “Which job should I take?” “Should we become boyfriend and girlfriend?” A couple friends asked me[…] Keep reading →
Discretion is the better part of valor yet quitters always lose. When do you give up on a project you love that’s going nowhere and when do you give more to make it work? Both ideas make sense in different situations. I learned an answer that has worked well for me every time. Entrepreneurs face such questions all the time. Small companies often walk the line between abject failure and[…] Keep reading →