General

Reading Time: < 1 minLast week I mentioned a simple question from David Senra that asked “what are you good at that other people find difficult?“. He had another thought in that same show that I thought was even more interesting, where he said: “One sign that you’re suited for some kind of work is when you like even […]

Reading Time: < 1 minA recent podcast from Gary Vaynerchuk brought out a quick slew of comparisons. I had to listen a few times to get them straight, but here’s what he said: “Ego is slang for insecurity, and I think a lot of people mix up confidence with ego. Confidence is humility, and ego is insecurity. You can […]

Reading Time: 2 minI tend to view the world through a very pragmatic lens, seeing things practically rather than theoretically. That’s why this section from Michael Port’s “Steal the Show” struck me so oddly. From the book: You know how body language affects how others see you, but it may also change how you see yourself. Harvard University […]

Reading Time: < 1 minSomething I’ve worked hard at over the last few years is reducing attachment to my opinions. As Daniel Kahneman famously said, “I do enjoy having been wrong, because it means I am now less wrong than I was before.“ The easy example is with mobile phones. I’m an Android guy, but I’d happily switch to […]

Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s easy to think that the world is falling apart, and while there are certainly many things we need to improve, things are really going pretty well. Crime is down, medical care is always improving, and even things like sex trafficking are far less pervasive than we’re led to believe. The problem is our standards. […]

Reading Time: 3 minOur family recently spent a week in New York, and one of those days we spent with Adam Guy of “I Know a Guy” to be our personal tour guide for the day. Him and my wife had talked quite a bit in the weeks leading up (where we want to go, what we’ve already […]

Reading Time: < 1 minAttention is likely the greatest asset in the world. If you want to sell products, sell ads, lead an organization, or lead a movement, you need people to pay attention to you. There are ways to do it well, and there are ways to do it unethically, but this post is more about watching our […]

Reading Time: < 1 minIn Daniel Kahneman’s famous book “Thinking, Fast and Slow“, he describes the two types of thinking that we can do: While being slow isn’t always good, us humans tend to go with the “fast” response far too often. In Ward Farnsworth’s “The Practicing Stoic“, he has a similar comparison by explaining how the “slow” system […]

Reading Time: < 1 minA trait of mine that I continue to work on is to let conversations breathe. I tend to jump in quickly to keep things moving along, to the extent of sometimes trying to finish someone else’s sentence. It’s not good, but it’s getting better. Better still, though, is allowing some silence to exist in a […]

Reading Time: < 1 minOne of the best things I’ve done over the past few years (though it’s still a work in progress) is to be more quiet during meetings. If I want to open my mouth, I always try to have the thought of “why am I talking?” before I start. A while back, Pete and Jen talked […]