Reading Time: < 1 minRelated to my recent “Where I’m Ignorant” post from a few days ago is a quote from psychologist Elizabeth Krumrei Mancuso that relates learning to humility. In short: Learning requires the humility to realize one has something to learn. We’ve all seen people that lack the humility to know that they’re not the best, which […]
Learning
Learn what to think by seeing what you say
Reading Time: < 1 minOne year ago today I shared why I was blogging every day. That was day five of blogging, and now I’m at 370 in a row. All of those posts later, and my main goals haven’t changed much — I write to learn. Having an idea or opinion is a good thing, but it often […]
Retweeting the click of the day
Reading Time: < 1 minI’ve posted many times on here why I believe most people should blog every day. Writing daily is forcing me to read more, it improves my thinking, and I feel that it takes the benefits of journaling and expands them. Much of my inspiration for daily blogging comes from Seth Godin, and he has another […]
Where I’m ignorant
Reading Time: < 1 minIn the book Think Again, author Adam Grant has a section where he lists the areas in which he’s ignorant. He says: We should all be able to make a long list of areas where we’re ignorant. Mine include art, financial markets, fashion, chemistry, food, why British accents turn American in songs, and why it’s […]
Knowing everything versus thinking again
Reading Time: < 1 minAs I’m reading through Adam Grant’s excellent book Think Again, I keep being struck by one big thought — if Donald Trump had read this book, he might have been able to get reelected. There are two big problems with that, of course: the book only recently came out, and “reading” versus “fully executing” content […]
Thinking for yourself requires the right friends
Reading Time: < 1 minIt’s kind of a weird title, no? To be able to think for yourself, you need certain friends around you? It might not be as weird as it seems. George Mack recently published a great tweet that explains it more thoroughly. In short, you can have two kinds of friend groups: Centralized friend groups that […]
An anecdote is not evidence
Reading Time: < 1 minIt can be hard to separate the two, particularly when it’s something big that happens to us personally, but anecdotes are not the same as real evidence. We seem to be in the midst of that right now with COVID vaccines, but it’s hard to see while we’re still in the middle of it. Going […]
Don’t have all of the answers; have all of the questions
Reading Time: < 1 minAt the end of most episodes of Seth Godin’s Akimbo podcast, they run an ad for the altMBA that includes a great line from T.K. Coleman that includes the quip that “there is no great thought leader who can outthink the internet“. While I personally work hard to have many answers available in my head, […]
Knowing versus understanding
Reading Time: < 1 minAs time goes on, I’m getting better about knowing more and more (thanks to tools like Anki). However, “knowing” and “understanding” are two very different things, and I need to make sure I’m getting enough of the latter. Aytekin Tank wrote a great post about this last year, best summarized by a quote he shared […]
Don’t face the blank page
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve published a blog post for over 300 days in a row now, but I’ve got to admit something; sitting in front of a blank page is a killer for me. If the page is blank, so is my mind. The solution is pretty easy, though — I don’t sit in front of a blank […]