Uncomfortable limbo happens when we’re seeking firm footing and there isn’t any. The discomfort comes from not knowing, from our unlimited desire to get through it to the other side. An… | Continue reading
Not the other way around. It feels safer to say that we’re born with talents and gifts, that we have a true calling, that we’re looking for what connects with our passion. That’s … | Continue reading
There’s the unalterable momentum of physical objects as understood by physics: objects in motion tend to remain that way. A fast-moving baseball hitting your head hurts more than lobbed one. … | Continue reading
There are two sorts of projects. In the first, you’ll need to show your work. Show us why the logic holds up. Tell us how this has happened before. Explain the best practices you’ve lea… | Continue reading
In Colonial America, they had private fire departments. If you didn’t voluntarily pay your dues, the firemen wouldn’t put out a fire–they’d watch your house burn and make su… | Continue reading
When people around you do something that makes no sense or is self-defeating, it might not be because they’re stupid. It’s more likely that they don’t believe what you believe, do… | Continue reading
When does it snap into focus? Because we don’t like to be wrong. And more than that, we don’t like to be confused. So when we encounter something new, we pause for a second until we thi… | Continue reading
Perhaps it should be, given how much time is spent trying to make things more and more beige. Bland is not a helpful goal. The goal could be to become useful, remarkable and worth seeking out. To d… | Continue reading
You can be agreeable without agreeing. In fact, most of the time, we’d rather spend time with people who have a different point of view but are willing to be agreeable nonetheless. It’s… | Continue reading
Three words that changed my life. Once you realize that you can improve, amplify and refine the things that other people call attitudes, you may realize that they are skills. Which is great news, b… | Continue reading
No one ever bought anything on an elevator. The elevator pitch isn’t about selling your idea, because a metaphorical elevator is a lousy place to make a pitch. When you feel like you’re… | Continue reading
No one ever bought anything on an elevator. The elevator pitch isn’t about selling your idea, because a metaphorical elevator is a lousy place to make a pitch. When you feel like you’re… | Continue reading
You might not agree with something you read on the front page of the Wall Street Journal or The New York Times, but at least you understand it. There’s simply no way a sentence like this woul… | Continue reading
That’s it. Two words. If you’re a freelancer, that’s the hard part. The important part. The part that will open the door to the work you seek to do. Better clients challenge you. … | Continue reading
That’s it. Two words. If you’re a freelancer, that’s the hard part. The important part. The part that will open the door to the work you seek to do. Better clients challenge you. … | Continue reading
“All players must agree to not cheat.” It’s simply too difficult to enumerate all the rules necessary to engage with people who don’t have goodwill about the process. If you… | Continue reading
Termites and squirrels are successful. They’ve persisted through millennia, and they do things to survive that we could never figure out. They have good instincts. But they’re not smart… | Continue reading
“It’s going to be exactly like THIS. It has to be, and I don’t want to hear otherwise. Don’t you believe in me?” The wedding with the perfect dress, the perfect cake, … | Continue reading
They sound similar, but they’re not. An arc, like an arch, is bent. The strength comes from that bend. But the arc doesn’t have to be supported at both ends, and the arc is more flexibl… | Continue reading
As dumb as selling shoes, an item that comes in 100s of sizes, over the internet. As dumb as expecting people to find a date or a spouse online. As dumb as building an encyclopedia that anyone can … | Continue reading
Ironically enough, lottery thinking is a chronic problem. Lotteries of all sorts grab our attention and change our agenda. A lottery is an almost random event, a longshot, one that promises to chan… | Continue reading
It’s a theater of status. Professional wrestling isn’t about wrestling, of course. It’s about who’s up and who’s down. The stated rules are there to be broken by some … | Continue reading
When we say, “here, I made this,” we’re not seeking credit, we’re taking responsibility. To be seen, to learn, to own it, to do it better next time. Hiding is too easy. And … | Continue reading
Why do cab drivers ask this question? It’s not like they can get to the airport any faster. It simply serves to create tension where no tension is helpful. There are a hundred ways to introdu… | Continue reading
If you make a laptop more powerful, the battery life will suffer and it will get heavier too. Trade-offs. If you make a plane bigger, it won’t land at every airport, and it will cost more to … | Continue reading
It’s 2018, a special night out. The restaurant shouldn’t have been as disappointing as it was. The room was beautiful, the staff was trying hard, the menu was ambitious–and yet it… | Continue reading
Your team is down by a few points and the game is almost over. What play should you call? [When can we talk about the system of drafting and training that got your team to this situation in the fir… | Continue reading
Your team is down by a few points and the game is almost over. What play should you call? [When can we talk about the system of drafting and training that got your team to this situation in the fir… | Continue reading
When a client or customer asks when a project is going to be done, an answer offered might be, “soon” or “shortly.” Frustration ensues. It ensues because “shortly,R… | Continue reading
All of us believe things that might be inconsistent, not based on how the real world actually works or not shared by others. That’s what makes us human. There are some questions we can ask ourselve… | Continue reading
I’ve blogged many times about the chasm. That’s Geoffrey Moore’s term for the gap between the small part of the market populated with people who like to go first, and the larger g… | Continue reading
Most of the time, the phrase is, “it’s time to get back to work.” This means it’s time to stop being creative, stop dancing with possibility, stop acquiring new insights and… | Continue reading
If you want to have an argument, to raise tempers or to distract, the easiest thing to do is start bringing up things that are easy to argue about. Not the things that are important. Because the im… | Continue reading
“But why is this important?” When we encounter a fashion, a film or some other cultural artifact that the critical establishment has celebrated, it’s easy to not understand it. Ta… | Continue reading
A friend shared a new business idea with me yesterday. Some business model questions came to mind, asked here rhetorically. If you get them right, everything else is easier: How will you get new pa… | Continue reading
People who are very good at Scrabble are not more kind, better judges of character, more facile with soft skills, better long-term thinkers, more fun at parties or much of anything except good at S… | Continue reading
Do you try to persuade people of your point of view? Do you interact with customers? (Or patients, subscribers, fans or citizens)… Are you a designer? Would life be easier if your boss unders… | Continue reading
If made freely, a choice feels like the right thing at the time. But we realize it was a mistake later, once the moment passes. We don’t know now what we learned in the future. Bad choices ca… | Continue reading
What an accurate and horrible term. It’s hard to imagine that most people would look forward to taking lessons. In the piano or arithmetic or anything else. You take medicine. You take your p… | Continue reading
Sometimes I talk about the education-industrial complex on this blog, rarely with kindness. I captured much of that in Stop Stealing Dreams. Readers will see that not once have I criticized a hard-… | Continue reading
Even though the harm may be the same, we’re much more likely to move on from an acknowledged accidental mistake. Is it because we know that we’ve made honest mistakes ourselves, and the… | Continue reading
The way you’re feeling… is it because of something that’s going on around you? Or are you simply feeling something and there’s a situation? One way to determine the differen… | Continue reading
Apple has carefully guarded the podcast directory, persuading podcasters that ‘winning’ here is the shortcut to building a popular podcast. But they’re terrible at introducing pod… | Continue reading
Why do educated people too often fall for foolish scams and conspiracy theories? The problem is that no one taught us to understand. Instead, we are pushed to simply to memorize. To be educated eno… | Continue reading
If this was a blog post about running, I’d definitely be teaching things that would make you tired. And if you want to learn anything about making a difference, being creative or leading, you shoul… | Continue reading
If your team is up by thirty points at halftime, it’s not optimistic to expect that you’re going to win–it’s a realistic assessment. Optimism is an attitude and a choice. It… | Continue reading
When an adult chooses to be cranky, it’s much juicier when it’s accompanied by a feeling of entitlement. If we know that we deserve the chance to be angry and disappointed, that we̵… | Continue reading
For every journey, there are steps along the way. Tasks that need to be done before you can successfully go on to the next one. But if one of those tasks is one you can never finish, you’re s… | Continue reading