If you write something, speak up or otherwise interact with someone, you probably have a reason. There’s a point to your statement, a goal to your instruction. The change you seek to make. Wh… | Continue reading
When time gets short (for new parents or startup founders, for example) we naturally focus on getting efficient. We can remove extraneous details and distractions and magically get much faster at g… | Continue reading
Time travelers should prepare for tough sledding. If you went back to 1820 or even 1920, all the sudden changes would discombobulate you. And the same is true for someone who came forward to today.… | Continue reading
Parents can do their kids a favor if, from an early age, they hear them say “famous college” instead of “good college.” Because there’s very little data that shows tha… | Continue reading
One of the most expensive things a service business or freelancer can do is promise that work will be done by a certain day. Which is something we need to do, of course, but we should charge approp… | Continue reading
… demand systemic solutions. First, we have to pay attention. Then we need to acknowledge that a solution is possible. And then we need to commit. To the long, persistent road to altering the… | Continue reading
Where are you headed? The choices you’re making, the effort, the sacrifices—where is the destination? We make choices every day about our destination. And because of those choices, we go on a… | Continue reading
Some of the most perplexing topics in physics revolve around quantum theory. The quandary is seen most famously in the Schrödinger’s… | Continue reading
Even better than buying a new bicycle is adjusting the seat on your existing bike properly. That’s because the height of the seat changes your power. It’s the point of maximum leverage,… | Continue reading
Humans are bad at understanding things that are very far away in scale or time. Atoms aren’t actually made up of tiny particles that are like rocks, but smaller. And planets aren’t simp… | Continue reading
Two things are true simultaneously: We’re running out of time. We have too much time on our hands. How can we be at a deadline and bored at the same time? We always are. Our experience of tim… | Continue reading
Education is the hustle for a credential. It exchanges compliance for certification. An institution can educate you. Learning can’t be done to you. It is a choice and it requires active parti… | Continue reading
Once an organization reaches scale, particularly if it feels like a monopoly, it’s tempting to “take profits.” This means less investment, fewer staff and a lot less care. Those t… | Continue reading
All of us are good at rationalizing. It helps us process the world, navigate our choices and live with ourselves. But gravity doesn’t care if you got a lot of sleep last night or not. It̵… | Continue reading
It’s not anxiety. And it’s not panic. The opposite of confident is not confident. Unsure. Being unsure can be healthy. It can help us focus on how we can make our work more likely to be… | Continue reading
If you promise not to check your email while we’re talking, we promise to not waste your time. If you agree to look me in the eye and try to absorb the gist of what I’m saying, I agree … | Continue reading
If you promise not to check your email while we’re talking, we promise to not waste your time. If you agree to look me in the eye and try to absorb the gist of what I’m saying, I agree … | Continue reading
That’s not the same as perfect. The best available option is always available. Perfect almost never is. If you care enough to contribute, you can care enough to not wait for perfect. | Continue reading
Some jobs need you to show up in person (and for the time being, surgeons are in that category, but with robotically controlled waldo arms, who knows…). But many jobs can be done more effecti… | Continue reading
There are really only two ways to approach this: “We don’t cheat.” “We cheat when we can get away with it.” The posture of, “our side doesn’t cheat,”… | Continue reading
Often, people encounter ideas that are spreading like wildfire. The problem with a wildfire is that not only is it out of control, but it leaves nothing but destruction in its wake. Build an idea t… | Continue reading
You’re unlikely to get everything you want. That’s a good thing, because wants are part of what define us. It’s entirely possible that you’ll get most of what you need, thou… | Continue reading
People don’t hire you, buy from you or recommend you because you’re indifferently average and well rounded. They do it because you’re exceptional at something. What if you investe… | Continue reading
If someone offers you “feedback,” your Spidey sense might start to tingle. Feedback isn’t often part of a warm and fuzzy feeling. “Advice” is better. If you ask someon… | Continue reading
They didn’t reject you. They rejected an application. They rejected a business plan. They rejected a piece of paper. They don’t know you. | Continue reading
The “freestanding insert” was a multi-billion dollar business. Printed in bulk, then handed over to newspapers that would insert it into their Sunday paper, it was filled with coupons. … | Continue reading
Great non-fiction helps us see the unseen, plants and nurtures ideas that matter, and, sometimes, can leave us better than we were. Isabel Wilkerson’s new book Caste does all of those things.… | Continue reading
We don’t pay surgeons by the hour. And if the person who cuts the lawn shows up with a very fast riding mower, we don’t insist on paying less because they didn’t have to work as h… | Continue reading
[This probably impacts every person reading this, but few of us get to decide to fix it. I figured it was worth sharing so you can share it…] Don’t require special characters (like ! or… | Continue reading
Things rarely turn out precisely the way we hoped. Sometimes, if we’re lucky, we can figure out why. If we find the lesson and learn from it, it might be even more valuable than if we’d… | Continue reading
One of the most difficult things to do in skateboarding is to learn to ‘drop in’. This is the commitment at the top of the ramp. One moment, you’re standing still, at the abyss, a… | Continue reading
Your skills. Your reputation. The noise in your head, your attitude, your personal passions… But after that, it starts to diverge. Some own real estate. Some own machines. Some own trademarks… | Continue reading
We act differently when we know we’re about to be on display. Aim a camera at someone and they tense up. I guess we call it “taking” a picture for a reason. We feel defensive. Soc… | Continue reading
If it doesn’t ship, it doesn’t count. If it’s not creatively productive, it’s not helpful. And if we’re lucky, this is the heart of our work. The work of creation in o… | Continue reading
HARD ONES because you know that whatever you choose is possibly the wrong path. Hard decisions are hard because you have competing priorities. Hard decisions that happen often are probably a sign t… | Continue reading
Everyone gets the same 24 hours. Reset every day, a fresh start. Some of us are privileged enough to have the choice on how to spend some of that time. We can feel busy, but the busy-ness is largel… | Continue reading
The problem: how can we get people what they want and need? It turns out that the simple short-term answer is the market. The marketplace makes it possible to buy a nail clipper made of hardened st… | Continue reading
One way to make a decision with a team or a partner is to clearly make a decision. Have a budget, do the math, lay out the risks and the options and decide with intent. The other method is to wease… | Continue reading
Ordering in instead of cooking. Working from home instead of commuting. Using a dishwasher instead of the sink… All that time saved. Now that you’ve got the time back, you get to choose… | Continue reading
Here’s a rusty knife. Here’s a video I saw on YouTube once. Here are some instructions I read on Quora… Okay, how hard can it be? Actually, it might be very hard. Actually, expert… | Continue reading
Not a retreat, but a chance to advance. Set up a zoom room. By yourself, perhaps. Weird but do-able. Or possibly, bring a coach or a colleague. But only one person. No phones. No internet besides Z… | Continue reading
The resolution of communication has been on a downward slide for more than a decade. Careful hand-tuned typography shifts to endless Helvetica, poorly kerned. Face to face goes to landline phone ca… | Continue reading
The quick comeback. The clever repartee. The ability to, in the moment, say precisely what needs to be said. As the world gets faster, more of us feel the regret of the staircase. The perfect remar… | Continue reading
Random House isn’t in the bookstore business, they’re in the business of publishing ideas that matter. Audi isn’t in the gasoline business. They sell personal transportation. You&… | Continue reading
Because there’s a cost to using it on one thing instead of another. And because the person who invests money has choices, and often chooses the choice that works best for them. Most people wo… | Continue reading
If you find a key and you don’t know what lock it will fit, you haven’t found much. It’s easy to get excited about half the system, but real change and real benefit only happen wh… | Continue reading
Everyone, without exception, has found some things to not believe in. Things that are demonstrably true that we just don’t want to accept. A bit like a fingerprint, each person’s patter… | Continue reading
Slack enables systems to function with more efficiency. That’s because unavoidable delays and errors compound in a system that doesn’t have enough buffer space. But fake deadlines don&#… | Continue reading