That’s what many freelancers want. The ability to do your work, but without the hassle of someone telling you what to do. The thing is, finding a well-paying job without a boss used to be a l… | Continue reading
It seems as though people now spend more time with their smartphones than they spend with other people, and the smartphone and app makers are working hard to make every interaction we make online e… | Continue reading
If someone offers you a compliment by mistake, or gives you the benefit of the doubt, or lets you into traffic… my hunch is that you accept. You might not totally deserve it, but hey, they mi… | Continue reading
Useful modern education is not the work of rote. When you tell someone the answer and then give them a test to see if they remember what you told them, that’s not education, it’s incent… | Continue reading
Today’s the launch of the Bootstrapper’s Workshop. It’s an intensive community-based virtual seminar, designed to take from 21 to 100 days. What you’ll learn: A third way to… | Continue reading
Today’s the launch of the Bootstrapper’s Workshop. It’s an intensive community-based virtual seminar, designed to take from 21 to 100 days. What you’ll learn: A third way to… | Continue reading
All three would be great. First… you invent, design, develop and bring to life things that haven’t been done before. Fast… you get the work done quickly and efficiently. Correct&#… | Continue reading
One day a year isn’t much to spend honoring the folks that built everything. One day a year for the more than twenty that died from the heights and in the caissons as they built the Brooklyn … | Continue reading
“What’s new?” That’s a fine approach to staying up to date on a situation or field where you are well-informed. After all, if you notice what’s new and incorporate it … | Continue reading
Do the ends justify the means? Is it worth lowering your standards and giving up your principles in order to find a better outcome? Many times, the means are the ends. How we choose to act changes … | Continue reading
One of the biggest shifts of giving up a paycheck to start a new venture is the fact that you gave up a paycheck. Happiness is positive cash flow, and the easiest way to get there is to decrease yo… | Continue reading
That’s a recent idea. To imagine the world in twenty, fifty or a hundred years. Later than later. To consider the long-term impact of our actions. History as a concept is recent and thinking … | Continue reading
It doesn’t matter what the questions are, really. They’re a prompt. When you’re in a job interview, a podcast interview, a sales call, a meeting… if we take the approach tha… | Continue reading
How fast can you go? This is different from the question we ask ourselves most days at work. Careers are often seen as marathons, designed to last as long as we do. Sprinting—for an hour, a week or… | Continue reading
Smart phones can hobble us. They connect us, and do it with persistence, drip by drip. But they also push us to make everything fit on a very small screen for a very short time. Teaching complicate… | Continue reading
If you work in a field where things need to be delivered by date certain, with zero defects, with high consequences if you make a mistake—then you need to charge a premium for exposing yourself to … | Continue reading
There’s no such thing as a born salesperson. What there are… are people with empathy and learned charisma who choose to work hard. If you show up and show up and show up, and care enoug… | Continue reading
Now and then, someone comes along who surprises the status quo. She didn’t do well on her SATs but ends up writing a brilliant novel. She didn’t go to a famous college but builds a succ… | Continue reading
Sometimes, our work is in opposition. Something is broken, and we need to fix it. But often, we’re working with something that’s fine. All it needs is our care and effort and it will ge… | Continue reading
There’s the kind that no one can possibly like. The popups, popunders, high-pressure, track-your-private-data, scammy, spammy, interruptive, overpriced, overhyped, under-designed selfish nons… | Continue reading
If you want to make the Olympic soccer team, join a symphony orchestra or get into medical school, the path is well lit. It's not easy, but the goals are clear and the boundaries are obvious. … | Continue reading
There are two paths, really: "I will serve just enough to make the maximum profit" or "I will profit just enough to provide the maximum service." | Continue reading
The difference between an actual discussion (where we seek the right answer) and a political one is simple: In a political discussion, people don’t care about what’s correct or effectiv… | Continue reading
It’s only been 140 years since the price tag first appeared. Before that, most every transaction was a negotiation. The seller tried to win by charging more, the buyer by paying less. In many… | Continue reading
Ringing is resonant. A small force causes sympathetic vibrations, and magic happens. Wringing requires significant effort and can even destroy the object it is applied to. When you ring a bell for … | Continue reading
“Knock, knock…” That’s not a coming attraction. It’s an invitation. An opening. A bit of tension in terms of closure. A coming attraction, on the other hand, gives it … | Continue reading
You’re probably familiar with class rank. Among all the kids in this high school, compared to everyone else’s GPA, where do you stand? And you’ve heard about sports rank, #1 in th… | Continue reading
If you make a product that costs $5 to produce and package, how much should you charge for it? I don’t know. But there’s a simple bit of arithmetic you can do to understand sensitivity … | Continue reading
If you make a product that costs $5 to produce and package, how much should you charge for it? I don’t know. But there’s a simple bit of arithmetic you can do to understand sensitivity … | Continue reading
“What should we do with all the left-handed people?” “There are far too many people in this organization who wear glasses. It’s hurting our ability to compete.” Here&#… | Continue reading
In many fields, there’s a big name. The exclusive slot. The top ranking or badge. This is being a top 10 podcast, or on a certain bestseller list or working at a specific sort of company̷… | Continue reading
These are the decisions that are forced on us, the ones that feel unfair, the ones where there are no seemingly good outcomes. How to proceed? Acknowledge that it sucks. That you’d rather not… | Continue reading
[There’s a lesson here for all marketers—legacy brands have clouded our understanding of what marketing can do today…] US prohibition ended in 1933. After that, there was a gold rush th… | Continue reading
[There’s a lesson here for all marketers—legacy brands have clouded our understanding of what marketing can do today…] US prohibition ended in 1933. After that, there was a gold rush th… | Continue reading
You don’t need to read many reviews to realize that the correlation between price and satisfaction isn’t what you might have guessed. It’s super rare for someone to write, “… | Continue reading
When I was a kid, my mom would start saying that in mid-July. I think she meant well. Summer is a great time to stand back, to chill out, to spend an entire day or a week producing little or nothin… | Continue reading
It’s ever easier to weave our own reality, to find a bubble and to reinforce what we believe with what we hear. We can invent our own rules, create our own theories, fabricate our own ‘… | Continue reading
When you bring a product or service to the free market, the market decides what it’s worth. If you don’t want to be treated like a commodity (a race to the bottom), there are two paths:… | Continue reading
Here’s a simple test: Ask a few people to name a logo they like. With very few exceptions, people will choose a logo that’s associated with a brand they admire. That’s because wha… | Continue reading
Your first mistake was getting on the A53 bus, the one that goes crosstown instead of to where you're going. Mistakes like this happen all the time. The big mistake, though, the one that will … | Continue reading
In the short run, weather emergencies can create a boost in the economy. They put people to work, require new building, emergency action and investment. But like a war, these boosts are only tempor… | Continue reading
When an organization succeeds, the owners decide what to maximize. Some of the choices: Salaries for the bosses Distributions to the shareholders Stock price Salaries for everyone else Positive imp… | Continue reading
Here’s a simple hierarchy: The self-driving car Cruise control Manual driving Hitchhiking Bicycling Walking The arc? As you move down the list, it gets harder and harder to coast. It moves fr… | Continue reading
Wanting to do two things at the same time. If you’re on the stairmaster at the gym, you’re engaged in a workout voluntarily. But if your job involved standing on a stairmaster all day, … | Continue reading
“We’re not going to be here long.” That’s because this project isn’t going to work and we can’t afford to stay, or because this project is going to work and we&#… | Continue reading
Quietly, over the last thirty years, engineering has become dramatically more efficient and effective. Insulated glass, cars that don't break down, keyboards with just the right feel to them&#… | Continue reading
Everything moves better in smooth water. Engineers spend a lot of time and energy to avoid cavitation, the often dangerous bubbles that are caused by pumps or propellers. And sailors and surfers pr… | Continue reading
Sports gurus are happy to talk about the difference between fast and slow twitch muscles. And it resonates with us, because we fully understand the ping-pong reflexes that are so often celebrated a… | Continue reading