Category Archives: Leading

Declare Victory or Failure

Whenever you start a project, you should have a plan for finishing it. One outcome is to declare victory, to find that moment when you have satisfied your objectives and reached a goal. The other outcome, which feels like a … Continue reading

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Earning Trust

Where does trust come from? Hint: it never comes from the good times and from the easy projects. We trust people because they showed up when it wasn’t convenient, because they told the truth when it was easier to lie … Continue reading

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Freedom, Responsibility, and Child Rearing

The New Yorker asks why American kids lack the responsibility so evident in children of (some) other cultures.  The article concludes that an adolescence of parental fixing, making sure everything is perfect and the kid never fails, results in a … Continue reading

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Attitude

Attitudes are infectious. It’s why the happy, gregarious guy is always the life of the party and the center of attention.  Everyone wants some of that happiness.  It’s also why everyone avoids the depressed, quiet guy.  It’s actually easier to … Continue reading

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Filling In The White Spaces

Advice from Peter Thiel’s final CS 183 lecture: There is something importantly singular about each new thing. There is a mini singularity whenever you start a company or make a key life decision. In a very real sense, the life … Continue reading

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Why Drama

Derek Sivers recounts the time Kurt Vonnegut explained why people concoct drama: People have been hearing fantastic stories since time began. The problem is, they think life is supposed to be like the stories. Let’s look at a very common … Continue reading

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Memorial Day

Just a reminder on this day that if you’re going to fight for something, you better make damn sure it’s worth it. Kai Chang via Ben Casnocha

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We’re Not All Scientists

Another nice Neil deGrasse Tyson video is going around, but he’s a bit off base on this one: I can’t think of any more human activity than conducting science experiments. Think about it — what do kids do? Young kids.  … Continue reading

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Bertrand Russell’s 10 Commandments of Teaching

Perhaps the essence of the Liberal outlook could be summed up in a new decalogue, not intended to replace the old one but only to supplement it. The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might … Continue reading

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Leading With Lollipops

Inspiring video:

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How To Make Work Miserable

From The Progress Principle: Over the past 15 years, we have studied what makes people happy and engaged at work. In discovering the answer, we also learned a lot about misery at work. … What we discovered is that the … Continue reading

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On Role Models

We need to set our affections on some good man and keep him constantly before our eyes, so that we may live as if he were watching us and do everything as if he saw what we were doing.  Misdeeds … Continue reading

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Your Team Is More Important Than Your Idea

The modern Hollywood approach was to put together a team for one project and then disband the team when production was finished.  We thought that was dumb.  When it comes down to it, the only way to make a good … Continue reading

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Solve The Right Problem

In 1959, long before the X-prize, Henry Kremer offered 50,000 pounds to anyone who could finally build a flying machine powered only by the pilot’s body power.  All an entrant had to do was fly in a figure eight around … Continue reading

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The Hacker Way

As part of Facebook’s S-1 filing today, Mark Zuckerberg wrote a letter to shareholders.  In it, he outlines the culture and process that helped make Facebook’s phenomenal success possible.  If you notice your way of doing business, or creating art, … Continue reading

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