Where Does the Fire Go?
Where Does the Fire Go? A cold night. A cozy room. A fire lit in the fireplace. You fall asleep by the fire. When you wake, the fire has gone out? But where did it go? You set the table for dinner. The candles are lit. Conversation ensues. The candles finally go out. But where […]
The Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself
Franklin D Roosevelt launched his presidency (the first term) with a spare 20-minute, 1,883-word address. The most famous bit was a riff on Henry David Thoreau’s observation . . . “Nothing is so much to be feared as fear.” Roosevelt was elected in the teeth of what is now called “The Great Depression.” His opening […]
Showing Up is Half the Battle
It seems silly to say this, but showing up is the first key to out-performance. Sometimes, this means at all. Get there. Sometimes, it’s about timing. Get there first. Sometimes, it’s about consistency. Show up more often. Sometimes, it’s about intensity. Bring more to the game. What’s true is you can’t win if you’re not […]
The Second Arrow
There is a Buddhist teaching called the two arrows. Our lives are full of “stuff happens.” Some of it we like, some of it pains us, and some we hardly notice. It’s the rhythm of life. The first arrow is the pain or discomfort we experience from something we don’t want or like. It’s enough […]
Who Will Help?
You can’t do this alone, and more to the point, you don’t need to. If you don’t have these kinds of people in your life, get busy and get some . . . Angels believe in you and want to help just because it’s you. Their energy and encouragement are priceless. Pioneers are people willing to go […]
The Next Time You’re Shot with an Arrow
A famous Buddhist parable (sutta) relates a conversation with a man called Malukya. It begins with Malukya demanding answers from the Buddha to what were then referred to as the “fourteen unanswerable questions” —e.g., is there life after death, what is the nature of the cosmos, etc. These are the same questions we’re still asking […]
Beware of Solutions Masquerading as Problems
When the problem and the solution are the same, you don’t have a real decision. There’s a difference between “Should we go to Spain this year?” and “What should we do for a vacation?” The first is a set-up to go to Spain. The second invites consideration of many alternatives. “Should I divorce the bastard?” […]
Experiments Are Failures We Learn From
Experiments are “failures” we learn from. “Failure” is another word for “not what I expected.” Expectations help keep us going. Dopamine levels increase when we expect a positive outcome or reward from an activity. The chemical hit makes us feel energized and focused. But here’s the thing: It’s not the actual achievement of the reward […]
Don’t Be Clickbait
A headline is an advertisement for an article. It makes a promise: New, better, cheaper, faster, Going Fast, fascinating, shocking. The lead (or lede) sets the hook. The best leads put across the key insight or big idea. They communicate both an understanding of what interests the reader as well as what’s important to know. […]
The End of the World, Again and Again
Without thinking too hard about it, I can recall thinking that each of the following events, all of which happened during my working life, were something like the end of the world. Black Monday (1987): On October 19, 1987, global stock markets experienced a massive crash, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeting 22.6% in […]