I Wish America had a Volume Button
Our very attempts to escape the noise constantly around us have led to ever-escalating calls for our attention.
Try Not Telling People You're An Expert (Newsletter 038)
The high expectations of others are valuable if we force ourselves to live up to them. But beware of giving in to the temptation to believe others' expectations without doing the hard work necessary to earn them.
How To Reliably Identify A Fool (Newsletter 036)
Much of success in life comes from choosing the right pursuits at the right time.
Can You Think Your Way To Success? (Newsletter 034)
One of the spookiest things I ever did was write down on a single piece of paper a number of life goals.
Advice For New Managers: Develop Principles (Newsletter 033)
Advice from individuals, journalists, and experts is more than not useful. It's downright harmful, at least in the sense that it distracts you from focusing on what you could be more profitably doing.
Who Can Freely Speak Their Mind? (Newsletter 027)
Every senior manager and CEO I know is (typically rightly) paranoid that they are getting bad information from their subordinates. One reason you see CEOs asking multiple people the same question is that they are trying to triangulate the truth through a thicket of self-interested answers.
If You Ask The Wrong Questions...
Because we do not like feeling uncomfortable, our natural tendency is to seek out information that conforms to our existing beliefs and to ignore conflicting information.
How To Implement A Project With Lackluster Management Support (Newsletter 023)
Telling a hapless manager that ensuring top management support is a critical success factor for their project is more than unhelpful. It's a bit like saying, "OK, first ensure a perpetual source of cheap, clean, renewable energy...."
040 - On Composure - Moral Letters for Modern Times
Just as the glib speaker fools the lazy listener, so we mistake fervor in argument for conviction, and conviction for correctness.
Hold Fast To Truth
Holding fast to truth is not an easy path, but it is the least difficult of all other alternatives.
This is a tribute to Alexander Solzhenitsyn's 1974 essay "Live Not By Lies"*
