Paradise Found
The Downside to Academic Life in the United States
I can either go along and not make waves, or I can be an interesting and honest teacher who challenges students to think and learn. I'm not at all sure I can do both.
Students
Better...
How Much Should Bosses Care About Employees?
Can I care about your performance and want you to be successful without caring about your personal life?
Stoics
What Are The Moral Letters for Modern Times?
The power of an idea doesn’t depend on who it came from, but rather how it influences our behavior today.
Newsletters
If You Don't Know The Costs Of Your Solution, You're Part Of The Problem (Newsletter 040)
Here's where things get difficult fast: identifying which problems are worth focusing on, and which solutions are worth pursuing among many possible approaches.
Newsletters
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.
Newsletters
How To Reliably Identify A Fool (Newsletter 036)
Much of success in life comes from choosing the right pursuits at the right time.
Newsletters
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.
Newsletters
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.
Newsletters
Do You Want To Hear The Truth? (Newsletter 029)
Although we are blind to many of our imperfections, our colleagues' vision is perfect when identifying our flaws. Others see what we cannot.
Newsletters
Keep Your Cool (Newsletter 028)
Long-term success as a senior manager requires you to keep your cool. You need to be adept in handling information overload and remaining calm when others have lost their cool.
Newsletters
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.
Newsletters
It's Good To Be The Boss! (Newsletter 026)
It is unquestionably good to be the boss, because it puts you in a position to influence your company. But if you take your job seriously, you'll soon see that little comes with the title beyond the responsibility to live up to others' expectations.