Reading Time: < 1 min Seth Godin recently published a blog post that ended with two great mottos: “You’ll pay a lot, but you’ll get more than you paid for.” “Our secret is that we don’t lie to get the project.” I agree wholeheartedly with both of those, though the second one is a little tricky. Back in 2016, a […]
Trust
Shallow fun versus deep fun
Reading Time: < 1 min I was recently listening to a podcast with Malcolm Gladwell and Adam Grant, and they got into a great discussion about having “fun” in your work. They disagreed initially, but as they unpacked it they ended up on the same page. The key was separating “shallow fun” and “deep fun”. Daniel Coyle explained the difference […]
Intentionally avoiding the truth
Reading Time: < 1 min I recently finished reading Malcolm Gladwell’s new book “The Bomber Mafia“, about how aerial bombing shaped World War Two, and a few quotes stuck out to me — somewhat unrelated to the book itself. I shared last month how I was surprised to see people double-down on false truths on social media, but these insights […]
Expectations Matter
Reading Time: < 1 min Back when I was around 12 years old, I was quite active in the Boy Scouts. We had a big luncheon that a bunch of Troops were going to, and the special guest was going to be Mr. Wizard! At the time, Don Herbert was “Mr. Wizard“, host of a fairly popular TV show on […]
Own your shortcomings
Reading Time: 2 min A few years ago I was car shopping and was looking at perhaps getting a Nissan as my next car. As I researched further, though, I found out that they didn’t yet support Android Auto (which was on the list of features I was looking for). When I Googled for “why doesn’t Nissan support Android […]
The truth is worth more than your agenda
Reading Time: 2 min The past year has opened my eyes to a lot of things. What I’m noticing more and more, particularly on social media, is people that share stories that fit their agenda with literally no concern about the facts. It gets worse when the facts become clear, yet they double down. I see it happen more […]
You don’t need a new tire
Reading Time: < 1 min There used to be a guy named Yogi that sold tires out of a gas station near our house, and everyone loved him. If you had an issue with a tire on your car, Yogi was the guy to talk to. Yogi has since moved away, which is sad, because he often did something amazing. […]
That’s not my job
Reading Time: 2 min A few weeks ago, we bought a Jeep Grand Cherokee for my wife. It’s an excellent vehicle, but I noticed something interesting during the sales process. At one point they made a small financial miscalculation, but the finance manager ate the difference to make sure they stood by their word, which was appreciated. That was […]
Spam makes it harder for the good stuff to shine
Reading Time: 2 min Spam is just a bad thing. We all hate it. The problem I’m finding lately is that it’s also making good things appear to be more questionable. “Why did you write about that?” A while back, I shared on my Facebook about some great new charging cables we bought for our devices around the house. […]
Obscurity is still your biggest threat
Reading Time: 2 min There’s an old quote from Tim O’Reilly that I really love, and it seems to be getting better with age. Tim simply said: Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy. While you can worry about people copying your content or stealing your ideas, your far bigger concern is having […]