One of my all-time favorite classes in college was a course taught by a professor from the Kelley School of Business. 

On paper, the course was about negotiation tactics. In reality, it was a series of lessons on how to live a good life. The professor who taught the...

I started taking a software engineering course two weeks ago — this is my 4th or 5th attempt to acquire new software engineering skills. 

The Launch School has a useful graphic that breaks down the experience of learning a new skill into 3 phases: 

Exploratory phase: you experience...

The universe is about 14 billion years old. 

Your life as a percentage of the universe’s existence is approximately 7.1e-9, or .0000000071%.

Life is short. In the grand scheme of things it represents a mere spec — if that — in time. 

There is no time to waste....

Don’t have anything to say? Don’t say anything. 

Don’t have enough content to fill the full duration of the meeting? Adjourn early. 

A more controversial one: had an intense day and burnt out by 4PM? You’re better off leaving — it’s unlikely that the next hour is going...

Over the last year or so, many of my friends, family, and colleagues have heard the following remarks at work:

“Why can’t you be more positive?"

“Can you show your face please?”

And my favorite: “why aren’t you smiling more?”

There’s this strange phenomenon going on where some companies and...

For routine work, the spec is clear: 

When you build a house, you know how much concrete, steel, wood, and stone are needed. 

When you build a car, there’s no uncertainty about how much raw material, screws, and welding are required to build a it. 

We’ve built...

“What’s in it for me?” is unidirectional. It exclusively spotlights your wants and needs without considering what drives the people and organizations you work with. It implies that only your incentives are relevant — though this is seldom true. 

“What’s in it for us?” is multidirectional. It spotlights everyone’s...

I took a trip to Milwaukee this weekend and stayed by Lake Michigan.

I didn’t check my e-mail, I didn’t check Slack, and for the first time in 240 days I didn’t think about what to write for the Daily Spark (I’d pre-written / pre-recorded everything in advance). 

I...

Anytime you’re about to go into a cold body of water, there’s this idea of getting your feet wet to make the process of adapting to the temperature difference more gradual and graceful.

It’s such a salient and relatable concept that it’s become popular as analogy for handling transitions in...

I don’t know doesn’t generate any momentum.
I want to know does. It sets the sails for exploration and learning. It’s shorthand for “I don’t know yet, but I am going to find out”.
The difference in wording may be subtle, but the difference in implication & underlying intent is...