In economic theory, there’s a famous dilemma known as the agency dilemma (also known the principal-agent problem). The agency dilemma describes a situation in which the interests of the principal (the owner of an operation who enlists an agent) and the agent (someone empowered by the principal to act on...

Merely doing things isn’t enough to create the best chance for making progress. 

Doing many things isn’t enough to create the best chance for making progress. 

Doing the right things however — going out of your way to focus on the things things with the greatest chance of...

There are often multiple ways to describe your situation, and some ways are more helpful than others. 

Maybe you’re a failure or maybe you simply made a mistake — everyone makes them — and you move on. 

Maybe you have to do something or maybe you get to...

In 2014 Virgin Galactic tragically lost a test pilot to a crash and continued to be “[plagued with] technical problems”.

It wouldn’t be until 5 years later that Virgin would be able to achieve its second successful test flight, but even then the ambitious spaceline was still experiencing major structural integrity...

Sometimes your best will be getting one thing done. 

Sometimes your best will be waking up at bright an early, having a remarkably productive day, and coming back home with plenty of energy to boot. 

Sometimes your best will be staying in bed all day and doing nothing. 

...

In their book, No Hard Feelings, Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy make a suggestion that is somewhat off-putting on the surface: “be less passionate about your job”.

To help clarify where they’re coming from, they emphasize that “be less passionate about work’ doesn’t mean ‘Don’t care about work.’ It means:...

Want to be a photographer? Photograph more. 

Want to be a writer? Write more. 

Want to be a runner? Run more. 

There is rarely a precise moment where we become anything. 

The key to becoming something it to start doing it — whether it’s photographing to become...

“If I’m working hard, I’m wrong almost every single day — sometimes several times a day.” — Seth Godin We seldom get things right for the first time. 

If you look at most of the success stories (learning to ride a bike, building a product, etc) follow several steps...

When 4-year-old nephew was trying to float on his back for the first time at the at the pool yesterday, I noticed that he was terrified of getting his ears wet. 

After seeing the dread on his face as the back of his head started to approach the water, I...

If you’re not specific about the parameters for assessing the work, you run the risk of you and your team being able to generating false assessments about it:

The biggest warning sign that such an assessment is being created are two words: “I think”

“I think we’re headed in the right...