Leadership is a much bandied-about concept. Its descriptions are as multiple as its promoters. Yet while definitions of the term seem to have iterated to the point of meaninglessness, we continue to return to it. Every day, new articles, talks, and books touting the best definitions of leadership and how to cultivate or find it surface. At the intuitive level, many of us understand that a “leader” is someone who tells other people what to do for the sake…
Is it always wrong to lie? What if it’s for a good cause? Are white lies ever justified? These are questions that we likely ponder about when ethical issues come to mind. Likewise, the neuroscientist Sam Harris has pondered about them and has decided to tackle them in a short treatise on why lying is almost always wrong. Harris’ conviction seems hopelessly hard-line at first. However, some clarification about what his definition of lying is and some nuances at the…
A few months ago as I walked past a Waterstones bookstore near where I lived, I turned my attention to the promoted material close to the entrance on my right. Tim Ferriss’ bright yellow and orange book Tools of Titans (2016) caught my eye. I recalled his name from a Talks at Google talk titled “How to Cage the Monkey Mind” I had listened to many months back. The talk was about applying the insights of stoic philosophy to modern…
Have you ever felt like you aren’t learning things as quickly as you’d like? While some of us are fast learners, many of us aren’t. Depending on our natural aptitude, our passions, and the quality of our mentors, we learn some things quicker than we do others. I am not a slower than average learner, but I’m not a whiz either. For people like us, helpful tips on how to optimize our learning efficiency are always welcome. That is…
Following on from this post about the advice we’d give to our younger selves, here’s more advice from other peoples’ experiences sourced from Quora that I’ve found helpful. Christian Bonilla – Customer Feedback Flattens Hierarchies This contributor is quoting Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon. Bezos was pointing out that in the online sales context, understanding the customer matters more than technical ability. Bonilla writes: ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a senior executive or a junior staffer, opinions…
Most of us value efficiency. Depending on our circumstances, we could be trying to find the optimal balance between, among other things, studies, work, family, and social obligations. To reduce the stressors that accumulate from them, one thing we try to do is find ways to be more productive. As a result of this demand, books, videos, and courses have been created to help us with just that. One recent contribution that has stood out for its quality is…
We have all experienced the pain of being treated unfairly. It could be that we’ve been overlooked in favor of someone less deserving in a romantic context. Maybe at work, we slaved hard on a project but someone who did almost nothing ends up receiving most of the credit. In either case, we may feel that our decision to not act selfishly costed us dearly. Incidents like these raise the question in every giving person’s mind: how can I…
Good sleep is vital for good health. Not getting enough quality sleep is linked with mood disorders, weight problems, cognitive decline, and overall worse health. Because of that, I have dedicated some time to find helpful tips for sleeping well and am listing them here. Note that much of this advice won’t help if you suffer from insomnia. Neither are they are substitutes for a consultation with a sleep doctor or medication if your situation is not related to insomnia…
What advice would we give our younger selves? This is a fascinating question. It is not surprising, therefore, that when this question is asked on Quora, it gets a lot of replies. In this post, I list some helpful replies and elaborate on them a little more. I would not say a word – Niklas Goke Reflecting on Bill Gates’ response, this contributor reasons that because so many factors direct our life trajectory, one word could send what would otherwise have…