I started listening to the Work Life podcast, by Adam Grant. I love it! Super-interesting. Since they’re relatively close to the beginning of the podcast, I started at the beginning. Season 1, Episode 3 was “The Problem with All Stars,” and while it was interesting to listen to, the piece that was most striking to … Read more
When the weather is nice, I don’t listen to as many podcasts. Most of my listening is in the car, and when the weather is nice, the windows are down, and when the windows are down, I can’t hear podcasts (or music), so I just enjoy the air. But the weather hasn’t been nice lately, … Read more
I recently discovered a new podcast: The Happiness Lab. It’s fairly new—there are only eight episodes so far—and I learned about it through a plug on Revisionist History. This coincided perfectly with a personal goal of adjusting my mindset in certain areas so I can be happier. Episode 3: A Silver Lining. They talked about … Read more
A while back, I was listening to Akimbo by Seth Godin and something really stuck with me. He’s said this in previous podcasts, but, like most things, it took repetition before it hit. It’s about sunk costs—things that you’ve invested time and money into, but that the time and money shouldn’t be part of a … Read more
Schools in this area have an evacuation site. If, for whatever reason the whole school needed to be evacuated, where would we all go? At my first job in Arizona, the steak house was mentioned. New to the local area and vegetarian, I couldn’t think of any steak houses nearby … and also thought that … Read more
Apologies. We tend not to be good at them. We tend to force children to mutter them insincerely. We get in the habit of muttering them insincerely, if we mutter them at all. The first place I heard an excellent, clear explanation of what an apology should be was in Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture at … Read more
There is something delightful about people who get jazzed about a topic, even if the topic is weird (by my standards) or not something I’m necessarily interested in. I have read most of Malcolm Gladwell’s books and have enjoyed them thoroughly. Some of the pieces within them are about topics that I wouldn’t necessarily choose … Read more
I listened to and loved two very different podcasts recently. The first, titled Not really having this argument, was from Akimbo by Seth Godin. It’s only about 18 minutes long (the subsequent 10 or so minutes are follow-up questions from the previous episode, though there was one in there that I also found compelling, so … Read more
A quote from Seth Godin via his podcast Akimbo. It stands on its own. (This quote is actually from the Q&A at the end of the linked episode. Emphases are his.) Where it’s starting to get tricky, in the last hundred years, is that the scientific method, the engineers’ approach to the world, the thought … Read more
In blog writing, I have a few rules I’ve set for myself. Always proofread at least twice (once immediately and once after walking away, ideally for a day, but an hour will do in a pinch). Don’t share identifying information about people or share other people’s stories that aren’t mine to tell (unless I have … Read more