Betterment

When someone is dissatisfied with a product, group, or relationship, how do they remedy that dissatisfaction?  A German economist and political scientist, Albert Hirschman, laid out a theory of how people respond to dissatisfaction in his influential treatise Exit, Voice, Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States.  Hirschman observed that people who find themselves […]

For more than 130 years, we’ve celebrated Labor Day in the US and Canada. And May Day has been around about as long. Around here, it’s become mostly a seasonal marker, but it was founde…

Adults make choices and live with the consequences. No one else should tell us what flavor of ice cream we prefer, or what career to choose. We’re good at knowing what we want. In practice, t…

In the original Star Wars Trilogy (Episodes 4-6), we see Luke Skywalker & Pals blow up a couple of Death Stars, redeem Darth Vader, and defeat the

If you want to be a poet, write poetry. Every day. Show us your work. If you want to do improv, start a troupe. Don’t wait to get picked. If you want to help animals, don’t wait for vet…

You notice white flakes on your shoulders when wearing a black t-shirt or dark suit.  You’ve got dandruff.  You’re not alone. 50% of adults have dandruff. I’m part of that 50%. I’ve got a more severe type of dandruff called seborrheic dermatitis that I’ve been managing since my early 30s.  While dandruff isn’t a symptom […]

We’ve all heard about the devastation caused by the opioid epidemic, which has ravaged families and communities globally. What’s truly sad is not only the

Learn Emacs from the ground up

In Finland, “sisu” is a concept that, while it can’t be strictly translated into English, roughly corresponds to a combination of bravery, resilience, grit, and determination. My guest today will help us unpack it further, and offers advice on how everyone can live life with more sisu.  Her name is Joanna Nylund and she’s […]

In 1910, two explorers began their quests to become the first men to ever set foot upon the southernmost point on earth. It was the “Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration.”

The Finns’ gritty, improbable resistance left a legacy of inspiration, buoying the spirit of freedom and offering a case study of what’s possible.

When we stop to think about it, most company meetings are a bit like speed dating. They’re designed to be focused, on point, efficient, and over with as

When is laziness smart? Why does the thinking behind being productive often feel like we're being tricked into working more?

Time was, if you wanted advice on how to improve or address some problem concerning things like health, finance, relationships, and work, your options for where to get that advice were limited. You could pick up one of the few books on the subject, ask a friend, colleague, or pastor, or send a letter to […]

Belief makes us human. Belief is our tool to dance with a possible future, confront our fears, and build community. Our personal taste and our preferences belong to us as well, helping us believe i…

Sometimes it’s obvious, like the $1 that you get charged for using an ATM or a credit card, and it’s simply not worth the hassle to walk a few blocks. And sometimes it’s not, like…

When you deploy a service into production, you need to configure it with enough resources (e.g., CPU, memory) so that it can handle the volume of requests you expect it to receive. You’ll wan…

This image is an idea inspired by the Dr Pippa Malmgren interview on the Infinite Loops Podcast #167. In the podcast, Dr Malmgren describes leadership,

If your job feels like a dead end, it might be because you’ve traded agency and responsibility for the feeling of security. But real security lies in creating value. Creating value isn’…

We typically sort feelings into two categories: the good (calm, contentment, lightness, elation) and the bad (anxiety, shame, disappointment, grief). Believing that the good help happiness and the bad hinder it, we cling to the former and avoid, ward off, and theraputize the latter. Yet, while feelings can be lighter or heavier, easier or harder, […]

The future isn’t the same as the past. Technology develops, systems change and most of all, someone cares enough to make things better. The maverick isn’t the selfish gunslinger of myth…

It’s possible that the memo or video is simply too long. A 14 minute video explaining how to have a 10 minute brainstorming meeting might benefit from some editing. But it might be that your …

Is its pattern strange to you?

Placebos work and placebos spread. We’re wired to believe something, but the specifics of what we believe often come from other people. When there were a limited number of channels, mainstrea…