I lost my father in 2021 and his death provoked a lot of reflection on mortality, including my own. The fact that we’re all going to die someday is sobering and frightening on one level, and yet it also infuses our life with meaning. In his book Four Thousand Weeks, author Oliver Burkeman writes: “It is by consciously confronting the certainty of death, and what follows in the certainty of death, that we finally become truly present in our lives.” The “four thousand...
What’s Your Personal Vision?
A Path in Oregon. Source: Sean P. Murray Richard Hamming makes a stunning observation in his book Learning to Learn: “The main difference between those who go far and those who do not is some people have a vision and others do not and therefore can only react to the current events as they happen.” – Richard Hamming in Learning to Learn It’s easier than ever to spend our time reacting to current events – just browse Facebook, scroll Twitter or bounce among your favorite news sites on your...
Steve Jobs’ Most Important Decision Making Tip
Our lives are defined by our decisions. Try this thought experiment: consider your life as separate from the decisions you have made. You can’t. They are one in the same. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates and the author of the book Principles, put it eloquently: “The quality of our lives depends on the quality of our decisions.” If Dalio is right, and I believe he is, then the study of decision making should take up a much larger percentage of our education and...
When Technology Meets Community
A co-op grocery chain in Seattle began dismantling their self-checkout kiosks this month. After considerable investment in the technology over the past few years, the PCC Community Market, made the decision to remove the automated stations. Here is how the store describes the reasoning behind the decision: “A kiosk doesn’t create community or connections. So we wanted to take those out so that when someone comes into our stores, they have a human connection with someone and an interaction...
In Search of the Good Life
“Happiness is what you get right before you want more happiness.” – Don Draper, Mad Men As humans, we are not very good at predicting how future events will impact our life. We tend to overestimate the degree to which misfortune (divorce, loss of a job, death of a loved one) will set us back. However, when you talk with someone who has lived through such experiences, you’ll find they came through the ordeal intact. Humans have a tremendous capacity for adaptation. It’s a survival mechanism...
5 Lessons from Viktor Frankl’s book “Man’s Search for Meaning”
In 1945, within months of his liberation from a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, Viktor Frankl sat down to write a book. He was forty years old. Before the war he worked as a successful psychologist in Vienna. He wrote the manuscript in nine successive days. Although the book tells the story of the unfathomable horrors and suffering he endured as a prisoner at Auschwitz, Dachau and other camps, the primary purpose of the text is to explore the source of his will to survive. The book...
Charlie Munger on Bitcoin and Second-Order Thinking
Charlie Munger turned 94 this year. He grew up in Omaha, Nebraska during the Great Depression. Through hard work, continuous learning, persistence, and generally avoiding stupidity, Munger has become one of the wealthiest individuals on the planet. Warren Buffett looks to Munger for advice. He’s literally seen it all. So I find it fascinating that people are clamoring for his opinion on Bitcoin. In a recent interview he offered this response: I think it’s perfectly asinine to even pause...
Good Leaders Promote Emotional Well-Being
Things don’t make you happy, but experiences and relationships do. Highly productive people understand this and apply it in their own lives to maintain spiritual and emotional well-being. Great leaders also leverage this truth to create a positive culture and get the most out of their people. If you survey the happiness literature, one theme you’ll find is that happiness depends on one’s ability to accept the world for what it is, and to be content with what you have today. From the ancient...