Betterment

Every coat needs better pockets. There are categories of products or services where there’s a universal area for improvement. When in doubt, make the pockets better. The interesting work is i…

If we ask a random person in the street, what's the point of language, we may expect to hear something like, “it allows us to communicate with each

How to Lead Projects as an Individual Contributor

My sister is a beekeeper, or maybe a meta-beekeper. She ends up making more money by breeding and selling new queen bees to other beekeepers than she does by selling honey, but that doesn’t mean th…

We all know at least one person. The Superfan. They aren’t just a Star Trek nerd, everybody attending their wedding came dressed as Klingons. Not just

… is almost as difficult as empathy up close. That person that’s not like you, from way over there, the one that’s on the other team–it’s hard to imagine what they&#82…

The marketing consultant told the client that they have to post three times a day on LinkedIn. “It doesn’t matter if it’s good.” The SEO consultant explained that the websit…

In 1971, Coca-Cola launched the most famous commercial in advertising history. Older folks will still remember it fondly. Younger folks might remember it

Spoiled leads to bitter. A sense of entitlement is a trap, because bitterness demands more evidence and seeks to maintain dominance over the other emotions. When we’re busy looking for more r…

This Concept Map, created with IHMC CmapTools, has information related to: Hashtags I follow, #HashTag Connections on Twitter workplace & school to work #DiversityPipeline, #HashTag Connections on Twitter youth #oppindex, #mentor and #mentoring, #SDGs and #GlobalGoals, #HashTag Connections on Twitter data visualization #visualization, #HashTag Connections on Twitter understanding issues #urbanviolence, #HashTag Connections on Twitter public health #Healthy Chicago 2025, #HashTag Connections on Twitter educators #worldgeochat, #HashTag Connections on Twitter A better Chicago Chi Community Trust OnTheTable2017, 2018, 2019, #HashTag Connections on Twitter GlobalGoals/ environment #climatechange, #HashTag Connections on Twitter civic engagement #ChiSTEPSummit, #HashTag Connections on Twitter civic engagement #civicinfrastructure, #HashTag Connections on Twitter tech #TechontheBlock, #HashTag Connections on Twitter philanthropy #philanthropy, #gradnation and #AmGrad, #gradnation and #EducationNation, #volunteering and #MentoringSummit, #HashTag Connections on Twitter philanthropy #GivingTuesday, #HashTag Connections on Twitter understanding issues #PovertyNarrative, #NextGenEdu and #Teacher Ready

Perfect is useful. It’s an absolute measure, a north star, a chance to improve our work. But it’s also a shortcut to persistent dissatisfaction. Compared to perfect is helpful when we&#…

We need a lot more than just automatic behaviors to sustain a change. We need knowledge to guide the right actions, self-efficacy to know we are capable of taking them, rules and systems for managing decisions, courage to overcome our fears and a shift of identity to sustain it throughout the innumerable disruptions that will occur in life.

Give credit, take responsibility Get aligned on timeframes Insist on a spec, write one, improve it Agree on a budget Keep a calendar Don’t hold a grudge Speak up clearly and generously Show y…

The practices we need to thrive as human beings appear to be largely harmonious across many different goals and pursuits.

(just by leaving it) Moving into your kid’s college dorm isn’t going to make the experience better for anyone. A smart founder leaves her company in a moment when it actually does bette…

It’s that Burning Man time of the year again, when with a predictability you can set your watch to, the internet becomes flooded with the perennial

Pharmacists used to mix chemicals by hand to create prescriptions. Opticians used to grind lenses from scratch. Lawyers used to start with an empty page. Graphic designers needed to know how to dra…

One of my favourite free tools on the command line is Pandoc. Whenever you need to convert a text-focused file from one format to another, Pandoc more often than not has you covered. Have command line tools to let you do conversions like this lets you build transformative workflows as well as conveniently just change from one format to another on the fly. I am also a big user of Obsidian, the Markdown-based personal knowledge management app. While there is an Obsidian plugin for Pandoc that works well on the Mac, I found it didn’t work as well on Windows for me, and I also had issues because you can’t sync its settings and have it set up for multiple operating systems. This resulted in me putting together a specific set-up for my Windows set-ups that I can sync and extend as I like, and utilises a portable set up of Pandoc; and that’s what I’m covering in this post.

When a non-expert brings a strong point of view to a complex discussion, the words might not mean what they seem to mean. What might be being said is, “I’m worried. I’m afraid. I …

Many people born after the Millennium won’t remember much about the newspaper comic strip, “Peanuts,” featuring Good Ol’ Charlie Brown. But from its debut

Without salt, human beings don’t survive long. But it’s possible to eat for a month without tasting an herb. The food will sustain you. Herbs are an expensive non-obvious addition, whil…

Here’s a useful habit that’s more than a hack… The next time things are going well, when a project is about to launch, when a meeting has been successful, when the sun is shining&…

Solo mediocrity is rampant, of course. We know that toasting the bread before making the sandwich makes it more delicious, but in service of convenience and speed, we skip a step. It becomes a cons…

Those who do not master the exploitive reading method waste a lot of time and energy. Not every book should be processed in the same way.

Even in the age of smartphones and GPS, stories of hikers getting lost in the wilderness still regularly appear in the news. How do people get lost even when carrying their devices, and what should you do if you ever find yourself in that situation? To answer those questions, I called up Creek Stewart, a […]

Note: This excerpt, condensed from the original, was taken from Masterful Personality by Orison Swett Marden, a book which was published in 1921 and is worth reading in its entirety. “A man is not all included between his hat and boots,” said Walt Whitman. There is something in a man which does not inhere in […]

Modern life has a modern problem: we don't have to do anything.

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For extraordinary long-term success in business we can look to insights from British Olympic cycling, Roger Federer and neuroeconomics.