I’m going to be in Berlin for around a week during New Year’s. Barring snowstorm, cancelled flights or unexpected mishaps, I’m planning to have a readers meet-up sometime in the late-afternoon on the 28th. I’ve done meet-ups in the past in Paris and Vancouver. Both went really well, we had several people, grabbed a bite […]
Archives for December 2010
Needing Encouragement is a Weakness
If you need people to support your goals and ideas, you won’t reach many of them. This doesn’t mean encouragement is bad. Having people who do support you is great. However, needing those people to support you often guarantees failure. The first reason for this is that, unfortunately, people often aren’t supportive. If you rely […]
When You Should Fix Your Weaknesses
“Focus on your strengths,” is now standard advice. Along with “be yourself” and “follow your passions”, it is one of those snippets of wisdom we rarely question. Unfortunately, it’s also wrong in enough cases to be worth questioning. A better question to ask would be: when should you focus on your strengths? If you understand […]
Staying in School Forever
As a species, our incubation period is getting longer. Just a few hundred years ago, finishing twelve years of education was uncommon. Today it’s difficult to get a job above minimum wage without a high-school diploma. Teenagers were once miniature adults. Fifteen year-old girls got married. Sixteen year-old boys went to work. Today teenagers are […]