Month: November 2009
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Thanksgiving in Mexico
Since moving to Mexico, we’ve become accustomed to differences between our expectations and the culture. Since Thanksgiving isn’t celebrated here, Thursday felt like any other day, and since my wife didn’t have class on Friday, we planned a celebration with her class of 13 (plus guests) from the University. The plan was to meet at…
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Blame Avoidance vs Name Making
With the economic uncertainty that we are living through, there is a marked shift in thinking that effects almost everyone. When things are good, there is a desire to be great, to stand out, to make a name for yourself. You want attention because attention is sparse. Success is celebrated and missteps are quickly forgiven.…
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For Fear of Getting Burned
Everything is in a constant state of flux, except our first impressions. Over the last few years, I can’t tell you how often I have been warned away from some solution or another because someone was burned by it in the past (often times in the distant past). It’s not that past experience should be…
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Preemptive Apologies
We are hiring, bringing the requisite meetings with people to find the one that is a good fit.. Earlier this week, we had breakfast with one such candidate. He was really nice and had a good skill set but it wasn’t a match with what we were looking for. After the breakfast, he sent a…
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Why Read Books?
How often have you heard someone suggest after reading a book: “The point of this book could have been summarized in a few pages and didn’t need a few hundred.” While this critique is valid of a large number of books whose ideas are simple and shallow, it often gives people an excuse not to…
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Mixed Messages & Uncertainty
My wife and I were walking this evening and we arrived at a light that was completely lit up – Red, Yellow, and Green – all shining brightly. The cross street also had all lights turned on — Red, Yellow, Green Left Arrow, Green Right Arrow. This is the ultimate mixed message. If all the…
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Projecting Your Perception
El ladrón cree que todos son de su condición. This expression in Spanish, literally translates to, “The thief believes that all are of his condition”. In other words, they see everyone else as a thief. Another example would be that a liar believes everyone else is dishonest. This happens to all of us. We believe…
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Tea Bog Beet Knee [The Curse Of Knowledge]
In the process of learning Spanish, I’ve had a lot of thoughts regarding the nature of communication. When we are communicating, we know what we are trying to say and so whatever we say sounds completely unambiguous. The “Made To Stick” authors talk about this concept as “The Curse Of Knowledge” and it’s extremely present…
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Book Worth Reading: Made To Stick
About a year ago, I read Made To Stick and would put this book up there with one of the must reads for anyone that is desiring to communicate and propagate an idea. The two authors, Dan and Chip Heath, were both trying to figure out what caused ideas to stick in the world of…
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No Longer Young
Many years ago, as I was starting out in my career, one of my close friends told me “You are no longer young when it doesn’t matter how old or young the people are around you”. In other words, age becomes something that you don’t notice. This was hard for me to understand. Age seemed…