Author: Matthew
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Trickle Change
Last Friday, as I was waiving goodbye to the family to head to work, I turned the key in the ignition. Nothing. No lights, no beeping sounds, nothing. After riding my bike all week, an open door drained the battery dead. So I hopped on my bike again and hoped it wouldn’t snow on my…
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Tearing Down the Scarecrows
Jurgis immigrated to the US from Lithuania. After marrying the girl of his dreams, he finds a good job and the family buys a house. Of course, his job is in a meat-packing plant where apparently people sometimes fall into the sausage maker which doesn’t stop running, but it pays the bills. His wife also…
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The Pendulum Of Life
Think about it: Which do you prefer more, inhaling or exhaling? Inhaling feels great when we go outside and take a deep breath of fresh air, but then slowly exhaling relaxes us. Ultimately, both feel the best when we’ve just done the other. We can’t decide we’d prefer to only inhale, or to only exhale.…
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Sacrificial Hero Or Abuse Enabler
A few months ago, a friend of mine had some helpful comments about how a particular problem project could be put back on course. A few days after, he was asked if he could spend 3 weeks overseas getting the project back on track. Quite nonplussed, he refused saying, “When did the hole someone else…
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Squirrel!
Sometime ago, I showed up at a potential customers office to provide a demonstration of our software product. When we entered the conference room about 16 employees had already arrived. Normally in this situation, people would be making small talk or joking among themselves, but in this case, they were all actively working on their…
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Respect The Rough
When playing a dog-leg hole in golf (one that bends to the left or right), it’s pretty easy to believe that shooting over the trees and taking the shortest path to the hole will result in us winning. We tell ourselves, even if we end up short in the rough with the trees, many times…
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Scarcity Trap
Over a decade ago, a friend and I went to California for some training on a new way the program managers wanted to schedule our work. During the training, the instructor asked, “Suppose you have 4 tasks that depend on one another B depends on A, C depends on B, and D depends on C.…
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Level Set
Ever start working out and a good song comes on, so you turn up the volume. The next song gets your fist pumping, volume up. A few more good songs and then the bass drops, turn it UP! Then you start wondering why your ears are hurting, it’s too loud, so you turn it down…
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Forest For The Trees
Today I went to go replace a headlight in our Suburu Forester. After watching a video online to get a quick overview, I confidently thought it would only take a few minutes. Pop the hood and easily see the bulb. First question enters my mind as there is no cover on this bulb and there…
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The Power Of Lore
In a probably apocryphal story, a scientist places a group of 5 gorillas in a cage. At the beginning of the day, he puts a banana on top of a pedestal. Whenever a gorilla attempts to climb toward the banana, he sprays all the gorillas with water, which they hate. This continues until no gorilla even attempts…