Category: Communication

  • Self Fulfilling Prophesies

    Self Fulfilling Prophesies

    There was a group strategy meeting in California that I was planning to go to. Assuming things went well, I knew this would be my final business trip for my current employer. The new company was finishing fundraising so leaving was still over a month away. I still cared very much about seeing this company…

  • The Unasked Questions

    The purposes of a man’s heart are deep waters, but a man of understanding draws them out. – Proverbs 20:5 (NIV) Recently, I’ve been working on improving my attention management. My friend, David Delp, has been teaching me his system called “Designing a Balanced Life“. It’s true his approach is great, but one of the…

  • Dealing With Injustice: Swallowing Poison Pills

    There is almost nothing more frustrating than someone taking advantage of you. I was reminded of this yesterday when I boarded a bus and received improper change. I didn’t notice until I was back in my seat and started obsessing about the injustice. Then I sat back and realized that the bus driver may have…

  • Epistemology And Human Fallibility

    I read quite a bit. I’m constantly energized by new ideas and books provide a way for me to swim in them. As I read, it’s fascinating to see interesting themes that tie different books together. I don’t recommend every book I read, but there are three books that I think are must reads. The…

  • Periods and Question Marks

    Sometime ago I worked with someone who I occasionally meet for lunch. I found that I enjoyed the conversation so long as I ended all of my sentences with question marks. If I did so, he would talk and share a wealth of opinion. As soon as I started using periods, he started looking at…

  • Is It Their Personality or Just Circumstances?

    Last summer I read my first Kindle book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace. It’s a perfect book for the kindle since it’s over 1,000 pages, 100 of which are footnotes, vital to understanding the book, if understanding is really fully possible. While I was glad for the experience, the book is not for everyone. What…

  • Amplifying Noise

    Yesterday, Ann and I were watching a Mexican dancing television show at a restaurant. Something about it struck me very funny and I laughed out loud. At the same time, I looked over to see a waiter and a waitress pretending to dance like they were on the show. After my laugh, they looked over…

  • There Is No Signatum Without Signum

    There is no signatum without signum” – Quote from a reading that Ann was translating to Spanish Most of you probably read that quote with emphatic agreement, if not, then you’re probably wondering what signum and signatum are, much as we were when Ann asked me what this meant. After doing a bit of searching,…

  • The RapidChip Fallacy

    “The market is going to face this big, nasty problem and they will have no other choice but to use our product to solve it.” – Excited Entrepreneur Most of the time, this entrepreneur is committing the same fallacy that we faced when working on a failed project called RapidChip. This fallacy is related to, but different from…

  • Guest Blog: Mawy had a Yittle Yam

    [In response to my post on Tea Bog Beet Knee, Matthew Ritzman, a friend of mine, wrote a response that I thought worthy of more attention. Matthew and I met while he was President of the local Toastmasters club that I attended. His speeches always tied in personal stories and how they impacted him and…