Finding Clarity in an Ambiguous World
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You Can’t Think Your Way Out
You’ve come down with a serious cold. You feel miserable. You start trying to figure out who or what gave you this cold: Was it not washing your hands after that bus ride? Was it that guy that coughed on you while you were standing in line to get groceries? We all want answers to…
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The Fear of the Remembered
It’s amazing to me how many people worriedly ask me about the safety of our living in Mexico. Yes, Mexico has lots of news of drug wars, kidnapping and murders. Each of these events is tragic as well as memorable. This is why it casts a shadow on the entire country. In Guadalajara, where we…
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Life By Autopilot
We live in a highly complex world but with a very limited amount of focus. This limits the amount of conscious decisions we make. The rest of our life runs in autopilot: we decide not to decide. This, as it turns out, is our default choice. It’s why states that require you to opt-in for…
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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…
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The Unstated Rules
Earlier today, my wife, Ann, and I were eating at a restaurant and we watched a two-year old solve a maze like the one above, connecting point A with point B. She solved the maze in a couple of seconds, then moved on to the next activity on her placement. How did she do it…
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In Search of Simplicity
I just finished reading When Genius Failed by Roger Lowenstein. This book documents yet another example of humans desire to seek simplification even when that simplification doesn’t truly model reality. In short, LTC believed they had figured out a way to make money that was very low risk. Each transaction could only make a little…
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Scripting Life
Have you ever considered how the various roles in your life mimic a screenplay? A friend of mine is teaching me his method for Designing a Balanced Life. This week, we discussed the roles that each of us play in our lives and how they interact. Previously, I’ve considered my various roles, but I found…
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When Your Brain Fails – Nodding Off
Yesterday late in the afternoon, I was providing a demo of our product in a warm conference room. The person I was showing it to started nodding off. Now this wasn’t a case where there were a lot of people, there were only three of us and he was asking us questions in between his…
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Being Great Even Though You’re Not Perfect
About nine years ago, I went on a trip to Latvia with a group of more than 50 people from eight different countries including Russia, Sweden, US, Holland, and Latvia. The age ranges in the group were from 16-60 and contained people from all walks of life. The purpose of the trip was to provide…
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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…
Got any book recommendations?