Category Archives: Relationships

How To Befriend Anyone

When Ben Franklin was running for Clerk of the General Assembly, one of his colleagues delivered a speech to the legislature skewering him.  This was a problem, because this was a guy Franklin couldn’t afford to just start a feud … Continue reading

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The Idiocy of Worrying About Your Legacy

Marcus Aurelius, the 16th Emperor of Rome, the most powerful man on earth for a time, kept a journal of thoughts and notes for himself, to keep himself grounded.  The twelve “books” worth of writings cover a broad range of … Continue reading

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Don’t Wait Until It’s Too Late: Define Your Priorities Now

Some good advice about priorities from Clayton Christensen over at the HBR: Over the years I’ve watched the fates of my HBS classmates from 1979 unfold; I’ve seen more and more of them come to reunions unhappy, divorced, and alienated … Continue reading

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Your Brand Is Irrelevant

Branding has been tremendously valuable over the last 100 years or so.  Even during the last five or ten years, pundits have been telling people to turn themselves into brands.  Brands are identifiable, they stand for something, they signify quality.  … Continue reading

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How To Get Anyone To Help You Do Anything

“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery

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How To Meet Your Heroes and Win Mentors

Have you noticed that little kids can do just about anything they want?  There’s a mountain of stories about young kids getting an audience with some business or government leader simply because they wrote a letter.  Successful people, and people … Continue reading

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Yes, It Matters, Even If No One Sees

For the first thirty years of your life, you make your habits. For the last thirty years of your life, your habits make you. – Old Hindu Proverb We tell kids that their homework is important, even when we know … Continue reading

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How to Earn Their Trust and Stop the Nagging

There’s generally a big lag time between the time you make a change and the time that change is recognized. You undoubtedly noticed this as a child.  You demonstrate you know something, or know how to perform some task, but … Continue reading

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Minimum Viable Personality

Excellent thoughts here on cultivating personality in your products.  Note that just about everything can be thought of as a product.  If you produce reports for a living, the report is your product.  You can create a brand out of … Continue reading

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Stop: You Don’t Know His Motivation Until You Ask

A friend of mine once bought a house for roughly half of what it was worth.  The market was still booming.  The seller certainly could have gotten more.  Why would anyone make such a terrible deal? John G. emailed to … Continue reading

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Should I Go To Medical School?

A lot of bright young people consider going into medicine.  Like any profession, it has its downsides, but, at least to me, it was pretty obvious that those downsides were much bigger than in many other fields.  But, not having … Continue reading

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Relationship Rot

More pithiness from Seth Godin: Most partnerships don’t end up in court. Most friendships don’t end in a fight. Most customers don’t leave in a huff. Instead, when one party feels underappreciated, or perhaps taken advantage of, she stops showing … Continue reading

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On Handling Critics

Anyone who produces art, or voices opinions, or does anything publicly, will have critics.  Guaranteed. I wrote a post about frugality that got a tiny bit of attention on the web and was bombarded with insults.  Did I care?  Well, … Continue reading

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Priorities

Power is out.  Pretty much everywhere south of Los Angeles.  Our entire operation shut down immediately.  Even in an office where everyone basically just reads and writes all day, a loss of power is totally crippling. There was nowhere to … Continue reading

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