Today is the last day in what many people would regard as a dumpster fire of a year. We’ve all seen the anti-2020 memes, and it definitely feels true that 2020 wasn’t great for a vast majority of people. At the end of the day, however, the difference between 2020 […]
Month: December 2020
Retrospective
I first heard about an annual retrospective from Chris Guillebeau (who was actually my first foray into personal development and online learning – thanks Chris!) many years ago. My friend and amazing comic creator/illustrator Francois Vigneault recently posted his 2020 year in review on his Patreon. Whether it’s the looming […]
Everything Costs Something
Often when we look at an issue, like a manager who hasn’t ever been taught how to lead, we think about how much it’ll cost now. When faced with the financial and emotional cost of taking action now, it can be tempting to put it off for a later time. […]
The Power of Personalization
We often give people facts and aggregated data, but this often isn’t enough to change minds. Personalization and the telling of individual’s stories with details often suddenly highlights your point with more power. Version 1: The health care system routinely acts upon the false belief that Black people can tolerate […]
Elephants – Part II
We often use the metaphor “elephant in the room” to describe something that everyone is aware of, but no one is willing to directly confront. Whether that’s your uncle’s obvious alcoholism at the holiday celebration, or the fact that the company values don’t align with the behavior of managers, it’s […]
Elephants – Part I
There is a story about blind monks arguing over what an elephant is most like. Their disagreement stems from the fact that they’re all touching different parts of an elephant. The one that’s feeling the elephant’s ears thinks they’re large and flat like a leaf, the one holding the elephant’s […]
Gift
The dictionary lists the first definition of the noun gift as “a notable capacity, talent, or endowment.” What’s interesting to me about this is that it implies that gifts are inherent to who you are, and that leads me to the assertion that everyone has a gift that only they […]
Build A Solution
There’s a lot of problems in the world. There are huge, massive ones, like COVID-19, global warming, institutionalized racism, wealth inequity, and police violence. There are also smaller ones, like helping your mom learn how to use a smartphone, editing a video, or marketing a new gluten-free cereal, or creating […]
(Reality) Reality
It makes sense that virtual reality is really cool. We’d love to be able to do things that we can’t often do in reality, or might not be safe to do in reality. Whether that’s exploring a zombie apocalypse, or walking on a plank suspended off the ledge of a […]
Meat
It’s pretty arbitrary that Western society generally thinks it’s okay to eat chickens, but not snakes. It’s okay to eat cows, but not cats. I’m pescatarian, meaning I eat fish and seafood, but not meat. Why isn’t fish considered meat? Really, it’s all arbitrary. Whether it’s human, fish, cows, cats, […]