Archive for May 2022

Bestselling author Michael Lewis discusses expertise on his current season of is podcast Against the Rules. He makes the point that if you need a solution to a problem, you must go down at least six levels in any organization to find the answer. The people who understand an organization best are not sitting in…

Charlie and I were watching the Celtics playoff game last night. The Celtics took a huge lead early on and thankfully refused to give it up, so Charlie grabbed his iPad, keeping one eye on the game and the other on something on his own screen. Then I heard him say, “Chernobyl.” “What did you…

Thanks to Amazon’s success, CEO Jeff Bezos is the richest person in the world, worth $207 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. It’s an impressive accumulation of wealth, but it’s good to remember that it began with his parents’ investment of $245,573 back in 1995. The equivalent of nearly half a million dollars in today’s money.…

My family and I went to dinner last week at the 11o Grill in Canton, CT. Before taking our orders, the server asked, “Are there any food allergies we should be aware of?” Clara is allergic to peanuts, and I’m allergic to mustard, so we often need to tell servers these things when ordering, but…

Extreme pogo stick (you must watch the video) is a reminder that the elevation and expertise of almost any activity can be appealing to the masses. Find something you love. Then work like hell to excel in that thing. Or better yet, find a way to do it like no one has ever done it…

Twitter is an odd place where you can see what people are saying about you simply by looking at your mentions. Most of the time, this amounts to someone saying something kind about one of my books or performances. Sometimes it’s a person commenting on work I’ve recently done for a company. Every now and…

Look what showed up at my house yesterday! Ordinarily, the opening of the envelope or box containing the first copy of my new book is a big deal in our house, complete with pomp and circumstance, but when Elysha handed me the envelope, neither she nor I knew what was inside, so I unceremoniously tore…

I’ve done 32 out of 50. Most of my misses are related to locations where I have not yet traveled. Also, for the record, I have no desire to fly in a helicopter, go on a cruise, downhill ski, jump out of a plane, get a piercing, or get a tattoo, so achieving 50 out…

If you believe in the paradigm illustrated here, (also known as the Dunning-Kruger Effect), it doesn’t take long to separate the informed from the uninformed. Possibly the smart from the stupid, too. Simply listen to the quality and frequency of questions asked. Keep a weather-eye for people who lead with certainty. Identify those who listen…