Where to Look Before You Leap
A member of the Thinking Lab asked me for advice on how to decide whether to join a small startup or stay with his very successful, stable, lucrative job at a large company. Let's call him Max. Max had done a lot of thinking about his choice, but he still had some...
Right Brain/Left Brain vs. Conscious/Subconscious
Many pop psychologists divide mental work into "right brain" and "left brain" functioning. The right brain is supposed to be the holistic, intuitive, creative, emotional side. The left brain is supposed to be the logical, analytical, verbal side. This division was...
3 Ways to Reveal Facts You Are Missing
In the last blog post, I pointed out that when you struggle there is a fact that needs to be accepted. In a post a month ago I explained that the way you accept facts is that you factor that fact into your thinking, your expectations, and your planning. This leaves...
Struggle
Perhaps the most important lesson I've learned in life is to treat struggle as an alarm that warrants your immediate, full attention. By "struggle," I mean "to proceed with great difficulty and effort." [Merriam-Webster] You struggle because the task is difficult...
Brainstorming by Yourself vs. in a Group
About Brainstorming "Brainstorming" means systematically generating a large number of candidate ideas for some purpose, usually to solve a problem. Brainstorming works because one idea triggers another. A "bad" idea, when considered seriously without censoring, can...
A Value-Based Approach to Interrupting Others
A friend once told me about a man he knew who never interrupted. Call him the super listener. You could go to this super listener for business advice, and he would sit and listen to you as you talked and talked, never interrupting. Then when you were finished...
Introspect So You Can Take Action
A member of the Thinking Lab came to a consult the other day to discuss a situation from work that was bothering him. I blithely suggested he needed introspective work — meaning he needed to identify the deep rational values at stake underlying his feelings. I suspect...
Three Observations About Accepting Facts
Realists point out that if you want to live in the world that exists, you need to accept facts. Idealists point out that you can change the world that exists — if you take the appropriate action. These two perspectives needn’t conflict.
The Key to Concentration
I had a long talk with a Thinking Lab member the other day. He was concerned about his power of concentration, which wasn't all he wanted. He often got distracted and tired when he worked for a couple of hours. So I gave him my spiel on concentration, and thought I...
Using “Small Moves” as Leading Indicators
In recent years, I've incorporated ideas from The Twelve Week Year (by Brian Moran) into my routines, and found them very helpful. My top takeaway from this book is the idea of setting quarterly goals rather than annual or monthly goals. When you set goals you intend...